Last One on the Blog Train

It doesn't matter if I'm away for a weekend or a month, when I return from any vacation I tend to drop off the face of the earth the next day. Sometimes its because of the mountains of laundry or the lack of food in the house, other times its because I feel so emotionally and mentally stimulated that I need the extra day to sort everything out.

The result from my past weekend in New York describes the latter.

I'm not sure what it is about that city (especially for a guy who grew up in the rural suburbs of VA), but its energizing. It gives me a sense of needing to be going somewhere, doing something. And people say that DC has a fast pace of living, so why do I feel like I've returned to a snails pace?

There were certain (very personal) things that I set out to do this weekend; mostly before the Sunday arrival of my other six friends. But I didn't quite allow myself to accomplish them, and I'm pretty disappointed in myself. I think somewhere along the way I realized that for once I was actually alone, not in a bad sense of the word, but in a way that was fun, scary and deafaning all at the same time. I ended up being afraid of my own thought process.

Being alone means that your thoughts are raw and stay that way. You're the only filter, the only censor, the only audience. Your thoughts are truth, they are actual feelings (well - outside of my tendency to daydream frequently.) And once those guys got across the tunnel, those thoughts were shoved to the bottom of my bag with the dirty socks.

My last few hours in New York yesterday were emotionally charged, up and down. For some reason I realized all that I'm typing now, and my disappointment was too great for me to keep in.

I'm not a crier. Tears are a weird sensation rolling down my cheek.

But still I never cried out, no sobs. And finally it was controlled enough for me to finish packing and get out the door. Back to what I left behind for a while - for better or worse.

So today the cell phone stays off for a while. Emails dealing with schedules and mochas and staffing levels go unanswered. Sometimes aspects of life deserve undivided attention. Right now I place priority on sorting out and remembering and smiling. Anyone and anything that wasn't part of my New York experience will just have to wait.

I'll be home tomorrow.

This is the one holiday that could just slide on by or be erased from the calendar all together. I'm not single, I'm not cynical, but I'm also not a romantic and I'm not a fan of the color pink.

This was a holiday that I dreaded when younger. Maybe it was my budding sexuality, but the thought of giving valentine's to the girls in my class didn't interest me, and giving them to the boys scared the crap out of me. Thank God I grew up at the begining of the age of political corect-ness, and all of my grade school teachers always sent a full class roster home two weeks before asking that all children give cards to all of the others, or none at all.

These days its the holiday that creeps in and interupts my Christmas cheer. Who in the world is trying to stock up on those little candy message hearts on December 24th? And with the $1000 in christmas presents at home, and the upcoming deluge of birthdays (including my partner's), personal anniversary date and the feeling of NOT wanting to try and pick out that "special gift" one more time, I've thrown up my hands to the whole thing.

If you wish me a Happy Valentine's Day, I'll smile, I may say "Same to you" but then my ears are back on my iPod trying to get it out of my head. Don't send me a card, or money, or presents. You gave me more than enough just 6 weeks ago.

The only good this holiday does is that it provides chocolate and other caloric treats to those crazy New Year's Resolution people that have been clogging up my gym since Jan. 1. Tonight is the night that they finally break their diet with a 5 pound box of candy and decide tomorrow that the gym just isn't worth it.

There, someone send me a card in celebration of that.

6 weeks into the new year already!?! I'm surprised that I've kept up on this blog even semi-regularly for that long. I was never one for diaries or journals or even logging my reps at the gym. What was the point? It was for my eyes only pretty much, and when am I going to go back and read about some dumb TV crush I had or how much I benched three months ago?

Now this blog this is different, and I see that now. And it definately governs how I communicate to all of you out there that read this. It's like being personal without wearing your heart on your sleeve or telling secrets about yourself or others that really shouldn't be coded into HTML.

Yes, I've gotten feedback. The most rewarding has been from a couple of the guys from the group mentioned in the entry over Martin Luther King Birthday weekend ("Friends Become Friends...."). They were extremely touched and offered even more words of encouragement. Thank God. I guess that's why I put my gratitude in here instead of expressing it to their face. As confident as I seem sometime, I think my greatest fear is people thinking that what comes out of my mouth is stupid.

I will always be mightier with a pen than a sword, and definately better with a pen than orally. The written (or typed) word seems so final. You really can't argue it, unless you talk to yourself. And even when you do, those words stay there, unchanged. A verbal exchange between people can take on an odd mutation of what it originally set out to be. Opinions are swayed, feelings are hurt and the worst is that I can stand there for two minutes searching for a word to say, that I don't give second thought to finding when typing or writing.

I've enjoyed how (this is cliche) these blog entries take on a mind of their own. From talking about fads, to the Super Bowl, to quips on celebrity, I type about whatever is on my mind at the exact moment I open my internet browser. For better for worse.

So to all of you out there, keep the feedback coming in. I really enjoy it.

No, I didn't watch it, nor did I TiVo it. The Super Bowl came and went this year without me giving it more than one glance, and in that glance I caught the FedEx commercial where the cave man was stomped by the enormous elephant.....yeah, sophomoric in terms of advertising, so I passed.

I didn't know that I could watch almost 12 straight hours of any television show, even my favorite show. In this case I watched the Charmed marathon on TNT. Serious camp, and fun, and mediocre special effects, but comfort TV none the less. Watching these episodes (that I have watched at least three times each) became a comfortable escape from reality for the day. Not that I needed to escape anything, not that I was stressed out, but sometimes turning on and tuning out is exactly what the doctor ordered.

So, congrats to the Steelers (they did win, didn't they?) I know that my cousins that hail from Pittsburgh were proud....and probably still obnoxiously celebrating.

Its that time of year again. Every single American television, from HD flat pannels to grainy 12" black and whites with tin foil bunny ears, will be turned to watch up to 6 hours of the real American pastime - football. It doesn't matter who the two teams are, of if you even caught a single regular season game featuring any team; for some reason everyone feels compelled to tune in.

As a kid this was a holiday that ranked up there almost as high as Christmas or my birthday. I got to stay up every year to watch the whole game, almost as late as New Years! My hometown team, the Washington Redskins, have played in a large handful of games in my lifetime, so mostly I would cheer for whomever my parents were not, just so I could do "in your face" dances for my dad when my team scored.

These days I watch mainly for the commercials, the Skins haven't played in a Super Bowl in an extremely long time (but we did get not only into the playoffs, but to the second round!) I used to be in advertising and remember very vividly that for two years (and back in the days before TiVo) I would be assigned by a professor to tape ONLY the commercials, no game, so we can study the good ones and the ugly ones the next day in class. What a pain. Especially when there really is no rhyme or reason to when commercial breaks cut into a game, could be 15 minutes, then it could happen in just 30 seconds ("OOOOOHHHH he just went down, we better go to a word from our sponsors.)

I used to watch for the performances, between the National Anthem and the Half Time Show. It seemed like ever since the year Michael Jackson performed about 10 years ago, they would up the entertainment factor. There were the three years that the half time show was produced by MTV geared specifically to the TRL generation (Britney! Justin! Aerosmith!?!). But we all know what happend in 2004.

One accidentally (I understand, an arguable point) exposed pierced nipple at the end of a 15 minute long mini-Super Concert with Puff Daddy, Kid Rock, Justin Timberlake (the guilty) and the owner of the nipple, Janet Jackson (the victim).

I'm not going to debate here or rehash what the most TiVo'd event ever caused bigger mass media hysteria than anything President Bush has drummed up. My point to make today is just how anti-Super these games have become.

Paul McCartney? The Rolling Stones? Obviously great artists, but low on a lot of people's entertainment meeters. You can't be edgy or even half-way interesting sitting behind a piano, or having a silent competition on stage between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to see who can do the best Karen Carpenter impersonation. And I couldn't even tell you who's singing the national anthem tonight, nor will I be able to tell you tomorrow.

Yes, the TiVo will be recording the Super Bowl tonight, but I won't be in front of it. This is probably the one Sunday out of the year there won't be an obnoxious number of sold out movies at the cinema I go to. And when I get home, I'll pop some popcorn, and fast forward to the commercials. For all of you who will be watching the game, and the half time show, I pray you don't see Mick's nipples....or worse.