Softball victory

After a 30-7 thrashing two weeks ago, the Mid City Bail Out Ballers narrowly prevailed over The Sliders in an 8-7 victory. The Mid City Bailout Ballers are now 1-4 for the season.

No pop, softball

Last Saturday, on a lark, and as part of a general weight loss strategy, I decided to stop drinking pop.  I have had one can since last saturday.  Haven’t really had the headaches I would have expected and that’s good.  We’ll see where this goes.  I don’t own a scale, and I should probably buy one to see what I weigh, but I’m not in a rush to.

My bank has started a softball team.  I got roped into joining said team, and it’s been a pretty fun experience.  However, playing catcher without a catchers mask leaves something to be desired.  I was quite terrified of a bat hitting me in the face and ruining my devastating good looks.

Funny how that works

At work today, about 2pm I got a call from a friend of mine, who hadn’t bothered returning a phone call last week when me and someone else had planned to go to a midnight movie.  The only reason this person bothered calling me at work was because they needed to borrow money.  The temptation to blow them off was strong, but then they offered me a blow job to work it off in trade.  Now, I know I probably won’t get that, but it sure is tempting.

The Winter of my discontent

Contention one is the status quo/harms.

Since my mother got cancer a couple of years ago, I’ve been puttering around.  I’ve lacked the funds to continue my education, and as such, I’ve had to take work that is, I daresay, below what people expect of me.  There is not a problem with working , and I’ve no shame in having a job, but I do feel ashamed, and rather embarrassed at disappointing people who have expectations of me that I am not meeting.

It is time to take responsibility and stop delaying moving forward.  Law school at this juncture is not a practical option.  It is much too expensive, and the constraints involved (time, inability to work and go to school) make it impractical.

Hence I present the following plan:

Plan Plank 1:  Investigate the possibility of enrolling at MCC to get a certification as a paralegal.  (already been done)

Plank 2:  Enroll in said program as soon as possible

Plank 3:  Complete program, get certified as a paralegal

Solvency:  Getting certified as a paralegal is an important step in getting employed as a paralegal assisting lawyers in doing what they do.  It also pays much better than my current job which would enable me to set aside money for possible return to Law School in the future.  It’s also an important step in fulfilling some of the expectations that people have of me.

Late nights = blogging

Still haven’t made a decision on where I’m spending my thanksgiving, but will probably end up spending it with my aunt and uncle and aunt and grandmother.  I guess that’s a decision, though it’s a conundurum (probably spelled wrong but I’m too damned lazy to look it up and it’s almost 4am), but I figure I can just be unassuming and things will go well.  I don’t really feel like being unassuming though.

Late night Meditation XVII reflections with a dash of angst

Having difficulty sleeping, with a lack of people to talk to online, hence, I am blogging.  This week an acquaintance from a previous life passed away.  Her name was Deb Daly, and she worked at Ralston High School as a paraprofessional.  The things I remember most about Deb were her warm smile and her cheerful personality.  She was a kind person, and her death diminishes us all.

The other thing that is probably keeping me from getting any sleep is a phone call I received today.  It was my aunt inviting me to thanksgiving at her house with my fathers side of the family.  This wouldn’t be a problem for most people, except that the last time I saw this group of people, I was informed by them that they decided to terminate my grandfathers life support without informing me beforehand.  Apparently their lack of consideration only covers important issues, like life or death.

So, question and answer time.  Ask a question in the comments, and perhaps I will answer it.

The kingdom of the mind

This morning, I was at work, and I received a phone call from my Aunt Christine.  My aunt informed me that my grandfather had passed away last night after suffering a heart attack Friday evening.  My grandfather was 80, and would have been 81 in December.  He worked for the legal department at Union Pacific for his entire career, and retired in 1986.  He suffered his first heart attack in 1980, and his response was to put a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue and drive a half hour to the hospital in Council Bluffs.  Over the past few years his health had began deterioriating, and so I was reasonably prepared for his passing.

One of the most important things I learned from my grandfather is to observe the world around you.  The first thing you would see upon entering their house was a barometer on the wall, an instrument of observation.  Implicit in the possession of that instrument was knowledge of how to use it and interpret the results that it gave.  Of course, this meant that rather than getting video games or a new bike for my birthday, I got a microscope, and a telescope, amongst other things.

Admittedly, I didn’t have much use for the telescope, as my family lived in the city, and getting an unobstructed view of the panorama of the universe is very difficult living in a city, but there you go.   On the other hand, my grandparents lived in a rural area, and they had a brilliant view from their property.  Over the summer, were I to get away from my nintendo (which didn’t happen nearly as often as it should have), I would find myself with my telescope, or binoculars (another gift) watching the Perseid meteor showers, observing the planets, and finding constellations.

All that said, there’s more to say on this subject, and I’ll probably add to this as needed.

Effort

Some people aren’t worth my efforts anymore.

The minor annoyances, and some more than minor ones

Venting is healthy.

If it’s important enough to call me, it’s important enough to take 30 seconds and leave a voicemail.  If it’s not important enough to call me and leave a voicemail, a text will suffice.  The worst of all possible worlds is calling, not leaving a message, then having me call you to see what you wanted, only to not have you pick up the phone, end up leaving a voice mail that goes “You called, I have no idea what you wanted, so I’m calling you to tell you that.” or words to that effect, and naturally not have the call returned.

I wish from time to time that I had it in me to treat people worse than they treat me.   For an example of that  see my last post on here.  She apologized for it, a few weeks after the fact.  A part of me was tempted to simply reject the apology out of hand, and maybe do a little more damage where there had been quite a bit done by the series of unfortunate events that had turned her world upside down.

But I didn’t.  I couldn’t very well do that, and look myself in the mirror the next morning, though apparently that’s not a problem for people generally speaking.

Also, if you’re going to invite someone to an outing, and then tell me that it’s a family thing, know that I will find out.

On a happy note, one of the few people who probably treats me better than I treat them will be in Omaha today for the weekend.  This is the best of all possible worlds, so I might as well enjoy myself.

Gratitude?

So, the past couple of weeks have been a bit interesting in my circle of friends.  It all began when a friend of mine broke up with another friend of mine who he was in a Long term relationship with.  Soon afterwords, he started dating another friend of mine.
Naturally, this incident elicited a fair deal of sympathy for the aggrieved party, and fairly so.  It has also led to a fairly pronounced split in the group of individuals who I associate with.  All throughout, I have tried to be a fairly neutral party in the matter.

All that said, I can’t ever really say that I was that close to the aggrieved party.  When she was in the relationship with him, I can’t ever really remember a time where we interacted.  For that matter, we probably had a handful of conversations in the year and a half (roughly) that they were together.  When we did interact, she was always rather haughty, and didn’t really seem to like me very much.

Naturally, now that they have broken up, we are talking more than ever.  Of course, its mainly negative stuff about how horrible they are, and how miserable she is, etc, etc.  All of which is perfectly desirable conversational material day in and day out.  Now that I had assumed the role of shoulder to cry on/ ear to listen to, one would expect the dynamic of our public interactions to change.   Nope.   Today, while downtown with some of my friends, she’s engaged in a conversation with another friend, when all of a sudden, she whirls around and says “YES I’M TALKING ABOUT JON” to me in a rather terse tone.  When I had done nothing, had not even tried to enter the conversation.  I suppose that’s gratitude?