THE CODIFIED LIFE VIII

TACTICAL
Though this is going to be an entry that is about my current state and progress, what is going on in my immediate day-to-day is as follows:

Hopefully I will get my new computer going.  More on that later, but I am looking forward to dedicating it to my schoolwork only, which will be an upgrade in so many different dimensions of my life, the small niceties of convenience, that I don’t think that how I would express my gratefulness in words.  I think that my actions, which will completely show my full appreciation for the gift, will be more than enough.

I have started watching “Breaking Bad” on Netflix!!  I have watched enough of “The Walking Dead” to have been satisfied with how it little it impressed me (sorry Beth..!).  “Bad” on the other hand, starts off with a bang to me and the early first season has been everything that it ever was hyped up to be!

...speaking of Beth …

I have been Facebooking a lot, trolling posts made by people who are suffering from “vanity pity”... the same kind that relates to the frustration of a guy from the old school like me (and Mike Singletary) finds himself dealing with in this era of rapidly evolving social changes… but for all of that, there are some things that, sadly, remain the same.

Anywho, I posted my “Speech To Persuade” on the social network and asked for all hands on deck to show up and help a smurf out!  Beth did, and I really appreciated her assistance.  To go on about what it meant to me is to start treading on the journal entry proper, so let’s begin, shall we?

IF WE HAVE OUR OWN WHY OF LIFE … WE CAN GET ALONG WITH ALMOST ANY HOW ...

One of the settling changes that I have noticed just lately is the Mamet-ing/Cracked.com-izing of my patois and language.  My awkward sense of humor and timing often has prevented me from responding to the comments of others as I have wanted… not saying that I am one of those folks who think of things to say when the moment has passed.  But the change was super noticeable recently when I was called “a douche” at school by one of my school mates.

Because of how enthralled I am of the Geico “Hump Day” commercial, when I made it back into school in January, each Wednesday I would come into school enthusiastically calling out, “Hey Julie, what day is it?”, or “Mike, Mike, Mike”, and several other of the lines of dialogue from that particular commercial.  It made a lot more sense when I attended class on the Monday - Wednesday cycle.  But this term I am on a Tuesday - Thursday rotation, so I don’t have the opportunity to wake my fellow students up with the cheery “It’s Hump Day!” shout the the appropriate day.  But I am not the only who misses (and also appreciates) the regularity of my cheery arrival and one day, I decided to do a “pre-hump day” shout out.

As I walked into the Connector Building, where you will find a large common area, a eatery, and the bus stop/campus security office.  To make a long story short, there is a bunch of people who meet in the area and they know what’s coming when I come through.  Most of the time, no one really minds my enthusiasm, but this day would be different.   I overheard some young woman telling the other young ladies that I was “a douche”.  Now I don’t think that I am all that (though all that remains my goal..!) and I have admitted as much.  I don’t fake that funk, in fact, my June mission is to break my graduation streak and to show up at one of my three daughters high school processional with one of the three women that I fathered them with.  And while I would cop to most negative characterizations hurled at me, “douchebag” is not among them.  

Instead of going on to my class, I made a beeline to table where the young woman and her presumed friends sat.  I looked straight at her and replied, “If you mean that I find myself st*ck up all kinds of p*ssy, then yes, I can see why you would mistake me for a douche.  But sadly, for your case, I’m not … but you still have no excuse for acting like you are on the rag!”  When those words spilled out of my mouth, I felt as though I was being transported back in time, but back to a different future, one where I was not saddled with this injury, but was filled with the same kind of insouciance as the thirteen year-old alienist that still exists in me.

It felt really, really good and I shared it on the social network, sparing those individuals who live among the top 3% of the world’s economy still finding angst and unhappiness to spread and infect of the people that they are allegedly “fond of”.  Good thing that they don’t HATE these people!!  So there was that and then there was Beth, who bailed me out on my “speech to persuade” this week.  Maybe “bailed” is too strong a word… “that she helped me” fits, but does not connote the depth of my gratification to her efforts on my behalf.  Same goes for the donated computer.  While there are some glitches, had I not continued to persevere with my schooling, the likely those efforts would have been for naught.  I think that being grateful for the gifts that have been given to me, I think that I owe it to the intent with which the support was given to persevere and to endure, because if I don’t the hope and faith that has been sent on my behalf would have been for naught.

_______________________________________________________

As with my desire to incorporate what comes to my mind when I think “tough guy” language into my personal vocabulary, I have noticed that I would like to be friends with Nebraska… and that is SO out of rounds with my character that I am going to take it up with my therapist and see we can’t find what is what with that.  The reason that this so glaring and agitating for me is how it fits with my set of beliefs and philosophy.  To wit:  When I decided to amend my protocols with regard to dating women from my past with the hopes that I could get with Tee Jay, I had to consider what if this path to love with one I already had loved before led me to my ex-wife?  What then??  If it had, then it meant only one thing -- in this area of my life, I was short and without clout.  I would reject my ex-wife on the grounds that she has already display fatal traits and flaws that I MUST live without.  Nebraska, with the “rule of three” working against her, has placed herself in an area of similar regard to my ex-wife.  BUT… I don’t want to be my ex-wife “friend” of in any consideration.  So why do I feel this gnawing when it comes to Nebraska?

One of the reaches that I am willing to take in assessing her character now that we have had to actually “be real” with each other, is that she can be self-indulgent in her own spinnings.  I don’t know how many times I have heard about how her obligations and duties comes ahead of her own considerations, and that is understandable.  But the Ash Beckham talk where she said, “Hard is hard”, applies here as I would say that she believes that her “hard” is much more difficult that my hard.  And while I would have rather told her to her face, a journal is meant to be where you “download” thoughts and emotions, with an expectation of privacy being based on the intrusiveness of a parent and the sinister motivation of older/younger siblings.

A blog/Facebook friend posted a piece that included a comment from Reverend T.D Jakes that caught my attention.  It goes as follows:

    It's much more difficult to express armchair lament over something not getting

    done while lacking the willingness to place the action on "I" as the catalyst for

    changing it. Anything less is righteous rhetoric. As TD Jakes once said, 'when

    you walk into a place and see a need, consider that God placed it on your heart

    to take action. Stop looking around for somebody else to do the work you're not

    willing to do

When I think of people like her and my ex-wife, this would be an idea that without these words to define it, that would carom inside of my head.  It is a contrast to my thinking, in that I adhere to the sentiment of “being the change that you want to see in the world”.  And the implication of that is, whatever you want in your life, however you want the world to treat you, to be like, you must be the thing that the world of your choice demands, and you must treat the world the way that you expect the world to treat you.  My ex-wife did not understand this concept and my experience with Nebraska left me without the indication she was able to apply this ideal to our relationship.

Also, she had a big problem with the three (and there is a fourth issue that is left for our “whenever it happens if it happens” discussion) issues that I keep bringing up.  I already know that if we ever had had a conversation in person about one or all of the issues, then they would not have the life that they do in my mind.  Because if we met +over dinner and wine, I could ask her if she meant to be that selfish, so that when her “supposed” (because if that is how she administers to a “friendship”, then f*ck that) friend, who also happens to be PERMANENTLY F*CKING DISABLED, calls upon her under the auspices of said friendship and in need of her, that she will first find a reason that she CAN’T instead be there instead of working to find ways  there for me?  Yes, I understood that it would have put her out but that I was calling on her should have indicated the need I had.  If it wasn’t a need, then I would not have called upon her.

 

I don’t think that she understood it when I would tell her that I don’t allow many opportunities for people to show how much they care.  My tastes, while not expensive, are particular.  So you can’t show up with the latest in Roc-a-wear and fly sneakers and expect to please me.  While I am without a vehicle, there are not going to be many chances for someone to give me a ride somewhere… so if ask of a person for a ride of some convenience, then like a NFL GM on draft day, you are on the clock and your pick matters.  So if you choose to justify not being able to be there for a friend (and if you are reading this, Nebraska, think “To Gillian, On Her 37th Birthday") by any other means other than personal disincorporation and sudden natural disaster, then as a friend, you are full of sh*t.  Just because I don’t make a lot of them or even enjoy the company of people enough to make them, does not mean that I don’t know or at least have an idea, of what “friendship” is.  And since I have been in Omaha,  she found excuse after excuse as to why you could not, would not, or believe you should not have to do something to be a friend.  And yet, in our history going back to before the beginning,   And in breaking philosophical protocol, it is a fail that T.D. Jakes describes in the selection I found on Facebook… and I believe it is the kind of fail that populates my ex-wife characteristics, traits that lack the substance or “stickiness” to hold a relationship together, that were enough for me.  With this being confirmed for me after the very first Wisconsin - Nebraska football game in the Big Ten, this has been lingering unaddressed (which accounts for its reappearance in our conversation … it highlights a major problem and we did not deal with it effectively) to the point where its mere presence serves as a disfiguring blot on our relationship.

The second aspect of the three deals directly with her compassion and as well as her reliability.  But first, I need to talk about one of my fellow tenants who I have not seen in several months and his reappearance in our building.  Although he is a small framed guy, he looked gaunt, and since he has not been in the building, or on his door monitor post.  I asked him where he had been.  His reply made my heart sink:  he has AIDS and he was in the hospital for treatment.  This would explain his weight loss,   And it also explained the sudden ache in my heart.  While no longer the plague-like death sentence it once was, I did not want to dither with politeness and I gave him the biggest hug I could.  See, I understand this about my injury -- certain ideals and traits are going to be increased and perhaps that is what has me in the “blue” period of my verbalizing and I know that it is why when there is a change, however small, I have to catch myself before I get agitated into “High Anxiety”.  So I keep things at arms length, as I did with my friendship with my then-friend and future partner in a loveship that never happened, Nebraska.

“WE KNEW THE ENVIRONMENT”

My first Christmas had the potential to be the launch point of a wonderful relationship. Nebraska and her two youngest girls came over to my humble apartment and really made me feel like I mattered to them.  The gifts were thoughtful and meaningful, and having the three of them here with me meant a great deal to me.  Perhaps that was a moment that I can pin the beginning of this odd attraction I have for her… because it is the lure of untapped potential that is part of her allure… but it certainly isn’t the hopes that we’d ever be something more than friends.  That would be in the hands of the divine/Chaos Theory, and I don’t have too much input on either for any of it to matter.

Whenever it was that I had my “night terrors” and asked for Nebraska to come by for a bit, it allowed her to display how much compassion she REALLY had for a person with who she had no real moral obligation to give aid to, and only had her own character to draw on for her choice to or not to, help a brother out.  And outside of the nominal but certainly present risks (single Mom, leaving minor daughters alone in the late evening DOES seem like a lead-in to a domestic tragedy on your local news station!) involved, but my thing is this … either I am your friend or I am not.  If I am your friend and you know that I am not one for 1) false emergencies, 2) “booty calls” 3) or the kind of selfishness that would call upon a friend to take gratuitous risk for a “booty call”, why would my reaching out result in being dismissed without prejudice and haughtily so?  And I could go on but…

The understanding that makes these three (and the ghost of a fourth) interactions so critical to my “less-than-giving-a-f*ck” stance regarding her should be sensed that it takes up so much of my brain’s “working memory”.  See, these are things that are “no-fly zones” and for me to be trying to find a way to get around them is freakin’ the boggling of my injured mind!  I would have thought that I don’t make up situations to gain sympathy or attention, that I am over booty calls, and that I am loathe to expose someone that I care about to risk for the sake of things, then her, guess what?  F*ck you!!

I do think that when it comes to being in an intimate relationship, that Nebraska is the pre-Mike Singletary rant Vernon Davis.  You make the assesment that Mike Singletary did in his post-game remarks because of experiences,  both direct and indirect.  Unfortunately, my ex-wife provided me with a lot of direct experience, so much so that I promised myself that signs of her character trait suite would be a singular experience in my life, and it was, until I met Nebraska, that is.

I had hoped to have a face-to-face conversation where much, if not all, of this could have been handled with something for our relationship to grow from.  But no, I can’t be “the man that calls on a woman” for her because when I did, she sh*tted on me.  It also serves to inform me how many f*cks she gives about our relationship, on the real.  To think that nearly over a year has passed since she first said that we should get together for a conversation, and in the hundreds of rising and setting of the sun, it had not happened.  Sh*t, even Mother Teresa took a day off… DAMN..!

THE TEA PARTY

Despite all the noise and bluster of the ignorant, they remain a small, but noisy factor in today’s politics.  And so are these odd emotions that I am feeling… the use of denigration and profane comments in my conversation is a small but noisy factor.  How many more times am I going to watch “The Departed” and “Breaking Bad” (PLENTY, that’s how many..!) and be influenced by the patois of the scripts dialogue?  Don’t know, but I am more than certain that I won’t ever go around with a sailor’s mouth, that is for sure.  

The same rule governs this emotional outburst with regards to my feelings for Nebraska.  No, I don’t want to see her, nor be her friend (we had a moment of celebration that turned for me as if it was wine that had turned-to-vinegar), not without getting things clear and up front.  Which makes sense, because I have ALWAYS been upfront with my crap… I simply relate my flaws as plain as I can… so YOU can decided whether I am worthy of your time.  It is something small but vociferous, and that with the help of my journal and therapist, that I will seek to quell.  And it must be quelled, because if nothing has been confirmed beyond a doubt, it is that I never had reached the “critical mass of value” for her to sincerely give a damn about me.

And the contrasting element between us is still, and has always been, the element of my being valued and not being taken for granted or dismissed as inconsequential.  That is what has kept me from doing more to save our relationship.  I am of the mind that I included her in my future sight unseen, and without reservation.  This also explains why the desire to be a part of her life and have her be a part of mine, is similar to the Tea Party political movement.  There is no scholarship, no character, to the feelings I have for her.  If I have not been able to project anything about me it should be this -- in areas where uncertainty runs amok, I do not change my course.