skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The one disadvantage of now being able to reach REM sleep - a new experience for me - is that I dream now. A lot. 90% of the time I don't get those fun dreams where I get to fly around unfettered from normal mortal restraints My dreams always seem to be introspective or about things from my past that I normally try not to dwell on. I've been known for allowing the past to sit heavily on me, though over the last few years I've gotten much better at not dwelling. But the times I let my guard down, those great chains of 'what if' try to pull me under, and they stay with me far too long, as if to make up for lost time. When I dream about days gone by, those heavy irons persist all the longer, permeating my thoughts so deeply that I struggle to clear it out. Friday night's dreaming has made for a downer of a weekend, even days later when I cannot recall anything from the dream except for faces.
One day I'll learn to stop letting my mind torment me about things that happened in the past.
Today is not that day.
Time heals all wounds, but often it’s only by the application of the grave, and while we live some hurts live with us, burning, making us twist and turn to escape them. And as we twist, we turn into other men.
I wrote on here the other day about a random 30
year old guy who came up to me while I was sitting in my car and bragged about how
much of a pimp he was with 60 year old ladies. Evidently this is the start of a new trend.
The other morning on the way to work, I stopped at a gas station to refuel. I was sitting in my car - windows down - listening to an audiobook as I waited on my gas to pump when I was again randomly approached by a creepy stranger.
I had noticed the fellow earlier, lugging various boxes to and fro, from his diesel to the gas station. On a trip back to his truck, he stopped, looked at me and said "hey,"
motioning with his head towards the car in front of me after I acknowledged him with a look. I followed his gaze to the silver car in front of me then back to him, my face questioning.
"That's pretty
sexy," he said, "...and what's driving it ain't to bad either, ha HAAA!" at which
point he balled his hands into a fist, put them out in front of him and
then made a single powerful air hip thrust in the car's direction and said, "taa
DOW, you know what I'm sayin'?!" and then walked back to his truck and drove off.
I am clearly
making myself look far too approachable when I'm in the car.
About a week ago I was huddled against the cold inside my car waiting for my gas to finish pumping when a random 30ish looking guy, who was headed inside, slowed down, pointed at me with both fingers and said, "heeeeey YMCA, alright". His "alright" was punctuated by the usage of his fingers like a gun, "all" *bang* "right *bang*, and he pulled his hands back like he'd shot me with each syllable. Thrown off by his general awkwardness and a physical gesture I tend to mentally pair with sleazy characters, I stared at him with a perplexed expression until he pointed at my YMCA parking pass which I had completely forgotten about in the moment. I uttered a non-committal "...yeah..." not really sure what he was wanting from me unless it was praise for his ability to recognize letters. He approached my door - which is exactly what I want at night, in my shady neighborhood, by a total stranger who is clearly insane - and said, "it's just that I work there, it's cool that you go man, which gym do use?". I told him about the one near work that I use, leaving out the one closer to home that I prefer, just in case he was trying to stalk me so that he could stare lustily at my bum from across the locker room, possibly making gun gestures at it then winking slyly.
Turns out, the very gym I was trying to scapegoat was the one at which he works.
"Groovy, groovy, that's where I work! I actually I teach the jazzercise class there."
Is jazzercise even a thing anymore? I mean, the guy still says "groovy" so I didn't want to question him and accidentally shock him out of some sort of time-lapse stupor he was in and cause mental trama, like that old myth about waking up a sleep-walker. Maybe he was an extra on Lost, so I had to be careful.
All I know for certain is that my spellchecker has never heard of jazzercise. I know back in the 80s it was a big deal, but did it actually survive the 90s and 00s? I figured at best it made it to the late 90s before passing away with minimal fanfare. I hear about zumba and body-pump and all that constantly, but I'm pretty sure I've not even HEARD the word "jazzercise" in 15 years.
"Jazzercise?", I said, the question and disbelief clear in my voice.
"Oh yeah, jazzercise is hot right now", he claimed.
Jazzercise is hot right now. That's an actual phrase someone said to me in real life.
Unbidden, he started telling me how he used to sell those homeless newspapers, "The Contributor", for a long time but how things had picked up for him lately and - at this point he reached into his pocket and pulled out a giant wad of cash that was all one dollar bills as best I could tell - he was "rolling in it."
"Not only do I make some sweet dough, I get all the 60 year old p**** [hint: lady parts] that I can handle."
*blink*
Aside from that being an extremely awkward thing to say to a stranger (a stranger who was acutely aware of how loud the guy was talking and that the gas station was extremely crowded), why he, as a 30 year old man, would brag about his sexy times with women twice his age I couldn't fathom. Not that there's not some pretty 60 year olds in the world. Mary Steenburgen is still rockin' it, but I'm guessing she's not in his class. Regardless, it's an unusual claim to fame.
I couldn't help myself. I said, "...Sixty?"
"Hey man, p**** is p**** no matter how long it's marinated."
Thanks for that word poetry, Don Juan.
Mercifully my gas finished at this time and I was trying to get out of there when he said I should come by the class sometime. Hoping that wasn't a pick-up line, I declined, saying I didn't think jazzercise was really my thing.
"Who cares if it is your thing, just come for the ladies. If you can't get laid in there, you can't get laid at all."
And I guess I can't because, despite being single, I'm not going to start trolling jazzercise classes for the elderly.
The moral of this story is, ladies, avoid the jazzercise class at the Maryland Farms YMCA. Possibly that YMCA in general. And jazzercise.
I often wonder if technology has ruined my life. "Ruin" is a bit strong considering technology is how I pay the bills, and have for years now. But there's no doubt that the rise of technology in my teens changed the direction of my life significantly. Of course, that can be said for many people.
I have always had a very addictive personality... I get it from my father. If I get a fire under me about something, it is often hard for me to put it out. It's the reason I never started drinking when I was younger, the reason I never touched drugs. If I had, I have little doubt I'd have ended up an alcoholic or drug addict. Instead, it seems, I became addicted to technology and it only recently occurred to me how much it may have affected my life.
In the '90s I became addicted, an addiction I eventually focused into a career, and by the mid-to-late 2000s I was able to get the addiction under control. I still use tech too much though, often at the expense of productivity/self-improvement.
That path shift caused by said addiction wasn't all bad - being able to eat is awesome - but it did have some costs. It partially helped destroy an important early relationship in my life. Additionally, I feel it stunted my social growth in a way in which I've never fully recovered. It also, I only just realized in the last few years, took me off the road to accomplishing various dreams I had when I was younger and still, on occasion feel bouncing around somewhere deep down inside of me. Sure, those dreams may have been rather far-fetched, so much so that I'd not admit them to any but my closest friends. But there was still a chance, no matter how slim, and I would rather have tried to reach them and failed instead of what I did, which was simply not try and still failed. I'm not the best writer and thus I do not have the ability to adequately relay to you the disappointment I feel in myself for that.
Lately I wonder, is it too late? The adult part of me laughs at the old dreams, tells me to buckle down and accept this 9-5 desk life. Young-Me thinks Adult-Me has become a sell-out and settled on things that should never be settled on. There's some powerful inner turmoil, not unlike the conflict in my mind when my religious and scientific sides try to settle their differences.
Right now, I have no idea whose side to take. They both have valid points. But I can't help but think of that saying how, when you look back on your life, you'll regret the things you didn't do far more than the things you did.
And in truth, I've never really felt like an adult.
