Karma continued

Apparently my karma still isn't cleaned for my off luck has continued. I still haven't gotten my credit card issue cleared, for now they said that I need to sign an affidavit in order for them to rectify the false charges on my account. So I need to wait for that to arrive in the mail.

I got my cable fixed, turns out that people digging in my front yard and the neighboors yards were contracted out by the cable company to reinstall new coaxial cable lines. They still cut my lines, and turns out that it needed to be looked at anyways. My reception was crystal clear since Monday, but now its fuzzy again. I don't get it. Seems lately like nobody wants to do their job right.

Well, I was supposed to drive back to Cali on Saturday with Chris and Jenny to spend a few days with my parents, but when I checked my schedule, I did not get the first few days off as requested. I guess there is an expected mass workload to be delivered to the bar on labor day weekend. Whatever. Not my fault that they don't hire any more people and work everybody too hard. There's guys there working 12 days straight and a handful working regular double shifts. Hire....more...people.....

Chris cancelled anyways because he was too short on cash after his truck repair.

So, I thought I may be able to book a flight home, but that's not going to happen. In 6 hours, the airfare changed from $176 round trip, to over $380. Obviously the flight isn't booked full, so....what the hell??? You wonder why the airline business is struggling so much...

Oh, and my iPod screen got cracked.

So I have 5 days off starting Monday with nothing to do. Will I stay in town? Go camping? Go insane?

Then again, the way my luck has been, I'd get eaten by a bear.

My lucky streak...the wrong way

Apparently my karma may need laundering due to the wonderful streak of bad luck I've had the past 4 days.

Without telling me, the gas company decided to dig up my front yard along with two of my adjacent neighboors yards to assess a gas pipeline or a leak or something...whatever it was, they didn't tell us, they just came in and dug.

In the process, they severed my cable and internet lines. So now I'm sponging airwave internet waves. At least I half a half competent receiver to access it on a minimal level.

The other night I got back from work, which, in the past few nights we've had 3 fights..fun..I came back home and decided to check my email and pay some bills before I went to bed. On checking my credit card statement, I saw that someone had jacked my number and started charging things from a website on my card. The service centers were not open 24/7 for charge disputes, so I had to wait til morning to deal with it. Got up after a few hours sleep, spent an hour on the phone trying to deal with it, and ended up getting the typical pas around rigamaroll that ended in a new card number and card issued, but the charges are still not off my original account. Talking with them today, I need to call Monday to the disputes department and get them removed. Obviously nobody co-operates at the bank because nobody knows whats going on and I have recommendations varying from not paying the bill, waiting for reimbursements, dealing with the company directly, paying my bill minus the charges or calling tomorrow. WOW.

After dealing with that the other day, I took my truck to the shop to get road ready for my trip to Cali next week and took it up the ass for $600 for a front brake job and needed maintenance.

With all the fights Friday night at work, it was amature night, and at the end of it all, we barely walked with over a hundred bucks. Considering I made fifty the next morning when I opened, that verified that the night sucked.

At least my foot is better and I got plenty of sleep last night. I ordered a body cleanse package from a health store the other day and am starting that off on a good note as my immediate energy is already up. Plus, with the cable off, I am forced to do other things like read, write, clean, do chores, so its not all bad.

I just can't wait to get out of here next weekend and have a week off to relax in cool weather with friends and family.

Carpe diem

Carpe diem
.
Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace (See "Source" section below).
It is popularly translated as "seize the day". The general definition of carpe is "pick, pluck, pluck off, gather" as in plucking or picking a rose or apple, although Horace uses the word in the sense of "enjoy, make use of, seize."


seize the day
seize the day
seize the day
seize the day


bless you all......

Static Flow pt 1 of 2

I had taken a break from reading a book and was lying on my back on my sofa staring at the ceiling at one of my planes hanging motionless from fishing line.

Earlier on in the book I was reading, Steven Kotler touched on the subject of flow. The state of being in which an individual no longer recognizes certain conscious elements as time, or being a separate being from the element or activity that the person is experiencing. His experiences with surfing, as well as mine playing around in the ocean encompass this.

Athletes describe this as being in the zone. Your abilities come into full fruition and top out on your own ability to match the activity at hand.

A mountain climber may not remember most of the technical parts of a 2000 ft climb and describe the scenario as if his body acted on its own, all the while their mind hovers in between a conscious and subsconcious dreamstate.

Most of my experiences with a flow state occurred in high school wen I was in swimming or water polo matches. Being a longer distance swimmer, my experiences were more profound than say a sprinter who's zoning session may only last 30-90 seconds if that. On nearly every meet I swam a 500 free, it meant about 5-6 minutes of being in a different state of mind. You get over the initial shock of the starting gun and the cold water greeting your body upon entry, and soon enough, you are going through the motions.

I tended not to remember much while I swam my events. My body was there, and occasionally it would remind me of the efforts given, but my mind was definitely elsewhere. Your senses dull, and some become non-existent. Touch became muted, as if your skin melded with the water. Obviously taste and smell were eliminated while in the water. Despite the thrashing arms, legs and whitewater, you heard near nothing. Sometimes when I have access to a pool deeper than 6 ft, I swim to the deep end, dive down to the bottom, blow out enough air to become neutrally buoyant and just sit on the bottom.

The silence is peacefully deafening. Its a state of suspension, and until recently, a comforting experience.

Static flow pt 2 of 2

It was that element of suspension that I was becoming aware of as I was staring at that plane hanging stoically from the ceiling. That is one boring plane, I told myself. Day in and day out, it just hangs there. I wanted, in that very moment, for it to snap off the lines and plummet to the carpet below. Just for the sake of change and movement.

That's when I started to compare my routing existence to that plane. Daily, the routines are the same. Minutes whisk away into hours, hours into days, days into months. Next thing I know, my years are flying by and I've been sitting static, comfortable with my surroundings and numb to the world. Usually that happens when you experience the flow, but I haven't been in that state for years. That's what's disturbing.

As kids, we are not too wise in the rational aspects of life. We try things out, and if they are pleasurable, we do it again. If they cause trauma, chances are, we know its bad so we don't do it again. As we have gotten older(though sometimes not really wiser), our rationality prohibits us from just going and doing something. We talk ourselves out of things because gas costs too much, we may get into trouble, we may get hurt, something is too far, too dirty or whatever.

My point being, is that we don't jump anymore. Experiencing something different takes that leap, or that jump from ourselves to do that new experience. Comfort and rationality now is the bain of adulthood. Next thing you know, you're near elderly, haven't done your share of jumping and are to the point of not being able to do anything about it.

I've dished out a lot of introspective talk about taking that next leap but haven't done a thing about it. Is it getting over fear? What made that first recreational skydiver leap out of a perfectly good airplane? Or the bungee jumper to step off the ledge? Ask most bungee jumpers or people with falling phobias what scares them the most about it and they will say that its not the fall that scares them, but the landing that puts the fear in them.

That fear of landing, the crashing uncontrollably to your demise is the premise to trying new things. It's not the journey, or the falling into something new, but if you try something new and fail by landing on your face is the downside. The reward however should supersede the potential failure. The journey of attempting something new gives you that ravenous opening up the Christmas presents under the tree feeling of giddiness coupled with the success of achieving your goal while you sit amidst chewed up wrapping paper in awe with your new toys.

There's a Maori saying that to experience a spiritual journey or heightened enlightenment, God has to know that there's blood on the line. Its a roundabout way of saying that the reward is equal to the risk. Live a static life, and you're not going to have much excitement or very much to talk about. Find you're flow in life in experiencing what you can to the fullest and that flow state should be endless.

All it takes is that first jump. Think of doing the hardest thing you could do, then go do something doubly hard. After that, everything else you used to do is cake. Probably because its been on my mind, but I had a dream of jumping out of a plane last night.

Its time to jump. I may need a shove, but I need to jump.

Still too hot

Well, after my 15 hr coma last night, I got up, made a damn tasty veggie & meat breakfast burro with extra hot peppers (which I'll regret later...), checked my emails & got my daily computer fix. After which, I felt like getting out and doing something despite the 108 degrees today. I got my gear on, aired my tires and turned on the ipod for a 10 mile bike ride.

It started off well as within the first 1/2 mile, some wannabe hot shot bike commuter on his cruiser, wearing slacks and a tie decided he wanted to try and dust me. Well, he did...then he ran out of juice a 1/4 mile later as I warmed up and got my cadence going enough to zoom past him and hold a pace. Poor lower management boy tried to catch up, but the only times he actually got close enough to taste matching me is when I stopped for stop signs. He ran through them all and it would have been even sweeter justice if a cop was nearby...

Anyways, I turned south and rode 3 miles off road along the canal path system. That's when I didn't like breakfast any longer. Spicy heartburn and veggies don't taste good coming up, but it is good for searing your throat with hot lava acid. That sucked. Eventually I drank enough water and slowed enough to manage it. On the way home it wasn't the heartburn that kicked my ass, but the heat and the usual numbing of my hands and lower arms that comes with riding and being too top heavy on my chest and shoulders.

That's the part of riding that sucks. I really do like bike riding, but after 6-8 miles my arms go numb. I don't have that problem with cruisers obviously, but I can't exactly get a good ride or go off road on a 3 speed beach cruiser.

I'm home, sweaty and ready for a relaxing night. I still need to see if I work tomorrow or not.

My most addictive habit

I slept for 15 hours last night. Me in my little dark cave in the extra bedroom that I sleep in during the summer because the room is coolest then. Jenny is out just as much as I am when I'm in my cave. I can't help it, I just love sleeping. Fact of the matter was that I could have easily gone on longer today but my phone went off waking me up.

I suppose being asleep has underlying reasons for me. One, I'm a lazy SOB and just plain like it too much. Two, my bed isn't exactly the most comfortable one for me anymore, so it takes longer to feel at ease and get solid rest. Thirdly, I think sleep is more of an escape for me. I have no responsibilities when I sleep. Its like a at ease 10+ hour vacation from what is now, again, my repetitive boring existence in this state. In my dreams, which are honestly more engaging when nothing exciting happens in real life, I literally can live a "dream life". AS of lately too, I've been bored around home with not too many people hanging out, and its caused my dreams to be more and more lucid. I've had dreams lately where my adrenalin has me pumped up enough that I've woken up to see my bedding thrown off. Whether it be fighting dreams, falling, flying or running, my dreams have been really interactive. So much so that I'm a little upset when I wake up because the dream never finished.

I travel alot in my dreams, almost always by foot, and I'm usually trying to find a location or something or leaving a area because I don't want someone to find me. I'm not in a panic when I am in those situations, I'm calm and collected, and actually methodical enough in my dreams to consciously (in my subconscious) work out a solution.

I like to sleep because it gives me total freedom to live a life that I am not currently achieving in reality.

The downside, usually I do not find my goals, destinations or objects sought in my dreams. It's my subconscious making myself aware of my unmotivation in real life. Regardless, sleep for me is addictive. Its not that I need that many hours of sleep to function daily, that is covered by about 5-6 hours. It's the lazy pleasure of being out cold.

It's not like I could really do anything outdoors like I want anyways, since it won't be under 105 degrees until late September. In certain aspects, summertime is hibernation time for the big bear. The irony is that until I moved out here, I relished summertime. No school, playing outside all day, going out to the beach, the park, the mall or just on a long walk. Now you have the real fear of heat stroke, 3rd degree sunburn and exploding on contact with the pavement.

Sleep seems like a good alternative to that right now.

busted foot?

I have no idea what happened or even if I did anything, but apparently a week ago i accquired a deep tisue or a bone bruise on the bottom right part of my right foot. It doesn't really bug me, but when I sit shoeless and even barely touch it, I know its there. I know I had no drunken stumbles, no falls or anything, so its a weird mystery. It has subsided a bit in the past couple of days, but man it boggles me.

Ol' W aint that bad....

Oh, G.W. aint that bad...he's just a good old boy enjoying the olympics...I'd be enjoying the scenery too. Besides, you know Laura Bush was over watching the men's matches.

38 special- a short story

My hands are almost raw, yet I still think that my shirt and hands still taste of crimson after scrubbing them for so long. I never knew that this stain was so hard to get out! Persistently egged on my that cursed ringing in my ears! Apparently if you own a Honda, that sickly horn comes along with it and exists to endlessly torment other's souls with that sound of a diseased squeak toy. It wouldn't let up! I tried to drown it out, but the radio just wasn't doing its job. That mutated squeal came through the closed windows and permeated through the radio at full volume. Then came the screams. The cursing of my dear mother. Last I checked I wasn't a son of a dirty whore, but apparently today I was.

It was one of my favorite shirts too. The white one with the pseudo tribal graphic that I got on vacation last year. It didn't make me look fat, as white shirts usually do, but instead it hung loosely in the right places and clung snugly to emphasise the better areas. Now I think its ruined. Should I burn it? Just tossing it may come back to haunt me. Yes, I should burn it. Besides, if I scrub any harder, I'll just start staining it in my own blood.

To think it started off as such a normal happy day. I slept in, got up, had a big bowl of Happy O's while I watched whatever tragic news occurred while I slept. The usual overnite calamities; a house fire on the east side, a shooting resulting in one death in a strip mall parking lot and one suicide in an affluent north side housing community. Apparently spending all of mommy and daddy's cash to live the rock and roll lifestyle couldn't cancel out poor Chip's lack of purpose in life so he checked out with 10 times the normal dose of depressants. The newscaster said there was a suicide note, probably along the lines of " Goodbye cruel world, I forgive you daddy for molesting me when I was 6...yadda yadda yadda".

My cell phone is ringing again. it's been going off for the past 3 hours straight. No doubt it's work for me not showing up today. Well I'm sure that cock of a manager at Freddy's can find another stockworker to shelve and price point cans of corn for him. Todd...that putz of a manager. I'm sorry, but anyone named Todd has got a deathwish. Every Todd I knew has been a giant bag of douche. I bet its on his birth certificate.

First Name: Todd.

Middle Name: Bag O'.

Surname: Douche.

To think I actually was motivated enough to come to work early. I had my reasons. I was even going to bring my friend to work today, and Mr Todd was going to hear exactly what my friend was going to tell him. Just my luck we never got to have our little "talk". It was all that idiot's fault in that Honda!

I know for a fact that my turn signal was on to go into his lane! I gave him plenty of room, but I guess I cut too close inside his little bubble. That damn horn! I ignored it for about a quarter of a mile before I was stuck in front of him at a light. He was so persistent! There wasn't any more short beep beeps. It was as if he took vengeance by laying on that horn for a minute straight.

"Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!"

"I am not a son of a whore!" I screamed.

I just stared ahead, trying as hard as I can to tune it out. It was relentless! Like a tiny weevil bored in my ear carrying a tiny chalkboard to run nails all over it in my head. Then it just stopped. It was peaceful again, yet tense. It reminded me of growing up during hurricane season in Galveston. One would blow in for a few days, but for a hour or so when you ride in the eye, the chaos just stops. Yet you know more crap is coming your way. You just know it.

The hurricane came back. I got startled back into reality by a hammering on my driver's window. A plethora of profanities erupted out of the man's sweaty, greasy inbred mouth that would make a pirate blush. My adrenalin was going into my veins at an explosive rate. I think one of the last lucid memories I have is of rolling down the window and seeing his doughboy hands reach through and grab my shirt.

I vaguely remember the sound of my shirt collar start to rip a bit. I guess my friend had enough and had to do something. I saw a flash of white light. I guess that's where I blacked out. Next thing I knew, I'm here hovered over the bathroom sink, scrubbing my shirt and hands raw.

I really need to burn it. Maybe in doing so it will get that sulfuric metallic saltpeter smell out of my nostrils. I have to get this done. Phone's ringing again.

There's a knock at the door now too. I stick my head out the bathroom door and look out the window down the hall to see the back end of a black sedan parked out front. As long as its not a Honda I don't think my friend will cause any more problems. I'll have to burn the shirt after I get the door.

Desperate Housewives vs. The Real World

I swear...as of late my neighborhood has been the focal point of a daytime soap opera reality show. As of late, the current situation, rumors included with reality are that there are 2 divorces occurring, not directly resulting from numerous interneighboorly affairs with opposite spouses. The victims of the infidelity aren't really doing anything about it because, well when they aren't busy embezzling dead relatives money...they are being unfaithful to thier spouses too with varying outside parties including one "interior decorator" hired by a neighboor and having affairs with two of my neighbours as she cheats on her husband. One other neighboor had gangrene of the gall bladder and nearly died before emergency surgery and another neighboor, I am convinced is running a puppy mill. One neighboors kid may be dating a Mexican national "aka illegal". Ironically, his father works for a government agency shuttling illegals back to their country of origin.

Yet another neighboor is a nationally known "girly" doctor who is really big here in AZ as well as Hollywood and the nation who has been dumping insane amounts of cash into his house that he never lives in because when he's not sleeping in his office, or his wife or his girlfriend, he's spending the weekend at his "church"...aka some weird scientology commune out of town.

So, in retrospect...there are 6 cheaters, one hired help multi-cheater, one hospital patient, a cooky religious cultist ob-gyn, a botox infused money stealing cheating gold digger, possible illegal immigrant, multiple divorces and all around dysfunctionality.

Then there's me. Man it feels good to be Switzerland. All I do bad is stay up late with a friend or two having a beer and grilling out in the yard.

Flakes, not the kind you eat.

Its a simple premise that all should stand by in order to make yourself a respectable and honorable person. If you commit to something, don't back out on it. It is by far the largest pet peeve of mine, the flake. It encompasses all elements around me, work, family and personal. You are supposed to show up on time, and in fact, just show up. The whole no call no show for your shift at work is really disrespectful, not only to your bosses, but to your co-workers who now have to either stay longer or work doubles to cover your butt. If you don't like working somewhere, that's your prerogative, but quit in a respectful manner and see your stuff through.

As for more personal connections. I'm glad to say that those around me who committed to things and then did not show up have had the decency to call or contact me saying that they can't make it. That's the right thing to do. At least I won't be fuming at the fact that nobody shows up. I may still have a surplus of food and drink or whatever else, but I'll still put it to good use, even if, as of lately, its with myself.

Now I'm going to go off on a tangent about my social life. It's more of an introspective rant than anything else. I find it disconcertingly curious that I'm always the one to contact people to make plans, whether it be to go do something, to party, or just to hang out. Being a "B" type personality, that seems odd to me. The mind reels. Do I smell? Am I not cool enough for others to think of hanging out with me? Am I just being used for my provisions that I wantonly give out without discretion? Am I too old to party with now?

My sincere self knows that I am an entertainer. I love taking pride in the fact that I can, and have taken care of people and give them a good time. It ties in with my passion of foods. In viewing myself in third person, I like to see people enjoy the food as it feeds their soul. But yet, sometimes I have felt that my efforts, while appreciated, are just used by people for its face value and are never reciprocated.

Case in point-when was the last time I actually had a birthday party? Sixteen? Fifteen? I'm going to be 32 in October, which is less than 2 months away. Being 31, this is supposed to be my "golden year", which is complete bullshit. In the past year I've lost a girlfriend, had sick parents, downgraded a couple of friends to "accquaintances", had some ex coworkers try and throw me under the bus at work (didn't work asshole!), quit my job in order to find a bit of self peace only to fail, went back to my old job and have been tryin to crawl back up the financials, had the west nile virus, totally fucked up my right knee, and its been 105+ for the past 2 months.

Well whatever, I'm rambling. The good friends I have are the ones that count.