Probably not a very unique batch of ramblings

Surreal..

2010-05-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've talked about moving for years.. anyone who's known me for any length of time knows this. It became so commonplace that people would tell me to shush it when I even mentioned it.. and not without good reason. I'm still here aren't I? Still in Shithole, AL. I mean, sure, I might've picked up an Apartment Guide to Raleigh and asked people about Boston.. and it's been so long since I even talked about Miami.. but no matter what the flavor of the month was, I always came back to New Orleans.

This past Monday I spent the day exploring the city.. getting an idea of where to avoid and where to look for potential housing at. Pretty much all of New Orleans East.. is not gonna happen. That's the rough area ya drive through on the way to the Quarter, for anyone who's gone there. No, that area is definitely off limits but I looked around Carrolton and Mid-City.. skipped the Quarter since ya know that shit's expensive. Metairie is always an option.. and then there's the Faubourg Marigny that I really, really like. It's mostly goin' to come down to.. where I'll be workin' at. There's pharmacy work in every part of the city so it shouldn't be a problem gettin' an apartment close to work. It'd be nice if I could actually walk to work.. maybe take the street car, heh. Then I could sell that damn Civic and be done with it.

This is the first time I've ever talked about a move and then made an effort to actually move.. it's kinda, well, surreal. Came to the conclusion that I'll be leaving most of the people I know behind and startin' anew there. New people, new places to explore, new trouble to get into. New women to meet.. hopefully by then I'll by over the whole shyness thing. I actually thought I was til earlier.. such a useless holdover.

So I can't wait.. I want to start visiting over there twice monthly to get a feel for the area and browse the job market. It might cost me a little but I will have the needed money to get where I need to be. That pretty much means I'll be workin' my ass off every day of the week, soon as I find a part time job. It's ridiculous around here.. in 3 weeks of trying, I haven't gotten shit. My sister's landed 4 jobs in 2 weeks! Couldn't find shit in Mississippi then she looks in New Orleans and bam. Can't wait to get my own ass over there and indulge in the employment boom.

Final thoughts before filing

2010-04-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

For the most part, I don't spend too long hemming and hawwing over what went wrong in a relationship.. whether it was her or whether it was me. If it was her then I can mark it up to poor judgement and if it's me.. well I'm not changin' anytime soon.

Or am I?

I'm ashamed to say that I did indeed break some of my most steadfast rules with this last relationship. She didn't like the tongue ring so I took it out (and of course the fucker grew over so I gotta re-pierce a third time) and that is just where the compromising began. I daresay all the compromising was done on my part.. most everything was done on my time, my dime, my everything. It's only now, after the emotions have mostly settled down, that I've come to a better understanding of everything. A fair bit of it was obvious, if only I hadn't been so "in love" or whatever I was.

I don't think it was really love, even if it kinda felt like it at the time. She was more of a person to take care of.. and I had some stupid notion that I'd be able to "guide her in a better direction" which's absolute bull shit since you can't help someone that won't help themselves. If they can't even admit they have a problem then it's really gonna go nowhere, and I really went nowhere with that person. Spent a great deal of time thinking of how to help and it really didn't do a hell of a lot of good since.. she wouldn't ever do anything. The last few weeks were pretty depressing and I suppose.. the relationship was all ready over and I was just going through the motions. What can I say, not always the quickest to pick up on these things.

I really wish I'd thought to get my shit before breakin' things off though. Damn it.. I loved most of those shirts I lost.

So. After the break up, a lot of shit that I'd let fly over my head really made sense.. mostly shitty stuff. Of course it'd be so. And we had a real nasty fight Monday morning in which.. well it was nasty and brief and very to-the-point. Most of my break ups tend to be long and drawn out and this way.. was definitely easier. More painful, maybe, but I'm past the whole sadness part and moved on to how I'm gonna portray her as "Bitch No. 12" in my biography I'll write one day.

Given a few days or weeks, that's all an ex becomes to me.. somethin' to poke fun at. All the emotions are eventually gone and all I'm left with is memories of what was good and what was bad.. and with her, as with all of them, the bad outweighed the good by far. The good memories usually drift away completely.. must've not been that fuckin' good if they're that easy to forget. I should probably start writing this book soon since I've seriously started forgettin' about women I've been with. Bitch No. 12 will become, like, No. 7 because I forget the other five.

Another chapter in the life, experienced and kinda regretted.

Le sigh..

2010-04-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

It must be some flaw in human nature to become blind to someone's faults when you care for them. I don't mean being aware of them and caring for them in spite of it, I mean flat out just not seeing it. After the shit hits the fan and after everything's settled, and ya look back at it in hindsight, it's easy to say, "Ah hah!" It all becomes so clear.. of course it does. Viewing the same events from the perspective of a smitten lover is quite different than that of an outside observer.. and once your emotions are out of the way, it becomes pretty simple to become the observer. Simply but absolutely not painless. All the clues and hints were there.. and I think, honestly, I saw them even then and just chose to ignore it. As if it'd get better on it's own.. and that's pretty naive on my part.

So.

I've got a lot going on in my head.. it's probably for the best that I am single since I'm coming to the time when I'll be occupied all the time. Any spare time I might've had is going to be eaten up by the extra hours I'll be pulling at work and the part-time work I'm going to start searchin' for. Nothing's more important to me at this point in my life than preparing to move, making it as smooth of a transition as possible. Even prior to the emotional shit, the move was foremost in my mind, not the woman in my life.. I knew it and she knew it. Moving is expensive business and since I don't take hand-outs.. not that any are being given.. I can rely only on myself to scrounge up the money to get this done and get it done right.

There's probably some people that think I have a romanticized idea of what it's going to be like in New Orleans.. and if I was a few years younger and didn't have a clue, then yea, it'd be true probably. I have few doubts that I'll be workin' my ass off more there than I did here, that I'll have more stress. I'll be back on my own, paying everything on my own.. but it'll all be mine. I'll be in a region far more suited to me, with a hell of a lot more goin' on than where I am now.. with a lot more history to it. I've said it before and I'll say it many more times, New Orleans has always felt like home. It's where my family's from. It's almost like there's something in the blood that draws ya to it.. you either love New Orleans or you hate it. There isn't much of an in-between.

Some people tell me about the high crime there.. and yes, that's true. According to the studies, most of it's in the fuckin' 'hood. Tell ya what, one of you crackas should go hang out on Duval Street and see how long ya last. It's irrelevant of the city, if you're in the wrong part of town doing the wrong shit, you're going to end up dead eventually.

Not that too many people read this but I bet ya'll are gonna get tired of readin' me praise the glory of New Orleans before I even get there

Free your fuckin' mind

2010-04-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

As cheesy as this is goin' to sound, there's a song by The Crystal Method (Legion of Boom album which is fuckin' amazing if you're into electronica) called "Wide Open".. which's basically about freeing your mind. No shit right? Bet ya'll didn't see that shit coming. It's something that I take to heart though.. not letting the world pushing you down and closing your mind and imagination for the sake of conformity and the fear of being different.

That said, for whatever reason, I've had an extended period of.. not being 'closed' so much as not being able to explore my expressions. Somethin' about knowing I'll be getting out of Alabama soon and goin' to Louisiana just has my mind grinding. I've been stuck in a constant daydream, thinkin' about all the shit I want to do. There's a lot of people who think that there's nothing in New Orleans but alcohol and football, and while yes, that is there, it seems like people forget that New Orleans is an art Mecca in the region. And I am, for all that I'm unpracticed and probably sucky, an artist. I've been dreaming and thinking of stories to write, paintings to render, and crafts to.. uh.. craft. There's a lot of artists over there that I could easily apprentice under to cultivate my skills. Needless to say that there's a market for pretty much everything there as well.

So, crafting.. yea. I love that wire jewelry stuff. I've been interested in it off and on through the years and I'm at a point now where I want to try it. Sure, it might not be jewelry I'll wear or maybe not even make much money off of it but I'm not the kinda person who just wants money. I want to fulfill other facets of my life, things that working in a pharmacy or bringing in lots of money will never do for me. I love the process of creation.. taking an idea and turning into something material. I suppose that's why I used to hang around tattoo artists alot.. I had some major envy goin' on.

So I just noticed there's somethin' in my palm tiki's eye socket.. hmm..

Plans in the Makin'

2010-04-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

I've been talking about moving to New Orleans for years.. I've been talkin' about it for so long that I think everyone ignores me when I bring it up. I'll say I'm moving and they say "Pfft!" Well I'm movin' for real this time. I first brought it up with Mischa.. the plan was to actually get a place with her but ya know, there's something about breaking up with a person that just kinda kills that buzz. So I'll be going it kind of alone.

Now, I'd talked to her about it first but the real planning began when I was at Robin's last weekend, on April 11th. I'd mentioned I wanted to finally get out of Mobile but want to stay in the region. Naturally my first instinct is "New Orleans!" but then I thought.. well, how about Biloxi? Gulfport?

How about "hell the fuck no?"

If I'm going to spend the money to move and turn my life upside down then I'm gonna do it the right damn way.

Robin is ridiculously supportive.. I mean we both want to be in Louisiana. It feels more like home to me than Alabama ever has or ever will. Free spirits and free minds don't have a place here, the entire culture is centered around conformity and hypocrisy. If you don't agree then I'm sorry to inform you that the Alabama Mind Control Center (read: Baptists!) have all ready broken you and ya need to get the hell off my page. You could totally go one step further and just go drown yourself. That'd be cool, too. More oxygen for the squirrels.

My other obstacle, from a familial sense, was my dad.. I wasn't too sure how he'd take to me leavin'. So I mentioned it today, with a certain degree of trepidation, and his response is.. that it's a good idea and that it's time I got the hell out of Mobile. Did I mention my dad's side of the family is originally from New Orleans? It's home to all of us and I don't think there's a fuckin' cock-suckin' Baptist among us. Buncha Lutherans, dad's side is.

So I have my dad and my sister backin' me.. I haven't told Tim but I can well imagine how he's goin' to respond. Now it comes down to findin' work.

I hadn't been aware of it, honestly, but New Orleans is a freakin' medical hub in the area. I think between the three parishes that make up the area, there's over a dozen hospitals. Not including the ones being constructed. Anything in the medical field is very high in demand, especially if ya don't have drug and drinkin' problems. So long as I don't find a permanent supply of nitrous oxide then I'm good to go! The amount of work I've found there, just for techs, is amazing. There's more openings at one hospital than I've found in all of Mobile and Baldwin county combined.

The other more obvious choice of work in New Orleans is food and beverage. I've been wanting to try this for a while.. I love cooking but I don't like the cleanin' up afterwards. Robin has connections over there that'll get me at least in the door.. yes, probably washing dishes at first but ya gotta start from the ground level and, in the kitchen, that means washin' dishes. Then ya go from there. Or I could do bartending but.. well, we shall see where this goes.

Point being is that I finally have some direction in my life and the more I think about it, the more excited I get day by day. I can't think of any other time in my life I've felt so inspired or ambitious as I do now and I'm not lettin' a mother fuckin' thing hold my back. I've always came up with excuses or reasons to not move.. and it's not that hard to continue finding excuses. Really isn't. There's always a reason to do or not do somethin' and them days are over. Over, I say!

On an ending note, is it kinda weird that I was ridin' in the car with dad, listening to ZZ Top, and he didn't recognize it til La Grange came on? I mean, should I be worried that my dad associates ZZ Top with the whorehouse song? Hmm.

I loves my family.. small as it may be.

I wonder..

2010-03-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

It's pretty much a known fact that wondering about the "what ifs" in life are pretty ridiculous. I mean.. you chose one path and more often than not, you closed the other path. Second-guessing yourself would drive one insane. There's simply too many options and paths in life to explore them all..and only the one you chose is the one that you can know, for a fact, turned out in a particular way.

Even so.. there are things I wonder about.. not all of it being my own choices, mind you.

I'll always wonder what would've happened with mom if she'd stopped smokin' years ago. I remember bein' in like.. first grade and we had a speaker come in with one of those mannequin things with lung representatives in it. You know, it's clear and they're filled with cotton. Was supposed to show you how smoking affects your lungs by giving an example of some really ickified cotton lungs. I came home from school that day and told mom about it.. anyone who knew my mom (which I don't think anyone I know now ever met her) can imagine her reaction.. hostile. Told me to bugger off and said she'd be okay. Apparently having cancer the first time didn't leave enough of an impression since, lo and behold, she died some years later of cancer.

Due to her choice, I didn't have her go to my graduation (she died a few months prior) and she won't be there at my wedding.. assuming I ever get married. There won't be a grandma for my little ones (okay, so there's my step-mom but it's not the same). I am quite bitter of it.. it took a few years to fester but there's definitely a lot of anger there. A little depression too. I mean, was mine and her other children's lives so unimportant compared to.. smoking?

Of course, there are some poor choices I've made. I think the one that I share with most people is.. that one time when ya had two or more love interests.. and ya ended up choosing one over the other, probably for some stupid reason. Like one had a better ass or something. The relationship doesn't work out and it goes to shit before too long while the other person moves on and ends up with someone else.. or finds out that she wasn't the only person you were fooling with and won't speak to you again (I'm so guilty on this one heh). Would things have worked out with the other one, perhaps? Won't ever know. The kicker is that I turned down the girl with the hot ass for the girl who had a husband. I deserved that heart break heh.

I can only hope that I'm a wiser person now.. wiser and more patient. It hasn't been too long since I was completely self-absorbed and had the "world revolves around me!" attitude. Made it hard on relationships.. hell, it made it hard on my friends. I dunno why I'm like that.. spoiled brat, maybe? I definitely was one.. oh yes, I was. Again.. older and wiser now. Different goals in life.. different things I want out of life. Much more defined now than they were back even a year ago. I'm sure there'll be further revisions on down the line but for now, I know what I want out of my life and I have a good idea of what I want out of the eventual 'woman in my life'.. my sincerest hopes is that I don't ever fall back to old habits.

Changes

2010-02-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

Not even three months ago, I was a coffee hater and now, I'm going downtown to Serda's about 2 or 3 times a week for somethin'. Two years ago you couldn't have shown me an oyster without me avoiding it and now I have a constant craving for oysters Bienville.

I have to wonder.. how many other things would I enjoy if I just tried it? While this applies primarily to food, I think it'd be fair to say that there's been a lot of other things I hadn't tried because I wasn't interested when I was younger. Surfing is something I'd love to do, same with scuba diving. I mean, sure, I might get eaten by a shark or somethin' and that's definitely not on my top ten list of ways to die but I'm not gonna let it dissuade me from attempting it one day. Actually.. my sister has her scuba license so I need to talk to her about that..

Then there's the things I've wanted to do for a while that I simply managed to just put off for a variety of reasons. This spring, one or another, I am going to visit the state park up in Conecuh county and see how far I can hike there. Wanna say it's almost a 40 mile hike so I need to get my ass back in shape, obviously. I'd love to go rafting, take up some sort of a sport.. basically living outdoors as much as possible. Staying in a house makes me restless, quickly.. I'll find something to do if it'll get me out. Unfortunately our unseasonal weather this year has been kind of a drag the past few weeks.. bah.

Intro

2010-02-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

So this would be my first blog on this particular site. Should mean I'll be blogging only to myself for a while so.. perfecto.

Today I'm takin' my nephew to Game Spot to pick out his birthday present.. I wasn't ever able to get a clear answer on what he wanted from my brother so I'll let him pick out his own. There was a time not too far gone when I'd have pretty much ignored it but.. at some point it became obvious that I can't just live my life for me. I've been a pretty useless uncle for a long time.. I have a lot of relatives that I actually haven't kept tabs on in years and for all I know, they could be dead or in prison or somethin' equally unfortunate. When I was younger I had nephews and nieces that looked up to me and I felt that.. I dunno, that maybe it wasn't important enough to live up to that obligation. So now that I'm 26 years old, I finally decided to try and be a good uncle.. a good brother, and a good son.

It'd be easier if good was a naturally occurring event in my life.