Tag: hope

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personal

Dodging the Bullet in NYC – Part 2

The recent tornadoes in Queens knocked down the tree in front of my parents home. No one was hurt, thankfully, but they weren’t able to pull out their car for a while and that made them a bit stir crazy.

Her: The city finally came and got rid of the tree!

Me: That’s great, mom. So what’d you do then?

Her:  I was so excited, I hopped into the car and drove out. (pause) Then I realized I didn’t have any place to be so I just pulled the car back into the driveway.

———-

Imagine what your life would be if you got everything you ever wanted.

See this doesn’t work with a ten-year old. Cause he doesn’t know what his life’d be like if he did get everything he always wanted. But we’re not ten, yeah?

Think about all the times that y’wished and prayed that things were different – you probably can’t even remember all the times.

Getting back to my buddy, the girl he dated was attractive but she’s the reason I got the phrase Attractive goes away but dirtbag is forever. Said earlier that he dodged a bullet by not ending up with her. The thing’s that we all know this; all of us. Except him.

I don’t blame him. At some point he’ll realize it for himself and that’s just the thing about these types of tornadoes. No one else can come and clean it up and put things away for you y’gotta do it yourself.
Location: wrasslin in midtown
Mood: content
Music: This time, baby, I’ll be bulletproof
YASYCTAI: Make that call you’ve been dreading. (10 mins/1 pt)

Categories
dating personal

Dodging the Bullet in NYC – Part 1

Night outside Lincoln Center with an advertisement

Him: Do you believe in karma?

Me: Nope – not at all. It goes against everything Christians believe in AND history has shown us that rarely do people get what we deserve.

Him: My mom does, and she’s more Catholic than me.

Me: Then (with all due respect) she doesn’t read the Bible enough. Ecclesiastes 9:11. God is not an insurance agency.

There was a time that I thought I’d be marrying this one girl. Didn’t happen, obviously. Realize now that it was such a good thing it didn’t happen – we’dve made each other just miserable. Miserable.

Thought about Caligirl recently. Heard through the grapevine a while ago that she’s having a kid.

Thought about all of this because my buddy with the map problem just found out his ex is marrying someone else.

Me: You always dwell on what you don’t have. It must be tiring for you. You should stop, don’t you think?

Him: She gets a guy who loves her I guess. He knows about indiscretions

Me: (laughing) You want to be him? With a scumbag wife? We laugh at him. I laugh at him. She was banging you while engaged to him. That’s who you wanna emulate?
As an old dude, lemme tell you this: there’re countless times in your life y’gonna think that you’re dying. And one day, you’re gonna be right.

For the most part, though, you’re turning into something better.

For the most part, you’re dodging a bullet.

Silhouettes outside Lincoln Center with an advertisement

Cars’re honking outside my apartment like crazy. Found out Madonna’s shooting something in the hood.

It’s cool the first time; annoying the 20th.

Just want some peace and quiet to write. Earplugs it is. Stupid Madonna…

Location: home
Mood: annoyed
Music: wait in driving rain For the bus that never came
YASYCTAI: Ride it out, it’ll get better. It always does. Except once. (time/2 pts)

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personal

Tragedies fulla joy

The Empire State Building

 

There really isn’t a happily ever after, you know? Children believe that. Adults believe what this fella Bernard Malamud said – that Life is a tragedy full of joy.

You hold on past the tragedy for the next wave of joy. And be grateful for the joy.

———-

Speaking of children, do you remember the old Aesop’s fable about the mouse and the lion?

Today’s Mother Teresa’s bday. A few months back here in NYC, there was a controversy cause the owners of the Empire State Building refused to light their building blue and white for her birthday, which made some of the local government – the city council – upset.

After all, they did change the colours for the Simpsons and Popeye, why not a woman who gave her life helping the less lucky, yeah?

Fast forward to this week when the owners needed help from – you guessed it – the city council to block a new rival building from competing with it two blocks away. The vote was 47-to-1 allowing the building to go up.

See what happens when you don’t pay attention in grade school?

Location: yesterday, the hospital (long story)
Mood: creative
Music: i’ll wear your colors til you come back home to me

Categories
personal

Let it burn

Sometime we have let go of the old things we love to let in the new

A roof on fire in the big city.

 

Did you ever wonder why NYC’s, NYC? That is to say, how it became the biggest city in the world? Why not Boston, Philly, or DC?

In 1776, this massive fire occurred and pretty much wiped out the city as it was.

Afterward, the city made a decision in 1811 to set up the grid pattern we all know in NYC – doesn’t sound like much until you think that most everything past 14th street was forest.

Other places, like Boston, would have been like, “Well, there’s a tree where the road should go, and no one’s here anyway, so let’s just build a road around the tree.” But the plan said to cut down any tree and fill in any stream in the way of the streets – which most people thought of as insane and wasteful.

But cause they did that, the city grew in an orderly fashion and immigrants – like my folks – that couldn’t speak a lick of English could get around the city. So they came here.

Another one of my buddies called me today:

Me: What’s the dilly?
Him: Flipped the company. For $100M.
Me: Oh, NICE! Are you rich? More to the point, do you owe me money?
Him. “Yes,” and “no.”
Me: Wait – $100K or $100M?
Him: $100M.
Me: Do you need a manservant? I can be like Cato.
Him: That would be awesome. “I’m home!” WHAM!

He too had a hard life, as did Sheridan. Something about suffering makes y’want to succeed, to make things better.

Chris Rock once said that, “There’s something about being picked on that makes you work harder to make a reality where no body picks on you.”

It’s not true for everyone; some people that suffer stay broken. But the ones that get better – oftentimes – get a lot better. Bendy. The broken ones tend to get more broken.

If you’re the former, sing it with me – We don’t need no water, let the @#$@#$ burn…

 

Location: near Grand Central
Mood: ambitious
Music: she all fly But I can take the heat
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personal

Started the Ascent

Location: Black chair
Mood: accomplished
Music: ticket in my hand and thinking wish I didn’t hand it in

Men climbing the Ansonia Hotel

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
– Calvin Coolidge

My thesis was accepted.

Am now one of about 7,430 licensed blah-blah-blahs in the whole world; 341 342 in the great State of NY.

Need a new mountain to climb.

Luckily, I’ve already started the ascent.

Men climbing the Ansonia Hotel

YASYCTAI: Manuscript; you know the deal – three pages a day. Day-in; day-out. (100 days/3 pts)

Categories
personal

Play the game

Location: heading to see the accountant
Mood: still sick
Music: get knocked down, but I get up again

NYC Fighting gym

Her: What happened to you?!
Me: (holding arm) Fencing.
Her: You’re 36, why don’t you learn to knit?

Falling apart. Sick and, for some reason, my wrist’s in excruciating pain. Don’t recall doing anything to it.

S’a bit sad; my skills’re better than they’ve ever been (which is, admittedly, not saying much). But my body’s betraying me. Injuries take forever to heal, my stamina’s crap, my reflexes’re non-existent. While I was bad before, I’m terrible now.

Thankfully, the reality’s that I’ll never actually ever get into a real fight.

Some’ll find it silly, prepping for something that’ll never come. But there’re things that it teaches you that other things don’t.

Firsta all, movie stuff ‘s movie stuff. Real violence’s nasty, smelly, and…drippy. Y’want no parta it, lemme tell ya. Fight Club? That was written by a dude that’s never been in a fight in his life.

But it also teaches you how t’play the your game. It’s the stupid wrestler that tries to box a boxer; ditto for a boxer trying to grapple witha grappler. If it’s taught me anything it’s: never play someone else’s game. Fastest way to a whooping.

And, without sounding all Hallmark-y, it teaches y’to get up when someone’s trying his darndest – like for serious – to beat y’down. That’s something.

Just as the runner who runs though there’s nuthing to run for or run to, or the mountain-climber that climbs a big-ass rock just cause he can, I do it cause I dunno how to do anything else.

So I put on a ridiculous outfit, pop in the mouth guard, and pray that my insurance’s paid up this month.

Her: What happened now?!
Me: (limping) Wrestling.
Her: What about yoga?


YASYCTAI: Hit the gym. It’s one-thirda your life. (60 mins/2 pts)

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personal

Finding things that are appropriate for you

Client meetings all morning. 2011 is busy already.

Student: Where do you want him at?
Instructor: (stopping class) “Where do you want him at?” We don’t end sentences with a preposition here.

There’s a nerdiness that permeates my life. Take my wrestling class. Buncha sweating guys ostensibly trying to do harm to each other. But our instructor’s a Jewish guy that’s a Japanese scholar with an masters from Columbia University. And he’s a monster on the mat. He scolded someone for cursing the other day and again for the above (more in a funny manner than a mean one).

There’re wrestling classes much closer to home for me and some that’re cheaper but there’re none that are as appropriate for me. Finding stuff that’s appropriate for you in life is a bigger thing than y’might realize.

———-

Jon Rognerud, the author of Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization wrote me an email thanking me for my review. Nice fella.

My last book review made the front page of the New York Journal of Books. It’s spurring me on to finish that manuscript this month.

Gotta get it done; there’s a fine line between a writer and a nutjob that just tells himself stories all day.

Location: 11 AM, surrounded by papers on all sides
Mood: relaxed
Music: yeah, I’ve got to go home, ten minutes to go
YASYCTAI: How are we doing on those resolutions/goals? (time/1 pt)
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personal

Phillip

Snow on the 72nd Street Pier in NYC
Me: (CRASH!)
Her: (sighing) Why are you always tripping, dropping or breaking something?
Me: (turning to answer and accidentally knocking over a glass) I’m not sure.

 

Got hit with a lotta snow. Was supposed to go to my buddy’s housewarming Saturday but it was canceled. So we stayed in and watched a marathon of poor cinematic choices rounded off with carols at church.

Quiet weekend – not so good for the blogging but great for the mental health.

Speaking of mental health, onea my favorite writer’s Phillip K. Dick. He’s probably onea yours too, but y’don’t know it – Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Screamer, Impostors, Paycheck, Next and a buncha others.

His stories all had to do what altered reality – what people thought were real versus what really was real. Like Total Recall where he wondered, if y’could replace all your memories with someone else’s, were y’still you?

My insomnia was the worst from 15 to 25. And what I did when I couldn’t sleep was read. Like piles and pilesa stuff. The byproduct of which’s that I have memories I know’re false but they’re real to me. Someone else’s memories rattl’n around my noggin.

Then again, sometimes false memories’re better when the real ones you’re not so proud of. Isn’t it the secret dream of every human heart to get a do-over? Another chance to do things right this time around, if given the chance.

Guess wishes’re what the holidays are all about.

On a (much) brighter and related note, it’s Xmas on Thursday. If you celebrate, hope it’s quiet. And if you don’t, still hope the same thing.

See you next week.

Location: United States, New York, New York
Mood: cold
Music: memories come rushing up to greet me now

Categories
business dating personal

Frogs and Oceans

There are oceans out there that I want to see

 

George Bailey: Oh, now Pop, I couldn’t. I couldn’t face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office. (remorseful) Oh, I’m sorry Pop, I didn’t mean that, but this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe. (resigned) I’d go crazy. I want to do something big and something important.

Almost exactly two years ago, told you about the saying, A frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean.

Was thinking about that for three reasons:

  1. Introduced two of my successful business friends whom I trust completely to each other. Both have been screwed blue by other people but neither – cause I know ’em – would screw the other. Problem’s that, while I know it, they don’t. Annoying. S’like setting two teenagers up on a date.
  2. Been thinking of traveling moving again. Always dream of it, never do. Gonna end up like George.
  3. Another friend’s convinced that all men are scum. Convinced. Problem’s that the one common denominator in all her (truly) abysmal dating history’s is…her. She won’t change her map, though, nor herself, though, which is sad cause the holidays are a crap time to be alone with a reality you don’t want. I should know.

Man, there are oceans out there I wanna see.

Pa Bailey: You know, George, I feel that in a small way we are doing something important.

Location: my pad, having a PB&J;
Mood: anxious
Music: let’s get rich and build our house on a mountain

Categories
personal

You will

Location: my usual black chair
Mood: groggy
Music: a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee


Me: You mean you watch the whole thing? Y’don’t just fast forward to the action?
Him: No, I want to hear the plot.
Me: Plot?! There’s no plot; it’s always something like: guy shows up to deliver pizza, girl steps outta the shower, and oh, she has no money to pay him. What to do? What to do? Oh my! I’ve appeared to drop my towel…
Him: (laughing) I still like to see what happens.
Me: Y’know what happens – nuthin that ever happens in real life, that’s what happens. Grand thespians, they’re assuredly not.
———-
Been looking at a bunch of ebook readers lately for myself.

In NYC, the average rent is $30-35 per square foot per year. A bookshelf takes up about a three square feet of space. I would need three for all of the books I got. That’s a nine square foot footprint, or $270-$315 a year for rent just to keep my books.

Ergo, ebook reader.

The issue is that all of the screens’re too small. Don’t wanna have to get surgery on my eyes to repair them to save $270-$315; that makes no sense. The Kindle DX has a huge screen but no way to zoom; the iRex reader has a huge screen and zoom but’s crazy expensive and dim.

So, looks like I gotta wait.

Hate waiting for the future to come. According to television, we were supposta all get jet cars by now.

And television never lies.

———-

Then again – was 20 when those ads in the vid above first came out.

Funny thing is that every single onea those things the guy said turned true.

In fact, I’ve done all but threea those things he said.

Listen to the voice, know who he is?

YASYCTAI: Be hopeful. You’ll live longer. And happier. (525,600 minutes /3 pts)
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