I’m kicking back with a Sam Adams, a Macanudo Cigar and an episode of Six Feet Under in the DVD player. But this scene won’t last for too long. I just got a call from my friend J who invited me out to see the 3^rd part of the Matrix. That will start in another hour and a half. I wasn’t particularly impressed by part 2 of the saga. There were certainly a lot of cool special effects, but there really wasn’t much else underneath. Perhaps it’s just a setup for the last movie. I’ll find out tonight.

            These last few weeks have been odd. At one moment I was all but convinced of my future and now I’m not so sure. But I’m strangely more relaxed about it. As one gets older and as one looks upward instead of outward one can find peace in some of the more difficult circumstances. I wish that I could describe what has really been going on, but I can’t. I can seldom go describe situations while I’m in them, so I just don’t try. One chapter closes with a cliffhanger, the next opens cautiously. I just keep praying that the pages will keep turning…

            This week has gotten progressively better. Sunday was an anxious afternoon, even though I had a house full of people over to watch the Redskins / Cowboys game. The Redskins lost again. I think that all my problems began when the Redskins started losing. They’ve lost 4 straight and also had a bye week. Five weeks have passed since I returned from Texas and each week has been stranger and stranger. I would characterize this week as the strangest of all, but it has also been the most enlightening. Last Sunday evening, some friends and I watched Aliens on DVD. Our NZ friend had never seen any of the Alien movies, so on Halloween we saw Alien in the theatre. Alien is a scarily fine sci-fi flick. Aliens was even scarier the first time I saw it back in 1986.

            I awoke on Monday feeling strangely at peace. Then my mind woke up, and it’s hard to stop thinking once you get started. Tuesday was a step better. I was more at peace, and was even prepared to begin talking. Wednesday was more of Tuesday, up until I saw bold letters on Yahoo. I just wanted to say hi, but I said and read a lot more.

    I can’t seem to finish writing anything these days. It makes it hard to pick up and give you folks a good picture of what’s been going on when I write in fits and starts.
    Today is Veteran’s day and I am off of work, because my office is closed. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take a vacation day because the company that sub-contracts me out is still open. It’s annoying to take fake vacation days, but you get used to it, and I don’t foresee any vacations over the next several months. So it’s all good. One possibly inconvenient bi-product is that I will probably work the day after Thanksgiving to save a vacation day.
    I feel the need to quickly provide context for everything that I’ve written in the last 4 months. Sadly, I haven’t written much in the last 4 months, but there is a good reason for it. So, let me give a one paragraph synopsis to close the book for good. It will be fact based, not emotion based, and analysis will be kept to a minimum.
    Four months and 1 day ago, I met K in an airport in Minneapolis. To my surprise, we talked for nearly three months on the phone, logging over 250 hours worth of conversation, most of which was free because of our cell phones. We discussed plans for the future and arranged to meet again, which we did in October. The week was good, but K realized that something was wrong. It took several weeks to put a finger on the real problem. The real problem, and might I add, the only problem is that our religious beliefs are irreconcilable. Given how well we got along, it saddens me that it can’t work, but the divide is too great. The upside is that age allows us to be a bit more astute in calling a horse a horse, so I salute K for being able to recognize this. It has allowed us to minimize the amount of damage that we could have done to each other.
    It would be nice to be able to keep exes nearby as friends, but it’s hard to do, and you’ll always be able to see what it is that you love about them long after you’ve ceased being lovers. Those feelings can be the glue that holds the friendship together (while your still single that is), or it can be the addiction that you shouldn’t be all that close to!
    So, last night I attempted to contact a couple of my gluey friends. I did get the opportunity to talk to one of them, and she reminded me that I last talked to her after my last relationship broke up. I last saw her about a year and a half ago. I spent July 4th of 2002 with her and her family and it was a lot of fun. The kids still remember Fritz and my car. It was a delight to talk with her, and I look back fondly at the times we spent together in the summer of 2000. In the end, I believe that I’ll also look back at the summer of 2003 fondly. I’m hoping that the kind of friendship I experienced will be the type I’ll have when I do get married. It was fun to share my days with someone, even if it were only over the phone.
    Let’s change the subject and the tenor of the conversation. I’ve been on a buying spree of late, but fortunately, most of it has been for my own good, and I’m not just buying entertainment items to hide in. I bought a new pair of Doc Martens to replace my ragged pair that I bought when I visited Nashua, NH over 5 years ago. I couldn’t remember when I bought my original Docs, so I went into Microsoft Money to see when I bought them. I bought them on October 18th, 1998 at Newbury Comics. As I looked at the old records, I walked back through time and it was interesting to see. If you only look at what you bought, you get a pretty picture of what happened back then. Not necessarily from your perspective, but from mine.
    In addition to buying new Docs, I also bought new contacts. I bought replacement contact lenses on line, but they told me that I would have to fax them a current prescription, so I made an appointment with my optometrist. I bought contacts on-line so that I could save $25. Well, the appointment was $100, and it seemed silly to take the time to get an appointment, and not get new glasses! So I put another $200 down. Since I’m off of work, I was hoping to pick my new glasses up today, but they haven’t arrived yet. I also need to get my hair cut as well.
    I just finished watching President Bush as he put a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier. Even though I’m technically a veteran, I don’t feel a strong connection with this day. I look at others who have actually fought for this country, and believe that it’s their day.
    I’ve been watching Survivor, since season 2, and four of my friends came over last week to watch the current version, which is located in the Pearl Islands, near Panama. We decided to make a dinner out of it, and it was very cool! I warmed up Stromboli from Giant, and cooked some corn. One of the other folks made some salad and a desert was also brought. It was cool to have everyone pitch in and it felt right to socialize with your contemporaries in that way. We haven’t decided who’s hosting it this week. We repeated the meal exercise on Sunday as well. For that one, we watched the Redskins win for a change. It was good.
This past Saturday… (yeah, I know, I’m bouncing around, but I’m shooting from the hip and not from a calendar.) we had a day out at my friend’s compound in Fort Valley, VA. This particular gent has done very well in business and has bought another property in Western VA. This particular mountain hideaway has a lot of toys. We started the morning by firing pistols and rifles. He has a firing range on his property. He himself shoots competitively. I have only handled guns twice in my life. It was fun to handle a variety of guns. I probably won’t ever own my own gun, but I don’t want to ever be uncomfortable with guns. So, it was good to load and fire a variety of semi-automatic weapons. I wasn’t a great shot. I wasn’t even a good one! Too much Starbucks and too little food made my hands less than steady.
    Later on in the day, I got on the motorcycle and rode around in the field. The motorcycle is another thing that I haven’t done much of, and thus my comfort level wasn’t strong. Much of my wild ride was spent with me learning the gears. I’d like to ride again with less of an audience.
    After riding the ATV’s, motorcycles, and go-carts, we ate lunch. As the day disappeared we started a roaring bon-fire. It was perfect. The temperature was dropping, but the fire kept us warm. The sky was unimpeded by street lights, and the stars were bright. We had a chance to see the lunar eclipse as it was happening. I don’t think we stayed out long enough to see the entire moon covered though. As the fire began to die down, we packed up our chairs and went inside. My friend has also invested in a good pool table, and I was rusty! Eventually, we played as teams, and my game got better. It was a good and exhausting day, and I’m still sore from riding over bumps and hills.
    The Wonder Years is on TV and I totally relate to Kevin’s romantic assumptions and hopes for the future. In this episode Kevin and Winnie are having problems because they go to different schools, and Madeline (a very pretty girl in Kevin’s class) seems to be interested in Kevin. And as Kevin is feeling guilty about entertaining thoughts about Madeline, Winnie confesses that she too has met someone. They are playing the Beach Boys song “God Only Knows”.—This must be the breakup episode. How appropriate. What’s sad and pathetic is that his melodrama is born of an 8th graders view of the world. I’m 30. I’m still a sucker for the well written romantic movie or show; particularly one that reflects how I felt back then. The second part of the episode opens with Kevin denying the fact that Winnie has broken up with him. His friends tell him to accept it, but he won’t. The events that are unfolding are alarmingly familiar. Oh well. I think that I need to attempt to write stories about my old loves, so that I can exploit them for fun and profit. A part of me wants to dig up my old break up letters and dust them off for use as a script in my next movie.
    Well, I think that’s about it for today’s entry. Perhaps now that I’m no longer preoccupied with a relationship I can write more often. I need to catch up on e-mails as well. A number of friends from Albany have been left out of the loop for too long. One last thing... I'll miss you K.

    When I was 18 years old I camped out for U2 tickets. I was first in line and was there on two separate weeks for tickets to two different shows. On the first week, I met this girl and I liked her and I even agreed to pick up a few tickets for her. We also had plans for a date to see Batman Returns, and I had gone out of my way to go to the box office early and pick up 2 tickets. I was very much looking forward to going to see this with her. Well, I called her several times that day, and she never returned my call. I was quite upset by it and that evening I was waiting at the metro to pick up my Dad and this guy honked at me, I was so upset that I got out of my car and gave him an earful. I realized then that I probably just exported my anger to a complete stranger, who, for all I know, brought it home to his family, and so on and so forth. I should remember that more often. Sadly, I've been in a foul mood as of late, yet it is has been under the surface, so as long as I don't feel crossed, it stays there. But, woe to the individual who asks me the wrong question at the wrong time. I don't particularly like me right now, and I don't particularly like you either.