Tag: discussion

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personal

She and I (did what?)

When to use “I” and when to use “Me”

Second Ranty post in over two years.

I is only ever the subject of a sentence. It is NOT correct to use I as the object. Ever.

To figure out when to use I, subtract the additional person and conjunction to see if it sounds ridiculous. eg:

  • She and I went to the store.
  • She and me went to the store.
    • I went to the store.
    • Me went to the store.

Ergo: She and I went to the store.

  • Here are pics of my girl and I drinking rum.
  • Here are pics of my girl and me drinking rum.
    • Here are pics of I drinking rum.
    • Here are pics of me drinking rum.

Ergo: Here are pics of my girl and me drinking rum.

While on the topic of crap grammar:

  1. ie means, in other words – you can remember this because both begin with i
  2. eg means, for example – you can remember this because it begins with e
  3. gyro is pronounced jai-ro not yee-ro – you can remember because this you’re not a pompous jerk:

Pompous Jerk: You mean a yee-ro?
Me: No, kid. If we were in Athens, I’d mean yee-ro. But we’re in a tiny hell-hole greasy spoon in Queens (turning back to counterman, “No offense, dude,”). We don’t say, “res-toe-ran” for a “restaurant,” we don’t say shed-du-el for schedule. You don’t say yee-ro-scope, do you? Why, outta 880,000 words, the special exception for a meat sandwich? So please back up off my grill and lemme order my jai-ro, in peace.

Sorry, I’ve been irritable – the weather’s lousy, my girl’s on a different continent, my right arm is killin me, I can’t eat for the next 20 hours, I’ve not slept and my secretary just quit. Again.

I want a whole wheat donut.

What I’m gonna get, however, is a glass of tap water, a vitamin pill and two tabs of naproxen.

Location: 5 mins ago, in the shower
Mood: irritated
Music: I’ll just be waiting here – right here

Categories
personal

YASYCTAI (2) / Kaizen

Location: a yellow bed
Mood: contemplative
Music: with a roof right over our heads We’ll share the shelter

Got a call today to be part of a panel discussing online media. Strange but what else is new?

Kaizen is a business concept that says continual (little) improvement is the path to success. Until 2007, GM was the largest car manufacturer in the world and Toyota was the one playing catch-up.

Cut or keep? – Suppose GM had 1 million screws. It’s philosophy was to use those same screws in all their cars to save scratch. Toyota, however, would continually improve the designs of the screws a little bit, tossing the older screws out. It hurt a little financially every year but they did it.

Partly due to that and other reasons, GM is now a relic. Just like it’s screws, it refused to chuck the old cause it didn’t wanna go through the painful changes. GM’s watching Toyota’s red lights now.

The danger is to see life – yourself, your friends, your habits – as they once were. Not as they are now. It’s not easy, seeing things and people for what they really are.

My YASYCTAI are the little things that I wanna do, or have done, to try to make myself better. To see life in a different way.

I put them up cause you might wanna do it too. Or not.

The points? They mean whatever you want, although at 100 points, always figured I was making some sorta progress.

In a related matter, I’m slowing winding down my business – planning to start drinking Dec 31 and finish up around February. Of 2010.

YASYCTAI: Honestly, are you seeing that person the way s/he used to be or the way s/he is now? Cut or keep? (90 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Done, done

Location: 19:00, unlocking a door in Queens
Mood: thoughtful
Music: No one ever said it would be so hard


Me: I’ve always been honest to you.
Her: I know it and I hate it. (pause) I’m just jealous because boys always pick me.
Me: (laughing)
Her: It’s true!
Me: I know it. I know it.

While we never see each other, PCD and I still chat online. We spoke the other night cause I was too tired to type. She’s thinking of starting a blog too, told her she should.

Her: You’re not right for me, I know that.
Me: That’s the thing about her. I think I’m right for her and she’s right for me. We’re appropriate for each other.
Her: I’d hate that – to appropriate for someone else.
Me: It’s not a bad thing. It’s hard for a boy like me to just stop, y’get used to the random nights. You know that better than most people – that it’s hard to stop and say, I pick you. To be done, y’know?
Her: Are you done, done?
Me: I hope so. (pause) I really like her.
Her: (thinking) Good then. I want you to be happy.

If there’s one common trait to the people I’m actually close to, it’s that they’re all really good people. My dad says that if you find good people in the world, you should keep them around at all costs.

He’s a smart man, my dad.

This post continued here.

YASYCTAI: Figure out which one of your friends are worth the effort and drop them a line. (hours/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Glory Days

I know something you don’t know

Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don’t know.

When you get beat up as often as I did as a kid, you either get all decked out in black and go Columbine, or you just learn how to fight. And for those of you that know me, I never do anything half-assed.

Bryson’s one of my best friends and was a striker like me. He outweighed me by 20-40 pounds but I was fast and flexible. We were always toe-to-toe. Until he started grappling. So I started too.

Then, a little after 9/11, I got injured. A kimura gone horribly wrong. Doc said I could either get surgery and lose 10% of my range of motion or rehab it and lose as little as 2%. Chose the latter. He said it’d take up to four years. It took seven. Stopped watching NHB stuff cause it made me sad. Didn’t wanna be one of those guys that spent his time talking about his glory days.

During those seven years, Bryson worked to the point that he’s a Pan-American Bronze Medalist. And he knew something his opponents didn’t – that as good as he was on the ground, he was even better on his feet. I knew that. My jaw knew that. Me? I stopped. Got fat. Settled down with a girlie.

The only place I’m still better than Bryson’s with a sword. But even then, he’s almost my match. We both know he’s better than me, he’s just too polite to ever say it. Some days, forget that I’m 35. Then my body reminds me. The last time I felt good about my right lead was in the mid-90s.

We spoke recently and he told me that he just got a similar injury. He finds out next week if he can roll again. I understood. Told him that he got seven years on me and he agreed. Small comfort, I know.

After we got off the phone, sat back and remembered when we weren’t old men. Instead, we’re in the muddy backyard of my college house. He’d swing on by, we’d laugh. Then we’d knuckle up and roll.

Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I…am not left-handed.

Location: my parent’s living room
Mood: nostalgic
Music: hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it

Categories
personal

Being a Ham

Being Your Best Self

 

Me: You agree with what thing I said?
Him: That there’s no such thing as a line? It’s true. I was saying the stupidest things to this one girl the other day, and she loved every word.

Heartgirl asked me recently if I watched The Pickup Artist, implying that that’s where I learned to be the boy I am. But we both know that I made a fool of myself long before that show came out.

Tina Fey’s all over the place these days because of Sarah Palin but she cut her teeth in improv. In the vid, she takes one idea and ends on a completely different point entirely. It’s fascinating cause you can see how her mind snaps associations together. Rain’s like that too in real life (don’t send him an email). It’s called a Monologue in improv. It’s a crucial life skill to be mentally quick on your feet.

Have to say that improv was a one of two major components of being good out and about; the other was a line from a fella named Thomas S. Monson who said, Don’t be yourself, be your best self.

Contrary to what most people think, the key to connecting with people isn’t to be fake, but very much the opposite: to be as really you as possible – assuming, of course, that the real you’s not a douchebag.

Cause you never stumble for words with your friends – you just say what you think. The guys that screw up out and about are the guys that hide who and what they really are:

Her: Well, I have a terrier.
Him: Oh you have a dog. I love dogs. When did you get him? How big is he? How old is he? What do you feed him? Did you always have a dog? What colour is he? Where do you walk him? Um. What do feed him? Oh, I asked that?

Painful right? that was a real conversation. So was this one immediately afterward:

Me: Hi, I’m sorry, couldn’t help but overhear that you have a dog. I love dogs.
Her: (bored) Really?
Me: Especially with a twist of lemon and some salt and pepper. Then I like to finish off with a whole wheat donut. (noticing her face) What? Whole wheat donuts are great. Y’know what else’s great? Rum…

In a related note, Heartgirl’s sister thinks I’m gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Heartgirl says it’s cause I talk so much with my hands, use words like “lovely,” don’t play sports and am unabashedly nerdy. But it’s who I am.

It’s a suckers game to pretend to be someone you’re not. Y’can never keep it up. If you watch the vid, here’s the thing – everything she’s saying is true. It’s that honesty that makes it so entertaining, funny and compelling.

———-

The Game is recommended reading:

  • for guys, mainly cause you gotta think, if this dweeby, skinny, bald dude can ask anyone out…
  • for girls, mainly cause you should know what’s out there.

Location: at the rents
Mood: productive
Music: What I am is what I am, are you what you are or what?

Categories
personal

Forests and Trees

Location: 18:03 yest, dinner with the fam
Mood: confused
Music: every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints


Me: I can’t. (pause) Why do you defend them, anyway? And not even get paid for it? They’re criminals.
Him: (shaking head) They’ve paid their dues. They deserve someone that believes they can be better. God puts them in front of me. How can I not help them? We’ve all made terrible mistakes, haven’t we? They just got caught. They shouldn’t spend their lives paying for their mistakes, should they?
Me: (thinking) We all deserve someone that thinks we can be better. Look, I’m not a litigator. But tell me how I can help.

S’funny.

Is it You can’t see the forest for the trees? or You can’t see the forest through the trees?

Either way, all I see’re these damn trees.

YASYCTAI: Use the word kismet at least three times today. (30 secs/1 pt)
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personal

Can you hold this for me?

Location: my black chair in my pad
Mood: awake
Music: I know I’ve got to let it go and just enjoy the show

It appears that the weekend life of a reforming womanizer’s pretty boring and may involve: leaving parties at 12:30, picking up women for friends, cleaning the house and eating one’s weight in blueberries. Alla which are far more entertaining with a Dark ‘n Stormy.

Told you before that I’ve done some awful things in my life. Most I can’t talk about. But one thing I’m deeply ashamed of is the number of times someone gave me their heart and essentially said, Here, can you hold this for me? And take carea it, willya?

And I nod and immediately turn around, stomp the crap outta it and hand it back a wreck. It’s a jerk thing to do. And I did it way too often in my 20s.

Course, someone did it to me two years ago and nuthin realigns your thinking faster than eating the stuff you make someone else eat, yeah?

That’s why I keep thinking of Caligirl and if she’s right. What if I really do screw everything up so I don’t have to go through it again? Sir Edmond Hilary once said that, It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

It’s not easy, trying to be a better than you once were.

YASYCTAI: Get your shoes shined. They’ll last longer and you’ll look better. Hurry, before it’s winter. (10 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Hoops

 

Saw my parents the other day and my mom was still outta sorts. So, she picked herself up a hula-hoop.

She said that she hadn’t used one in like 40 years. But she’s proud cause she can do it like 200 times. Gotta say, I was impressed.

As I write this, my mom’s singing What A Wonderful World in the other room. I smile cause she’s getting better and I shut off the TV to listen.

Read all the comments from my last post and Sarcasticserum said that I have my own little internet cheering section. That made me laugh.

It’s a fair trade: I give the you spectacle of my ridiculous life and you sit and read. A comment or two couldn’t hurt.

Still, what’s more boring than a non-womanizing, womanizer? But, hope you stick around anyway. Cause it’s always the supporting cast that really makes the show worth watching living.

Hazel: Good luck, Logan. I’m hoping that whatever you have with Heartgirl is…exactly what you want it to be. (pause) You should put away my toothbrush. You need to make room for hers.

Blue: I wish you were my person…mostly because I want to meet him already. But if you’re not my person, maybe you’re my people. It’s hard finding good people.

You can never have enough good people. And it’s worth going through all the hoops to find them.

Thanks for reading and being on my side.

Location: 19:23 yest, Riverside Park doing taiji and not picking up a blonde
Mood: grateful
Music: on the faces of people going by I see friends

Categories
personal

Jbell and something completely different

Location: 2:10, spit please
Mood: puzzled
Music: I am likely to miss the main event If I stop

Woke up at an ungodly hour to drive all over the city. Still didn’t finish what I had to finish. Also went to the dentist today for the first time in four years. Two dentists in 11 years – no cavities.

Her: I am curious as to why two of your teeth on your left side are cracked.
Me: Mstpoplererihndedsowen…
Her: I’m sorry, what?
Me: (taking tube outta mouth) Most people are right handed. So when I get punched in the face, I get banged up on my left side.
Her: Does that happen often?
Me: More than y’might imagine.

Got into a very perplexing conversation with Heartgirl today so I’m distracted yet again. It’s onea those things that I need to figure out myself before I write about it.

Breaking with tradition for the second time, HEI has a blog. So readers, please meet: JBell.

She came by for dinner the other night to borrow Syd. We chatted over some rum. It’s nice when people stick around your Venn Diagrams no matter how screwy y’are. You can read her take on me if you can figure out which one’s me.

On that note, someone’s wondered if I’m nicer in this blog than I am in real life, so in addition to Jbell, the girlie from Sunday said she’d write her view of what happened in my last entry – she said she wrote it in my style (yes, she knows about this blog, no I didn’t meet her from it). I never considered that I have a style, but I digress:

Me (the girlie): Are you alright?
Him (Logan): I’m always alright.

He did his fake smile with all the teeth, but the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s not always alright.

And then the thing happened with George. I didn’t scream because screams are not words.

Him: (on phone) Pick him up! Put him back in!
Me: You pick him up! I don’t want to touch him! Pick him up!
Him: (scooping up George in a paper towel) He’s dead! Do you think he’s dead?! I think he’s dead!
Me: Put him back in! Put him back in anyway!

Then George swam, in a perfect zigzag, to the bottom of the tank. He must have been caught in a current because that was it — he was just there, on his side on the rocks. But we didn’t take him out. The empty tank would be too sad. Logan says there’s one more George in there, he just hasn’t seen him for a while. I’m not so sure. So we left this George in, just in case.

Logan told me some sad stories, but they’re his to tell. I have my own.

The sleeping pills he takes scare me. But so do his sad eyes. He looks like a little boy. His shirt’s too big, and his hair’s sticking up all over. He’s not the womanizer he pretends to be. He’s a lightweight when it comes to his rum. He deserves to be happy.

And suicidal George’s swimming around like a miracle fish. He’s a little banged up on one side, but I think he’s ok for now.

YASYCTAI (hers): Convince Logan that covering the fish tank is worth losing the automatic feeder.

YASYCTAI: Get your teeth cleaned. I wanna make out with someone if only cause my teeth feel amazing. (60 mins/2 pts)
Categories
personal

Our trespasses

 

In any relationship, there’s always the time when you’re faced with two competing, equally valid, points of view.

  • On the one hand, you should never accept piss-poor behaviour.
  • On the other hand, you should forgive people their screw-ups.

Friday, was supposed to see someone but she just completely flaked. Not even a text saying, Not showing up. Her explanation was that this is her reality – this is acceptable behaviour for her and her friends. Which only makes me believe more than ever that you are the company you keep. Should point out we got into what I thought was a minor disagreement but what she thought was a full on argument prior to the evening.

When we finally spoke, I was livid.

But here’s the thing: after all was said and done, she pointed out one time that I showed piss-poor behaviour. And she said she forgave me.

You know, every night, every single one, I ask to be forgiven our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. These can’t be empty words. Cause, I gotta believe you’re more than just your thoughtless screw-ups. Cause, I gotta believe that I’m more than my awful things.

———-

Saturday, in the midst of a hurricane, see LisaV and her friends downtown at onea my favorite joints, a hidden bar called East Side Company. No signs, no lines. Just the number 49, baby. Meet her friend, a tall, hella attractive Asian girl and ask for her info – but it’s not for me; she’s exactly my buddy’s type. Sometimes, you take one for the team, yeah?

Sunday, meet up with Heartgirl for a last minute thing. Stop by her place and help her bake cookies and discuss Scrabble. We had The Talk but it was nuthin I didn’t already know. Put our shades on and we’re off to a BBQ in Brooklyn where we hung out with her friends. Nice group but more on that some other time.

Get home Sunday night with a belly fulla charred meat, fatty carbs and beer. Nice but in my head I think, Man, summer’s really not my season.

But fall, man…fall’s my season. Cannot wait to see my fall blue sky again.

Location: 16:20 yest, eating burger #2 in Brooklyn
Mood: beat
Music: I know enough to know when someone trusts you