Ramblings Post #168
Sometimes you get busy. It happens. You don't see it coming, but you turn around and you've been up for 24 hours and haven't eaten since that piece of carrot cake sometime around lunch yesterday. It happens. All you can do is stop, take a deep breath, and keep it moving.
Here are some things I really and truly meant to comment on this week but couldn't find the time. There are a number of half written posts on a jump drive somewhere....
State of the Union address
I didn't see it, I was busy READING for class. But understand Batman Obama made an appearance, smooth jacking his opponents power talking points and making them his own.
Egypt
Damn. First the Fat Boys break up and now this. Um, wait, I meant Tunisia. It looks like the 1979 Iran Revolution all over again. Let's hope they don't duplicate the end state of their forerunners, and this stays a twitter/21st century revolution.
Chicken Plucking
It's done, I've been moved. Since I started plucking them chickens nearly a decade ago, I've always been in the "Penthouse". Sure I used to go down to help out but not for a long time. Now for the first time, I'm down in the belly of the beast. Talk about seeing the "writing on the wall" to get on to the next thing?
School
Suddenly, I want my ole scatter brained professor back. No wait, considering my grade and her final, no I don't. They say the first year they scare, the second they work you and the third they bore you, well, let's just say, "it's cotton picking hot" out here. Seriously...one week the reading for one class is like, roughly, 350 pages.
Diet
Went back and bam! No seriously, like bam! Bam Bam! Like who is this guy in the mirror? Three months, and I'm gonna be taking my shirt off for no reason, just trying to show this cut. If I can work it in between school and work. Okay, six months.
Weather
A week ago it was freezing. Now its almost 70 degrees. It will soon be freezing again. Um...the weather needs to make its mind. Hold on wait. It just snowstormed in the Northeast. My bad. The weather can do whatever it wants, just no more snow this year. Thanks.
Social Life.
After class on Saturday I went to brunch with Spanky, and we talked about her "new" man, maybe. Um, that was about it. Let's see...work, home, school, work, school, brunch...studying...yep, that about does it. Brunch with a friend. Wooooooo.
Barkeep, a short beer, I got to back at it...
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
With a capital M
Ramblings Post #167
Because the period between when I got finished my first round of education and the part when I start raising kids is using the term "decade" as a measure (and still isn't over yet) there are a great many stories I've seen, heard or know of. Most of them are true. This because in the Spades game of life truth has all the trump and fiction may have to renege just hoping to get to board.
Chicken plucking does strange things to people.
One of my coworkers got just got married. He let our manager know by informing her in passing that he had to leave early, because he was getting married later that day. That was it. Then he went and got married. Now, he's from Europe originally, so maybe its the cavalier attitude of the continent, but that seems just a little too casual for me.
But it also reminds me of another interesting story of a guy who got married while working at Le olde Chicken Plucker...
He wasn't a great chicken plucker. He was more a journeyman plucker, someone who could do the job and for the most part make those things that needed to happen go on and happen. He once lied to a client that you couldn't pluck a chicken after hours because the heat in the building turned off promptly right after the evening whistle blew. Like many of us working there at the time, he was usually bereft of serious funds, lived for the weekend and stayed with a roommate in a apartment for which he claimed the combined rent was $400 a month. But what made really made him interesting was his approach to dating and women.
He was looking for a woman with three specific qualities: she needed to overweight, have low esteem, and possess good credit.
That is not a joke.
Now he wasn't a pretty boy type. And admittedly, myself nor none of the guys I hang out with resemble male models, and as such we usually understand that supermodel types are not the kind of women who would normally jump at the chance to be with us. I mean, you have to realize what league you're in if you're going to play the game. A guy like me is more prone to use good conversation, an exciting personality, memory, and this thing I do with my....um...er, nothing. Not to say that we don't occasionally end up with all aces, but reality is what it is.
However, in his situation, when your requirements are...um, particular, you have to wonder about the motivation. I mean, you have to. He was dead serious about this, and would dutifully report back failures and follies of the Friday and Saturdays looking for the "perfect" woman.
In any case, as luck would have it and because Atlanta has ALL types, he met a woman who apparently met those qualifications. And then in the space of say...three WEEKS, talked her into a Wednesday afternoon courthouse wedding.
I know it was three weeks, because he met her the last week of March and they got married in mid-April. I know it was a Wednesday because it HAD been planned for that Friday. I know it was to have been a Friday, because that Thursday we were going to go out to the poor man's bootleg gentleman's club - Hooter's - and give him a thrown together bachelor-ish gatheration type party thing. And then he took Wednesday off that week to "take care of the some wedding details" and came in Thursday and said he'd just go on ahead the done it Wednesday.
Now, I've met her and she's nice. She did fit the physical requirement, but had a lovely bubbly personality, at least when I was around, and she surely was affectionate towards him. But I have to ask the question of a what appeared to a reasonably intelligent woman: why would marry a man you just met?
She moved him into her house, she eventually found him a better job, and they're apparently very happy together years later. Go figure. But at the outset, let's just say there were a whole lotta ways the whole shebang could have taken a wrong turn.
Ah, the life of a chicken plucker.
And women say they can't meet anybody. Apparently they just aren't trying hard enough.
Barkeep, because I just remembered this story....light me up!
Because the period between when I got finished my first round of education and the part when I start raising kids is using the term "decade" as a measure (and still isn't over yet) there are a great many stories I've seen, heard or know of. Most of them are true. This because in the Spades game of life truth has all the trump and fiction may have to renege just hoping to get to board.
Chicken plucking does strange things to people.
One of my coworkers got just got married. He let our manager know by informing her in passing that he had to leave early, because he was getting married later that day. That was it. Then he went and got married. Now, he's from Europe originally, so maybe its the cavalier attitude of the continent, but that seems just a little too casual for me.
But it also reminds me of another interesting story of a guy who got married while working at Le olde Chicken Plucker...
He wasn't a great chicken plucker. He was more a journeyman plucker, someone who could do the job and for the most part make those things that needed to happen go on and happen. He once lied to a client that you couldn't pluck a chicken after hours because the heat in the building turned off promptly right after the evening whistle blew. Like many of us working there at the time, he was usually bereft of serious funds, lived for the weekend and stayed with a roommate in a apartment for which he claimed the combined rent was $400 a month. But what made really made him interesting was his approach to dating and women.
He was looking for a woman with three specific qualities: she needed to overweight, have low esteem, and possess good credit.
That is not a joke.
Now he wasn't a pretty boy type. And admittedly, myself nor none of the guys I hang out with resemble male models, and as such we usually understand that supermodel types are not the kind of women who would normally jump at the chance to be with us. I mean, you have to realize what league you're in if you're going to play the game. A guy like me is more prone to use good conversation, an exciting personality, memory, and this thing I do with my....um...er, nothing. Not to say that we don't occasionally end up with all aces, but reality is what it is.
However, in his situation, when your requirements are...um, particular, you have to wonder about the motivation. I mean, you have to. He was dead serious about this, and would dutifully report back failures and follies of the Friday and Saturdays looking for the "perfect" woman.
In any case, as luck would have it and because Atlanta has ALL types, he met a woman who apparently met those qualifications. And then in the space of say...three WEEKS, talked her into a Wednesday afternoon courthouse wedding.
I know it was three weeks, because he met her the last week of March and they got married in mid-April. I know it was a Wednesday because it HAD been planned for that Friday. I know it was to have been a Friday, because that Thursday we were going to go out to the poor man's bootleg gentleman's club - Hooter's - and give him a thrown together bachelor-ish gatheration type party thing. And then he took Wednesday off that week to "take care of the some wedding details" and came in Thursday and said he'd just go on ahead the done it Wednesday.
Now, I've met her and she's nice. She did fit the physical requirement, but had a lovely bubbly personality, at least when I was around, and she surely was affectionate towards him. But I have to ask the question of a what appeared to a reasonably intelligent woman: why would marry a man you just met?
She moved him into her house, she eventually found him a better job, and they're apparently very happy together years later. Go figure. But at the outset, let's just say there were a whole lotta ways the whole shebang could have taken a wrong turn.
Ah, the life of a chicken plucker.
And women say they can't meet anybody. Apparently they just aren't trying hard enough.
Barkeep, because I just remembered this story....light me up!
Monday, January 24, 2011
And So, we Return...
Ramblings Post #166
It is said that when Cortes landed in the New World, he burned his ships so his warriors couldn't turn back. It's a concept called pre-commitment. Where you eliminate the alternative, so you have no choice but to go forward. It didn't actually happen quite that way, but we all get the idea. There as some things, once begun which cannot be stopped until completed. For me...that is the return of the sexy. The arrival of the sexy? Some measure of sexy achieved? A couple of hungry looks would be nice.
After almost two months pigging out, I've started back on the "program."
It's an interesting thing, going back, something I really didn't think I would do. I realize, really I do realize, that weight loss is more of an attitude change than a temporary change of eating habits, but this is the part I thought I'd left behind.
My plan, once I'd gotten down, was that I would indulge every so often while smoothing out some of the less palatable edges. A little gravy every so often. A little sauce on the meat. The occasional burger every two weeks or so.
Didn't happen.
Hot wings and Fries. Slice of sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese. Five Guys two patties with fries. Zaxby's Chicken finger plate. Boston Market's chocolate chip brownie. Ice cream with crushed Oreos. Chili dogs with onions...
So, we're going back. Now, mind you that in that month of ridiculous amount of indulgence I only went back up one notch on the belt, but that little loss was all it took to get my mind right. And I was starting not to feel good. My mornings were starting to get sluggish again, the 45 minute wake up plan, and my focus was fading. I had a fairly good semester on this diet, may as well stick to what works. And I still want to be able to take my shirt off for no reason.
This isn't to say that I'm back on this till I die. I mean, there is a second stage of foods for the maintenance part of the program, but I'm putting that off until I'm happy with the overall look again. I got to get the sexy right. And now that I have some structure to this whole thing, that original occasional indulgence idea might creep back into the picture, only this time in focus.
Barkeep, one of them fruit smoothies. And by fruit smoothie, I actually mean fruit smoothie.
It is said that when Cortes landed in the New World, he burned his ships so his warriors couldn't turn back. It's a concept called pre-commitment. Where you eliminate the alternative, so you have no choice but to go forward. It didn't actually happen quite that way, but we all get the idea. There as some things, once begun which cannot be stopped until completed. For me...that is the return of the sexy. The arrival of the sexy? Some measure of sexy achieved? A couple of hungry looks would be nice.
After almost two months pigging out, I've started back on the "program."
It's an interesting thing, going back, something I really didn't think I would do. I realize, really I do realize, that weight loss is more of an attitude change than a temporary change of eating habits, but this is the part I thought I'd left behind.
My plan, once I'd gotten down, was that I would indulge every so often while smoothing out some of the less palatable edges. A little gravy every so often. A little sauce on the meat. The occasional burger every two weeks or so.
Didn't happen.
Hot wings and Fries. Slice of sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese. Five Guys two patties with fries. Zaxby's Chicken finger plate. Boston Market's chocolate chip brownie. Ice cream with crushed Oreos. Chili dogs with onions...
So, we're going back. Now, mind you that in that month of ridiculous amount of indulgence I only went back up one notch on the belt, but that little loss was all it took to get my mind right. And I was starting not to feel good. My mornings were starting to get sluggish again, the 45 minute wake up plan, and my focus was fading. I had a fairly good semester on this diet, may as well stick to what works. And I still want to be able to take my shirt off for no reason.
This isn't to say that I'm back on this till I die. I mean, there is a second stage of foods for the maintenance part of the program, but I'm putting that off until I'm happy with the overall look again. I got to get the sexy right. And now that I have some structure to this whole thing, that original occasional indulgence idea might creep back into the picture, only this time in focus.
Barkeep, one of them fruit smoothies. And by fruit smoothie, I actually mean fruit smoothie.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Now that's famous
Ramblings Post #165
I've never wanted to be rich and famous. Just rich was enough for me. There is something about people you don't know calling you by your first name in public, and asking about things you know they shouldn't know. Don't get me wrong, I've been treated a mini-Atlanta celebrity on more than few occasions, recognized by folks and given the hookup a time or two. But I don't think I can take the rest of it, the photographers, the stalkers, the problems. I could however, use the money.
This is a Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow can thank her publicist. I suggest flowers.
I wasn't quite sure who Gwyneth Paltrow is. I had to look her up on Wikipedia and it appears she is quite the movie star. I bring her up because of a football game party I went to last weekend where after them that folks were cheering for had been effectively thrashed...around say half time for the Falcon fans...a game of Taboo was started.
Women love Taboo. I don't know why. I say this because when my RP used to have game nights at his house, it was a given that at some point in the evening there would be a crowd of women barking clues at each other trying to guess the mystery word. The number of times I would get asked either "when the Taboo game was going to start" or "are you playing" would exceed the requests for ice or to repeat that last drink I made. I would play every so often to be sociable, but the vast majority of the people waiting eagerly were women. I've seen women leave the "thunderdome" with a fine sheen of sweat behind this game. It gets intense.
Taboo, for the initiated is like the old gameshow Password, where you have to guess the secret word from clues your partner gives, only with Taboo you're not allowed to use the best clues.
So, last Saturday, football game well lost by the home team, the card games and other activities kicked into high gear. As I wandered into the kitchen sipping on my Hot Toddy (if want to prove you're black bourgeois, drink a Hot Toddy at a football party) and sidled over to where the women (and the one guy) playing, this exchange happened.
The black woman giving the clues flips to the new card which reads, Gwyneth Paltrow. I couldn't see the verboten words.
She starts: "White woman in Hollywood."
Person guessing: "Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow..."
I switched to hard liquor after that.
I guess Jennifer Aniston should send her person something too. I mean, talk about name recognition.
Barkeep. Whatever, I mean like whoa...
I've never wanted to be rich and famous. Just rich was enough for me. There is something about people you don't know calling you by your first name in public, and asking about things you know they shouldn't know. Don't get me wrong, I've been treated a mini-Atlanta celebrity on more than few occasions, recognized by folks and given the hookup a time or two. But I don't think I can take the rest of it, the photographers, the stalkers, the problems. I could however, use the money.
This is a PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow can thank her publicist. I suggest flowers.
I wasn't quite sure who Gwyneth Paltrow is. I had to look her up on Wikipedia and it appears she is quite the movie star. I bring her up because of a football game party I went to last weekend where after them that folks were cheering for had been effectively thrashed...around say half time for the Falcon fans...a game of Taboo was started.
Women love Taboo. I don't know why. I say this because when my RP used to have game nights at his house, it was a given that at some point in the evening there would be a crowd of women barking clues at each other trying to guess the mystery word. The number of times I would get asked either "when the Taboo game was going to start" or "are you playing" would exceed the requests for ice or to repeat that last drink I made. I would play every so often to be sociable, but the vast majority of the people waiting eagerly were women. I've seen women leave the "thunderdome" with a fine sheen of sweat behind this game. It gets intense.
Taboo, for the initiated is like the old gameshow Password, where you have to guess the secret word from clues your partner gives, only with Taboo you're not allowed to use the best clues.
So, last Saturday, football game well lost by the home team, the card games and other activities kicked into high gear. As I wandered into the kitchen sipping on my Hot Toddy (if want to prove you're black bourgeois, drink a Hot Toddy at a football party) and sidled over to where the women (and the one guy) playing, this exchange happened.
The black woman giving the clues flips to the new card which reads, Gwyneth Paltrow. I couldn't see the verboten words.
She starts: "White woman in Hollywood."
Person guessing: "Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow..."
I switched to hard liquor after that.
I guess Jennifer Aniston should send her person something too. I mean, talk about name recognition.
Barkeep. Whatever, I mean like whoa...
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Bar Chatter
Bar Chatter #19
Sometimes it just ain't enough to make a post, but it's still needs to go out....it's just bar chatter.
Wind blows, car horn, here comes the Armored car,.... (for those not familiar, watch Groundhog Day again, it's very funny) .
Okay, Grades are in. I feel better now.
Sometimes it just ain't enough to make a post, but it's still needs to go out....it's just bar chatter.
Wind blows, car horn, here comes the Armored car,.... (for those not familiar, watch Groundhog Day again, it's very funny) .
Okay, Grades are in. I feel better now.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Sometimes its a Blank Page
Ramblings Post #164
Sometimes, you get empty. All of it that could be done for now is done and all you can do is wait, or keep busy. And if you don't want to keep busy then all you can do is stand there and wait. For the next sunrise, the next semester, the next snap, the next kickoff, the next next.
Haven't been in a writing mood lately.
School is restarting, books cost too much, people I started with are graduating, worried about grades, the chicken plucking farm is "repositioning" me, car still running funny, house still being a house funny, not hungry just eating for taste and still off my diet, things are happening, sun rises and sets, life is just whizzing by...
...and I feel like as life speeds up I can't get it out of first gear.
It's been cloudy for like two weeks though. Maybe I need some sun. Maybe I just need to get back on the diet.
Barkeep, the diet lite sugar free bourbon. You don't have that? I'll just have to make do.
Sometimes, you get empty. All of it that could be done for now is done and all you can do is wait, or keep busy. And if you don't want to keep busy then all you can do is stand there and wait. For the next sunrise, the next semester, the next snap, the next kickoff, the next next.
Haven't been in a writing mood lately.
School is restarting, books cost too much, people I started with are graduating, worried about grades, the chicken plucking farm is "repositioning" me, car still running funny, house still being a house funny, not hungry just eating for taste and still off my diet, things are happening, sun rises and sets, life is just whizzing by...
...and I feel like as life speeds up I can't get it out of first gear.
It's been cloudy for like two weeks though. Maybe I need some sun. Maybe I just need to get back on the diet.
Barkeep, the diet lite sugar free bourbon. You don't have that? I'll just have to make do.
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