Rational? Huh?

I have kickass machines at home that I never have time to use.

Take my G5. It's a kickin' 2.3Ghz dual-processor machine with monster drives (totalling about over a terabyte of space) and many gigs of RAM. It faces the world with a Dell 24-inch flat-panel display.

Mostly, it's used to play Marble Blast with my kids.

So I finally decided to face the technological reality that it's better for my server at work to be the G5, and the computer at home to be a Mac Mini (instead of the other way around) and that the 24-inch monitor would be put to best use at my desk. Not at in home office that I don't use enough.

I got home from work 10 minutes ago. I set up the G5 with a mirrored raid, wrote all kinds of backup scripts (offsite and onsite), and basically tweaked the crap out of everything. It took me all day, and most of the night. I'm having a pasta-n-butter dinner tomorrow, before the 5-mile Dash and Splash race in Central park. Gotta get up early.

Whoa: rational application of technology, for the first time in 37 years. And I don't think the kids noticed that they played Marble Blast on a mini, vs. a G5.

No worries, though. I'm sure once the quad-core xeon Macs come out, I'll be getting one.

Love to all. Even you, the bus driver who parked in the only passable lane on University place for twenty minutes.

I love my friends.

I was in a crappy mood last night... and I told this to a friend of mine. A few minutes later, I get an email back from her saying: "Smile."

With a picture attached.



I love my friends so much. At 37, I'm developing the kind of super-tight friendships I had when I was 19. Lucky, lucky me.

Love to all. Even you, the corgi who has me posting at 4:57am, because her stomach is upset and she needs to go out a lot.

My Bronx Half-Marathon Playlist.

Lots of slower songs, here... but not all. I found that running to slower songs often makes me faster, but more fluid.

Love to all. Even you, the lady I just put on my company's email blocklist.

Madly, joyously.

Let's take a moment, here.

Okay. Cool. I realize that I've been moderately whiny, recently... but when I sit back and think about it, it's because life is rocking along mightily and change, even good change, can be a little disconcerting. Some things to be happy about:

• I'm coming up on 3 years sober, again.
• Maggie's rocking away at her new job.
• My oldest is confident and funny, and he's freshly 10 and starting middle school.
  
• My daughter rocks my world with every breath, and challenges me constantly.
  
• My youngest is incredibly social and happy and starting kindergarten.
  
• I can run 15 miles at any given moment, which is hilarious, and utterly antithetical to the way I used to be.
• I've got muscles I've never had before.
• I've got my own company, again, and I'm being pursued by others for work.
  
• We have a nice house, cool dogs, and sassy cats.
• We've got family that loves us.
• We've got friends that we love.
  

So we're adjusting to changes, here. But who isn't? We're lucky people, and while I think that we know it... I certainly need to take more time to appreciate it.

I am madly and joyously in love with the process of living.

That's all for now.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who apparently deleted a magazine's press-ready files on purpose.

Babysitter blues.

The babysitter didn't show up today. I've been saying that this lady's unreliability has overstepped her niceness for years. She was even fired once for being late, not showing up, etc. On the other hand, she's super trustworthy with the kids, and genuinely nice. Apparently, even though Maggie says she explicitly gave her instructions as to when she was going to be working.

Although, she didn't give me those instructions, either.... so...

Maggie told me that if I didn't come back home, she would get fired. Of course, and this sounds so mean, Maggie's job doesn't generate revenue yet... it kind of washes with the babysitter (when she shows up)... but mine is the one that, at least currently, pays for our lives. And after discovering that several things fell by the wayside at work while I was away, I wasn't keen on coming home. But Maggie really needed me. So. After taking the 5:30 train to NYC, going to my morning AA meeting, and walking to my office near Union Square, I got the call at 9:20 asking me to come home. I sprinted to the 9:48 train.

And now the day is done. Maggie is back, but going out tonight. Admittedly, the kids had a hell of a schedule, and I'm impressed that Maggie handles all this stuff: tennis team, swim team, diving lessons, dentists appointments, AND one of our cats had to be picked up from being spayed. Busy, busy.

Now, though, I'm making dinner, and trying not to feel unappreciated. Maggie did tell me at the end of the day how much she appreciated my help. And I should be glad she did. But I feel kind of weird. Maggie and I even got into an argument during the day when she called me on the phone for tech support with Excel... and laughed at me because she thought I wasn't listening to her. I was. There's a difference between "duplicate" and "fill down" and Maggie was trying to do neither, but accidentally doing the latter, and describing it as the former. She thought they were the same thing, and that I was just repeating myself.

I love this woman a lot. We are adjusting. It's a good thing I'm such a big jackass, so that I can't be too judgemental when she's a little wonky.

Love to all. Even you, bride-o-mine.

Bronx Half-Marathon 2006 and a story.

I am SO psyched.

I just blew the doors off my old personal record for a half-marathon, in weather that was much less conducive to setting a PR than the last time I did so.

On March 19, 2005, in perfect 40-something degree weather:

• Time: 1:48:10
• Pace: 8:15
• Gender Place: 819 out of 1965 dudes. (Top 30.05%)
• Overall Place: 1007 out of 3351

Today, I ran in a sunny, 77-degree day (62% humidity):

• Time: 1:45:25
• Pace: 7:53
• Gender Place: 482 out of 2073 dudes. (Top 23.2%)
• Overall Place: 536 out of 3187

This makes me think I can hit 7:30 in the next cool-weather half-marathon.

Cool story: I was walking back to my car from the race, and a young, kind of petite woman said to me:

"How'd it go?"
I said, "I think I just ran my best race. I'm happy. You?"
Her: "Well, it wasn't my best race, but I won."
Me: "Won what?"
Her: "I was the first woman to finish. I won the race."
Me: "Oh... you mean won won."

So we talked a minute more, and she told me that's she was from Morristown, NJ. So I said "MORRISTOWN! That town put me into the hospital!"

She: "What?"
Me: "Since I'm never going to see you again, I'll tell you a true story. One time, I was hired to walk around Morristown NJ handing out leaflets for Penny Press dressed as Mickey Mouse. But since I was kind of a dirty drunken oaf, I didn't wear socks. And the Mickey Mouse shoes cut my feet up something fierce. So, about two weeks later, I'm tripping my face off on mushrooms, my ankles get super-infected, swell up, and I had to go to the ER. I made a conscious decision to have a blast, since the alternative was to freak out completely."

She was looking at me with a really awesome, entertained smile. I think she didn't expect this kind of story (duh), but clearly wasn't worried that I was psychotic. I have this weird vibe which lets me chat with people kind of randomly, without offending. My boys have it, too.

I finished up: "Anyway, I've cleaned up my act since then."

We got to the corner, and I said "Congratulations again. I got a killer parking spot, I just hope my car is still there." She told me that she was given a parking spot by the security folks, and that she worked at a running store, gave me her name, and said that if I ever was back in NJ, I should come by the shop where she works.

By the way, I checked her results: she won at a 6:28 pace. Holy smokes.

This was an awesome day.

Love to all. Even you, the crazy truck driver who passed me on the shoulder, even though there were other lanes available.

And now, the real training!

So, this is my last week of pre-Marathon Training training...culminating this week with the Bronx Half-Marathon this Sunday. After this, I'm going to go on the formal training program, as provided by the New York Road Runners. I didn't run a long run this week because Sunday's race is 13.1 miles. That's far enough, this week, even if the miles count towards next week.

I'm getting kind of psyched about the condition I'm in. I've never been that fit... I mean, I had the cardio, but never the musculature... and at 37, I'm starting to look somewhat, well, good.

Weird to say, but it's true.

We leave for Westchester tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the kitties and puppies.

Love to all. Even you, the Armonk parents who kept their backs to their six-year-old while he played right on the edge of the ocean.

Trajectories.

“Yo! Get out on my side, please!”

We had pulled up on the side of the road, and Maggie was dropping us off at the beach place in Montauk. I asked the kids to exit the van on my side, so that they’d step onto the grass, not into the middle of the road.

As I got out of the van, I saw my daughter already across the street.

I asked: “Did you look both ways?”
She answered: “Yes.”

Then my youngest started running around the back of the van.

A red car was coming down the road, approaching our vehicle. My youngest was rounding the corner of the van and heading for the road, not looking for oncoming traffic. Not seeing that there was oncoming traffic.

Slow motion.

Trajectories overlayed my vision in neon, just like they used to when I was a younger. My youngest was going to get hit. He ran out of my field of vision, and I started sprinting around the van. “STOP!” I yelled. He kept going. “STOP!” I yelled again. He didn’t.

I rounded the back of the van at speed, figuring to run into the middle of the road and knock his ass off the street.

No need. Apparently, I screamed loud enough that the oncoming car heard me. They were stopped, about ten feet from my son, who was still in the road. I grabbed him, and said “Jesus. Do you see the car? Do you see what could have happened? You HAVE to look before crossing the street. Always.”

He started crying.

Love to all. Even you, the dude with the hearing aid who screamed “HUMILITY!”

Hey, America.

Happy Birthday, you big, dumb, son of a bitch.

I love you SO much, even though you're really making me nuts. I even wore a special shoe combination just for you.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Unemployed on 1/20/2009.

Two feet for two kids.

Normally, we don’t have the pool to ourselves. This is a pretty sweet moment.

Love to all. Even you, the 40-something-year-old, brother-in-law who didn’t get my son a 10th birthday present, even though he was in a toy store this morning, and said “uh, I, uh, helped pick out the present your grandmother gave you.”

Who knew?

After going to the 7am AA meeting across the street, a friend and I went for coffee. Now, I’ve been going to the farmer’s market in Amagansett, for like, a decade… but when my friend took me around the side of the market to sit down and chat, it turns out there’s a way cool seating area.

Nice stuff.

Love to all. Even you, the Mother-in-Law who came over to visit my son, but immediately went to sleep for the entire time she was here.

Looking out.

And thus the dad-enabled segment our family vacation begins.

This is my youngest, taking in the day, seeing the possibilities, and planning what to do next.

It's nice to be here. We've been coming to Montauk for 8 or 9 years, now. And we've been coming with the same friends for 6 or 7 of them. One year, they just showed up. And we've been doing it ever since.

I have so much going on in my head and in my life. I have to figure out how to blog it. And soon. Frankly, I'm just a little baffled by how to express things these days, and that is certainly not my normal mode of operation.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who clearly didn't know where the corners of her Escalade were.

I had this marker board sitting around in the basement, so I hung it up and wrote "Leave notes for Daddy on it."

Turned out to be a really good idea.

Note how when I didn't write "done!" after completing the task on the bottom left, one of my kids did for me... Exclamation point and underline... just like me.

Tomorrow I leave for Montauk at 5am. Spending the week with Maggie and the kids, who've been there since Wednesday. I hope there's some restorative interaction for me and Maggie. Although when I told her that I was looking forward to being her boyfriend again, she told me that she was, too... and then started to bring up lots of negative things about me, and then either her phone died or she hung up on me.

Maggie things the medication I'm on is making me less happy. That might be somewhat true. On the other hand, this medication I'm on has brought my life into focus, and seeing how much there is to do at home, and at work, I've started doing it. I don't want her to take it personally, but she does. And as I tried to point out before, there were a lot of concurrent stressors. This was definitely a two-way street.

Wow. This post turned depressing. Sorry about that.

I'm going to do my best to facilitate other folks having a fabulous time. That's my goal.

Love to all. Even you, the big-bellied dude who threatened to throw the skater kid off the train because he didn't like his shirt.

Note to self.

When the VP of HR at one of the largest national media syndicates says that a job offer for someone you were pushing to get hired is being withdrawn due to a failed drug test, don't say:

Do you really think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol?

Love to all. Even me.

It just keeps going.

Okay. This is my final "jackass cell phone user on the train" post. The reason she was especially annoying was that:

1. She cleaned her pores with seriously smelly chemicals, and then left the cotton pads on the seat in front of her.
2. She took up three seats with all her crap.

Love to all. Even you, the lady trying to annul her marriage, even though she has three grown children and was married for 25 years.

I realize that I have electronics, too. But my phone is on vibrate, I move to the doorway if I need to talk to someone, and dammit, I keep my computer close, and out of anyone's way. Electronics can be used politely. I swear.

Why, iPod, why?

I know I have "Def Leppard's Greatest Hits." I did it for the history, the majesty, and the cheesy perfection of "Photograph" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me."

But why do you always pick songs from this album, iPod? Why? There are thousands of other songs to choose from... why are you making me listen to "Animal"? Again?

iPod, are you mad at me?

Love to all. Even you, Rick Savage.

Wait! We have a new winner!

Right on the heels of my mini-epiphany about "how to love different people the right way" comes a dude who just rockets me right back to my character defects. Meet the ickiest train rider yet, completely displacing the previous June winner.

He was using a tablet computer, and every time he got to the bottom right of his screen, he was wacking the crap out of my arm. It wasn't subtle. It was repeated, as if he were trying to move me off my seat. He also had a bag on the seat in front of him.. and had his feet on the seat, too. (We were in a two-facing-two seat arrangement).

So after whack number 20, the following conversation ensues:

Me: Excuse me, can you move your computer two inches to your left, every time you draw on part of your screen, you're hitting me pretty hard.
Him: No.
Me: No?
Him: There's no room to move an inch. This is the only way to do it.
Me: Wait. Are you fucking telling me that you're going to keep hitting me?
Him: Yes.

I take out my Palm, put it in his face, take his picture, and say:

I'm posting your picture online as the biggest dick ever to ride a train.

I got up and moved to the doorway, and did crossword puzzles. Admittedly, this wasn't my finest moment as a Christian, but damn, dudes... what a prick! AAAAAH! Maybe it's something about me that attracts these kind of people.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who let her viscious dogs off lead.

A sudden realization.

I woke up this morning in turmoil. I knew I was spiritually out of balance, and had been for a while. My purity of dedication to my family was eroding. Maggie and I were becoming more distant, and oppositional. My thoughts were wandering elsewhere.

I went for a run.

Four miles in, out of nowhere, this thought takes over: "Your job in life is to get closer to God, and to love everyone the right way." It was a strange, simple, and powerful moment.

I feel clearer, more properly directed, than I have in a long time.

Love to all. Even you, whoever designed the keyboard on this Treo 650.

A new phishing variant.

I've gotten used to the email scams from people pretending to be eBay, Citibank, etc., claiming you need to login immediately in order to verify your account. But this is the first time I've gotten an eBay phishing scam as a pretend "Item not received" dispute.

I didn't click. I did think about it for a second, because of the "What the hell is this?" instinct.

But, paranoid dude that I am, I checked the headers (and besides, you should always type the address in manually, never click an email link), and saw that, no, it didn't come from ebay. Rather, it came from ip address 61.211.238.83.

Running a port scan on the offending computer reveals that it is associated with the hadano.tv domain, has a slew of open services, and is running Linux.

This phishing scam was better written, and a bit more sophisticated, than the run of the mill crap we're all (hopefully) fully aware of.

Let the surfer beware.

Love to all. Even you, the kid who has an answer to everything, and then some.

And the award for...

...most obnoxious cell phone user for June, 2006 goes to...

THIS GUY!

Because he wasn't only loud, but his phone's volume was turned up so high I could hear his wife clearly through my Sony Fontopia Noise Isolating headphones.

Fuck, dude. Get a grip on politeness.

In second place was the jackass next to me playing a game on his Treo with the sound on, followed closely by the guy two rows up who repeatedly adjusted his ring volume. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!


Love to all. Even you, the Physician with the Mango Juice Pyramid Scheme.

Tattoo questions, answered.

Squipo asked:

Hey, hypothetically speaking, IF things with Maggie don't get better, what will happen to your arm? Just curious... Does she also have your name tattoed on her chest?

Answer 1: When I got the Maggie tattoo done, the artist pointed out to me that there's room underneath to write in fairly large letters, right underneath "Maggie", the word "LEFT." Besides, any woman who was willing to bear three kids for me deserves her name tattooed on my body regardless of any current or future status.

Answer 2: When I told Maggie I was going to get her name tattooed on my arm, she said "That's really sweet, but I will never, ever do that for you."

And that's the scoop.

Love to all. Even you, the dude with the bad, bad cough who was hanging out in the doorway of Whole Foods.

Feat of Survival and a New Profile Picture.

Well, we took 8 ten-year-olds to Rye Playland (plus three other children), and we made it back with the same number with which we departed. That, in itself, deserves a round of applause.

I said, THAT IN ITSELF DESERVES A ROUND OF APPLAUSE.

Sheesh. Anyway. I put up new profile pic, which features my other arm, and my slowly developing musculature. Accent on "slowly."

Love to all. Even you, the sleepover participant who I hear running around upstairs. Again.

159.6 and a Pre-Teen Adventure.

159.6 this morning. That’s kind of fucked up. I’m going to have to make a conscious effort to eat more, because I’m certainly not going to stop the exercise thing.

Today, I’m taking the 5:30 train to Manhattan, going to my morning AA meeting, going downtown to the gym, running 6.5 miles, doing the weight circuit, possibly having lunch with a friend, then coming back to Westchester to take 8 pre-teens to Rye Playland to celebrate my oldest’s 10th birthday.

Although scheduling the trip was kind of a hassle, I’m totally psyched to go now. It’s a mix of boys and girls, and chaperoning the group should be really interesting. My oldest is friends with the school psychologist’s daughter, so he’s coming as our other chaperone. Always interesting to watch a psychologist interact with his kids.

Ten. My oldest is turning ten. Holy SHIT.

Love to all. Even you, bleeder.

Return.

Like a breaking fever, things between Maggie and I have suddenly improved. I think both of stepped back and truly acknowledged, the way a lot of commenters on this blog saw right away, that the combination of stressors in our lives has been unusually high. I also think (hell, I know), that Maggie realized that she had been very (even uniquely, in terms of our 12-year history) harsh with me. I feel weird saying this, because this is the reverse role for our normal experience together.

I’m the jackass, dammit. Not Maggie.

Maggie’s a fine lass and a good person. This has been a unsettling, painful, and upsetting couple of weeks. But I’m done with it and moving on -- just in time for our vacation in Montauk, which starts for Maggie next Tuesday, and next Friday for me.

Love to all. Even you, the less friendly fraternal twin who we always have to invite along with the twin we actually like a lot.

Verizon sucks [the happy ending remix]

So, a while back, I mentioned that I was able to patch my Treo 650 to use bluetooth syncing and, more importantly, enable the Treo's wireless dial-up connection. I was told by the Verizon sales guy that this would let me use my Treo the same way I used my V710... that 1x data calls would use minutes, and not charge me on a per/kb basis.

Minutes, not data.

So I was checking my bills today, and I noticed 50.5mb in data usage. I called Verizon, and the lady told me that, no, even though I WAS using the phone in the exact same way I was using the V710 (I mean, I even use the same modem scripts), and even though the person at Verizon told me that it would use minutes only, I now owed them $780 dollars for data usage.

I disagreed.

After some discussion about the identical nature of the services used, she basically said "tough shit, the Verizon store guy didn't note on your account that he told you this." So I was out of luck. So I finally said "Fine. So let me sign up for data, and backdate the plan a month."

She said: "We don't backdate plans."

Now, I know this is a lie.

I said, "Okay. Let me make sure I understand what you are saying. Are you specifically telling me that Verizon, without exception, doesn't backdate their plans?"

She said "Um, no. I meant they don't backdate data plans."

I said: "I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should get a supervisor."

She: "If you want, you can, but they don't have any authority to backdate data plans."

Me: "Still, I'd like to speak to a supervisor."

The supervisor gets on the phone. We have three seconds of conversation.

She says: "No problem! And while we're at it, we can reduce your calling plan by $20/month, so your net increase will only be $20/month after backdating the data plan."

Thus, I saved $760 by politely not believing the original Verizon person.

I don't even know what to say about this, but that's the scoop. Verizon kind of sucks, because you have to doubt certain people to get to other people who will help you. That's all. Weird experience. But I'm psyched on the savings.

Love to all. Even you, Andrea from the South Texas Verizon Call Center.

Current body update.

Oh, what a transitional state I'm in!

After hitting a low of 160.xx pounds, I seem to have leveled off. This morning I was 163.

I've never enjoyed lifting weights before... but now it's just a blast. Makes me wish I had a "before" to go with an "after." Of course, right now I'm in the "middle," and I'm using "quotes" in a way that I "can't" "stop" "doing."

""
Running-wise, I had a big few days. I did 12.5 miles on Saturday, 4 on Sunday, and 7 today. I'm taking tomorrow off, but Wednesday we're on it. On July 3, I start my actual marathon training.

I'm hugely "psyched."

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Young, Stupid, and Clueless.

Stupid funk.

I’ve got to shake this funk. I’m super-upset and disappointed with how I’m being talked to and treated these days. I know I play a role in it, but I also know that there are much better ways to talk to me. And if I take the time to say “the way you are talking is really hurting my feelings,” maybe that should be taken into consideration.

Maybe it’s a bad idea to compare me to my father.
Maybe it’s a bad idea to say I consider my son and wife The Enemy.

Maybe things can be said in a less hurtful manner.

I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll look back at this in a week and be like, “God, you are such an idiot.” But for the moment I’m pretty bummed out.

Maybe seven hours of sleep will change my views.

Love to all. Even you, the crazy fuck who spit on my employee.

Fairly crapalicious, and a movie review.

Father's Day kind of sucked.

So did Nacho Libre.

With Maggie at work all day, I had to contend with my youngest acting out nearly non-stop, which basically involves him ignoring anything I ask him not to do. Like "Please don't jump into the deep end of the pool, because you can't swim!"

...

{Splash}

I did take the kids to see Nacho Libre... we were pretty psyched, all of us being huge Jack Black fans and all. But, alas, the movie was... dull.

Towards the end of the day, Maggie called from work. I was telling her about the day... how my youngest hit my daughter in the face twice, how my oldest twisted her arm immediately after I told him not to touch her... when Maggie said (about the altercation between my oldest and my daughter), "Well, she really picks on him."

That totally pissed me off, because:

1. I don't care if she picks on him. If I fucking say don't do it, you don't do it.
2. He comments on everything she says, and I don't think that justfies her smacking him.
3. I just wanted Maggie to listen to me, because the kids were making me nuts.

So, in glorious Rich fashion, I said: "I don't want to hear you explaining why it's okay for him to hit her. I just want to vent for a second." She got pissed, I got more pissed. We got off the phone.

When she called back later, I had actually forgotten about the conversation, and she was still really angry. I said "what are you mad about?" She said: "Are you kidding me?" I said I wasn't. She reminded me abour the prior argument. So it started up again. When I asked her how her telling me why my oldest hurt my daughter wasn't explaining away his behavior, she said:

"Don't even go there."

Now, I'm a big jackass, and I'll also take a lot of shit, but ladies and gentlemen, I seriously doubt I could remain married to someone who says "Don't even go there," and means it.

I'm only sort of kidding here.

Anyway: I feel pretty much like Maggie and I are misfiring, the kids are missing her and acting out because of this, and, well, this to shall pass.

Bleah. What a lame post. Ah, well. Such is life, and such is blogs.

Love to all. Even you, the A&P patron who lost her shit because the credit card machines went down.

Whirlwind.

Father's Day weekend. Maggie worked yesterday til late. Same with today.

Craziness abounds, time is short, tickets are bought, plans are made.

Love to all. Even you, the fast-driving, tailgating couple in the BMW and Chrysler Vans... sorry about the mailbox.

I am 40% girl.

I’m not kidding. I came to this conclusion a long time ago… so long ago that I don’t really remember when I first started saying it. I’m not sure what it means beyond the simple fact that I am, indeed, 40% girl.

Anyway. Over the last two days, I spent like $500 on Personal Upgrades. Normally, I’m somewhat reticent to shop for anything except for computers, but I’ve been mulling over a moderate clothing overhaul for a while, and a perfect storm of sales and opportunity presented itself.

The dust is settling, and I see:

3 Brooks Brothers shirts. 40% off.
2 pairs Brooks Brothers Gabardine Pants – 40% off.
1 pair plaid Gap summer shorts – 50% off
1 pair olive Gap cargo shorts – 25% off
1 pair flat-front blue Gap shorts – 25% off
1 pink and green Gap shirt – 50% off
1 in-ear Bluetooth headset from Plantronics – 25% off
1 pair Sony in-ear headphones, 0% off – oops.
2 pair suede Pumas, 1 pair bright blue, 1 bright red – Buy 1 pair, get on 50% off

Craziness, right? I can’t think of another time when I bought myself clothes like this. I think maybe I’m upgrading my look as I upgrade my way of doing business.

The only thing is, I bought stuff based on the size I think I’m going to be, when I weight stabilize… and that’s about 10 pounds higher than I am right now. So the shorts I bought are kind of loose. Okay, REALLY loose. Kind of freaky loose. But I’m hoping to gain back some good kind of weight soon, and… it was a sale!

I have officially decided that another $280.00 of spending is in my future. There’s absolutely no chance that I’m not going to buy the Nike+ iPod Nano connector kit, with attendant iPod Nano and Nike+ sneakers. Yeah, I’ll have three iPods. It’s true.

But I want to reward Nike and Apple for targeting me so perfectly: I AM THE AUDIENCE, AND I SHALL PURCHASE.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who prefaces nearly everything he says with “I’m sure you don’t know this, but…”

161.0: Adderall, caffeine, focus.

I’ve got some new observations on this whole Adderall thing, for those of you keeping track. (And I know you’re out there, because I pay you damn good money to pretend to be interested in me.)

Creativity: I was worried that Adderall would bring my creative side to a dead stop. This has turned out not to be true. I think. Feedback from my most reliable critics on my last direct mail piece was excellent, so that’s good. My friends (unpaid) have also been unfailingly excellent in telling me that I’m simply a less distracted version of the same ol’ idiot I’ve always been. And THAT rocks the house.

Caffeine: Holy crap. I used to drink a lot of coffee. Now I only have a small cup in the morning, and a small cup in the afternoon. There is definitely a synergistic effect between Adderall and caffeine, and if I have that small cup at 4pm, I’ll be up until midnight. Also, it seems that a small cup of coffee in the afternoon.

Weight: Still dropping. Since May 12, I’ve lost 20.5 pounds. Simultaneously, though, I’ve increased my exercise about threefold. I’m up to 30 miles a week running, and I’ve been doing the most serious weight circuit I’ve ever done.

Mood: This has been the hardest thing. Since Adderall affects mood directly, but also causes sleeplessness and lack of appetite (two things which can affect mood as well), I’ve had to be really careful to try and maintain balance while I adjusted to the stuff. The last 4 days have been such an improvement, though. So, yay.

Focus: It’s a freaking gift, this medicine. I’ve completely revamped my work life (I’m not finished, but hot damn, am I making progress), and my desks at home and work have both been clean for 41 consecutive days. It’s absolutely unbelievable. My colleagues are happily amazed, and I feel that, whatever sparse talents I may have, I’m bringing them fully to bear.

Overall, I’m going to say that this has been a really amazing thing for me to do. If the moodiness hadn’t started to level out, though, I would have quit the stuff. I’d rather be happily married and utterly distracted than completely on-task and divorced.

And that is quite enough from me.

Love to all. Even you, the expectant-poppa who was so unadmittedly nervous that he threw his back out on his wife’s due date.

oh man oh man oh man

I just took delivery of the coolest thing I've every bought: bulk glow sticks, in seven colors.

Love to all. Even you, the older guy at the Affordable Art Fair who was utterly transfixed by the charcoal trees.

Plain.

Today:

I wrote a new direct mail piece.
I interviewed someone.
I got elected Treasurer of my home AA group until 2008.
I bought a Skype phone.
I started to setup a Crontab to backup my databases and FTP them to my house.
I made chicken and macaroni n' cheese for the kids.

Maggie is working until 9 or 10 tonight, so it's me and the kids. To be honest, I'm letting them watch a show before bed, to make cleaning dishes easier. To be even MORE honest, and STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU ARE EASILY MADE QUEASY... I'm writing this entry from the potty. Really.

So this is one of those times where I say: "Thanks, God. Thanks for my life, my family, my job, and my day. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to come home from work and make dinner for the kids. Thanks for helping me do these things without being an unbelievably irritable dickface."

Love to all. Even you, the lady who took ten minutes to unwrap her jolly rancher before shifting it noisily from one side of her mouth to another every...ten...seconds.

Like a hammer.

I was sorting through my company’s mail today… lots of notifications from various NY state agencies, bills for medical and worker’s comp, other stuff… and there at the bottom of the pile is an envelope that's a little out of place.

It was a Wonder Woman envelope. And it was addressed to “Richerd” at my company’s address. I recognized the handwriting immediately, and then it was hard for me to see.

Dear Dad,

I hope you are having a nice day at work.

Love and kisses,

[my 6-year-old daughter]

My friends, let me you tell that nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the feeling I got from receiving and reading that note. It was like being hit in the chest with an hammer. I love that girl so much.

When I think about her, all the colors in the room saturate and intensify.

Love to all.

The best pharmacology report ever.

So, I've been having side effects: sleeplessness, irritability, weight losss. They're ongoing, but starting to lighten up a bit. I've slept fairly well for three nights running, and my weight has leveled off, it seems, at 164: 17 pounds down.

Still concerned about the side effects, I called the doc to ask the scoop.

She said: "Everything you're reporting is typical for this medication. By the time I see you for our June 25th, all of the symptoms should have resolved, except for one: weight loss.:

I was like: SCORE!

Admittedly, the weight thing has been helped by getting my running mileage up to 25-30 a week, and the near-total elimination of sweets... but if I have to have ONE side effect, I'll take it.

Love to all. Even you, the costume designer who forgot the dancers were children.

Why do I care so much about Gay issues?

ITS asked me:

Rich,
I wonder why do you feel so passionate about supporting the gay cause?
Could it be because the New York Knicks suck?

No, but that could be why I avoid walking near Madison Square Garden... I don't want the sticky aura of suckage which surrounds the building to rub off on me.

Here's why I care so much about gay rights: it's black and white. There are so many issues in this country with nuance, where both sides have points to make, and even though I have specific opinions on one side, I can see where the other side is coming from. See: abortion, Iraq, NSA wiretapping, nuclear energy, etc., etc.

Gay rights, however, is a one-sided affair. I believe that absolutely any rights that are afforded a heterosexual couple should be afforded any couple of any gender mix. Our representative republic is designed to allow it's citizens to grant and withdraw rights, which then must be evenly applied. Period. As a country, we have decided to grant rights to legally married couples. This must be applied to all citizens equally.

It's that simple. No muss, no fuss.

Love to all. Even you, the puppy with a piece of my couch in her mouth.

Just one of those convergent times.

I think between marital miscommunication, lack of sleep, business challenges, and chemical adjustments, I'm having a bit of a hard time with things. But it's all relative. I mean, it's not like I'm waking up in the back of my car, wondering how the hell I got there... that's SO 1987.

WARNING: I may be about to whine.

I feel like the way my wife and I are communicating recently just sucks. I realize there's a LOT of history of me being an irritable dickhead, so I guess I shouldn't expect those times when I'm NOT being an irritable dickhead to be greeted with responses as if I've NEVER been an irritable dickhead.

But still, I'm getting really tired of this dismissive attitude I've been getting recently. I hate, hate, hate being shut down pre-emptively. I hate global statements about my behavior. I hate being told what I'm thinking.

And I found our Big Date yesterday evening very difficult. My wife was twenty minutes late to the dinner, then wanted to "freshen up" before we actually went into the restaurant, then rejected the first table we were offered, then asked to move from the second table we were offed, knocked over a water glass on the way to the third table (it was an accident, but it was annoying), but she really like the third table, although I was next to a giant pole... then, after good appetizers, the entrees were actually CLOYING... then we left the balley early because both of us were tired, then we argued on the way home, when (okay, I admit this was a stupid move on my part) I asked her to either stop taking her foot off the gas every 20 seconds, or shifting to 5th so the car wouldn't lurch, since she was at 4700RPM. We went to bed displeased, to say the least.

And when I try to talk about stuff, I'm told to get over it. Which I guess I should, but it makes me not want to talk to her at all, if her response to my having things to talk about is either "get over it" or "I'm not talking to you about it."

I'm frustrated. I don't know if my new-found focus has allowed me things in a different way, or if the way I'm seeing things is tainted by Adderall. I should talk about this with my Professional Dude on Monday.

Note: I realize that I'm probably completely full of shit.

Love to all. Even you, the weird-ass Spanish businessmen who flushed the urinals at Cafe Grey with their feet.

Nothing.

I'm just really pissed off right now.

Love to all.

Gay Marriage: My County Approves.

Just want to toot the local horn, here.

My county just officially recognized gay marriage via an executive order. Here's the scoop:

The effect of the order is to give married gay couples the same county privileges as heterosexual couples, such as the right to buy family passes to county parks and the right to seek emergency housing as a family.

"I don't see why people, just because they're the same sex, shouldn't have the same benefits," Spano said yesterday.

Exactly. It's that simple.

Love to all. Even you, the poop-dragging corgi.

Thanks, JP Morgan Chase!

On April 23, 2006, I forwarded a phishing email to the abuse mailbox at JP Morgan Chase. I occasionally do this, just in case the security folks are being proactive. Last night, almost two months later, my inbox started getting bombed by autoresponses. Nice. I just started filtering them at the server level.

Love to all. Even you, the bank who refused me a business loan in 1999 even though we’d been profitable for four years running.

166.4

Well, I now weigh less than I did when I got married in 1995.

Wild.

Love to all.

This means YOU.

You know how at the beginning of every single ride, the train conductor always says "Keep your feet off the seats?" That means YOU. You think people want to sit down on top of whatever it was you just fucking walked on? You think we want NYC detritus ground into the seat of our pants?

I believe I speak for all of Metro North when I say, "No. We don't."

Love to all. Even you, the lady who yelled into her phone: "I'm on the train!" Four times in a row.

Gay marriage redux, again, etc.

My President, via CNN:

"Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. "Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all."

Fine, as far as it goes...

But how does gay marriage not promote the welfare of children and stability of society? How does gay marriage demote the welfare of children and the stability of society?

What the fuck is going on here?

Can someone please, please, please explain it to me?

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Feet on the Fucking Seats.

Fatherhood, Rock and Roll, and 26 seconds.

I used to be the drummer of a half-decent band. We played loud rock and roll, had three guitars, and permanently damaged the hearing in both of my ears. We played in NYC, Jersey, and Philly. Our little vinyl singles made the playlists of several dozen college radio stations around the country. It was fun as hell, and I still miss it.

Click here for 26 seconds of my life in 1993.

I left that band in 1995 to pursue a career, get married, have kids, and, of course, start a blog. I've played out a few times since then at the C-note in Manhattan, but never anything approaching the regular kind of situation like I had in the 90's.

My compromise goal has been to find a bunch of dads who want to play, but don't have the time. We'd get together to rehearse when possible, play out whenever we could, and basically have fun and not give a shit.

It appears that my goal is being met. Starting this summer, a few dads and I are going to start practicing together... and likely taking stuff back to our respective suburban enclaves to practice in between meetings. I'm so psyched.

If we ever record anything (ha!), I promise to post it here. And I apologize for that in advance.

Love to all. Even you, the bleary eyed lady who couldn't stay awake during the school play.

Adderall adjustment.

Apparently my body adjusted to the Adderall. Over the last few days, I've been kicking up many notches, sporadic-brain-wise. I've still been better in the office, but it's been a noticable switch back to my main prior mode. As always, with this stuff, it's a funny thing: my adjusting to amphetamines has made me speed up.

The doctor pretty much told me this would happen. In fact, the actual prescription was for 10mg 2-3x per day (depending on how early I got up), with an increase the second week to 20mg 2-3x p er day. I didn't up the dosage, though, because I want to be careful about this stuff.

So I talked to the doc, and she said: "Yup, up it to 20."

And again, I'm having first-day side-effects. The first was that I accidentally ran 10.25 miles while watching Jarhead on the treadmill. This was a problem, because I dehydrated myself and got pretty sick about three hours later. The second side effect was "overstimulation," as in, there was WAY TOO MUCH FUCKING INPUT IN MY HOUSE. Caps intended. Everyone just drove me absolutely nuts.

On the other hand, it definitely brought my thought processes back in line to where I want them to be. I'll give it a couple of days, and if this shit happens, I'll talk to the Doc about cutting back.

Now, though, I'm going play drums for a while.

Love to all. Even you, the neighbor up the street I saw tailgating the hell out of someone on a road near my house.

A period of fucking GROWTH.

Maggie and I have not been getting along that well. She's superstressed from starting her first job in ten years, and she's learning a lot on the fly. The babysitting thing hasn't been going that smoothly, and Maggie has made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want my help in fixing it. Nor my opinion on the subject.

It's frustrating. I've actually taken the time to plan my conversations with her in advance, so that I'd hopefully seem neither bossy or lecturing. My goal, in the last conversation, was to offer having the babysitter four days a week, instead of three, so that Maggie would both be covered for work even if the days switched around, and she'd have one day a week where the babysitter could do housework. Considering that, on net, it would still cost less than when we had a babysitter two days a week and Maggie had no job, I thought it was a good idea.

Maggie didn't agree. She wants a day with kids on her own. Which is fine, if she can work out the babysitting... but what bothered me more was that she was offended by my even having an opinion. She thought I was making a statement of incompetence about her coping skills.

I wasn't.

I think she realizes that, now... sort of. She apologized for the conversation... and I apologized for saying "screw you" and hanging up on her when she told me she wasn't interested in my opinion, and that I was saying she was incompetent.

Ugh. Bad communication, both ways.

Anyway, I realize that we're in a period of growth. Both of us. That we are adjusting to new schedules, ways of doing things, etc. But it kind of sucks.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who nearly flattened a woman trying to get on the 6 train at 8th street.

Dear Verizon:

Thank you for selling me this spiffy Treo 650 with your “new every two discount.” It has all the features I want, for hundreds less than the Treo 700p:

• Bluetooth synchronization of my contacts and calendars with OS X
  
• Bluetooth Dial-up networking for my Laptop… oh.. wait.

No it doesn’t. You disabled it, you enormous corporate jackass. Apparently, you cripple the phones you sell in order to make a lot of extra money by forcing your customers to use your wireless data services. These services, instead of using plain old Plan Minutes (and I have a LOT of Minutes), costs about as much as the monthly plan itself. Instead of cheaply (if slowly) surfing the web and getting email on my big-screen laptop, I’m supposed to use the teensy-ass screen on the Treo to read my damn Slashdot.

Well, thanks so some research and a patched Palm OS Bluetooth Manager from shadowmite, I’ve got my DUN (dial-up networking) working on my Treo 650... and by changing one top-level pop-up menu, I’ve got full iSync Bluetooth data exchange.

I’m posting this from the Metro North train, using my Treo fucking 650. No thanks to you, Verizon, you big beeyotch.

Shit.

Love to all. Even you, James Earl Jones.

Oh, AA, you sneaky bastard.

I've started doing daily 10th Steps.

A 10th step is an end-of-day inventory of the day past... what I did, what I did right and wrong. If I did something wrong, what was behind it? Do I owe someone an apology, or amends? Using the 7 deadly sins and the Universal Fear List as touchstones, the idea is that, over time, patterns bubble up, and these patterns become addressable.

But I've discovered a side effect.

If, say, my kids are fighting like crazy people, and annoying the shit out of me... instead of yelling "HEY, STOP IT OR I'LL DUCT TAPE YOUR ASS TO THE CEILING!!!" I think "Okay, I don't want to have to write THAT down on my 10th step, so maybe I'll say [insert appropriate alternative here]." And I do.

Sneaky, sneaky, Alcoholics Anonymous.

Love to all. Even you, the tardy lady who was rude to my assistant.

Nearly lost my shit.

There were lots of kids playing together at a memorial day service. Three of them were mine. They were playing tag. This big kid (it’s all relative, he was 11 or so) walked by my youngest (who is four) and my kid tagged him, even though he wasn’t playing. He turned to my boy and said… “Hasn’t anyone told you not to talk to [he put his hands on my boy’s shoulders] STRANGERS?!” And at the last word, he shoved him to the ground.

I advanced on the kid without thinking. I was in a rage.

However, I am happy to report that I didn’t touch him, threaten him, or use foul language. I told him clearly that big kids had no place touching someone that much smaller than him. He tried to make an excuse, but I cut him off. After I walked away, he apparently started crying. And when he saw me a little later, he ran. At first I felt kind of bad.

But after thinking about it for awhile, I decide that, no, I don’t feel bad at all. Sometimes it’s okay to lose your shit a little.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. 11-vs-4.

I just thanked President Clinton.

So, I walked up to Bill Clinton today, and said: "Sir, I just want to thank you for everything you've done." He looked me in the eye, shook my hand, smiled...

...and then his dog got into a scuffle with another dog.

Love to all. Even you, you silly golden.

Oh, they've got me.

I already know I'm going to engage in some serious conspicuous consumption.

My mileage is coming up: I'm running between 20 and 25 miles a week, and I'm trying to get into a groove for when I start training for the NYC marathon in earnest this summer. A few days ago, I got an email, announcing this.

Now, I've got an iPod Video and a iPod shuffle. I run in Asics Gel Kayano sneakers. But I can see myself getting totally overwhelmed by technological compulsion. I mean, the Nike sneakers transmit running data to the iPod Nano, giving aural feedback on distance, progress, etc. It's the perfect combination of all of my gadgets. Only in new, different gadgets.

Lord help me.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who off-handedly asked me to bring "ice cream and cookies for 20."

Sweet revenge, or overkill?

Ostensibly:

Some dude buys a laptop on eBay. Gets ripped off. Can't get the problem resolved. Finds all kinds of personal stuff on the seller's hard drive. Creates a web site.

Craziness. What do you think?

Love to all. Even you, Amir.

Our two new additions.

A new chimney, and a new tree. Maggie and I both love birch trees, so we bought one about a month ago. The chimney... well... aside from being monstrously expensive (can you say "through-wall copper flashing?"), I was pleasantly surprised at how much I like it. I mean, it's a chimney. How much joy can a chimney bring?

Turns out: quite a bit.

I think this house is the first place I've really considered home. Strange as that may seem.

Anyway. Today was packed. PACKED! Morning mass, then a trip to Rye Playland, then home, then a 7-mile run, then swimming with the kids, then tennis with my oldest... then Maggie went out, so I put the two youngest to bed.

I should be exhausted, but I'm not.

Love to all. Even you, the lifeguard with a tendency to chit-chat instead of lifeguard.

Do I need gay porn?

NO.

As you might have guessed from my previous post, I'm a big supporter of gay rights. Hell, I'm even a dues paying member of the HRC. But I'm thinking of withdrawing that support, because they seem to have sold my name to gay publishers and pseudo-pornographers who now solicit me via the postal service.

I've already told places that call my house in the evening that, if they ever call us in the evening again, we will cancel our membership. I also offer them my daytime numebr. I say this without being too angry or rude, there's just enough craziness in my family life that I don't need places that I support to be bugging me for more support.

Hell, if I need gay porn, I'll go fucking buy it. But I don't need it sent to me unrequested.

Oh, wait: if lesbian porn is gay porn... then I guess I do like gay porn. Whoops. Anyway.

Love to all.

How gay is this?

Seriously. How can anyone but a painfully-closeted / self-hating / utterly confused person start, join, and/or maintain an organization like Exodus International? What a fucked up group. If you go to the site, read through some of the FAQ. It's really quite scary. Specifically, pay attention to how they begin many FAQ answers by seeming at least a little rational... but by the second paragraph, they turn sneaky and twisted. For instance (italics are my inserts):

Is there a connection between homosexuality and predatory behavior, like pedophilia?
We cannot presume that all homosexuals are at a higher risk level to molest children or develop into pedophiles than are heterosexuals. [Note the use of the word 'all' - sneaky.] Nor would it be appropriate to allow the label homosexual and pedophile to become interchangeable. At the same time, homosexual men who are unable to sustain healthy peer relationships might well find the potential for age-
inappropriate attractions more real than they thought possible. [Utterly pointless, backed up by nothing, but implying a real connection.]

It goes on to draw a further relationship between pedophilia and homosexuality, since, according to these wonks, homosexuality and pedophilia "share an arrested sexual and emotional development." Of course, it says, this relationship cannot "necessarily" be drawn.

Sneaky, gross, icky.

The thing I never understand about the whole Anti-Gay thing is what exactly is wrong with being gay? Who does it hurt? How does it negatively affect anyone? What's the downside? Hell, what's the upside?

It's just a way of being. Nothing more, nothing less.

Love to all. Even you, Mike Haley.

I need a separate trailer for my ego.

I didn’t mention this in my last post, because I didn't want to mess with the vibe, but I want to mention it now. It’s WAY too good for my ego. Sorry in advance for the blatant self-props.

So:

At dinner last night, a 26-year-old former model told me that I had a “special kind of hotness” which, apparently, “gets better over time.” She pointed at the dude next to me (a 6’3”, muscular, extremely good-looking guy with a great chin) and said “Him, he’s gorgeous, but he’s plain vanilla gorgeous. You’ve got something different. Not everyone’s going to think your hot, but those of us [editor’s note – us!] who do think it’s REALLY hot. Maggie must be walking around saying ‘Oh my god, I have such a great package here.’"

All I could say was: “Thanks!”

Now, I will NOT tell Maggie this. Nor will I show Maggie any of the pictures from the dinner last night that contain the model. I’ve learned my lesson. And hell, lying or not, I'll take those kind of compliments any day of the week.

Love to all. Even you, the so-harried lady with the bluetooth headset.

A strange looking table.

A former stripper, the head of a securities compliance firm, a lady who toured with the Who, a senior partner at a major law firm, a singer, a fitness model, a former model who just went back to college, a university professor, a city-employed gardener, an international architect, a well-known interior designer, a CNN intern, a legal recruiter and me…

…all having dinner, and all having a blast.

These are just some of the people from my main morning AA group in NYC. In some ways, these people know me better than my family. And I, them.

We were gathered together for a surprise party to celebrate one of our members’ 20th year sober. She’s a graceful, gorgeous, super-smart woman who will help anybody, at any time. She was genuinely surprised by the dinner.

Looking around the table, I was truly and wonderfully touched by group’s purity of communication. There was no agenda, no sense of clique. We were just an eclectic group of people, brought together by a common problem, celebrating one of our own.

Nice.

Love to all. Even you, the person who should have been with us, but hasn't found their way.

169.8 - The Adderall Diet Plan.

On May 12th, I weighted 181.5 pounds.

Tonight, I way 169.8.

I haven't weighed under 170 in a long, long time. Craziness. I've always said my "fighting weight" was 167. I wonder if I'm going to make it back.

Love to all. Even you, the good-hearted crazy lady with the perfect diction.

Burn me up.

I have 9 saved messages on my cell phone's voice mail, They are all from my daughter. Every now and then, a message hits its 21 day storage limit, and my voice mail asks me if I want to delete the message. Each time, I store the message for another 21 days.

For some of them, I’ve been doing this for 2 years.

Each time I hear one of her messages, at age 4, 5, or 6, asking me if I could buy “The Incredibles,” asking me if we could play games before bedtime, asking me when I’m coming home… oh my God… I feel such an exuberant rush of thanks... so unbelievably lucky and happy and dizzyingly in love with this girl… it feels like my heart might burn right through my chest, and light up the world.

Love to all. Even you, the perplexed looking guy reading “Truman.”

Growing up | Side effects

37 is a strange age. As a friend 63-year-old-of mine said to me: “You’re young, but you’re not that young.”

Right now, I’ve got to make some major changes in my business life. Not drastic… but significant. I need to find a brilliant, ethical, entrepreneurial-but-loyal, equity-minded salesperson to join me in my company. Someone who wants to help me take the foundation I’ve built and help me get it to the next level…. and reap the benefits thereof. Someone who will, eventually, be my partner.

Any career-minded folks looking for a staff sales position in NYC?

One of the unexpected side-effects of Adderall is that, now that I’m working all day long without jumping up and sprinting around every five minutes, I can see how I am absolutely unable to do everything that needs to be done. I need help, and at a high level. Not to mention, it would be great not to be the only person generating ideas. I’ve been doing that for a decade, now.

That is not to say that I’ve been doing a bad job. Saleswise, on a year-by-year basis, we’ve gone 300k, 600k, 1000k, and are tracking this year at 1200k. I just think we can be a 3-5 million dollar company, with some help and properly applied efforts. And this the second company I've launched in this field... I sold my last firm to a competitor in 2000.

I’m going to say this, because I never do: I’m very good in my field.

Wait.

Wait.

Whoa! I didn’t explode! Phew!

I eagerly await your application for employment.

Love to all. Even you, the tired-looking woman with the red-rimmed eyes.

Sad news.

At 5:18am Eastern, my boxer shorts were attacked and killed by a kitten.

Fortunately, I was not wearing them at the time.

Love to all.

24 Season Finale.

You BASTARDS. You complete jackass loser scumbags asshole meanies.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

I can't believe they did that.

Love to all. Even you, Kiefer.

Haiku at dusk.

Ping pong with the boys.
This time they almost beat me.
I am getting old.


Love to all.

Girl friends.

This post is related, but not a response, to this one over at Tiny Coconut.

Do I want to have sex with every female friend of mine? Is it possible not to want to have sex with every female friend of mine? Is that even a problem?

Answered in order: Yes. No. Maybe.

Here’s the backstory. I’ve been reading, digging, and commenting on Tiny Coconut for a pretty long time. It’s a smart, honest, and introspective. The author (TC) and I have become friends in that weird way that consistent cross-commenting bloggers do. She lives across the country from me. (On the lesser coast, I might add.)

We have never, ever flirted.

Turns out, TC was coming to NYC. So I suggested we meet for coffee. I mean, it would probably be my only opportunity to actually meet this lady who I’ve come to like. I can honestly say that I had no ulterior motive: I just wanted to shoot the shit for an hour and see what she was like. We made plans to meet last Friday.

The evening before, I decided that in all good conscience, I should get permission from Maggie to have coffee with TC…. and she promptly said “No way.” I was momentarily miffed until she said “How would you feel if I said I was going to lunch with some strange guy I met on the Internet.”

Hypocrite, me.

Here’s the craziness: I’ve had lunch with female friends upon whom I’ve had major crushes. I don’t know if it was that I was actually hiding something in those cases (albeit something weightless and never acted-upon) or that these were local folks that I already knew from AA or work with whom plans were made spontaneously… I’d like to think it was the latter, but I suspect there’s a healthy dose of the former. But as my sponsor said, the great thing about using certain AA women to learn to develop healthy cross-gender friendships is that you can’t fool around with them:

The “you’re busted” reaction would be instant, complete, and overwhelming.

I was talking about the TC thing with my sponsor, and when I told him my motives were pure, he said, “You are SO completely full of shit.” And I immediately realized that he was right. Fuck.

What he pointed out was this: if something were to click… and I don’t mean something adulterous… but if TC had a great laugh, a lovely smile, or a sense of humor that hit me the right way… would I groove on it? Would I sit there, basking in the subtle glow of tickled libido and innocent flirtation? And if so, should I be there?

The answer of course, is whatever Maggie says it is.

Which brings us to a comment TC made in her post:

I know there's nothing untoward going on here, unless forging a new friendship with a man is by definition untoward.

I think the answer here is that there’s always something a little teeny bit untoward going on. And under most circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if I’m in a relationship where security and equality matters, I have to respect my partner’s opinion.

I will say this: When Maggie said no to TC, I said, “Okay, but I’m keeping FemaleFriend1 and FemaleFriend2.” And I am. And since I am, and since I’m not going to be sleeping with either of them, I just might not tell Maggie every single time I have coffee or lunch with one of ‘em. Maggie knows about them, knows I’m friends with them, so does reporting in do any good? But even writing that, I feel like a giant-ass hypocrite.

Ugh. I’m done. This is the most inconclusive post I’ve ever written.

Love to all. Even you, the dude who almost bit off the Monsignor's hand at Communion.

THIS is a plane hitting the Pentagon?

This video is the United States government's proof that a commerical airplane hit the pentagon?

Whatever it was that appeared for a split second was flying unbelievably low and level to the ground... and at that height, an airliner's wings would have hit multiple light poles that were in its flight path.

Forget conspiracy theory, though. Does anyone see this as proof? Seriously.

Love to all.

Good morning?

I woke up by being kneed squarely in the balls by my wife.

I am fairly confident that it was an accident.

Love to all. Even you, a-little-too-eager-to-hug-me-Maggie.

Way to go, Maggie!

After ten years as a full-time Mom, my beloved has secured a job at an Art Gallery. She starts next week. I'm super proud of her... she sent out so many resumes, answered so many ads, and consistently trudged the path of Employment until she was successful.

Of course, having interviewed over 3,600 people in my career (yes, 3,600), I already knew that she was a hot ticket.

Love to all. Even you, the dude with the gray-black teeth.

The greatest product name EVER.

Neuticles. Testicular implants for neutered pets.

God, America rocks.

Love to all. Even you, the crazy old dude in Madison Square Park.

Why I am where I am.

Over the last year, several blogfolk have asked me: Who are you?

Let’s recap.

I’m 37. I’m married. I have three children, two dogs, and three cats. I live in an upper-class neighborhood in a town in Westchester, New York. My family might be the lowest-earning family in town. I am not kidding. I work as the head of a small creative firm in New York City. With one takeover-based exception, I’ve been running my own business since 1996. It’s a very-low seven figure company.

I love people, and I’m pretty sure I love you.

I was raised Jewish. I was active in temple, growing up. In April of 2003, for reasons that would take a whole new post, I converted to Roman Catholicism. During my conversion classes, I said to the Deacon: “I’m pro-choice, pro-Gay, and don’t believe the Pope always has a better connection to God than everyone else. Should I leave?” After he answered, I stayed.

I am a silly person who does silly things for silly reasons.

Growing up, I was fast-tracked to the “smart group.” I did kindergarten and first grade in the same year. In third grade I was put in a class for gifted students, and allowed to make my own schedule. I played Coleco Football for six months straight. It was in that program that I learned to do almost no work yet get good grades. This lasted me pretty much all the way through high school (where I was editor of the literary magazine and captain of the debate team) and college (where, at the school I didn't fail out of, I graduated with honors even though I went to class only on exam days). Now, although I work hard at my job, I'm only just learning to organize my life.

Until I got in trouble at age 15, I was friends with everyone.

I am an alcoholic. I don’t remember too much of the late 80’s. I was thrown out of school twice, but eventually made it to rehab (with the help of my parents) and got sober in 1989 at age 20. In 1996 I thought I was “cured” of alcoholism (I was 20 when I quit, after all), and started drinking again. It took me seven years to get back to Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been sober since September of 2003.

I hope to stay that way forever. (Yeah, yeah: one day at a time.)

Before 1989, my drinking led to many blackouts. I would wake up in my car at dawn, and not know how I got there. I destroyed the side of my car, and have no idea how. I had approximately thirty one-night stands. I only contracted one icky thing, which was curable. When I was fifteen years old, I drank approximately ten shots of alcohol in ten minutes, and went psychotic. I hurt some people very badly. I consider life, as I live it now, to be a constant amends for that day.

When I started drinking again in 1996, it was a little different.

Instead of the explosive, outward-acting drinking of the eighties, I was locked in a viscous one-on-one battle with alcohol. I hid vodka bottles in my office and at home. I would buy two bottles of wine for each bottle I opened publicly, so I could drink more than everyone thought. If I only drank 6 tall-boys an evening, that was considered a success for me. I was yellow, bloated, and I had a constant pain in my side. In 2003, Maggie said: “Is this what Jesus wants for you?” I answered “No,” went to A.A. (where I still go every weekday), and I haven’t had a drink since.

My father has problems. Big problems.

Good people at heart, my parents were very generous with material and financial things. They were affectionate and smart and funny. My father, however, has a history of either (undiagnosed) Borderline Personality Disorder or some intense strain of Paranoia. He decides that someone in the family is evil, harasses them with letters, faxes, and emails (depending on the decade) explaining why they are evil and how they will pay for being evil, and he marshals everyone around him to agree that said person is evil and cut that person out of our lives.

He didn’t talk to his mother for 15(ish) years. His brother for 18(ish). These periods go back to the 1970's.

In 2002, my father decided that, since childbirth, I had been trying to destroy his marriage. After a yearlong barrage of threats, hate mail, hate email, hate faxes, and phone calls, we brought his letters to the local police department. They read them, and promptly offered us the choice of having him arrested, or simply warned. We chose the warning. Six months later, they moved to the west coast without telling me. As far as I know, everything I had since I was a child was thrown away.

If I could, I’d give both my parents enormous hugs. I miss them.

My father did some strange and brutal things. If he was angry at us and couldn’t sleep, he would sometimes stand at the bottom of the stairs and start counting. We were supposed to be standing at attention at the top of the stairs by the time he got to a three-count. It wasn’t frequent, but it had a pretty big impact. When, in grade school, I was having, um, issues with peeing in my underwear, he forced me to wear a huge diaper around the house, and hung my underwear from the mailbox in the street, for the neighbors to see. I would have daily underwear inspections, which made me very nervous to pee, lest I drip. He had unusual academic rules: straight A’s, or grounding. I was grounded a lot. In middle school, he made me get behavioral reports signed by each teacher, each period, every day. The teachers didn't really understand it. And trust me, I was a pretty well-behaved kid in school. But the most important thing to understand about my father is this: he lived in black and white. The birthday cards he wrote were like Devotionals, and would praise God for giving him a son like me. The next day he would tell me that I was evil, a horrible thing constructed from a formless black mass of hate. I believed the bad things he said about me, and I have a long and undistinguished history of suicide attempts, starting at 8 years old:

I put one hand in a bowl of water, the other in a light socket. Ouch.

Normal kid behavior wasn’t considered “naughty,” it was considered evil: an affront to him, an attack on my mother. This was a big one for him... he used "protecting his angel," i.e. my Mom, as an excuse to do almost anything. In retrospect, it's sad and weak and pathetic.I'll stop talking about him now, but:

When I look at my kids and think of these things, I want to punch my Dad dead in the face.

I am married to a genuinely nice woman. Maggie is a little bit older than me, which is cool, because she’ll hit forty first. I love her a lot, and worry that all the time we spend on kids and work will eventually drive us apart through simple lack of familiarity. She's got gorgeous blue eyes, and great curves. She's as smart as I am. Maybe smarter. Maybe. She's definitely more educated. She doesn’t read this blog… a deal we made together after she discovered (and asked me to delete) an entry on lust. I love her, and want to be a better husband.

Maggie doesn’t believe that I am as attracted to her as I am. But I am.

I developed two primary defense mechanisms/outlets, growing up: alcohol and hyperactivity. Alcohol created static in my head, and static is what I wanted. I also developed an off-the-scale ability to do dozens of things at the same time, for a few seconds each, without really paying attention to any of them. I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing or conversation for longer than a few seconds. This has slowed down a little as I got older, but after 2.66 years of being sober, I realized it was time to address this.

I’ve been on ADHD medication for 5 days now. By the length of this post (and I promise not to do this again for a long, long time), it's working.

My children have changed everything for me. My oldest is just like I was, and it’s been incredible for me to see how what he does, both good and bad, is normal. Things that my father termed evil are laughably not. And when he tries (often successfully) to compete with me for his Mom’s attention, it’s not because he’s trying to rip my marriage apart. He just loves his mom. My daughter is the single greatest thing to happen to me. Just looking at her causes my heart to turn cartwheels. She’s also the most difficult kid we’ve got. Maggie says she’s a lot like her. Maggie's parents find some humor in this. My youngest is coming into his own. He’s funny, gorgeous, smart, and intense. We've gotten much closer since I quit drinking.

I’ve got a lot on my plate.

I’m a soccer coach. I’m on my Church’s music committee. I’m active in Alcoholics Anonymous. In 2004, I started to run a lot. Since May, I’ve run 9 half marathons, 1 marathon, and a whole lot of shorter races. I'm running the New York City Marathon this November.

Wish me luck.

For the last three months, I've had consistently trimmed hair and a beard. This has never happened before. I used to change my look every three weeks. I've had long hair, sumo hair, box braids, blonde hair, purple hair, and multi-colored hair. My facial hair shifted constantly with the sole exception of always having hair on my chin.

I've got a weak chin.

I'm a drummer. My old band put out a couple of singles in the mid-90's that broke a couple dozen CMJ charts Top 50. Now, I play drums in Church, and whale away on a Roland electronic kit in my basement.

My life is an adventure, and I'm lucky to be alive.

Love to all.

Uh oh.

But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them. 2 Timothy 3:1-5

That sounds a little too much like Bush & Crew for comfort. With the exception that George is very obedient to his parents... he even restarted his Poppa's unfinished war! Hm. Maybe "parents" in this case refers to the U.S. herself, and her Constitution.

No matter what, I better go to confession tomorrow.

Love to all.

Employee/Friend Feedback: Adderall, Day V.

Getting out of my seat and roaming around the office:
Down “about 98%” according to one of my employees.

Number of friends normally bugged via on the cell phone:
Normal: 5-8
Today: 1

With the unusual (and first-time) exception of bugging Shqipo, I seem to have had a totally chill day. The only problem is that for the last two days, I've mostly forgotten to eat anything. Whoops.

I'll get used to this shortly... and hopefully stop posting about it so much. Sorry.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who kept staring at my screen.

37 year revolution.

I can't believe how different a low dose of adderall makes me feel. To you, they're amphetamines. To me, they're the perfect calming agent.

At work today, I left my desk about 1/10th as many times as normal. The dude in the coffee shop up front said "Where you been, bro?" And the receptionist asked me why I hadn't come around to chat. The reason: I was working. All day. I even thoroughly cleaned my office. Not the usual This-Cleaning-Will-Self-Destruct-in-Thirty-Minutes kind of thing, either.

Being able to focus is outrageously cool.

Love to all. Even you, Roderick.

Senator McCain: You must argue about the war.

Let's quote the man (excerpted form this CNN Article). My italics.

"Americans should argue about this war," McCain said. "If an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition and argue for another course. It is your right and your obligation. I respect you for it. I would not respect you if you chose to ignore such an important responsibility.

So to all you folks who say that you can't support the troops and be against the war, who say that being against the war is somehow un-American, that disagreeing with the President is akin to treason... I say:

I'll take John McCain's opinion over yours.

Of course, I support your right to say such things, no matter how barbaric and totalitarian they may be. The beauty of America lies in such freedoms.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who dropped a jar of peanut butter in the A&P, and walked away.

Partial-Birth Domestic Spying.

"Oh, it's just phone numbers."

This is what someone very dear to me said when I asked her about the latest "Bush shreds the Constitution" story to hit the news: the Feds are building a massive database of domestic and international phone connections. She was right, on the surface: it's not a massive library of audio files. It's just what numbers called what numbers, and when.

It's the "partial-birth abortion" tactic of rights erosion.

In the same way that Anti-Choice activists are trying roundabout ways to erode abortion rights (the South Dakota law notwithstanding) through waiting periods, outlawing abortion at a certain time period, etc., President Bush and the NSA are removing your rights in a more indirect, underhanded way.

It's just phone numbers.

Forgetting the obvious fact that phone numbers can be easily cross referenced with a variety of other databases to generate much more person-specific data... the very monitoring of American citizens in any respect is, in my lay-opinion, a violation of due process.

This is America. We have extraordinary freedoms. And in my opinion, these freedoms are based on near-absolutes. Free speech that doesn't incite harm or crime should always be free, no matter how gross, disgusting, or vile it is. People are innocent until proven guilty, which means you cannot search or monitor their personal lives without cause, and without following due process.

We are becoming the hypocrites of the world: espousing democracy abroad while slowly dismantling it at home.

Love to all. Even you, General Hayden.

Are you surprised?

If you check Google Trends to see which area of the world searches for certain words... here's what comes up as of 8am Eastern Time, USA:

Regions Searching for the word: "Sex"

1. Pakistan
2. Egypt
3. Vietnam
4. Iran

Regions Searching for the word: "Sexy"

1. Pakistan
2. Iran
3. India
4. Saudi Arabia

I just LOVE that Iran is on the list. Gives me hope for the future.

Love to all. Even you, the overcoaching sideline mom.

Like father, like 9-year-old son.

Me: Hey, kid! You've been in the bathroom a long time, are you okay?

Him: I'm nearing the end of a long and treacherous journey.

Me: Of pooping?

Him: Yes.

I'm perfect!

According to the Doctor I met today, I meet "nearly every criteria" for ADHD. Yay, me! I get an "A" in Attention-Deficit Class! Woo hoo! She was concerned, though, that I might have a completely different kind of anxiety disorder, due to my nutjob father. So she started me on low-dose of Adderall about 15 minutes ago. If it felt like speed, I was supposed to quit immediately, and we'd discuss other options. But it doesn't.

Weird how a stimulant can make certain people calmer.

Love to all.

Restaurant Review: Del Posto, NYC.

Underwhelming, in a very cool room, for a whole lot of money. The company was good, though.

That's all I got. You were expecting Frank Bruni?

Love to all. Even you, the jackass who left the first comment I've ever deleted.

Date Night = let's play Dress Up!

I don't dress up for work too often... but I'll always dress up for Church. Or a date.

For Mother's Day, I scored reservations at Del Posto... a hot new restaurant on the West Side of NYC. Of course, I got them for tonight, because Sunday was booked, booked, booked.

I'm meeting Maggie in about two hours, and friends: this is none too soon. Because I swear to God, Maggie and I are, independently and together, on the verge of a total freakout. Between recurrent cases of strep, ADHD testing, absent babysitters, job interviews, delinquent clients, and severe overtiredness, well... bad things could happen at any moment.

So I'm wearing my best suit, one of my favorite ties, and we're heading to an early dinner. It'll be nice to chill, talk, and try some interesting new food.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who reeks of stale, stale smoke.

Testing, testing... 123.

The NYPD conducts these crazy exercises where a gigabjillion police cars converge on a specific area. Often, that area is Grand Central Station. I walked into one of these exercises at 7am this morning.

Alpha-male declarations.

I’m so sorry for what I’m about to do. But hell, since I just uploaded an IM conversation which was completely inappropriate, I might as well show more of the petty side of my personality. Here we go.

Oh my fucking God.

I’m sitting on the train in a 3x2, two-rows-facing-each-other configuration, facing what could possibly be the least attractive couple I’ve ever seen. This is NOT because they are physically repulsive. If I saw pictures of either of them, I’d wouldn’t think twice either way. They are 6’s or 7’s on a scale of 1-10. They are in their mid-40’s.

It’s their attitude that gets me.

They come storming over, and the first thing the guy does is snort. I mean SNORT... this dude is hawking BIG snot back up into his head. And he’s proceeded to do that about every 45 seconds since he sat down. He looks at his wife and says in a cigarette- or cigar-crunchy voice “Jesus Christ! [unintelligible] You want to sit in? We can let this guy take the middle."

Mind you, I’m already sitting down. So, um, thanks for letting me do that retroactively, bucko.

They sit down across from me… one on either side. She has an enormous bag which she doesn’t put up in the luggage rack, making it impossible for anyone to sit in the seat across from her. He drapes his coat across the seat next to him, making it impossible for anyone to sit in the seat across from me.

She has a Dell laptop, and I guess she’s reading. She’s only hitting the down-arrow, and she’s hitting it REALLY hard. BANG BANG….BANG BANG!

He is reading a magazine. I can’t tell which one. But when he turns the pages he’s snapping them. And then he snorts. Twice, now, he’s emitted one of those enormous yawns that just announce to the world: I AM SITTING IN THIS CHAIR.

In the animal world, the dude would have come in, peed all over the place, and gone to sleep.

The woman is dour. Very dour. Her husband radiates distaste. He’s had several very loud conversations with a friend of his. SNORT. YAWN. SIGH. He sits back with his arms over his head… making sure he’s taking up as much space as possible. He’s a non-stop cavalcade of body noises and alpha-male declarations.

Ugh. My town is full of people like this. I really need to make a better effort to make to to befriend the folks that I like…

Snort. Sigh. Yawn.

Love to all. Even you two.

[Rated R] - I'm the one on the right.

This is an IM chat from this morning, between my old business partner and myself. I'm doing a little work for one of our ex-clients, even though our company isn't officially open anymore. I do NOT normally talk like this: this dude and I have a, um, nuanced friendship that includes a somewhat ribald component.

It's my friends last comment that made me laugh out loud... which is hard to do.

Grayscale world + Liver Enzymes

The coping mechanisms I developed as a kid and a teenager aren’t working for me as an adult. Blame it on sobriety. Blame it on semi-maturity. They just aren’t.

This has presented itself before: alcoholism saved my ass. There were some bad, bad things that happened as a result, but if I wasn’t an alcoholic, I wouldn’t have made it to 21. The thing is, when I tried drinking again at age 26 (thinking I had “gotten over it”) I wound up in a seven-year, losing battle against booze, without any of the psychological benefits.

Blackouts and social isolation might have helped me cope from 12-20, but at 30, it didn’t do anything but slowly bleed the color out of all the awesome possibilities of my life.

Grayscale world and elevated liver-enzymes. You know?

Now that I’ve been sober for 2 and 2/3 years again, my whole hyperactive, can’t-sit-still, can’t-focus thing is really becoming a pain in the ass. Half the time I get up from my desk to walk the floor, I was in the middle of doing something and don’t even remember getting up. My memory barely works, and I can’t read things that don’t intensely interest me unless they are broken up into tiny little headline chunks. It’s like I’ve become MTV, circa 1995.

So, this is all coming up because:

1. It’s really bugging the crap out of me.
2. I’m getting tested for ADHD on Friday.

Now, I’m fully aware that as a converted-to-Catholicism, Upper-Middle-Class White Guy living in the middle of one of the wealthiest towns in the country, I’ve got little to complain about and a lot to be thankful for. And I am. I’d just like to be able to think about those things without getting distracted fifty times.

Love to all. Even you, the grey-suited, nose-wiping-with-thumb dude in the seat across from me who keeps coughing into his newspaper, thereby angling his germs right into my fucking face.

Honorable Hypocrite.

I've had it. I give up. I'm done.

For the last few months, I've tried to engage two conservatives in rational conversation about Iraq, the ACLU, etc. One of them, I've decided, acts as a parrot for the other. So I'm dismissing that dude retroactively. The other has reduced his arguments to "I don't believe you."

As in:

Me: I believe troop strength at the start of the invasion of Iraq should have been 300% the size it was.
Him: I don't believe you actually believe that.

That's a dead end for me. I mean, can you think of a better way to say "Fuck you" than to call someone a liar? I can't. Other than, of course, "Fuck you."

Are we really that polarized? Is there no room for discussion without insults and sarcasm? Increasingly, it seems not. It's sad.

A friend of mine pointed out today how Newt Gingrich is an incredibly smart dude who totally knows his shit... he pointed out that, while in Congress, Newt got caught up in the expediency of throwing bombs instead of working things out. And it worked for him, for a while. But in the end, it did him in.

As a country, we have to stop resorting to saying utterly useless things like "Liberals hate the military." Or "Liberals hate America." Let's talk about individual issues. One at a time.

Sensibly.

Love to all. Even you, the honorable hypocrite.