The Noise

I tell ya what, it's hard to sleep sometimes. I'd wager that at least 35% of the time when I start off in bed, I wind up migrating to the sofa so I can turn on the TV (usually ESPNews) and use the white noise to put me to sleep. If I don't, the noise in my head keeps me awake. A lot of times, I'll just go to sleep on the sofa to begin with, just to skip the whole charade.

I walk around most of the time trying to suppress a laugh. It always make me feel kind of weird, like everyone else can notice my trying so hard to press my lips together, like I'm holding something inside (how do you not end that sentence with a preposition?). I am. And most of the time, it's not even something that I'm seeing, it's just about something else that I'm thinking about, some idea that I've had, some completely inappropriate comment I wanted so badly to make, or some conversation that I'd wished that I'd had. The noise fills me up, and it's good, it's good when I'm working (until it prevents me from concentrating) or walking or driving, or doing anything else awake. I bet people pass me in traffic and think "what's the hell is he laughing about?" I get up at work to walk to the printer and I have to pass by a bank of cubicles. So many times I've had to almost turn around and walk quickly back to my desk because I'm literally on the cusp of laughing out loud over something and don't want to have to explain it when it happens because it's never as funny the second time around.

Like "What is so funny Peacock?"

"I dunno, I was just thinking about how whenever I leave this job I'm going to write in my resignation letter that I have finally settled a very large claim... with the enemy from within."

"Oh.... "

It's all well and good until I look like a weird-o or can't turn "it" off long enough to fall asleep. Then the alarm clock goes off, and that's very rarely ever funny, although I usually laugh a little bit when I wind it back an hour. Why is it that each night I get my absolute best sleep between 6:00a and 7:00a?

Anyway, I've got ideas. Always. Some I'll go after and some, I'm sure, will die on the vine.

I want to do a ride along with Captain Herb Emery, the traffic guy for AM 750 here in Atlanta. He flies a helicopter around in the mornings and afternoons. I want to do that with him, see what it's like. How do you do something like that? I did a ride along with a cop one time in Athens. It stands to reason that I could do one with Captain Herb. I had a dream that I did that the other night, I guess that's where I got my inspiration. It was morning time and he and I were flying around I-75 in Cobb County, north of Atlanta, checking out the traffic. All of a sudden Captain Herb decided that he wanted to "check on something" so he slammed the "brakes" on the helicopter mid flight. Scared the hell out of me in the dream. But I still want to go on a ride along with him though. Ah, but they probably got their damn unions. And Captain, you know I'm not a pro union guy.

I can't wait for baseball season. I wish that there was a way that I could go to baseball games every day and then, like, tell people about it, and get paid for doing so. But then the guy who does that probably wishes that he could spend his days writing letters that start off with "Please advise" or "Thank you for speaking with me today, this letter shall confirm...." Maybe Captain Herb wishes he could get some attorney on the telephone and start off with a snappy one liner like "Listen Barrister...."

To think, I used to lie in bed and fear that a certain monkey would attack me the following morning at my college job. Them's were the times. I was in charge of washing animal caging, to the extent that one can be "in charge" of that duty. I'd shut the doors in our washing area, blast the cages with scalding hot water, yelling at the top of my lungs along with the stereo "GIVE ME STEAM, AND HOW YOU FEEL CAN MAKE IT REAL, REAL AS ANYTHING YOU SEE.... GET ALI---IVE, WITH THE DREAMER'S DREAM...." The bottom six inches of my scrubs pants would be soaking wet and I'd be out of breath from yelling song lyrics for several minutes. Best $6.50 an hour I ever made. We used to have to wear nitrile gloves (sort of like latex, only they weren't powdery). One day, I was screwing around and had a pair of gloves on and thought that it would look cool if I taped up my wrists up like a linebacker. So I found some masking tape and went to town, taping my wrists about four inches up from the base of my hands. Then I realized that I neglected to use prewrap. It hurt like the dickens pulling all that tape off, but I had some fun with it.

I guess I've had fun with every job I've had. People may take that as a sign of not taking things seriously, but it's anything but that. How can I take something seriously if I don't enjoy it?

I went home for Christmas one year when I was in college. My folks live fairly close to campus anyway, so it's not like going home was some huge deal. But around Christmas each year, I'd go and spend several days there. I think it was a Wednesday afternoon, that sounds right, when I went home one year. It was early afternoon. Nobody was home. As luck would have it, I had a half empty pint bottle of bourbon in my truck. I know, bad idea to drive around with an open container, but I had it hidden pretty good I guess. Anyway, it was early afternoon, around 2:00p or so. I moved my stuff inside and grabbed that bourbon bottle. I stretched out on my parent's sofa, on my back, holding the bottle in my hand and resting it on my chest. I lay there with my eyes shut until I fell asleep. My mom shows up a little later, I guess she had been out running errands or something, and finds me asleep, on my back, holding a half empty bottle of liquor on my chest. I was awakened by her saying "Oh for God's sake..."

Good night everyone, I hope.

Into the Wild

So I just finished reading a fantastic book. I had actually given this to my dad as a Christmas present, he read it quickly and recommended it so enthusiastically that I borrowed it and read it myself. I started Sunday around midnight and stayed up until nearly 3:00a reading it. I finished it last night.

You can read a synopsis of the book right there on the cover, but obviously there is a lot more to the story than that. The protagonist, Chris McCandless, essentially disappeared from his family after he graduated from college. He drove across the country from Atlanta to Arizona until his car failed him, then hitch-hiked and boated in a zig zag pattern around the western United States before concluding his grand adventure on the Stampede Trail in Alaska.

It's a fantastic read, although I have to think it would appeal more to men than to women. It struck a cord with me, and I think it would with most men, because I believe that it speaks to the inherent male desire to explore and seek adventure.

We all go about it in different ways and some obviously seek (or define) adventure to a much larger degree than others. You won't soon catch me hitchhiking through the Yukon Territory or living for weeks on end alone in a tent. But I think that it's every man's inherent desire to explore and test himself and his resiliency.

Scanning through my blog last night it occurred to me how often I write about that period of time when I lived in the Northwest. Though I said when I left that I would close that chapter of my life, I guess I never really did. After finishing "Into the Wild", I got to thinking about how that chapter was to date my greatest "adventure" and that's likely why I hold onto it the way I have.

In another sense, I felt connected to Chris McCandless through his relentless search for an "outpost". Personally, I've always had a fascination with the remote, secluded places across America. I've always found myself fantasizing about what it would be like to live in such a place, a place like Forks Washington, Jackman Maine, or Three Points Arizona. To me, there is something incredibly romantic about finding significance in an insignificant map dot. A place with one stop light, one local pub, and a small lunchbox, a place that embodies that lyric from the John Prine song "Jesus, the Missing Years" that reads Things shut down at midnight. At least 'round here they do. Cause we all reside down the block inside, at 23 Skidoo.

I spent a night in Forks back in December 2006, completely unplanned. Exploring the Olympic Peninsula one Saturday, I found myself in Forks in the evening and figured I was too far to drive home that night, and I still had some things I wanted to see on Sunday. I got a cheap hotel room and walked to a small "American" style restaurant for dinner where I ate a shrimp basket and drank a couple of bottles of beer, by myself. The restaurant closed at 9:00pm, I was the last person in there. I paid my bill and walked back to the hotel. At this hour on a Saturday night shortly before Christmas, there was nothing going on in that town. It was quiet and felt deserted. It was an outpost, and I was strangely happy that I'd found it.

The next morning I drove to La Push, on the Pacific Coast, and walked a steep two mile trail that led to the ocean. Walking through the forest, I could not hear a sound to suggest any human presence anywhere in the world. It was pure solitude. Upon reaching the ocean, I noticed that there were no footprints on the beach. It was truly an awesome sight to see something so large and so undisturbed and I felt an immense happiness for being in the "middle of nowhere", if only for an hour or so.

I can imagine multiplying those feelings by one hundred thousand and that may be what Chris McCandless felt as he hiked into the Alaskan wilderness.

As for me, I guess my adventures lie in finding those new and far-away places, spots that are exotic to me and painfully common to the locals. We stayed in Guthrie Oklahoma for the UGA v. Oklahoma State game the past September. Guthrie is about 25 miles or so from Stillwater, where Oklahoma State is located. Guthrie is a small town, larger than Forks, but struck me as very quiet and low key. Pulling into town that Friday night and passing through the "downtown" area, I remembered again how much I enjoy these small, random towns that make up America and how I wished I could travel more to such "non-exotic" locales.

At any rate, I would highly recommend "Into the Wild" to anyone looking for an interesting read.

"I'm alive, but I don't know what it means"

You'll reference my post from 7/25/09.

I was just listening to "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" by CCR and got to thinking back.

12/27/06. I was flying back to the west coast on a late night Delta flight following a brief visit home for Christmas. I had moved to Seattle about a month before, but at the time that I moved there, I knew that I'd be back home in a month or so anyway, if only for a few days.

Anyway, I was sitting on the flight listening to some music on the flight, it was one of those Delta flights with the TVs in the seat back so you get some entertainment. I found "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" in the music menu and listened to it a few times.

That flight was one of the only times in my life that I've felt true desperation. Sitting on that airplane, looking at nothing but darkness out the window, I could feel myself panic. What have I gotten myself into, moving out here? Did I make the right decision? What's going to happen now?

Those moments are funny, but only after the fact. As disconcerting as it was to face so much uncertainty (and I couldn't help but feel it was appropriate that I couldn't see anything out of the windows), I look back and think about how alive that made me feel.

I've heard that the real addiction with gamblers isn't winning or making money or picking games right. I hear that the real addiction is that feeling that comes in the waning seconds before the fate of your bet is determined. The joy, the angst, the disgust, the regret, the happiness. I hear that the side doesn't matter, it's all about feeling those feelings on high.

In some ways, I can see that. Last summer I visited the Belmont race track on Long Island one Saturday afternoon. I didn't bet or lose enough money to really "feel" a loss or win, but betting any amount of money on anything makes that thing so much more interesting. The last race there, I had bet a trifecta. $10 or $20, I can't remember. A trifecta is a bet where the top three horses are chosen, in order. You would tell the teller at the window "Next race here, $10 trifecta on 1,3, and 7" and that means that you're betting $10 that horse #1 will win, horse #3 will place and horse #7 will show. The payouts are pretty good, depending on the odds of each horse. For my bet, I figured it would have paid well in excess of $100. Anyway, as the horses were coming down the backstretch, the three that I'd chosen for my trifecta were among the four leaders, and all four were bunched in tight. For a split second, the board showed my exact bet as the top as the horses neared the finish line. I was going bannanas. Standing up, I was screaming at the top of my lungs "HOLD IT, HOLD IT, HOLD IT". I mean, I was yelling so loud and hard that my chest hurt. So hard that I became dizzy after I stopped. Unfortunately, the horses didn't hold it, and I wound up losing my bet. But at that moment and the moments that followed, I understood how gamblers get hoooked. It's hard to forget the rush of feeling alive, the feeling of being so heavily invested in an outcome over which you have no control.

Obviously, the feeling on that flight and the feeling at Belmont are different in that of the former, once I hit the ground and made sense of the gravity of it all, I could, to a large degree, control how happy I would be. So maybe control, or lack thereof, isn't what gives me the feeling of being alive. Maybe it's the complete uncertainty of a situation and the awareness of the ramifications of the outcome. Maybe it is angst and questioning that gives me that feeling, rather than the outcome itself.

Who knows? But that's your update for now.