is your life bad?

it's 10am...

I'm in an airport hotel small conference room, with a woman who's a mess, and we're all looking at her. I'm even recording her every move.

wait.

first let's talk about getting here:

I woke up a little after 7am, I felt tired, but I had a job today. It's a freelance gig, given the economy and my location I'll take whatever work I can get. I showered and brushed my teeth, weighed myself (because my life is so horrible that I'm fed too much). Then I loaded my car with the equipment I'd need and headed out.

I had a tire that was almost flat, 7lbs of pressure, I've been refilling it every day. Ugh, I really need 4 new tires, one estimate was $700. There was a time when I'd blow $700 in a night on shots for friends and barely notice it.

Now, I'm one of those people who was so poor when the economy went bad in 2008 that I didn't even notice, my girlfriend was buying most of our meals, my car has problems I don't get checked out... hell, I almost lost it to repossession at one point. Then in 2009 I got one job - ONE - and it was a modeling gig for license free photos... no residuals. With all that came the usual depressing things in life; family problems, friend problems, and relationship issues that bordered on Springer outtakes at times.

So there I was, pulling down my street to get to Manchester Road, then on to Lindbergh which should take me north to this meeting. I knew on Lindbergh would be a gas station which would have a free air to fill the tire. I made the turn from the busy Manchester and on to Lindbergh which is like a small highway in my part of town.

I looked ahead and on the other side of the road was a black SUV, a large one, a nice one. I was in Huntleigh, an expensive part of town just a mile from my home where corporate leaders and other wealthy live, and this car fit... but why was this woman pulled over? Why was she out of her car and walking along the shoulder?

Fractions of a second later I was closer, I still couldn't tell what was wrong with her car, but she was going to have to walk past what looked like a large possum dead on the shoulder... then, she feel to her knee.

In that second I realized it wasn't a possum, it was a dog. Must have been her dog, which I assume got loose, and made its way to the busy road, was injured and died alone after making it to the edge, and found by its owner in the middle of rush hour. As I sped past, I could still see her emotion and misery.

Dogs get out, they get loose, it happens.... and you look for them, usually they return. This one did not. And, as someone who's lost - and found - a dog, and later had to put it down from old age, I understand the loss. But to have the sudden loss after what I'm sure was a time of hope while looking, there on the side of the road.

For the next few miles, I could only stare into the traffic lost in what I had just witnessed. Sure, it was just a dog, but any decent person who's loved a family pet can understand the shock in what I'd been a part of.

I made it to the gas station and filled the tire, and got to the hotel for my job. A woman had been injured in some kind of accident, and a set of medical and psychological tests needed to be administered by an expert for he purpose of display in court. It was my job to video tape this for public record.

It wasn't as bad as I thought, the medical exam was not invasive, and the setting is fairly docile. But the woman is 29, married 5 years, 2 children and from a small town.

My ex-girlfriend is her age, the ex who's done nothing but complain to me about our great friendship now being too invasive because she has a new boyfriend, and while she's kept our friendship a secret from him and her entire family, now she's got a problem with it.... this is the one who wasn't getting what she wanted from us and was nearly in tears over it some time ago. Her clock was ticking, and her job had become overbearing, and blah blah blah.

The woman on my camera had the husband and kids... and then poof. Now she's in a re-inforced wheelchair, her left hand is now in a permanent state of contorted paralysis, her husband is unable to hold down a job because he must be home to take care of their children and now his wife.

I'm so poor... I'm a man with a master's degree, and I have no money. I have friends who complain about the great bothers in life, overbearing parents and missed opportunities, and issues of ego and aesthetics. Boohoo - you're fat, or you're childless, or your friends don't want to do things, or your career and dreams aren't working out.

Is your dog alive? Can you go for a walk? Can you go for a walk with a furry friend and have a great conversation with a good friend, just one, who really knows you even if all they know includes all your embarrassing shortcomings? Are you free to live your life? What if that ex never has kids, what if i never get rich, what if things don't work out the way you'd like - really, is life that bad?

Yeah, life is annoying when you don't have what the others have, when you don't feel like daddy loves you enough or people don't understand your decisions. But today I'm reminded that while it's good to hope and work for the things you want, we all need to remember how lucky we are.

immediate fail - day 2

well, i made it nearly one day - kind of...

yesterday went as planned, starvation, etc... and i went to the gym today, starved myself all day, made it all the way to around 7pm when i was informed by a guy i know what we aren't really friends in reality if we aren't friends on Facebook. this is the same guy who told me we couldn't be friends on Facebook unless I made sure not to be friends with people he didn't approve of.

he then wanted to go to dinner, i thought i'd find a time to talk to him about it, but the conversation was basically all about our friend who's obsessing with the bf... so...

yeah, ugh, time to lock down my Facebook account - and to think, there was a time when i didn't think i'd ever really have a problem with stalkers.

ok, so tomorrow is friday, i'm hoping to get up early and starve to sunday...

ash wednesday - day 1 - lent 2010

i got up early (for me) and got to 8am mass, got the ashes, and didn't eat all day. i swung by the parent's house to check on them, then came back to the Skanktuary to go through the 2months of mail left here from living with the them while mom recovered.

i owe a higher power for pulling my mom through it all - a quadruple bypass, with valve replacement - and then, oops, an emergency aortic resectioning on the table when they found hers to be calcified (that required them to freeze her into hibernation). i ended up living with the 'rents for the whole thing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, etc. totally worth it, though it nearly fried my mind, but i need to get back to chicago and back to acting.

40 days of lent, 1 day down. i'm going to fast for lent as my sacrifice, and because i need to lose weight anyway. yesterday was a gratuitous orgy of consumption for me, starting in an office that had their own soda tap (not to mention a full bar), then McD's for lunch, and a gluttonous amount of homecookin, beer, and more soda for dinner at Muzzy's house. her husband is a lucky man, that gal can cook!

so - first and foremost, no soda - then, no booze - then no crappy food - then... assuming i live through all that, i'm going to hit the gym daily, do the workout set i have on DVD every day but sunday (not because its lent, but because that's the 'rest day')... and because my photographer will want it, i'll tan too, m-w-f. it will start off slow, this week will be focused on me, monitor the parents and their needs from afar (because their house is a carb farm), getting back into a schedule with the gym, and cleaning around the house. MONDAY will be when i get the DVDs and the tanning into things as well. basically, i'm getting back into my 'pre-shoot' routine... which sucks until you get into the swing of it all. worst of it all is that it can completely alienate me from the people in my world as they'll want to drink and eat and drink more... but, i'll just take it 'one day at a time', and do what i do in the past, get it running, then get out and behave when i'm in the swing... it will take a few days.

i was good today, the only thing that went in my mouth was water... it was ash wednesday, so i went for the full starve. it wasn't too hard, but i've done it for many days in the past. i have a wicked headache, i'm assuming its the withdraw from the caffeine that i sucked in happily with all the soda - mmmmm - so good. i havent been hungry though, and i know from the past that if i keep myself flush with water there's almost no hunger at all. thus, the game starts. if i'm alone its fairly easy, but when i did this last the bigger issue was my friends wanting to hit the bars and booze it up. i think i can avoid that since i egged a few key players to do something similar for lent, we'll see how that goes, at least they're giving it a try, or claiming they will try, eventually most of them will want to get out and be loud and difficult to handle when you're not/barely eating and not drinking... and finding alternatives can be rather difficult.

i do have one friend that was a healthy alternative until she got a boyfriend 2 months ago and has stopped hanging out with me, sure there are extra reasons relating to insecurity... but after mom's surgery, my requests for her help, having to wait 3 weeks for her to offer a night to do so, then having her skip it to hang with the bf, then go ice skating with him the next night, then bake for and go to a party the night after that, then wait 3 more days to actually follow through... i'm fairly sure she actually is one of those people who puts the validation of a relationship in front of friends. however, with all her denials and propaganda was yet another offer to hang out this sunday... and i'd asked her to think of me on sundays since it seems that's the day least likely for her to come up with 'other plans'. SO - as i joked with her before today that i'd be restricting my eating to only the days when she's got time away from the bf the marrieds who magically got her the bf who fit in perfectly with them (as i predicted) - maybe that'll be my plan... i'll eat again on sundays, assuming she's there.

she used to read my blog, i'm thinkin she doesn't have time for such things anymore, so i'm going to post this now so i can't point it out when we get to Easter and i have the fun of pointing out that nearly another 2 months went by - awesome. she'll probably respond with something about me not understanding how a relationship works - and thank god i dont, nor do any of my happily married friends who can oddly find time away from their significant others all the time. either way, its an awesome excuse, nothing motivates me more than making a point.

actually, i'll be surprised if anyone reads this blog - i never understood these thing really, i think i do it on some level to journal for myself - BUT - if i'm able to get myself back in shape, or just flat out go manorexic, i can point to this and tell people that i warned them

mobile blogging

soon I will lose my MobileMe account and go all Google... let's see how me iPhone handles the blog posts...



and, this is a pic of Chris on Larrys love lounge...





this is my view right now... ok, all tests complete

-- I posted from my iPhone

ECTO WINS

ok gang, like many people, I'm a fan of open source apps, because they're usually free... but Ecto is the winner in the blogging app race for the Mac OSX platform so far. I'm open to other suggestions.

Here's what I wanted: I wanted an app that would allow me to open my blog from any machine, refresh the blogs published from elsewhere, make changes, be as WYSIWYG as possible, and of course, post. Ecto is it.

And, as much as I hate to acknowledge M$, their LiveWriter is winning me over in the Wintel arena... of course, I'm only on that rarely, and have no idea what's going to happen with Windows 7... but so far it seems to do just as well as Ecto.

Yeah... in the realm of OSX Blogging Client Comparison, Ecto seems to be the tops... at least for me in blogspot.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

live writer

i’m attempting to find multi-platform blogging… well, osx & win

 

let’s see how this works…