Bearing it

Took the bike from my pad on the UWS to my gym on 27th street twice over the weekend.

The first time I did it, it was harrowing. Then on the way back, it was a little less so. And even less the next day.

There’s this saying that I’m sure I’m going to mangle but it goes something like this: There is no situation that you cannot bear if you see those around you bearing it.

When you read things that people have done – trench warfare, the D-day invasion, Thermopoylae – it does seem to explain a lot.

After a couplea large buses whizzed past me, was thinking: What the hell am I doing? Until this little old lady puttered past me.

Laughed at myself as she went by.

Course, there’re times when there’s no laughter and all the bravery you can muster isn’t enough cause it’s something that truly puts you on your knees.

A buddy has a sick family member who’s not going to get better. These are hard words to hear and, obviously, much harder to say.

And there’s never really much to say to someone that tells you such things, just a lotta goddamn nodding. Wish I could offer him more than my condolences and a pat on the back.

In my head, though, I know he’s tough. I know that he’ll overcome the blow even if he doesn’t know it himself. And I wish them all peace.

Later that weekend, I sit in the back of my church and think about all those how and whys.

And then I come home and make some calls for no particular reason.

Him: Hey! How are you?
Me: I’m good, dad. Just thought I’d call. Oh, I bought a bike…

Location: a magical place called Staten Island
Mood: busy
Music: got to push on through but while I’m gone
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Losing half of your friends

The past few days have been amazing.

Her: We’re never taking that red envelope down!
Me: Never.

———-

Met up with Paul and Hazel in the hood for some drinks the other night.

Paul I met through a class I took with my ex while Hazel’s the sister of a really good college buddy.

The funny thing about life’s that you never know who’s gonna end up in your Venn Diagram and who’s not. If I want you to believe anything I’ve learned, it’s that.

Recently sent an FB invitation to one of my closest friends from college and just realized last night that he never got back to me after about a month.

That’s the thing that you don’t realize as a kid. Remember my dad had this awful fight about one of my friends when I was a kid. Now the friend, I don’t remember very well, but the fight I remember. These people we think of as all-so-important end up just a footnote in your life – or your tiny little blog.

Once wrote about that statistic where, every seven years, you lose more than halfa your friends. The person y’think of as your best friend only has a 30% chance of staying in that role.

Wonder how things like the Internet and FB changes that dynamic.

As for the friend that never responded, that’s just how things go. We’ve all been on both sides of those choices.

Speaking of technology, swapped an older toy for a newer one.

This is probably the tech equivalent of getting a Ferrari as a mid-life crisis. Only far dorkier.

Location: getting ready to brave Trader Joe’s
Mood: busy
Music: It’s all the same, only the names will change
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No sleep till the job’s done

Me: (to waitress) I’ll have a acai caipirinha.
Nadi: (to waitress) Put an umbrella in it?
Me: Please don’t.
Her: Logan, it’s a purple drink.

Been crazy busy lately. Did manage to find time to meet up with my old co-workers again this past Monday, which is always fun.

Last night, gave another lecture on the law. Despite my being pretty much exhausted, thought it went pretty well. That is until the wife started cracking up at home.

Her: You know that Beastie Boy reference you made?
Me: Yeah?
Her: You called MCA, AMC.
Me: Oh for pete’s sake…

That’s onea the dangers of doing all that I do with as little sleep as I usually get. That lecture’s gonna be up for a long time and I’ll forever be that guy that made a Beastie Boy reference and then got the name wrong.

Ended up at the Harvard Club in midtown where the other speaker bought me a drink. Didn’t have any good rums on deck so I had a Macallan on the rocks. Was good but nuthin beats my rum – with or without an umbrella.

Got home to some really terrific news but that’s a post for another time.

As for now, no sleep till Brooklyn the job’s done.

Location: getting dressed for work
Mood: exanimate
Music: born and bred in Brooklyn, the USA. They call me Adam Yauch, but I’m MCA.
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Burn all them bridges down, to the ground, cause I won’t be coming this way again

UWS NYC

Him: So – y’think you’re back on your feet finally?
Me: (thinking) Yeah. I do.
Him: Good. (raises a weapon) Let’s go.
Me: (laughing and raising my sword) En garde.

Been spending my days with my nose to the grind and working like mad. Spending nights with my favourite person.

An old friend of mine crossed my mind today. We had some good times but he ended up being a different person; I’m sure he thinks the same of me. But in the end – like so many others – that relationship wasn’t worth the time and effort.

Thought about alla people that have come in and out of Venn Diagram. The people and relationships I cut, the boats and bridges I’ve burned.

They say never burn any bridges, but I say sometimes you gotta burn all them bridges down, to the ground, cause you won’t be coming this way again.

And the bridges and people I got left earned their spot in my life as I hope I’ve in theirs.

Got my pad, my people, my poison, and my person. I’m sickeningly content.

And boy, have I got stories to tell you. I’ll tell you one Wednesday tomorrow.

Me: I’m good at convincing people to do things they wouldn’t want to do normally.
Her: Well, you convinced me to marry you.

Location: AC Hotel lobby in Malaga, Spain
Mood: thoughtful
Music: I’ve got friends and they’ve got my back
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Thanks for downloading 1,636 copies of my book!

Bicycle in NYC

So I’ve just finished my first marketing campaign for my book and here’s what I’ve accomplished in 48 hours:

  • Amazon.com downloads: 1,567
  • Amazon.co.uk downloads: 40
  • Amazon.de downloads: 29
  • Amazon.fr downloads: 0

All-in-all, expected a total of 500-800 downloads and this totally blew away my estimates. And here’s what I’ve learned:

The French dislike my work
This is disappointing because I feel I support the French: I eat their fries and their bread, utilize a French press with regularity, and enjoy Pepe le Peu. How’s about some reciprocity?!

Social marketing really works
Put up some ads here and there which got me about 300 downloads – about what I guessed – however, people mentioning me on their FB page or via email forwards garnered me the vast majority of the downloads and this was completely unexpected.

Stuff y’put out online is powerful and stays forever. Note to self: redact mention of womanizing and rum intake in this blog.

Discovered I know five distinct groups of people

  • One group, without my asking, put up postings on FB and elsewhere; they took my undertaking and made it their own.
  • Another group, when asked, immediately started telling others.
  • A third group, when asked, declined.
  • A fourth group, when asked, completely ignored me.
  • A fifth group, was never asked and also never said a thing.

I’ve got to say that this was all a bit surprising. Some people I was sure would help did not and some people whom I never even thought to ask took it upon themselves to help. Eye-opening.

And speaking of reciprocity, two of the people that completely ignored me, I go out of my way to help all the time. Also eye-opening.

Again, think it’s that divergence of our very basic definitions of friendship.

It’s actually given me some clarity on things, so, while it was disappointing, it’s still beneficial cause it’s helped me figure out what to do with my time. And we all know Time¬=Money; Time>Money.

To those that helped me, I really do want to say thanks. This is the first of six things I’ve got mapped out and, if the others end up being anything like this, think I’ll be just fine.

Bicycle in NYC

Location: the basement of my brain, thinking of a sequel
Mood: grateful
Music: It’s not so bad And I want to thank you
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We make our own luck in this world

Drinks in Times Square, NYC

Me: Y’know, in a decade, we loook pretty close to what we looked like back then. You look great!
Her: Oh thanks, you too.
Me: Well, I always look good.
Her: That’s…hey!

Met up with Hazel for some drinks the other night. She’s come around to my way of thinking that meeting your person deserves as much thought as getting a good job or going back to school for your career.

Me: Imagine if I said, “I’ve decided that I’m just going to leave getting a job to chance. It’ll happen when it happens. Until then, I’m going to sit at home every day and night and I believe that a high-paying, awesome job will call me and want just the way I am.” What would you say about my career plans?
Her: That that’s not a good idea.
Me: Right. But I can’t tell you how many times I have people say to me, “I’m just going to meet the right person. It’ll happen when it happens.” The right person’s a big deal – too big to leave up to chance. Y’make your own luck in this world.

———-

This recent study has a new take on why exercise is so good for us. Apparently, it makes our very healthy cells eat the weaker cells in our bodies as a kinda natural recycling.

Goes to show two things: (1) why exercise really is the fountain of youth and (2) that I can find a way to eat regardless of where I am and what I’m doing:

Me: We vacation well together – we can hang out or get our own alone time.
Wife: Yes, like I go to the spa, you go eat, I go to the beach, you go eat, I go to the cafe, you go eat, I go to…
Me: I would say something but that’s pretty accurate.

Location: getting dressed to meet a client
Mood: contented
Music: on the other side I’ve got friends and they’ve got my back
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Friendships and getting the invite

Late night in a bar in downtown NYC

Having some issues with some friends lately.

The problem with dealing with friends is that on one hand, y’can’t expect them to act as you do – they have their own life experiences and values – but on the other hand, there’s a baseline mirroring required for them to be your friend.

For the first friend, his basic understanding of what friendship is differs greatly from my understanding.

  • His definition is: I have something you don’t want or need, but it is of value to me; here you go.
  • My definition is: I have something you want or need, despite it being of value to me; here you go.

It’s been a historically one-sided friendship and I’m thinking that cutting my losses would be the smart way to go.

For my other friend, he’s a genuinely good fella. The issue’s that he hangs out with a buncha douchebags – usually of the female persuasion. In fact, he seems to be drawn to them.

Some of their recent escapades include: breaking a mutual friend’s funiture and then trying to hide it, getting drunk and sick at a house party then leaving without a thanks or offering to clean up, and thinking racist jokes are hysterical.

It’s that mirroring again. He doesn’t realize that people’re starting to think he’s a douchebag because he keeps company with douchebags.

When I was single, had a rule to never turn down an invite. But to follow that rule, y’gotta first get an invite.

When people think that you come with douchebag, those invites are far less likely to come in.

Location: desk
Mood: disappointed
Music: crossed the sea to find a brother
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Life limits you enough, why do it to yourself?

Jack Dempsey Corner sign in NYC

Him: About two hours.
Me: So it takes you two hours every day to get to and from work but you won’t spend 30 minutes to go out and maybe meet someone?
Him: There’s no point. Women are looking for someone with money and education. I got neither. There’s no point.
Me: There’s no point?! Look, I’m old, balding, and short. And I talk a lot with my hands. But I don’t care. I think I’m somebody. The world limits you enough, Paulie. Why do it to yourself?

Ran into guy that works in onea the local shops where I live. He and I’ve always been friendly and we got onto the topic of my getting hitched. Found out that he’s onea those guys that shoots himself down before life gets a chance to do it for him.

There’s this line in the Bhagavad Gita that goes, Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. He’s already a nobody in his head and he looks for proof that this hypothesis’s true.

That’s the thing about looking for something. You usually end up finding it.

Me, I find that most people are on one end of the extreme or another. Either they think they’re nobody and think the world owes them nuthin, or they think they’re somebody, and the world owes them everything.

Y’get far in life, being the middle.

———-

Him: She was just kinda mean. Like she’d see someone walking down the street and immediately point out all the things wrong
Me: Well, good thing you didn’t sleep with her.
Him: Oh I did that too.

Met up with another friend of mine at my local dive bar. He’s getting married to someone he’s been dating for a while. He’s one of the guys I used to hang out with when I was single. Don’t know much about the girlie he’s marrying but I suppose as long as he knows, that’s the important thing.

Always hope that my friends find their person.

Location: about to have breakfast with the wife
Mood: freezing
Music: The breath that carried me, the sigh that blew me forward
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Yes, but it is not I

Church in NYC

My insomnia is back in a big way. Feel tired and irritable alla time. Worried that all the things I do to manage it aren’t working any more, which then keeps me up even longer. No fun.

The Professor was in town over the weekend so the wife and I went with him to the local dive bar. He’s one of my oldest friends but, oddly, we never really hung out until after college. The other funny thing’s that he was a wrestler in high school and some 20 years later, I’m trying it out.

Him: (to my wife) When I was a kid, I was a busboy at this restaurant. It was fine except one day they caught me trying a wrestling move on a bag of rice.
Me: (to my wife) That’s not what they were mad about. They were mad because he was naked and put lipstick on the bag of rice.

Old friends that make the cut are always good to have around. The problem’s that people change and you change. Sometimes the people that once mirrored you no longer do. Learned long ago, this isn’t a good thing, or a bad thing. It’s just a thing.

Coincidentally, went to church the next day and the pastor repeated a story that I wrote about over five years ago.

The story is that St. Augustine was once this womanizer who once famously prayed, da mihi castitatem et continentiam…sed noli (“Grant me chastity and continence…but not yet”). It should be noted that he’s also the patron saint of brewers, as an aside.

Anywho, he was a frequent visitor of prostitutes before he changed his life around. Afterward, he went back to visit an old place and ran into a prostitute he used to know in that biblical way. He continued on his way so she tried to get his attention for his usual and called out to him, Augustine, it is I.

To which, he replied without stopping, Yes, but it is not I.

I think I’m a better person now than I was a decade ago; actually, know I am. But to get here, had to let some people because they don’t reflect who I am any more. It’s like that Cowboy story I told you.

Sometimes you go away, sometimes they do, and sometimes people just stay. It’s how the world is and how it’s supposed to be. Accepting it’s the hardest thing, yeah?

Now if only this insomnia would go away.

———-

This is one of a few songs that plays in my head when I’m up late at night.

————

Started a Twitter feed for a project I’m planning. The account’s called MenMadeOfStone add me, follow me, etc. There’s nuthin up there right now but there will be.

I’ll tell you more in a bit.

Location: last night, in misery
Mood: guess
Music: in the morning i will wake up in the shivering cold
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the air of December, I swear I remember it that way

Sculpture on Broadway in the UWS, NYC

My insomnia has made it’s usual reappearance. No idea why. It’s irritating.

Less irritating is that people have been making reappearances in my Venn Diagram lately as well. There was my friend from church that I ran into on the street. She’s moving to Boston and starting grad school next year.

There’s also my buddy from my fencing class that disappeared for a while after Mike passed. Guess cause he took it pretty hard.

And about a half-dozen of my friends just had kids; been running into them in the big city here and there. Like I say, NYC’s a small town.

The thing about running into people’s that it’s a lot like running into a different version of yourself, like running into your possible pasts. Back when the church friend and I were hanging out, we were both single and enjoying single life. And my fencing buddy met me when I was still with my ex and had two cats.

Planning out some things for 2012 and every year that goes by, I’m constantly amazed the number is what it is.

2012? How could it actually almost be 2012?

Me: Do you remember when you thought 21 was old?
Her: (laughing) Yes – 30 seemed ancient back then.

Location: the same place
Mood: wide awake
Music: the air of December, I swear I remember it that way
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