Vegas, Baby!

Hey this is going to be short and sweet... Vegas was a blast... more to come later... the highlight of the trip, one of Sam's friends, Motorboated to girls at the topless pool. (See Wedding Crashers on what Motor boating is, something to do with sticking your head between two knockers. )

so I am tired, got some of my meds reduced, which hopefully will be a real good thing. think I am going to fail out of grad school a second time, am back home, where I belong until I start earning some money or get a rich girl to marry me. I might work as a tutor (but only make $17 an hour)... start training for the Princeton Review on Friday, which will kill my weekends for the next two weeks. Hope to get more involved in the Mission Minyan, with some hip jews...

Ok, you've been waiting for the numbers... Lost $60 at craps, but it was my first time playing... lost $20 at roulette on red, also might have been my first time playing that too. won $50 playing blackjack and was actually up a $100 (making $50 bets), only played three hands. I thought long and hard about betting the money the guys gave me ($2000), but I couldn't take the lose, if I didn't win the hand. too bad I didn't have a job (I would be more willing to take the risk)... be well my friends.... GCNOF is retiring for the night. got a shit load of stats to do tomorrow.

Back home

Greetings from the Golden State…

I’m back home in California. This is my first rant of the month. I just haven’t been writing. Swimming for 4.4 miles and then not swimming for two weeks, took a toll
on me. Adjusting from the life in the middle of the city, living with three other bachelors, to living with my sixty year old parents, in the middle of suburbia has taken a toll on me. Going from being an outsider, based on economic options and race (I lived near the projects and a homeless shelter, not to mention living on a former crack house block, and a half block from a shooting, while I was living in the area) to being an outsider because of my lack of family (of my own) or a job has been tough too.

I found out yesterday that I can continue my graduate study in statistics at Cal State East Bay. A relief.

Now I just have to get a part time job, so I can move out on my own and I’ll be set.

And I have started swimming again. Training for my next swim around Lake Tahoe (assuming it isn’t engulfed in fire) at the end of July.

I find it very funny that although I just swam 4.4 miles, because I didn’t swim for two weeks, I’m out of shape. I’ve always thought that I lose my shape very quickly for the continuity of working out that I have had since the seventh grade. when I won a plaque because I participated in the most after school sports of any seventh grader (all of the after school sports except track. I didn’t repeat to win the award in eighth grade. I decided to give the glory to someone else.

Basically I didn’t have any friends in seventh grade, (weep, weep), so to fill my days I went out for every after-school sport that there was. as for why I didn’t pursue theater or music: I failed to make a flute have sound in the fourth grade, and never touched another instrument until college. I never thought of singing, Rory Henderson was the only guy with enough balls in the sixth grade to join choir,
and yes, he was always surrounded by the hot-sixth grade ladies. At the time, I didn’t have any theatre talent and was scared to be on stage. Sports were low pressure. Not much you can screw up when you are sitting on the bench.

Reminiscing…

The same boredom came in high school. My first day, I went to classes and then home alone. I was bored. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The second day too. The third or fourth day I went out for water polo. I had tried it briefly during the summer, but found it too tough. But it was better than being home and bored. JV wasn’t as tough. Wrestling was different. I looked forward to wrestling in high
school, since the seventh grade. Wrestling was the sport for short guys, small guys, skinny guys who weren’t tall or coordinated enough for basketball. Because you only wrestled against guys the same weight as you. Wrestling was also the one sport, I had had some success at in junior high (remember, I had tried them all [except track]).

At Stanley intermediate, I was the top wrestler in my weight group in 8th grade and lost to A.J. Buhl in the final tournament (A.J. wrestled for four years at Campo and always kicked my butt). Wrestling was the sport of champions (and pansies and fish). Wrestling was about control. Wrist control and weight control. It was about losing five pounds in a week and then gorging right before a match or a tournament. It was
about running in a sweatsuit with a garbage bag around you in a gym with the heat turned up. Trying to draw every ounce of H20 out of your body. Wrestling meant that each time you took a dump you were one or two pounds closer to making weight.

MK took a spitter (used for chewing tabacco with him) every Thursday before weigh ins. Hit Petrini’s for a Mustard sandwich (never remembered what meat he ordered. Just that there was always lots of mustard(I’m mustard-phobic, FYI). MK would be spitting into the spitter, for two hours, hoping to lose the last ounce of weight before weigh-ins. Salivating over the sandwich, probably helped him drop over an ounce of spit over a three-hour period. DH would complain about how painful it was to watch TV commercials for food-related products and restaurants, while fasting before weigh-ins. We weren’t the brightest then….

Now we know that water helps you lose weight and jogging a little probably would get all the sweat out
of you, without torturing yourself by exposing yourself to food that you couldn’t eat until after
weigh-ins.

It was only years later, that I realized that if I didn’t gorge myself right after weigh-ins, I might have wrestling better. For me, making weight was a lot more of a challenge than the actual wrestling. I don’t think I ever failed to make weight. Sadly, I rarely won my match. I did beat a girl once, and a few freshmen (when I was a senior).

I did letter in two sports. Water polo and wrestling (both my junior year), but never got a lettermen’s jacket. It was worth-it as a freshman or sophomore, when you had years of use of it. Unless of course you want to frequent high school football games as a thirty year old and check out the cheerleaders and impress your fellow thirty year olds (bare with me, fellow thirty year olds , who are also at the high school football game. I guess that being that I’m home, maybe that will be me.).

I guess that is kinda of old school. It might be nice to have that then. Who knows maybe it would have got me laid in high school. Would have been 0 for the 20th century in that case. Some freshman girl, might have thought I was a big-man on campus with a letterman jacket.

So that’s how I started to work out....FYI, after my Lake Tahoe swim, I need another athletic event to train for..

anyone interested in doing a century-ride or half-marathon?

Peace out- GCNOF

China Executes Product-safety Chief

China does not fuck around.
They know the international reputation of their exports is at stake so they can't afford half measures. A little bit of that might be nice in the Far West. Say you are a public official whose malicious or incompetent behavior is responsible for the death of Americans; take your pick: EPA, FEMA, Pentagon, Intelligence, Green Zone, White House, etc. Instead a tongue lashing and a book deal, you get two to the back of the head. Maybe if you filch from the public till you just lose a hand. It's not exactly progressive, but it might raise the bar a little in the public sector. I guess we can only speak wistfully of having as uncorrupt, efficient a system as the Chinese.

Update

Hey, It's 3 a.m. and am wanting to go to bed soon. It probably won't happen, as I woke up around 1 p.m. today (Monday) and 1 p.m. yesterday (Sunday). I missed my swimming practice, because I was too tired to get up, comatosed, might be a good word choice. Too comatosed to get out of bed. Watched the basketball game, and saw the Warriors lose a close one. too bad.
the way I feel about competition is always one sided.

Either I am happy to win and don't care about losing or am very upset about losing and don't care if I win, depending on the competition. They produce the same. a desire to win, but one gets a positive and one only has a negative.

poker for me is mainly about the losing. when you win, it usually involves luck, ok, for me (maybe that's the problem, I don't win with skill, which is why winning doesn't feel good, but lately I hate losing at poker, because it keeps happening all the time.

I'm enjoying hanging out with my housemates, mainly watching basketball this last month. we are all leaving the house and I am moving back to California. I know a lot of people looking for work here. and I probably, hopefully can get work here, but it just makes sense to head back to California, take some courses and get a job back there.

When I left for DC, it was mainly a career move and when I move back to California, it is also mainly a career move. It is time I got a regular job. although I'll miss the DC intellectuals quite a bit. I could work here, but as long as I am taking grad classes, it's best I move back there. I can move here, if I get a cushy job here. after I go threw grad school again or get into a field where no grad school is required. it's time for me to hit the head. more to come later. including a wrap up to the Series-When Things Come Out the Wrong Way.
-GCNOF

Depression

Ok, I haven't written in a long time and have been a little depressed. I got passed over for two jobs I should have had. Now I haven't nothing baking in the oven.

Writing helps me put things in perspective and when I get down, I don't usually don't write. I have this thing where if I really like something, I tend to save it for when I feel really good. As if my bad/unhappy thoughts will ruin a good thing. And I want to keep that thing always positive.

For example, I am applying for a job in Lake Tahoe. Tahoe has always been that special place. Like a get away. I'm not doing well, so I go up there and am better, and then I head back to civilization, usually the Bay Area. I'm afraid that by living there, it will no longer remain my "safe space." It will lose the healing affects it has on my soul.

In a sense, I've made the entire Northern California region my safe space get-away by living (in DC) on the East Coast. Lafayette, the Bay Area and Tahoe have all become my safe space. I visit them to boost my mood.

I do that with other "happy" things as well. Like waiting to watch TV or a movie or ask a girl on a date until I'm in my happy space.

It's like my mood is too powerful and the external forces aren't powerful enough. Maybe I'm overestimating the power of my mood. Maybe my mood is really powerful. But I think that putting too much stock in the power of my mood, is part of the problem. maybe I should lighten up a little and give more credit to the external world, rather than the internal one.

on another note: My grandfather is gravely ill. I maybe flying to Indiana, anytime in the next couple of days. I hope it's after my date on Monday. (first one in a long time.) It probably won't be. He was a very strong man, still is in some respects, and I won't count him out, until he is.

on another matter: It looks like I will move back home to California by the end of the summer, or earlier.

Signing off.
GCNOF

Wednesdays

Ok. let me get this out in the open. I have a conflict. I am doing more and more observant things as a Jew. I put on tefillin almost every morning. I go to Synogogue about twice a month. I generally observe the shabbath. ok, I am not right now it's Friday night/Saturday morning right now, and I shouldn't be writing, but often...

but I have neglected the normal things I use to do to keep, well, sane. For example, I use to go on Wednesdays to the NAMI support groups (support groups for people with serious mental and emotional problems). Emotionally it did wonders for me. Listening to other people's severe mental or emotional problems, sharing my own problems and helping each other created a nice support group. real connections. I would bring in a reference to "Fight Club", but I am not a phony and while the movie didn't necessarily make a mockery of those support groups. general consensus, may be otherwise.

For example, tell me that you are so in need of "real" human contact, that you go to support groups of which you don't suffer the problem, just to feel connected. I wonder how common that that is in our internet society. I would love to hear from you if you do that and whether eventually you told your friends from the support group that you were actually in it just to make friends. (side note) I bet everyone that goes to the Porn Addiction support group is married and really has that problem. In all seriousness, I would never have the guts to show up to that one.

Back to my support group, I felt a real connection to the people at NAMI. We had or were going through similar experiences, which often included flunking out of school, losing jobs and destroying relationships. We were bonding because we were sharing our weaknesses. I'm emphasizing this point, because, now on Wednesdays I go to Torah study, and we just don't share our weaknesses. In fact, we kinda of just show our strength (intellectually speaking). We learn from a great rabbi, but we don't bond in the same way. These are great people that I am learning with and becoming friends with, just for me the connection doesn't quite seem real.

You might say, and Hilary Duff is reported to have said similar things about Holden Caulfield, that actually I am the phony. You might think the Duff is a bad example, but who knows phoniness better than an actor or actress. A better line would be: who knows phoniness better than a bad actor or actress. but I didn't, originally, go there. it sounds like a John Irving line, no?

so, maybe I should junk the book learning and share and learn from my real life suffering. real problems. Not that book learning is wrong. It's just nothing compares to real experience and the real emotional connection produced by traumatic events.

of course, I've made some new friends from the torah study. but I still feel a little fake there. maybe I'm just doing it for the friends.

When Things Come out the wrong End-Supplemental Material

Ok, I, GCNOF, am having a problem. I am writing about my vomit history, because in my past all of my vomits are memorable (to me), and there have been so few of them. Maybe it is because I have been thinking so much about vomiting or maybe I just didn't have enough practice. Because if these past few years are any indication by the time I'm 33, I might be vomiting at least once a month. By the time I'm 40, every week.

You see I vomited this morning. For the second time in two months, and in the same location too. (This has never happened before.) At the YMCA swimming pool, I made it to the men's bathroom and this time most of it wound up in or on the toilet, but unfortunately it wasn't all clear liquid like the last time. The piece of rye toast I ate right before swimming might been a little too stale.

I vomited twice in my twenties. Year 20 and 29. And twice in my thirtieth year and once already in less than a month of being 31.

It's been a weird and good week for me. I haven't seen a friend that I've known before since I got back from Philly last night. But I met some fun girls at a jdate party at a local bar and I'll call one of them tomorrow. I'm not holding my breathe, we will see. (but it will be good if she answers the phone when I call her). There was another real hottie there, that I didn't get a chance to talk to her . (she was always with a guy). maybe some other time.

Tonight I went to trivia. It was a hopeless cause. I sent out an e-mail to twenty people and two people RSVP. one can't come, but as a friend, he tells me so. and the other one? well I guess I told him, he shouldn't come as he was telling me he was sick with a sore throat.

But it worked out. This night, someone actually wanted a free agent. A bunch of FOOC (fresh out of college) Duke and Yale grads let me play on their team. They happened to be younger, and younger than they looked. I guess younger people are more likely to want to increase their number of friends or to just be nice.

My theme is this week, or is it this year, is just keep faith and things will work out. You could think about it from a philosophical principle, always keep your head up, because until you aren't breathing (for a period of at least ten minutes, more if you are in frigid water), you're always in the game. There are always more opportunities, even if you just missed a great one, another one will come along. To a religious principle, g-d has a plan, don't worry if you don't understand it now, or have just been royally screwed. It's part of a master plan, don't lose faith. keep your head up, ready for your next opportunity, because until you are not functioning there is always more.

I talked about the Brazilian girls I wound up living with, right? Things just work out. I really want your comment for this. Do you agree? Am I wrong, things don't work out, they just suck? G-d might have a plan. it just doesn't include me (you)?

There comes a time in your life, where if you don't pull through it's over? Well, look at Al Gore, if you need some inspiration. He lost the election to W.. Whose the better man, now?)