"Heaven Restores you in Life"

There are wars going on in my head that no one is winning. No one will ever win them. I always win, but to me winning often looks like losing feels. It is a selfish sort of victory. Cut off the nose to spite the face. I am a spiteful bastard who wants to always be even with those he deems adversaries. Trouble is when you get "even" with someone who's torn you down everyone just ends up in a flaming wreck. I really don't know how to end this loop but I know I just started cooking with Rosemary and may be my new favorite thing since I discovered twitter #hashtags.

If you're a fan of Interpol you've got to be a bit upset. The group has been hard to follow. Plagued by rumors of turmoil and a revolving door of moving parts, this now Trio is about as consistent as a broken clock. Always right every so often, but with long gaps in between where you're never too sure. Carlos D where are you? I find Interpol strange to write about because the ratio of how much I care about them to how much I like them (The Care:Like quotient) is amazingly small. (1:100ish) I really like them, but know almost nothing about them. They aren't my band, I didn't discover them for myself. I was introduced. And so as such an acquaintance was made I am able to fully enjoy their sad mopey music and feel unaffected by it. Cee-lo belts one ominous chord in the background of a song and all of a sudden I'm in shambles but Paul Banks can drone on all day in that monotone yell of his and I feel just fine. Perhaps it is better this way. I suppose it is important to mention that Interpol is the only thing BJ ever introduced me to I didn't hate. It was actually sad how many things I've later rediscovered that I realize I didn't hate so much, but for some reason if she liked it I HAD to hate it. But never these guys. Perhaps it is a testament to them? By contrast however, I couldn't stand to see a band of mine switch its parts around. D.A. and Max birthed Chester French. If either of them ever left I don't know what I'd do. And trust me Max is just as silent on record as Carlos is but they make their presence felt. Julian Plenti what are you doing here? I swear to christ I would punch Dan Auerbach in the mouth if he came out as Ryan T. Sanders and did a solo project. For the record Serge Tankian did a solo effort which sounded exactly like his System of a Down stuff. When I see him, to be sure there will be words exchanged. Music for me is pretty sacred. I love it, I need it. If you're good at it you're a higher being in my eyes, and if you understand it and/or have a good ear for it then I am more likely to get along with you. Don't come at me with any of this lowest common denominator stuff, these radio records. I want to hear about B-sides and live shows. And his name shall be the remix.

I'm getting back on my feet. Pretty soon I will be a whole year out of surgery and I will be able to really put that chapter of my life behind me. I don't think the timing could be worse. So much of my life, all the boyish thoughts and dreams died even when I wouldn't. I made it through the fire to appear on the otherside without anything or anyone familiar to me. Here I go as always planning to go through my life without an accomplice. No man is an island. Call me Gilligan. I'm not really lost but I know I not a mediocre person doing exceptional things. Quite the opposite. I'm a big ball of potential who has amounted to little or nothing. Maybe now that I'm a bit more isolated I'll be able to start turning the potential into output? Who kn0ws? Everyone I talk to sees someone in me that I don't fully believe is there. I think Mandela was right, fearing not what we cannot do, but that which me are meant to be and all that jazz.

I promise that as soon as I figure out what I'm doing you'll be the first to know. Maybe you can tell me? Comment if you think you know what I'll end up doing with my life! DO IT!!

And then I found $10

What a summer this has shaped up to be. I haven't shamed myself too much these past few months and after a nice celebratory trip home with my main squeeze Drew, I'm ready to get to business and put Eugene in the rear view. I realize I just used a colon in a post title for the first time...it feels strange. I haven't been able to sit down and write in a while so I will now get back to basics and share a story from work.

My job is an interesting one. "Sales" as we call it is kind of like an exercise in primal instinct. Marks...I mean customers need to be courted and catered to, tracked and pursued. No matter which way you slice it selling things to people is a lot like hunting. I often see someone across the room poking at luggage and you might assume that depending on how close I am to my daily sales goal I am more or less interested in helping them. Because making this goal is never all that important to me I usually decide to go over based on how confused they look. I genuinely enjoy meeting and talking to people all day and commission takes all the fun out of it. During a recent sale we were having I sent tons of patrons to other registers because they would end up waiting for me. It was sad to see. So when it comes to "sales" my motive is a social one. I've already met a lot of interesting people and I hope the trend continues especially after one recent group of folks came through the store.

A family came in and I noticed them ambling towards me over the shirt I was folding so I stayed still to allow them to reach me before I went to put it back on it's shelf. The mother and grandmother seemed a tad lost and as I prepared to explain where the restrooms were (it's ALWAYS the restroom) one of the little cherubs they had in tow hit a hanger rack and hit the deck. The noise was abrupt and sharp but not overly loud and there wasn't any odd of fleshy thud so I was pretty sure he hadn't hit his head. Yet in true customer service fashion I got overly worried and asked right away if he was ok, when in fact for the most part, I did not care. His mom fussed at him as she stood holing who I assume to be his sister and G-Ma bent down to investigate.

What is remarkable about this is that the boy the entire time peered up at me from beneath the rack and stayed there, unflinching. He wasn't crying and he didn't seem hurt. I think for him this was just a chance to take a respite from being drug around the mall by this matriarchal duo. I actually had nothing but sympathy for him. I stand all day and watch men lose their souls as women drag them around the mall. My ex's for the most part have never wanted me to go with them to the mall. It's not like I have any sort of remarkable taste in women's clothing. (less is better ladies) Cha-Cha would always try to get me to go to Vicki's Secret with her but at 18 I had some weird aversion to it, so I always fought not to. Needless to say, I respected this kids gangsta.

Regardless, this young fellow was quite content to lay there and so after a few silent moments from him on the ground they finally got him to his feet and stomped off in the direction of what they actually wanted... A stroller. I guess they knew 5 minutes before they found me that this kid was in no shape to keep walking but I'd wager it had nothing to do with him being tired. If I recall this was on the prelunch side of my shift and a spry young man like himself could probably have run circles for 18 consecutive hours that day if it suited him. Instead he was being forced to shop and so in pure passive protest he simply lagged. Keep up the good fight guy, you'll make Ghandi himself proud with passive resistance like that.

This day was pretty good if I recall. I also gained a compliment. I don't actually care about them, but the source is very important. A man came in to buy an omelette pan and so I began to show him the individual pans we have in stock. Almost all are 9" or 12" inches and all are either non-stick or stainless. He wanted a non-stick pan in the 10" or higher range and so I began to uneasily show him the wares. At this point I knew little if anything about cookware and so I feared he would quiz me beyond my training. The questions were fairly rudimentary and I slowly walked him through each. He paused a moment to examine a rack of pans and for no reason at all I walked to grab the first pan we saw just so he could do a side by side comparison. Most folks in my line of work would start the upsale here, and consider my move a good way to really get the customer thinking. "Get the product in their hands" they'll tell you. I did this because we were hanging out and to be honest I felt I should be able to tell them apart because up til this point I could not.

He made a comment that he was glad I'd brought the first pan and then came the kicker. "Which pan would you recommend me?" I was in no position to say which I liked more not owning either and I didn't even know the price of this new one but I felt like the first pan we saw was just mediocre and if memory serves the reason I picked pan #2 was because it had an insulated grip. I hate picking up hot handles. A pause and then he says, "really, this one? even though it costs more than the other one?" Fuck, now he thinks I'm trying to upsell him on a more expensive piece when thats the last thing I want to do. I clinch up for a second reaching for a reason besides "rubberized handles that I can point to and then it hits me. The pan he's got now is non stick, and the one he wanted was nonstick. "Do yourself a favor, throw in the extra and get stainless, you won't be back to replace this. I promise."

I, right now have absolutely no idea if this guy makes pots and pans for a living but I just told him something which I know is at least 38% made up so it's hot under the collar to say the least. I'm sweating quite a bit under the black cashmere. Luckily for me and my self esteem he actually smiles and says "yea I was thinking that too, I'll take the stainless." We walk over and as I ring him up he asks me if I would believe that 60% of the execs atop Fortune 500 companies got their start in sales. I told him that I had no clue but I'd believe it. He said he knew it was true because he was one of them and then mentioned that I was a good salesman. So good in fact that he offered to hire me on the spot.

That was a lie. He didn't offer because he is retired now but we did talk for a second about sales and selling and he was very nice. I was for once able to take a compliment because the 90 seconds prior were so filled with tension that all I could feel was relief and say thank you. I guess I learned one more thing about selling that day too, it's about bullshitting as much as it is about hunting.

Working For The Weekend

We Are Sparta!!!

This is an old snapshot but it warms my heart to see that I get hits even when I go days and days without posting. Thanks for always checking in for updates. I also recently noticed I have a reader in Anaheim and I didn't know I knew anyone out that way? So hello to you I suppose.

Thanks,

The Mgmt.

The Rabbit

Come Be My Friend

**Written on the plane 5/26**

Today I take my last trip home from school ever. It would be a bigger moment for me had things worked out differently but to be honest this trip has everything to do with life and nothing to do with school and for the first time since I was 5 years old those two aren’t the same thing. I’m a teachers kid, an honor roll student, a school boy. I’m also an Academic probate, a rebel, who for lack of a better term is basically stealing his degree this term. I really miss the days when all I had to worry about was my GPA but I look forward to the days when I don’t have to cram every ten weeks. It’s been fun. I have no regrets about going to school. I just did a Net Present Value assignment for my Econ class and I had to compare the value of a job I could have gotten out of highschool with the value of a job I could get with my degree. Assuming a certain interest rate, adding up my fixed and indirect costs and spanning a 20-year period, I am financially better off for having gone to school. In one of the analyses I did, the dollar figure was actually pretty close. Education isn’t cheap, but I was happy I chose school anyway. Maybe I won’t be any richer after I pay off all these loans but at least my Bodhisattva will get to tell people her Nino is an Astronaut and not a city construction worker. And to me that’s the point. I would be just as well off either way but to the people around me and those who need my support; I owe it to them not to take the easy way out because I see no shame in working for the city...matter of fact I’d get better holidays. If I had it to do over again I actually would have studied more. I spoke with a friend from high school and we just kind of talked about how the dudes in school who all the girls wanted to bone back then are now fat with three kids. Not that I couldn’t see this coming in some instances (I see you Tate’r Mac!) but for the most part this shocked me. I mean men get more distinguished with age right? Maybe so, maybe no, but I guess it feels good to have made it the other side of things with my hairline static and what little sex appeal I have still intact.

I'd like to give a shout out to all girls right now. When guys come home we ALWAYS smell like whatever they were wearing...for better or for worse. Tonight wasn't a bad one but you end up wishing they were still there or being glad they're not. Smell is after all, the strongest sense tied to memory so maybe they're onto something. I have another random story from the Hospital but it is so long that It will be it's own post. So instead I offer you this.

Things that happen when you start a blog

1. Random people from Europe will send you highly unacceptable pictures like this:

2. When you witness craziness you will react with joy not the usual remorse for the decay of our society:

3. Realize that if you replace "Andy" with "T-Rex", this is a reenactment of an actual conversation I've had:

I don't Smoke that stress

The Girls Marina,

and Melissa and Jenn too

Nanoor you the most

Also the smell of

hospital soap, every day

bosom soft indeed

I want what Samantha Ronson has. She has this perfect mix of, "I could give a fuck less" and, "I secretly do care, but I'm so cool you could NEVER call me out on it". Plus she's foreign but her accent isn't from anywhere. It's pure unadulterated cool juice coming across those thin lips of hers. She, I am positive could pull far more women accidentally than I ever could on my best day. The funny thing about this is that random people love talking to me. All my close friends have an, "I was with JT, and such n' such happened" story. Everyone knows someone who looks just like me, or saw me at a party last week, or whatever. Samantha Ronson however has a mystique I am sure prevents any such thing. She is like a black hole almost, in that she belongs to an elite class of humans, who have an aura about them so disinterested in what we mere mortals are doing, that we feel the need to overcompensate by really caring about what they have going on. The other problem here is that I am fairly stable and fairly predictable. I think a big part of that aura is that no one ever really knows what she is going to do and that's what keeps things intriguing. I spend my whole day trying to enlighten you as to my thoughts and so right away there is a difference between her and I..among ALL the others.

Graduation is right around the corner as is post #100 so with all these momentous occasions on the way soon I'm feeling the heat like a glacier would. (I may sweat but it never changes my composure) Anyway the haiku written above in honor of Haikuesday are devoted to some things I truly miss.

Today is Haikuesday

The boss speaks to him

the gauntlet thrown we rejoice

a sight to be seen

Don't start none won't be

start none, then none there will be

I excited now

You cannot assault

The one who signs your checks now

Unless he cusses

I've got nothing to say

God Bless the Lakers.

I can't believe someone would ever lay a hand on this Angel and it is now my life's goal to find this man, then strike down upon thee with great VENGEANCE and FURIOUS anger so that he shall know his sins are not forgotten.

lol jk =)

Kid Sis' Yall. HousTalantaVegas in the house!

I'd move to cougar town if she were the Mayor.

It's funny, get it?

And my first Begotten son shall be called...Bovice

I wrote earlier this year about forgiveness. I found myself in a position where forgiveness became some sort of situational currency. To be able to forgive someone, they have to first infringe upon your rights somehow and to a lesser extent also recognize that they’ve wronged you. I could kill your dog because it won’t stop barking late at night, but if I don’t find that to be an incredibly horrible thing, then your forgiveness not only isn’t likely to be forthcoming, but I’ll have no use for it because I don’t see anything wrong with what I’ve done. That realization right there spells out the point, that forgiveness is an especially human thing. Prayer in some religions is said to be the means of asking Holy absolution for ill deeds but that clemency is more highly regarded because it is believed the dispenser is…well…God. If the big guy lets you off the hook then not only do you avoid eternal damnation but you take it seriously because you trust his judgment. Humans however…we’re a far less reasonable bunch. I feel like on balance there are more people forgiven that shouldn’t be than people not forgiven who should be so that’s good. But the reasons for people’s decision making is often far less principled than perhaps the creator or your run of the mill, average Lord and Savior.

So we have to recognize, and I say we meaning me but if you’re smart then you too; that forgiveness might be the least important thing ever created. Can you imagine if you did work but sometimes less than you expected came or none at all? Conversely sometimes you did nothing and a check came in the mail anyway just because you said you worked? This is basically the way forgiveness is dispensed on the individual level and so I put little value into it and I think we all should. In the end when you do something wrong and you truly feel remorse then you should know you’re probably forgiven by those that matter, and when you are wronged yet you can’t find it in yourself to let go, then you need to know you’re holding no power over anyone but yourself. I think as far as I’m concerned I learned that I’m incapable of real forgiveness at least in any sort of timely manner and that it is largely dependant on me feeling okay with a situation. Some things are just unforgivable and in the words of Michael Corleone; “Mistakes can be forgiven, but I’d kill my own brother for betraying the family.”

That is what she said

So this is a hypothetical I want you all to play along with. It was posed to me as part of a homework assignment and I find it kind of an interesting take on a tricky situation. You might have heard it before and I’m adjusting it slightly to make it fit the WB&C just a bit better, but the story is still the same.

So in this scenario you are a person living on earth and things there are just as they are now here. You are just like everyone else, no better no worse. You happen to be single and your job allows you to support yourself, so for all intents and purposes you are part of the nameless faceless crowd that make up our metropolitan areas. In this world however there is an international star of some sort. Lets say this person is regarded like a Perez Hilton mixed with Michael Jordan. Everyone loves them, everyone wants to be their best friend. Basically in my mind (because I am a geek) this person figures out how to solve our solid fuel propellant problem and allows NASA to get to Mars with only 2,000 lbs of fuel. (usually it’s 500,000+ lbs)

They are of course rich, as their idea turns them instantly into a one person OPEC, they are charismatic, so they are like Tony Stark in that you see them as the face of their company and they must of course be good looking. It all boils down to Conan O’Brien’s personality and fame mixed with Richard Branson’s money and daredevil lifestyle with the looks of the sexually appropriate person of your choice. In my mind and for the rest of the story this person will look exactly like 1998 Salma Hayek.

Now here is the story. You are walking around one day and you happen to hear that Salma, this wonderful person whom everyone knows and loves is sick with some incurable disease. A group of especially crazed fans begin to scour the country looking for a cure stopping at nothing to find out what it is. As it happens you are the only person on earth whose blood has the antibodies to combat the illness though you don’t know it. And how anyone else knows it is unimportant but what is important is that on your walk home from work as the manager at the local Popeye’s chicken you are taken and knocked unconscious. Somehow this deranged group of super fans, intent on keeping their beloved alive, have taken you and when you wake up you realize you’ve been hooked up to Salma via some system of tubes and wires. The doctors apologize profusely and assure you that the people who did this to you have been arrested and are facing life in prison because their attempt to kill you was stopped short but not before they could connect you to Salma.

After you gather your senses and calm down from obvious anger you are posed with two options by the doctor. Unplug yourself immediately and walk away. Allowing Salma to die or maintain attached to her until such time they can produce a treatment, which could take months. They reiterate that it is completely up to you and there is nothing keeping you from pulling the plug on her but they also stress that without you she will die assuredly. What makes this scenario interesting is that you yourself agree that she is a much more important person than you. Her work has brought new discoveries to mankind. Men love her, women want to be her, she is a truly great individual and you are just a fast food joint manager. Salma is asleep and you haven't been able to speak with her since you woke up but you are told she is doing better already.

So…what do you do?

Prince-I would Die 4 U

Would it make a difference if you knew exactly how long it would take to find a treatment?

I don't know anyone personally who I think would disagree that getting up and unplugging yourself is an a good option but what if it was a trade though, your life for theirs? Maybe you get hooked up with a slice of the good life from this, maybe you get stiffed on the tip? I also made the story a little different in that this is a person who you may look up to and or be attracted to. The original author is named Judith Jarvis Thomson. What she was attempting to do was make an argument for the defense of Abortion. When I first read the Plugged in Violinist my instinct was to say screw it, I'm not chaining myself to someone against my will even if it is only for 9 months. This was mainly because I don't care about Violinists. But by making it someone I'd look up to like Leland Melvin, Kanye, etc there is an added layer of conflict. Also respecting the contribution this person has to society is something that cannot be discounted. I would love to actually see what people think about this. Comments ARE enabled so feel free to tell me how you would handle such a situation. As far as I'm concerned this is a flawed allegory for pregnancy because pregnant women don't have their uteri kidnapped and impregnated. Usually it is the result of some sort of bedroom, bathroom or backseat type activities that involve both her and at least one other male of her own species. It is no miracle how babies happen, so the whole kidnapped and woke up with some unwanted visitor line just isn't cutting it for me. I still don't know exactly what would happen to Salma if it were me she was hooked up to and the picture at the top of this post has only a tangential relation to my actual feelings so make of it what you will.

"I paid for them titties get ya OWN"

It used to be I could walk up to the window the day of the show and grab a ticket on my way in. Tix’ at Will Call? Don’t worry about the matching credit card, an I.D. is more than enough, hell just know the name the tickets are under and walk away with a coke and a smile. This week I was hyped to see some live music for the first time in a while. I’ve always loved live shows since I saw Gnarls Barkley for the first time back in 2005. It just so happens I’ve seen more of them as a single guy than while I was dating but that is just the way things go, nothing more to it. (I make the point only because I tend to go on tears where I will see a lot of shows in a row and then none for a while. The tears always coinciding with me being single randomly.) I’ve missed some good shows and I’ve been to some better ones, but this past week was shaping up to be one for the record books. The last time I went on a real tear with shows I was going to see established artists that I knew I’d love and wouldn’t miss for the world. I remember getting to my first M.I.A. show and literally grabbing the rails around my date so we could keep our spot right in front of the Roseland. This time around I was conflicted to begin with because of the three shows all conveniently scheduled on one night, I was at the one I thought was a safe bet, but not exactly the one I was most excited for. All month leading up to this past Monday I would torture myself by picking one show to see knowing there was no way to see them all and then suffer the excruciating torment as songs from the other two groups would pop up in my playlist. So as it was, in my standard fashion I bought tickets roughly 18 hours or so before show time and planned an impromptu trip that had been 6 weeks in the making.

This guy had the right idea. Kinda B.A. if you ask me. I should have done this.

To be honest I like that the shows I go to are sold out. I feel bad if someone I really like isn’t getting the respect they deserve, but at the same time when I can’t grab a ticket because scalpers from OTHER STATES buy up all the tickets just to resell them, then that really irks me. You don’t see me buying up Lady Gaga tickets just to go resell them to people for more. I don’t believe in profiting off of someone else’s talent like that….however I want you to know that given the opportunity to buy ALL the tickets to one of her shows and then keep them to myself. I definitely would do that. I would of course not attend, but I think distributing the tickets to random vagrants on the street might be cool. I’d also give a ticket to anyone I thought might be inclined to boo, but that’s just me. This is also why I can’t have money. I would absolutely do bad things with it, we should all be glad things aren’t worse. I’m starting to really see where Donald Trump is going with this.

Digressions aside the show was of course amazing as I said, but what I don’t like is that everyone’s taste in music is suddenly becoming mine. I’ve been here people!! I was listening to M.I.A. and Diplo because of Hollertronix, whom no one has ever heard of. 2004 was the year I graduated high school, and by ’05 I was elbows deep into “Piracy Funds Terrorism”. I cannot in the least bit be surprised these acts have taken off. I love these acts for a reason and there are probably 50,000 people with the same story as me about bands of their own so yea I’m spitting in the wind a little bit here. It's all good though, i'm in it for the long run and pretty soon these acts are gonna be people younger than me so I will enjoy the long careers our contemporary artists for as long as I can.

In hindsight should have done this too.

The less I say, the more they Like me

I was at the gym today playing basketball. It's been a long time since I've said those words. I could do an entire post on the emotions I feel when people ask me if I do indeed play, "the basketball", as one guy put it while I was at the local Costco a few weeks back. But no. Not here, not now. Rather what I found interesting was my demeanor while sitting on the couch catching up on 'Parks and Rec'.

In my lukewarm, semi sleepy, achy muscle, state of mind, I felt like I was at some sort of equilibrium. I don't know how to describe it but basically I could just tell I was at just the right amount of awake to be both mentally sharp, but not overly talkative. It is weird to say but I almost felt better than normal? I imagine it is what Jay-Z often feels like. Un-rushed because there isn't anyone who won't wait for him, completely in control because he has been for so long, and unworried because both he and his wife are rich in their own right. It's a great feeling, one I want to feel on a more regular basis. This is more than just swagger, and is exactly what they mean when they say comfortable in your own skin. I'm a super skittish person. Like embarrassingly so. One of my favorite scenes in any movie is the scene where that famous line in Apocalypse Now is uttered. As Lt.Col. Bill Kilgore squats in the Vietnamese mud, gunfire and smoke emanate from behind him and he makes the famous statement. A mortar appears to explode just a few feet behind him and it's as if he is deaf to it. To say he doesn't flinch doesn't do it justice. It is as if it didn't even happen, or better yet he knows exactly that it happened, but doesn't care. That mindset it what I'm after. It feels perfect.

Imagine the funniest thing you've ever said. You probably weren't trying to be funny. This is because your lack of effort allowed you to really nail that deadpan or emphasize the timing naturally. I think for me when I wake up I'm too wired and too attentive. There's an episode of House that fittingly enough is titles, Ignorance is bliss. Esteban Powell plays a man of prodigious intelligence who literally drugs himself to reduce his IQ. For him, life as a super genius was hard because he was so much smarter than everyone else. He literally was sketching a Toroidal helicon plasma device on a napkin once they started treatment to bring his IQ back to normal. Now I don't say all this to say I'm a super genius, or that when I go into rural areas, people talk about me as one of those, "big city" learn-ed types. What I do mean is that on a daily basis my normal disposition is geared towards getting through the day's travails as quickly as possible. I don't really take time to scan and survey all situations, I definitely rush most things, and often I wish it could be otherwise. I guess efficiency for me is measured in the number of tasks completed and not so much in the quality of what I do. This here blog is the first time I've ever attempted anything with a conscious outlook of doing everything well down to the last detail. What I think the point for me personally comes down to is, at that moment the edge was taken off. I wasn't "scanning on all channels", there was no high alert, no need to alarm. If you know me personally you know I don't shy away from fights or conflict. Kinda. I enjoy arguing and conflict because the level of agitation implicit in those situations just brings people up to where my mind already is. A famous hockey player once said that "when I get into fights on the ice, my blood pressure doesn't go up." That makes sense to me. I've always felt my "calling" if there is such a thing, was to fight for a cause, like the rights of those who are less fortunate than I. I try to stay honest, I try to gain knowledge, and I was born looking for a fight. I don't think anyone who has seen me either all the way pissed off, or just at my best arguing a point would have trouble envisioning me as some sort of civil liberties lawyer. I'm not saying that's what I want to do with my life, but I've heard the complaint more than once, that I don't know how to drop a subject, or let something go...Which is exactly what the poor, and under represented need on their side right. =)

I am also fairly patient considering this disposition of mine. I find that I am either completely impatient, or too patient. As always there is little moderation in my life but this is an important point. I don't lose my patience just because I am pissed. I actually gain more I think? That day on the couch I figure there was a certain amount of adrenaline in my blood from the workout, seratonin and dopamine were hard at work, and endorphins probably were in abundance as well. So basically I was on my natural high in a way that even my beloved fentanyl couldn't provide. But was it the perfect mix of chemicals in my brain that made me cool out, or is that a persona of mine that is there but I only see at times? I don't think Jay-Z learned to be cool over night, I imagine he has always had that much cool in him, but the circumstances around him allow for it to be his everyday and not just his sometimes.

All I can say is that when I wake up everyday I assume that extra level of gusto I seem to have for things is just my cross to bear. I was made this one so that hopefully I can oneday fight on behalf of those who are unable, even if that just means my and my friends. We all have some natural talents and I see this as mine. What makes it interesting is that this state I was in wasn't a reduction of that skill, if anything it was enhanced because I was more calm and able to think slowly or more accurately, more effortlessly. The last thing Kilgore says after his remarks fully embodies the tone of this feeling I had. He says simply, "Someday this war will be over."