I just got back from Atlanta. The last time I was in Atlanta, I was with K. Hmm, where I do go from here. Tsk, *sigh* *exhale*, I realized something not too long ago and it might be hard to explain. But like a good little boy, I’ll do my best.
    Perhaps I should start at the beginning, or at least where I left off in my last diary entry, which I wrote eons ago. Sorry for not writing more frequently, but I don’t like writing when I don’t know the answers. Over the last several months, I’ve had more questions than answers, and even now, I’m not as confident in my view of the world. And yet I don't think it's a permanent doubt, just a readjustment.
    When I wait a long time between diary entries, I forget so much of what has happened, and what I felt when I was going through it. I’m just now trying to reconstruct my past two months, and I’m afraid that I won’t do it much justice. I tried to get my microphone on the computer to work, so that I could dictate my diary. It would go a lot quicker, and who knows? Maybe it will sound better than when I write by hand.
    Right after the last diary, I went to NY to see my parents and my friends. Visiting friends was great, I had a chance to see several of them and catch up on their lives. It was a real treat to see A & A, LoaferX, Buckstar and B. Both A’s just split with their long time boyfriends and I was able to spend a significant amount of time catching up with them, and all that happened. Suffice to say, I really miss those folks and my old life. I like my new life too, but it’s different. I liked my life in Colorado as well. Different places, different memories.
    After visiting with my friends, I spent more time with my parents. My Mom got sick, and the day that I left, I had to drive her to the hospital. She’s out now, and I think that she’s OK, but it still sucked. I’m glad that I was able to help my Dad out and my Mom as well. So the trip to NY was bittersweet. I’m happy that I was able to reconnect with old friends, but the hospital visit and the circumstances surrounding tainted the whole of the trip.
    Shortly after returning from my trip, the Passion of the Christ came out in the theatres. My friend A in NY, saw it on the first Friday that it came out and it changed her. As she watched the movie she empathized with Peter who denied Christ 3 times. She told me that she had “denied him thousands of times,” and it really affected her. She’s been attending an Episcopalian church every Sunday since. I saw the movie 4 days later. I saw it alone. It’s not exactly a date movie and I didn’t really feel like talking about it right after the fact, so seeing it alone served my purposes. I was moved by the film, but it hasn’t had a life changing effect per se. I’d actually like to see it again so that I can let it saturate deeper in. It’s a good film. It’s a powerful film. I recommend that everyone see it. The friends that I have that haven’t seen it avoid it because of the violence. For me, I could have been pushed further by the scenes in front of me. They were quite rough and I grimaced several times, but Mel Gibson cut away frequently enough to let you breath.

(Observation: I think that those who avoid it because of violence are employing a smoke screen. I think that they fear that the film will affect them and perhaps move them to action. Several of these folks have constructed their own world views outside of any church and their denial is a tenuous one. I could be wrong, but they all delivered their reasons for not seeing the Passion in an eerily similar manner. On the surface, it sounded reasoned, but it also sounded fearful and tentative. No scratch that… it sounded sober. In some cases, it was the only sober part of the conversation. Their responses were stripped of any spin, bombast, ego, joy or denial. It was simply, in the quietest terms, sober. As if they knew not to mock the movie about the man even if they do not believe the man existed. Make no mistake about it, Jesus Christ existed and he was killed. Argue if you wish about whether he is the Messiah, but you can’t deny that his death has shaped western civilization over the last 2000 years. With the cross as the centerpiece of Christianity, western governments and western thought have been built on a foundation of Judeo-Christian teachings. We live freer because of those teachings, despite the protests of those who feel that religion is inherently closed minded and restrictive. I’d like to keep going and support this point or that point, but I really just wanted to share an observation about all the folks that I’ve talked to who don’t wish to see it.)

    Well, despite being an R rated snuff flick (joke!), the movie has grossed over $300 million, which puts it in the top 20 of all time. And with Easter several weeks away it could break into the top 10. What an odd phenomena.
    I’m going to down shift from 4th gear into first, and it’s going to be abrupt, and it’s probably going to grind and make awful noises, but it’s the next thing on the docket. Shortly after seeing the Passion, I received an e-mail from K. (actually a response to a cordial e-mail from me inquiring as to her well being etc.) At the end of the e-mail she kindly informed me that she had found a new boyfriend. I was put out a bit for the first day as the information sunk in, then I realized that I was disappointed because it just hastened the process of making a decision on how to handle K in the future. I was sort of hoping to avoid the question for a while longer, until I was fully recovered, maybe even be in my own rebound relationship before dealing with it, but this has caused me to actually deal with it. The central question has been “How does one handle / treat someone that you believe will never be a part of your life?” I don’t dislike her, I don’t even NOT want to be friends with her. I just don’t see how it’s plausible to remain friends with someone that you had that kind of relationship with. The truth of the matter is that when she or I are dating people, there would be no reason for us to correspond. We would only be taking conversation and intimacy from our prospective lovers. If we aren’t dating others then why would she or I want to talk to each other? I’d like to think that we would be friends, but the long distance and the circumstances under which we met does not easily allow for a transition to friendship. Although we talked for hours and hours with a foundation of friendship in the works, we never had a friendship without a love interest, so learning how one is supposed to act would be difficult and probably quite frustrating. And then after a whole bunch of work, it would probably fail. Before I found out that she was dating someone, I could pretend that I either didn’t care, or that it wasn’t over. Or, I could choose a 3rd option, which is what I did most of the time. I just ignored it. I just didn’t entertain any thoughts at all on the matter; or at least very few thoughts. Until she told me about her new beau, I didn’t have to deal with it at all. I realized over the last several weeks that over the last several months, I haven’t so much healed as buried. K was a big deal to me. It was the first time that I was prepared to tell my family about someone. I really thought that it was a divine arrangement. I was wrong. I don’t even remember why she was so special to me. I don’t even remember half of what we spoke of, I only remember how it ended. Sad. Being a visual person, I don’t remember 10% of what we spoke of during the 200 hours of conversation that we had, but I do remember a great deal about the visit that I had with her. I think it’s a result of men being more visual in nature.
    This is a good place to segue. I saw “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” last Sunday, and I thought it was good. It didn’t pack the emotional wallop that I expected, but it excites the brain and makes you think about the nature of relationships. It also makes you think about how your mind sees things and how all your memories are interconnected. I think that I want to see it again, but then I think, “No, I just wish that I could have related to it more.” This movie can be a gem, but it requires a bit of you to pull it off. The truth is, I don’t really have someone that I want to erase, (well, maybe K, but that’s only because I can’t figure out why we met in the first place.), more importantly, I can’t think of someone in my life that I would erase and then regret erasing because of all of the good memories. (well, maybe K again, for the same reason as above… I don’t remember why we worked well, so it doesn’t seem a great loss to purge it from my memory.) I’m probably and most definitely wrong about that, but I guess that’s why this movie is so hard to get your head around, it makes you think long after you’ve left the theatre.
    I realized that I defined the K situation without actually resolving it for my readers. Well, there is a good reason for that. I haven’t actually resolved it for me either… but I’m working on it. I’m hiding from it less often, but progress is slow, because there really isn’t much to do. It requires one little decision. Respond, or not respond. I’ve opted for non-response, and yet I’ve opted to respond here. I’m not going to write back (which is my non-response), but I am writing here in my space, which is a response, because she is free to read it. It’s so hard to just let things go. Meeting her under such coincidental circumstances and having it fail, offends all of my romantic notions of fate and divine intervention. It makes it harder for me to be certain that I will know when I’ve met that special someone, and forces me to rely on others to see things that I don’t see. I guess I can’t say that I’ll know what I’m looking for when it’s right there in front of me. In closing, I just wanted to say a few things to K. Those of you who aren’t K can read if you want, or you can skip to the next paragraph. “K, it would be nice to be your friend and inquire and care about you and your family, but it doesn’t appear to be my role, it is reserved for someone else. I hope that your current situation works out and that your family is there to celebrate with you when you live happily ever after. Lastly, have a wonderfully Happy Birthday; wish I could’ve been a part of it.”
How do I change the subject from there? I don’t know, I have a lot more I’d like to say, but it’s just more ramblings that reveal that I don’t really want to close the door forever. I don’t like burning bridges on my way out of town, and so it’s hard to close doors when I leave, and yet… over the last several months, I have done just that. I have lost a couple of closer friends. And the thing is; I lost them by opening my mouth. Not to excuse my behavior, but there has been significant fall out following this latest relationship, and I’m not proud of it. One of them celebrated her birthday earlier this month, and I thought of reconciling, but my heart just isn’t in it. I figure it’s best to let it go. (Which is a strangely comforting thought that I can let people go forever when enough time passes.)
    In other completely unrelated news; I bought a 160 GB Hard Drive. (it also seems that I have fallen in love with the semi-colon over the last several paragraphs, but that’s another story entirely) I bought the Disk so that I could create a Juke Box for my music collection. Several months ago, I started to rip my CD’s to Mp3’s. I have now completed that process. Over 900 CDs have been ripped to my hard drive. It’s over 10,000 songs and about 35 – 40 GB’s worth of data. The U2 portion is about 5 GB’s worth of unique material. (New rumors have a new U2 album in November. Cross your fingers music fans!) I have a few other related projects that I’d like to tackle in conjunction with this, here they are in no particular order:

1. Finish recording my vinyl records to my hard drive.
2. Buy Video card with a TV-Out so that I can use my TV as my monitor
3. Buy a wireless keyboard and mouse so that I can run my juke box from my coffee table in my living room.
4. Buy a DVD Burner so that I can record 4.5 GB’s of songs onto one disc. (I could nearly put all of U2’s songs and bootleg recordings on to one DVD!!!)

    And that’s only what I’d like to do to enhance my jukebox. I’m working on organizing the U2 stuff right now so that I can burn a few Mp3 discs for a road trip I’m going to be taking next week. More on that in a few…
    In addition to working on the Jukebox in my spare time, I also found time to go to Ikea and buy $400 worth of shelving for the Star Wars room. For those who are unaware, I have a large Star Wars action figure collection. (I hope to get pictures up on the site in the coming months). Wow! I feel like I’ve come out of the closet with that admission! It’s so freeing to admit that I have a love for Star Wars that harkens back to my childhood. Did I tell you that I love 80’s New Wave? Yep, love it. Living in the past and I’m only 30. Anyway, I bought some nice shelves for the collection and the room is looking tons cooler. I want to pictures so that I can reproduce the setup one day, after the kids take everything down. It takes forever to sort through all the blasters and light sabers and figure out whether Princess Leia is wearing is carrying this medallion or has this blaster rifle. What color is Luke’s light saber? Well it depends on which movie of course! So, it’s complicated and time consuming stuff, plus you lose stuff, so it’s anyone’s guess about who gets what. Fortunately I have the internet and some helpful books which document the action figures. Just remember, these aren’t dolls. They are Action Figures!
    I have a confession to make… It’s not actually March 25th. It’s March 30th. I’ve had so much to write, I haven’t been able to finish it in one sitting, so I keep adding to it when I have time. I just wanted to let you know before I fast forward past the 25th.
I am sore. I have muscles that weep like little babies when I push my way out of my chair. The cause? A 9 Inning softball game on Sunday. It was the first real physical activity of the Spring. Well, it was the first organized activity anyway. A guy at my church decided to celebrate his 40th birthday by hosting an under-40 versus over-40 game. The under 40 crowd won by a single run. It was a lot of fun, and by the end of the game my legs were already beginning to turn gelatinous. Everything is hardened today and unresponsive. Still Spring is here… blossoms and warm weather is on the horizon. Will love be in the air next? For some, Yes. For me, God only knows.
    Ok, now it’s time to fill in some of those memory gaps I left open earlier. My trip to Atlanta was good. We got the job done quickly and we were able to do a bit of sight-seeing. We went to Martin Luther’s King’s boyhood home and to his grave. (They are located within walking distance of one another.) It was nice to see it and it sobers you a little bit. I’m curious about whether his legacy would have gotten better, become diminished, or would have stayed the same if he had lived. I wonder the same things about JFK, RFK (who probably would have been President if he had made it out alive.), Kurt Cobain, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. I wonder if Artists get too much credit when they die too young. After all, if “Men At Work” had been killed in a Plane Crash after the 2nd Album, we may have cried for the beautiful music that was lost. I don’t believe that MLK has been hyped too much. The change he brought about was clearly necessary, and the fruit of it is good. I just wonder whether or not he would have been memorialized in the same way, if he had at say age, hmmm 85. We’ll never know, and maybe it’s good that he was killed when he was, perhaps his death added weight to the civil rights movements. Nobody will ever know. (Note: I just looked on-line, and did not realize that he would have been only 75 this year. He seemed so much more older than his years when he died. According to my scenario, we wouldn’t have memorialized his life until 2014. The 60’s were a crazy time weren’t they?)
    The next day, we drove to Stone Mountain, GA to see the largest exposed piece of granite in the world. It sits up at about 1200 feet above sea level and from atop it you can see for miles and miles. We took a tram up to the top and just sat up there talking and looking across the horizon. It was also a beautiful day to be out. It was probably in the low 70’s with a nice breeze. This piece of Granite also has a huge carving done on one side. The carving is of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. It was commissioned at the beginning of the 20th century, but it wasn’t completed until the 1970’s because of money problems. It’s quite a sight to see. Some call it the Mount Rushmore of the South. I’d like to see more carvings like this done. They are pretty cool to look at.
    Next week, I’m taking a big road trip up through western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. I’ll be installing 7 computer systems in 4 days. I’ll be going to Altoona, Johnstown, Greensburg and New Castle in Pennsylvania. I’ll be going to Canton and Youngstown in Ohio, and I will quickly dip into Wheeling, WV as well. In my spare time, I plan to drive to Cleveland to see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with all that cool U2 gear, and the head over to Pittsburgh to see the Phillies take on the Pirates. It should be fun! In preparation for this massive road trip, I’m going to make a mega-mix of approximately 400 songs to play while I’m driving through the Pennsylvania hills.
    Fritz and Honey are doing fine. Fritz and I have gotten into a few scraps of late concerning his indoor bathroom habits, and Honey smacks him around every chance she gets. He knows that I disapprove of his urination and defecation in the homestead, but sometimes he just has to go I guess. After each episode, I get really angry, then I devise a strategy to keep him from going to the bathroom unscheduled. I’ll keep you up to date on whether or not it works.
    I can’t close on that note, can I? What else is there to say? Oh yeah, I haven’t bitched about my taxes yet. This is one area that I contemplated cheating on, but thankfully, I took a deep breath and stepped away before I did anything stupid. I have some tax advice based on my recent experiences that I would like to share with you. Rule 1: Do not order tax software from Turbo Tax’s web site. It took them over a month to get the software to me and I could have gotten it cheaper at Walmart. For some dumb reason I thought buying from the manufacturer would be cheaper than going through a middle man. What a totally unreasoned thought!!!
    By the time I got my software, I was eager to file, because I was looking forward to getting a lot of money back. As I answered the questions, I discovered that I had to pay Capital Gains Taxes on the sale of my house last year because I hadn’t lived there for two years. My realtor, my lender and my settlement lawyer didn’t tell me this when I settled on the house. They must not deal with many quick turnarounds in the housing market. Everyone that I talked to around that time was under the assumption that as long as I bought a more expensive home, I wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it. That’s the old the law. That’s the law that was changed in, oh the year… 1997. That’s 7 years ago folks! You’d think these people would be aware of the change by now.
    So, I put all the numbers that I had in and I owed a bunch of money, I was despondent, I wanted to imagine that I sold my house because of unforeseen circumstances. I didn’t. I sold my house with unforeseen consequences, but not circumstances. In desperation I found an accountant. He quickly pointed out that I was missing several documents and in the process he saved me several thousand dollars. Sadly, if I had done the work, I might have been able to find these various obvious exceptions, but I didn’t. Next time, I’ll know. For now I’m glad that he did my taxes for me. I’m bummed that the windfall I was expecting is not going to materialize, but I console myself with the thought that maybe I wouldn’t have found a comparable house six months later. Everything came together last year, and it’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t have been able to find a home in my price range in the neighborhood that I live in. I’ve heard that the prices have risen steeply in just the last 10 months, so maybe I just got my tax return real early. I also benefit from not having my heart set on any particular item this year. Last year, I thought this might be the year of the Ring. I guess I should look at it as a blessing that I don’t have to finance that in other ways.
    Well that’s all folks. That’s all the news that fits and starts. I’m put together a list of only 5 of the songs that I’ve been listening to lately so you can hear what I hear.