hurricane

Last night I had a dream about this guy I know.

We were running through this small, deserted amusement park. I think the location was St. Maarten, although there's no amusement park there. It was definitely a tropical place. All the colors in the dream were like technicolor. The sky was blue and pink and orange. Everything was wet because there had just been this huge downpour although that happened before my dream started, or I don't remember it being part of the dream. The guy and I were soaked.

He was holding my hand and dragging me behind him because I couldn't keep up he was running so fast. So I asked him why we were running so fast and he said there was a hurricane coming and if we got caught in it we would be killed. I looked behind us and saw this cloud thing which I guess was the hurricane. So we ran through all these brightly colored rides. There were horses that typically would be on a merry go round that were just laying on the ground. None of the roller coasters went anywhere, they were just tracks that ended in space.

So we got to the end of the amusement park and we were on a beach. But the ocean was gone. He looked out over this beach that extended all the way to the horizon, there were still tide pools filled with water and starfish, and he dropped my hand and said "oh my god". I was like "what's wrong? why did the ocean disappear?" And I looked at him and he was fading away. I tried to reach out and touch him but my hands went right through him.

Then he was gone and I could feel this big vacuum of air pulling me back towards the amusement park. I was afraid I would get impaled on one of the roller coaster tracks. I screamed, and woke up. I think I actually screamed in real life.

fucking bombs

I just met the sweetest little man. He brought me a pizza. I'm chained to my desk until this presentation I've been working on is done, and the pizza from their place is good.

Anyway, he barely had any fingers. And he had a big ol' muff chin. Definitely a muslim. I was talking to him and he said had his fingers blown off in an explosion. He has scars on his face as well. And you know...he was happy as could be to be here in the jingoistic US delivering pizzas to drunk people working on presentations.

I was really touched by this little man. I don't know, it was something about his frailness, his disfigurement, and his obvious happiness. I found out about his fingers when I went to pay him for the pizza. Then I took a good look at his face and saw the other scars. He was very shy about telling me what happened. I made up 99% of the story I have in my head about him from the 1% he told me.

You can see where the thousand mile stare is starting to fade from his eyes. I gave him a nectarine (had to go to the market around the corner to get more this evening since I accidentally left my other ones at my hotel in West Virginia) and he got even more shiny as a person. For the record, I gave him a real tip too.

This meeting with this pizza man was, I think, a bitch slap back to reality. Why is everyone here on the east coast so miserable?

Perhaps I have not done justice to this man. In any case, I am grateful I ordered a pizza tonight. I am grateful that I met this little man with no fingers.

have gun, will travel, like sand

I just found out today that I'm deploying to the middle east at the end of July. I'll be working in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan and the UAE. I'm really excited about a change of scene. And I'm lucky my publisher and HP 2.0 are taking care of things state side.

I have a lot of shit to do between now and then. Hopefully it will all get done. I'm going to try to leave a week early so I can visit my brother in Austria and see him compete in this huge robot competition. Maybe swing by the UK so I can personally deliver the painting I made for the office there.

I'm going to buy the coolest hat to wear. And brush up on my hardware skills.

and while we're on the subject of getting fucked...

I've been having a lot of conversations about love lately, with friends and my customer. Everyone has problems.

But, I think the thing that's causing their problems is that they all make bad decisions. They get into relationships that aren't what they need, and then they are afraid to get out of them because they don't want to be alone. I know, I've done that myself.

The thing is, love is an emotion like any other, but it gets treated like the string theory of humanity. It's not acceptable that I get pissed and murder someone, but it's okay if I'm in a relationship and I'm screwing around with someone else. Or worse, that I get into a relationship with someone, and then let myself believe that I'm in love with someone else, and so I'm lying to multiple people about my feelings, and my feelings aren't even real.

I really don't get that at all. You don't have to believe that there's only one person in the world you can love. But if that's what you're selling to your partner, you have a responsibility to live up to that promise. Of course there are a lot of bad relationships out there, but it's the fault of the two people who won't get out of them. And no relationship is going to be perfect 100% of the time. That's why you have to work at it.

I think relationships are like sports. I love to run. I would be sad if I couldn't run. Sure there are days when I'm feeling tired and don't want to go for a run. And I've hit many plateaus where I didn't get any better. Every time you hit a plateau you have to ask yourself: are you going to quit and find another sport, or do you care enough to stick with it? Since running is something I will always care about, I would never quit, even if I had a few months of bad workouts.

Following that analogy, think of a relationship where one of the people isn't put much in. That's like having a running partner who is constantly showing up late, or not at all, and then running badly because he or she hasn't worked out in a while. How long would you continue to call up that partner for a run?

Yet with love, we do that all the time. We put up with shit behavior waiting for the other person to make a decision. And it makes our job harder because on the run we are having to adjust our pace for the other person because the other person isn't putting his or her full effort into it.

Love is also like sports in that few people are really good at multiple sports. If you are trying to have a relationship with two people you are doing the same thing. You'll either be great at one and suck at the other, or you will be pretty good at both but never reach your full potential.

I think that most of the people in the world are just really mediocre when it comes to love. They take a partner down and then resent the partner. They constantly fuck around instead of trying. For people who see love as more of an art than something to do at night before you go to bed, this is very frustrating.

It's not that most people can't love. Most people in the world are amazing at something, either writing, sports, painting, or whatever. But they don't have the discipline to grow their talent. Then they get bitter. Love is like your IQ - if you are constantly working and exploring your intelligence, you'll get smarter. If you don't, you get stupid.

Now that I've been single for a long time I find it hard to deal with shit show guys that I would have put up with in the past. I know what I want and don't feel like waiting around for someone who hasn't figured things out yet. I don't want to deal with yet another guy who can't commit or stop fucking other people on the side. Or who lies or constantly changes his mind about how he feels.

We've all been given a great gift which is the capacity to love other people. And it's wasted, every day. If you don't understand love, you need to grow the fuck up. It's not that hard.

to all the guys I've fucked before

For whatever weird reason, I’ve been getting emails and phone calls from a bunch of my ex boyfriends, 4 to be exact. They are all married with children.

The nature of these emails has nothing to do with how I’m doing or how their families are doing. They are about how they would really like to sleep with me. I am getting requests for porn stories about what I would do if I slept with them, and suggestions that I meet these guys, who are all geographically dispersed, somewhere where we could enact these porn stories they want me to write.

It makes no difference that I shut these guys down every time. They think it’s either challenging or funny and persist.

So, here’s the no bullshit answer. You have a wife. You have kids. I didn’t make that decision, you did. To imply that I might be happy just fucking you on the side is insane. First of all, if you were that good in bed, I would still be with you. Second of all, I am not going to put some woman in the same position I’ve been in myself, having a partner cheating, or trying to cheat on the side. Third, unless you’ve told your wife what you are doing, you are a coward, and I find that immensely unattractive.

Here’s the deal. If you don’t love your wife, leave her. And don’t say it has anything to do with me. It’s really unfair to stay in an unhappy relationship just because you are too fucking lazy or whatever to find someone who will make you happy. Don’t involve outsiders in your fucked up relationship, because all it does is fuck everyone up. If you just need someone to make you feel sexy, hire someone. I’m sure there are plenty of chat rooms where you can pay someone to talk dirty to you. I have no desire to talk dirty to you. In fact, your behavior is a huge turn off.

Oh, and the excuse about not being able to leave your wife because she’s been at home with the kids and can’t get a job? Bad decision on your part for marrying a woman with no skills. And you’re shocked that you’re bored now? Give me a break. You wanted a little woman to push around and to push kids out of her cunt. She’s fat and boring now. You set the situation up so that would happen.

And your kids? Trust me, being around two parents that hate each other is not better than if you leave. Chances are you aren’t doing much for your kids anyway. They might miss you occasionally but probably not as much as you think, especially since kids pick up on the fact that you find them annoying. They know you are complaining to everyone how you don’t have time to do anything because of them.

Failing that, why not put some effort into trying to save your relationship? Go to counseling and pay someone. I’m tired of giving you free advice and getting only a headache in return. But here’s a free piece of advice before I cut you off. Trying to fuck someone else while your current relationship is going down the shitter is not a good way to fix things. It’s obvious, I know, but you guys aren’t coming across as being very bright.

You find me sexy because I am. It’s not my fault you married someone who isn’t anymore. It’s probably your fault for being a dick to her. So, be a man and do what you should do. Stop whining and bothering me. Figure out your fucking life and do something about it.

And no, you don't have to tell me what you're doing. I really, really don't give a fuck. But you can keep reading my blog. You need one bright spot in your pathetic life.

will not dig a ditch for dinner

On saturday a work colleague invited myself and my friend Neil to dinner at his girlfriend's house. I'd met her once and wasn't very fond of her, but Neil liked her so I agreed we would go.

Neilski and I went to the baltimore museum, and then we walked around the sculpture garden, and then drove to the girlfriend's house on Solomon's Island. We got lost because Neil was telling me this hilarious story and we forgot to look for our exit off the highway. We found it in a roundabout way and were only a half hour late. My colleague, we'll call him C, did not think it was funny when I called him from the girlfriend's (we'll call her G) porch to say that we were really lost. Even though he was standing only 10 feet away from me he didn't notice and was getting all pissed that I was going to be late and when I finally told him to turn around he didn't even smile when he saw me.

G walked up to me and gave me a hug. She was either totally coked up or really drunk. She was acting insane. She went to get us drinks and Neil looked at me and said "do you think they didn't really want us to come?" I was pissed because I wanted to just hang out with Neil in Baltimore but C insisted we come to dinner. And now that we were there they were acting weird.

C told us we were having kabobs and that we had to make them because he was busy doing something else. Neil and I were just looking at each other laughing. So we got to work. I first made an Audrey Hepburn kabob out of filet mignon, a zucchini for her dress, red peppers for her lips, and then a mushroom for a hat. I also made a sail boat for C, who sails, that had an onion for a seagull. I made Neil two models that were mad at each other. Then I made a christmas tree, a fox, and a suspicious looking man with a squash for a hat.

C came in from where ever he was and asked why it was taking me so long to make kabobs. I showed him what I made and all he said was "you didn't put enough meat on them! make some that are all meat since you used up all the vegetables!" Neil said my kabobs were nice though. He ate both models. G said I had "sexualized" the kabobs. She almost didn't eat one. C ate the boat.

We sat down to dinner and G dominated the conversation to the point no one could say anything. I kept kicking Neil under the table. A few times when Neil tried to talk G would interrupt him as if she didn't notice. C tried putting his hand on G once to get her to shut up for two seconds and she said "oh, I know, I'm talking TOOOOOO much". And then she kept right on talking. It would have been bearable if it had been an interesting talk, but she was going on and on about how much money she has, how she never entertains without having hired help (guess Neil and I were the hired help), and how everything in the world is fucked up. Nothing she said was very coherent. She threw in a few digs at C about how her mom thinks he isn't good enough for her because he's not rich. That pissed me off.

Then we walked around her garden and got a lecture about her "fabulous" trees, even though she was calling the trees by their wrong names. Neil tried to correct her once and got his head ripped off. Then Neil said that if he lived at her house he would run around the yard naked all the time. She was like "that is just NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!" as if Neil had suggested we all do that, immediately. I was walking behind Neil because I was laughing so hard at her reaction I didn't want anyone to see me.

I ended up doing the dishes. She just piled them up in my arms and said "rinse these and then run the dish washer". Oh, uh, I'm the maid?

Finally we got to her back porch, where there is a water leak. By then the sun was going down. She suggested, and I am NOT making this up, that Neil and I might want to dig up the leaky pipe since she had provided us with dinner. She seriously wanted us to dig a 10 foot trench in her back yard. It was unbelievable.

C tried to get us to stay for a glass of wine but Neil said we were both tired and we left. We laughed the whole way back to baltimore, but not just about G. My favorite story Neil told was about his "bad boy papers", but that's not one I can share here.

I got home at 1230 this morning, didn't get lost, but did get stuck in a torrential downpour.

friday night bar fight

My great week in WVA was ruined friday afternoon. I thought I was going to get out of work on time. But no, my customer found a bug in the software tool I support that was a show stopper.

I worked on it until around 7 and then was too tired to continue. S, a woman who works for my customer, was leaving around the same time and invited me to go to dinner with her.

S is a bit younger than me, and really cute. She's married but wants to divorce her husband. Half the time anyway. The other half she talks about how great he is. We had dinner and I ate my salad and just let her talk.

The bar was filling up with noisy kids so I paid the bill and got ready to leave. S wanted to hang out longer, and since I haven't exactly been a social butterfly, I agreed to go out with her. We left WVA and went to a bar in Sterling VA. I got to be sober driver.

First S called her husband and he showed up at the bar. I thought that was weird. Then she proceeded to try to get him to hit on me. That was more weird. Her husband is a total tool who told me that he did classified stuff, and that he couldn't even tell me where he had been stationed when he was in the air force. I was like whatever dude, you don't even have to have a poly to do your job. I got bored with him and was ignoring him and then S got into a fight with him and I was thinking this sucks. I was really tired and just wanted to leave but her husband left instead.

Then S called this guy who is one of her husband's best friends, and he showed up at the bar right after S's husband left. He was all over her comforting her about the fight. I meanwhile found two very nice guys from India to occupy myself with. Then S started trying to foist her husband's friend, we'll call him M, on me. I started talking to him about software since we didn't have much else in common. S got pissed suddenly and said "if you guys are going to have some boring technical conversation that I can't be in I'm going to talk to someone else!" She stalked off and started talking to some guy at the end of the bar.

The next thing I knew she was back to our little group in tears. It seems she had picked a fight with the guy at the end of the bar and he told her "don't divorce your husband until he pays for plastic surgery to fix your face". There's nothing wrong with her face. I was like "he's just being a dick" but she was crying hysterically. To get her to stop I said "what do you want me to do?" and she said "go kick his ass". The guy over heard her and tried to pick a fight with me. He was like "Oh, you're going to kick my ass?" and then continued on a really mean rant about how I must be a lesbian, blah blah blah. By then I really did want to kick his ass but the female bartender who had been serving me non-alcoholic drinks kicked him out.

Then S and M started commiserating on how no one was ever going to love them, etc. I was getting more and more pissed. There's nothing wrong with either of them, they are making their own problems, and fuck, they live in a place crawling with singles. So I started going off on them because their pity party was getting me down.

Then M started crying, along with S, and said that he had been in love with a woman who was "the one" but that she had died of cancer. This made S cry even harder. I knew the story was total bullshit. The bar was closed by that point so we went out to the parking lot and I basically called M a lying sack of shit to his face. I told him he was fucked up for fucking S (it wasn't hard to deduce, over the course of the evening, that something was going on between them). I told both of them to stop being fuck ups. I guess something I said must have made sense because S stopped crying and we had a great conversation on the drive home. And M sent me an email yesterday saying it was great to meet me.

I got to S's house at 230 in the morning. She was really drunk and couldn't remember directions back to WVA so she invited me in the house so she could ask her husband directions. They got into this huge shouting match so I just left and guessed the way home. I guessed wrong and ended up in Luray, VA. I finally stopped at a gas station and figured out where I was. Got in at 4 am.

I am too old for this shit.