Guilt or Innocence

“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway”

 

It is not very easy to make me feel guilty for something, rarely do I feel bad about the decisions I make. I second guess myself a lot but it takes a lot to feel sorrow based on a decision I have made. That is because most of my decisions only affect me and when I do have to make a decision that affects someone else I usually make it in their benefit. That is why today I feel guilty for a decision I just made. I told my roommate to continue her NY apartment search without me. Not that I still won’t move there or that it would be entirely impossible for us to live together but I was beginning to feel that I was rushing into a situation with her that was leaving my feelings out of it. We were looking for apartments in areas convenient for her, in apartments that while affordable required sacrifice from one party more than another. And our time frames are just not the same. She knows when she needs to be in New York, I am still fighting to get on a project there. If there is one thing I hate doing it is being forced into a situation, if I had continued searching for and eventually signing a lease on an apartment with her I would have probably come to despise her anytime that apartment put me in a bad situation. If I signed the lease then had to travel for work it would bother me, if I landed a project that required a long commute it would bother me, every time I wrote my rent check I would be upset about the situation.

 

I know this because once my mother talked me into buying a car I did not want. Every time that car broke down I blamed her, whether right or wrong, that car instantly had a negative spark because it was not what I wanted. That is what I feel would have happened with this apartment had I continued. So, I know what I did was for the best, I know I would have had to do it eventually and I am glad I got it over with. But, I have felt guilty about having to tell her for a few days now and had hoped that feeling would go away once I said it. But, here I am still feeling terrible about it.

 

What I think this comes down to is that I hate letting people down. I especially hate letting girls down. It stems from that big brother quality that grew out of being the only guy in a house full of girls and a toy poodle. For so long, I have taken pride in being there for my sisters and my mom whenever they need me that I kind of forgot what is was like to not be able to help. And that is sort of how I see my roommate; she is like a little sister that I really enjoy spending time with and was really looking forward to being a part of her journey. But, somewhere along the line I felt like I was only moving forward for her and disregarding my feelings entirely, which is no way to live. Hopefully, this horrible feeling in my chest will fade and with time I think her and I will be just fine but for now I know she is mad and I do not blame her at all.

Time is the Master

Tick, tick, cuckoo, tick, beep, tick, tick, tick

 

And then the guitar kicks in. Pink Floyd certainly knew what they were talking about when they wrote this song. Of course, they were probably on LSD and time was not moving at the paces we are used to. But, as I sit here listening to Time and trying to write my first post in a week the words seem appropriate.

 

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today”

 

The week since my last post has just flown by me. I worked a hellish day before hopping in my car and driving the four hours or so back to my place in Northern Virginia. I then spent the next two days working from home before leaving town again. After working through a weekend and spending two out of ten or so nights in my own bed I became totally disoriented. Making matters even worse was my not so successful apartment hunting over the weekend in Manhattan. It was probably a bad idea to wait until the last minute to find a place during the busiest time of year in the busiest real estate market in the country. This has made my previous second guessings even harder to ignore.

 

“And then one day you find ten years have got behind”

 

Sometimes it seems that I am just coasting in neutral through my own life. Days fly by and nothing significant seems to happen. I know I am not the only one who wonders why there doesn’t seem to be more than this. But, I really want to know what I can do about it. Since, we can’t stop time; we must be able to at the very least control how we spend it. And that is where I find myself a bit blocked on what to do with myself next. Sure, I keep myself entertained easily, I read a lot and play video games and watch TV and ultimately enjoy my life but whenever I get to thinking about a song like this one I feel that my pursuits are balanced too heavily toward the frivolous and less towards the important. Now, I just need to find some worthwhile pursuits to pair with my many less important ones so that I won’t look back on any of this with regret.

 

“Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time”

I left town and forgot to pack myself

After a crazy day on Thursday where I had to finish a task for work, get a root canal and visit my doctor I packed and headed out of town. Not for anything fun, no, I left town for more work. So, here I am in my hotel room in Newport News, VA getting ready to pack up again and head back home. I really don’t want to pack right now; I didn’t want to pack when I left either, so I did that in a hurry and forgot a ton of things. One of those thing being my normal everyday self. I have not eaten the way I normally do, I have not been functioning the way I normally do, I am just totally off my game here. At night I have found myself driving around aimlessly in hopes of finding something to do only to return to my hotel room and lie in bed reading. Now, the reading thing is not so bad, I have three books with me that are enjoyable. But, when I go two days without so much as turning on a TV I get a little concerned. I have still been working out on this archaic gym equipment that makes me laugh while I am doing my workout, plus this tiny little gym is just full of mirrors, too many mirrors. I like looking at myself when I workout as much as the next guy but it’s a bit much. Plus, the only non mirrored surface of the room is an open view straight to the pool, so people enjoying their weekends, having drinks and going for swim get to watch me sweating my ass off and making funny faces. And even that isn’t really all that bad, but this whole trip has just thrown me off a bit. I am forgetting what day it is, what time it is, being down here these 4 days is just one big blur. Thankfully, there is just one more to go before I can go back home, unfortunately I think I am going out of town again next week, for fun at least but still. When will I ever get back on a routine?

 

 

If anyone has made it this far, wow was that a rant. I am not even sure if it makes sense or it just comes off as crazy man gibberish. As I wrote that last sentence above about craving a routine I remembered a post I wrote back in the early days of my blogging about how much I hate my routine. I believe I called it a prison. And now here I am lamenting that my routine is all out of whack. I wonder if that means I have changed or if I just need a bit more of a balance between the routine and the random? After all isn’t life about balance, moderation, nothing in excess? I’d like to think so and on that note my crazy man rant is done.

7/21 Bigger British invasion?

David Beckham or Harry Potter? I am not sure whether it is a coincidence that they both arrive on the same day or if this has been orchestrated by the queen. But, it is happening, Beckham plays at 830 pm in his first American MLS game while the final Harry Potter book hits shelves all over the US. Now the clear obvious answer to who will be bigger is Harry Potter, it already has an established fan base in the US and has been selling reserved copies for months. The 5^th movie came out last night and I thought it was the best one so far. Still though, David Beckham is probably the biggest soccer start to hit this country since Pele and that new ESPN commercial is very catchy. Maybe if Beckham can grow interest in a very marginal sport in this country it will be a bigger achievement than the continued success of a children’s book. I guess time will only tell.

Who that dude sleeping with your girlfriend?

 

Gettin nude and rude in yo bed. Same dude that your sister likes. Mickey Avalon call me Mr. Right

Last night I was at the Mickey Avalon concert and all I have to say is that guy is a fucking rock star. From the countless songs about his own dick to taking pills from random members of the audience, everything about him screams “I am a rock star and you will pay attention”. He rapped over Zeppelin beats while barely standing. He had a stage full of girls for his finale and then he brought out his buddies, Andre Legacy and Dirt Nasty, to finish off the night. His set, while extremely short, less than an hour, was jammed pack and there was not a minute that he let go by without something to say. Mickey Av may only have one album but he put on one hell of a show and I hope to get to see him again. If you get a chance, go see this show, it is highly entertaining.

On Second Thought

At first glance that picture probably makes no sense at all. Bare with me and it will make plenty of sense in no time. You see, I am one of those people who can really over think just about any situation. I will go over things in my mind time and time again constantly going back and forth on one decision or another. Even decisions I have made in the past I will usually question in the aftermath. One that comes to mind often these days was the summer before my final semester in college. Due to a car accident the previous fall I was 12 credits from graduation. I was offered a job at a sleep away camp in New York and I took the job. Still, literally right up until I got into my car and began my driving up to NY I was having doubts. Shouldn’t I complete my degree over the summer instead of waiting until fall? That is the responsible thing to do after all and I like to do the responsible thing when possible. Anyway, I made it to camp, had an amazing summer and then a fairly stressful but enjoyable final fall.

With that little moment of nostalgia out of the way I will further explain that odd little picture at the top. Recently, I had made a decision to move out of Virginia, something that I have been attempting basically since I got here anyway. A few months back that decision was to move to NY and for quite a good amount of time I was very happy with that decision. Then one day out of the blue I began having these longings for a move to Florida. At the same time as my indecisiveness grew work became extremely hectic and my next project became unsure, making my move more complicated than before. So, during a rather boring and long meeting I began doodling that little list to compare my 3 current options and the ranking them as I saw them. As you can see I am quite an artist, but even with the help of my lovely little drawings and ranking system I am no closer to making a real decision with only a month to go. So, do I follow the example of my summer camp decision and stick with my first choice or do I give value to my little spreadsheet and make the most responsible choice?

More than meets the eye?

Last night I ventured out to see the new Transformers movie and I have to say it is worth a look if you follow into a few of the following categories.

 

1. You watched the cartoons and played with the toys in the mid 80s.
2. You are actually a fan of Michael Bay movies (Armageddon, Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor)
3. You have seen all the better movies out this summer.

 

That might be a little harsh for a movie I enjoyed but the truth is that even though I enjoyed it, I didn’t love it and I really don’t see a lot of people liking the movie. It was completely average. The story was as shallow as the ones from the cartoons, the acting was, well it wasn’t bad enough to distract from the non-stop action. And in typical Michael Bay fashion even though the action was moving a mile a minute it still felt slow at times. It was long, and though they tried to fill up some of the non-action moments with humor there were still so many times when I was bored waiting for the next fight. If I had to rate the movie it would be a 2.5/5, completely average and, for me at least, it was completely typical of the recent super hero movies (i.e. X Men, Spiderman and the like) the first one always seems to be slow and usually the sequel will be better. So, while I did not love this movie I can not wait for the speculation on Transformers 2. I can already hear all the scoops popping up on Rotten Tomatoes. Will we see Grimlock? Energon cubes? Soundwave? Clearly, there are a lot of cool storylines and given the end of the movie a lot of options for what comes next.

Upstarts in a Blowout

Have you ever woken up and just known it was gonna be a bad day? That is exactly how my day went last Thursday. Wednesday night I was supposed to go down to Virginia beach but everyone cancelled so instead I spent the night in my hotel room watching movies and resting up for another day of work. Everyone apparently had decided that Thursday night would be a better night to go to the beach, I did not agree and went to bed with my mind made up not to go the next day. When I awoke the next morning I went to the hotel coffee maker like I had every other morning but this morning I found that no coffee was there to make. Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not handle the lack of coffee very well. Still, I pressed on, began getting ready for work and picked up coffee on my way in to work. But, before I could get too far into my day I realized my sunglasses had gone missing, this time it seems they have been lost for good. With two mishaps so early in the morning I knew there was something left on the horizon but still I had a job to do and I could not let a few setbacks ruin an entire day. When I got to work everything went as usual, I bantered with clients, talked with co-workers, solved a few problems and let everyone know I would not be joining them on their trip to the beach. However, as the day wore on so did my resolve and eventually somehow not only did I get wrangled into going to the beach, I was driving.

 

In anticipation of driving to the beach we all made sure to get off post as fast as possible and by about 4:30 we were all ready to go. My car was full of beach things, one coworker was lying down in the backseat, and another was in the passenger seat resting her eyes. Everything seemed fine and then 2 miles from my hotel I decided to change lanes, a harmless act that I have done countless times. But, this time was not the usual. I hit some debris in the road and immediately heard my left front tire go boom. I instantly knew that Anya had just lost a tire but I was not going to do any more damage and quickly got the car to the side of the road. Of course I was upset but I had to get my car off the small shoulder of the highway. Thankfully, a VDOT truck came up within minutes and offered to change the tire for me as this particular stretch of highway was very unsafe. There had apparently been 5 deaths recently changing tires and I did not want to be number 6. After the donut was on and the car was ready to roll, we got back on the road and returned to the hotel where I took about 20 minutes to collect myself and decide whether or not to take care of the tire or head out to the beach. I called my mom, cracked open a beer, then another beer, then hopped in a car and headed to the beach. All in all, we lost an hour of sunlight, but we did make it and we had a great time.