Ich bin ein Klutz

Here are some pictures proving my status as a Klutz. Ok. So Shaun makes it down the hill just fine.

As does Kyle....

Here's a dramatization of me going at the end of the same little hill. Unfortunately, there's no picture, since the camera was in my backpack. Hill: 1, Camera: 0. Here's more proof if you don't believe me. This happened while helping my friend build his house. He keeps this picture in his sun visor and shows it to people the first time they're in his truck. So there you have it.

Post-Ride Pat

After the post below and after finding Dave's post, I created my South Park persona after a bike ride. I think it's fitting.

89.3 The Current

Why, oh why, does 89.3 have to play decent stuff and then go into a whole block of crap? I'm shutting this stream off.

Steve, Broken Chains, and Nucular Reesrch

So Friday night I went to visit Steve. I made it to some veteran bookstore, upgraded to trendy bookstore with adjacent Starbucks, just in time to catch Steve's portion of his poetry reading. He's a good public speaker and had the crowd giggling. He was by far the most interesting one. The next read so focused and monotonous that I kind of missed it and the next was pretentious in the happy-psuedo-granola-I'm-a-liberated-womyn-really-I-am sort of way. Steve had the copy of the M Magazine that he was on the cover of a year and a half ago, so I was able to read that.

We headed, as usual, to Trocadero. On empty stomachs and mojitos, we caught up on the dramas in our lives (95% Steve, 5% me). That guy's life is never dull and he had more than usual this time. He seems to handle it all well enough. We need to trade skins for a week. That'll give me something to talk about and him a much-needed rest.

Saturday, I headed to Eric's to get a bike rack for my car and a CO2 pump for flats and then to Blue Mound State Park to finally use my mountain bike for which it was designed. I opted to try the intermediate path and learned that I'm a beginner mountain biker, i.e. a complete pussy. I actually have scars and stories to excuse myself from jumping straight into hard-core biking. I'll have to post pictures of my scars, among other things. Anyway, I was happily failing to conquer the trail when I snapped my chain. I was only a half-hour into it. I was kind of pissed in the Better Off Dead-sort of way, but still hiked around a bit and headed home. Of course, everyone I knew was working that night, so I caught up on some tv.

Anyway, thanks the Michael the Librariman for his quick response to my nucular reesrch request. One of the benefits of OCD is that I think of something and have to read about it. So if anyone needs a trivia team member, I'm your man!

Anyway, back to drawing lines.

Shock and Blah

So here I am, enjoying my amorphous lunch break, reading stuff on the internet. I get into a vein of why I'm going to maintain the average paternal generational spread off 44 and change years. It's these moments of clarity, well, not so much clarity and rationalization, when I remember the following:

1. I hate dating. Yeah, relationships are good and fine, but I stink at first dates. I always say stupid things (all the time, not just first dates) and when people get to know me, they don't think it's so strange. Unless they do and I'm entertainment value. But I'm the type that just kind of says what's pouring through my mind at any given time. That doesn't work so well when someone is talking about her ex-girlfriend or how Fluffy ate some Geritol. Not that I say anything offensive, it's that I don't say the right thing. Plus, the subtle rules of the dating game elude me. Someone will serve up a move of some sort and the ball will bounce past the line while I'm talking to the line judge. 15-Love, edge: not me.

2. Divorce, dysfunctional relationships, etc. I've seen so many of these damn things. All of my oldest sister's high school friends have been divorced, some more than once. My other sister's friends have had some dandy marriages and relationships, too. Then there's Kyle. He doesn't live with his girlfriend, but they go to a relationship counselor. Recently, the counselor who, mind you, is getting a paycheck of the deal said she had no idea why they date since they just fight. I have no clue where they are in their break-up, fight again (never a make-up) routine.

3. I often do Pat things that don't include anyone, because I'm an introvert. I hate clingy people and face it, most people are.

4. Madison is a shitty town to be over 25 and single. Maybe I can fit in with the divorced crowd once I'm 35. Uh, no. Refer to 2.

5. There are other rationalizations, but they're not coming to me right now. #1 is enough of a reminder.

One more note. My roommate was out drinking and had one stay over the other night. Not much happened, or so he said, but she liked him and vice versa. When he got up in the morning, he rushed to the toilet and puked. Loudly. She left abruptly and he didn't get her number. Now if I got hangovers, which I don't, I'd be one to do the same thing.

Anyway, time to work.

Post 79 Rev 4$1&&5 Aggitated Dreams

I've been sleeping funny for the last few nights and of course, my dreams are out of wack. I mean, out of wack from the normal out-of-wackness they usually are. For some reason, the little Portuguese fisherman that runs my dream center decided to piss me off through my whole dream. In one part, all of us at work had to temporarily move back to our old offices on the other end of the building. Now that was a cluster fuck. Shit was stacked to the ceiling in my office, except I had a path to my chair. In addition, I had a shit load of CAD work to do, so I couldn't get anything else done (which actually happens from time to time). My monitor wouldn't work and it turns out my brother-in-law decided to play a joke on me. Instead of unplugging the damn thing, he cut the cord. I couldn't get any damn work done, so I went home to do it.

Not that home was any better. I forget how, but my roommate was pissing me off. Then some girl was playing some Playstation game on my tv in my bedroom. All I wanted to do was go to bed. Of course, I said I'd move the Playstation to a nice, bigger tv elsewhere. I couldn't be rude because a girl was actually in my bedroom. That happens soooo often.

Damn Portuguese. They're bad news.

Same Old

Well, I was late again this morning. I went home last night after work, finished "The Big Sleep", and fell into a, well, not big, so much as hard sleep. I woke up later, watched a bunch of "Farscape" and went to bed at 1 am. Then I drug myself out of bed at 7:45 and made it to work at 8:10. Once there, I sugared and caffeined myself up to make it through the day. The caffeine/sugar mix worked too well, because I was speaking a mile a minute. Those of you who know me know what I'm like with sugar and caffeine in me. Soon, oh so very soon, I will have my physical and get my referral to a specialist and get this damn thyroid thing taken care of. That, or arrive to work late cronically, but not drunk. At least my breath would smell like wet dog instead of whiskey.

Whiskey makes me puke.

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Uh, this lady at a table near me was doing the dorky sway thing to the Pixies. That's creepy. And she's smiling like a serial killer.

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Ever try to describe Milwaukee? I did today.

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Anyway, that's all I have to say. Wish I had more. I should catch Player's, Madison's Sleeziest Bar 1992, since my sister-in-law-in-law is working there for the next four months before she moves to Chicago. Oh, maybe I can catch Steve in Milwaukee and find one of these mythical "women" he talks about. I hear "women" are kind of cool.

Anyway, I'll put some crappy photography up on wikicommons.