Reboot...

OK, so I have failed as a journal keeper again. Time for a reboot. Im going to start sharing my Uber stories here as well as daily life stuff. Here we go.

Last night there was an incident that I didnt Facebook about. I was near Broad Ripple headed towards downtown and waiting for a rider when I noticed a Lexus SUV. I noticed it because it sat at a green light for a good 10 seconds before moving. I started paying attention and within 2 blocks the Lexus had gone into oncoming traffic, swerved back and almost hit a parked car and slowed to around 15mph.

I turned the Uber app off and dialled 911. When they answered I told them I was behind a very drunk driver on College Ave and gave the cross street. The 911 lady asked me for a plate number and I gave it, she gave me the usual caution about not putting myself or others in dnger and I assured her I wouldnt. I continued to follow the SUV for about 10 minutes through the Broad Ripple and Butler/Tarkington areas. I was giving our location every minute or so and she was typing frantically and the SUV was swerving all over the place, speeding up and slowing down, and generally being a drunk driver.

After another few minutes I saw the familiar headlights of a police car behind me a couple of blacks back. I told the operator I had my arm out the window and was waving and the cop car came roaring up behind me and stopped even with me at a stoplight. I pointed to the SUV and the cop get in behind him and started following. For about 3 blocks the dude was all over the place and another cop car showed up. The operator told me we could hang up but to please stay in the area in case the officers needed me to say what I had seen.

They lit him up and I cruised past and I circled the block and stopped about a hundred yards behind them. After a few minutes I saw the driver get pulled out and sat on the curb, he could barely stand. One of the cops noticed me and started walking back towards me, I got out and talked to him, telling him I was the one who dialled 911 and he said they didnt need me, they had the kid on video clearly acting the fool.

I took a chance at this point. I asked the officer in a half joking tone of voice if he thought the kid would get in very much trouble. He said no, daddy would likely buy him out of it, he was a Butler student and the SUV told of a rich family. I said "Well, you move him out of the car cameras and give me one punch and he will at least suffer a little". The officer laughed and I did too but he didnt know I was serious. I would have hit that dude in the face with my entire soul if he had let me. This assmunch could easily have killed someone and he likely will be set free to do it again.

Between this incident and having to drive in Carmel for 90 minutes or so I was pissed off for a good three or four hours. I hate rich and entitled fucktards and I had to deal with them a lot last night. In Carmel I was awestruck by the architecture and grandness of some of the houses, but the people who lived in them were complaining about the house and how they couldnt wait to move to a bigger place. This was a house that looked like a fucking castle, Spanish design with turrets and a slate roof, likely at least 5 bedrooms, a 4 car garage and a huge yard.

This is also when the Carmel police incident I Facebooked about happened. Fuck every one of those people and Fuck Carmel too. I wont go there willingly again. If I get a rider from downtown to Carmel I will get in and out as fast as I can.

I have no time or patience for that level of stupidity...

Alternators and Punches

So. The alternator in the truck went out a few days ago. We were hoping it was the battery cable and after what should have been a simple replacement turned into a 6 hour odyssey that ended with us on the side of the highway it was decided the alternator had to be replaced. Today I went to a junkyard and pulled an alternator out of a truck and with a little help, put it into mine. Fingers crossed that it works well.

The truck debacle cost me a lot of hours at work. I totally missed the Slipknot show and an overnight and was very late to the Chris Brown show. I figured I had dodged a bullet after hearing about the number of people carted, carried and fought out the back gate at Slipknot.

Wrong.

I dont understand something. Why would someone pay a lot of money for a concert ticket and then come to the show and proceed to get trashed drunk and show their ass? You might as well have set that ticket money on fucking fire. Part of it is that it makes my life as concert security more difficult, but most of it is the sheer stupidity of paying upwards of $75-$100 for a ticket and then not getting to see the whole show or getting arrested or winding up at first aid. There are a few exceptions, of course. The people who genuinely get dehydrated/sick/heat exhausted and need to go to first aid. I saw and helped a few of them, including one hauntingly beautiful blonde girl who was about as big as one of my legs. She was dehydrated and a little drunk, I led her back to the first aid trailer and gave her a bottle of water. She stayed there a while and then left after another bottle of water. Later she came back with her friend and thanked me for helping her, that was nice.

There were a LOT of drunk people and people who were just plain fucking idiots. Like the guy who is/was a cop for a local town. He started a fight with 4 security guys and then continued it with 3 cops, including a man so large he made me feel very small. It didnt end well for the drunk cop, he got taken to the ground and then taken away in cuffs.

I also had an incident that directly affected me. Towards the end of the night I was working the incident area gate. My job was to keep people who didnt belong from going backstage and keep the area in general clear so that the security guys and cops who were escorting people back to first aid or the holding area had a clear path to get there. My supervisor comes around the corner with a woman who was clearly shitfaced. She was yelling and fighting and he was alone so I went to help him and grabbed this woman by the arm my supervisor didnt have a hold of. She looks over at me and all of a sudden Im this white motherfucker who is laying hands on her and a racist and an evil “cracker ass cracker”. That last part tickled me for some reason and I started laughing. My supervisor looks at me like “Really? Now you have to laugh?” and her arm slips from his grasp. I turn and all I see is a huge fist coming right for me.

Shit.

I ducked my head and turned it a little so that she hit the hardest part of my head, but it still hurt a little. She started flailing and kicking and he got her arm back but this wasnt a small woman and we are now in trouble and looking for help. I see help coming but they are still 50 or so feet away when I look and here comes this bitch getting ready to bite me. Open mouth, growling, teeth bared, she is going to bite the fuck out of my upper arm.

Fuck that noise.

I reached back with my left hand and hit her. Thats generally a no-no in the security world, hitting someone, but I felt justified. I was in fear of being hurt badly. I hit her with my left hand and pulled the punch a little, got her right about three inches in front of the bottom of the ear. The punch served two immediate purposes: It got her to stop trying to bite me and it took her attention away from fighting just long enough for two cops to reach us and help. Then, of course, this bitch went ballistic. They almost had to taze her to get her to stop fighting. It wasnt pretty. When it was over someone, I dont remember who, pointed out to me the irony of hitting a woman at a Chris Brown concert.

Just my luck that three coworkers were nearby and heard that. I was teased pretty hard the rest of the night. I have mixed feelings about it. I wish I hadnt punched her but Im very glad I didnt get bitten. I suppose my mixed feelings says something about me as a person but damned if I know what. Im not going to analyze it, Im just going to move on and hope it doesnt happen again.

Bitch, Please!

Update: That chick was hilarious. She thought getting loud with me in public would back me down. Bitch, please. Wrong guy, wrong situation. The conversation went like this:

Dog Lady (DL): Why are you leaning on my car? Ohmygod, did you hit it?
Me: No, I was counting down 5 minutes before I broke your window and took that dog.
DL: (confused look) What?
Me: This is your car, right? So thats your dog?
DL: Yes
Me: You had about a minute left before I broke this window and took that dog. You cant be leaving a dog in a car on a hot day like today.
DL: You were going to break into my car?
Me: Yep. If you dont start the car and turn on the AC right now I still might.
DL: (Yelling loudly and pushing into my space)YOU WERE GOING TO BREAK INTO MY CAR!?
Me: (Right in her face, I mean I could smell her breath) YES, I WAS GOING TO BREAK INTO YOUR FUCKING CAR AND STEAL THAT DOG. YOU DONT LEAVE A DOG IN A CAR ON A HOT DAY LIKE TODAY!
DL: IM CALLING 911
Me: (In a reasonable voice) Go right ahead. When they get here I will tell them whats going on and laugh as they deal with you.
DL: (Gets into her car and starts it as she talks to 911. I can tell she is thinking of driving off so I walk around and stand behind her car. She would have to hit me to leave now)
Me: (Writes down her plate number and the make/model of the car)
DL: Get out of the way, Im leaving.
Me; (Pleasantly) Fuck you.
Strange Voice: Actually I called 911 about twenty minutes ago. On my way into the store. I gave them your plate number and car type.
DL and I both look around to see a older black lady (OBL) with a very large hat on. I notice a police car pulling into the parking lot.
Me: Looks like they are here

The cop pulls up and DL proceeds to tell him that I have been "talking shit" and threatening her. Policeman looks at me like "Well?"

Me: Technically I never threatened her. I told her I would have broken into her car and taken her dog if she hadnt come out within a minute of when she had.
Cop: And would you have?
DL: (makes a snorting noise like “He’s busted”)
Me: Yes I would have. She had 43 seconds left. I set a timer on my phone.
OBL: She was in that store for at least 20 minutes. Thats when I called 911.
Cop: (Gives DL a really dirty look) Ma’am, do you know how hot it is today? Already?
DL: He was going to break into my car!
Cop: You left a dog in a hot car while you shopped. Thats illegal, ma’am. Statute (string of numbers and letters)
DL: But, but
Cop: I wish I could give you a ticket, but I didnt actually see the dog in the hot car. You’re lucky.
DL: He also said Fuck You to me.
Me: (Utterly without thinking) At least I didnt call her a bitch.
Cop: (Look over at me) Not helping
Me: Shutting up, now.
Cop: The dog seems OK. (petting the dog) Why dont we just call this a misunderstanding and you guys leave in different directions.
DL: (About to start whining now) But...
Cop: Or I can start writing tickets and arresting people
DL: FINE! (The bitch actually stamped her foot at this point. The cop and I both laughed a little)
Cop: (Looks at me) You cant be just breaking into cars. Call 911 next time.
Me: Thanks, Officer. I will.
Cop: You guys have a nice day now. (Gets in his car and pulls off slowly)

I stood there until DL was out of sight and gave her the stinkeye. OBL touched my arm and told me I was a good person and walked on to her car.

Im home safe now. And not going to let that bitch ruin my day.

OKC and Me!

OK, this might make me sound like a snob or something, but Im really not. I have been redoing my OKCupid profile after getting a message on there from a friend I already knew. I took a look at my profile and I decided it could be a lot better. I redid it and then started looking around at other profiles and am sort of wondering why I bothered.

PSA: If you are proud enough of your education to say that you went to “collage”, Im not going to even look at the rest of your profile. If you say you are always “loosing” your keys and it drives you crazy, Im passing you by. If your entire profile contains one period, one comma and one random other form of punctuation, you will not be hearing from me. Grammar isnt that hard and it isnt your enemy.
     If you mention God more than once or twice, Im going to pass. I appreciate sadism, it just isnt a quality I want in a Deity.
     I will judge you if your pictures are out of focus. Call it a quirk, but really...is it that hard to focus? The camera usually does it for you these days. If you do that ducklips thing, I reserve the right to send you a mocking message. That was never cool, not even when those orange freaks from New Jersey tried to make it popular.
     If you dont fill out your profile at all, why would anyone message you? You’re either lazy or not willing to try, no one has time for that shit.
     If you make fun of, talk shit about or in any way disparage gay people, trans people, or anyone else for that matter, I will likely write you hate mail after I report your profile for general fucktardedness.
     If you say you dont like animals at all, just fuck you in general.
     If you feel the need to body shame anyone for any reason, I hope the people you despise most start sending you pictures of their genitals and never stop. May you wake up to an inbox full of cock every morning and go to sleep dreaming about it.
     If you use letters where there should be words, I hope you get run over by a bookmobile you lazy fuck. Type that shit out, it isnt that hard.

So here we are. The new version of my profile is up and running and I messaged a girl or two. Im not holding my breath for anything great to happen, but surprises are always nice :)
    

I hate country concerts

I hate country concerts. In my job as a security guard, way over 90% of the time I have to lay my hands on someone its at a country concert. And its always the same person. Overly tight t-shirt wearing white trash who wants to impress whatever skank of the day he is with by being a man and fighting the guards and cops. Protip: If you start a fight with a cop, there is only one possible way that fight will end. You in handcuffs and legal trouble. If you start a fight with a guard at a country concert, its the same thing because there are cops all over the place who are bored and want something to do, and busting your dumb ass is high on their list of fun activities.

Tonight was the first show of the year out at Klipsch, and it was a country show. Lady Antebellum and a couple of other acts. I was put in a new spot this year, I started out backstage and then went to the first aid gate. The first aid gate is where, you guessed it, the first aid station is and also where the processing area for arrestees is. So Im standing at a gate all night making sure no one comes through without a pass and looking out for my coworkers as they bring drunk or otherwise in trouble people through the gate to the processing area.

Everything was going nicely, it was a fairly slow night. Then it happened. I saw a couple of yellow shirts escorting a white trash guy towards me. I opened the gate a little wider to make it easier for them to get through and gave a heads up to the officer near me. Even then it was OK, the guy wasnt fighting, he was just loud. Then about 10 feet short of the gate he started throwing hands. Time for overwhelming force to keep him from hurting himself or someone else.

I hit him from the left, a sheriffs officer hit him from the right and a coworker had ahold of one of his arms. For some reason he let go of that arm and all I saw was a big ass elbow coming right at my eye. I rocked my head back and took the elbow in the upper lip and grabbed the guys arm and wrapped it up in mine like I was taught to, then saw that the sheriff had the guys other arm behind him. The skank of the day then charged in and started yelling "No!" really loudly, like that was going to help anything. Someone grabbed her and we marched white trash back to the holding area where he was properly arrested, along with skank.

An EMT was there and insisted on looking at my lip, it wasnt even bleeding. It just feels a bit tender and swollen right now. My coworker was apologetic for letting go of the arm, he said he thought the sheriff was going to taze the guy and he didnt want to get shocked, so I cant be mad at him. All in all it was 2 minutes of sheer adrenaline in the middle of a night of otherwise pleasant times. Im working all next week at the Motor Speedway for the Indy 500 and expect it to be much calmer and quieter.

Went to church today and other thoughts...

Amy and I got out for our first ride of the year today. It was very badly needed and even though we didnt really have the money we decided to just do it. We needed the time together and the soul cleansing that rides and walks in nature give us. Going out in the woods or to a nature park is to me like going to church. I love nature and it refills my soul to be out and about and among it now and then.

I picked out a park a while back that we both liked and we wound up there today. We stopped and got ice cream on the way and it tasted delicious, and then we made our way through all the traffic to McCloud Nature Park in nearby Hendricks county. We walked two trails and part of another one, it was quite a hike.

We both took lots of pictures and saw a lot of cool stuff. There was a huge Pileated Woodpecker, but he was too fast to get a picture of. I was at a bit of a disadvantage, my best lens for the Canon camera I have has given up the ghost and picture taking today was rough with the long lens I have. Its a Canon lens but its a 75-300 and the closest it will focus is around 6 feet. The fact that its a long lens and also not a very good one also washes out the color a lot and plays havoc with the autofocus.

That said, I did manage to get a few good pictures, which I will share here.Click on the pictures to embiggen them :)

Here is a rather nice picture of a water strider I was lucky to get. He was darting around on a calm bit of water in a stream, there were a few others and a couple of minnows swimming about also.

This is one of a great number of bluebells we saw. Bluebells are about my favorite wildflower, the ones that havent bloomed yet are very pretty I think.

This is an amazing tree near the nature center in the park. I was really drawn to this tree, it had some sort of energy that is hard to explain. It just felt...right...that this tree was right there.

This is the view from the 100 year old bridge in the park. The shale cliffs were amazing, you could literally see backwards in time as you looked down the sides. I wanted to go look for fossils, but the only good cliffs were on the wrong side of the river and very steep, so there was no way to get down to them.

Its springtime in Indiana. The trees are busting out all over. I was about 15 feet away from this branch when I took this shot, I didnt even see the ant until I looked at the picture.

All in all it was a very good ride and a very good day with the woman I love. A day of reconnection for me, both to her and to nature. I needed it very badly and am happy that we got to go.

In other news, the fishtank continues to thrive. Plans for future fish have been put on hold, as Amy lost her job and I havent been getting hardly any hours lately. That situation is about to change though, and once a lot of other stuff is taken care of I have plans for two more tanks. Thats going to be my limit for a while, Im looking forward to having them. I have grown very fond of my albino catfish, and the bumblebee catfish have settled in enough that they come out to be seen once in a while. The betta likes to hide a lot, Im looking forward to giving him his own tank, likely a 5.5 gallon tank with maybe an algae eater or two and some gravel and a nice hiding spot. The other tank is going to be a 55 gallon tank which I already have and need some more equipment to run properly. All the current fish will go in there and be added to and then the 26 gallon will have something new in it, Im not sure what yet.

The rest of life is somewhat of a mess. Job issues, depression issues, issue issues, I have been a bit of a mess for a while now. I think Im starting to pull out of the downward spiral, at least I hope so. Im going to see the therapist I was going to a while back again and get back into therapy. Im also going to rekindle a few relationships with friends that I have let wither a bit and keep them going. I have a very good support network for when I am depressed, I just dont use it like I need to. That needs to change.

Thats about it for now...

NPR thoughts...

So I was listening to NPR on the way home from work tonight. I like to listen to NPR, there are a lot of good shows and its a good place to get unbiased news. At least as unbiased as it can be.

Anyway, there was a blurb for an upcoming special. The gist of it was that more and more Americans are giving up on organized religion. How, the announcer worried, could you live a moral life without religion? The upcoming special is going to try and answer this question.

I am of a few thoughts here. My first thought was that I hope this special is a podcast and goes up on the NPR site, because I would like to hear it. Im interested in the mindset of anyone who doesnt know how to live a good life without religion. In my mind, if you need the threat of an invisible father in the sky sending you to a very bad place to make you be a good person, you are fucked from the start.

I was raised in a VERY religious family in the South. Every Sunday you went to Sunday school and then church. Thats just how it was. In Sunday school one of the more hardcore religious adults from the congregation taught us stuff from the bible. Questions were allowed but not encouraged at all and if you asked anything other than a technical question about the wording or what a phrase meant, you were accused of "being smart" and told to have more faith and less questions.

For a long time I tried, I really did. I wanted to be a good Christian and make God happy with me and win his approval. But slowly at first and then faster and faster I realized I was being set up to fail. I ask questions if I dont understand something, its just what I do. Its who I am. Religion never had a clear answer for me. It was always "Because God wants it that way", "We just have to have faith that the Lord will take care of it", "Have faith and it will all happen as its supposed to". A friend of mine got cancer in his spine. He was way more of a good Christian than I was, he was hardcore into it and fully believed and had drunk the kool-aid. I knew this, even if not in those terms. When I asked my family and then our preacher why God would allow someone who obviously loved him so much to get such a terrible disease, the only answers I got were that it happened for a reason and that no one was able to know or understand the reason.

That was the moment my faith cracked and I started to doubt. I was 12. My friend was 11. He died less than a year later. Despite all of our church and a lot more people praying for him, asking God to help him, and giving hard earned money to the church as we were taught to, he died. My faith cracked a little more.

There was now a rebel inside me. The rebel took to the corners of my mind and soul and waged war on things I was told to believe and not question. His voice started out small but got stronger as time went by. I began to ask more and more questions, and when there were no real answers forthcoming I started to doubt the whole idea of God and faith more and more. I expressed these sentiments and was told that I was a bad person because I didnt have faith and accept The Lord without question. This happened probably 4-5 years after my friend died.

Somewhere along that time I discovered and became interested in science. Science answered my questions and then explained the answers to that I could understand them. There was no need to have faith, there was proof. It occurred to me that you could have faith in the proof. If you didnt want to that was OK because there was always an answer to anything you asked. I liked this a lot. I also started spending more time paying attention to the world around me. Sunrises, sunsets, the beauty of a forest or a mountain or even a swamp. Nature was amazing.

Thats about where my spiritual journey is these days, some 30 years later. Im still perfectly happy with science and nature and the beauty and proof they offer. I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, yet I know that if I wanted to know why it would there would be a definite answer I could find. Nature continues to enrapture and transform me all the time. Just when I think Im jaded and cant be moved, I'll see a hawk fly into a flock of pigeons and take one out or I will look up at the sky at night and see millions of stars and I will realize that there is always more to experience. I dont need some insecure and sadistic invisible father telling me I shouldnt even think of any god but him and that he will burn me forever if I do, nature doesnt get jealous.

Dont get me wrong here, I appreciate sadism very much. Its just not a quality I want in my Supreme Being. So back to the original question: How does one live a moral life without religion? How about follow one simple rule. It has nothing to do with science or nature, its easy to remember and its all you need:

Dont be a dick.

If you can follow that one little rule, I think you will lead about as moral a life as is possible for a human to live more or less. And no one has to get nailed to anything, killed because they dont believe in something or damned to an eternity of punishment by an invisible sky father. I call that a win/win proposition.

More memories...

When I was a kid, we made our own fireworks for a few years in a row. We were kids, so naturally we didnt have much cash and fireworks were expensive in the volume that we used them.

Thinking back on it, we didnt so much make fireworks as we manufactured explosive devices. I would imagine that a kid now doing any of the stuff we did back then would be put on several lists and likely the word terrorism would be used. We have changed as a society and not in a good way.

This was back in the 70’s. You could walk into the TG&Y (a forerunner of walmart in the South) or into a Western Auto (a wonderful store, Im not sure they exist anymore) and buy black powder in bulk canisters as long as you could ask for it and carry it out. Cannon fuse was sold at the beach by all the good fireworks vendors. We became very creative in what we would make into fireworks. I could go into details about construction and methods but it would probably get me put on some sort of list and have Men In Black knocking on my door so lets just say I had my methods. Friends of mine used different methods and materials and we always had summer long competitions to see who could make the biggest bang.

We would also take out snake nests with our toys. The main snake we had to deal with is called the Eastern Water Moccasin and is known as the cottonmouth because its defense mechanism was to open its mouth and show you the white inside to try and scare you. This is a mean snake, if it tried to bite you and missed it would follow you home and try to get you the next day. If you saw one, you killed it with whatever you could. Its worth noting here that there are companies in the South that manufacture and sell shotgun holsters that fit on riding lawnmowers. My mom has one on her mower, in fact. Anyway, water moccasins nest in very large groups in natural hollows under stumps, logs, rocks and other areas. I lost a friend to a nest of them, he went too close and the ground caved in. When they pulled him out he had 71 bites on him, each of which was enough to kill him. That was a sad summer. When we found nests, we blew them up in memory of Jake, the friend the snakes killed.

So this one summer we went all out. My cousins and I were usually the main competitors in our world. We had other friends, but they would usually side with either me or my oldest cousin and we would be little armies roaming the neighborhood looking for each other. Our neighborhood was several square miles and all surrounded by swamp, which made it ideal for this sort of play. Somehow we decided that we would go to war between our groups over this huge pit that had been dug in the area right behind our neighborhood. Looking back on it, I think it was an experimental strip mine for either coal or another metal, the land we lived near was pretty valuable mineralwise. It was this huge rectangular hole maybe 100 feet deep with two dump truck paths leading down into it on opposite sides and an abandoned dump truck in the center. If it rained a lot, which it tended to do in the spring, there could be several feet of water in the thing and inevitably the bullfrogs would all show up during mating season. (We would call a truce during bullfrog season and hunt them for the legs, which we either gave to our parents to cook or sold to a place in town that cooked them for the black people. No white person would admit eating bullfrog legs, it was the time we lived in.)

After a few weeks my cousin and his team claimed this dump truck and we could never figure a way to take it back. He actually slept a few nights in the cab he was so proud of it. I was of course consumed with envy and humiliation and determined to win the day. I didnt know it had a name a the time but eventually we decided on a scorched earth policy, meaning the next time he wasnt sleeping in the dump truck we were going to blow it the hell up.

This next part I write only because my cousin is dead these past 6 years and I figure any statute of limitations on me has run out by now…

The night came that he was home. We had been preparing for a week or so like little mad scientists, figuring out in our minds where to place our fireworks and what might happen when they went off. We had no idea, but we pretended to so we wouldnt look stupid to each other. Finally the day came that we decided would be our day. I knew my cousin and his family were going to the beach for the weekend so I knew he wouldnt be in the dump truck. We waited till nightfall and began our mission.  

Me and my good friend Paul gathered our arsenal and made our way to the pit. We thought it was the middle of the night, it might have been 10pm. We made our way to the truck keeping an eye out for the inevitable cottonmouths, and after dodging one or two we arrived. We checked the cab and bed to make sure no one was around and started about our business, setting charges under the big gas tanks on either side. Yeah, we werent smart people, its a wonder we all survived our childhoods.

Once we got everything set we agreed it was time to light them and run. This is where things started to go sideways. Paul got his fuse lit but mine had gotten a bit wet and wouldnt catch. My first clue that there might be trouble was a Paul shaped blur going by me at top speed. I lit another match and held it to the fuse and foolishly blew, blowing the match right out. I lit yet another one and held it a few inches in from the end of the fuse, vaguely aware of Pauls voice urging me to run from a distance. It caught and I turned to run, only to catch my foot on a rock and go right down on my face. I started to get up and suddenly something grabbed my arm and heaved me upwards, it was Paul. He had run back to the truck to get me. I got to my feet and we both took off.

About two seconds later the entire world lit up like the inside of a flashbulb. It got brighter and much hotter very quickly and then it felt like the fist of God punched me right in my back. (This was back when I still believed in and even feared God, before I learned to think for myself) I felt my feet leave the ground and all my senses dulled, I remember hearing a roar and seeing Pauls shoe go by my head. I thought for a second about how weird that was and then hit the ground really hard. Luckily we landed in a huge patch of 2 foot deep clay mud, the kind I imagine people pay good money to soak in these days. I got to my feet and panicked, realizing that we had bitten off much more than we could chew. I looked for Paul and shouted his name, and then realized I could barely hear myself. Being lighter and smaller than I was, he had flown about 10 more feet than me and was near the edge of solid ground. I got to him and shouted in his ear asking if he was OK. He looked at me with a look of great amazement and shouted back “I think so” and we both took a few seconds to make sure we had no broken bones or other injuries. I found great amusement in the fact that Paul was missing a shoe and we both broke into a kind of hysterical laughter, almost helplessly laughing as hard as we could. We held on to each other in the light of the burning shell of the truck, shouting our laughs to the skies. Even now I remember what an amazing feeling that was.

After a minute or two we realized what we had done and realized that people were going to notice. We agreed that it would be best if we werent around when people showed up and we started looking for the missing shoe. After a short search, we found it about halfway up a pine tree, luckily enough one of the ones that wasnt on fire. We threw rocks at it until it came tumbling down and he put it back on. We left pretty quickly and headed back to my house, where Paul was staying the night and we were camping out in the back yard. This was a pretty big deal back then, at least to us.

There was quite the turnout to the fire. Departments from two counties showed up and a lot of folks from the neighborhood gathered to watch it. My dad came out and “woke” Paul and I and we all went to see what was going on. Paul and I acted suitably shocked and impressed and as far as I know no one ever suspected us. In fact, not even my cousin, who came home from the beach that weekend and was mad that he had missed the spectacle, suspected us. We agreed to never speak of it again around anyone else but being that this was just under 36 years ago, no one cares any more. Its a good memory and a good story I think :)

Another post from the past

I noticed the other day that a few of my friends here liked it when I wrote about my past and told stories. I like to do this and its a good way to settle my mind, so I plan to continue. That said, I was talking to a new friend tonight and it turns out we know some of the same people, including one of my favorite people on earth. I was also reminded of a story about the favorite one and decided to share it.

My friend, I will call her Misty because thats her name, and I met at a local event. I still remember the first time I ever saw her and more vividly the way she looked at me the first time she saw me. Those who know me will know what it means when I say that when she looked at me I felt like prey for a minute. I actually came close to running, just on instinct. It was great. I dont think we talked that night but it wasnt very long before we did. By that time I had Fetlife stalked her like I do and had a nice little crush going. We talked for a bit and found a mutual interest in Doctor Who and scheduled a Who Night date to watch an episode. The fact that I managed to 9/11 a little crappy model helicopter into her and make her bleed that night and she still talks to me tells you a lot about her.

We eventually decided that a poly relationship and dating werent in the cards and that we wanted to be close friends, which we still are. We fell into the habit of meeting once in a while at some 24 hour place and sitting and talking. She would knit or read, I would drink tea and comment on people around us and we would just be together for a while, its a really cool way to do things.

One night in particular, we were sitting and talking and she started getting text messages. We have the sort of thing where it isnt rude at all to check that shit when we are together so she was and I probably got a few and responded too. Suddenly I look across the table and she is struggling really hard not to cry. When I see someone I like crying I usually get one of two reactions, either I immediately go into fight mode and wonder whose ass I get to kick or I go into protective mode and want to be all protective.

Misty is in no way someone who needs protective mode but she could also kick about anyones ass I can think of. So I wasnt sure what to do. Eventually I fell into a light protective feeling and just sort of sat and held/stroked her arm and talked to her. After a minute she told me that she thought she had just been broken up with by a long time partner via a text message. We agreed that this was a fucked up thing and determined that she needed a bit to collect herself and we should just sit and talk for a while longer. I was cool with this and continued to hold her hand and talk to her. We eventually agreed that he just couldnt handle The Awesomeness That Is Misty and she smiled.

At this point I looked around the place for the first time and realized something. People were watching us. Not everyone there, but a definite non zero number of people were watching us, a few of them kind of closely. It hit me all of a sudden. Im sitting at this table with a hot woman who is in tears, these people think I am the reason she is crying. A closer look around proved this true, some of the people looking were indeed throwing a serious stinkeye at me.

I was a bit baffled. I knew I wasnt the reason she was crying, I was worried about her in fact. But based on the way a couple of the women in that joint were gazing at me I stood a pretty good chance of getting cut when we left our booth and I hit the parking lot. For a brief moment I thought about standing up and making some sort of general announcement that I had nothing to do with her crying, I think I even asked her if she would agree with me if I did this. I seem to remember a joke or two about her not agreeing and throwing me under the bus, but by this time she was laughing so I didnt much mind if I got hit by the bus.

After a while we decided it was time to leave and I walked her to her car and she hugged me. Hugs from this woman are like a serious contact sport, she hugs like a Russian bear. I love it. There was a little more talk and we went our separate ways. Im pretty sure we talked a few days later so I could make sure she was OK.

It occurs to me that we havent hung out like that since she got broken up with. I’ll have to ask if there is a superstition involving me now or something :)

More thoughts

One of my favorite movies is The Big Lebowski. I watch it often and there's a scene where The Dude has finally had enough and snaps on Walter. He wonders why everything is such a "fuckin travesty" with Walter.

Sometimes I identify with Walter. It seems at times like everything I try turns into a fucking travesty. From talking to women to managing my life to what would seem to be the simple act of getting through a single day, there are times I honestly wonder if I can touch anything without fucking it up.

In the past this has really affected me negatively. My thoughts would spiral downwards and get darker and darker and at times I would hurt myself or lash out and hurt others with words. But then the other day I had sort of an epiphany. I realized that no matter how much of a fucking travesty I felt like my life was, I actually have it fairly decent compared to a lot of people. I have a few people in my life I feel I can utterly trust and a few more that I think are genuine friends. A lot of folks dont have even that. I have the love of more than one woman, more than one dog and more than one cat. I have what is a good place to live even though I dont like it much.

Since I realized this I have started to change the way I think. Its going to be an ongoing process and Im not sure where it will take me eventually. I dont think Im going to wind up happy, I honestly dont think I have that in me given the way my brain works, but Im pretty sure I am going to end up less sad and depressed all the time. That would be really nice.

Im going to do my best not to let this turn into a travesty. I hope I dont fuck this up...

Thoughts

I was thinking about a trip my family took once. We went through Yellowstone and it was amazing. I saw Old Faithful erupt, I saw moose and many other animals and then I saw a bear.

I was flyfishing. Well, to be honest I was flailing around with a pole and a fly trying to get it right. There was a noise off to the left of me, I didnt pay a lot of attention but I glanced over after about a minute or so.

Im 6'5" tall. The grizzly bear that walked out of the bushes about 40 feet from me was at least 2 feet taller than me and looked very much like the one in the picture. Light colored fur, a HUGE head and much longer legs than I expected. I took a very good look because I figured I was never going to get this close to another animal like this, probably because I was going to die soon.

Im not sure why it didnt charge me. Maybe it wasnt hungry, maybe it was just having a good day, maybe it was because I sucked at fly fishing and no fish had been within a mile of me. Whatever the reason, most of the time Im pretty happy it didnt. The incident also changed me. I have been really close to death more than once, but that was probably the closest. It would have taken seconds for that bear to run me down and kill me. Likely I wouldnt have even moved I was so transfixed by it.

Im not scared of death, not since that day. It doesnt bother me that one day I will die, it just makes me wonder what is next. When I realized the bear wasnt going to immediately charge me, I dropped the cheap flyfishing pole I had bought and just started walking. I walked in the general direction of some rocks I thought might protect me if I decided to chase me. I looked back twice, once the bear was watching me and 30 or so seconds later the bear had walked out into the river and already had a fish. I gave thought to heckling it for being such a better fisherman than me but I just stood and watched as it ate the fish and went back to feeding.

I would damn near sell my soul to be able to go back in time and have had my camera instead of a fly rod. Its weird the things you think about, isnt it?

Changes?

This is a brain dump and an effort to write here more regularly, I need to do this more often.

I made a friend at work, a couple of them actually. They are both on the same shift as I am and are on the maintenance staff. One of them is from Mali, in West Africa, and came here with his family a few years ago to get away from ebola and other stuff going on there. He tells fascinating and terrible stories about what its like to live in a place like that, as fucked as our government is...his makes ours look perfect, GOP included. 

The other guy is from Barbados. He was a sugarcane grower, as was his father before him. He met an American woman and moved here to be with her but then it went wrong and he decided to stay. 

I was talking to my friend from Barbados and he has a house he is going to be renting out. A woman was living there and trashed the place, he said she was young and young people have no respect anymore. We talked about the place for a while and I asked him to tell me when he is ready to rent it, I would be interested and could give references that we would be good tenants. He agreed to and said I seemed like someone that he would like to rent to that would take care of the house. 

Could this be the year we get out of this house that I hate so very much? Prayers to the sweet baby jeebus that it is. Any extra energy, mojo or animal sacrifices anyone is willing to do to help would be wonderful. Im sure if the landlord was to try and complain about us leaving we could get out of our lease based on the amount of stuff she knows about and hasnt made any effort at all to repair for at least 2 years. 

Speaking of work, its going smoothly. I have adjusted well to the walking and figured out a schedule that gets me moving a lot and makes time seemingly go faster. I am still doing between 4-5 miles a night with the occasional bump up to near 6, I expect this number to grow when it warms up as I plan to take longer routes and be outside more. Im not sure if this will be a summertime position or not, there is talk of making it a Butler University position from their police department and I have indicated my extreme willingness to come work for Butler and drop ESG to part time. That would be an amazing opportunity. 

Im still eating like shit, but its getting a little bit better. I am really trying to do two things: I want to eat healthier stuff for lunch and I need to learn portion control. If I get too much I will eat it all no matter if I stop being hungry or not, a throwback to childhood when I was taught that food was love and love was completely consumed among other mindfucking lessons I learned around then. I am trying to learn portion control in a number of ways and some of them seem to be working, others not so much but I figure I can keep with the stuff that works and get it done eventually.

Another problem at work is hydration. I love to drink water, but somehow I dont like to drink it at all when I am moving around. I move around the vast majority of the time I am working so I get behind on hydrating and it takes a real toll. I try to carry a small bottle and refill it a lot but I can never find anything that is convenient and works. The search continues.

Thats about it for now. I am off to watch a movie after I work a little on cleaning the kitchen. Our next house will not get as fuckified as this one did. That I swear on my soul before the old gods and the new. I cannot live like that.

Last night...

We were sitting on the couch, she was on my lap curled into me as I held her. We were talking. I had a knife.

I flicked the knife open and moved the blade towards her face. She held still like a good girl, trusting me with her very life. We have a trust like that, its amazing. I held the point of the knife under her eye and started talking to her.

“I think Im going to carve you up tonight.” She inhaled sharply but her face didnt move. “See, the way it works is if I carve your face up you will be all ugly and hideous on the outside and no one will want you. Only I will know how beautiful you are on the inside and you will be mine forever. It doesnt matter to me what you look like on the outside, I know you.”

Her eyes shone with a level and type of love that I havent known before in my life. I honestly believed at that moment that she would let me carve her face up and keep her forever. I closed the knife, the temptation was becoming too strong for me. I love walking the edge with her but I know better than to actually put even one toe into the abyss. There lies darkness.

I ran my hands through her hair and held on to the long hair in the back. I pulled her head back, exposing her throat to me. I love her throat, it makes me want to feed. I nuzzled it with my nose and brushed it with my lips, feeling her heartbeat speed up against both my lips and my chest. I love the effect I can have on her.

I pushed her head towards mine and looked into her eyes. She gazed straight through to my soul and I immediately fell in love with her all over again. So, like most things I love, I decided to scare her more. I started touching her face with my free hand, stroking her cheeks and face.

“You know,” I whispered to her “they say the tastiest meat is always in the cheeks.” Another intake of breath as I moved her face towards mine. “I dont really need the knife, I could always just eat your face.” I sank my teeth lightly into the meat of her cheek, not biting too hard but hard enough to let her know I was really thinking of eating her face. I moved my mouth over her face, biting different parts of it and listening to her breathing become ragged and uneven. After a few bites she was breathing the way she does when I fuck her. I debated telling her to come for me, I knew she would, she’s a good girl. But I decided she was going to wait.

I bit my way across her face and, using her hair, I pushed her mouth onto mine hard. We kissed, our tongues dancing and touching. I licked her lips, hearing a slight moan when I did. I enjoy the fact that this girl becomes my puppet with very little effort on my part. I kissed my way down her neck, nibbling and then biting her collarbones, leaving teethmarks. I like marking my property, and hearing it moan when I mark it.

We are always looking for new things to do, she and I. Lately we have discovered a form of trampling. I put her on the floor and hovered my size 18 combat boot directly over her face. The urge to push my foot downward was great but again, she doesnt always get what she wants right off the bat. Instead, I moved down and stepped on her thighs. I used a surprising amount of my weight pushing the boot into her thighs, the look on her face showed me perfectly when it was getting to be too much. I pulled some weight off of her and began slowly grinding my foot back and forth across her thighs, mashing and pushing on the muscles and skin. The noises she made were wonderful.

I moved upwards to her beautiful breasts, pushing and moving them about with the toe of my boot. This made her giggle and as she did I ground my foot into her. The giggle ended with a gasp that went right to my soul. Such sweet music to my ears.

Down my foot traveled. Down to her wonderful pussy. I drew my foot back very far like I was about to kick a soccer ball and a look of exquisite fear crossed her face. Immediately her legs closed and she said “That scares me.”

“To be fair, it sort of scares me too. Its really hard not to just kick the shit out of you, I love you so much.” I told her, watching her face change from fear to bliss as I told her I loved her. Down my foot went and the fear came back as I pushed her entire body around by the pussy with my foot.

Kicks and shoves had her rolling around within a few minutes so I decided she had earned it. I stepped up towards her head and lowered my boot onto her face. My heart sped up and I concentrated on not squishing her like a bug. More and more interesting noises came out of her and suddenly I was so turned on I had to have her.

I reached down and grabbed her. I shoved her upright and then pushed her over the arm of the couch. Im not gentle with her when I want her, if I ever was she would think something was wrong with me.

One finger entered her and was quickly joined by a second. In and out, harder and harder I fucked my property. A third finger. Then I leaned over her and said into her ear “Im going to rip you open tonight.” and a fourth finger went in.

It was a very tight fit but she was really wet. I fucked harder and harder, driving the occasional knee into her thigh or ass. Im a little embarrassed to admit it, but I was having such a good time I completely forgot to give her permission to orgasm. For a long time. At one point I remember wondering if she was ever going to. I was caught up in the fog of fucking her and completely forgot. She is such a good girl that she held off and didnt come. It amazes me now to think about that, I was pretty much fucking for all I was worth.

After a few minutes I gave her a bit of a break and she commented that she really wanted to come. I came very close to laughing out loud when I realized why she hadnt. I loved it. The sadist in me was euphoric at my unintentional torture of her.

Fingers were inserted again and after a few minutes I gave her permission to come. She did immediately, again and again. Like I said, she is a very good girl. Then her nose started bleeding. I grabbed a couple of kleenex and passed them to her but didnt stop fucking her. She bled into the tissue and later gave it to me, Im looking at it now.

After a while she was back on the floor. Im not really sure how she got there. It was very close to time for me to leave her and we both knew it. She sprang to her feet and yanked her panties off and presented them to me. I took them and told her that if she could jump up like that we werent done fucking. She tried to protest that she just really wanted me to have them, but she did so while her head was being pushed back down into the couch. After two or three quick orgasms she told me that she was seriously done. She doesnt say that unless she means it, so I pulled her pants up and hugged her close to me.

We were both breathing hard and sweating. It was delicious. We shared a long hug and a few kisses and I offered to let her lay back down on the couch and I would see myself out. She wasnt having it. She walked me to the door and we kissed a little more and I promised to be careful and text her when I got home.

I did.

The plague and back to work...

The new toy, a Chromebook, is now living in a spot by the bed. I first moved it there Wednesday night when I started feeling a bit off and decided to go to bed a bit early. By mid-morning Thursday I was laid low with the plague. I figure it was the flu, my temperature topped out at 103.5 before it broke and I sent some texts and made some phone calls I cant remember much of. From Thursday afternoon till Saturday mid-day, I left the bed only to go to the bathroom and once or twice to make soup. I slept a lot and drank a ton of apple juice, orange juice and water. By Sunday morning I felt human again but I was still worried about going back to work Monday. It turned out that there were no classes at Butler on Monday so it was a nice and calm night which was good because I was in sort of bad shape most of the night. I still walked a little under 5 miles though, Im proud of that.

I got a bit off track here. The point of telling about the Chromebook living by the bed now is that its going to make it easier to write here. I can write as I am relaxing and getting ready to go to sleep, I think that will work out pretty well.

I got a little behind on the defuckifying of the house this weekend when I was sick. I caught up some tonight though, I did a bunch of dishes, including washing the jars I am going to use for the herb garden. When I start putting the garden together I am going to take pictures of the process and the plants as they grow and post them here for everyone to see. I already have plans for the herbs, including homemade butter with herbs and a few other recipes I want to try. We really need to start eating healthier again and I need to start cooking more, I miss it.

Work is still nice. Today it was decently warm until the sun went down so I got in a little walking outside. I was hoping to hear one of the owls I have heard before but I didnt hear anything tonight. When the sun started to set, I went out on the roof of the science building and took a bunch of pictures.  I also stood on the ledge and looked down into the abyss of the forest behind the building. A wise man once said "When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you" and normally this is very true for me. But for some reason today the demons were calmer and the abyss didnt call to me like it normally has in the past.

I had a lot of mixed emotions about that. I immediately texted a close friend and told her what I was doing and what was happening and thanked her for being a large part of the reason the abyss didnt call so loud. We talked for a bit and it was wonderful.

The rest of the evening I walked around the 5 buildings I patrol. I heard an orchestra practicing in the music building, they sounded pretty good. Other than that not much was going on. I got home and rested for a bit just listening to some music. I thought about reading but Umphrey's McGee was calling me and I listened and cleaned a bit and now I am in bed and settling down. The sleeping pills are kicking in so I am going to say goodnight for now...

New year, new attempt at blogging

OK, so here we are. Its 2015, a new year. Its the middle of winter and I am fighting depression because its too cold to do anything and it just takes away all my energy and will to do anything. Its hard to be social but I am managing to go to kink events here and there.

All of that aside, I am starting and continuing a couple of things I want to write about. The main thing is cleaning the house. Living in a mess of a house has become a huge depression trigger for me and Im not going to do it any more. With the help of Amy, we have made huge progress on the house and I am working on figuring out a routine to help keep it that way. Routines are, I think, a key to easing my depression some. Thats my current theory anyway, time shall tell.

I looking through Pinterest a week or so ago and found a very cool idea. A while back there was a grow light for plants on the clearance rack and Amy bought it thinking it was the kind of light I could use for SAD therapy, I thought it was too but a short time with Google showed it wasnt. I had already opened it so I kept it and then I saw on Pinterest a cool thing about an herb garden. I have quite a few empty mason jars that used to be full of moonshine and the article I saw was about making a mason jar herb garden. I have a good shelf for it and can mount the grow light where it would help the herbs grow and when I harvest them I can use them to cook and make butter for the bread I bake. Plus taking care of the herbs can become a routine and that should help.

I am exercising more now. Im working with the Butler University police department through the security company I work for. I walk through all the academic buildings at Butler and my whole job is to be seen and keep an eye out for anything that shouldnt be going on. So I find myself walking between 5 and 7 miles per night four nights a week. My plan right now is to start going to the gym two or three nights a week after work and tanning and doing some weight work. Hopefully between that and the walking I can get in better shape and not hurt as much, which will also help with the depression hopefully. I weighed myself the other day and have set a goal and am planning to keep good track of my weight and start losing again.

Im also going to try and write here some more too. Once again a routine would help and I am going to try to stick to one with writing, I have seen a few books on Amazon that are full of topics to write about and I figure there have to be websites that do too, finding one and starting writing again shouldnt be too big a problem. I also saw a few books about photography and taking pictures of different things, maybe I can find a website or book about that too and combine the two. I love taking pictures and want to do more with that.

Big plans, yes, but right now I am optimistic about keeping up with all of this. I will definitely be writing and doing pictures of the herb garden idea, I really like it and cant wait to get some herbs to make butter with for people I want to make bread for. It should be cool...