The middle of the night.

It's the middle of the night and I'm up. Can't sleep.

I've lost a lot of weight lately. I think it's stress over Sporty's departure but just to be sure I went to the doctor yesterday and they took some blood and ran the basics. I'll know by next week if I haven't "developed" something. Okay, I've stopped eating really...no breakfast, no lunch most days and a spotty dinner. But then I haven't really been hungry in a while. So maybe it's that.

I got the extra hot wings tonight (first food all day) because I missed the spicy food I used to get with her. And there will probably be fewer restaurant reviews going forward, as my main dining partner has...well, you know.

We've been IMing each other so it's not a total break. Yet.

The job however, has lost it's luster. When I first started there I hated it, then it got worse. Then Sporty and I started hanging out, so I dealt with it. Now she's gone and never has the old country song "Take this Job and Shove it" ever hit so close to home. And that's messed up on so many levels. I will not be there much longer.

This blog will probably go back to bad jokes, political rants, bits of inspirational fodder, the occasional college story of lesser import and the semi-regular blast from my slowly reforming social life, if I decide to go back. Might add in the occasional funny picture. I got some big things coming up soon...It's wide open.

Or not. We'll see.

Barkeep. Whatever's handy.

And the band played on...

In the grand tradition of all short timers...I was leaving in a week, well damnit I'm going today.

Instead of Friday, yesterday was Sporty's last day at our job. She's moving away (I might not have mentioned that) to get her new business started, and I'm left here to pick up the pieces of my soul and figure where to go from here.

We spent a last few minutes in the office as she set up my new blackberry to make sure we can IM each other, and that I had all her information.

In typical fashion, a day late and dollar short, I sent her this missive last night:

My time grows short.

Not my lifetime, for with the genes fate has granted me and with miracles of modern technology barring my own reckless stupidity I'm going to see the other side of ancient. That time is long in coming and promises long periods of the mundane punctuated by frequent bouts of adventure by accident and excitement in short intense binges.

No, something more important grows close to it's end. The end of a dream.

I don't think I have ever clicked better with any woman I have ever met. She's smart, she's funny, she's passionate and she gets me on so many levels. I have seen myself spending years with her. She is the first woman I have ever seriously considered asking to marry me. We became a term I used in describing things. She shared herself with me. She counted on me and expected things from me. And despite my previous hedonistic nature, that feeling of being needed felt nice.

And now that is coming to an end.

She says I didn't do anything wrong, but I believe I was born a few years too early, or wasn't expressive enough or a shade less aggressive than the next man, and as such this great experience that I used to thank god for in the dark of the night is now fast approaching a conclusion I thought might not come for forty or more years. I want to say I wish I had done this or said that, but that might have changed that delicious flavor of what we were. Sometimes the two ships passing in the night actually do pass.

But I still love her. And I always will.

I never learned how to stop caring for someone. I've seen it as a neat trick in others, how they are able to care for people one day and then have a argument or disagreement and suddenly somehow discard those feelings as though they no longer fit or have become toxic. I have never been able to do that. I don't know if I would be better or worse if I could, but for this last of the romantics love is forever. Come what may. I eventually mentally come to a working understanding of how things are when the feelings I want to share are unrequited, but it will only be that I've figured out how to suppressed my emotion. They'll still be there, shifting and breathing underneath a calm carefully constructed countenance.

And the world will go on.

I mean, I have notes and scribbles of half though ideas I haven't looked at in years that I can't bring myself to get rid of, so a living breathing person whom I adore and care for, sometimes more than I cared for myself, and who shows concern for me, well her moving on to the next part of their life wasn't going to devolve me into a "who's next" or a "just let it go situation." She is not replaceable. I am her friend because I was her friend, because it was the only way to really love someone is to like them first. And thus we existed as more than friends but less than lovers.

I'll still feel the same even if... even if her future plays out without me, to put in a way I can write with getting emotional.

Soon I will awake from this wondrous dream I called my life for the past few years. I could no more ask her to not go than I could stop being concerned for her. As long as she is happy I will figure something out. A selfless concern that borders on the silly I realize, but that is me. As for what awaits me in the world I know not, but it will be returning to the shadows from the sunshine. The solo hedonism that I return to has lost it's appeal. She changed me.

It's something I probably should have sent or should have said years ago. But the old lack of communication skills in this field do not serve me well.

Her reply is that she's speechless, but that we're friends to the end.

Exactly. She had no idea.

And the band....played on.

The Burger Review

In a desperate effort to lighten my mood, and turn the tide from a pity party over Sporty that I seem to be falling into, I will now attempt to move on to lighter fare, something a little funny.




I like a good hamburger. Not a cheeseburger, or bacon cheeseburger or anything jalapeños or served with slaw or an egg or anything like that, but a good old fashioned bread - ketchup - mustard - beef - bread style hamburger. (Okay, I put fries on it too, but that's a separate issue.) If you go in most fast food restaurants you have to ask to they just serve a plain hamburger the menu is so chock full of "other" items to give you the full range of choice.

I don't need choice however. I need a hamburger.

A well made hamburger is a thing of beauty. I had one the other day at a cookout that had green and red chili's cut up in it with onions, just like you had when you were a kid. But then I don't like those hamburgers. I'll end up giving them my kids (provided I ever have any) so they can have the experience, but well made hamburger is just well formed meat. It's juicy without being overly greasy. It's got a texture that doesn't make chewing it a chore. The bread needs to be a bun, seeded, that's warm and soft.

You'd be surprised how few places make this burger.

With the advent of "toppings" the basic taste at the beginning, the burger, is washed away. So caught up with the other flavors you begin to wonder that if you took the burger part away would anyone notice. It's kinda like being able to appreciate the subtle taste of vanilla, which makes the rest seem like dressing up nothing.

Some notes....

Wendy's
A fairly decent burger. It's a little too greasy and a good mouthful goes down almost too easy, with only a mild beef taste. They make up for it with fries.

Burger King
The whopper, which if you stand there and actually watch them make you would hesitate at eating, it the most burger tasting of the "cheap" burgers, although $3 for a sandwich isn't exactly cheap. They need to work on their fries, which vary between edible and horrible.

McDonalds
You don't really expect a review here did you? Did you read my previous post on McDonalds?

Fatburger
I like the burger, but it's not juicy enough. I like the fries, which are clean and crisp. I don't really like the bun. Watching them make it makes me less hungry.

Five Guys
I don't know who these five guys are, but shole do know how to make a burger. Two patties on one bun as the basic, juicy but not greasy, bun is warm...the fries are hand cut! Now I want one. Damn.

Hardees
I used to eat Hardees as a kid. Loved it. I actually preferred their fried chicken to KFC. They they invented the Thickburger. And the quite frankly the thickburger ain't worth shit.

The Varsity
I understand the Varsity is and Atlanta institution and speaking badly of it may have me up on charges. That said I will never eat from there again if I can help it. The fries are good when hot though.

Checkers
There is a reason the place is a drive thru. Because if you could go back and reach across the counter and smack the people who made this sorry excuse for a burger you would. And take note, not everybody likes seasoned fries!

Wing Factory
Oddly this place I love for the wings makes a pretty good burger. It was almost astonishing when I got it. And Double Bonus - The fries are crinkle cut!

Fuddruckers
I used to dream of Fuddruckers, then I starting working at a place where one is down the street. I don't dream that dream no more. I mean the meat is still good..but he bun...and the sorry, and do mean sorry fries. Come on...for the loot I'm spending here! Geez.


That's the quick roundup...a few other places around here - Backyard Burger, Zestos, the Vortex - I really don't go to often enough to get a good feel, so rather than be biased I'm leaving them out.

Barkeep - Can I get a Vanilla Shake? No, seriously.

Weekends have lost their zing..

It's been a long weekend. It should have made me happy but it didn't. Where to begin?

It has been a long standing opinion of mine that little old men who do yard work should have a state sponsored pension plan. If you've ever had the services of one you'll find out they can do everything. Yard work, painting, plumbing, drywall....the list just goes on and on. And they're willing to it all for cheap! I feel bad when they say "pay me what you think it's worth" because I can't afford what it's worth.

Saturday afternoon this guy shows up at my house. When I was out in the yard earlier in the week he'd walked by and offered to cut the grass, so I said holla back at me later, not really expecting anything. I mean how often does an off-hand comment comeback to bite you in the ass?

He shows up.

So we work out a deal where he cuts the grass for like $30, and then cleans out the branches and leaves by the side of my house (which is still pretty fucked up from when I'd first moved in) for like another $70. Does a damn good job.

It turns out Starz had all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies on all day Saturday and Sunday...and still haven't seen them all the way through. I messed up and watched the first one and was, I'm ashamed to say, hooked. Crisp writing and dialog and Captain Jack Sparrow. I'm sorry, did I get on the bandwagon late?

Then my partner called and I ran up to this cookout that was chock full. It's odd when you go out and things that would in the past have gotten you...excited... are now, less than exciting. My mind is still not right.

Then Sunday morning me and my new yard man go over and clean out Sporty's dog run that I been promising to clean out for three weeks now. The little fenced in cube looks like a jungle, with poison ivy and hanging branches and trees than have grown into the fence. He knocks out what looks like six hours work in two. Barely broke a sweat. I suddenly felt very puny. The times I've missed the gym were suddenly very bad. The pile of brush must have been twenty feet on the sidewalk five feet high.

Then I find out and old friend is having a cookout, roll over there to watch the game and run into the HBCU reminder squad, which goes over the basic concepts and highlights of the old alma mater and continually reaches the conclusion that we're all still surprised anyone actually ever graduates. Then when the 25th dude showed up and it was still only the original 8 girls, I raised up stakes and went home. Hard leg festivals are not my thing.

To this...

It looks like it might be starting again. I'm getting too old for this shit. I got used to liking it when...well, those new days seem to be fading just as fast. Old is all I got. But lately everything seems to be losing it's flavor.

Barkeep...I dunno. Something.

The End of the World as We Know it

It only took six months for my hopes and dreams to unravel. From November 2007 to May 2008 I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the words that mean the end has come from Sporty. It's been a wonderful ride. I had hoped it would last forever, but then nothing ever does.

It's moments like this that I wonder what God has in store for me, what my purpose is. Sometimes it feels like my existence is a doodle in the margins of his creation, and I'm not connected and never will be.

I feel empty and drained. Last night over the three hours Sporty and I hung out, dinner downtown and then dessert in Buckhead I wanted to tell her so much and say so many things and magically change reality, And then the movie would end with tears and promises and all that we'd live happily ever after. But this isn't a movie, the popcorn isn't fresh and gas is almost $4 a gallon. What I was ... was all cryptic and stoic and basically trying to not start crying, because apparently I'm even bad comedy relief in the film that is my life. I could have thrown it all there, pour my feelings and my heart out to her, but for what? It's not going to change anything. I'm still going to be alone again.

But then I'm not sure I ever stopped being alone.

You know....I could have sworn this blog was supposed to be funny. As it is it's turned into a online therapy session and restaurant review with the occasional odd quote and weird blog entry thrown in for variety's sake. Where are the funny stories? Where the tales of snaking through clubs and mornings spent coercing young misses to get naked hours after meeting them? The alcohol soaked memoirs of college nights and coed days? Witty political dialogue? Funny observations about life? Where is the fun? What happened?

I think I got old.
I think it's all getting old.
I think I just don't want to play anymore.

I mean If I'm so great, how come nobody I want to be with wants to be with me?

Barkeep. Can we just talk for a while?

Maybe I shoulda been a therapist...

Friday was a day that will live in ...well it wasn't that bad. Shade called me up to vent on Friday morning. She and her bestest and dearest friend - who shall be referred to as Scoop - were at each other's throats. And not in the oiled up and rolling around naked way that I've often imagined.

Scoop is a woman I like and admire, and not because she introduced me to her husband of three weeks as the man she would have married had he not stepped up. I like Scoop because she has the ability to let issues go...a talent few other women I know possess. I've known women to stop talking forever due to a disagreement over who met somebody first. Neither dated him, but they were adamant who met who first.

Back to the matter at hand, Shade and Scoop are like sisters. Scoop described their relationship as "marriage minus the romance and sex." They've stopped talking, then started again in continuing cycles and I don't think they even know why they still hang out. In reality they do love each other and have let a lot of petty foolishness get in the way of them being them. I still think they could work out with some baby oil and a bit of whipped cream.

And Shade reads this blog, so yes...this is what I think.

So Shade and I talk for the better part of an hour. I get to work, sit down, blow off a meeting. But by the end she's feeling better, and I may have accidentally agreed to mediate a session between them and given her some relationship homework. Accidentally.

The the woman in my office who won't get a nickname shows up at my desk. She won't get a nickname because ...well, because. She has her own issues and damn if we don't discuss them too. I could have sworn my degree was business. She explained she left a previous fiance because he was depressed. He'd been out of work for year, so I wasn't sure why she thought he should have been happy go lucky. She didn't seem to get that a guy not working (and with minimal prospects) would not have some reservations about living with their regular spending habits. That he might want to cut back. That he might get depressed. Didn't click with her for some reason.

Silly me.

But that was another hour of conversation. And now I think she's looking at her reaction to the relationship in a different way.

Is it just me? Maybe I look like a damn therapist. Ah, physician heal thyself!

But I am a good listener.

Oh well, Barkeep...something smooth and shiny.