When you get old, it’s common to hold on to many of the beliefs and ideas that you’ve had for most of your life.  It becomes acceptable that you not change.  In fact, maybe it’s even an expected quirk.

“Oh, grandpa… Thinking the ATM machine will steal your identity…  You’ll never change.”

For many things, this is ideal.  These people have been around for longer than we have, but that part is not important.  The experiences that many of them have had are important, however.  I no longer have my grandmother, but it was her old-fashioned attitude that made her so cool.  Teaching me that people are people, all the same.  Wearing hand-made clothes around because she had that skill and didn’t care if someone else thought they looked funny.  That’s good stuff.  Racist old people, however…  That’s not good stuff.

This weekend I stopped to pick up something to drink at the Meijer gas station in Anderson, IN where a seemingly jolly old guy behind the counter casually shot the breeze with another guy.  I brought two cans of Peace Tea to the counter.  Yes, two cans.  It was hot outside and I am a camel.

The attendant pointed out that the can “has Arabs all over it” and said “Don’t get me started on that”.  Of course I got him started and he told me about how you won’t find anything “over there” with an American printed on it.  I wonder what an American looks like to him. A picture of himself? Maybe John Wayne?  I suppose a Native American would be more appropriate, is that what he means?

I told him that, believe it or not, I know that people “over there” listen to our music and our movies.  I told him that they love us, for some unknown reason.  He stammered before shouting “Well, their government doesn’t!”.

To be clear, I realize that the people on the can print above appear to be Indian, and not “Arab”.  I also get that if you’ve been in the military during times of war, you might be too trained against a particular nationality because that was how training worked then.  That’s a bummer, but it’s something we have to deal with now.  Above all of that, I know that it’s just some racist old gas station attendant and that his thoughts on my tea don’t matter.

What did bother me, and what drove me to argue with him was that he’s actively pushing his racism on anyone.  It was me, but it could have been a kid or someone like-minded who would have sided with him and helped to grow the ignorance.  What else is likely to come out of his mouth?  Something about black people being lazy, or maybe Mexican people having excessively large families on one house?  It’s a small town area, yes, but if it’s not welcoming for people in general, what will come of it?  It will wither.

How do you deal with racism?

I’m not very good at being alone sometimes.

As a child growing up in a household not filled with the typical nuclear family, without siblings to keep me busy and entertained, I spent a lot of my time in my room. I read comic books, books of literature and picture books. I played with LEGOs and other building toys, and drew pictures all the time. I was not afraid to go outside but, with no kids my age living nearby, it was easy to enjoy my time alone.

Since that time I’ve taught myself to be a much more social person, although still very awkward at times, and had relationships that, for better or for worse, kept me from being alone any further. When you’re in a relationship with someone, particularly a young relationship, you rarely spend time alone. It’s okay to spend a lot of your time with your other, particularly when the relationships so young and you have so much to learn about each other that you didn’t get to learn in all the nights you stayed up talking.

Although it’s important to build your relationships with other people, to grow friendships and form a bond with someone whom you’ll share your life with, it’s also important to spend some time with yourself. Remember how cool you think you are, and keep that separate from how you think others feel about you. Feel good about yourself, and if you don’t, figure out why and help yourself to get to the point where you think you’re cool again.

It’s difficult though, to be alone. If I’m alone in the car I get bored. I play with my phone and I call friends, or I send messages. I check my email and even, (gulp) watch videos. I have a long commute. I am alone in the car for almost 3 hours each day. Sometimes I don’t even turn on the radio. I just sit and think.

If I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll usually take my phone, a book or something to do. It’s not that I’ll be in the bathroom for hours, in fact I end up staying much longer because of my activity. I just don’t want to get bored when I’m alone. it’s not uncommon in our house to leave the bathroom door cracked and talk to the person who’s in the kitchen.

The winter of 2008, I moved into a new house, lost my job and spent the cold snowy Winter alone in a new place, far from the view of other houses or activity. By the end of the day I was excited to do anything outside the house. All day long I’d claw at the walls (metaphorically) trying to get out of this lonely cage. Still, I want to be better at being alone, because I love to draw and to create and in most cases that is done alone.

The video that inspired these thoughts, which I am playing in a tiny window, over and over. The words constantly whispered to me, I hope, will teach me something more to be less anxious about being alone.

How do you deal with being alone?

I drew all the time until I was a teenager and then I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I didn’t pick it back up until a couple of years ago and then, when Mrs and I courted (tee hee) I stopped again.

Why? I don’t know. Its like I forgot again.

I’m always busy. I have a 10 month old girl, who loves attention and I work over an hour from home. There aren’t enough hours on the day. But is that fair to say?

When I cut down on my own twitter use lately, I started paying more attention to the feeds and work of artists I like. I found many of them have similar situations to mine and they do more and better work than me. I expressed this wonder to a friend, who told me; “we all have the same number of hours in a day”.

Shit. He’s right.

That’s good because it proves it’s possible, if I stop using time as an excuse. Anyone hates to be called out, but if it’s good news I think it’s worth it.

I am working on a 22 page comic book, to be completed by the end of the month and I feel more confident I can finish it now. It does take a lot of my time, but I have time. We all do. Sometimes you have to remove other things that are less important. For me it’s just an attitude change.

I haven’t blogged in a while, but I’ll make it fit too. I never meant to stop, but I did forget how much I enjoyed it.

Enough about me, has this ever happened to you, Gregory?

Last Thursday Mrs and I were in get-shit-to-sell-at-the-yard-sale mode.  Nothing was safe.

Me: Do you like this, or can we sell it?

Mrs: Eh…  I kinda like it.

Me: Great, how much should I put on it?

We even made a stop at her parent’s house to see if there was anything we could wrangle up there to sell for change, and after packing a few boxes of knick knacks and other heavy glassware, I headed back downstairs.  Evidently, there were a few new steps there installed that nobody informed me of so I tumbled over, hit the wall & fell down a few steps.  The good news is, I didn’t break anything in the box.

The bad news was that I felt I might have ripped my foot clean off.  This is, of course, when everyone hears the commotion and calls out to check on me:

MIL: Are you okay?

Me: *grunting* Yes.

Mrs: What happened?

Me: I …  Grrr…..  I fell. (obvious, right?  I mean, that, or I threw the box down the stairs to save me carrying it)

MIL: What happened?

Me: I fe….  I fell…  (words were not important to me at this time)

FIL: Are you okay?

Me:  Grrr..  Yes. I just…

MIL:  Are you okay?

I mean, when’s a better time for me to get all popular and have everyone wanting to know what’s on my mind?  I think the moment I find myself in seething pain that’s when the phone should ring off the hook as that’s when I’m most social.

So, I guess I rolled my ankle.  It hurt like all hell, but days later I’m in good shape with some weird bruising and a bit of a limp.  In fairness, it could have been worse.

While my foot was healing with super-fast power, evidence of my super healing ability, things were not so good in Nashville, and surrounding area:

Now you all know I’m usually cracking wise about everything in an effort to prevent myself from truly getting old, but this is a crisis for a lot of people.   There are crises all the time, and some affect people you don’t know.  There are a lot of problems in the world that are “someone else’s problem”, but these are our neighbors.

Take a moment and consider a donation

Do you know anyone affected by the flood?

Everyone says the “three special words” in their own way.  Some people send flowers, some buy a mindful card, and some put an extra piece of cheese in your lunchbox.  Some people, however, show it a little differently.

When you were growing up and your parents were always telling you to be home early and stay away from “those kids”, they were telling you they loved you.  Or they were just trying to keep you unpopular so you could take better care of them in their increasing age.  It was probably love though.

When you’re significant other gets up earlier than you, but steps quietly around the house so that you may sleep uninterrupted, that’s a display of caring/love.  It could also mean they are keeping their actions secret.  It could also mean they are actually a ninja, except then you’d probably be dead.  Maybe they’re a ninja, but they love you, so their a considerate ninja.  I’m sure that’s it.

In Mrs’ family, it’s customary for she and her dad to insult each other in fun to express their love for each other.  When we first dated, she had several saved voicemails on her phone and she played one for me without any explanation.

The message was from her nephew, who she treated like a son, and it said “Hey!  You’re dumb and your butt stinks like horse poop! *laughing hysterically* *click*”

I didn’t get it at first, but this is just how they do it.  I’ll hear a conversation on the phone start out with “What do you want, loser” or “No, you’re dumb” and I know who she’s talking to.  It’s nice.

We’ve adopted the same sort of technique, because we pick on each other in fun constantly.  If you took these conversations literally you’d expect a lot of domestic disputes from two people who labelled each other “retards” and constantly threatened to kick each others asses.  It’s exactly what you’d expect from a happy & functional household.

Two years ago, at the Indiana State Fair, we stopped at the booth where they sell trinkety necklaces and shit with whatever you want etched into them. Mrs bought me a heart keychain with a cow charm and the words in cursive “Your butt stinks” (There is no back story to this regarding my butt, but I do not disagree with it’s validity).  Without my own family insults to interject, I chose a star keychain with the words “I’m pokin’ ya”.  You know, because the star is going to be pocking her in the leg when she keeps it in her pocket.

Do you have an unusual way of expressing your love in your family?

We aren’t connected to city water, but instead have a well.  We pump our own water from the earth.  Cool, huh?  Yes, except that it’s not pretty clean filtered water.  On the upside, I’m not subjected to the mind-control chemicals that they put in city water (you know it’s true).  On the downside, the water is a bit sulferous in odor (stinks like eggs) and rusty as well…  Don’t get picky…  If you’re going to drink water from the tap, would you want it fresh from the earth, or fresh from a large building that largely is there to remove poop from it?

We can get phone service, but no DSL so Internet has to come either through a satellite dish, or Wireless broadband.  I’ve used the satellite internet before and it sucks ass so wireless broadband or dial up…

No city trash service…  This is a pain in the ass, but nobody comes to pick up our trash.  I have to drive it to the recycling plant.  I could pay a service, but screw that.  I’ll just drive it there…  Later.

Finally, we can’t get cable.  We can get satellite, of course, but no cable TV or Internet.  We talked about satellite for a few minutes once, but decided we just didn’t watch enough TV.  We can pick up maybe 6 channels without an antenna, and we’ve made do with that for as long as we’ve lived there now, relying mostly on DVDs and only watching the channels we get.  It’s free and it works for us.

Simple enough, right?  You’d think so.

When I’m talking to someone new, sometimes a TV show will get mentioned.  “Have you seen this?” or “Do you watch that?”  At this point in the conversation, the person is generally excited about the show they’re talking about and wants to share that with me.  I listen and smile and tell them it sounds really great but I haven’t seen it because I don’t have cable, but I’d totally watch it on DVD sometime.

*blank stare*

They ask why not, I explain we can’t get it and don’t really want it anyway because we don’t watch much TV.  That’s when it starts.

The person will immediately defend that they don’t watch much TV either and that it’s completely optional and they don’t depend on any shows or anything, they just watch it if it’s on and besides everyone watches TV and I’m the real freak here because I don’t but really, they only watch like one or two shows that they really care about anyway.  I mean, after all, they don’t have all that much free time either and they’re very busy so they just try to fit it in.

I don’t care.  You can go home every night and add another rubber band to the ball you’ve been creating for years, or sit on your front porch and write down new names for cheese spreads that have not yet been invented.  I think, if anything, that would make you a more interesting individual.  If you want to go home and veg out with the TV, that’s cool with me.  There are nights when we watch Law and Order for 3 hours because we can get it on one of our free channels and sometimes that’s nice.

Many of you may be in the same boat as me on this one, where you simply don’t watch TV.  Maybe you’ve got it for the kids or the significant other or the dog who likes the bright colors, but you don’t really find the time yourself.  If that’s you and you don’t already know this – do not suggest to the people who defend that they don’t “need” TV that they get it disconnected to save money.  They’ll likely take that as a threat, puff up their feathers and come at you with a machete or something.

Are you BFF with the boob tube?

The problem was that a young couple has been together for almost 2 years, and although he was still relatively fit as the day they met, she had gained 50lbs in the last year they spent together.   She started saying she needed to do something about her weight gain after 10lbs, but it only got worse and worse.  They are engaged and he’s not sure what to do because he is afraid if she continues to gain and do nothing about it, he will lose his attraction to her, physically.  Because of this,  if she doesn’t change, he won’t marry her.

This question really hit me.  I’ve been up and down in weight.  I’ve been skinny enough that size 32 jeans needed a belt, and I’ve been big enough that my 38s were tight when they were fresh out of the dryer.  Weight does not the person make.  Everybody’s made a little differently and some people need some extra weight to fill them out, I think.  Mrs tells me that she likes me much better heavier.  I get that.  On the other hand, it is personal preference and he’s not wrong to have those feelings.

It’s so much deeper than the weight, I think.  Of the girls I’ve been serious with before the Mrs, there’s been a trend of apathy.  They wanted to do something about this/that/whatever, but it just never got done.  It was easier to not go work out.  It was easier to not continue that hobby.  It was easier to not look for a new career/job.  I’m not innocent either.  I hate doing things that aren’t fun, but I don’t like it to affect the Mrs. I think that this guy’s concern is less about the weight, and more about what sort of drive she really has to better herself throughout her life.

There were so many people who called in.  There were empathetic callers who said he needed to say something to her, but not mean, and to help her understand how important it was.  They said she needed to be supported and given all the information on how important this time was.  There were angry callers who called simply to defend a woman’s right to gain all the weight she wants and saying that if he loves her, he’ll understand.

The more we talked about it, we decided that it wasn’t just weight.  It’s anything that could make your partner less attractive to you, assuming they wouldn’t change it.  Maybe they stop brushing their teeth regularly, or start rewearing underwear or something like that.

What would you do, if your considerable other started to lose appeal to you like this?

Ok, pervs, that’s not what I meant.

I would sit in my room and play with my LEGOs and read comics and stuff, or watch the stuff I had secretly recorded the night prior on Cinemax.  Don’t get me wrong here, I loved being social.  It just didn’t work out that way as much as I’d have wanted.

As a result, I grew to be a quiet kid outside of my particular social set.  A few people loved me, a few people hated me, and I knew who I could count on.  If I didn’t know you, I’d probably just keep my trap shut.  I hated this about myself.  I thought it was weird because you don’t see anyone like that on TV, and honestly, what was I supposed to compare myself to?

I started, and I don’t even know when, to force myself to be fun and outgoing.  It was awkward at first, but if I seemed confident, nobody questioned it.  Occasionally someone’s like “Hey, you never really talked before” but I’d explain that I had kept to myself because I could see the future then and I didn’t want to accidentally destroy space and time by giving away too much information, but that a subsequent bump on the head when I was playing [popular sport] outside of school left me powerless (in that way) so the world was safe.

Yeah, I’ve always been this weird.

I don’t really remember the process anymore, but I’m sure it was awkward for a while.  I’m sure it felt like a lie for a long time.   What I can tell you now, is that I will strike up a conversation with almost every stranger I meet and try to make them show their personality.

Some people don’t have personalities.  Particularly cashiers…  Sorry, maybe you are/were the only one…

The Mrs and I have a lot of shindigs when we can, and she and most people that know me well, label me a “social butterfly”.  Butterflies are dumb, so I’m going to go with Social Antelope.  It just feels right.  I managed to basically fix myself.  Now, why only basically?

Well, I still have ridiculous social anxiety.  I just keep it under the hood.  I think in most cases, like if I have to speak to a large group, or to a high-level manager or something, I’m running on adrenaline and slowing everything to the point that they can’t tell.  What do I mean?

I have pre-set things I will say when I see someone in passing.  I don’t have anything to say, but I say something like “Heyhowsitgoing” as one word, just so I said something and didn’t seem weird.  If a pretty girl talks to me, I’m still stunned and carefully measuring my every breath, movement and reaction like I’m going to break something.  “But, KYA, you’re happily married to the Mrs!  What’s this about?”  You’re right.  It’s not that I’m hoping I have a chance, I just can’t help it sometimes.  It’s stupid.

I look for ways out of a conversation that is going too well because I don’t want to exercise this in large doses, particularly if I haven’t been talking much that day.  Shit, if I’ve been indoors all day without interaction, God help the first person who talks to me.  I’ll jabber incessantly, over-aware of the stupid things I’m saying, then announce that I’m being weird and that I’m trying to fix it.

It’s like the unsuccessful speech I had in Speech class once, where everyone was laughing with good reason, things started going way off track and I stopped them by saying “Everyone stop looking at me!!!”.  yeah, the room fell silent and I pretty well had to pass that off as a moment of temporary insanity.

Overall, the system works.  Being a designer/developer, I’m allowed to be weird and social at the same time.  Except one time more recently at a previous job when I and a friend stood outside the office, shooting the breeze.  A girl we worked with came by and said “Ooh, top secret conversation” and we went on to joke about how we were secret agents.  She smiled and walked inside, but just before she cleared the door I managed to yell “I have a knife!”.

What. The. Fuck.

I’m amazed I wasn’t arrested.  I mean, I did have a pocket knife that I carried all the time, so under questioning it wouldn’t have sounded like a joke.  It would have been a violent threat and I’d have gone to jail.  It’s a good thing she was a complete dingbat.

…And that was the time my social anxiety almost put me in jail.

Do you have any stories like this, or am I just a big weirdo whom you’ll no longer be reading?

First off, I shouldn’t have to give cards to boys asking them to “be my Valentine”. That’s fucked up. Further, I shouldn’t have to give them to everyone. Everyone’s not equal, or I’d be a polygamist with male and female spouses from all my life. Is that what Cupid’s about? Multiple relationships? I’m open to a 3 way, but my whole class is a bit much.

I think the suckers attached were irony more than free candy.

Now, here I am, all growed up, and I haven’t had a valentines day yet that was something to look forward to next year. Bulk cards don’t cut it anymore and I’m a terrible pre-planner so thoughtful gifts are tough…

I’m doing great so far though. I’m going to order a gift online that won’t be here in time, and give her something I cleared with her while I was shopping.

Ladies, if your man is more prepared than this, he’s really trying. As for me, I’m switching back to bulk cards and suckers.

We moved into our place in Dec of 08 and subsequently got snowed in a lot.  3 of those times, we had to pay someone to come out and plow the drive for us.  That sucks.

Several times I thought for sure my Scion xB could clear itself a path…  That’s not even a funny joke.  I’d get a running start, throw my arm out the window and give a healthy Dukes of Hazzard Yeehaw, then get slowed to a tragic stop and have to start digging my poor little car out.  Pathetic…

We didn’t have any kind of lawnmower, so under the advice of my family we bought a 1974 Wheel Horse yard tractor to plan for summer and to help clear the snow.  It came with a wagon, a mowing deck, a bulldozer blade and a bunch of other stuff.  The kid in me was psyched.  Then…  I couldn’t keep it running.  At the end of the season, I bought a snowblower to attach to it, and then it never snowed again.  FML.

This winter’s been sucky so far.  Last Saturday I got my car stuck in the middle of a county road on the way to a party and I depended on neighbors to tow my little city car back to the house.  I should have taken pictures.  (note: take more pictures)  I got stuck in the driveway a couple of days later and then again last night.

In short, I’m over it.  We’re going to trade the Mrs car in and get a GMC Yukon.  That’s right baby!  Now I can pull myself out of the snow.  We’ll be picking it up next week, and it’s supposed to be a beast in bad weather…

Which means it probably won’t snow again.

I’ve never talked about cars on here, mostly because once I start I go for days and most people I know couldn’t care less.  I figure I’ll bore you to death, so let’s just say I like cars a lot.  Because of that I am completely infatuated with the new truck.  I want to buy a trailer for it, and maybe get a boat since I can pull it now, and maybe get a snow plow for it, so I can clear friends and families driveways and a brush guard so I can evade the police and break through barriers without scratching it up.

The sad bit is…  I’ll be stuck driving my tiny car because it gets better fuel economy.  37MPG vs 16MPG…  Well shit.