The Wisdom of Morons

Shouldering Another’s Pain

Anybody who knows me well is aware that I have durability of a bomb shelter, and the emotional capacity of stapler; as such, when somebody close to me dies, is hurt, or undergoes some life changing trial (good luck with the sex change, JARED.) I am able to deal with the obstacles rationally and with as little dibilitating blubbering as possible. I’ve dealt with a lot of hard lessons in life, and while I may be saddened by the passing of a loved one, supportive during a friend’s recovery from injury, or disturbed by Jared’s wish to have a vagina, I can get through them because I’ve been there before (except for Jared lopping his dick off.)

That’s fine for me, but how well am I equipped to support somebody else when they are going through a hard time. The minutely specific example I’ll give you is that my fiance’s father is going to die. Straight up, not debate, he is pretty much getting his affairs in order at this point. I’d say by Thursday before happy hour he’ll be gone. Reasons I think this include:

• He’s old as fuck. The dudes is over 80 years old. That’s not a good asset to have.
• He has kidney stones the size of golf balls. These have to be removed the old fashioned way, with a sharp object and a team of surgeons.
• He has a severe heart condition. This isn’t increasing his chances. In fact, we were told the odds that they would be able to resuscitate him after the surgery are very slim.
• His body is riddled with infection. From the kidney failure.

So, we are all pretty much in agreement that he is not long for this world- except my fiance, of course. She’s never lost a family member. She thinks that he can take anything- I mean, he’s her dad. Her first hero. He was always the one she could talk to, as her biological mother wasn’t around before, and her adoptive mother was batshit fucking crazy. Losing him will probably be the hardest thing she will have to go through so far.

Where does that leave me…personally, the man means very little to me, since once you take away the hero worship and dependance, it seems that he is just a really old man who has made a lot of awful decisions….As I aspire to be one day. My only concern is getting her through this. My primary methods of dealing with things are to laugh at them or threaten them, so I’m a bit out of my element when it comes to dying relatives, as either of those options will probably be met with hostility at best.

I suppose I’ll just have to see how bad the damage is. And who knows, maybe he’ll survive this and live for another twenty years. I’m not putting any money down on that bet though. All I can do is let her know that whatever holes she finds in her heart after he’s gone, I can do my best to patch. I offer guidance. I offer support. I am attentive and gentle; strong and immovable. I am there to be the light in the darkness, just as there was another there for me when I lost my father.

Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. I hope you pull through, you old mother fucker. And if you don’t… let’s look at the bright side. At least you don’t have to worry about that crazynuts old bag you call a wife anymore.

Athletics: My misunderstandings.

So today I was presented with a conundrum: how does one compare different athletes of different sports and different body types against one another? I’m ashamed to say that I was, and still partially am, genuinely butthurt about the fact that my friend considered her S.O. a better athlete than me (favoritism included, of course.) But why was my butt so badly hurt? Is it because the only things I live for are my daughter and my physical prowess, in that order? Is it because I spend at least a fifth of my day attempting to better myself physically (and more often than not, disappointing myself?) Or is it because she’s probably right?

 I’ve always been the one. The strong type. The protector. Perhaps the over-protector. I’ve devote over half of my life to getting my face bashed in by anyone with a pair of boxing gloves on. But that’s not all; the rest of my time has been filled with soccer, tennis, swimming, yoga, running, karate, Aikido, ju-jitsu, and hopefully in the near future, hapkido. I consider myself an athlete, I take pride in myself, and I am ashamed of where I am lacking …. perhaps too much so, and that puts me on the defensive.

 But that is neither here nor there- why do I feel the need to be better than others? Especially when one of my most sage bits of advice is, “Don’t compare yourself to others; worry about your own progress.” ….seems counter intuitive, nay, downright hypocritical. Perhaps getting punched in the head for so many years has warped my view of what athleticism is. I feel like because I am a fighter, and a somewhat accomplished one, that I am better. That because I could kill somebody with my bare hands, that I am superior. That since I can withstand a 20 minute beating, that my abilities are greater. But in everything else, my “skill” is relative- it’s always, “I’m fast, for somebody my size.” and that sort of relative comparison. Somebody that weighs one hundred pounds less than me had BETTER think that I’m slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter. And the inverse is also true- for somebody with my size and muscle mass, I’m not actually that strong…it’s just that almost everyone around me is built smaller from the start. So when I think I’m better than the waifish lad at the gym who can’t be more than 120, it’s the equivalent of beating a five year old in poker: You shouldn’t take pride in it.

We all need a wake-up call. I’ll become stronger, faster, I’ll lose even more weight. I’ve spent too much time feeling proud of myself, and not enough time thinking that there are so many people out there who are better than me. When you stop having conflicts,you grow complacent. I’ll try to keep it in mind from now on, push myself to the fullest extent my body can withstand, and become even more of a nightmarish killing machine than I already am.

The Autumn Night

Theres something about Autumn. I don’t know if it’s just the change in weather, or possibly a fond childhood memory- The season is just mystical to me, and autumn nights in particular. We’re talkin like some Harry Potter shit here. Even though I’m extremely busy these days, I make sure that at least a few nights a week I hop on my bike and just go riding around. Yeah, a bike. It’s so cool because it makes me feel like I’m 10 years old again.

I sneak out that back door of my house, even though there’s no need to, and try to wrestle my bike from its resting place behind my punching bag. It makes a risky amount of noise for somebody who is trying to be sneaky, but eventually I make my escape through the back gate. From that point on, its all about the dim lighting of the lamps that line the sidewalks, the feeling of the cold wind biting my skin, and the reflection of the moon off of the lake. There is no feeling like it in the world.

It’s the kind of night that, were I a younger man, romance would fill the air. Since I am not that man, we have to make do with adventure. You never know who you’ll run into. Or run over, as was the case on my last trip. As it turns out, a sidewalk by the shore of a lake at 10 p.m. is not the safest place for a young couple to lay as they spend precious few moments together before some jerk going about 15 miles an hour on a bike with shoddy brakes ruins their good time.

There is so little adventure in the life of an adult middle class office employee. You really have to grasp every bit of it that you can. Even if it’s lame and childish.

How to sit at a bar, my way.

1. Make sure to wear some sort of jacket, in my case, a sweatshirt that brings out my beeeautiful blue eyes.
2. Take off the sweatshirt, revealing your muscular arms and body that you showcase in a too-small shirt that you bought in the young men’s section at Kohl’s.
3. Flex it.
4. Drink it.

Is it all in your head?

I can’t seem to find a good way to get what I’m trying to say out. I’ve tried about 5 times. Let’s try again.

Is our perception of a situation what makes it so bad sometimes? If we look at it from another’s perspective, would we feel better about it ourselves? Probably. I can think of many instances in which I have felt ostracized, cast out, strange, shunned, or any other synonym of these words. But is it that other people are rejecting me, or that I am automatically rejecting them?

I had a typical experience today with the people I always see at the gym. I walk around, doing whatever I have on my schedule for the day, focused on exercising. They sit about, running their mouths while lounging on the equipment, getting in my way. This is all well and good, because everybody knows that most gyms are populated by lazy buttholes. I take issue with the part where the look at me funny from time to time. Like I’m the one acting like a douchebag. In fact, it would be fair to say I take offense. Get a little angry, even.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, you pieces of shit?? KYYAH!”

That’s what I want to say. And the “KYYAH!” part is when I hit them. But I am not really the type of person to act on those impulses. And that is what makes me think of this- Is the reason that they are looking at me not because I am a distinct looking person, not because I am doing something strange, and not because they are trying to get all gay up on my butt cheeks, but because I’m the only one in the room who they don’t know? That I’m the only person that they have seen almost every day for the last two years, and never spoken to? And that maybe, in a small way, they want to talk to me too, but I’m surrounded by so many walls that I won’t even let them make eye contact, much less strike up a conversation?

It’s possible. Likely even. Humans are strange animals. I am not afraid to step into a ring and let somebody bash my face in for 15 minutes, but I am horrified at the thought of talking to somebody I’m not comfortable with. In the end, I guess I deserve to be looked at strangely, because my behavior is that of somebody who is strange.

So, knowing this, when I go tomorrow, maybe I’ll see if any of them have any weight lifting techniques I’m not familiar with, and maybe they can show me how to do them.

And maybe naked virgins will ride out of my ass on motorcycles. I’m stronger that those fuckers anyway.