Category: Daily Life

These are my daily rants, stories, and what not.

It Happened…

meisajDaily Life

So I did pretty well on my summer goals. Just in case you were curious.

I’ve lost 30 pounds since January. Was pretty steady about losing weight all summer. And work started, which means I can’t exercise as much, but have leveled out at 170 pounds. And look pretty good I think. I’ve been doing push ups and sit ups every morning (m – f) and that feels good too.

So I’m dong something right there. I’m also catching up (slowly) in my sketches, but much more regular than I used to. And I’m pretty good at work this year too. It’s busy and stressful and seems like more on my plate than last year…. but I’m good at it. And having that recognized feels great.

So where’s the tragedy. The tragedy is that they finally realized that Admin are supposed to wear ties on a daily basis. I hate ties. I do. I had the disconnect between male professional dress codes and female professional dress code. When leggings and a long button shirt are somehow acceptable work place dress and I have to wear a button down shirt and tie every day there is some sort of discrepancy. But whatever. I look decent in ties (I think) but that doesn’t change my wish to not wear them. Not to mention I don’t know how to match ties to t-shirts.

I’m going to work on keeping this up to date. I’m going to try. So a random first post updating crap is fine. Who knows, maybe I’ll start scanning my drawing back into here. Get that going again perhaps.

Summer of Self?

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So this is the Summer of Self? Or maybe Summer of Shape? I haven’t decided what sounds less catchy.

Basically I’m using buying a new car as impetus for making steps to better myself. Both shape-wise, monetary-wise, and generally. New car means new monthly payments (hate monthly payments) and higher car insurance (yay!) but its all within my budget, as long as I don’t go crazy. In the last year all the times I was close to broke was because I just dumped a huge chunk of change on my car getting it road worthy. That’s no longer an issue, but I’ll still be pouring money into it over time now as opposed to giant lump sums.

And I’m back on my “I need to get in better shape” kick. I had told Yousey on my fateful Hawaii trip that I was glad I was in the shape where I can up and run five miles at a decent pace without having ran in the past year or so. I mean that’s pretty good. I don’t care about being ‘cut’ or hugely muscular, that’s just ridiculous, but I would like to be in slightly better shape. So I’m going to exercise everyday, and do push ups and sit ups every morning. Not a lot, not crazy many, but exercise.

I’m also going to try and draw every day to catch up in my Daily Drawings (still behind by a little), and write one blog post every day. Just for the hell of it. And read three books in July. Two of my choosing and one professional book related to the education field.

Suck it Life. I’m mastering you.

Random Life Story Number #3 or 3 Flights of Stairs and a 300 lb Foosball Table

meisajDaily Life

A few years ago (more than a few, but less than a decade), my friends and I were really into playing foosball whenever we could. We got so good we accepted random challenges at bars, and boasted about victories. So one Christmas when I saw a slate top foosball table in my aunt’s basement I got really excited. I told her, and my parents how amazing of a table it was. It was bar/restaurant quality at least.

A few months later when my parents called me up to tell me Tina (my aunt) said I could have it I got real excited. Until then we played mostly on crappy cheap tables when not out at bars. The problem existed though that it was still 6 hours away at my aunts. But it gave my parents a good excuse to come visit (it fit in the van with the seats removed). Graciously I told them to bring it out whenever, that I’d love to have, and something about them being the best parents in the world and to give my aunt my ever lasting gratitude.

They showed up a few weeks later and we started to unload it. I can’t remember who it was exactly that was there to help, Mike maybe. It could have been Rollin or Reggie also, but for some reason I think it was Mike. Regardless it was someone I considered stronger than me significantly. We (we being Mike… I’ll just say it was Mike from here on out, my father and myself) pulled it from the van. I swear the thing had to be over 200 pounds easily. Apparently large slabs of slate are not light. When my dad told me that him and my mother shoved it in the van themselves at Tina I was shocked (but it made the fact that they brought it out to Buffalo all that much more amazing).

At the time I lived in a second story apartment. It came with an unfinished attic that Mike was using as a bedroom. That was were we planned to put the foosball table. For some reason getting it up the first set of stairs was pretty easy. Mike and my father took the top and I supported the bottom. The real problem would be the narrow stairway to the attic. It would be hard to fit multiple people up the stairs at one time, and twist the foosball table up the steps and around the corner.

But we were single minded in our efforts. And again I took the bottom, Mike and my father at the top. We got about halfway up the stairs and my father and Mike decided we needed a break. The problem that arose at this point was that I was supporting the majority of the weight on the bottom, and if i set it down on the stairs I would never be able to pick it up again. With no way to set it down, and no way to prop it up on anything, I just set it on my thighs.

The break went from a few minutes to a fifteen minute break. And I stood there the whole time with the weight of the of the foosball on my thighs. Somehow it didn’t hurt, and I was able to pick it right up when we were set to get going again. And we got it up there.

The foosball table rocked. We used it for years, and then when I moved I gave it to Mike. Who still has it in his house in Buffalo. The memories from that foosball table will last forever.

The bruising that appeared instantly on my thighs lasted about a month.

Random Life Story #2 or Happy Mother’s Day

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My friends joke that my mom doesn’t care about me. Its not that she doesn’t care, its that she has this faith that everything will be fine, or at least that I’ll be fine. That’s what she tells me at least. That and that it will make a good story.

There are many stories that reinforce this, but none so much as the time my friends and I went to see a late night movie in high school.

I’m not sure what movie it was. It may have been The Crow 2, or Mortal Kombat or some cheesy thing like that. Something that was surely marketed to high school boys. Regardless of the movie, Reggie, Keith and I were the only ones in the theater. It started at 11, or 10:40 or something similar to that. Last movie starting in the theater, and in my recollected memories I pictures the workers being annoyed that we actually showed up. It was in July or August, definitely summer, and we had nothing else to do. So we went to a late night movie, got some popcorn and soda, and settled in.

Keith had driven us. He was legal to drive, but was under 18 so he wasn’t allowed to drive after 10 o’clock (maybe it was 9, I don’t recall… all I know is that there was a drive curfew for kids under 18). We readily ignored those hours when we hung out, Keith drove us all over the place.

The movie was about two hours long and when we exited I don’t think they even tried to clean up the theater after us. They locked the doors, and while we were talking about the “awesomeness” of the movie outside Keith’s car and we watched them all drive off. When we finally got into Keith’s car to leave it wouldn’t start. We sat around a bit, tried starting it again and again it wouldn’t start.

Being the high school kids we were we carried no cash on us. Or at least had no coins. We came up with one quarter between the three of us. This was 1996 or 1995 and cell phones were non-existent. We thought about it a while and called my house. In the discussion of who’s house to call, we decided there was always someone up at my house because it was the busiest.

Sadly no one answered. I left a long extended call that went something like this:

“Hi. This is AJ. I’m with Keith and Reggie and Keith’s car won’t start. We at the theater on Route 9 and are going to start walking home. If you get this please come get us. We’re going to walk on Route 9 until we can cut through a neighborhood to Aviation Road, then Potter and down West Mountain. It looks like its going to rain. Thanks.”

After that we started walking. Although I always exaggerate the distance, it couldn’t have been more than 6 miles. It started raining almost immediately. We walked down the middle of roads hoping someone would tke pity on us and pick us up. We even kicked over construction barrels, but the police (who did drive by) didn’t think we were “hooligan-ish enough” to stop and talk to.

On Potter road we actually ran into some people I ran with on the Cross-Country team. However they were extremely drunk and stumbling down the road. Nice enough though. They even offered to drive us home but we smartly declined.

About a mile from my parents, soaked, and having walked for what seemed like forever we came to Reggie’s house. Both Keith and Reggie decided to crash there, but I was annoyed, tired and wet enough to want to head back home. So I said goodbye and walked the last mile home.

When I finally stumbled in the door I found my mother sitting at the island in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading. I was shocked, astounded really. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I had to ask, so I did.

“Did you hear the message I left on the answering machine?”

“Yes. Actually it woke me up,” she replied.

“And you listened to the message?”

“Yep. I figured you’d be ok. I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just shuffled by her and started down the stairs. Before I reached the first step my mom added one last thing, the one thing that made this story all the more fantastical.

“You know… if it were any of my other children I would have left right away to go get them.”

Yeah. My mom, she told me that. I didn’t even turn around. I just headed downstairs to my room and passed out.

To this day I swear that’s the story I’ll tell of my mom at her wake. Those are the words my mom told me. My brother, any of my three sisters; if any of them had been in that situation she would have gone to get them right away, but not me.

Of course it can be taken many different ways. At the basest it sounds like a statement that my brothers and sisters are more important than me. But that’s not how I take, nor how I ever took. I actually took it as a joke at first. My mom can make funny little quips like that.

But, and she insists this how she meant it, she meant it that I would be fine no matter what’s going on around me. That I can get through whatever is happening.

Its a nice admission, of strength, of support, of belief in who I am. That I’ve made good choices, that I’m the kind of person she can be proud of.

And of course…

It makes a nice story.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. Love You.