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 :)