Anniversaries

So, I'm kind of terrible at remembering Anniversaries. For instance, Yesterday was my parents' 35th wedding anniversary. I wished them a happy anniversary over the phone, after being told that yesterday was the day. Oops. Happy Anniversary, 'Rents.

Another one that I forgot was the one year anniversary of this blog. Hooray! It's funny, because I was looking back through the archives and I saw that last Christmas was filled with a lot of the same stuff as this one: Sketchy driving, longer than normal trips to Bemidji, etc. etc. Anyway, happy anniversary, OstrichBlog!

Here's a random rant, injected into the rest of this blog. This involves malls, because 'tis the season for commerce, and the mall is where it's at in that regard. Anyway, here's my gripe: Why in the ever-loving heck do stores like Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch (and no, I won't give their dumb sites traffic by making links) have to stink so much? Walking by them is like nose torture. It's seriously revolting. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind goes by there and says, "YUM! What a wonderful smell! I'm going in there to buy some clothes!" Yet that has to be the purpose, right? Is there some sort of pheromone in the foul stench that emanates from these establishments? Some sort of, "My dear lord! I smell a smell that indicates to me that if I buy clothes here, I will have wild and recklessly passionate lust-fests with each of the 18-yr-old clerks in the store!" I can't help but think that the answer to that query is a resounding "no". See, I just about want to puke every time I go by. I know my wife feels the same.

Well, that's all I've got for today, I think. It's a slow day in the office, and I'm thinking it will be a pretty darn slow week all around. This is a good thing. It's been nuts around here lately, and I'm ready for some good ol' fashioned slackin'.

Persistence of Time

I think that the people at the Holiday gas station are getting sick of seeing me. I’ve seriously been in there for three meals in two days, and it’s always the same people working there. They all recognize me. Today at lunch, two of them even engaged in some sort of witty-ish high school banter with me. I have forgotten the meat of the conversation, but I fear that over the course of the last 48 hours I have inadvertently established myself as a Holiday regular.

Just saying that out loud (OK you got me. I didn’t say it out loud at all. I typed it.) makes me think of all that it would entail to actually be a Holiday regular. There would be a few types. First, you’d have the massive traveler, who stops at a multitude of Holiday gas stations in his (or her) travels across the nation. Second, there’s the guy that works down the street from a Holiday station and stops in for gas, food, whatever. Last, you’d have the creepy guy that hangs out by the magazine rack, and after being turned down by the high school aged clerk when he asks for her number, buys an issue of Hustler and a tub of Neutrogena. Weekly. I’m thankful on so many levels that I only fit into category 2.

Kerry, Gwen and I are heading back to the lake on Saturday evening, because the lake is effing awesome. That place is just summer exemplified for me, and I plan on spending a lot of time there.

Ahh, time. I think I’ve just figured out the title for this entry. Hee hee. Summer always kind of bugs me because of how quickly all of the time gets filled with stuff. It’s crazy. I know it’s not just me, either. Planning to do anything with friends is harder during the summer than it is while I’m in school, because seriously, everybody’s always got stuff going on. It’s madness. But it’s SUMMER, and I love it even if it’s hectic.

In other news, I’ve decided that I need to drop 20 pounds. I think that I’m going to use the time-honored method of “eat less and exercise”, but motivation is, as always, a factor. It really doesn’t help that I brew my own beer…it’s like I’m cultivating my beer-gut with my labors. Still, admitting there’s a problem is the first step to recovery. Wait…that sounds like I’m saying I have a beer problem. No, I have a beer-gut problem and an “I’m terribly lazy” problem.

It’s my goal to have Google hits on my blog from people that are just trying to look up Anthrax lyrics and stuff. I love to disappoint.

May 1, 1982

May 1st is always a difficult day for me. It’s a lot of kind of personal stuff, but hey…I think I’ll go ahead and type it all out anyway, because when you get right down to it, this is a site where I type about myself.

I had a twin brother by the name of Joseph. Joey was a really cool kid, but I only knew him until we were five years old. If you haven’t figured it out by that sentence, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. On we go. He was definitely the “alpha dog” in our twin dynamic. He always got to be Luke when we played Star Wars. (It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that being Han was actually the better deal). I was quiet and laid back, and he was the one that was kind of in charge. That said, we did everything together and had a connection that only twins can have. It’s really not possible to explain.

On the morning of May 1st, 1982, Joey was sleeping. I was awake and watching Saturday morning cartoons with my sister (who was 3 years old at the time). I heard my parents upstairs trying to wake Joey, but he just wouldn’t open his eyes. The memory has obviously become kind of fuzzy after 26 years, but I think that he had been sick with something like the flu the night before. I went upstairs to see what was going on, and my parents were shaking him and trying to get him to wake up.

After some time, an ambulance came to the house to take Joe to the hospital. Apparently at the hospital they were able to wake him up somehow, at least for a while. I don’t think I was there, but I’ve heard the story enough times to know that the doctor was asking him questions to see if he knew who he was. He gave some witty little five-year-old answers. The doctor asked what his daddy did. Joey replied, “He’s a lawyer.” The doctor asked what lawyers do. Joey replied, “They make a lot of money.” Funny kid.

Soon after that, Joey slipped into a coma. When he woke up, he was in a vegetative state that lasted until his death in the summer of 1991. It’s funny…I can’t remember the exact date of his death, only the date that he got sick. Perhaps it’s just because it’s an easier day to remember. I don’t doubt for a second that I’ve blocked parts of his actual death from my memory. When he died, my family and I were on vacation. Joey was still back home, being cared for at the hospital. I was downstairs at the home of some friends in Colorado or Utah or something…it was a vacation out to California. My mom came downstairs with tears in her eyes and just said, “Bad news.” We left for home the next day, and had a funeral shortly after that.

It’s now been 26 years since my brother got sick. My parents cared for him by themselves for over nine years. I simply cannot explain what amazing people they are. There is no way to put it into words. Sometimes people go through terrible things and it breaks them. Other times, it shows the world how strong they really are. I love you, Mom and Dad. Rest in peace, Joey.

Fortune Cookies!

Free food rules. This holds true in almost every context. If someone were to give me a big ol’ steaming plate of free mushrooms, I would probably disagree. That hasn’t happened so far, though. Today, we got some free Chinese food at work. It was delicious, and its deliciousness was enhanced by its lack of cost on my part. The food itself is really beside the point, though. What matters to me today is the fortune cookies.

I had three fortune cookies. I’m superstitious about my fortune cookies, which I acknowledge as really stupid an immature. Bear with me. I believe that if you don’t eat the cookie in its entirety before reading the fortune, then the fortune won’t come true. So, I ate each cookie diligently before reading the words of wisdom printed on the paper inside. This only becomes funny for the third cookie, so you’ll just have to wait a bit, biting your tongue in suspense, until I get to that part of the story.

I ate the first cookie, which was actually dipped in chocolate for added…um…fortune. Tasty. After munching and crunching, I read the fortune: “You are competent and careful”. My first reaction was to laugh, because really, I’m neither. OK, there are some things that I guess I’m competent at. Other things, not so much. Careful? Now that’s just silly. If it’s winter and I go into a store, my coat will be responsible for knocking 50% of said store’s merchandise to the floor. I suppose that there are things that I’m careful about. I’m exceedingly cautious to the point of being obnoxious when it comes to my daughter. After giving it thought, I’ve decided that that first fortune applies to my skills as a father. Competent? I hope so. Careful? Annoyingly so. Onward!

The second cookie wasn’t as tasty. It was just a plain old fortune cookie, sans chocolate. Nonetheless I ate it with gusto, in preparation for my glorious fortune. I picked up the slip of paper and read, “As the wallet grows, so do the needs.” Mmmhmm. Thank you very much, delicious cookie, for so aptly paraphrasing Puff Daddy. Also, both of the cookies that I had eaten so far contained proverbs rather than fortunes. I wanted a fortune cookie, not a proverb cookie. I decided to try my hand at a third cookie, in a similar fashion to the way that parents of two boys always try a third time for that elusive girl. I wanted a fortune, and nothing was going to stop me.

I unwrapped the third cookie from its plastic packaging and watched, to my horror, as it slipped from my grasp and plummeted to the floor. The golden, crisp cookie shell shattered, revealing the paper that had been snugly nestled within. I did what any self-respecting superstitious fortune cookie eater would do in this situation: I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching, dusted off the pieces, and quickly ate them before reading the fortune. Hey, it’s important.

To my delight, it was indeed a fortune: “A business trip will bring you excellent results.” Uh huh. Hey, you stupid cookie! I don’t ever go on business trips! What the holy heck? My only interpretations for this fortune are that either it applies to the semi-distant future and lawyering, or it means that someone else’s business trip. After all, it just says “A business trip”, not “Your business trip”. So maybe some executive from some awesome music company will be on a business trip and happen to hear me jamming out with one of my bands in a basement somewhere, and will burst through the door and send us all on to become rich beyond our wildest dreams. Sweet.

Another year winds to a close

Yesterday I registered for fall classes for next year. It was the least painful registration experience that I've had, as I was able to get into everything I wanted almost without exception. That's pretty rad. I've hated registering for classes since my first day of freshman orientation in college. I have consistently been reamed by the system, whether for my last name's unfortunate placement in the alphabet, the popularity of all of the classes I have wanted, or some other reason. This time it was pretty painless.

Well, except for one little thing...one of the classes that I wanted to take dropped to only 2 credits during the section that I wanted to take it in. I needed to take it for 3 credits, so once again I'm stuck with a Saturday class. That's not nearly as bad these days, since I'm awake at 6:30 on Saturday morning no matter what anyway. Everything works out, and I ended up with no class on Monday and Friday night. That will be nice.

Have I mentioned nostalgia lately? I've been finding all of these old friends from my college years on Facebook. Any time that something like that happens, I get kind of sad. I'm always sad to have lost touch with people in the first place, but these days it makes me realize that I haven't been in college in almost a decade, which in turn means that all of these people that I considered good friends back in the day have had zero communication from me in nigh on ten years.

Of course then I realize that it cuts both ways. I'm not the only one that hasn't been talking. ;) Either way, I think that getting back in touch with people is awesome. It just makes me face my oldness. Or something.

The weather this week has been crappy, and that also contributes to my funk. That's funk like feeling bad, not funk like stinky or funk like George Clinton. Although, I like to bring all of the funk I can...a triple-funk situation involving me with a frown, smelling of farts and playing some tight "wookachicka" riffs would rule. Maybe I'll try and make that happen.

Along with this springiness and the whole mentality of the year drawing to a close comes the stark realization that I only have one year left of law school. After that my world goes into upheaval once again. Just when I started getting used to this craziness, I have to go and adapt to an entire re-working of life. Of course, I won't be going to school and working full-time anymore, which will make even an unusually long work week seem like a cakewalk.

One moment

Sometimes I marvel at the way I can go through an entire day in a foul mood, and one little moment can change the entire thing. My moment tonight happened during my drive home from school, but in order to properly share it, I have to go through all of the events of the day.

Work sucked. I know that I'm a member of the majority of the populous when I say that. Work always sucks, if it didn't, it wouldn't be work. OK, I totally acknowledge that that's a lie. Work doesn't always suck, sometimes it can even be fun. The overwhelming majority of the time, though, it's just work. Today sucked.

We're going through a large restructuring of the positions in my department. Perhaps my perspective is skewed because of the position that I'm in, but it seems from my point of view that this "restructure" is actually just an excuse for everyone in the entire department to dump a heaping helping of crap that they don't want to do onto the low man on the totem pole. Guess who that is? Oh, you got it. Good 'ol me. Seriously, you'd think that putting 5 years in at a place would get you a little higher up the corporate ladder. No such luck. Please, if anyone happens to be reading this and wants to give me a job, I'm at least a thousand times smarter than the average middle manager. Hire me. Ignore that whole "no management experience" thing. I have the ability to adapt and learn, as opposed to the typical managerial lack of sense. I also have the ability to go off on tangents.

After a long day of that crap at work, I went to class. With only three weeks left of the semester, I'm battling a severe lack of motivation in regard to my schoolin'. I sucked it up, though, and sat through the two hours.

I was driving back, still feeling foul from my day, when I looked up into the clear spring sky and saw a sliver of a crescent moon. Right there was my moment. Seeing that moon instantly filled me with overwhelming love for my daughter, by way of a kind of funny train of thought. "Moon" was one of the very first words she learned -- one of the very first shapes she recognized. As I looked up at that moon, I pictured her, sitting next to me looking at a night sky this summer and pointing to the moon. It was surreal, like a glance into a more-than-just-possible future, and it was both touching and encouraging. I have a lot to look forward to.

It's moments like that that enable me to continue plugging away at school and make it to summer. Just thought I'd share. And just like that, it's time to do some homework.