Little Story...same topic

# Hours Awake - 8
# Cups of Coffee - 1
# Degree of Hand Shakeage (Scale of 10) - 8

Just had big cup o' joe and my hands are freaking out so I should get bonus points for posting. :)

I'm walking out the door to do the Halloween thing and I saw a guy pulled over in front of my house. He was wasted and proved that to the cops by doing a swan dive during the field test. The best part is that this is all happening 10 yards away from a balcony party and they were cheering him on.

It's kind of funny on the outside looking in.

Sucks to be you dude. My advice - don't drop the soap...being clean just ain't worth it.

Gotta go!

-s

Told you I would

# Hours Awake - 16
# Cups of Coffee - 3 (Big un's)
# Days it took me to write this...(I'll let you know when I'm done :))

For those who've been reading for a while (or just those that have read through the whole blog in 10 minutes), you'll remember that sometime ago I had an unfortunate run in with the law which resulted in my incarceration for a while. I promised that I would write about it once I distanced myself from it and now, on the eve of my court date, I thought it might be a good time to tell you all what happened.

I prefer to tell the story the way it was told from my lawyer to my father after the lawyer had been to the discovery where the police told him. (If you think it's getting long winded now, just wait). And this is what he said: "Well, according to the police report you had been traveling at 85 miles an hour in a 40 mile an hour zone and then you went right on red...which you can do...but not at 35 miles an hour. hehe." (Yeah, he's a fucking card. It's times like these I remember where I get my sense of humor from...hell, at least he was trying to lighten the mood which needed lightening). "You then blew a BAC three times the legal limit...so all considering, you're not in that bad a shape." (At this point, it amazes me that he can still be so calm about this...he has been and will always been the type of father I aspire to be)

We're going to switch back to my POV at this point. I was removed from the vehicle and asked to do field sobriety tests which I failed with flying colors. From the third person perspective, this would have been incredibly hilarious...I don't truly remember what I was feeling at the time. That being done, they handcuffed me, put in the back of the squad car and put my car up on a flatbed truck. I was then taken to local police head quarters where I was handcuffed to a bench for an hour (after removing all my personal belongings and my shoelaces (seriously). After fingerprinting, I was put in a communal cell with one other DUI a petty theft or two and a couple of stabbers (is that what you call them?). We had a phone in our cell and we could make unlimited calls. At the time I remember joking about ordering pizzas with the guys. It was really funny at the time...it wasn't very funny in the morning.

If you have ever been trying to get over a hangover while lying on your couch and eating greasy food for a whole day you can't possibly understand what it is like to try that without the couch and the TV and the food but rather with a couple of guys who are not your friends and will prove that to you if you make the wrong comment or turn away for too long. Considering the system of incarceration, I was in a place that could be considered on par with what Martha Stewart is now going through. I was incredibly lucky. One guy came in all hyped up and then explained that he didn't know if he was going to have to break someone's nose when he walked in the door so he didn't get his "ass shagged." If there was any alcohol left in my system at that point, believe me, it was gone then. Then I only had 10 hours left.

I'm going to publish now because I started thinking about scrapping this whole thing and I know I'll never write about it again. There were actually some funny things about the time, one of which was the one visit I got from a friend of mine which was straight out of the freakiest movie you can think of, and I'd love to tell about it but (as I feared) it's hard for me to find the funny in this all. I can see it but my conscience comes in and kills it all off.

The bottom line is, don't do it. I can say that till I'm blue in the face and I know it won't make a difference because we all have to learn things the hard way...but maybe....

-s

Service Industry Rant

# Hours Awake - 3
# Cups of Coffee - 1
# Inches of Rain, Year to Date - .2

A couple of weeks ago I was in SFO trying to get onto a flight back to Los Angeles. Now, I know the air travel industry is ripe for the picking but we'll deal with that another time. My grip comes from the Burger King in the terminal and actually every fast-food restaurant and increasingly regular restaurants as well. My question is for the Ad-wizard who came up with changing the sizes on all the drinks and (if available) fries. We went from having small, medium and large which I thought was a pretty good system to Medium, Large and Super Size (Jumbo, Ultra, Humongo, etc.) Two problems here: the first is that the sizes didn't actually change and we just ended up paying more and (psychologically) getting more than we were before. But we really weren't, we were just getting fisted by the Ad companies again. Did they really think we wouldn't notice? Did they really think we wouldn't see that our old 12-ounce small was now a medium? Well, the truth is yes. They did, and we obliged. Everyone just decided that they must have become bigger drinkers over night and that was it.

I was hung over from the night before and all I wanted was a coke. Of course, the only place to get one was at Burger King because they can justify charging the most for their drink (you get that extra special cup with the crown on it). Problem was, once I got in line, the overwhelming aromatic goodness of their fries took over any chance I had of just getting a soda.

When you get to the front of the counter, you notice that they only offer sizes of medium, large and King-Sized. I only wanted a small fry so I ordered it just like that. Didn't phase the cashier cause she knew what I wanted and I'm sure she just hit the medium button. Next I ordered the "large" Coke. According to their menu I should have been in the middle of the road, just where the old school medium used to be. She must have assumed that I was saying f your new system, I order what I want cause you can't fool me with your fancy new faux bigger sizes, cause I ended up with the Pokemon Collector cup which you could smuggle an infant in. This is not what I ordered, I thought to myself. But what can I do? I could go back and demand the smaller size and point out how stupid their new system. I realized pretty quickly that any complaint I lodged would fall on completely deaf ears not to mention the fact that it was an awful lot of tasty good Cokeness coming my way.

I took the Coke and only had a little difficulty arguing with the flight attendant about my number of carry-ons. She had a point and I had to classify my new Pokemon collector’s cup as a personal item.

-s

Feeling a little...um...yeah...

# Hours awake - 16
# Cups of Coffee - 4, I think...It's been a long day
# Hours spent staring at the wall in what I tell myself is deep thought

I've been sitting here for sometime thinking. A couple of days ago was the 28th birthday of my ex-girlfriend of 1 year, 2 days. We hadn't spoken since sometime around the end of April. She had missed calling me on my birthday but I kind of felt that wishing her a happy one was the right thing to do. I sent her an email stating as much and hoping she was well. A day or two later I got a response of her thanking me (sarcastically) for doing that cause she now felt bad for not calling me as I plopped an extra candle on the cake. Long story short, she asked me what I had been up to and her response to that was that she was leaving town to have her family and her child.

Now hold on a second folks. For those of you keeping score, he/she obviously isn't going to have my eyes but at the same time... he/she isn't going to have my eyes.

It's a strange feeling to be at work and read your future that could have been. It's the first time I've ever been in a position where someone I know and still care about deeply is leaving town and I know deep down that I will never see them again.

SO, in honor of this feeling I've decided to ask you (the reader) to tell me, whom do you want to meet? If it could be anyone from all of history or even anyone from your block as a kid...tell me, who would it be. There will obviously be extra points for originality and sentimentality and keep in mind dear reader, the grand prize is still up for grabs.

Being the good blogger that I am (don't laugh) I will start you all off. Try to keep your responses to a similar format:

Person I would most like to play tetherball with: Natalie Portman circa Beautiful Girls.

Person I would most like to get one more day with: My old friend Amanda W. - you left us too soon.

Person I would most like to read The Hobbit with: The son I hope one day to be around for.

People I would like to be the unexpected guest: JB, anyone who's been referred to as a figment of an imagination, anyone with a genuine smile and comes baring chocolate.

Thanks, S

Urban Sportsman

# Hours Awake - 2
# Cups of coffee - 1 1/2
# Days till joblessness - 1.9

On the way to work this morning I found myself next to one of those trucks which has absolutely no business on any road outside of Afghanistan; a supped-up, mint-condition, jet-black 1984 Suburban. I pulled up along side and noticed two bumper stickers on the back window (do you call them bumper stickers if they're on the window?)

One said simply "W '04" which I thought was fairly self-explanatory. The other said "Sportsmen for BUSH." Lot of ways you can go with the second one; sportsmen like the bush obviously because that's where they hide while scoping out game. Another option is that sportsmen like the bush because...well, just mix around the words from the preceding sentence and the third is that he's just a big "Dub-ya" supporter. I'm going with all three.

The kicker - license plate read: "I love(heart symbol) 8MPG"

God Bless America

Reapin' what I done sowed

# Hours awake - 2
# Cups of coffee - 2/7
# Illegally downloaded songs / total songs - 512/533

As some of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had a little run which has resulted in the following story. Let me just start by saying that I think my lawyer fucked me. Over a two week period we went from, "Don't worry, you'll be fine," to "Well, there's been a continuance so you're going to have to go to AA twice a week as a show of good faith, and um, then we'll see where we stand." I'm not sure if I got the tone right but you should notice a distinct lack of confidence in the second part.

Now I understand that I have to make amends for what I done wrong and I understand the thought behind going to AA but that doesn't change the fact that I feel like a fake heading in there; like I'm auditing a course. I've been before (with a former girlfriend in a support capacity) and I still felt like a tourist but at least I had a justifiable reason for being there.

So I went into my first class and it was actually fine. I would go into more detail but I think that wuld kind of defeat the purpose of the whole "A" part of "AA." (um, the second part) I was worried because the classes I had been to in the past had been small and cramped and you couldn't see through the haze of nine people smoking. There were some happy stories and some sad but the most memorable part was the guy who sat on either side of me (at different times) who wouldn't stop moving around. It took a while but I finally realized that what he reeked of was some sort of brandy. I don't know if that's funny or sad but at least I knew I wasn't the only one faking it.

-S