Glad to be in touch

If you can call it that. But I am in touch with Susanne again. She sent me a really sweet email at work. I was touched to find that she had really been trying to track me down. That is a splendid feeling.

Work is work. Except for the load of things that our field supervisor screwed up or forgot at one of our last jobs. Lots of things that are haunting us now. Seems he has forgotten some crucial things about erecting a steel building. And the burden is mine to shoulder. Damn job titles.

The crawler is slowly progressing. Slowly.

A friend just got nailed for missing a piss test. He's on probation and missed one UA. In almost 3 years. And now he has to go to AA meetings and pay for a UA every day for 90 days. The things we do in our past most assuredly will plague us for the rest of our lives. That's the problem with accountability. Sometimes it actually works.

I wonder where Sara Katherine Lyons is. RIT graduate. Raised in New Jersey. Last I heard, living in DC working at a gallery. Some people I will always miss. She is the type to not forgive a casual friendship. Either keep communications up or get out of the way. My way of emailing her incessantly for a couple months, then dropping off the face of the earth for a couple months really chapped her ass. I can't blame her, but it still strikes me as odd to call yourself and then behave so subjectively. Well, maybe it's appropo. Seems those people mean so much to me but I struggle so hard to make any relationship work.

The people that have clear cut ideas as to their own life and how others fit in. It's tough to stroll into a life like that. That's why Maggie and I got along so famously. I don't think we ever stressed about fitting into the other's ideology. I miss her the most. I always will. I hope somehow she knows that. I think I still love her a little. In fact, I hope I do.

OK, off to bed. Nite, you fine folks.

It's been a few days.

And the usual has happened. Work, exercise and a bar run. Headed into work today to replace the rear main seal in my Cherokee and hopefully still have some time to do some welding on the cage of my Waggy. Managed to pull out the fuel cell and figure out a fan mount for the raidator. Then I proceeded to romeve both of those and the rear axle. I should have unfettered access to everything I need to weld in the rear of this thing.

I need to start reading more. Caught some really great movies this past week or so. Garden State is one of them. Being from there, it means a lot to me. The soundtrack is amazing. You should all have a listen to it.

On the love life? Nothing. 2 people have said they are interested. This is two more than the previous. But they both retain the notion that the goatee must go. One of them is from Texas and has never actually seen me, only in pictures. But still. Get over it. I must be attracting those types of people. Maybe it's a passing phase. Maybe just around the bend is Mrs. Right.

It's not that I am lonely. I mean... sometimes I am. It's just that I want to feel wanted for exactly who I am. You know?

"I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find."

Song's been stuck in my head for days. One of those that gives you goosebumps when you hear it.

I remember watching my brother get beaten up once. We were really young, still living with my Dad's Mom on Edwards Road in Parsippany. We were at the grade school 2 doors down and there were a few bullies there that told him he did something wrong. I can't remember what. Maybe he broke a window? I dunno. Anyway, they got in trouble for it so they knocked him around a bit and I just stood there and watched. I wish there was more of it. No. I wish he learned to stop screwing other people. In all ways.

And I remember making grape jelly with Gram. Squashing all the grapes we picked from the neighbor's yard (Barry?) in this big washtub just outside the front door. On the little cement patio under the shade that the sappy pine trees laid out for us.

OK. I gotta go do some things at the shop. Have a fun day, kids.

Not much to report

Been a hot, humdrum day. The usual stuff at work, followed by more of the same. Followed by enduring the heat of a non-AC house. The poor cats. I think I have it bad? Imagine if I had a fur bodysuit glued on. 10 PM and it's 88 degrees still. Tomorrow, it will only get to 96. I can't wait. I gotta go try and get some sleep, so off I go. I apologize to some extenet for the brevity, but something is better than nothing.

-Rich

Diligence will get you everywhere.

Which is precisely why I am writing in here daily now, without fail.

Had a glorious time at my 10 year college reunion last month. Knew a couple people that were going, but one showed up that surprised me. The last night of the reunion, in she walks, all beautiful and shit. And I knew who she was... she looked similar enough for me to remember. Not someone I had been good friends with, but we were in a couple of the same circles. We had some really good talk time, and swapped business cards (how professional). I dropped her an email a week or so after I got back and told her it was good to see her and I hoped she was doing well and stayed on that course. I told her to feel free to drop me aline sometime, and to take care. That's about it. Out of line? Sure, the part of me that's a little freaked out right now thinks so. I haven't seen her in 10 years, and we talked a while and I drop her a line, yet she can't even drop one back? That's the freaking out part. The other part of me likes the fact that it was a nice surprise and is content to leave it at that. I just wish the later was the lion's share of my head.

What else have I been up to?

Here's how it all started, 3 months ago:


Now it's got a new backside, ready for anything:


And from above, looking equally capable:


And a nice side shot, including rear axle placement:


So that's that. In a month or a little more, it will be a nice deep orange with aluminum skins on it, and on the trails. Lots more pictures and info will be following. But now it is off to a friend's for some chinese and a movie. Nite.

Things have changed...

I remember being really saddened and disheartened with my childhood. I vividly recall the hour or so that I would get to watch TV a couple times a week. I raised myself with the notion that we all died in a gunfight in some dank alley. I wish it was that glamorous. I wish each of our lives ended in such a memorable flash.

I've been wondering what I am going to do with my life, as every good boy does. I truly fel I am blessed with enough potential to do a lot with my life. And I know I am almost stalling here. I love my home. I mean, I love the area I live in. The home itself is the perpetual-70's second floor of a duplex, in what might once again be a great part of the city. It's not crime-riddled or anything. It just seems exactly as stalled as some of its occupants.

My neighbor across the street is a stunning beauty. Recently singled from her Army SpecialOps husband. She retined custody of their 2 little girls. Where has he gone? I have no idea. The Army's efforts may have claimed his life, or maybe he reclaimed it and moved on. Or maybe he was discarded by his lovely ex-wife. Regardless, this shows the kind of things one can pick up just by living. And if I can find out all this just by living across the street from someone, imagine what I know from living with myself for so long.

There has to be enough in my head and past for me to write something that someone other than myself would be interested in reading.

In other news, I have begun exercising again. About 3 months ago I began doing some serious running. Being out here, it's insane to not be outside more than I have been. And I am n o young boy naymore. My body needs me to work at it for it to retain its health. That's something worth noting. I am concerned about my health. I want to be here a long time.



How could I not be active with something like this waiting for me? The view from the top of the Incline...an officially off limits trail that used to be the railway heading up Mount Manitou. A nice little hike that climbs over 2,000 feet in just over a mile. Especially tantalizing when you consider the starting point is already 6,574 feet above sea level. And all this brought to you at the bargain price of 5,000 steps. Bring your stamina and a large dose of water. Except for the fact that it's illegal to be there, it's well worth the trip.

OK, I am off to feed the cats I am watching for a friend. Nite, kids.

Our savage nature

It is our savage nature that unmasks us. Not savage in the vicious sense. Savage in the way that it is uncivilized. Regardless of how hard we may try to be restrained, we cannot be at all times. When we lose hold of the restraints we place on ourselves, we let ourselves out. It's purely logical. When we let ourselves walk free of that which we create to mask ourselves, we can really stand tall.

Things have happened in all of our lives that we regret. A lot of times, it is that which I was just talking about. We are shamed by our own behavior. Isn't that really what regret is?

My life has taken turns not unlike a lot of you. But it is all new to me. And I will never get used to, or comfortable with, the scenery along the way.