Lease

Seeing the manila envelope slapped on the carpet in front of my door filled me with not a little apprehension at the enclosed missive from my apartment complex's management.

I was at first relieved to find the contents were not a formal complaint or request for an increased level of decency on my part. When I realized I held in my hands next year's lease the relief faded to the somber realization I have lived in this humble abode for 10 months.

I remember entering the main office almost a year ago. I sat with the very young and very blonde agent Ashley in the well appointed room listening to my options. I had told her I only needed a place for a few months. Reason for the move? Divorce. It was the first time I had used this word out loud to a stranger and I found myself stupidly slightly ashamed. Ashley, to her credit, emitted a soft "sorry to hear" and moved right along to the hard facts.

I was facing an exorbitant monthly fee for a short term fully furnished pad, normally reserved for corporate purposes. I reluctantly signed up for a one year unfurnished thinking the month penalty for early termination would be made up by the lower allowance if I could stay there for at least 5 months.

Asking what was available, Ashley told me a third floor two bedroom with a balcony just opened up in a building she described as having personal knowledge of as a good choice. It was only later I realized we ended up being neighbors, by the way.

She asked if I wanted to see it, instead I just signed the papers and escaped to retreive my check book for the down payment.

Stepping a month later into my newly acquired white walled and carpeted, white veneer cabinetted, old ass appliance appointed crib I nearly had a full blown panic attack.

Luckily, I was accompanied by my Love, who at the time was only my "Training Partner" and dear friend. She tried to ease my mind with thoughts of all the wild parties I could throw, fully utilizing the "breakfast bar" slash "wall separating my tiny kitchenette from my office and front room". Just think of all the running group bashes we will throw!

To this day, I have had one party, Matt & Sarah (fellow blogger) visiting my Love and I for the Superbowl (which was expertly documented on her blog).

I do use the bar all the time, my son and daughter perch on my barstools (sturdy ones with full backs... put down the phone, no need to call DCFS on my ass) for their meals. Me serving them "diner style", standing as I eat. (DCFS = Department of Children and Family Services here in Chicago, by the way)

Anyway, I have made myself rather comfortable and despite the fact I still do not own a couch I am very happy here.

Let me address the whole couch issue. I am consistently surprised and a bit amused at how the lack of this item thoroughly disgusts people.

I first did not purchase one because I really didn't think I would be here this long. I wasn't intending to go back to "the house", mind you. That Saturday the moving van pulled up and caught the eye of every adult male on the block out mowing their Pleasant Valley Sunday plot of green will forever be the last morning I woke up in my McMansion. Packing up in no time at all (I totally rock at packing and organizing for a move), I took as little as possible, relishing the freedom to "leave it all behind".

I still relish this freedom, but alas this, like everything worthwhile, comes at a cost. The price I paid this weekend was mincing onions with a pizza cutter on a plate because I possess neither a sharp knife nor a cutting board much to the chagrin of my Love who was making her special guacamole recipe for the St. Pat's party that evening hosted by Matt & Sarah (soon to be fully documented on her blog!).

Despite having to cut up the avocados with a butter knife my Love's guac rocked and was devoured by the only half drunk crowd only minutes after our arrival.

My neighbors who share a wall with me had borrowed a beer bottle opener from me one evening months ago. This is a young couple who moved in the same time I did, and seem like genuinely sweet Midwestern people, but also the type that would not own a beer bottle opener, having no use for alcoholic accoutrement.

My Love suggested they return the favor, and tried to get me to knock on their door and inquire whether or not I could use a "sharp knife" just for a bit. I was not sure I knew them well enough to ask for such a thing, "Hey, I just need to cut something up really quick, I'll have this cleaned and back to you in no time!"

Funny story about the newlywed guy, I ran into him the first day I saw my apartment. He gave me a hardy "howdy new neighbor" and proclaimed he was just getting married that weekend. I actually was able to bite my tongue and filter out the "what a coincidence, I just got separated!" Why take the shine off of his good time?

Another funny thing about this couple... I have never even once "heard them". You know what I mean. The sound proofing is quite good in this complex, I'll give them that, but they are a newly wed couple. I feel like taking him aside to make sure he is doing it right but I'm afraid he'd just look at me confused and reply they didn't want to "make a baby yet" so why would they do... you know... that!

So back to my couch, I think I'll celebrate the signing of my new year long lease and get one. Not as an acknowledgement of defeat, but as an affirmation that my temporary living space is not as temporary as I would like but is still the bridge to a brighter day.
I am going over first thing Monday to drop off the signed and initialed document to Ashley. If she isn't there, I will have to give it to the new leasing agent, a very young and very blonde nice young lady named Ashley.

I also finally got Renter's Insurance. I assumed this would be taken care of since I have homeowner's insurance. Like when you have car insurance you are covered no matter what car you are driving. So, can't I be covered no matter where I happen to be living? Thanks to this naive (stupid) thought process I have been living uninsured for the past 10 months.

Walking across the street to the new "State Farm" office that just opened up (a signal to me I could not put this off any longer... how much easier could it get?!) I found myself in the middle of a true to life family business.

I was greeted by the gregarious manager / father and seated with the nervous daughter at the bad dark fake wood office furniture. Her name was Ashley and she sported a tense smile and a very pregnant belly covered, not unattractively, with a print dress of some sort of manmade fabric.

I happen to follow the Dave Barry regulation that a man must not comment on a woman's pregnancy unless at that very moment he can see a baby emerging from her body. I pretended not to notice.

I declined the offer of a cup of coffee from the mother who had been beckoned to help Ashley out with the form. The scent in the air reeked of "flavored beans", and I would rather remain thirsty and slightly sleepy that subject myself to artificially tinged java.

As she clicked away at the keyboard and furrowed her brow at the curiously monochrome screen, Ashley made small talk. Do you have any kids? I had already told her I was divorced (I like to cut to the chase with this and not describe how I am still in the process and it is just a matter of court dates and legal fees at this point), I am getting very good at delivering this information to strangers, and frankly enjoying it nowadays.

This was my opening to ask her if she had children. Here is how our conversation went:

Ashley: I'm pregnant right now!

AMLite: That's great, is this one your first?

Ashley: No.

AMLite: How many children do you have.

Ashley: Four. Or five.

AMLite: (silently to himself) WTF?

AMLite: (out loud) Wow.

Ashley: Yes, I'm much older than I look.

AMLite: Yeah, I get that a lot too, how old are you.

Ashley: 22.

This discourse made me wonder why the mother, father, and two other ladies in the office (most likely aunts by the look of them) allowed their youngest member to handle the first impression department for their office.

Anyway, it was a good thing I got this insurance as my faucet broke off and my kitchen sink turned into a powerful fountain which would make a great "water feature" in my back yard but a terrible addition to my tiny kitchen today.

My Love and I were just cleaning up from our little brunch when Old Faithful broke the serene morning into a frenzied "how do I turn off the damn water & grab some towels quick!" mess.

I would like to finish this story by describing in detail how we had to drop our robes to soak up the torrent and ended up making sweet love on the slippery linoleum, but alas this was not the case.

A quick call to my emergency maintenance number had a guy out to fix the problem in a matter of hours.

Hmm. Maybe this apartment living thing isn't so bad after all.

Happy

Although I had just quit my miserable job the day prior and accepted an offer at a new company, I awoke on Saturday morning feeling distinctly unhappy.

My children had risen quite early thanks to the sun artificially signaling morning time; a nuisance soon to be wiped out by daylight savings time.

A similar pattern of negotiations inevitably follow.

Them: "Its morning time, daddy!"

Me: "Ugh. Look at the clock, its too early, go back to bed for a little bit more!"

Them: "But the sun is up, daddy!"

Me: "But the current "time / daylight" gap is just a product of an archaic and arbitrary human made system to designed ostensibly to save energy and help school children which instead just leads to mass confusion and more waste."

Them: "Your slavish adherence to numbers on a machine to dictate your actions is robbing you of the opportunity to bond with us while we are still young and willing to hang out with you."

I relent, and my 6 year old son and 2 year old daughter crawl into my Sleepnumber bed for some serious cuddling.

Holding my boy, comfortably ensconced in footy pajamas, in one arm and my daughter in the other as she gently stokes my face, unblinkingly peering into my eyes, brightens my mood considerably.

Nevertheless, a certain melancholy had descended upon me. It was the hangover of an exhaustive past few weeks; the rigors of my soon to be terminated current position, navigating multiple new opportunities and interviews, the final negotiations. This stress cocktail was capped off with the resignation call to my now ex-boss Friday evening.

What was I to do? I decided I needed two things badly: a drink and a nap and not necessarily in that order.

I ended up taking two short siestas that day. I also thoroughly cleaned my apartment (yes, in the nude) and fixed the sunglasses of my Love (while clothed, in case you were wondering).

This last task involved me finding a repair kit I had received years ago (one of the benefits of my obsessive nature, I found the thing in no time!). Concentrating on that little screw clutched delicately in my bulbous fleshly fingertips while the tiny tool twisted ever so slightly, turning into the hinge, I felt useful and focussed. I was able to block out the rest of the world, fully turning my attention to this micro task, willing my hands to act skillfully without shaking.

Speaking of shakes, I really needed that drink!

My Love and I met up with Sarah (fellow blogger) and Matt at their lovely home to tip a few cold ones and share some laughs. My mood immediately brightened and I found myself happily enjoying the company of my friends.

My friend Joel had called me that afternoon to invite us to see his buddy's band play at a local establishment. He told me his friend is a keyboardist and the band plays 80's music.

My Love and I were intrigued, but so prepared to hate it. We gleefully pictured the cheesy bar scene complete with this dude banging away on a synthesizer wearing like a sweatband on his forehead or something.

Well, we were wrong.

After parking in the Jewel (local grocery store) lot across the busy street since the club's lot was jam packed, we held our breath and slipped past the crowds of smokers gathered in the entryway. Since our state went totally smoke free, these exiled patrons pathetically shiver in the freezing cold, banished to slowly kill themselves in the outdoors and try to keep up their cool facades while shivering in tight packs.

It actually took some time to dissipate the stench of smoke from this brief envelopment, and it made me happy I wouldn't be waking up the next morning with a second hand stink.

The joint was called "Double Vision". We were so prepared to hate this filthy meat market, but actually enjoyed the place thoroughly. It was huge, like a high school gymnasium only darker with a full service bar. The patrons were also slightly older.

The bathrooms were excellent, very clean with nice new tile. The only downside was the bathroom attendants on duty. Dude, I can crank out my own paper towel, thanks. I did take pity on one of the guys, I guess he was an ex-security guard down on his luck by the look of him. For a $1 tip, though, I expect to be at least "shaken off" (and I mean that in a hygienic manner only).

My Love and I paid the $10 a person cover and got hand stamped to enter the "band room" and there was my buddy Joel dancing in the front.

He was joined by two young ladies wearing matching self-made Michael Jackson T-shirts with the word "Shamon" printed in shiny silver letters. Their glow-in-the-dark bracelets completed the package. Bubbly girls, and quite nice. Lonely, clearly, but fun nonetheless.

We all stood in front of the huge speakers and shouted at each other at the top of our blissfully smoke free lungs. Throughout the whole evening I probably understood a total of two sentences of conversation, so I stuck to smiling and nodding.

Drinks were purchased and I saw Joel bring one to his buddy perched on the corner of the stage banging away at the synth.

I had to take him aside and advise him that delivering rum and cokes garnished with two bright red cherries to a male band member might significantly reduce his chances of scoring with the ladies.

Speaking of scoring, there was a young couple who follow this band around right in the front totally making out for the entire show. She had this bad yellow shirt on clinging to her young over-tanned body. I couldn't help seeing her ten years from now, and it was pretty. Anyway, her guy didn't seem to mind the way she was dressed or treating her skin, he had he hands fully roaming along with his tongue as they dry humped their way through Duran Duran. Hungry like the wolf, indeed.

That being said, the crowd was actually pretty cool and this place wasn't the meat market I had expected. Nobody approached up to buy us drinks, and when people walked by they didn't give you that knowing glance or piercing stare I associate with people on the make. There was this one guy, obviously drinking too much and fighting with his date who hadn't yet figured out her life would be much better if only she could stop dating assholes like him. He was wearing a polo shirt with a long sleeved white undershirt for warmth. I guess he thought the short sleeve striped top was so hot he couldn't wait until spring and had to bust it out for Double Vision. He kept trying to balance his beer glass on his head while dancing, I guess that was his "special power". I actually had the impulse to punch him in the face, but then I reminded myself that I am a metrosexual engineer and not some macho ruffian.

Back to my group, we continued screaming at each other, laughing and drinking while rocking out to the seriously excellent band. This band took all the one hit wonders and cheesy 80's songs and actually made them song good. Joel's friend actually quit his corporate job (selling high tech.... just like me) and does this full time as well as serving on the board of a charity that oversees education for children in Zambia.

So, it turns out this guy seems to have it all figured out, he lives downtown Chicago, has fun playing in the band, has a higher purpose. No wonder he seems happy.

Last call was announced and the lights came on and the cockroaches scattered. We said good-bye to Joel, I admonished him not to wake up the next morning in the back of his green mini-van also parked by Jewel as a "Shamon sandwich" wearing a now fading glow ring around his genitalia.

Finding my car still in the parking lot, untowed and untouched, at 3AM hand in hand with my Love I realized that I was happy.

Although I have been termed an Optimist by some, I consider myself more of a Positive Realist. By which I mean I embrace the reality of the situation but always think things will turn out for the best in the long run.

I used to think my goal in life was to be Happy, but now that I am happy, I realize it is not a steady state.

I love reading the latest physics research on the building blocks of matter. We are starting to realize that instead of collection of hard bits and pieces, all our flesh and bone boils down to quantum states, probabilities and vibrations.

And by vibrations I mean frequency, sinusoidal waveforms, ebb and flow, Yin and Yang, penis and vagina.

We aren't meant to stay in one state, always happy or always sad.

I look at it now as having a relatively stable & content foundation from which I can swing into happiness as well as melancholy. I want to be able to fully experience and enjoy the adventures in life but also embrace painful expansion and growth. Laugh to enjoy and cry to understand. Riding the highs and relishing the lows. Keeping grounded to avoid flights of fancy or pits of despair.

Staying in any one state too long, whether it is ecstasy or malaise, robs you of your vibrating humanity and starts your decay.

Ride the wave, baby.

Flight

As I considered the overweight middle aged woman in the SUV beside me stuck at the red light earnestly popping a zit in her rear view mirror, the thought occurred to me I might be in for an unpleasant day.

It was a bitterly cold, albeit thankfully bright, morning and I was off to San Jose for a full day of interviews. I've decided that getting divorced, moving into an apartment and immersing myself into the Love of my life wasn't enough change and stress (both positive and negative) for me. So, I've added looking for a new job and making a, what I hope to me, total career and industry change.

In reality, the move is not a masochistic one, but mandatory. I've tried to avoid changing jobs, but in the process rode my current situation down a bit too far for comfort as my company, customer and industry hit a chaotic confluence.

I found myself blankly staring at my computer screen, unwilling (actually, unable it seemed) to focus and read the red e-mails peppered with exclamation points dually reporting that the message is "urgent" and the sender is an asshole.

I recently completely missed an internal preparation breakfast before a customer meeting. I had never before even been late, let alone absent, for a meeting. I had been talking to my Love on my mobile and she asked me why I sounded so glum.

My response, "I'm driving in a car I don't own to a place I don't want to be to meet people I don't like to discuss matters I no longer care about to keep a job I don't like to make money I don't need to pay for a house I don't live in and an apartment I wish I didn't."

After that, I pretty much puttered around aimlessly for the next few hours, getting gas, vacuuming my car, going through a wash, drinking coffee and eating some donuts in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot sitting in my car (something I hadn't done for years since hitting rock bottom back then).

The real eye opener came afterwards in a crowded airport terminal in the midst of many members of my team. I had what I later realized was a panic attack and decided not to board the plane to Florida for the customer event I was hosting. I wasn't nervous about the flying part, I've flown over 600,000 air miles and I only thought I was going to die once (just for a split second as the plane banked suddenly in the right during a wicked storm over Lake Michigan). I just shut down thinking about more wasted hours traveling to meaningless meetings.

My team was very compassionate and talked to me like I was a scared 6th grader which at the time I really appreciated because my racing mind couldn't compute.

I remember sitting there in the empty terminal calming down and gathering my thoughts for the drive home. All my life I desperately clung to the myth of total self control as my primary method of survival, so the whole episode was unsettling.

I now sit ensconced in 1st class (upgrade, baby) penning this blog on my way to San Jose. When I say penning, I mean that quite literally. I had hoped to write this on my laptop during the flight, but I am not able to do so.

Because I left the fucking thing at the security checkpoint.

Ah yes, another sign that this day might prove to me a bit of a challenging one.

Now as I sit here hearing the vestiges of ways I have relegated to the past ringing in my head ("You idiot, how could you have forgotten such a thing?! You've never done so before! Pay attention!") I calmly inquire to myself instead, "What can I learn from this?"

The first thing I learn is that my handwriting sucks. (I am laughing now because I wrote the word "sucks" so poorly I had to cross it out and write it again. I hope the guy beside me doesn't think I'm laughing at him because he just dropped some of his omelet on his sweater.)

My hands first found a keyboard during 6th grade when my father introduced me to the membrane keypad of the Sinclair ZX81. Since then my fingers have been tickling the QWERTY of many a typewriter and computer (and, being an engineer and a computer geek, that was the only thing those fingers were exploring for decades, believe me).

So, I forgot my laptop at the screening area for the first time. It is getting increasingly difficult to get through the scanners anyway. I've started having to remove my belt because it seems they increased the sensitivity lately and the buckle was triggering the alarm. As I prefer to avoid the gruff man handling of a pat down (keeping that activity shared exclusively with my Love and my tailor) I obediently de-belt, de-shoe, de-watch... demean?

It makes me wonder why I'm able to fly with a belt at all. Couldn't I use this thing as a weapon of strangulation? Shoe bombs we worry about, belt nooses, no problem.

I did read about a nude flight starting to operate and I think that would basically be the sure fire method of preventing highjackings. There are many fun things to do while nude, but commandeering a jet is not one of them.

Although I find the concept of sailing through the clouds unburdened by clothing rather calming and appealing the downsides cancel it out.

As I understand it, you are asked to disrobe while on the plane instead of, more logically, in the security line. At 6'4" it is difficult enough for me to sit on the plane, let alone strip. In fact, on this flight while I was walking to the bathroom I stood up and immediately slammed by head into the overhead movie screen. I shook my head in mildly amused embarrassment and kept walking up the aisle. Only to bang my head into the next overhead TV screen.

Back to nude flying, the deal breaker for me; the overweight gentleman sitting next to me by the window just asked me to let him out to the bathroom. I notice his vacated seat is filled with crumbs and one discarded paper clip.

Imagining his bare bottom embedded with such debris brushing past me brings me back to harsh, clothed reality.

Harsh reality I am better equipped to deal with nowadays, allowing myself to embrace melancholy without slipping into depression but also ride the highs of happiness without flying into fitful fancy.

So what, I forgot my laptop. What is the worst that could happen? I made a fresh full backup rather recently (sweet) and I have paper to write on and books to read.

It reminds me of the last flight I took with three colleagues (and, more importantly, friends) of mine; the return one from the internal meeting I talked about in Hotel blog. We were sitting at the airport restaurant / bar patiently awaiting our departure while scanning the monitors noticing that every 15 minutes or so our flight was pushed back another half hour. Not a comforting trend, but all the flights to Chicago that day had either been cancelled or delayed. There was a blizzard passing through the area and that spells trouble for the busiest airport in the world (placed in one of the worst climates).

Undaunted, we laughed and drank a few local beers and ate some lunch consisting of local food (pulled pork, which despite being served at the airport was actually quite tasty). (Traveler's tip: Always eat and drink local. There are rare exceptions; like when your chopsticks pull out a rooster's head from the boiling pot in the middle of the table in Beijing, China. Don't eat that.)

One of the guys joked around with the waitress, playing one of our favorite table games, "Guess the country of origin from the accent." I was correct with eastern European, but none of us got Bulgaria right. It was fun until one of the guys told her his diet Coke was flat and she responded walking away, "What do I look like, the bartender?"

We moved closer to our departure gate and sat down at the restaurant / bar there (which was the exact same one as the one we just left. Apparently the designers never heard the term "variety is the spice of life". They just assumed alcohol was enough.)

It was there we watched solemnly as all the flights to Chicago on the monitor were changed to CANCELLED.

None of us fancied the idea of another night in Raleigh, no matter how pretty it was there. We wanted to get home, and I was still hopeful I could make the party my Love was having at her house for a few of our friends.

We checked the monitor for the closest destination to Chicago that was still available. Oddly enough, there was a flight to Milwaukee still on the board. That would give us a 2 hour drive to home, so we went to the desk to transfer. Coming back through security grasping our newly found tickets home, we were flagged by security. It freaks them out when a group of people suddenly changes their destination city, even when there is a logical explanation.

The security guard used a loud Monty Python accent to corral us into a special area and none of us found him funny, much to his disappointment. After we were cleared, we crammed into the small full jet headed to our next destination. The people on the flight were not happy. The businesswoman sitting next to me was so bitter she even complained about the descent. "This is the longest descent I've ever seen! What are they doing!". I was going to tell her to chill out, the pilot was landing us into a blizzard and we should be happy to be alive, but I figured that would just get me a well manicured finger nail jabbed into my eye socket so I nodded sympathetically and turned up the volume on my iPod. (Yes, we were able to fly a small jet into a smaller city experiencing the same weather as Chicago. It isn't logical, but I wasn't arguing.)

We rented a car and were soon making our way south on the highway. There were plenty of accidents, but luckily they were all on the northbound side. Seeing the miles of slowly moving vehicles on the other side, the police with their flashing lights, and the cars in the ditch was a chilling sight, but we were undaunted.

That is, until, we realized we were rather hungry and really could go for a bratwurst.

Much to the chagrin of the Scotsman in the group, the Italians and I were hankering for some pork products and what better place than the Mecca of Meat, Milwaukee?

We found the Brat Stop on our GPS and stopped in for a pit stop. It was snowing heavily and we were almost the only ones in this huge place. It was late, the weather was terrible and we were still hours from home, but at least we had each other.

Feasting on fried cheese, fried jalapeños (stuffed with cheese), fried vegetables, fried chicken wings and, for the main course, bratwursts, sauerkraut and German potato salad all washed down with a local beer (Spotted Cow from New Glarus: Hard to find in Illinois, but worth the trip to Wisconsin.) we joked and laughed and forgot our shared problems at the office. We talked about women as well, and this reminds me about one of the unexpected perks about working with nerds; they are for the most part able to carry on a conversation concerning women without using words like "tits" or "bitch".

I even got to talk about my Love, being gently grilled by the guys as to whether or not I was running away from something horrible rather than to something special. I appreciated their caring inquiry, and talked about how my new relationship was an unexpected gift. Unbeknownst to me, my Love was at her party with the two intrepid people who braved to storm to attend doing basically the same thing, talking about me and our relationship.

In a few more hours, we were all safe and sound back with our families at home (except for me, I was just back at my apartment alone, but safe).

So, what started out as a potential disaster ended up being a pork laden journey drawing my traveling and I companions closer together.

And, what stated out as an unpleasant day and trip to San Jose turned into a job offer.

Next flight: out of my crappy company!

Valentine

As this in the first Valentine's Day I have truly enjoyed experiencing, I offer the enclosed poem to My Love as a public display of affection.

"Eternal"

As I knelt, I felt
Reverence to you
Severance from shame
Fear & hatred

As I kneel, I feel
Fealty for you
Faultless & blameless
Love & lust

As I bow, I vow
My body to you
Purified by the searing
Heat of your soul

My love is not blind
But rather divine
And, you will find,
Eternal

Court

The first question on my mind as I left my car in the parking garage was not if I had reached the courthouse correctly, but whether I had arrived in a different country altogether.

It started with the young couple in front of me walking downwards in the urine tainted concrete stairwell. They nervously exchanged Polish phrases through bitter shivers in the zero degree gray morning wind.

It continued as I neared the entrance and a blaring loudspeaker commanded us in Spanish to, as far as I could tell, not bring camera phones into the courthouse.

I had been warned solemnly by my lawyer's assistant that camera phones were strictly prohibited. Although I never use the camera function in my cell phone, it is difficult to get one nowadays without this feature and of course mine has one. I left it in the car after saying good-bye to My Love.

They really took this camera phone thing seriously, though. There were multiple signs with big red letters (in English, oddly enough) that read "No Camera Phones". It was evident somebody later added in smaller print "or cameras of any kind". That is the kind of small rose I like to stop and smell during an otherwise menial and meaningless meandering.

When I was told I needed to be in court, the first question I asked myself was, naturally, what should I wear? I discussed this with My Love and decided upon a suit and tie. Wintertime is an especially good time for formal dress, giving one opportunity to accessorize with gloves, scarves and (theoretically) hats (which I do not wear because there is no way I am messing up my hair just to stay warm up top. Stay warm outside, look dorky inside. No thank-you.).

As I stood in the security line removing my overcoat, suit coat and belt for the scanning machine, I realized I was better suited for what appeared to be the shorter "lawyer/judge line" than the ordinary citizen one. Apparently a visit to the court house for most of these people involved no more modification to their normal attire than, perhaps, not wearing the shirt in which they committed the crime lest the blood stains weaken their alibi.

The chubby guy in front of my removed his pullover sweatshirt (which doubled as a coat for him, so he obediently removed it for the scanner. I think he could have gotten away with wearing it, but I admired his thought process.) His shirt came with the sweatshirt so there I am stuck behind Mr. Harry Bareback in line with his jeans falling off his ample waist, empty belt loops bemoaning their useless existence.

Since I breezed through security (save for setting off the alarm with my "dress watch" I had forgotten I was wearing. Nowadays I normally wear my running watch just for convenience and comfort whenever I check the time I can think about my last workout or event. Plus I like to think it makes me look like a runner, which I admit is stupid.) I headed down to the cafe for a Starbucks I was happy to find served there (gee, do you think they can dilute their brand image any more? It's bad enough to have them at the Dominicks, but at the frickin' court house? Yeah, that says sippin' luxury). $2 for a small cup later I sat down in front of the filthy floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the frozen retention pond / waterscape amongst a throng of lawyer looking and sounding people.

I was comforting to sit & sip among similarly suited men and women. It was, however, a bit unsettling to overhear their conversations. (I am able to hear simultaneous conversations and keep track of their content, even if I don't really want to. It is very helpful in my job at meetings where several things are happening at once. It can be a bit challenging in public as there is basically a constant noise in my head. I have gotten better at sorting and somewhat silencing this cacophony, but it is difficult to "turn off".)

"You can't take a fucking day off, you know? He gets to take off for surgery, but oh no, I miss one fucking day, and he's pissed off. You know?"

I didn't know. I gulped down the rest of my coffee and went upstairs to anxiously await the arrival of my attorney outside my courtroom. She never showed up. But these people did:

An attractive young woman trotted by wearing a nice gray wool turtleneck sweater paired with "anti cruelty society" sweat pants and running shoes (shamelessly inflicting cruelty upon anybody with a halfway decent fashion sense and working eyeballs).

An older gentleman wearing suit pants tucked into his over sized cowboy boots which were themselves fitted with goulashes. (I appreciate the effort of protecting your dress shoes, but I think these steel-toed shit-kickers could have handled the snow and salt. Besides, I can never wear shoe coverings because my father always wore them and referred to them repeatedly as "rubbers". "Mother, where's my rubbers!?" He never understood why my brothers and I giggled at this, and yelled at us to settle down to no avail.)

Cowboy hat and Bluetooth headpiece guy walks by. Screams, "I'm a high tech hick." Yee haw.

Then I see an older gentleman with nicely slicked back silver hair sporting a solid silver tie to match. Very well done, talk about aging gracefully. He enters my courtroom, and I realize it is past my appointed time so I enter in case I missed my lawyer.

She is not in there and the cramped room is packed, the bailiff asks me to please have a seat (rather politely, I might add, which I appreciated since she was packing heat and could have easily been rude to me and I would have sat my ass right down nonetheless).

After awhile, I see a sign that reads, "This room is monitored by surveillance equipment sensitive enough to record any audible conversation in the room." I wish I would have read that before muttering "where the fuck is my lawyer?" to myself like one hundred times.

I find myself looking at the silver haired guy wishing he was my lawyer. He seems to know what he is doing, smiling at the other attorneys, getting his case scheduled with the judge with ease and, I might add, style.

But, I am left alone. I give her a half hour and then bail (pun intended). The last case I see involves a slick eastern European lawyer in a pin striped suit and hiking boots arguing custody for a bald headed, washed out jeans wearing, sunglasses tucked into his tight shirt father. He ex wife is "representing herself", and this piques my interest. Unfortunately, the judge doesn't have time to hear the details and instead tells them to schedule a time with another judge.

At this point I leave, and I see this unfortunate trio emerge from the room as well. The woman looks at her ex's lawyer, "Well thanks for that total waste of time!" They start to argue in English, but then switch to Polish (probably to really get nasty).

And so I walk in a circle, and my futile court date ends as it began.

Food Court

Tonight my children and I dined at Gino's Pizza and I heard a song in the restaurant that brought me back to my high school job at Pizza 'n Pasta in the mall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard off their "Hysteria" cassette tape. (I realize it is so uncool to use the term cassette but I grew up in the sucky 80's so I am not old enough to say album and not young enough just to use CD or Disc. My generation can best be characterized by a useless pile of thin shiny dark brown tape sitting in your lap as you helplessly put your finger in the tape hole, struggling to rewind the wheel and get the guts back into the plastic body).

"Step inside, walk this way
You and me babe, hey hey"

It was the summer of 1988 and I had a day job working at the Pizza 'n Pasta at the mall. At nights, I was a bus boy at the Red Lobster also on the mall campus. Each day I would drive my family's Ford Country Squire robin's egg blue station wagon with dented crappy fake wood barely hanging on the sides from my little town of Brandon, South Dakota (population 2000) to the big city of Sioux Falls (a half hour away with about 200,000 people back then).

I was able to get the job at the pizza place from a woman (Monique) who went to my church. She worked for the owner "Vini" in another establishment. I got the Red Lobster job on my own, going in and filling out an application. During my review, I told the manager Kevin Z. I wanted to grow up to be a Red Lobster manager just like him. He drove an IROC. I'm glad they didn't hold me to that statement.

The best part of that summer was that I ate free pizza all day for lunch and seafood all night for dinner. The worst part was that I had to resort to eating seafood mostly taken from the customers' leftovers or old fish that the manager needed to get rid of. By the way, leftover crab legs are gold in a seafood restaurant and only the waiters can eat them. Bus boys have to eat the non-shelled stuff. Another pecking order item you might not know until you experience it; when you close up the restaurant at midnight and divide the "example dessert platter", the most senior dishwasher gets first dibs and the bus boy once again gets last. Luckily nobody else liked Key Lime pie.

Every morning, I "stepped inside" the group of fast food restaurants in the round in the middle of the food court. These were tiny establishments, each about an eighth of a circle.

I "walked this way" through a tight little hallway to my summer cell.

"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on
Livin' like a lover with a radar phone
Lookin' like a tramp, like a video vamp
Demolition woman, can I be your man
Your man"

Vini was a gangster. Actually, it turned out he was THE gangster of Sioux Falls. One of his legit operations was to be a bail bondsman. He would also employ prisoners on work release. I believe he did this not only keep in the good graces of local authorities, but also to take care of former and groom future "employees".

There were two types of workers at the pizza place. The cute high school girls working the register and taking the orders out front, and the convicts and guys like me working in the back making the dough and the pizza, safely out of sight of the customers.

One of the work release guys was in the back with me and I remember him motioning me over to him as he was talking on phone. He cradled the phone to his chest (the 80's version of the mute button) and pointed out into the crowd.

"Do you see that chick on the pay phone, you know, over there?" he gestured.

I nodded that I did indeed see the young lady using the nearby pay phone, over the counter, though the seats, near the crappy mall jeweler.

"Women know that guys in the joint are ready to go, and she's calling me to hook up, you know what I mean?"

I had no idea what he meant.

To this day, I don't know if he was able to copulate with this young lady who was interested in his unleashing his heretofore caged animal desires. You have to admit, it was impressive for him to get that far simply by eyeing her over the counter and slipping her a phone number.

"Razzle 'n' a dazzle 'n' a flash a little light
Television lover, baby, go all night
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss-a-innocent sugar me, yeah"

I don't remember their names, but the little miss innocents that worked the front counter were relatively sweet and harmless young ladies who spent the work day dreaming about a better life and the rest of their free time, it appeared, lying under a tanning bed.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up

Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

The best part of the job was making the big glob of pizza dough. We would take the base ingredients, which included sugar, and mix them together. The worst part was opening the vacuum packed box of yeast. Yeast stinks, let me tell you, especially when it is expelled into your face under heavy pressure.

I would sing the above verse from this song while I was pouring the sugar into the mix, it was entertaining.

What was not entertaining wass watching Ray, the high schooler with full facial hair and a bad straw colored mullet, shaping the large lump of dough into a torso of a woman. He'd crudely form the breasts up top and then a slit an the bottom (complete with oil for proper lubrication). He would then simulate sex with his Dough Girl, luckily just using his fingers. I guess it was safe since we always wore clear plastic gloves. I didn't like leaving him alone in the back.

"Listen
Red light, yellow light, green-a-light go
Crazy little woman in a one man show
Mirror queen, mannequin, rhythm of love
Sweet dream, saccharine, loosen up
I loosen up"

One of the most depressing things I ever experienced was passing by the Pizza 'n Pasta years later, both during college and afterwards. I saw the same "once high school girls now grizzled women" working the counter. Crazy little women, mere mannequins in this small town life.

"You gotta squeeze a little, squeeze a little
Tease a little more
Easy operator come-a-knockin' on my door
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss innocent sugar me, yeah
Give a little more"

My younger brother worked for Vini's son a few summer's later until Vini's son was put into federal prison for strangling his wife to death using her own pantyhose. Squeeze a little more.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up"

The jailed man on work release (whose name I unfortunately forgot) taught me that the Non Alcoholic beer we had in the fridge actually contained a trace amount of alcohol. He would slam the contents of the N/A bottles and report that he was able to catch a little buzz.

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

Ray had a girlfriend, a girl older than his high school age who had a full time job. Their relationship was way too serious, and I got the impression it made them feel like such adults to act this way.

During a span of a few weeks, Ray became demonstrably more frustrated and kept talking about how horny he was. He could get enough, but his "old lady" was having some unspecified female problems and so he couldn't "go there". He was very bitter about this. Sweet.

"You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste saccharine
'Cos I'm hot, so hot, sticky sweet
From my head, my head to my feet
To my feet
Do you take sugar, one lump or two? "

As the lowest person in the ranks of Pizza n' Pasta, I was asked to do all the unpalatable jobs. Even the convicts got a pass as they couldn't leave the premises. I had to root around in the storage cellar during those hot sticky South Dakota summer months, getting more yeast, more boxes of soda concentrate and huge jars of the "secret pizza sauce".

Vini once asked me to help him carry some pizzas to his car and I was happy to oblige (for many reasons). I remember walking right past this Rolls Royce as he stopped and popped the trunk. My small town brain could not compute that this gentleman actually owned a car I had only seen on my 13 inch black and white TV during an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". I remember stupidly asking him, "Is this your car?" He laughed and replied, "I sure hope so, because if it isn't that means I stole it!" Perhaps he had.

"Take a bottle, take a bottle
Shake it up, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up
Break it up"

I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but my managers (who shared time at Vini's other eating establishments) were all drunks and drug users. Professional, clean ones. One even did jail time, much to the chagrin of his wife and young daughter. I didn't even know what cocaine was, but I would overhear stories of how they were racing down the street in cars driving backwards, out of their minds, screaming at the top of their lungs. I recall wondering why they would do such a thing. Perhaps this is a reason I never touched an illegal drug (still haven't).

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
Pour some sugar on me, oh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, get it, come get it
Pour your sugar on me, ooh
Pour some sugar on me, yeah
Sugar me"

Hotel

Leave it to my Boss to turn a four hour internal motivational meeting into a two day ordeal wasting both time and money and leaving pretty much every employee embittered.

I flew down to Raleigh, NC on Wednesday for this meeting to be held Thursday morning. Raleigh is in the South but not the Deep South. People still hospitable, talk funny and move slowly, but they have more of their teeth.

The meeting was scheduled in the morning which made it convenient for my Boss to depart that afternoon on to the next city / group of victims. It also made it impossible for the rest of us to fly in during the morning, have the meeting, and fly home to our families that evening.

So the 20 people who weren't local all got to stay in a hotel; this in a company that since being taken over by Private Equity is totally fixated on cutting costs. They are also focused on making sure we all know our overpriced underperforming asses are the only things standing in their way of flipping this company, cashing out and moving on. Our executives, most of whom were reasonable people before the takeover, are now fond of using phrases like "Do or Die", "Now or Never" or, my personal favorite, "Push like Hell!". In fact, my Boss' Boss that runs sales globally is being pushed so hard he has stopped making any sense whatsoever. Check out this e-mail I received from him in reply to my announcement of a key design win at my customer:

War congratulations
well Sone
regards,P

Ah, a nice warm congratulations note that also says "I am too fucking important to spell check and have way too many high priority e-mails to really care".

Back to the hotel, I've stayed in a number of flea bag flophouses before and this certainly was not one of the worse ones but nonetheless made this metrosexual's skin crawl. When I was growing up, staying in a hotel was a rare treat. We either stayed in a camper or a tent. That is, if my dad didn't make us just sleep in the car as he drove like a maniac straight through to our destination. The few times we rented a room the establishment was selected on lowest price alone and I shudder to recall the stains on the floors and fecal matter still caked to the toilets.

Ok, let's get back to my room. Sure, it was a "suite" (which I guess meant it was kind of large and contained an empty fridge and coffee maker) with 2 king beds. Two major things bothered me, though, the first type of which were things that were actually not there.

As I laid on my bed reflecting on the day and relaxing towards sleep, I looked up at the wall to admire the artwork and was greeted by the following site:

Ok, so somebody stole the picture. Interesting, I guess there is really no need to replace it, right? The next morning I go to take a shower and hang my clothes on the inside of the door so that the steam will start the de-wrinkling process (Travel Tip!). I closed the door and, viola, somebody must have needed the hooks more than the hotel:


My favorite troublesome item, though, was the "office chair" in this so-called business traveler's suite:


Yeah, I am going to plop my bottom down on that surface. This necessitated me putting a towel down before doing my e-mail in the morning. I usually put a towel down before sitting on any of the furniture in a hotel room, but that is because typically I am not wearing pants.

When presented with the freedom of being alone in a hotel room on the road, I typically frolic freely in the nude. I find it very calming to privately practice my personal penchant. It was almost a compulsion in year's blessedly past where I felt trapped and suffocated in both my personal and professional existence. Now that I have found love and freedom, it is more of a pleasant pastime (and, mind you, not a prurient one).

I'm sitting there trying to check e-mail after firing up the coffee maker and I can't get the connection to work. Undaunted, I open the door to discretely check for the morning paper. Apparently $90 a night does not include enough margin to cover a USA Today or even a crappy local rag. By the way, my room was located at the top of a flight of stairs coming up from the main lobby. It was the most exposed room possible, even having a full view of the glass walled main office. I guess it was a good thing I had my running clothes on (I'm sure the people ascending the stairs at the exact moment I opened my door for the peek would agree).

Into the shower I went, protected by my flip flops (Travel Tip: hotel showers are putrid fungal Petree dishes from which you must shield your feet). When I got out I was assaulted with towels thin enough to be see-through (exaggeration) and more abrasive than my loofah (accurate). Yes, my Love got me into loofahs (I sometime hold them in my hands and ponder wistfully, "Where have you been all my life?") and I now am the proud owner of four of them: one for me and one for my Love hanging in my apartment shower, one in my gym bag, one in my travel bag. Although I elicit some glances at the club walking around in a towel casually swinging my scrubbing sponge, it is worth the mild embarrassment (which I am calloused to, for the most part anyway).

I then went downstairs and decided to have breakfast. This consisted of my grabbing a white Styrofoam cup and plate, filling them with coffee and scrambled eggs (respectively) and heading back up to my room.

I also checked with the front desk about the network. "Weeeer having problems with the eeeenternet, sir" the rotund lady behind the counter assured me. She didn't seem that concerned about it, and she looked at me like, "it's free and you get what you pay for, nerd."

My cup of coffee consumed in the room, I was ready for (TMI alert!) my standard morning elimination routine (stop bitching, I warned you and you kept reading). (One of the side effects of being a runner is that you get very comfortable and in touch with your body and bodily functions. At this point, I actually find it extremely intimate that my Love and I openly and without shame can discuss bathroom stuff or anything else. Ok, we don't sit in front of the fire with a glass of red wine talking bowel movements plumbing the depths of life's mysteries such as "Did we eat corn last night?" It's just that not only are we both runners but also we've exposed every intimate detail about ourselves to each other already. Yes, everything. Yes, even that stuff. Yes, I do highly recommend it.)

Just because something is difficult and unpleasant doesn't mean it can't be wonderful in the end.

Like this business trip I was on (and, yes, I'm as thrilled as you that I found a way back to the main story line) which I will continue in the next installment of this blog (titled "Flight)!

Odd

I broke down and purchased a frying pan today.

My original intention was to live as simply as possible in this apartment in order to ease the next move into a house or more permanent living arrangement.

But frankly, I'm just getting a bit tired of taking my children out to breakfast on the weekends and dinners every evening so I broke down and added to my kitchen accoutrement.

Over my lunch break (which, oddly, did not include actually eating lunch), I visited Target which is almost my favorite store (just behind Bed Bath & Beyond and Costco) with the intention of arming myself to cook at least a few things for my kids this weekend.

The first thing I bought was a big box of Q-Tips. I actually ran out of them this morning, and I mean completely out. I was forced to use just a single Q-Tip which meant just one "tip" per ear instead of my standard double tip (the first tip for rough cleaning, the second for precision). Readers of the last blog most likely realize what a shock to my system this was. I reacted by buying a box of 750 Q-Tips, the largest one available. This is roughly an annual supply so is admittedly a ridiculous quantity of inner ear cleaning material, but nevertheless it feels so right.

Next, I meandered over to the cleaning products aisle even though I had nothing on my list from this area. I still somehow found myself slowing pushing the squeaky-wheeled cart around soaking in the pungent ambiance. It ended up being a good thing as I realized I needed to get a new pair of cleaning gloves.

I used to never let any petroleum based covering come between my passion and my body, I wanted to feel every crevice, every slippery surface, every filthy nuance. I 'm talking about my love of cleaning, of course.

However, the years of harsh chemical scrubbing on my hands and knees really started to take a toll on my hands. I finally broke down and started wearing gloves and taking fish oil and black currant oil for healthy skin, especially in the dry winter months. (I am not alone in this "cleaning to the point of injuring my hands" thing. My very dear friend who is also my daughter's godmother and namesake used to wear her fingers almost literally to the bone with straight bleach and abrasive products, which I think is kick ass.)

The last pair of gloves was purchased as an impulse buy while picking up some essentials at the local overpriced and understaffed grocery store Dominicks. This pair was very comfortable and served me well for several weeks of cleaning. They were pink in color. Wearing them made me feel pretty and domesticated. Paired with the fact that I like to clean my apartment in the nude it was an unsettling yet oddly pleasant experience.

There were no pink gloves in the group for my selection at Target, so that made things a bit less complicated for me. However, there were still choices. One of the pair cost $1 extra but advertised a "lemon fresh scent". God forbid your hands just smell like... well... hands. Disgusting. I decided upon a pair of Clorox "Comfort Choice" gloves. I didn't chose them for the "comfort" as this is not something I value while cleaning. I chose them because Clorox means "bleach" to me and bleach means the utter and complete obliteration of filth and has a very satisfying connotation for me.

Moving on, I decided to pick up an appliance to add to the microwave I got upon moving in; a toaster oven. I got one that is not only a cute little counter top oven but also has a thick slice toaster built in on top, a two-for-one job. Usually I shy away from dual purpose machinery as inevitably two functions put together are worse than the two separate (and I don't mean this metaphorically, I'm just talking electronics here). However, this was the only toaster oven that came in red, matching my apartment's color scheme. Sold.

It also said it was "Red for Women's Heart Disease" so I guess some of the proceeds go towards that worthy cause. I would like to believe it, perhaps if I close my eyes and press them hard enough together it will be true that a substantial portion of my purchase went to helping a woman prevent or cure heart disease. So, pink ribbons are popular for women's breast cancer and now we have red for the heart. I guess nobody is interested in wearing a brown ring to symbolize the plight of male colon cancer. I might have to champion that cause.

I grabbed a frying pan (selected solely for the fact it was on sale and therefore had the highest Dollar to Surface Area ratio. It was so inexpensive that I won't mind chucking it as my "bachelor pan" once I am able to upgrade my life again.) and headed for the front of the store.

Upon checking out of Target, the cashier eyed my items (which also included a dish rack not intended for dishes but rather for my running and biking bottles the maintenance of which makes me feel like I always have a newborn in the house) and asked if I was redoing my kitchen.

I paused for a moment, strategizing my response. On the one hand, I could be brutally honest and enjoy the resulting awkward conversation that would ensue. On the other, the cashier most likely meant this as an innocuous statement and not the opening for a deep conversation of the state of my personal life.

I wimped out and, not very cunningly but succinctly nevertheless, replied "Yes."

I moved on the neighboring Ultra Foods. I had hoped to collect the scant foot items I needed from Target, but disappointingly they were not present.

I was on a mission to find the perfect pizza for my son. This would be pizza with the crust as thin as possible and containing as little sauce as practical between the cheese. Basically, I was seeking pizza that least resembled pizza. I settled upon Freschetta Ultra Thin Golden Baked Crispy Crust because it was on sale and had a long ass name. It went down very well, I'm happy to report. It is also, I later noticed, produced by Schwan Food Company which is owned by the Schwan family (clever). I went to church with the Schwans in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where I grew up, oddly enough. The company logo is a Swan which I guess resembles the family name when annunciated by a drunken German.

I then purchased Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard. My Love is really into mustard so it makes me happy seeing this bottle in my refrigerator every time I open the door. It also makes my giggle because I still think the commercial for this product from the 80's is funny. I am not sure where I am going to use it, however. Does mustard go bad?

It was then I realized as the proud owner of a new frying pan I should pick up some items that could utilize it and therefore help to justify this purchase. Pancake batter & syrup for the kids' breakfast and eggs for mine.

As I stood in front of the egg racks slightly slack jawed, I couldn't help but find it odd there were so many different kinds to choose from. Do we really need to be presented with this many choices? As an oversized person myself, I decided upon the Grade A Jumbo Eggs simply because they were the largest ones there and that fact amused me. I would love to see the chicken that laid these babies. And then I'd love to eat that chicken. Circle of life.

Check out time arrived, and I had heard the cashier ask the woman in front of me if she had any coupons, and while I was sacking and putting my own groceries into my cart (ah, the discount grocery store, something I will have to suck up and get used to I suppose... very difficult for my high maintenance persuasion.) I heard her ask the woman behind me the same question.

I was still slightly offended I was not asked. Just because I am a single male (ok, not evident perhaps even though I don't have a ring on, but it is glove season, but what other male is going to shop at Ultra in the middle of the day to buy a carton of eggs and a bottle of mustard? That virtually screams to the world "I live alone!") that means I wouldn't think of saving even more money by contentiously clipping cents-off certificates?

I didn't have any coupons, though. I used to subscribe to the newspaper, and stocked up on them, especially in the Sunday edition. Moving to my apartment I cancelled my subscription. The world news is typically portrayed as shocking and/or horrible. The sports are better reported and more up-to-date on the internet or radio. The business section pales in comparison to "the Journal" (WSJ, baby). But, I always rationalized my subscription with the fact that I could save as much money as the paper cost by using the coupons I found inside. So, I was basically spending money to save money after performing manual labor on dead trees.

It's like every time I go to a restaurant with my children (which will hopefully now be less often!) the Maître de (aw, who am I kidding, the teenage hostess with too much makeup and too little ambition) asks me if I would like a table for four.

Only after I show up repeatedly to the same establishment do they catch on, "oh yeah, the divorced guy".

Actually, I am finding myself being frequently a table for 1. When I am with my children, it is 3. Adding up the kids from my Love, we have 5. All together, 7.

Odd is good.



So, I actually used my frying pan this morning for my children and smelled something burning as it rested on the stove top burner. I couldn't figure out what the problem was until I lifted it up and realized I had neglected to remove the big sticker completely covering the bottom advertising its benefits. So now I have yellow burn stains on the bottom of my new pan. Damn. At least the kids enjoyed hearing the smoke alarm go off.

High Maintenance

I awoke this morning with a start as I had just realized my artwork was coming due and I would have to return it to the library soon.

The main two items hanging on my while apartment walls were both checked out from the local Public Library.

From a tiny room tucked away in a discreet corner of the upstairs, I hauled down my little black and white Ansel Adams and "Victorian Winter" to the elderly woman and handed her my card. I was a bit nervous as the whole thing seemed so out of the ordinary, but she didn't bat a false eyelash.

"That'll be $4 please, $2 each." So, for $2 a piece I was out the door with my artwork securely wrapped in a big ass canvas tote marked "Property of Public Library".

I have no couch in my apartment, but darn it I have art. If only for 3 months. By the way, I was able to renew the pictures for 2 more weeks. This is perfect as it will allow me to keep them for the Super Bowl (American Football championship) party I am throwing. The invitation clearly states BYOC. Bring Your Own Chair. It may seem funny, but it's not a joke.

I don't really have much in my apartment but I have made it a well organized, clean and fun place for my children and me. What it lacks in amenities and comforts in makes up in freedom. I love my apartment. There are some oddities, however (due to my oddities, mostly).

I have towels hanging in my master bathroom (a term I use very loosely in this case) that have little tassels on them and match the color scheme of my bedroom comforter / pillow set. I do not use them, as I have put them there merely for show. They are not machine washable.

Seriously.

I store my toiletries in a tupperware container which I keep under the sink. Yes, it would be nice to have a proper fancy schmancy drawer, but this plastic bin does quite nicely, thank-you. It also stacks neatly on top of the other containers stored underneath containing medical supplies, back-up supplies, and miscellaneous, respectively.

My Love derides me for keeping the toilet seats in my apartment completely shut. She admires the fact I have bowed to her feminine preference to keep the seat down, but wonders why I spoil it by also closing the cover.

I do this due to my fear of losing stuff down my toilet.

One morning I was bleary eyed and more bull-in-a-China-shop than usual and I knocked my entire plastic bin off my vanity. The contents flew everywhere in the cramped quarters and most landed harmlessly on the white linoleum floor. Most, that is, except for my night bite guard.
As a still recovering stress jockey I tend to grind my teeth at night. It was worse years ago when I would wake up with headaches from this cursed nocturnal activity. Things have improved over this past year, but nonetheless it has been my habit to pop it in every night.

I didn't realize it was missing until after I had used the toilet.

This was during the morning hours, so when I say I "used the toilet", I mean in a complete and full manner.

Hours later I was grimly searching the bowl and inner plumbing for my over priced dental appliance. At this point had to ask myself, "If I do happen to find it, would I really use it again anyway?"

I decided to take this as a sign that I should let it go.

Which I was happy to do until I realized my toilet kept plugging up. The maintenance crew from the office came by and started doing their "rooting". All the while, the guy was asking me questions concerning my bathroom behavior. What do I put in this toilet, besides the usual? What kind of a diet was I subjecting myself to?

I tried to keep the conversation to a series of smirks, grunts and nods, and was mostly successful. I was torn between the desire for this guy to actually rescue my bite guard and hoping he would just clear the clot without knowing the cause to escape the inevitable awkwardness.

He didn't find it, so I'll just have to focus more on meditation and relaxation techniques. All for the best, really.

Back to my apartment, though, one oddity my Love points out to me is that my "bachelor fridge" is really out of the ordinary. Yes, it does contain the obligatory case of beer (alongside the occasional 6 pack of Two Brother Brewing company Bitter End or Heavy Handed Hop... shout out to the local boys!).

The trouble is that each of the beers is arranged standing in neat rows with the label facing outwards. It is my like my own little glass army of crisp refreshment.

The beers are kept company by a case of bottled water. All labels facing forward.

Usually, the only other liquid at hand is soda water. When I get to buy the variety pack at Costco (a local warehouse store) I arrange the soda water by colors, blue for plain, green for lime etc... These I keep in same-color rows.

All labels facing forward.

I can not accurately describe the satisfaction I receive upon viewing this every time I open my fridge door. I sometimes refrain from enjoying a beverage as the removal of that particular bottle would ruin the symmetry. Unless, that is, I have more in storage. In that case, I will replace every bottle I take out in order to keep the balance.

This leads me to my hoarding "issue" which I inherited from my father (you may recall from an earlier blog his family lost everything to a tornado). I have more paper products in my apartment than items of food. This is due to an irrational fear of running out of toilet paper which happens to be one of my top fears. It ranks just below dieing of cancer.

I have enough hair shampoo and conditioner in giant bottles from Costco that some would term it, accurately I'm afraid, as a lifetime supply.

Which raises the question from some people like my close friend and fellow blogger Sarah, "Does a man need conditioner?".

First of all, I am not just some "man". I am a high maintenance anal retentive metrosexual.

And yes, I do need conditioner. I do not roll out of bed looking like this, you know.

I even socialize with the entire value chain involved with keeping my hair neat, clean and healthy. I meet my coiffeur for drinks, and even attended a pool party at my stylist's house. It was there I met the sales rep for the Product I use (don't call it hair gel... you don't get a frequent buyer's card for hair gel. You get it for Product.)

I am termed "high maintenance" in what I choose to believe is a loving (or at least tender) fashion by my colleagues, friends and, most endearingly, by my Love.

She started getting a trifle concerned when every time she called me for a 3 week span it seemed I was shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB). It was right at the time I realized I actually enjoyed living in my apartment and didn't want to rent or buy a house for myself yet.

BBB is AAAwesome.

I live an easy walking distance from Linen and Things. It is actually right next to the CiCi's pizza. I consider this section of the mall a sucking black hole of cheapness and bad taste.

Linens and Things is to Bed Bath and Beyond what Walmart is to Target.

My high maintenance extends to other areas of my life. During a recent business trip I was accompanied by three of my office mates. I insisted on using the United 1K desk to check in, even though the lines for the self-check were shorter or non-existent. (1K is United class for people that fly over 100,000 miles a year. The number 100,000 can be represented by 100K or 0.1M, but 1K just means one thousand. Therefore the term 1K under represents my status and pisses me off).

I was the only one of the four of us to check my bag. It was sized properly to fit on the plane, I just couldn't take it on because I packed my hair gel, cologne, and some other liquids and gels (including running nutrition).

My colleagues gently reminded me I could take on 3 oz. bottles of gels and liquids. I not so gently reminded them my Product does not come in 3 oz. bottles. They then suggested I buy little bottles and squeeze or funnel my stuff into them and carry those on.

The day I actually do that will be the day I know the terrorists have won.

Resolution

I just finished working out at the club (a "sports center", actually, but it makes me feel more sophisticated to say "the club").

As I struggled to find a parking spot and then a free treadmill & weight machines at 7PM, I came to the realization I was right in the middle of the season inevitably following the holidays.

Resolution.

It's the young lady on the treadmill beside me. She cranks up the speed to a screaming fast pace but stands there with a wide stance, feet on the stationary rails, face down staring at the belt screwing up her courage, iPod blasting. Suddenly, she hops on, feet flying like a cute little jackrabbit with her long ears pinned back into a ponytail. Her sprint lasts a mere 5 seconds or so. Grabbing the console, landing on the rails, staring down once again at the speeding belt gasping for air, resting for a minute before the jackrabbit jumps again.

It's the older gentleman face down in the plank position, his personal trainer counting off the seconds. His pallid pudgy body shakes with the effort. From my perch on the weight machine, I stare at his dark brown comb-over admiring the masterwork involved in covering so much scalp with so little hair. The part starts so far down, further than I personally have ever seen. And I'm not talking far down on the side, but far down to the back. This is a maneuver I have not witness before. His dignity is preserved, however, by the silver Rolex proudly displayed on his wrist to match his cotton T-shirt, shorts and white tube socks. His beautiful watch ticking off the precious moments of his existence spent earning this timepiece, it seems.

It's my ex-neighbor plodding by in thick sweat pants and Ugg boots. And not the athletic kind of sweat pants, either, the cover up and stay warm and comfortable at the grocery store kind.

It's the conversation I had the last night I was in Las Vegas. I ended up in the sports book bar with my boss, big boss and colleague (while, mind you, my team enjoyed the fruits of the Strip).

For one blessed moment, my colleague opened a conversation not dealing with the work matter we had gathered to discuss.

"Did you all make New Year's Resolutions?"

My boss pounced on him, "Why do people have to wait until Jan. 1 to make a change? It's just stupid!"

Undeterred, my colleague directed the inquiry to me.

"I always find it more interesting to first review how last year's resolutions turned out."

My response was met with blank stares. More drinks were ordered from the waitress that never looked you in the eye; most likely because she was resigned to the fact male gazes were directed a bit lower anyway.

I took the break in the inquiry to recall the events surrounding my last year's resolutions. I was running mid December 2006 with my old group an overcast cold day, but not bitterly cold (weather wise, at least). We were cycling through subjects as usual, entertaining ourselves as the miles slipped by. I was asked for my NYR. I paused a second, and then blurted out the following.

"I resolve to push myself harder than ever before to the point of spectacular failure or extraordinary success."

Admittedly, it was an odd thing to say and it was met with understandable scorn, "I think this marathon training is finally getting to you."

I was as dumb founded as they were, but hid it. There it was. My resolution. I had no idea what it meant, but it was mine and somehow felt right.

"Mine is to have more fun."

I was roused from my reverie by this pronouncement from my colleague.

"Like how? What are you thinking of doing?"

"Well, I don't know"

"Seriously, you're going to have more fun. Like how?"

"Yeah, well, it's not like I have a kick-the-bucket list or something... I'm just going to take it all in, you know, relax a bit."

While I wish my colleague all the best, I can tell you his face is a billboard etched with deep lines spelling out a grim message for all the world to see: "Here is a man who has no fun."

I have traveled around the world with his gentleman and sat next to him for hours & days in planes, meetings and conference. I can not recall a single incident during which I heard him laugh or express mirth in any degree whatsoever.

That being said, I take no joy in my colleague's travails, quite the opposite actually.

You see, I was my colleague; the headaches on a Sunday afternoon when I tried to relax, "Wasn't there something I should be doing? Something I should be working on instead?" I was that girl; going to the gym, pushing myself so hard with no clue what I was doing. Torturing myself needlessly, stupidly. I was that man; feeling my man-boobs jiggling violently up and down as the plane made a rough landing on yet another runway on yet another international airport. Sacrificing my body to soulless pursuits.

But then, I got lucky. Blessed, actually.

I failed.

Spectacularly.

And I've never been happier.


(My neighbor passes by now as I sit here and pen this blog, sipping my bright pink recovery drink. It appears the only workout she has subjected herself to involves trotting around in those big old ugly ass Ugg's. I was never my neighbor.)

Vegas

This week I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. This is the week Vegas is inundated with thousands of nerds showing products ranging from a living room lamp with a built in speaker to an R2D2 robot with a built-in projection TV so you can have it go from room to room beaming HDTV on your walls to impress your geeky friends.

This week Vegas also hosts the Adult Video conference. Coincidence? I think not. Not only does CES attract a large number of their target audience, it contains all the technology to record, distribute and watch skin flicks in increasingly life like detail and size.

The crowd pleasers on the floor are always the big TV's. This year everybody was showing TV's so large you actually have to stand in your neighbor's living room to watch them properly.

The TV's are so large watching them is like looking through a pane of glass at real life (only better). The people are "life size". I'm sure this conjures up interesting use cases for the nerds and sex people alike.

Speaking of sex, my company put us up at the Wynn hotel which is the sexiest place I have ever stayed in the world (and I have flown over a half million air miles, so I have seen some things).

The Wynn hotel is the masterpiece of Steve Wynn (good thing he wasn't born as Bob Lose... rimshot). At the Wynn, even the ugly people are attractive. This appears to be thanks to, at least in part, the extraordinary amounts of money they possess. Money, it seems, they can not wait to rid themselves of at the $25 minimum-and-up tables.

The only unattractive people allowed to roam the Wynn are the engineers in town for CES. These nerds are happy to go against convention and look bad; putting more value in brains than looks. They put the "glee" in ugly. God bless them.

Anyway, getting back to "sex", this seems to be a sensitive subject in our puritanical country (and especially the Bible banging 'hood in which I live). It seems people around here are either rebelling against their natural "evil" impulses or rebelling too hard against the forces of "good". I eschew both views.

As I exit the elevators at the Wynn to get my morning $4 cup of coffee, I pass a young Hispanic woman putting new roses in the huge vases standing at the doors. She delicately arranges dozens of brilliant red roses with heads as large as my two year old daughter's. As I pause to admire this, a smartly dressed black woman exits from the elevator sporting a tight spherical afro large enough to obscure the rose bunches as she struts by. Sexy. Not my "thing" perhaps, but sexy nonetheless.

I walk by the roulette table and hear the croupier plead with the lone elderly gentleman at the table, light blue sansabelt trousers sagging slightly as he bends arthritically to lean on the rail, "Sir, it is 7AM and your flight is at 9:30, you really have to leave now!". The man nervously waves him off and places another bet. Not sexy.

Later, as I was buying chips to put inside thank-you cards for my team (since most of us were there for the show I called a meeting for all day Thursday) I dropped a $5 bill on the floor. A guy had just walked up beside me at the counter and was greeted by the cashier with "Hey there again, I see you have chips this time". He noticed me retrieving my grounded cash and said, "In Vegas, people don't bend down for a $5 bill, man." I look at his slicked back black hair, nicotine stained teeth showing through his easy smirk and replied, "I'm not from Vegas" He nodded sardonically, "You're lucky, man... you're lucky."

Now I am back in Chicago, just arrived late this afternoon. I picked up my kids for the weekend and my son wanted to go to CiCi's pizza. This is a pizza buffet right next to my apartment complex. The pizza is shitty and the atmosphere is depressing, but my son subsists solely on plain Asiago cheese bagels and thin crust cheese pizza so my options are somewhat limited. CiCi's has his favorite kind of pie which is marinara (he doesn't like pizza sauce. Seriously).

The clientele at CiCi's pizza primarily consists of large families. And I mean large in a number of dimensions. The dress code calls for sweat pants and stretchy shirts, the non-athletic kind.

CiCi's pizza is the antithesis of sexy.

I'm signing off now and booking my tickets and Wynn reservations to return to Vegas with my Love immediately.



A view of the Strip from my room:

A sample of the decor at the Wynn:

One Year

This morning my Love and I are going to a memorial service. My friend Amy passed away one year ago and was laid to rest this weekend in 2007.

The end of 2006 was personally a very difficult time, and the terminal illness of my friend finally living up to its "terminal" tag made the holidays almost unbearable.

I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) when things were finalized. My plans had been to leave Las Vegas Friday for Phoenix, as I was to run my first marathon there. Instead, I got the last seat on the first plane out to Chicago for the wake that Friday afternoon.

Thursday evening, two other employees of my company had taken our customer out to dinner and the Celine Dion show. Four engineers fourth row center sipping strawberry daiquiris out of fancy plastic cups. Quite a sight.

The customer wanted to party all night & really let loose so we ended up at a club and then finally he and I sitting together at a $50 minimum blackjack table at the Wynn. This was the smallest bet table we could find during that evening at our hotel.

I won't detail my travails during that evening, but suffice it to say my Italian colleague had to go to his room to bring me $600 cash to keep me afloat. My customer finally left at 3AM, a few hundred dollars up. I hit a lucky streak and even though it appeared to the newly assembled crowd that I was raking it in (like winning over $500 in one hand), I really had just started to climb my way out of the hole I had dug during the last few hours.

I left Las Vegas a few hundred down as I boarded the cab at 4:30AM. Waiting for my ride and travelling companions as I stood in the lobby of the Wynn, I watched a sea of drunken clubbing young men and women making their way back to their rooms, or perhaps like me to their flights. The women with carrying their shoes, the men carrying their women. The somewhat sexy yet seedy side of the strip at sunrise.

I next found myself at 5AM with an enormous crowd of people at the airport. I hadn't slept a wink and could barely stand the sweaty, slow moving crowd. I put my iPod on high volume and tried to drift away, but found no solace in my thoughts.

My Italian colleague was traveling with me, connecting to Europe from Chicago. He pointed out my 180 degree change in complexion, from daring and exciting the evening prior to dour and miserable this morning. I explained to him my situation.

I sat in the back of the plane, trying to sleep, iPod full blast (mostly Celine Dion, by the way), fighting back tears as they streamed from my eyes.

Entering the room at the funeral hall I was bombarded; mourning friends, mourning family, mourning husband and young daughters, pictures all around commemorating Amy's life. And there, at the head of the room, my beautiful friend lying motionless.

A picture came up on the laptop slideshow, Amy and I together with a group at This Run's for Jack 5K running race two years prior, a fundraiser to combat melanoma.

I burst into tears and inconsolable sobbing, which seemed to last through the weekend.

My Therapist says my grief show have subsided in 9 months. Amy's husband, my dear friend Joel, was told he should start dating again in 1 year. I was told to wait one year before introducing a new woman in my life to my children after the divorce.

And yet, I am still saddened to the point of heart sickness by Joel's loss, by our loss of Amy. Joel is not yet dating and I am bringing my Love to the memorial service.

I guess the heart knows not the rules the brain creates.

Starbucks

Every Friday morning on my way to see my Therapist, I drive through downtown Geneva. There is a Starbucks right on the main thoroughfare that beckons me inside during that early morning hour (usually 6:30AM for my 7:00AM appointment).

As the weeks past, I started noticing something about this particular establishment but couldn't put my finger on it. Then, my Love (who visits the same Therapist later in the morning at a more respectable and, might I add, comfortable hour, and frequents the same coffee shop) pointed it out to be very clearly.

The people who work there are happy.

Not only are they happy, they are downright full of joy.

Not only are they full of it, they want to share it with you!

A few weeks in a row of mirth I can understand. Perhaps through the holiday season, ok. But I see the same men and women week after week and darn it if they aren't the most sincerely cheerful pleasant group of people I've ever seen on "that side" of the counter.

Mind you, I still refuse to tip them.

The other Friday I arrived even earlier than usual and read a book for awhile while I sipped my Venti Americano (suggested by my Therapist. No, not for mental health, just because it is good strong coffee; half espresso / half steaming water, all good. Perhaps she saw something positive in the fact I only drink strong black coffee with nothing in it except the occasional charred bit of my lip singed off from an impatient too soon sip.)

This day, I saw an older gentleman sitting there engrossed in the day's headlines sipping some sort of frothy concoction. You could almost feel the contentment exuding from him. Plus, he was vigorously digging into an old half gallon container of cottage cheese which this morning contained his breakfast. I am not sure what it was he was eating, but I can only describe it as a gray, grainy, lumpy glop. Not exactly descriptors you'll find on the side of a cereal box.

The next morning in my Wall Street Journal on-line, I read a book review of "How Starbucks Saved My Life". An executive loses his job and family and finds redemption selling coffee. Here is a link to a story on this in case you are interested:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2007-09-17-starbucks-saved-my-life_N.htm

I can't give you the link to the WSJ story because it is a pay site. So there.

So, the next time you sip your overpriced steaming vat of Swedish plasma, ask yourself this question, "What can I learn from these people?"

Or, as you are driving your car you can grab the cup too firmly as your Love passes it over to you for a sip and curse God and everything He has made as you careen wildly down the slippery busy street with the sticky hot mess splashing down your crotch.

The choice is yours.

Operation

One of the presents my six year old son "A" received for Christmas was the game Operation.

I actually played this game during my childhood, so it was with a strong sense of nostalgia that I engaged in a game of it with A last night.

The rotund cartoon character of a patient, Cadaver Charlie (real name Cavity Sam... I like mine better), still looks the same and much of the game is strikingly similar.

However, there are a few changes to the game that I played 30 years ago of note.

The first is the quality of the playing cards. When we played board games, a favorite winter activity in the frozen plains of South Dakota where I was raised, the cards were made out of the same material used in high quality decks of playing cards.

My two brothers and I played these games time and again, and they stood up to the abuse and are still playable today.

The playing cards in my new Operation game look and feel like they were printed in an old HP ink jet somewhere deep in the hinterlands of China. They may last through the end of this week.

At which point, we'll just throw the game away and buy another for $5 the next time we are at Target, right? I guess that is the point. I can't remember how much these games cost 30 years ago, but they must have been like $20 which at the time was worth more than two tickets to the movies.

Now Operation is a steal compared to the Venti seasonal sweetened Starbucks beverage I just spilled all over the interior of my car.

Play with it once, wipe your ass with it, flush it and move on, son.

Another change is the addition of Brain Freeze as a condition. This consists of a cute little ice cream cone lodged in Sam's head.

Brain Freeze is housed in a nice wide rectangular trough. The game piece even has a nice ridge on it for easy gripping. And, it is worth $600 to boot.

That is fucking Wish Bone money, man.

Even Charlie Horse is only $400 and have you ever tried to fish that fucking filly through the fingernail sized slit in which it sits?

Brain Freeze is the perfect addition for the lowered expectations and inflated praise generation.

One last thing. My son gets the cutest shocked look on his face when his tweezers touches the sides and lights the nose & buzzes the game board. However, he tries to keep his game face on and act like nothing happened, still going for the piece until I say something. Cute. Good competition instincts, I guess.

I'm thinking of rewiring the game to emit real life shocks (the beauty of being an electrical engineer is that is not an idle threat).

That might be the update this game really needs.

End of Christmas

As the day winds down, I realize I survived my first Christmas ever totally alone. I accomplished many of the action items I had set out for myself to keep busy, and had a nice 10.5 mile run during this bright and shiny, freezing day.

I ran in a forest preserve near my apartment and the terrain was sometimes muddy, sometimes frozen and often littered with horse manure (as these trails are used for excursions of the equine as well). I swear one load blocked my path like a giant boulder, I'd hate to see the horse that produced that baby.

Organization kicked in, I even went through a large container of cables and electronic equipment I've collected through the years. Although some of the connectors are rather outdated and esoteric, my stash does come in handy now and then. Like when I just set up a wireless network for my Love for the sole purpose of updating her TiVo over the air. Nothing like 6 year old electronic equipment to do that sort of job.

My hoarding instinct was strongly instilled by my father (especially of technical items), who is not only an engineer (and my inspiration for becoming one) but was also raised for a few years in a barn as his family recovered from losing their home on the farm and all their possessions to a tornado.

Just try winning an argument with your dad when he is packing that ammo.

"Dad, why can't I [insert desire here]?!"

"I was raised in a barn, son."

The next sound you heard was inevitably me shutting the fuck up.

My favorite accomplishment from organizing today was separating all the major cable types, binding each cable with a tie or strap of some kind, and then putting them together in gallon sized zip lock bags.

Hefty one zips, by the way. Yellow and blue make green, my ass!

I notice I now own two gallon bags of different colors and lengths of telephone cords. And yet, I don't even own a telephone. Makes you wonder.

I also finished my Christmas cards and will send them out tomorrow after I buy stamps. I do realize, thank-you, that today actually is Christmas but cut me some slack, ok?

I read all the incoming cards, and braced myself for the yearly tale of woe emanating from my parents. This year's did not disappoint.

Opening line: "We started and ended this year with the death of two people we love."

That is verbatim, baby.

My divorce was mentioned in a neat little blurb, and luckily the condemnation for rending asunder what god brought together was omitted. I applaud their restraint.

My final accomplishment was getting through the day without the crutch of alcohol. I celebrated by making myself a stiff Bloody Mary which I am enjoying as I pen this blog.

Oh. Yeah, right. Got me on that one.

Oh well, its Christmas after all. Here is the recipe if you are interested:

1 Cup Vodka (I prefer Ketel One)
1 Cup Bloody Mary Mix (I choose Mr. & Mrs. T's because they used to sponsor the Chicago Triathlon. How's that for brand loyalty?)

After those base ingredients, I slosh in some Worcestershire Sauce (Lea&Perrins) to brown things up a bit, throw in a huge glob of finely grated horseradish (enough to make the drink cloudy, like a bad urine sample), 10 shots of Red and 10 of Green Tabasco. Finally, I garnish with sliced jalapeno peppers and celery salt.

This is the drink that keeps on giving, believe me, so it is a perfect way to wrap up the holidays!