"it's a win-win situation"

...and I do love winning.

It's nice when you have a friend who can lighten your perspective on a topic and help you to think clearly and rationally, all in all improving your outlook and helping you to relax and see the big picture.

It's even nicer when he's your dad.

For the 92% of the time we're on the phone when he's (a) distracted with another conversation, (b) trying to navigate his way through a grocery store/parking lot/interstate, or (c) talking in (extreme) detail about baseball, he makes that last 8% so valuable that I'm willing to say he's batting at least .750.

weighting is the hard part

I've always found it interesting and appropriate that the idea of "weight" is often used metaphorically with an emotional connotation. There's a heaviness that comes with intense feelings and profound events. We use words like "carefree" and "lighthearted" to convey joy, or an absence of emotional turmoil. "Baggage" and "burden" are commonly used to communicate emotional status. It's pervasive in the English language, and I love it. (There could be a whole other discussion on why this is, such as material worries contrasting spiritual enlightenment. I'll save that for another time.)
Some of my favorite examples follow.

- An overall theme in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, being weighed down with emotional burdens vs transcending all things tangible.

- The oft-used "heavy boots" and "light boots" by Oskar Schell's character in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to convey depressed moods or optimistic ones.

- The idea that you can share some weight and make someone else's experience a little lighter, as in, "Take a load off Annie, And you put the load right on me" (The Band, The Weight).

- Also, weight as a purpose. "All I need's a little time, to get behind the sun and cast my weight" (Air, All I Need), and, "Take a drink just to give me some weight..." (The Shins, A Comet Appears).

- Then finally, my favorite poem, Song, by Allen Ginsberg. Every time I read it, even if years go by in between revisits, its beauty and truth are reasserted to me. "The weight of the world is love." So true. (And so beautiful.)

This Monday, I'm feeling a bit heavy for one reason or another. Maybe it's due to the hailing, rainy, gray, exhausting start to the week, when such an incredibly satisfying and enlightening one preceded it.
I'm realizing it's the hardest lesson to learn, to let go of the things you have no control over... reliquishing your grip on a false sense of power over the course of events, and releasing the emotional weight that comes along with such a feat. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it. At least, I hope I am.

'thank you' i.e. 'F U'

To the cop who gave me a speeding ticket on the way to work this morning:

How is it that I stood out in the midst of all the cars surrounding me who were going the exact same speed? What was it about my shitty '96 Camry with a dented front fender that made you think I could afford a traffic violation, when the shiny silver BMW 3-series in front of me sped off immediately after you flagged me down? Do you enjoy crushing the souls of the financially downtrodden, and making a living from it?

My cat just got a $600 tooth pulled. My car just had to have $250 worth of repairs. I am in so much credit card debt that it sometimes makes me hyperventilate. And yet, I was the lucky one who attracted your attention when you were searching for a sucker to pay a fine. Was I supposed to thank you when you told me you knocked down the initial penalty from $175 to $93? Do you understand that I have less than that amount to buy my gasoline and groceries with for the next two weeks preceding payday? And - I ask again - did you not realize that every. other. fucking. car on the highway. was ALSO going 70-something in a 60, and I was not a rebel in this scenario? Fuck this. Fuck you. Your mother is a slut, your baby is an uggo, and your penis is tiny.

[...breathing...]

Though, perhaps I've been getting a bit too rushed these days when I'm on the road. "Going with the flow of traffic" is a slippery slope, really. Because once the car in front of me slows down and I see others flying past, I get the urge to weave in and out of traffic until I'm cruising with the speedsters. Until I want to pass them up, too... just so I get ahead, and win, I guess, in some bizarre sense.

I hate to admit it to you, asshole policeman, that it was rather nice remembering to slow down on the afternoon commute (lest I get another $93 slap in the face from a chickenshit colleague of yours). It was a beautiful sunset behind the Olympics that I was able to peacefully witness, and a rather lovely spring soundtrack that my iPod shuffle was adding to the scenery. It's nice to let others pass you sometimes, and to let go of the tense-shouldered, speeding-to-win mentality that's seemed to take hold of me as of late.

I still wish the lesson didn't cost me the rest of my bank account (read: your mom's still totally a slut).

social satisfaction

It feels so nice when you are surrounded by people who understand and challenge you, and make you both feel like a good person and strive to be a better one. No, 'nice' isn't it at all. There may be a suitable word, but I don't know it.

Suffice it to say that this may have been the weekend that trumped all other weekends. Spring came, and with it, clarity. Tra la la.

run down

I'm tired as hell and my throat is yelling at me for more fluids than I can physically give it. I'm gonna go let a delicious dose of Paul Newman circa 1960 heal me. (You may as well give up after the first minute. After that, a silly shirt on his back goes and ruins the view.)

it was a week

..a little bit of a splendid one, and a little bit of a crap one.

I gave a talk about chiropractic, and people liked it, and understood it. I even got new patients from it. And I networked with some other doctors, and felt good about my job. I was happy and proud.

I was social. I met new people. I had many dinners with my beautiful visiting friend, who has a knack for making beautiful dinners. And we talked about families and growing up and loving people and breaking up and we shared stories and laughed and cried.

And then I saw something I wish I hadn't seen, and felt like I'd been kicked in the teeth (thanks for that, Facebook, you asshole). And then, my kitty broke, costing me a crapload of money to fix an infected tooth. In fact, in retrospect, I should have used my cat as a medium between me and Facebook, so that she would have caught the brunt of the blow, and her lousy tooth could have been kicked out, in essence saving me $600 and a bit of emotional turmoil. This obscure talk is making no sense, I know. I stop now.

Anyway, all's okay still, because in this week's case, the happy outweighed the metaphorical mouth beating. And luckily, I still have a beautiful visiting friend, for at least another day. Plus, the weekend is presenting more dinners and laughing and dinner partying and dance partying and fun and smiles and more laughing.

Take that, tooth kicker.

this is what growing up is, maybe (i think)

I dig this town. Really, I do. I still don't have even an inkling as to whether I'll actually settle here for good (or even what that means exactly), but this place is good for me. It might be turning me into somewhat of an adult, even.

Some evidence:

I am suddenly not just interested in, but motivated to paint my walls. (Contrast this nesting behavior with that of two months ago, when I was freaked out over the prospect of committing to a one-year lease.)

I am looking into purchasing foliage for my home, in hopes that I'll soon learn how to not kill things that are growing in buckets of dirt.

I opened an IRA and am now saving for retirement. (Although, this still makes me laugh a little bit, since I have barely begun paying my student loans.)

I am learning how to do things like make homemade bread and chicken stock.

When people call me "doctor" now, I almost believe them.

I enjoy dancing without a load of booze in my system, as per college days. And not just alone in my apartment in my underwear, but in public (with other people in the vicinity, who may see me moving around).

Personal growth is a wonderful thing. Fun, too.
...

On the other hand, I still giggle at places called "Honey Hole," overreact about stickers not peeling easily off of newly purchased goods, get self-conscious when I'm meeting people for the first time, and blush and look away whenever a boy smiles at me. Maybe some things will never change.