What's My Drug Of Choice?

Nights like this are both amazing and frustrating all at once. In the springtime when the weather just starts to warm up my insides begin to race. It's on these first warm nights that I want to go out and get wild. Maybe it's evolutionary, maybe it's just me but the drive to get out of the house and get into whatever I can just takes over. This feeling is something that drove my drinking for years. The desire to be out of the house and around people was my real drug of choice. I still have that desire but I no longer have the mode or the help to reach my destination. I need something new in my life to fill that void...

Chase You Down Until You Love Me

There Are Places I'll Remember...

This used to be one of my favorite places in the world. More specifically that expanse of green grass there used to be a set of monkey bars. When I was a kid I loved climbing to the top of those monkey bars. I would stay up there while my Dad played softball a few hundred feet away. When I got older I would go there and climb to the top when I needed to think. I spent several nights dodging the police after hours in this park when I was just trying to be alone to think at 2 am.

A few years ago I stopped in the park to eat my lunch. I hadn't been there in awhile and was sad to see my monkey bars were gone. That place of childhood security and young adult angst no longer existed. The worst part was that it happened without knowing, like I had lost touch with an old friend then found out they had died in the mean time. I miss my favorite place....

The Soundtrack To My Love (the early years)

I started writing a series of blogs a couple years ago dealing with songs and the moments in time they represented in my life. My blog about "One Moment In Time" was one of those that I finally got around to publishing. I had written all or part of several of these blogs around the same time but I just didn't feel right about putting them out there for the world to see. I don't know why.

Tonight I was driving home from work and was looking for a mix cd in my car. Since most of these cds are not labeled I inserting each one and listened to a few seconds of music. I never found the one I was looking for but one did catch my attention. It was made up predominately of love/sad songs from the late 80's. It was funny because it got me to thinking about those days and the girl that turned me into a musical wuss for several years. That longing I spoke about in a previous blog all started when I was a kid. A very young kid.

I met her when I was six. My family changed churches that year and the first day I went to my new Sunday school class was the first time I laid eyes on her. We quickly became friends and that was fine for a few years but things changed eventually, at least on my end. Being a kid I didn't know why she wouldn't want to be my girlfriend. This was a lesson I would learn repeatedly for the next ten years or so. I'll spare you the details of my painful pubescent unrequited affections.

The thing that really kept me hanging on through all those years was music. Specifically love and heartbreak songs. And I have a story to go with each one of them. Looking back it's hard to believe that I was so wrapped up in those horribly cheesy and sappy pop ballads. I will have to agree that a few of them have aged better than others. Here is a short list:

Yes, I am well aware that most of those songs are crap (and at least one is a little creepy) but they were the soundtrack to my love. Or at least I hoped they would be the soundtrack to my love. I would listen to them and fantasize about first dates and first kisses, slow dancing at prom and one day asking her to marry me. I would pray every day that she would love me the way I loved her and we would be together forever. I held on to the slightest little glimmer of hope that I found in the lyrics. Survivor's "The Search Is Over" gave the most hope in its final line "the search is over love was right before my eyes." Yeah, I held on to that for years.

Every bad line, every cliche, every speck of triumph played out in my head. I built these elaborate fantasies in my head about how I would win her over. From the very simple (cool car) to the insanely impossible (how was I ever gonna beat up the class bully in front of her? we went to different schools). Then I started to learn music and my approach changed, I would win her over with a song. I can say I tried this one several times over the years, just not with her, and it never worked.

But why couldn't it work with me? 'Cause 'til now I always got by on my own, I never really cared until I met her. I was living for a dream, loving for a moment. Taking on the world was just my style. I would do it all for the glory of love because I couldn't fight this feeling anymore and I had forgotten what I started fighting for. I'd fall down on my knees and kiss the ground that she walked on if I could just hold her...ever. It wouldn't take much to make me lose control and after all the stops and starts we'd keep coming back to these two hearts. It was meant to be forever her and me, after all.

Don't even try to lie and say you never put together a paragraph like that when you were twelve. It's funny now but back then those kinds of hopeless ramblings were keeping me going. The funny thing is that I never once thought about her sexually. I was a young teenage boy with all the raging hormones and I never looked at the girl I loved in a sexual manner. I looked at every other girl lustfully, but never her. This is a theme that still continues to this day with the women I love. It has caused a few problems over the years.

It's been more than twenty years since all that took place and I find it funny how hearing a few songs so easily took me back to that time. Not just took me back in time but dug up old feelings. Feelings that I thought were long gone. Not necessarily for her but that longing and feeling of rejection came back in full force. Twenty years and nothing has really changed. I'm still just a guy trying to figure out how to win over a girl. My approach has changed and my song selection is (hopefully) better but all my life I have been compiling the soundtrack to my love. The twelve year old me would be having a panic attack right about now....

Con Trek!!

I promise to soon update this blog with an actual...well, blog. But in the mean time here are links to something cool that I'm involved with:

Con Trek on iTunes

Con Trek on Mevio

Con Trek on Blip.TV

Go check it out and let us know what you think.

Ten Long Years In A Straight Line

I feel the need to write tonight but I can't. I could but I don't think I want to be that honest. In the past I would just write it all down and put it out there in a drunken haze. Then I would delete it all the next day and hope that the wrong person didn't see it. A couple years ago I did this in a message to a friend. I have felt bad about it ever since. A lot has happened in the duration but it still feels awkward.

I saw her tonight and she was as beautiful as ever. And I was as awkward as ever. I guess it's nice to know some things never change. Maybe someday we'll talk about it and I'll get the chance to say I'm sorry. If I was still drinking tonight would be a legendary mess.

A Little Bungalow With Some Strange New Friends

Yet another of my old Myspace blogs. At the time I wrote this I was doing a radio show at Vol State but not enrolled in school. You'll see how that is relevant.

I find that as I get older I long for things I never really had. Kinda like being cool. I have never been cool but that's okay because no one is really cool (it helps me sleep better at night). Here is a (hopefully) short list of things I never had that I long for:

1. A high school love -- I never had a teenage love. Somehow I feel that this crippled me in a way because I made A LOT of mistakes in my "adult" relationships because I did not work through some of the kinks as a teen. This could also explain my obsession with teen television dramas.

2. A muscle car -- My first car was a 1975 Camero. Yes, technically it was a muscle car but mine was beat up and nowhere near its past glory but I loved that car. This is ironic when I think about some of the girls I dated.

3. A great adventure -- I dreamed and even planned on several occasions to take off on a cross country drive. Things just never worked out. Now, I wish I had done it.

4. A great first experience -- It was less memorable as it was stressful. Go figure.

5. A virgin -- Never been with one. The closest I've been is third on the list. Not that I'm that upset because anyone who knows me knows my affinity for whores. And besides, who really wants to shoulder the responsibility of that task. Certain extremists think that if they die doing "God's" work then they will be rewarded with seven virgins. Give me two good sluts and you can have all the virgins in the world. Of course, being first on the list bares no comparison to others. And not being compared to someone is a security in and of itself.

6. Old friends -- I had some great friends in high school. However, as soon as I broke from the pack and made other friends I came under scrutiny for betraying "the only 'real' friends" I'd ever have. Yeah, those where screwed up days. But I didn't know better therefore it was a better time, right? I still run in to those guys from time to time and they all turned into what I knew they would. For all of the talk about "Us and Them", they all faded right in with the mainstream ideas about careers and marriage. Whereas I was the one who skated around these institutions. Score one for the conforming non-conformist.

I realize that I miss college more than ever. Being on campus but not in school lets me have all the benefits of school without all the work. But, I now know that I enjoyed the work too. Learning is a great thing. Especially once I realized that learning is a form of eternal youth. Figure that one out for yourself. These days I'm just the dirty old man on campus. I figure I've earned that one though. Act III...

Pull This Thread As I Walk Away

This is another blog from back in the Myspace days. I tweaked it a little to update it to current trends. Enjoy.

I used to have this brown sweater that I loved. It was light-weight and all around comfortable. We all have more clothes than we actually wear. God knows I do. But there are those few articles of clothing that are my favorites. This sweater was one of those items. It was my go to when I was running short on time. It was that piece of clothing that (in my mind) looked good with anything. It was warm. It was dependable. It was sexy...in a way. It saw many a debaucherous night at many seedy establishments. That sweater would have owned me if it had decided to write a tell-all. It wound up smelling of strippers, second-hand smoke and alcohol. It waited patiently on the floor of many a bedroom floor. That sweater outlasted several jobs and several girls who tried to replace it with newer, nicer sweaters. Coupled with a cabby turned backward that sweater gave me artistic merit on several occasions. It even doubled as pajamas several times when I was too tired or too drunk to take off my clothes before bed. Not only was my sweater protection from the elements, it was comfort and convenience.

Still, on one fateful day, it found its way into the bins at the Goodwill drop off. It still had some life left in it. True, it was picked and worn in spots, but not past its prime by any means. It was just time to move on, I thought. I'd give anything to have that sweater back now. I stand and look through my closet from time to time and wonder what happened to all my favorite clothes. Now all I see are clothes that fit different rolls in my life. Polos for work, button-ups for church, long sleeves for winter, short sleeves for summer, tank tops for the gym, but still I don't have that go to article. Sure my light blue Gap t-shirt is a close substitute, but my sweater played far too many rolls to have out lasted its usefulness. Maybe some day I will enter Old Navy, walk to the mark downs and find a comparable fit. But it will not be the same. Sure the style, the cut, the fit may be the same but the fibers will not have bonded with my soul the way my old friend from back in the day had. The next time I buy a forty of beer I'll remember to pour some on the ground as a memorial to the brown sweater that saw me through so many misadventures and shared so many stories in my life. Who knows maybe MTV will give me and my sweater a reality show about our reunion. Hey, it'd be more realistic than Jersey Shore.