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personal

Pity Party

Gary Coleman passed away last week. The odd thing for me was that I thought about him the day before he died cause of something my brother said to me about ten years ago.

Me: Feel bad for the guy. It must be hard to have it all and lose it all.
Him: Well, which would you rather be? A guy who once had it all only to lose it or just a dude that never had anything?

Thought about that conversation cause I saw four old friends last week.

The first is a President over at this $54 billion company; not a vice-president, the president of his entire division. Hadn’t seen him in four years cause…well, embarrassment’s the only word for it.

See he’n everyone else thought I was gonna be someone. Instead, had a few rough years.

But he came to open the door for me to his floor personally anyway and gave me a huge hug in front of all his employees.

Was very touched.

The second was a buddy from law school. The third, PB. The fourth, another old friend.

Onea them asked me a question that hit me hard.

Him: What happened to you, man?
Me: (long pause) Dunno. (thinking) Life, I suppose…dunno…

Threw myself a little pity party on Friday, donated about four suits that didn’t fit me anymore.

Then I had this conversation on Memorial Day.

Her: (motioning over to the television) There should be more stories like this, about the people that survive and have to live like this.
Me: You’re right.

A woman once said something like, the job of the soldier’s to protect us; and the our job’s to remember them.

Sounds like I got the better of the bargain and for that I’m grateful.

A one day pity party’s plenty, especially for a lucky guy like myself.

Keep getting these chances I don’t deserve.

Location: Madison Avenue
Mood: hot
Music: feeling lonely I had a life to give many dreams to live
YASYCTAI: Throw the party if y’gotta but keep it short. (60 mins/1 pts)

Categories
personal

Another way

If you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you get

A wood burning stove in midtown

Her: I mean, he’s great. He’s just verbally abusive, not physically or anything like that.
Me: I think you deserve better than that. Don’t you think you deserve better than that?
Her: (thinking) I guess…

Getting hot and muggy in NYC; not looking forward to summer. Today’s the nastiest day of the week and I’ve have put on the monkey suit. If there’s one area where women are luckier than men, it’s that some of us still have put on a suit while a woman can go into work in a flower print dress.

If I could, I’d wear a kilt in the summer.

The latest figs show that Americans spend $80 billion annually on cigarettes; that’s more that any nation outsidea ours spend on their entire military. Put another way, we spend more money to kill ourselves than other nations do to kill us.

Number of my friends are doing all sortsa self-destructive behaviour but they keep doing it, oblivious to the ramifications. But just like you can’t plead, argue, logic or beg someone to care about you, you can’t beg someone to care about themselves either.

When the same stimuli is applied to a situation, how can one be surprised when one gets exactly the same result?

Put another way, when you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you get.

———-

A reader sent me this article, which essentially echoes what I said earlier: attractive goes away but dirtbag’s forever.

Location: Madison Ave
Mood: muggy
Music: raise your head and wear your wounds with pride

Categories
personal

Drums, Guilt and Shame

Shame is hating what you are. Guilt is hating what you’ve done.

Astor Place, New York, NY

A guy named Arthur Koestler once said that, The most persistent sound which reverberates through men’s history is the beating of war drums.

But during WWII, he was onea the people few that kept insisting that Nazis had killed 3 million of his fellows. Took another 2.9 million to die before someone someone stopped them.

I’m against war; only a madman is for it. But someone’s gotta do something about evil men.

Maybe Memorial Day isn’t so much about the kids that marched to the drums so much as it’s about their families who can’t help but hear them pounding.

American flag on Wall Street, NY

Bryson and his wife swung by the other day and brought me out to dinner. She’s pregnant and he’s trying to get his fourth world title in Brazil as a grappler. He’s black, which is important to understand the convo below:

Me: Hey – imagine if he came out Chinese.
Him: I’d kill you. (she laughs)
Me: Please…I’d be long gone and by then you’d be blessed with a handsome son that talked a lot with his hands.


Spent most of the holiday days with Heartgirl walking. To the grocery store, to the pier, to the park. And at night we talked. Like we always do. Told her a bit about myself.

Not to give you back-to-back vocabulary lessons, but do you know the difference between guilt and shame?

When I was a kid, was fat, ugly, and dorky. Then I wasn’t and I became shallow, mean and vain. Then in my 30s, I was humbled.

Shame’s hating what you are. Guilt’s hating what you’ve done.

Told Heartgirl that I spent my younger years dealing with the former and the recent years dealing with the latter. Don’t anymore. Not as much, anywho.

On my arm’s a vaccination scar. Remember getting it. Hurt like hell and I cried like a baby (in my defense, I was a baby).

Now, the purpose of a vaccination, natch, is to trade a small pain in your youth for a better lifetime. But when you’re a kid, you don’t know that.

Think that that’s where we’re all at. The pain’s what we gotta go through to become the person we’re meant to be. But we don’t see it until the pain’s long gone. It’s the forest for the trees.

Told her that sometimes, life has to break you to make you better.

She nodded, kissed me on my cheek, and told me I should go to sleep.


I’m moving. Not far.

Location: 14:00 yest, paying the toll and driving home
Mood: pensive
Music: hear the drums echoing tonight But she hears only whispers
YASYCTAI: Spend just a sec thinking about those drums. (sec/2 pts)