Scenes From A Morning Drive
Edward Hotspur
Smashwords Edition
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Copyright © 2012 by Edward Hotspur
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
The following pieces were originally published in blog form over the course of multiple trips of one kind or another. The people, places and things, which I believe are collectively referred to as ‘nouns’, in these essays are at best my distorted impressions of the real ones and at worst are fictional, unless it’s the other way around.
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Table of Contents
Part 1 – Tales From Typographical Errors
Part 2 – Mediterranean Seasick Blues
Part 3 – Let There Be Blog
Part 4 – The Song Actually Changes A Few Times
Part 5 – Tissue Were Here
Part 6 – I Found My Thrill On Solsbury Hill
Part 7 – Crazy Little Thing Called Blog
Part 8 – Something That I Don’t Really Understand
Part 9 – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Blogger
Part 10 – Kick Them For Me
Part 11 – Rolling in the Jeep
Part 12 – Gotta Leave You All Behind And Face Myself
Part 13 – There Is A Turn Signal That Never Goes Out
Part 14 – Spaghetti For Love
Part 15 – Down With The Sickness
Part 16 – Whiter Shade of Pain
Part 17 – Money For Blogging (And Sex For Free)
Part 18 – Tour De Rants
Part 19 – Ghost Writers In The Sky
Part 20 – Writers On The Storm
Part 21 – Dark Side of the Mood
Part 22 – Bela Blogosi’s Dead
Part 23 – Come Scale Aweigh
Part 24 – Good Morning, Wood Morning
Part 25 – Ain’t Too Proud To Craig
Part 26 – Scenes From A Sunday Morning Drive
Part 27 – Ohio Is For Bloggers
Part 28 – Blog Rockin’ Beats
Part 29 – Astrology Domine
Part 30 – Highway To Help
Part 31 – Deliver Me
Part 32 – Carry That Wait
Part 33 – Jump, Jive and Fail
Part 34 – Here We Blog Again
Part 35 – Higher Blog
Part 36 – The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
Part 37 – I Haunt You
Part 38 – I Will Always Love You For A While
Part 39 – Black Coffee In Thread
Part 40 – Diesel Last Forever
Part 41 – Cross Guy Traffic
Part 42 – [Washer Fluid]
Part 43 – No Computer, No Cry
Part 44 – The Blather of Evermore
Part 45 – Too Full Of S**t To Quit
Part 46 – Highway to Halloween
Part 47 – Do You Blog Like I Do?
Part 48 – [Spare Tire]
Part 49 – Wicked Garden
Part 50 – Preparation Row
Part 51 - Mister Blog Driver
Part 52 – Blog On The Mild Side (WTF Mix)
Part 53 – A Muse To Death
Part 54 – Some Like It Hotspur
Part 55 – Medley: My Confession / Shop Shop Til You Drop / Birthday
Part 56 – Life In The Slow Lane
Part 57 – Killing Me Softly With His Blog
Part 58 – Little Conversations
Part 59 – A Little Less Conversation
Part 60 – Little Lies
Part 61 – Time Travelin’ Man
Part 61 – Time Traveling Man
Part 62 – When I Was Cruel
Part 63 – I’m In Blog With My Car
Part 64 – Over The River
Part 65 – Flipping Through The Stations
Part 66 – Everybody Squirts
Part 67 – Something Good
Part 68 – In Reverse
Part 69 – No 69s Were Harmed In The Making Of This Post
Part 70 – Life’s What You Make It
Part 71 – Why Are There So Many Blogs About Rainbows?
Part 72 – Talk Mart-y To Me
Part 73 – Kicking It
Part 74 – The Wheels Come Off
Part 75 – Occupy Annoy Me
Part 76 – Making Love Out Of Nothing At All
Part 77 – The Christmas Spirit Is In Me – Can I Have A Refill?
Part 78 – The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Inventions
Part 79 – Last Train To What The Fuckville
Part 80 – Bad Mood Rising
Part 81 – Snow Wonder
Part 82 – A Quick One While They’re Away
Part 83 – Big Red K
Part 84 – What Doesn’t Kill Me Only Makes Me Crankier
Part 85 – Piledriver Jackhammer Crusher (Stutter Edit)
Part 86 – You Won’t Get It
Part 87 – The Answer Is On The Other Side
Part 88 – Beneath, Between, Behind
Part 89 – New Year’s Day Lasts All Year Long
Part 90 – Drool, Baby, Drool
Part 91 – Considerately Killing Me
Part 92 – Look At All This Space
Part 93 – Oh Yeah? Well Happy Birthday To You Too, Lady
Part 94 – Again? You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me
Part 95 – Words Gone Wild!
Part 96 – Picardian Dynamite (Vote For Sulu)
Part 97 – Old Man Winter Versus Old Man Hotspur
Extra Scene - We Just Landed
Part 98 - How About A Nice Panic Attack?
Part 99 - The Siege Of Hotspur
Part 100 - Dim Scene
About Edward Hotspur
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Part 1 – Tales From Typographical Errors
Okay, this is 26 Aug 2011. It will be the first day of me recording my drive to work. I don’t think I’ll be recording anything coming home, because I’ll be hell bent on coming home. I’m using an Olympus digital voice recorder, because people stare if you bring a typewriter in the car. Talking to yourself? Why, that’s practically normal.
My car is covered with dew. I have to use a Powerade bottle filled with water, and pour it over the car to rinse off the dew. (When I wipe it off, it leaves streaks.) I get in my car, toss my gym bag and lunch bag in the seat, and put my coffee into the holder. They’ve ripped up the street in my entire neighborhood. They’re supposed to be resurfacing the streets, but who knows how long that will take? I hope they finish by the time I get home.
Pretty warm typical day. I listen to Bob and Tom on the way in for the laughs. The sun is shining right in my face, and the condensation reflects it right in my face. It’s good the sun is out, but it’s annoying at the same time. What’s good is that it’s Friday, and it’s casual day, and I’m wearing jeans and a polo.
It always sucks when I get on the street leading to the highway. Most people get in the long line of cars that are turning onto the highway, but there are always one or two douche bags who drive in the next lane over and try to cut in. Why do they do that? Are they just jerks? How much time could it possibly save them? 10 seconds? Over time that 10 seconds a day saves less than an hour per year – but look at the ill will it causes! Days and weeks of bad moods! Why don’t they just get up 10 seconds earlier every day, if it’s that important to them?
I’m by the latest and greatest shopping center, called The Greene, next to the highway. It has nice new buildings, and is cleverly arranged and geared towards foot traffic, with nice restaurants, bars, stores and shops. It’s been there for about 5 years. That’s forever in the retail world. Obviously, because I hear they are building another similar shopping center one exit down the highway. It will hopefully have completely different restaurants and shops, but it’s likely that some of the businesses at The Greene will move down the street to the new place. I don’t know what the name of the place is going to be, and I don’t care. I’m always going to call it The Other Greene. I don’t mind another center. More stuff to do. More reasons that where we live is pretty good.
So I’m on the highway. I listen to the radio, and nearly always get stuck behind that person who insists on driving at 60mph. Sometimes it’s 65, which is just as annoying. I know, I should have gotten up 10 seconds earlier – but it’s not really the time or speed that annoys me, but the inflexibility and rigidity of the driver ahead of me, the refusal to go with the flow.
I wonder if Sammy Hagar had to adjust his lyrics to I Can’t Drive 55, because now you can drive 65-75mph practically everywhere in the country. His song is obsolete. It wasn’t like It’s the End of the World As We Know It, or We Didn’t Start the Fire, one of those songs that names a bunch of people, places and events that immediately date the song. He probably still sings it as written, because that’s what everyone expects, but I bet he feels a little silly. On top of that, Sammy Hagar probably doesn’t even drive himself at all! He probably takes a limo everywhere. It should be called “I can’t drive at all, because I’ve got Jacques the Limo Driver taking me everywhere so I can drink my Cabo Wabo mas tequila.” A little long, and not nearly as catchy. I thought about trying the tequila, but not at the actual bar. I’m not spending thousands of dollars just to drink a rock star’s tequila in Mexico.
I thought I wouldn’t have anything to say, but apparently I’m a fucking chatterbox in the morning. I wonder if this will turn out to be therapeutic. I know I’ll edit half this stuff out. Or maybe I’ll won’t edit it at all! Maybe I’ll just post it raw, so people can see what inane insipid crap drips out of my brain in the morning! And I keep saying ‘but’ a lot. Like I need some kind of transition. Why? I’m the only one talking! I know I’m going to say more shit. And I know half of it’s going to be pointless, and the other half is going to be sarcastic, cynical, and maybe hilarious (to somebody). That’s just how I am. In a nutshell.
I’m going to do this every single work day. Apparently I can talk a lot when no one else is in the car. I don’t know what I will talk about on any given day. Relationships, politics, religion, idiots, humor, music, food, mindless banter… oh. Mindless banter it is! Set that bar low.
I am in line to get into my work. I always get in the lane I want to be in throughout, even though it is longer and moves slower – just like the one to get on the highway. Does all that say something about me? There aren’t really any risks in terms of reaching my goal by going in the other lane and cutting in. It would still get me what I want, and it might even get me there faster. The only real risk is pissing somebody off. I think that is the true reason most people line up the way they do. They get their goal, and don’t create any ill will by doing it. The other people will risk pissing people off for not that much gain. I think that’s stupid, and I don’t want to do that. Is that bad? Does it mean I want to take the safe route, or that I want to take the nice route? And is there a difference between the safe route and the nice route? Is it consideration for other people (I don’t want to be a jerk to them), or consideration for myself (I don’t want them to be jerks to me)?
One last thing – today is my daughter’s birthday. Another reason I started it today. She’s 20. That’s a nothing birthday. 18, you’re an adult. 19, you can start serving alcohol, which is the most money you can make in a non-college-degree job. 21 is the drinking birthday. I fear that one. But 20 is basically 19: Part 2. I guess you’re no longer a teenager. But is that really a good thing?
Only two more days until Monday! Hooray! (not really)
Edward Hotspur
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Part 2 – Mediterranean Seasick Blues
This is 29 August 2011. Kind of a crabby mood. They still haven’t fixed the road. They’ve laid down some tiny gravel all over, though. I feel like I live on a dirt road, albeit one with sewer drains about every 25 feet or so.
At the end of my street, there are these two houses that are the scenes of some of the most heinous pranks and redecorating between neighbors ever. They usually do each others’ light poles, or Frisbee golf poles, but sometimes they go all out and do the other one’s whole yard. It’s amusing to see what they’ve done every morning. Sometimes I wonder how the first time came about – was the instigator thinking about how the other one would react, with nervousness? Thinking about how mad they would be? Or did they know it would be the start of a years-long game of one-upsmanship? The victim might have called the cops! Instead, they amuse me every morning.
I’m at a light. I stop talking for a bit, because I don’t want people to see me talking to myself. I shouldn’t worry, though, because this is the age of Bluetooth and headsets and earpieces and not giving a crap what other people think. Lots of people talk to themselves. Some of them do it out loud.
I think everyone has an inner dialog. In that dialog, people talk to themselves about what they’re thinking, or what they want to do. Or, they talk themselves out of something that will get them in trouble, or play out some scenario of what they wish would have happened or what they wish they had said that they dare not do in real life. Something like career suicide, or personal or friendship suicide. Basically, they create a strawman Frankenstein’s monster in their heads, send in the “villagers” of pain and anger with torches and pitchforks, and then start beating the shit out of that strawman Frankenstein’s monster. That makes a lot of people feel a whole lot better.
Trucks are double edged swords. The best truck to have is one with a front seat and back seat, and then the bed in the back. But it sets you up for failure. Everyone knows you have the truck, and now you have to make the choice between being a jerk or a doormat. People will ask you to help them, and if you do, you’ll have to do it forever. If you don’t, you’re a jerk forever. (I’m sure the inflection came out in this blog. I said that with a sneer.)
Passing The Greene again. It’s nice because of all the stores I will never go in that add mystery. The giant neon “Subway” sign kind of ruins the effect of this. The best place in here is Brio. Not the best food, necessarily, but the atmosphere is the absolute best. Outside on the patio, you can watch the people or whatever band is performing. Unmatchable. It really adds to the whole experience, unless the band is doing 1980s Bon Jovi covers. The Greene is especially cozy during Christmas. It adds to the whole ‘village’ feel of the place. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
The traffic is pretty light, because it’s so early. I got up early just for you! It’s also moving pretty fast. I’ve been driving this way to work for about 5 and a half years. I hoped it would be different every time at first, and it is different about 5% of the time. Unfortunately, that 5% is usually an accident that causes traffic to back up for 2-3 miles. Different is never good on the morning drive to work.
Sometimes I play this game where someone who is annoying is in front of me, and I get near an exit. I point my hand at them and wave to them, forcing them to take the exit or get on the other highway using only my mind. And I can DO it….about 50% of the time. Amazing, isn’t it?
Speaking of chances, I’ve been buying lottery tickets. I know, all the financial planners and advisers tell you ‘you might as well just roll down your window and toss a dollar out’. I’ve read studies that show when the lottery gets over a certain amount, it’s actually cost effective to buy a ticket. But aside from that, if you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t win. The chances of winning may be infinitesimally small if you buy a ticket – but if you don’t buy a ticket, your chances are zero. And zero is much lower than infinitesimally small, every time. I’ll still do it. I’m not even looking for the huge quit-your-job lottery. I’d be happy with the make-your-life-comfortable lottery. That’s really all I want to do – be really comfortable.
Honestly, that is not the lottery I want to win. If the money lotteries have infinitesimally small chances of winning, then a much better lottery chance might come from something… online maybe. The Numa Numa guy. The guy who made videos of himself dancing in front of world monuments who got a commercial for a travel company out of it. Those are the kinds of lotteries I want to win – the Justin Bieber lotteries. Even the Bo Birnham lottery.
Everyone thinks about your Linkin Park Hybrid Theory, selling millions of albums, or Avatar making billions of dollars. But just think about what constitutes a decent salary. What, $75k? $85k? $100K? If I could do something that I love and make $75k, instead of doing my regular crappy job, I’d consider that a win. If I made a tenth of what I made now – well, I wouldn’t be able to quit my job, but I’d consider it a small win. Should I be saying this on the blog that you’re reading right now? I don’t know. It’s honesty in my writing process, at least. I mean, even though my blog looks like a Douglas Coupland novel – specifically, JPod – I’ll tell you how it is. I’ll tell you what I want. The same thing that everyone wants. Recognition and/or money. Particularly the money.
Like Scarlet O’Hara said, “Tomorrow morning is another morning.”
Edward Hotspur
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It’s 30 August 2011. Uneventful day, but a little chilly for still being summer. There’s an older gentleman wearing a neon vest walking his dog. I wave to him every day. It’s quiet and it’s getting colder. I feel much better this morning. I got a lot of sleep, and sleep is good. You never really think about it until you don’t get it.
Seasons start too late. It seems like they are shifted. I know for example summer starts on June 21 or 22, but it should start on June 1 and end on August 31. That’s summer. That’s when it starts and ends for most school kids. And the other seasons should follow accordingly. I realize the seasons are determined by the earth’s revolution around the sun, but the days are determined by the earth revolving on its axis and we screw with the hours all the time just for our convenience. Why not the seasons?
I was going to tell a little story about Cassano’s Pizza, but instead I’ll just say it’s the best pizza around. However, I will say that a couple of years ago they tore down the local McDonald’s and built… a McDonalds. It’s new and has two drive through lanes, but why? The same thing happened to Verizon in the Greene. It was located in one store stall, and since the last time I was there it literally moved 3 stalls down. It doesn’t make sense. The former stall must have been a good location to Sprint, though, because it’s in there now. And I am not claiming it, so if anyone wants to use it, 3 Stalls Down is up for grabs as a band name.
Unlike the traffic stuff I was talking about before, the vast majority of people stop at a traffic light. That’s because there’s no law against driving in the clear lane and cutting in at the front, but if you run a red light you get a ticket. The law prevents people from running the red light, right? Wrong. Laws don’t prevent people from doing anything wrong. Free will prevents people from doing anything wrong. People follow the law because they want to, period. Anyone, any time can break the law and follow their whims. Most people don’t, though, because of the same reason I talked about before – they don’t want to be jerks, don’t want to stand out or be thought of in a negative way. They’re generally good-natured. Think of it this way – how many times have you driven faster than the speed limit? Plenty. That’s because many people do it, so it doesn’t seem as bad. Barely anyone kills another person, so most people don’t do it. Of course, either way it’s a person’s choice. Did prohibition work? Think about it.
There are a lot of odd rules in the universe that affect my life. For example, if I want to get somewhere quickly, I hit every red light. But if I want to send a text while in the car, I get every green light. So you have to balance that by having your phone ready to text, and having your foot on the gas. That way, you set yourself up to get a little of what you want. But the universe always knows if you want one a little bit more.
It’s cold this morning, so a lot of people are dressed in jackets or sweaters. But I always dress for the hottest part of the day. People dress for right now. Is it part of my personality that I dress for the future? for what it’s going to be like the majority of the day? Is that how I live my life? Maybe that’s how I stay calm in a crisis. I stay calm because I know that most of the time things are relatively tame and normal. There are some high highs and low lows, but there’s no reason for me to flip out and act like things will be euphoric or horrible all the time. Right now I’m wearing a short sleeve shirt, even though it’s cold. That’s because later it will be comfortable. Just like life. Everything will work itself out. Unusual circumstances are unusual. Once things move into crisis mode, it never stays there. And everything seems to balance itself out, too. One day, you find a $20 bill, and the next day something costs $20 that you don’t normally need.
There isn’t some force that makes everything equal, though. If you look around, there are megabillionaires, and millions of poor people. That’s not equal. But if you take any individual’s life, they have ups and downs that for them probably net zero. If someone doesn’t net zero, they’re probably taking avantage of someone else, or being taken advantage of.
Like sands in the hourglass, so are the days I hate work…
Edward Hotspur
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Part 4 – The Song Actually Changes A Few Times
It’s 31 August 2011, and it’s a little chilly. Too chilly for dew. So I don’t have to dew that today. Ha ha! I finally figured out my recorder, and now it only records when I’m actually talking, but not when I’m thinking about what to say. If it recorded while I was thinking, especially if it recorded what I was thinking, this here blog would be a lot more shocking. Or incomprehensible. And yet, I still talked about the same. Does that mean I didn’t do much thinking? Well, you be the judge. Full disclosure: I still get to edit between transcribing and posting, so I can make myself sound like less of an idiot.
I was listening to Bob and Tom in the bathroom while getting ready, and there was someone on there who paused a whole lot while he was talking. I hate that. Some people sound completely unprepared even though they know they’re going on a morning radio show. They can’t think of what the next word in their sentence should be – in every sentence. A few pauses here and there are okay, but when they’re trying to think in between every word or two it’s ridiculous. I just can’t listen to someone like that. Especially if they’ve gone to the trouble of saying some shocking attention-grabbing phrase, and then they just pause for 20 or 30 seconds. That’s a lot! Just say it, for crying out loud. I just don’t have time to wait for people to finish thinking their thought.
I don’t like when people deliver their information to me by starting in the middle and then filling in the rest through flashbacks or something, either. I like information via the headline method. “Guess what happened? This. That. The other.” Like that. And then if I want more information, I’ll just ask. I don’t like it when people say “Guess what happened? Okay, I was walking down the street about 9:00 am – or was it 10? Anyway…” It’s usually woman (no offense), because they love the melodrama. “Guess what happened? Okay, I want to stretch this out as much as I can, so you’ll sit there and listen to me, everything I’m saying, over and over, until finally, when you’re dying to know what it is, I will tell you and you’ll be completely blown away by my timing and delivery and storytelling skills…” You know what? I’ll never guess what happened, because I don’t fucking care! That’s all I’m saying: Get to the point. After about a minute of delaying the point of your story, the last thing I want to guess is what happened.
I see a lot of people building planters at the ends of their driveways. When you put planters at the end of your driveway, eventually the plants get really tall, and you can’t see in either direction. It’s a pre-built traffic accident waiting to happen. You get to the end and you can’t see to the left or right, so you have to just guess, or time it. Sure, you can look before you get to the planters, but you never know when someone comes out of nowhere. If they’d just move them back about 10 feet, there would be no problem, and it looks just as good.
I love when the day is overcast, but it’s not actually raining, like today. I love the edge of darkness and light. I love twilight. I think it’s because there’s daylight, and you’re done working or schooling, and you’re waiting for something to happen that night. When it gets dark, that’s when you hang out or go out. So the transition from day to night makes me excited. Even if I know I’m not going out at all, it still gives me that hyper feeling when twilight comes. Fireflies come out, you have to turn on your headlights or house lights – it’s my favorite time of day. You might be thinking “well, Edward, what about dawn? It’s the same thing, edge of day and night.” No. It’s not the same. Going from night to day usually means you’re going to have to go do something you don’t want to do. That’s the difference. You can get excited about it getting dark, and then going out. It’s hard to work anything up over “it’s dark now, but it’s getting lighter, and soon I’m gonna go to work. Alright!” Twilight is the time when you’re getting ready to go to a concert, or a wine bar, or light a fire, something like that, and everything looks kind of cozy and mysterious. I think it’s the anticipation of the future, a good future. There’s that song ‘everybody’s working for the weekend’ – you make it to 5 o’clock on Friday and you’re out of there. Twilight is like that feeling, only you can feel it every day. Sure, you have to go to work tomorrow, but tonight you don’t have to be anywhere except where you want to be.
I had the idea of using this recorder to write my novel. (Yes, I’m writing a novel – I talk about it in a post way down there somewhere. You should look for it.) It’s working pretty well for me for blogging. I figure I can say a bunch of things and then type them later. I mean, I type pretty fast, but I talk even faster. And it takes less effort to push a button then to push a shitload of buttons while I’m thinking. Sure, I still have to type it later, but it’s less effort to transcribe what I’ve already worked on than to type and think. Now I’m just doing the zen transcendental typing work, if you will.
Here I am, back in my line into my workplace. It’s an exclusive club – that no one really wants to be in, but they have to. No one is looking around except me. Some people in lines or traffic lights just look straight ahead and mind their own business. Some people look all over the place. Which is normal? Is it rude to look straight ahead? is it creepy to look all around? I don’t know. I just sort of glance. I think most people do that.
I used to be a smoker, but I can’t stand smokers. Either they smoke in their cars and then eventually dump the ashtrays in a parking lot or in the street, or they don’t want smoke anywhere near the inside of their cars, so they hold the cigarettes out the window, and toss the butt out when they’re done with it. it’s just like the ashtray, only it’s slower because it’s one smoke at a time. Either way, they’re smelly disgusting litterbugs. On top of that, I don’t know how many times a smoker has jumped on my case for walking for half an hour around lunch. How many smoke breaks do you take? One an hour? And it takes about 10 minutes each time including walking? So that’s 1 hour and 20 minutes out of your 8 hour day spent walking to go smoke, having a smoke, or walking back from a smoke. And that’s generous. I walk in a breezeway back and forth, and I see the same people out there on 3-4 passes. I’m walking maybe 35 minutes. Do the math.
I’m glad I quit smoking, and for the record, I quit smoking cold turkey. And I don’t remember the day. I don’t want to say “I haven’t had a smoke for blah blah days.” Who cares? I think it’s been about 10 years, but I’m not sure, and it doesn’t matter. People who quit drinking do this all the time. “I haven’t had a drink for 8 months, 2 weeks and 18 days.” Doesn’t matter. The thing that matters is that you felt you needed to quit, and you did. Just say “about a year.” You can say that for at least 6 months. Then start saying “a year and a half.” Speaking of that, people do that with babies. Someone says “he’s 22 months old, 25 months old, 35 months old.” Um, no. Repeat after me: He’s almost 3. He’s 2. Almost 3 years old.” Months make the kid sound much younger than he is. It’s not ‘terrible 24 months’.
And back to sobriety, why would you want to make your period of being sober sound younger than it is? Besides, keeping track of every day, hour and minute just means you’ve traded your obsession for drinking for obsessively keeping track of how long you haven’t been drinking. At least when you were drinking, I didn’t have to see it and I wasn’t annoyed by it. It might sound selfish, but the one thing I want everyone to quit doing? Not drinking, not smoking – annoying me. Why don’t you keep track of how long it’s been since you annoyed me? That’s the only statistic I am interested in. Thank you very much.
No, seriously, thank you.
Edward Hotspur
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It’s the first day of September 2011, and I am not driving to work. I am pretty sick. No, I mean I have an illness. I have coughing, sinus trouble, runny nose and a headache, so don’t get too close to this blog or you might catch it. What do you mean, you can’t catch anything from a blog? Haven’t you ever heard of a computer virus?
So instead of driving, I’m going to be surfing. Before I do that, I want to say that it rained for 20 minutes and now it’s sunny. This place can’t make up its mind about what weather to have, and often has multiple types in the same day. Once it rained in the front yard and was sunny in the back yard. I guess there has to be a line somewhere, but it’s usually not through my house. Anyway, multiple types of music in the same song = good. Multiple types of weather in the same day = bad.
Going into whiplash mode… buckle up…okay. I was thinking about self-esteem, and how to get it back if you’ve lost it. First of all, don’t buy books on self-esteem. You’re not going to get self-esteem from a book (unless you wrote it and it’s a bestseller). You get self-esteem like you get good at playing a guitar – a little at a time, with practice. First you must draw a line and not allow anyone to push you backwards over it. Then you must find something you’re good at, and do that a lot until you’re better at it. That’s your foundation. The confidence you get from that foundation allows you to do other things, and it eventually spirals upward.
But first, you must draw that line. That’s the hard part. It’s difficult to assert boundaries, and that’s where people tend to fail in regaining their self-esteem. I suppose you could do something well first, but if someone is tearing you down all the time, that might not be effective. What is effective is putting the responsibility for your sense of self-worth inside you. Never ever let it out again. When you make other people responsible for your self-esteem and self-worth, they will eventually let you down. Especially if you give the responsibility to just one person. You shouldn’t put all your self-esteem “eggs” into one jerkface “basket”, or they’ll “break”, and you will be “screwed” and probably “cry”.
Hold on tightly…What is it with all the cereals that some idiot is trying to keep from some other idiots? Fred keeps Fruity Pebbles from Barney. The kids keep Trix from the rabbit. The Lucky Charms leprechaun tries to keep kids from getting any. The kids keep Cocoa Puffs from the Cuckoo Bird. I think some of these people should team up. The Lucky Charms kids should just hook up with the Trix kids, and flip Lucky Leprechaun the bird. The Trix rabbit and the Cuckoo Bird should hook up with Barney, who can apparently score them an endless supply of Fruity Pebbles. Barney could always cut them with some Rice Krispies.
You know what I just realized? Blogging isn’t fair compared to, say, a television program. Especially the ones on HGTV. Someone remodels a whole room in 3 days, and someone else has to edit that down into an hour. But in a blog, it’s more like 15 minutes of talking can be condensed down to 10 minutes of reading. That’s a great return! And I just pretty much type exactly what I say or think and don’t really do any edits at all. (Note: Help me. This bastard doesn’t pay me much, and I have to take his stupid mutterings and flesh them out into an actual blog. Don’t worry, he never reads these things once he hands me the drool-soaked napkin with his half-formed ideas scribbled on it.) No, what you see is what you get with me. It happens here live, in real time.
Cold medicine is often worse than the cold itself. Sure, you feel Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat! (see what I did there?) – but your head feels like it is detached from your body. Everything looks like it’s on TV, and sounds like it’s down the hall in the bathroom with the door shut. Vomiting. There are medicines that don’t make you drowsy, and medicines that do. I suspect that the medicines that make you drowsy don’t really work, per se – it’s just that you’re asleep and you don’t notice they don’t work.
I leave you with this thought: Why the hell would a woman ever be flattered by a guy saying “you’re built like a brick shithouse”? Ah, the embarrassing things that guys do. No, it wasn’t made better by the Commodores changing it to Brick House. It’s still huge, square and boxy. At least there isn’t shit in it.
She and The Bosstones are both Mighty Mighty…
Edward Hotspur
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Part 6 – I Found My Thrill On Solsbury Hill
Hello, K-Mart shoppers! It’s 02 Sep 2011. I recovered from my illness, more or less, but I still have that little annoying mini-cough that you always get at the end of a respiratory funk. It’s Friday, it’s payday, and there’s a long weekend coming up, so lots of reasons to be happy. Except, I got partway to work and had to come all the way back to get the recorder just for you guys. You wouldn’t want to miss all this great stuff, would you?
My hair is sticking up in the back. I either need more gel or less gel. It’s pretty hot today, and people are staring at me talking into this thing more, but I care less. It’s just one of those days that make you feel great. It feels like… you know what? It’s like Friday is the twilight of the week. You go along from the work week, then hit Friday and start feeling the excitement of the weekend, even if it’s nothing more than not having to work. And a three-day weekend is like in the fall when you get to move the clock back and sleep another hour. But unfortunately, unlike a regular twilight, you still have to contend with 8 more hours of working.
I miss this neighborhood that I drive through every morning. It connects two main streets, and the connecting street is pretty busy, but I have walked all over this neighborhood. It’s that one neighborhood that you remember most of all, that feels warm and cozy for some reason, that you remember fondly. There’s a neighborhood that I grew up in and lived in for quite a long time, but when I think of that one, it feels cold, flat, gray, dead, lifeless. I have some memories from there, but… they also feel kind of lifeless. This one feels vibrant, and has good memories for me. I pushed the kids around in this neighborhood. (My kids. In a stroller. What’s wrong with you?) The houses were nice and landscaped, kids playing…. it’s hard to explain. I think I just did, though.
I don’t really listen to my morning talk show except in the bathroom when I’m getting ready. Instead of listening, I’m talking. I’m not complaining – since I’ve started doing this, I feel more centered and balanced when I go to work. Because I’ve gotten some things off my chest, and some other things out of my…whatever, my funny bone or rant center or wherever this constant trickle of insanity comes from. It’s like the lint trap of my brain. You’ve gotta clean that thing out every so often. Since I’ve been cleaning it out every day, my brain has been functioning pretty well, running cooler and cleaner.
There are always a few things that you always talk about doing, but never seem to do. Like taking a vacation somewhere, or visiting someone, or fixing something. Some project that you have that you never seem to get around to. I’ve been talking about building a paved walkway from the door to the driveway, complete with side patio, for years. I’ve never so much as purchased a single brick. Fortunately, there’s one thing I always wanted to do, and now I’m doing it. That thing is writing a novel. I have written maybe a third of it – but I think that’s the problem. My goal was off! I need to switch from ‘writing a novel’ to ‘finishing a novel’. Maybe that’s the switch I need to throw in my head. Another thing I’ve always wanted to do is write a blog that is decently followed and at least moderately possible – and I’m doing that now – at least, the writing part. That part is easy, because my brain is always coming up with random crap, or ‘content’.
I think that may be the problem with all my goals, and indeed, possibly every goal I’ve ever heard. Everybody has little to no problem with starting something, but not many people finish. “My goal is to become famous!” – but nobody thinks about how to become famous, or what is going to happen to you after you become famous. “I’m going to move to California.” No one thinks about how to get there, or what the housing market is like, or what the taxes are, or what job they’re going to get – none of the hard stuff. Even our fairy tales contribute to that way of thinking. Many of them start out the same way: some chick, beautiful but really dirty, gets persecuted by her stepmother – for some reason, Disney hates real moms, and makes dads out to be complete and total clueless morons. This girl becomes a woman after overcoming something or other, and then gets a man, usually Prince Charming, that sly dog. But they never tell you what happens after they’re married. That’s not the end of the story. You can’t just say ‘they lived happily ever after’, because they don’t live happily ever after. No one’s happy every single second of every day. It should be more like “they live fairly reasonably, for a while, and occasionally have some vicious nasty fights ending with one of them sleeping on the couch.” Or “their castle burned down two years later, and they had to live with his mother.” When’s someone going to write the story that happens after they’re married?
That’s why it’s a fairy tale, people – it’s not the fairy godmother, or the magic mirror, or the sleeping spell, or the talking animals, or the transformation of someone into a frog, or a beast, or a draft horse. The fairy tale is the “happily ever after” part. Does that make me sound bitter? Maybe. Cynical? Definitely. But I think it’s pretty close to reality.
If it’s Labor Day, how come nobody works?
Edward Hotspur
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Part 7 – Crazy Little Thing Called Blog
This is 06 September 2011. I’m just going to say a couple things, and keep it short today. Also, this one is dedicated to the ladies. Also, two out of three of the preceding sentences are false.
Here it is another week, and suddenly it’s turned really friggin cold. It was in the 90s this weekend, and today it’s probably in the mid 50s (that’s Fahrenheit). I didn’t do one of these yesterday, because it was Labor Day. However, I did throw down three other posts, so it’s not like I was slacking off or anything. It’s unbelievable how there was such a thick dark line between summer and fall. Hot enough to swim in a pool on the weekend, and then Monday leaves fell off and jackets came out. All the fall things are starting, including….
The draft. That’s right. Fantasy Football is starting. Last year, I won it all, and I plan on doing the same thing this year. I did it without really knowing anything about the teams or the players, or even watching the games. How did I do it? And for that matter, how did I win the NCAA basketball tournament, and the pool in our functional area? Now I will share with you the secret: I don’t know how I do it.
I did virtually no research except for on the fly (like Yahoo stats on player swaps on trade day), and I know nothing. I basically invented a strategy that seemed plausible, and stuck with it, and it paid off. It’s pretty easy. What you do is, you don’t worry about all the games, you worry about The Game. The games are the actual games between two teams playing against each other, and there’s a winner and a loser. That’s not the game you should be worried about. You should be worried about The Game. The Game is the game of stats and individual players, who is trending up and who is trending down, who is hurt, who is coming out of nowhere, who is available for recruiting, who is awesome yet overlooked. Sometimes you can pick up a great player who will be out a few weeks, and you just play someone else until they get better, then ride them to victory. Drop an extra defense or kicker or tight end, and pick up some extra player just so no one else gets them. It works. I mean, I won with it. It sounds great, right? It sounds like I really know what I’m talking about.
But I don’t.
Now, that didn’t involve money. Unlike March Madness, where I won $160. But that was luck, just like a lot of things. I had a strategy there too. I chose based on mascots. Not really. I don’t watch sports that much. I used to watch hockey all the time, but with the strike, and the team in my area (Blue Jackets) only making the playoffs once in the last 11 years, and my all time favorite team (Avs) losing one of the best players (Joe Sakic) and not making the playoffs last year, and the NHL losing ESPN, it’s been hard to watch hockey. It’s on Fox Sports, but it’s the Blues and the Red Wings. I’ll pass.
Speaking of the Detroit Red Wings, there’s always a team in every sport that everyone hates. It’s usually because they win a lot of games and championships. Lots of people like them too, but they’re fairweather fans. Usually the team has boatloads of cash, and they basically buy their team. In baseball, it’s the Yankees. In English Premier League, it’s Manchester United. And in hockey, it is the Detroit Red Wings.
And speaking of sports, I move now to that great sports powerhouse of the Midwest, my alma mater, Wright State University. Right now, tuition is 3-4 times higher than when I went there. It’s one of the highest tuition rates in the state. And with all that money, they built a large brick wall. They built a huge facade. They built all kinds of parking that people have to pay to park in. And sure, they built some buildings – but I’d just as soon they cram people into the buildings they already have. I know for a fact they don’t use all the classrooms all the time. Maybe they could have classes at that brick wall – make some learning lean-tos or something.
Another thing that has always pissed me off about college is when the professor writes a book, and then convinces the school to require that book for their class and other classes. I think that is a huge conflict of interest for a professor in a state school to profit off their position as a government employee in this way. If they provided it for free, that would be okay. But forcing students to buy it? That’s bullshit. You’re already giving the professor money, and now you’re giving them even more money for the book – and they get to decide what your grade is. That sets up another conflict of interest. If the professor gives bad grades, then the student fails and they won’t be able to come back and buy more of the professor’s books. It’s all a money thing. They’re not training people towards a degree anymore. They’re training people how to get a piece of paper by kissing the professors’ asses. In return, the professor gets money from their books, a salary for reading from slides all day – the same slides they’ve been reading from for 3-4 years, mind you – and since they give out grades like candy, they get good reviews on RateMyProfessor.com or whatever professor review site they like. Dammit! I graduated years ago, and it still pisses me off.
At this point, I have a confession to make: I wasn’t able to record all of this on the way to work. I did some of it on the way home. But don’t worry – it’s okay! It still counts, because I drove all the way home in reverse.
I have another confession to make: I’m starting to become exquisitely aware of feedback. (This might be more suitable for one of my writing posts, but I’m going to say it here anyway.) I’ve started looking at the feedback: I’ve started looking at the stats, the likes, the subscriptions, the content of the people who like or follow me so I can see who’s liking my stuff, and most of all, the comments. I’m starting to get a feel for what gets a lot of action and what doesn’t. It kneejerks me into thinking “wow, I should write more of this, and write less of that.” But I’m not going to do that. Like I said in some comment, this blog is like a shotgun of silliness. A few serious comments here and there, but mostly a place for people to read and unwind, maybe after work, or during work (Hi Tink!). People go to the movies to be entertained, not to study. Well, some people do, because Titanic was a billion dollar movie, but the vast majority of money making movies and books are ones that have nothing to do with reality whatsoever. Basically fantasy, sci-fi and superhero movies. I want my blog to be entertaining like that. An escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see – I’m just a poor boy. I need your likes, subscriptions and comments. Blogs are easy come, easy go. Little high, little low. Little in the middle but my blog’s got much back. I cannot lie. That’s what happens when you get your philosophy from song lyrics that really don’t make that much sense.
I just noticed this after driving by it all summer, but there used to be a classic car meet every Friday in the parking lot outside the K-Mart across from the Greene. There would be maybe 50-60 cars, and maybe 250 people looking at them or showing them off. I don’t know what happened to it. I haven’t seen it in weeks. Did they move? Did they get chased off, or agree to do it somewhere else, or agree to stop doing it? I would look as I drove by, but honestly, I don’t have an interest in old, rebuilt or classic cars, and I guess I don’t have an interest in this mystery. But it’s a mystery, and it needs to be solved, dammit! That’s the nature of mysteries.
Here’s another mystery I’ve always wondered about: the building manager. There’s a long tunnel connecting about 5 buildings where I work, and sometimes someone drives a flatbed cart to or from the loading dock to one of the outlying buildings. When I’m walking along and the building manager drives by before 12 noon, he always says “Good Morning!” Yes, with the capital letters. But when it’s 12 noon or later, he says “Howdy folks” – never “Good Afternoon!” Why is that? It’s always been kind of a nagging mystery that makes me wonder. So I used to make up reasons why he did this. Something happened to him in the afternoon – something so terrible, so traumatic, that it renders him unable to wish anyone a “Good Afternoon!” because he knows he himself can never have a good afternoon. Some terrible nameless unspeakable horror happened to him, and to this day, he can never say “Good Afternoon!”, even if you say it to him first. It’s tragic, really.
Mystery solved? I don’t know, but it sounded good, huh? If you’ve learned anything from television, newspapers, the internet, and… blogs, it’s that [sounds good] plus [conviction] can often substitute for the truth. And until you get better information, you should stick with what you have.
Happy Birthday to Farrokh Bulsara, better known as Freddie Mercury, who would have been 65 yesterday.
Edward Hotspur
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Part 8 – Something That I Don’t Really Understand
Hello, it’s 07 September 2011, and it’s Fantasy Football draft day, and I’ve done zero homework, as per my strategy. Good luck to me. Hooray! Finally they paved the road that I’ve been bitching about for a long time. It’s a really smooth ride. I almost hit a squirrel, but I didn’t! I’m drinking mint tea today, because I wanted something warm, but not full of caffeine because I’ve had plenty. And it is mint tea fresh!
I am sort of light on thought today. I’m almost sort of on suspicion mode about a lot of things. When I start questioning everyone’s motives, that probably means that I’m so awesome that I can detect the lies of those around me. Or, I’m just hypersensitive today. Why would I be hypersensitive? Something must have happened that I subconsciously registered as a form of betrayal. But what? This is moving into the downward spiral that people can get into sometimes. They get a little down, and then suddenly everyone’s out to get them. Basically that gets back to perception. A comment made one second could be taken the best possible way, as a compliment, and then the next second be taken in the worst way and start a fight. And the person making the comment two times gets completely different reactions each time. That is very confusing for the commenter. Especially if they meant it as a compliment both times. It just makes them not want to say anything. So looking at it from the point of view of a person who is in kind of a down mood, maybe this will help – already I’m taking what people say and thinking about the intent of the other person. The real intent, not my spring-loaded downward spiral negative perception of that intent.
When you use sarcasm like some people use paper towels, you get pretty good at discerning when other people use it. Sincerity becomes pretty easy to determine. It’s a little disappointing when it isn’t there. I think what may be behind this special Paranoid Edition Morning Drive is this little thing on the Bob and Tom show where they read from Redbook – that used to be for grandmothers but now is apparently for teenagers – a little article called Seven Things You Should Never Say When You’re In An Argument With A Woman. Or something (I didn’t read it). These are things like “Are you on your period” or “Can you repeat that? I wasn’t listening.” These apply to everyone, but we all know they were geared towards guys. I mean, guys don’t typically read Redbook, but it seems like it should be called Seven Things Guys Should Never Say When They’re In An Argument With A Woman. Is there really anything off limits? There is, but in the world of normal reactions, is anything too far? Or do you have to censor everything you say? Is that dishonest, and later will it come out anyway and lead to even more of a fight? That’s a fine line to walk, folks. Is it good to be completely honest in a fight? “What you did completely pissed me off, so I took this thing you really like and broke it.” Or do you hold it in? “No, I wasn’t offended at all when you said these pants look to small on me. You were simply saying I should get pants that fit.” And in actuality you’re seething with rage. You can’t just hold everything in. But at the same time, once you say something you can’t take it back. So what do you do?