Letting go of the past hasn't really been a problem for me because I am not a very sentimental person. Stuff happens (for better or worse), I learn what I can from those events, then try my best to move on. This is not to say that I discard my past completely. Far from it. I just don't dwell on things so long that they take over. Life is too short, and there's so much more out there to learn and experience without the past holding me back.
As a side-benefit, things like "recovering from heartbreak" and "moving past mistakes" a bit easier.
And yet... there's always something there to remind me...
This was made perfectly clear over the past few weeks while I've been cleaning out a storage unit I've been renting for the past 18 years... and haven't opened in 16 years.
A lot of stuff I had thought was dead and buried has suddenly come back to haunt me, figuratively speaking.
Which means I was sentimental at one time to have kept all this crap... but ended up losing my sentimentality sometime in the mid-90's.
Thank heavens.
95% of my stuff in storage is going straight to the dumpster.
Where it probably belongs.
Well... I woke up with my back feeling far worse than it was yesterday. This really blows, because I've got a long drive followed by a long flight tomorrow. Guess I'll be spending my day mostly medicated. Yay.
Of course I still haven't packed a suitcase. Given the excruciating pain throbbing in my lower back, it's probably a better use of my time to lay in bed with a heating pad all night. Which means I'll be packing when I get up in the morning. And doesn't that sound like a bucket-full of laughs and good times.
The problem with laying as still as possible for hours-on-end is that there's not much else to do except think. The even bigger problem is the stupid crap I think about, most of which makes me want to scream my head off.
Things like... how fucking bat-shit-crazy is it that the same people who freaked out and thought armageddon was nigh because two dudes kissed on Glee are all gung-ho to see photos of Osama Bin Laden with his head blown off? I mean, seriously... a sign of love and affection between two people can't be shown on television because its paramount to a complete breakdown of society if they both have a penis... HOWEVER an image of graphic violence and horror is perfectly okay. In fact, let's make popcorn and invite the neighbors over the watch!
And it only gets worse from there.
I long for those magical days of yore when I was too busy to think such horrible nonsense.
The best I can wish for now is that I fall asleep soon.
Hopefully before I start thinking about how dumb-fuck asshole Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean called beloved author Neil Gaiman a "pencil-necked weasel" that he "hated" because he's too damn stupid to bother getting all the facts before resorting to name-calling and accusations of stealing. What a worthless piece of shit. Is it too much to ask that ANY of our elected officials use even a half of their brain before they open their idiot mouths?
Dang. Now I'll never get to sleep...
My best friend right now is my heating pad.
And my pain medication.
Between my two new best friends and being very careful, I'm slowly recovering from whatever it was I did to wreck my back this past weekend. Today I was able to sit at my desk for six hours, which is almost double what I managed yesterday. And now I am going to see if I can get through the night on a half-pill instead of a whole one. Hopefully I am mostly recovered before my plane-ride on Thursday, as it would be nice to not be suffering all the way through it.
Though, according to some people, my suffering is not long for this world.
I got an email from an old co-worker telling me that they ran across a motorhome which had "Awesome news! The end of the world is May 21st! The Bible guarantees it!" painted on it. Since he knew I have studied many of the world's religions, my friend asked me if I had any inside information as to whether this was true. If it were true, he joked that he wouldn't bother going to work in the morning. I wrote back and explained that The Bible specifically says in Matthew 24 that nobody but God knows when the end of the world is coming... so anybody following The Bible who says that they've "decoded" some kind of definitive date is gravely mistaken.
But then I got curious, so some Google research led me to a website for the people driving around in that motorhome...
They're claiming Judgement Day is May 21st, which is technically not the end of the world... it's the beginning of the end if you believe what The Bible says.
The website itself is pretty dope and a wild read. They provide their "proof" by doing some whiz-bang calculations about one day for God equalling a thousand years for us, and how seven years after The Great Flood is when the earth is ending. They further back this up by revealing "a sign" that The End of Days is upon us.
And what is this sign? What is this undeniable proof that the end of the world is nigh?
Wait for it...
Gay Pride.
Yes, once again it's the gays who are to blame! These people have an entire section on their site devoted to it...
Of course, if you've been reading my blog for a while, this is nothing new.
Oddly enough, my interpretation of The Bible is such that "reading signs" and using hokey math to predict Judgement Day is paramount to divination, which is condemned by The Bible is no uncertain terms, but whatever. The Bible is interpreted a million different ways, so who am I to judge? I'm not even a Christian for heaven's sake.
In many ways I feel sorry for people like this. They sell everything they own and drive around the USA in motorhomes warning everybody that the world is ending real soon now because May 21st is Judgement Day.
But what happens to them on May 22nd when it turns out to be just another day because their God had other plans?
Oh well.
Personally, I think the world already ended back in February. How else can you explain THIS...
THERE'S your sign!
Well this blows.
As I attempted to finish up my Spring cleaning, I threw my back out while moving some boxes...
Now I don't feel much like cleaning anymore. On the contrary, I don't feel like doing much of anything.
And how has your weekend been treating you?
Today I finally found a minute to file my taxes. I pretty much had to file them because I need my refund check to cover the three vacations I just took. This was made abundantly clear to me when I went to the cash machine and it refused to give me any money.
I hate it when that happens.
Life would be so much better if cash machines gave me money without checking my account balance first.
Anyway... with no money to be had, it was time to rummage through pants pockets, couch cushions, travel bags, car ashtrays, and the like. After a half-hour of digging, I managed to scrape together
But that's okay.
I wouldn't trade my wonderful time in Venice... or seeing Matt & Kim in London... or seeing OMD and Mackintosh Braun in Los Angeles... or celebrating my sister's birthday in Las Vegas... for all the tea in China. There are some experiences you simply can't put a price on. So I'm content to be poor for a little while and live on fond memories.
And who knows? Everything could change tomorrow.
Heck, in one day I've gone from being flat-broke to having all the money in the world. Anything is possible!
I finally managed to figure out what was wrong with my blog. It had to do with the database not having the right password or something. So that's all been fixed, but now I'm too tired to actually sit down and write a post.
I'm actually too tired to do a lot of things.
I'm too tired of the rancid politics and non-stop dumbassery in Washington DC to care if the government shuts down.
I'm too tired of the long wait between television episodes to give a crap what happens on shows like Fringe.
I'm too tired of the insane cost of going to the grocery store to want to eat anything.
I'm too tired of my massive workload to want to get any work done.
I'm too tired of being broke from vacation to want to pay my bills.
I'm too tired of not sleeping to care if I go to bed.
I'm too tired of traveling to figure out my upcoming travel schedule.
I'm too tired of feeling tired to complain anymore about how tired I am.
All I can do is hope that tomorrow I feel different.
If not, I guess I'll have to drink a can of Red Bull or something.
Today started out pretty crappy at work. Then I switched to a project I actually enjoyed and things were looking up. Then I received an email with the most incredible news you can imagine and was overwhelmed with awesomeness. Which means this has ended up being one of the best days ever. Now I don't want to go to sleep and have the day end, because tomorrow can't help but be crappy by comparison.
Unless... I don't suppose it's too much to hope that this trend continues?
Because if Elizabeth Hurley shows up tomorrow morning with a million dollars and a can of whipping cream, I just don't know if I could take it. 2011 has been a pretty shitty year so far, and being inundated with amazing things makes it seem as though anything is possible...
Here's wishing you days filled with awesomeness too!
Well today sucked.
You know your day sucked when the best part of it was a tub of Snack-Pack once it was all over.
More and more it feels as though life is just the shit you're forced to eat...
So you can have your chocolate pudding dessert...
Well screw that.
Without change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens.
—Duke Leto Atreides, Dune
I've been struggling this week. A couple weeks, actually. Ever since I came back from Europe it seems as though I've been hit by one horrible thing after another and I'm starting to lose faith that things are ever going to get back to normal. Whatever "normal" is. It's like I left my life for a while, then came back to find all the things I recognize about it... missing.
Almost like it never existed and I'm just remembering it all wrong. Except I have pictures. And this blog. I'd blame the travel, but I know that's not true.
Now.
Because today as I was skimming the news sites, I figured it all out. And this is what did it...
Nooooooo! Not Giordano's! They say they'll stay open as they declare bankruptcy, but who knows how long that will last? Their cheese supplier could decide to stop delivering cheese tomorrow and where would that leave us? How can you make pizza without cheese?
And there it is.
I haven't eaten at Giordano's in quite a while... even though it's kind of a quintessential Chicago experience... but that's not the point. The point is that I always know I can go to back to Giordano's for a pizza and a beer if I wanted to...
Except...
Now I don't know how much longer that might be true. Giordano's could close tomorrow and I'd never get to have pizza there again. I don't know how much that would actually bother me if it happened, but the thought of it weighing on my mind is crushing me.
And if that's true for a pizza restaurant 1650 miles away then it's true for everything in my life.
Anything I do... anyplace I go... anyone I see... could be the last time.
I don't fear change. Really, I don't. In many ways I embrace change and welcome the new adventures it brings. But sometimes change makes you question the things you know... the things you believe in... the things that are true. And with all that doubt floating around my head lately, it's no wonder I don't want to get out of bed in the morning.
I suppose I should do something about that.
Or go to Chicago and have a Giordano's pizza and a beer while I still can.
I have an absurd amount of things to be thankful for. I've been so blessed in life that it seems as though I should be on my hands and knees thanking whatever gods there be every minute of every day for my abundance of awesomeness. Even the days that suck are still a paradise compared to those endured by scores of people less fortunate. Truly I am one of the luckiest people on earth.
Which is why it always catches me by surprise when the waves of depression wash upon my shore.
This morning I awoke with such a massive feeling of dread and despair that it was all I could do to climb out of bed. "What an asshole!" I tell myself. "You haven't got anything to be depressed about! You were just in frickin' SPAIN a few days ago for heaven's sake!"
Didn't matter. No amount of rationalization could make me feel better. No amount of self-analysis could reveal what had me feeling so down. No amount of chocolate pudding could erase the depression that swamped my every thought. I'm sure there's all kinds of pills available to fix stuff like this... but, alas, I don't have any of them, so all I could do was force myself to face the day.
Which sucked, of course, because the despair never truly went away. All I wanted was for the day to finally end in the hopes that I wake up feeling better tomorrow. And so I'm taking a couple of sleeping pills and going to bed at 7:00pm to speed up the process. I'll probably wake up at midnight, but no matter.
This past Sunday evening as I was flying home there was a beautiful sunset in The Cascades...
I keep thinking that if I stare at these photos long enough the world will come into focus, but the forecast remains cloudy.
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