As Said by Tim

After some time off from doing the school thing, I have re-dedicated myself (once again) to becoming a Master or a Doctor of something or another. In preparation for that I am taking exams that will allow me to do the school thing, in preparation for the exams I am once again learning how to study. Which means I am learning how to distract myself when my brain begins to lose focus, which hopefully explains why my blog has re-emerged! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Why do I need more education? Well my short-term goals include getting rich while using a university's resources to re-introduce the unicorn species back to Earth, then maybe selling unicorn burgers when they begin to over-populate and become pesky driving hazards, kinda like deer. My less short-term goal may include being a college professor at some point so I can have absurd amounts of vacation time and possibly just teach online courses for a while why living in a foreign land. . . er to help expand the minds of future generations and stuff.

When I'm not studying I do things called jobs to pay the bills. I believe that is jobs with a soft j, so its sounds more like yobs. The more I talk to people about their work, the more I believe that at least 70% of most everyone's job is dealing with stupid people.

Maybe stupid is a harsh term, let's say some of these people could be considered obtuse, or puerile. Those descriptions are only less offensive because the people I'm describing as such are too stolid to understand what they really mean. (Also it is possible that I didn't really know what those terms meant before looking them up recently, and I may just be throwing big words in my blog so as you read, you think he's really smart, he should be in grad school, he should be top of his class. Not saying that's what I did, just saying that it is possible.)

Anyway at one of my jobs there is a guy who works there who I'll call Jim, to protect his identity. His favorite phrase is "Let me ask you something." He gets really, uncomfortably, close to your face when he does it. So close you can see the small traces of tobacco around his teeth and gum line.

Then he comes up with a great question like "Who would win in a cage fight between Scrappy Doo and UnderDog?" or "If you were in a coma and someone came in and cleaned the floor with pine-sol, would it wake you up?"

Last Friday's question was the best. It started off something like this:

"Have you guys seen that Avengers movie? . . . I saw a commercial about it and there were little kids pretending to be super heroes in the grocery store. Now, let me ask you something, if you could choose between flying, being invisible, and playing mind games, what would you have as your super power?"

. . .

Ok, wait, kids, grocery store . . . mind games? What does that mean? Is that like being really good at Sudoku? Or being able to create your own crossword puzzles. Hmm, no thanks. I chose invisibility.

Tim agreed with me. He said flying is good, but if you were invisible you could sneak onto an airplane whenever you wanted. I had actually thought of that as well, but I don't want to admit to myself and certainly don't want Tim to know that we ever have similar thoughts. So I point out that this would only work if you could avoid touching or bumping into anybody, and you'd have to be the last one on hope to be able to claim an unused aisle seat.

Tim replied "Yeah but you could go anywhere! I could go to a WNBA game (really?) . . . and go hang out in the locker room . . ."

. . .

. . .

. . .

"You . . .(incredulous moment where I can't get any more words out) . . . 

. . .

You could go anywhere . . . and you choose a WNBA locker room?"

I think I laughed for 3 minutes straight after that. So did DeAndre. I know DeAndre is irrelevant to the story because I didn't mention him before, but he was there, and he laughed too. I mention that just in case this comes off as a "you had to be there" moment, because all the people there would agree that it's just straight up funny, whether you were there or not.

Sometimes

Sometimes I go hiking on those days when I don't have to go into the office first thing in the morning.

Sometimes I wear a sweat band on my head hoping to draw attention to my face, so that those trail running pervs will stop staring at my sensational legs and booty.

Sometimes I decide that if I have to go to Wal-Mart (I hate going there, but lately I haven't been able to find the smaller packages of Wholly Guacamole at Fry's or Fresh and Easy) that I'll probably fit in better if I go all sweaty wearing gym clothes and a head band.

Sometimes when I'm driving through the parking lot leaving the Walton's Empire I look around to make sure no one is trying to run up and slash my tires (crazy people hang out around that place).

Sometimes I make eye contact with some boy in his late teens or early twenties but look away at the same pace since I am just scanning the parking lot for vandals and hoodlums.

Sometimes I see the boy waving at me out of the corner of my eye as I am already looking away. So I glance back and see he's still waving at me and has an indignant expression on his face that says "Ummm excuse me, I was totally waving at you..."

Sometimes I realize in that moment that the guy in the parking lot totally wants to get with me, but I have no interest in him, or dudes in general, unless they are dudes that will help me meet women. Which if you think about it, I bet girls love to go shopping with him and that he doesn't complain about having to sit through any movie starring Channing Tatum. He probably has lots of friends who are girls because they know that physical attraction will never get in the way of their friendship. Missed opportunity? Maybe. The quick wave I give back as I drive on past indicates that I'm friendly and sorry for initially ignoring him, but I'm not really sorry.

Sometimes all of this stuff doesn't really happen more than once, but it happened to happen yesterday, which is cool because March 13 is probably the least significant day of this week by normal standards.

Did the Melatonin Do This to Me?

Somehow I was in a field, or a really big yard like people have out in the country. Not sure how I got there, or exactly where I was, but I didn't have time to think about it because the older brother of one of my best friends (who I've never actually just hung out with before) was calling me over to the hockey rink.

The hockey rink was very well built and professional inside. The ice was smooth and I slipped around in my shoes as everyone else glided on their skates. Upon inspecting the perimeter, I happened to find a spare pair of skates on the ice near me. I removed my right shoe and put on a skate and was about to do the same with my left foot when the farmer yelled at me from across the ice that I could skate just fine with just the one skate.

I heeded the old farmers advice and tried skating on one skate while pushing with my other leg and then lifting it off the ground and trying to balance myself. It didn't take long to realize that my movements were not nearly as smooth and graceful as those of the random people I was sharing the ice with so I made my way over to the other spare skate in the back corner. As I bent over and began the process of removing my shoe and putting on the other skate, I noticed blood trickling toward me.

I looked up and saw the farmer holding a rifle and picking off the skaters who had previously been enjoying his facilities. I didn't spend much time thinking about why the blood flowed so far so quickly across the ice or why I noticed it before I heard any gun shots, I just knew I had to get out of there as I was the only person who hadn't been shot yet. I took off running, I don't remember taking of my skates, but luckily by the time I made it to the road that ran by the farmer's house I already had my shoes on.

I ran maybe a few hundred yards before I noticed a horse stable on the side of the road opposite the farmer's estate. As I ran into the stable I startled the man who was inside, feeding his horses. I told him I had to hide because his neighboring farmer was trying to kill me. He told me he had a hard time believing that since he had been neighbors with the farmer for years and couldn't imagine him killing anybody. I told quickly explained how the farmer had shot down everyone who had been ice skating on his property and pleaded with the horse owner to not turn me in, then I stuffed myself into a wooden locker that was no more than three feet tall and three feet wide.

I wasn't in hiding for long before the farmer entered the stable explaining to the horse owner how he was looking for someone who had just left his farm. He had a younger woman with him, probably his daughter.  I know because I was watching through the peephole placed conveniently beneath the locker's handle. The young lady began snooping around the stable as the horse owner explained that he hadn't seen me, but didn't inquire about why the farmer was seeking me either.

Meanwhile the snooping girl came dangerously close to my hiding place, I silently shifted my body out of her line of vision as she came up, knelt down, and placed her eye directly in front of the peephole. Luckily she didn't think to open the locker. As the farmer announced their departure and she stood up and followed him out of the stable back toward the farm.

The horse owner left the stable without saying anything to me. I didn't dare leave the locker for hours, maybe days, I really had no concept of time. Eventually the horse owner came back and told me I was safe to come in his house. I exited the locker and followed him.

Upon entering the horse owner's home I went straight to the phone and called 9-1-1. I stared out the window at the farmer's property down the road while the phone rang. After what seemed like way too long someone finally picked up on the other end.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?" asked the nasal female voice.

"MURDER!" I blurted out, before I had really thought through what else I was going to say.

"Please hold."

HOLD?!?!?! It was murder and they were putting me on hold?!? I started pacing anxiously as I saw the farmer leave his house across the street and begin to stir about his yard.  After a few moments that felt like eternity, someone picked up the phone and asked me to explain what happened.

I could tell my story was being received with skepticism. Why would a farmer want to kill people who were simply skating around on ice? I yelled that I didn't have a good explanation but if they didn't get anyone out there soon that I would be the next victim.

As I debated with the man over the phone whether or not it would be a waste of time to send the police out I noticed the farmer had begun to make his way over to the house I was in. I looked out the window in the other direction and saw sirens down the road, but the police had another car pulled over maybe a half a mile away and I couldn't tell if the multiple police cars were tending to an accident or maybe just someone who was speeding down a country road in the middle of nowhere or hadn't completely stopped at a stop sign.

As the farmer got closer to the house the man on the phone reluctantly agreed to send the police over. But would they get there in time? I was nervous but felt a calm assurance that somehow they would get there in time to preserve my life. I never found out, because I woke up.

....yep. I insincerely apologize to anyone who read this entire post, or any portion of it. I could've come up with a better ending, or a better story altogether, but that's how I dreamt it.

As A Man Thinketh...

"Does anyone in here have two MAJOR personality types that are in OPPOSITE corners? . . . . I thought we had one . . . "

That's when I realized she was talking about ME.

I raised my hand and watched as every head in the room swung around and looked at me. "So does this make me bi-polar?"

"No," responded the lady in charge. "This just means you have two dominant personality types that contradict each other."

Oh, that's all. Good to know. Actually the personality assessments we completed at work did help me identify some useful information about myself. Things like how I generally get along with other personality types and how I'm usually calm and dependable. It also pointed out some of my negative traits that mostly come out when I'm experiencing stress.

But the whole multiple, dominant, opposite personalities thing is what stood out to me. Maybe that's why the phrase "be yourself" never made any sense to me. I don't know who "myself" really is.

A couple of days ago I walked outside from work and there was a pregnant lady I didn't recognize directly in front of me. She was talking on her cellular device and I could tell she was focused on her conversation and oblivious of my existence. My first thought was how funny it would be if I walked up and rubbed her belly once and then gave it two soft pats, like a father would give to a heroic dog after it saved his child from a grizzly bear, or a farmer congratulating his pig for winning a prize at the state fair.

This whole interaction would only take me a few seconds, I would barely stop walking long enough for the belly rubs and gentle pats. Then I would smile and say "congratulations" and give her a thumbs up while walking off and getting into my car and out of her life forever.

I can imagine the woman stopping in the middle of her conversation and staring open-mouthed at my backside as I walk off, while the person on the other end of her phone call says, "HELLO? . . . HELLO? . . . . hey you just stopped talking!"

Then after a pause pregnant lady says ". . . . that was really weird."

I decided against pursuing the aforementioned action and instead just walked right past pregnant lady without saying anything. I have multiple thoughts and impulses every day that are just kind of wacky like that. I don't act on most of them.

I don't hi-five my co-workers when they leave a rehearsed standard voice message over the phone as I walk by and shout out "NAILED IT!" . . . even though I want to sometimes.

I have this thing called "my better judgement." It stops me from asking a women if she's on her period every time she says something that I don't really understand.

Does not acting on these ideas mean I'm not being true to myself? Is the answer to this really basic philosophy 101 stuff that I'm just thinking about for the first time? Or I am just mindlessly rambling?

Also I often crave anything made out of avocado. That's not really relevant to this post, but I just wanted to make sure it was known. 

The first girl I let into my life and she tries to eat me

Zombies. Who invented them, and how did he get away with it? I imagine his first conversation about the undead went something like this:

"Hey I have this great idea for a movie! People are being chased by other people who are really slow.
But it's scary because the slow people are dead. Oh and they're hungry, but not just for burgers or something, they like to eat other people!
You with me so far? Great, so like I said the dead people are slow, but they're also stupid. They don't talk or use any strategy to try to get food they just walk after it. Kinda like chickens. Dead....people-chickens. Also they don't eat each other, even though they're dumb they can tell the difference between other dead people and live people and they only like to eat the live ones.

Now when a live person gets eaten by a dead one, they become a living dead person too. If there is enough of them to still walk, sometimes the dead ones leave enough of a recently living one behind for it to become another walking dead one as well, even though they're always hungry chasing live ones. They're like the opposite of Native Americans, they only eat like the first few bites and then walk off slowly chasing others.
Oh and you can kill them. Even though they're already dead. If you shoot them a few times with a shotgun they become more dead, and don't get up again. But it takes a few shots, they don't really die with just one.
...I'm thinking about calling them...zombies. What do you think?"

At which point I'm sure someone says "Why don't you just do a movie about vampires? They're sorta dead but not really, and they make a lot more sense."

To which Zombie Inventor replies "because I don't want my dead people to sparkle in the sunlight, moron."

It's self-assigned penance for problems with easy solutions

A stupid person once said "Reach for the stars, then if you miss the worst you can get is the moon!" or something along those lines.

Why would anyone want the moon? It's cold and barren and pretends to be a source of light when it doesn't really produce any energy, just like my ex (ok not really, buy you lol'd a little bit there, admit it).

I'll give the moon this, it would be pretty fun to jump around in limited gravity...until you run out of oxygen and die. And why is anyone reaching for stars in the first place? You would have to have really long arms to even come close, and if you did they would burn you, really bad. And what direction are you going if you're reaching for "the stars?" Because they surround us, and they're millions of miles apart from each other, so you can't even reach for two at the same time. They should say "pick a star and reach for it," that would be less confusing and result in less pulled muscles.

Those are the reasons I will not be reaching for any stars this upcoming year. Instead I am reaching for the ceiling, and not a vaulted ceiling. We're talking 9 or 10 feet maximum. So without further ado, here they are, my Two Thousand Twelvolutions:

1- Don't Die. I survived rapture, twice. Am I worried about the end of the Mayan Calendar, nah.
2- Me or one of my roommates must get married. John being engaged should make this one easy.
3- Don't spend too much time on Pinterest. I don't really know what it is, I'm just adopting this one so others can be inspired by me and follow my example.
4- Update my blog at least once. You have to have one you get done early, so you don't lose motivation. Baby steps.