Tuesday, December 2, 2008

My Mind is a Bully (disconnected thoughts in an early December)

Greetings from the aftermath of winter anarchy


Every year, on the morning following the first significant snow fall of the season, people get to work late because everyone reteaches themselves how to winter drive simultaneously.

For me, the tardiness is more a function of the below:


I was woken up this morning to the sound of frenetic windshield ice scraping.
The man was on a mission, quite a remarkable effort.
Watching it through my window, I was impressed.
Which was the wrong response - it should've made me hurry my ass into the shower and try to shave some time off my routine that I needed to de-ice Chick Magnet 2.0

By the way, I should have allowed the initial name given by my friend for my newer car: "pony"
(Being short-sighted, I didn't want it linked to a poorly written short story from our Northwestern writing class)

I haven't worn my winter jacket this season yet.
If it dips below 30 tomorrow, I think I'll finally cave.
It's not because I have an undue amount of self-gratification derived from my tolerance to cold weather.

I just know it will get colder, very much so.
Logic is probably being taken to illogical levels here, but follow me:
You first put on a jacket when it gets - what - below 50?
So if you upgrade to your winter jacket at below 30 - what do you do when it gets to single digits?
Makes me feel like I've painted myself into an outerwear corner.
So I've been wearing my "fall" jacket with ample scarf and under layering.

---

I think I bowled a new personal best last Friday

Still debating between buying a couch or buying "the HD lifestyle"


'Tis the season for free couches - actually... They're readily availability, easily acquirable, yet it's usually a plan painfully executed.

My two week hiatus has officially ended.
Here's the girl I'm now spending money on:


My dad had a great line this weekend, "I don't trust a skinny chef."

I'll give any show on FX a fighting chance:


I'd really like to see them take a crack at that 90210 genre.
They should base a show on that Amish tradition of letting the kids run-a-mok.
I'd watch that, wouldn't you?
--

On the drive home, I had a disturbing thought.
An extended metaphor - but of very poor quality.
It was was the personification of my mind, specifically my inner monologue, as a bully.
But not the classical bully (for example, the one from A Christmas Story)


More like a low level - high school burnout bully.
The kind that just below the mean in overall popularity.
One that can't pick on the lower strata (the chosen prey for the larger predators).
Picking on just one level down on the caste system.
That's how I think of my mind at times.
I picture it licking it's finger and holding it it a hair's length from my face.
Annoying me.
Baiting me.
Forcing me to pay attention to fruitless topics.
For example: the idea of me eloping with a stranger in Las Vegas in three weeks.

Yeah, I'll admit that I've spent at least one full hour contemplating this.
What if I get married in three weeks?
Seriously, could it be that bad?
Your reading this from someone who has:
-gone to speed dating
-dated strangers (and strange women)
-sold out my soul for a laugh
-dated in the confines of the politic
-dated trying to be more than honest

I've said it before, and it won't be the last time I say it - it's exhausting.

Why not skip about 12 to 15 steps and elope.
I find someone in Vegas, we hit it off, we've got something in common
hitch it up
Get into the quagmire together - let's work it out.

Of course these are mainly fantasies that involve some celebrity.
For example: Erika Christensen


Could I have enough small town charm to get someone into a bad decision?
I'd be lying if I said I've never done it in my disastrous past (never on that large of a scale admittedly)

It's not a coincidence that these thoughts are running concurrently with release of the new Britney Spears album. We all know I'm a fan of her's.

Not so much musically (although I'll defend her song "Toxic" and and to a lesser extend "Stronger" vehemently)


That kid named Jason Alexander married her in Las Vegas.
That kid signed the annulment.
That kid is nowhere to be found today.
That kid, I have to think, knew what he gave up.

How much would Erika Christensen's PR team pay me to dissolve our marriage?
Could they even produce a sum large enough?

But it doesn't need to be a Hollywood D-lister.
Normal people could benefit.
Just in time for the DVD release:


"Okay, I'll be the tall dopey guy - you've got blonde hair - where's the chapel"
"We've got less than one month before the Inauguration - there's a gap in the news cycle - we'll be in the clear before you know it"

So my heart tries to fight back this bully mindwave.
I won't be clubbing at Pure.
I'll have to find my future ex-wife at the In-N-Out.
That ultra sexy poker playing female
That one that also flew out by herself
That one that's single (not rebounded)
That one that only exists in the figment of my imagination.
(The dream involves knowingly lay down threes full to her quad deuces)

I do have two plane rides ahead of me.
I once picked up a girl on the way to Reno.
Sounds like a Johnny Cash lyric, but it's the truth.
Going out to a family wedding in Lake Tahoe, our Aunt picked the same flight out.
I volunteered to switch seats - so she could talk to her brother (my father) on the way.
That's when I met that girl who made me set up an account on Friendster.
We traded e-mails over the course of a year or two.
Saw her again when she interviewed for an internship at a Midwestern University.
It was rather romantic... Meeting on a plane and all...
The mind bully will attempt to use that as precedent.
It's most successful attempt at coaxing me into thinking I'm romantic beyond logic.

What if my mind could devote this energy to solving the national economic crisis instead of my personal dating "slowdown." I think I'd sleep easier - It would certainly benefit you more.