As my seed festers in my wife’s baby maker, I have been laying awake at nights and pondering life’s important questions. Will I turn into the cold, unforgiving man my father was growing up when my unborn child arrives? Will I be able to afford diapers and a college fund? Will the wife and I stay happily married with the added stress of a newborn baby? Could DJ and I get away with beating Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt to death? I keep coming back to one nagging query; do I hate my job or do I hate my career? While I acknowledge I do not have the worst professional life by a long shot (I could be languishing in data sales, for example), I cannot say that I am satisfied with where I am currently at career-wise (nor, for that matter, have I ever been satisfied). I love what I do but I am finally acknowledging that I am running on creative fumes. A new job may be the answer. A full-time stab at freelance may be the answer. Writing the book I told myself I would write a long time ago may be the answer. In short; I am dealing with a lot of shit. Confucius once said “By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” F’in A, Confucius. F’in A.
An Open Letter To My Wife
Two years ago today you foolishly took my hand in marriage. During that time, I have been unemployed twice (1, 2), made the neighbors suspect I was beating you when yelling “You dirty bitch!” at the computer while designing a website, bulged a disc, come home late countless nights from post-hockey drinking benders, continued my subscription to numerous smut magazines, remained dutifully absent from all Monday night plans during the fall/winter to drink with my Fantasy Football buddies, run down a couch on the highway and have never let you hold the television remote in my presence. In short, you are still the amazing, accepting and funny person that I fell in love with. I appreciate you more with each passing day and I love you like Extreme; More Than Words. Happy second anniversary, honey. It is the cotton anniversary so let us pick up some righteous sheets that make it feel as if we were sleeping atop a marshmallow cloud. Or we can save our money and just get a giant box of maxi pads. Those commercials make them look like giant stingrays swimming. Just saying.
The Labor Day Weekend That Was
Friday. I work until three in the afternoon until I notice that myself, Neal and Brandon seem to be the only people left in the office. I give myself the rest of the day off. At home, I order Chinese food, drain four Newcastles and paint the fucking walls. My sort of lady calls me on her way home from the final Bronco Pre-Season game. Talk gets serious.* We hang out anyway, agreeing to avoid relationship conversation for the evening.
Saturday. My sort of lady wakes up early because she has stuff to do. I leave her house and walk home and we agree to meet up later as I need her to help me purchase new bedding and towels. She is the shopping queen and I hate shopping (read: I am willing to pay $80 for a set of sheets at one store as opposed to shopping at many stores and finding the same sheets for $40.) I paint the fucking walls. In between painting the fucking walls, my sort of lady takes me to numerous linens and bedding stores. I purchase new linens and bedding. My sort of lady and I head downtown to meet friends for birthday drinks. We consume numerous whiskeys, vodka tonics and eat $9 steaks. The birthday girl informs us she wants to go to the Diamond Cabaret. We comply with her request where my sort of lady and I consume many beers and I smoke a $10 cigar that tastes like filthy assholes. We stuff dollar bills into stripper’s panties.
Sunday. My sort of lady wakes up early again. After she leaves and I spend twenty minutes staring out my bedroom window at the rain as I told the boys I play hockey with that I would meet them for practice at an outdoor rink at nine o’clock. I roll over and go back to bed. My brother-in-law picks me up and we proceed to our fantasy football draft. I have been competing in the same fantasy football league for ten years. Every year, we sit in the same basement, tell the same jokes, drink assorted Coors products and draft fourth string NFL players thinking we got a “sleeper.” I get home and paint the fucking walls half drunk.
Monday. I sleep in. I work out. I buy groceries. I eat a pork chop for dinner. My sort of lady and I rent a movie. Talk gets serious* again. We laugh at ourselves and go to bed.
* My sort of lady and I are currently “hanging out.” The relationship dynamic has progressed into something neither one of us expected. I like my sort of lady. My sort of lady likes me. I am interested in pursuing things further. Taking risks, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, is something I am willing to do. I figure it is best to try it and realize it does not work, then not try it at all. Relationship situations are like combat; you either get out of your foxhole alive and return home the conquering hero grateful for every day thereafter or you wind up getting shredded by machine gun bullets, laying on a field of battle with your intestines in your hands being comforted by a fat soldier named Murph telling him things like “I am so cold” and “I wanna go home now” before you die. Thankfully, my sort of lady does not use war analogies like me to describe her feelings.
Depression Has Got A Hold On Me Part II
Sorry about the previous post. After reading it over again, I now realize how depressing it is. It is indicative of what a late hockey game, two Newcastles and an ex-girlfriend’s rambling, feeling-laden telephone tirade can do to a man at two o’clock in the morning. Even more depressing is the fact that I cannot alleviate the pain of our breakup by tossing a toaster into her bubble bath. Fucking government and their mandated circuit-breakers.
Depression Has Got A Hold On Me
I am tired but I cannot sleep. I had a tough hockey game tonight and battled a large Indian that liked to slash the white man. I tallied a hat trick and dropped Tonto like a sack of dirt in the final seconds of the game and we won 6-5.
This was the highlight of my evening.
Earlier tonight, my ex-girlfriend She Who Will Not Be Named and I engaged in the timeless post-relationship shit exchange. On her way home from work, She Who Will Not Be Named stopped by to return a set of house keys, a DMX CD and two shirts. I gave her back her some hair scrunchies and a fucked-up new age book about spirit guides she wanted me to read that I never did.
As she left, we hugged and she cried (apparently I am dead inside as the scenario moved me very little). I reflected on the happy memories of us watching shows about serial killers, playing video games and getting lap dances at strip clubs. I also recalled how difficult it was to argue with her, how emotionally demanding she was and how she infuriated me when she shut down and let the relationship crumble. Still, I wish her the best.
That being said, if there are any hot women that are down for some drunken, non-committal sex, I am your man.
Love On The Rocks
I am currently embroiled in severe relationship and emotional strife. She Who Will Not Be Named and I have hit the proverbial wall. I am hoping we will pull out of this tailspin get back to happily watching G-String Divas and eating ice cream out of the carton once again. One can only hope. If things do not work out, I will probably be spending my free time trembling, naked and curled up in the fetal position on the kitchen floor with an empty bottle of whiskey in my hands.