August 24, 2002

It was weird seeing all of those dead birds on Lake Avenue while I ran this morning. I don’t know if I necessarily felt fear or anxiety but I did think that that I was supposed to - as if I was watching a television program about a nuclear holocaust. I know when I am supposed to be afraid but my actual fears rarely match up with the proper moments when it would be expected of me to be nervous and worried. I don’t like looking at dead birds when I run. I wish that the birds were still alive.

We have re-named the cat that we are fostering (keeping) from Babe to Skittles. Welcome to the family, Skittles. One day you will not run and hide at the sound of my loud voice. It will be better for both of us.

I wanted to re-start editing my old writing today but got bored and frustrated with the whole deal after only about a half of an hour of trying to re-construct the dieting diaries from earlier this year. I decided to put it off until Labor Day. People have commented that I am really big on starting and stopping projects on holidays. It is a mental trick. I, in reality, am a lazy fat ass just like everybody else. I, in reality, don’t want to be doing anything so I use these notable days to get, keep and stop me from going. Labor Day to Thanksgiving – that seems like a good stretch of time to be working on something.

I asked my wife if she wanted to go with me to the Beachland Ballroom tonight. She said no. She said that she was going to watch “Harry Potter” on DVD. What? She did not get written off for being a total screwball because she admittedly has a thing for Alan Rickman and is (supposedly) just watching it for that but she is still damn screwy.

posted by Thea at 7:17 PM

August 23, 2002

It probably would have been more fun going out to lunch with my co-workers but I decided to stay in and BLOG instead. Not so much that I had a lot to say, it is just that I think that I am going to busy fucking off all night and wanted to get my commitment to communicating out of the way. It was either fuck off now or fuck off later. I chose later. I can live with that decision.

Laurie and I watched “Shallow Hal” last night on DVD – spending quality time at home instead of going out for our anniversary. It was the best gift she could have given me since I was wiped out after my jog before dinner. She also gave me a cool Kinks DVD and a Tool patch with the promise of sewing it on for me. Nice. “Shallow Hal” was funnier the second time around. I still howled at the chair breaking seen. Jack Black’s facial expression in the movie are killer. A good movie but it could have been so much better. How, you ask? Well, the deleted scenes that are added on to the DVD as bonus footage contain a bed breaking by the skinny/fat lady after love making scene. If you rigged the bed to break and filmed it, keep it in the movie. I am sure the justification is that it was the same joke over and over again but I don’t care. Fat people breaking stuff is always funny and there should have been a hundred of those scenes in the movie. Otherwise, it was all good.

Unlike page 17 from the Scene Magazine last August which showed you how much one comedy duo could achieve on the radio thereby elevating society with hilarious content, page 17 of the Friday Magazine today contains three pictures that illustrate the downfall of man. The photographer should have called the shot in the lower left corner “Man’s Soul Bankrupt” or “As Seen Through the Scope of Chris’ Gun the Instant Before He Pulled the Trigger and Got the Whole Armageddon Scenario Thing Rolling”. Why is it all falling apart? White trash riding limos to Ozzfest. Please do not ask me to participate in the world ever again.

posted by Thea at 1:19 PM

August 22, 2002

Big ups to my wife on our Four Year Anniversary. She is the man now, dog. And she has been for years. She is the nicest and most beautiful person that I have ever met. She has a heart of gold and a gentle disposition that is the perfectly matched exact opposite to my black hearted rageaholic. I still stop myself sometimes when I notice how cute she is. She is damn cute. And I am lucky to have her. She has been the rock that I have leaned on through all of the emotional turmoil that I have let myself be battered with. She is my smile. She is my soft touch. She is my light breeze. She is everything good in my life. She is the only person to have seen me cry as an adult (sober). She knows what I am like first thing in the morning and she knows what I talk about just before I go to sleep. Those are the important times in the day – when we are ourselves. If I am false onion rings, then she is the pretzels of truth.

I remember my wedding day. It started at a Red Giant show at the Euclid Tavern with my brother. I remember nothing about the show but I am sure the band were at least partially topless. I remember the ride home with my brother. I was telling him how nervous I was and he was telling me to suck it up. He is younger than me but had been married for years with a kid. I just wanted him to say I hear you but he did not. I went to bed with a pit in my stomach and woke up with a full bladder. I could not use the bathroom at his house because my bladder was still shy at that point and his kid was raising hell. I walked to my parent’s house to go to the bathroom and sat there sweating for hours sipping coffee and staring off into outer space. I was late getting down to the ceremony because of my brother’s family who drove me. He and his wife argued the whole way down to Akron, OH and it made forget about my nerves for a second as I refocused my attention on wanting to kill them. Wow is all I can say. I remember the emotion but the actual events are blank. The nerves went away when Laurie walked down the aisle. That is all I remember about the ceremony. It was hot and I felt happy. That’s about it. The dinner was small and quick. I don’t recall too much about that either. I came to in the car on the way to our honeymoon in Brooklyn, NY. I saw her sitting in the passenger seat and felt totally kick ass. She fell asleep and I watched her sleep out of the corner of my eye instead of watching the road. I remember how she looked sleeping in the car when she was a teenager. I remember how she looked sleeping in the car on our honeymoon. I remember how she looked sleeping in the car on the way home from Pittsburgh, PA last Sunday. I remember the highway light illuminating her face. It would cheapen the memory to say she looked like an angel.

The first year of our marriage was spent with me finishing school, the band going on tour, the band breaking up and me dropping into law school.

The second year of our marriage started with me dropping out of law school, working at the record store, trying to find a way to move to New York City, falling in love with our house and buying it.

Year three was the nervous breakdown and the slow recovery.

Year four of our marriage was work around the house, writing, me turning thirty and, I think, both of us growing up a little bit. I think that we might be actually making progress as people. That’s a nice thought.

Coming up: Year five – the year of big change. I am calling the shot. Victory.

I love you, peanut. Happy Anniversary.

posted by Thea at 4:05 PM

August 21, 2002

Another day in the life that will never stop.

Waking up and telling her that today is the fourth anniversary of my most nervous day ever.
Riding the bus with Howard and talking about missing people and forgiveness.
Taking the elevator up to work while singing “No Surprises” by Radiohead again.
Saying that if it is not going to be me that gets to not live then why can’t it be her.
Saying to you that the her is not who you are thinking about. Not even close.
Sitting in a meeting and writing notes to another thirty something about who is cute and who sucks.
Celebrating my other mom’s (my wife’s mom) birthday.
Getting the famous pierogie pizza at the famous pizza place.
Thinking it was a little dry.
Yelling at some fucking wigger who could not drive.
Noticing the window of the car was down after the little girl who heard me’s mom gave me the evil eye.
Not wanting to run.
Listening to the tape to get me going.
The same tape that I listened to in the van with the band on the way to Texas.
The same tape that the lady at work told me that she could hear me singing to.
The same tape that I did not care who heard me singing.
Listening to it again and singing to it while I ran.
Even though I did not want to.
BLOGGING before bed.
Looking forward to putting my arms around her.

“If you are not me, then fuck you.” Matt C. (Little Matty Bumpo) after Gaunt played Oberlin College and Jerry Wick introduced every song as "Buzzkill" and fought with the crowd all night.

posted by Thea at 11:30 PM

August 20, 2002

Another day in the life that will not end. I was pumped and psyched to be alive today until the basic maintenance concerns that I face each day wiped me out. I was looking at the thirty year old version of me in the mirror and thinking - as the thirty year old version of myself - that wouldn’t it be nice not to have to shave anymore or wash or iron my clothes. (NOTE: I will never stop brushing my teeth. It is too damn fun.) Think of all the time that I would have to do other things like worry about why I was wasting all that time. You know how it goes.

I was thrown into a shame cycle yesterday at work. I became ashamed of myself when I started caring for one spilt second about doing a good job on the job. Shame on me. Shame, shame, I know my name.

At work today, there was no shame because I did not care. It started off bad when one of my dogs at the office started the pranking and ranking before I even got there (late). We goofed on our co-workers for an hour and then Thea called me for the first of four times to goof on the rest of the world. She called me special to tell me that, like me, Osama Bin Laden loved Toyota Landcruisers more than life itself. She called me to make fun of the old lady receptionist. She called me to tell me what sickened her. I eventually had to cut her off because I could not hang out on the phone having fun talking about nothing all day. After all that goofing off and a trip the library at lunch, the day was shot. I tried faking it for the rest of the afternoon but got piled on because I dropped the ball on a bunch of stuff that I was supposed to do. It was a mad scramble for a minute and then back to the slacker fest. Somehow through all of this, I feel as if I am one of the more productive employees at the office. Am I delusional or does everybody really not do that much work at work?

E-mail iamthea@aol.com if you actually work at work or if your place of employment is just someplace you go because they have a water cooler and free coffee.

posted by Thea at 5:18 PM

August 18, 2002

I went on a road trip today to Pittsburgh, PA to see the last day of that record exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum. I am sure that it will be at least mentioned tomorrow on the program but most of the cold hard data gets lost in the anecdotal retelling of my life. Here are the facts and data that the Man at WCSB Cleveland 89.3 FM home of the Assholier than Thou Good Times Happy Friends Monday Morning Radio Show does not want you to hear about:

· Left home: noon (exactly)
· Arrived at Warhol Museum: 2:15 p.m. (exactly) [I did not ride the hammer on this trip and it rained part of the way messing with my time but we also did not stop once on the way there; so you be the judge of how long it took.]
· Total mileage round trip: 297 (including a side trip to Jerry’s Records and roaming around to find free parking around PNC Park on a game day)
· Total tanks of gas: one (the gas warning light went off when we were off the highway back in Cleveland, OH)
· Total tolls: $6.10
· Cost of two adult admissions at the Warhol Museum: $16 (The Cleveland Museum of Art is free)
· Cost of Warhol cat drawing notebook: $3
· Cost of parking at Warhol Museum: free (I’m not paying to park, sucker.)
· Number of blocks away from the Warhol Museum I parked: zero
· Number of times I loudly admired my parking job from inside the Warhol Museum: two
· Number of Pittsburgh, PA cops who told me that they were just about to have my car towed away right before I got in it: one (I was legally parked)
· Number of times I falsely said I was sorry to the officer: four (I was legally parked)
· Number of orange cones the wife moved so I could get the car in the space: three (I was legally parked)
· Number of mini-vans I almost hit going in reverse on the on ramp to I-279: one
· Number of times I tried to get my wife to give me a high five for the wrong reason: two
· Number of times she hit my hand in return: one
· Number of sodas consumed during trip: two
· Number of PA State Troopers spotted with radar gun: one
· Worst car on the road: Cadillac Escalade
· Total miles of suburban sprawl between Cleveland, OH and Pittsburgh, PA: all
· Arrived home: 7:30 (approximately)

posted by Thea at 9:30 PM