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AUGUST
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A lot of shit has been happening lately. So much so that I am beginning to rethink my assessment of the year 2005 from a couple weeks back. It seems like everybody I know has dealt with a life-changing event of one kind or another this year. Here's a partial list:
-I had a baby I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff. Like that thing you were just telling me you did, or were gonna do. What was that again? That was HUGE. I think a lot more stuff is on the way, too. I am going to talk more about Dipak over the next few days, in fact he is our next scheduled Profile in Dignity. But first, I want to address Valsmal's imminent departure from our workplace.
Whatever the case, Val will be missed. She joins a long list of friends I've made at work who eventually left while I stayed behind. cW, Dipak, Joe Monkeyweb and his missus, Big Jimmy Lang, TJ, MDGBC, Sita, my own wife, and a bunch more. A big bunch more. My greatest fear in life has always been the fear of being left behind. I learned how to do a lot of things late in life, and because of that I always worried about not being able to keep up with the other kids as they moved on and did new things and discovered what life was all about. You'd think that someone who had a fear like that might be super-aggressive, making sure he took care of his business so he didn't get left in the dust, but instead the fear just paralyzes me. I guess that's how we deal with our worst problems, we hide under the couch and hope they'll go away. In the end, I wind up feeling like the last guy to get up the balls to jump off the cliff into the water. Or like the guy in "Escape from Alcatraz" who doesn't make it out at the end (from the abandoned "Touching" Page):
"Can a scene from a movie make the “Touching” page? For me, the most
heartbreaking scene in any movie I’ve seen is the one in “Escape from Alcatraz”
when they’re making their actual escape. They get to one part of the prison
where they have to jump up to a bar and pull themselves up, so that they can
crawl through some ceiling area on their way to freedom. They’ve planned this
whole thing for months in advance, and they’ve been incredibly meticulous and
patient, waiting for this moment. In addition to the uneasiness you feel for the
inmates (who you are definitely pulling for), there is a palpable sense of
excitement. It’s like, holy shit, this is working. Let’s go! Anyway, there is
one guy, sort of the most gentle and nerdy of the bunch, who’s been instrumental
in setting up the plan, and when he gets to the part where he has to jump up, he
can’t do it. The other guys are already up there, and they’re like, “Come on!
Let’s go, dude!” And he just can’t do it. They have to leave without him, and he
has to return to his cell. Oh God, it’s almost too much to think about. It
reminds me of my worst fears in life: falling behind. Being left out. Not being
able to measure up. Being the one loser who can’t color within the lines. All
the childhood tests that shape us and make us generals or make us timid, lonely
middle managers are encapsulated in that scene. Only in this case, it’s not just
the psychological damage inflicted on the poor guy (who clearly wasn’t able to
do the rope climb in junior high and has already been mentally destroyed by a
lifetime filled with such shortcomings), but also the sense that this particular
failure means he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He’ll also be
unable to conceal his chopped up prison cell wall, and the warden is gonna make
him suffer big time. It’s like he was sneaking out of the house in his dad’s car
to go meet his girlfriend for his first sexual experience, and he ends up
running over his dad’s dog and totaling the car. There is no mercy in sight." *** Speaking of "Shawshank," which we were (if you missed that), I think "The Shawshank Redemption" holds a certain key to understanding the true spirit of the American people. If a politician could somehow harness the soul of that movie and attach it to his own campaign, he could not lose. Yes, I realize that the movie only made $28 million at the box office, so maybe in that sense it is not a sufficient barometer of what we like as a country. But have you ever met anyone who didn't like this movie? Who hasn't seen it multiple times? I rank myself on the low end of "Shawshank" devotees, and I still like it plenty. Just among my friends, I'm pretty sure that cW loves it dearly, Brady ranks it among his favorite movies, and the wife will watch it every time it's on. There's something very basic about it, something that resonates with just about everybody. I can't quite put my finger on it, but if I could, I would definitely run for city council. I think I may buy it. It would become the fourth DVD I own, and fifth I've bought, after (in order of when I purchased them):
1. Fast Times (have watched maybe three times since purchase) I also kinda want to buy "White Men Can't Jump." I don't know why, exactly. *** Tony Womack may be the worst hitter I've ever seen. He's batting .240 and that includes more infield hits than anyone else on the team. His approach at the plate reminds me a little bit of my approach in a batting cage. I swing at everything, I miss more than half the balls I swing at, and the ones I do hit I usually foul tip or chop straight onto the ground. He's a real problem. The only good thing about the Womack Acquisition (Band Name!) is that we are in no way obligated to use him. As stinky as Bernie's been, as unproven and shaky as Cano is, either one of them is a far better option than Womack. Best case scenario is that we use Womack as a pinch runner and he steals a big base at some point a la Dave Roberts. Funny, as stinkified as this Yankee season has been, I find myself watching the games much more intently than I have in recent years. The fact that the postseason is not a given has magnified the importance of every crappy midweek game against Texas and Minnesota. It's almost like a pennant race. What fun! *** I think we've all heard the theories of that the inaugural NBA Draft Lottery in 1985 was rigged so that the Knicks would get Patrick Ewing. Well, have you ever heard the Theory of the Cold Envelope? (No, I'm not talking about the Womack Acquisition's first album.) I hadn't heard it until my basketball-loving co-worker explained it to me last week, and I have to say it amused the hell out of me, doubly so if it's true. If you remember that lottery, it was pre-ping pong balls. The sealed envelopes with each team's name inside them were all kept in a bin, and David Stern would reach into the bin and read the name of the team he had picked, starting with the 7th pick and working towards number 1. The Theory of the Cold Envelope posits that the NBA had stuck the Knicks' envelope in the freezer prior to the lottery, so Stern would feel it each time he reached in and pick a different envelope instead. If that's how they pulled it off, I tip my cap to them for their simple ingenuity. If you add to that conspiracy theory the other one about Jordan's first "retirement" in 1993 actually being a secret league suspension to punish him for his gambling problem (I personally find this theory pretty dimwitted), then you'd have to say the NBA did their part to bring a championship back to NYC. Unfortunately, I think Ewing stuck his hands in the freezer prior to every game of the '94 Finals. *** Kudos to big Jimmy Lang, who works in the news biz and actually got this copy read on air: THE SECRET TO AVOIDING A HANGOVER MAY BE IN YOUR GENES. NO, NOT YOUR DRINKING PANTS: RESEARCHERS SAY THEY'VE ISOLATED THE GENE IN FRUIT FLIES THAT HELPS THEM HANDLE THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. THEY THINK PEOPLE WHO HAVE A SIMILAR GENE MAY DEVELOP AN ALCOHOL TOLERANCE. BUT THE RESEARCHERS ALSO WARN... THIS GENETIC MAKEUP COULD ALSO MAKE MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP ALCOHOLISM. Yes! The best part: apparently after the story the male anchor responded with: "Ahhh - I miss my drinking pants - my wife threw them out after we got married." Yes again! That made me so happy I have forgiven Big Jim for dropping the ball on last week's softball recap. ***
The rest of the weekend was so-so. In the wintertime, you can pretty much decide
for yourself how much fun a weekend is gonna be. In the summer, it's Mother
Nature's party. And this weekend she was having her special lady time, I think.
Blistering damn heat followed by fierce thundershowers that threatened to blow
down the tall trees of Stuytown. So the missus and I laid low with the baby all
weekend long. When you've got two crappy days like that in a row, it gives you a
good chance to I will get to the results of that reflection in a moment, but first let me report to you some of the mundane events of my weekend.
1. Had another Stella Artois bottle. Either I got a bad six
pack or this is one beer that should only be consumed on tap. Just not good at
all. Not quite skunky, but it tasted like Old Style that had been left in
somebody's 4th of July cooler a couple days too long. Avoid that crap. I mentioned that I also did a little reflectin'. One thing I came to understand is that the actual details of my everyday existence, such as the ones listed above, are no longer blog-worthy. I am not saying that my life is meaningless or lame or boring or anything like that; I am enjoying it just fine. But I was cruising some other blogs that I saw listed on Oak Park Mastermind's site, and instead of turning out to be a bunch of crapstains as I expected they would, they were very much entertaining. Like this one. And this one. And this one. It made me realize (sorry if this is obvious): the life of a young single person who goes out and gets hammered and hooks up with other people is fundamentally more interesting than the life of a married dude who actually recounts how many loads of laundry he does. Doncha think? In addition, many of these blogs were stylishly written and full of fascinating photos. So once again we are left at a crossroads. We can't go on like this. We need some new blood up in here. I will still post the daily challenges and the occasional brilliant observation about humanity, but I am turning the day to day life-reporting over to somebody else. We have narrowed our candidates down to two:
1. We are in negotiations with an actual 20-something person
who actually goes out and does actual 20-something person things on a regular basis,
and is a pretty good writer as well. We'll have official word in the next couple
of days. If you have a preference of one option over the other, chime on in. Finally, this was described on Metafilter as the "greatest video in the history of the internet." It was mildly amusing, but I can think of a million better videos, including this one from the next day. The (presumably facetious) billing made me wonder: of all the lame-ass videos that you've seen online or in emails, which is the best? My wife votes for the classic "Monkey picks butt, smells finger and falls from tree." Hard to argue that.
For 6 genius points, tell me what brand of deodorant I use
(one guess per person). |
As she points out in her review, "after ten years of anything it's time to move
on." Having worked at the same place for almost 12 years now, I am inclined to
agree. And as much as I throw a big semi-ironic verbal high five in her
direction for getting out and moving on, I am saddened as well. Val has been a
valued office ally and a true delight to be around for this last decade of both
our lives. We were just kids when she started back in '95, but she already had a
real presence as an employee, thanks both to her obvious intelligence and her
tireless Pittsburgh work ethic. Not to mention that she's always been just
an excellent all-around lady with a great sense of humor. Over the years, we sat
together, we laughed together, we bitched together, we even shared a tape
dispenser. In PMOP brand white-out, we wrote "Val" on one side of it and "Hans"
on the other. She still has the dispenser, even though she's a big shot now with
her own office, and I am still stuck deep in Cubicleville. I think the tape
reminds her of how innocent and ridiculous things used to be in our workplace.
If nothing else, she owes a big Thank You to our company for introducing her to
Crsmal, her husband. She hit the jackpot on that one; you'd be hard-pressed to
find a more charming and mellow dude than him. They are one of those rare
couples that seems absolutely made for one another. Although who knows, maybe
it's all a front and he smacks her around behind closed doors. I doubt it. 
My
weekends seem to be falling into a pattern of one "$$$ - Super Triple Cash
Money" followed by a meager "$ - Money." This weekend was merely $. Friday night
was nice, went to my friend's bachelor party, which consisted of playing full
court hoops at Chelsea Piers (not basketball city, Chelsea Piers) and then a
meal of reasonably priced Chinese food. I guess after that they all went out and
did some of the bad things that we normally associate with bachelor parties, but
I was home in bed with my footie pajamas on by that point. Hoops was most
excellent. One of the nicer courts I've played on, and it felt good to actually
sprint up and down the court a few times. I bet it didn't look so good, though.
Whatever. Saw a bunch of old ballplaying buds and none of them looked too bad.
I'd tell you that I played very well but some people who were there might read
this and they know I'm a scrub, so it kind of defeats the purpose of false
bragging.