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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!!!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Dreading Work

I’m dreading going to work this morning. There is just so much I need to do, but I know damn well that other things will come up that need to be handled right away and the “to do list” will continue to grow.

I was so tired when I got home last night…it’s the dampness…and grayness…and just plain old winter that does me in. We had some beef short ribs last night so that took the alkies away…then I watched “The Replacements” for ‘bout the one millionenth time. After that I stretched out and began reading Bill O’Reylly’s latest…it’s actually pretty good.

So anyway it’s time to begin my routine.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Out For Homer's B-Day




Yesterday was Brandon’s birthday so we took him and his friend Timmy out to dinner. We went to a Japanese place where they cook at your table it was fun…the boys weren’t too impressed but we had a good time.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

A Happy Place

Trying to get to a happy place in my mind tonight…it’s not working too well. I’m trying to remember how it felt to get home at night and be greeted by a “hi hon” Or to pull up to my sister’s place and here a “hey Den wazup?” Or have Donna and Roger walking in and help themselves to my booze. Or walk into Tap City on National Avenue and have everyone stop and say hi. Or my daughter walk over to the house and say “hi daddy”. And I’d just about do anything right now to here mini-me call me “papa” again. Then there is Mr. Matt with his “Hey UD”. And it would be nice to hear someone call me Denny again (in person).

Trying very hard not to feel sorry for myself tonight…really hard…but it is hard with the holidays coming. I have had to work every holiday since I got out here, but for this Thanksgiving I caught a break…I can have off. I came home tonight to spread the good news…I should’ve kept it to myself. I was told that I’m not allowed in the kitchen unless she needs help. I countered with “Why don’t you let me cook this time?” “No way, your cooking isn’t very good.”

“Ouch Baby”


That hurt really bad.

I don’t know…is it true? Has everyone just been humoring me all these years? I’ve been doing holiday dinners and parties and cook outs and tail-gate bashes for years. Has it all been in my mind? Do I really suck at it? Has everyone just been lying to me when they complimented me?

This is bad…really bad.

Cooking has always been one of my great stress relievers…something I really enjoyed. Now to be told I can’t even help? Might as well just go to work. Is McDonalds open on Thanksgiving?

Awe...it's been the same thing with everything about me since I moved here. The way I talk, the way I move... my eyes...my love-makong (ouch again baby)...all the things nobody has ever voiced an issue with me over before are now my major faults! Can this be right? Have I been walking around in a fantasy world in regards to how people percieve me? Do I in fact really suck at everything I thought I was good at? Hmm...this kinda changes things if it's true. Am I not who I think I am?

"Could be trouble for our hero"

Let me think on this concept for a minute.

I'm just tired I guess. I feel like I'm getting punched out here. (Time for some ROCKY theme music).





OK...Who's Got My Sausage?



My sister usually sends me my favorite garlic sausage from The Wisconsin State Fair. She sent it this year along with my favorite kick-ass salsa. Items you can only get in Wisconsin. THEY NEVER SHOWED UP!!! She may have sent it to my old address, but it should’ve been forwarded or at least sent back to her. Included in her package were some Miller High Life shirts and hats! All of my favorite things!

Time to round up my posse! Somewhere in Central Oregon some yahoo is wearing my stuff and chompin' on a two foot garlic sausage. We won’t rest ‘till the culprit is brought to justice!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

My New Defense

I’m figuring out that I have some specific mechanisms for combating feelings of depression or insecurity or the plain ‘ol blahs. I’ve always had them I think just didn’t recognize them as methods of combating bad moods. They have turned out to be things that I always used to do but haven’t in a while because they tend to get me into trouble around here.

Number one is singing out loud when I’m putzin or cooking or whatever. I like to sing old Roy Orbison or Elvis (THE KING) tunes. Trust me that never very big around here. Then there’s turning the music on loud and dancin’ around. This has worked the best if I’m listening to The Stones. Needless to say another lead balloon here.

Cooking. I used to spend the whole day sometimes inventing concoctions like my “Orange Chicken Surprise” or “Bunch ‘O Brats In Kraut”. Nobody seems to like that stuff much here. Plus it has to be done with the music on to put me in the mood…no good here.

Talking is another one. I love to talk; bounce things off other people get their take on an issue or problem I may be having. I my current living arrangement it’s called whining….DENIED!

So alas I’ve been forced to limit these behaviors to the confines of my 1998 Ford Taurus (not the cooking though). However I have finally found an attitude that relieves the stress and anxiety and at the same time displays my feelings of rebellion….



A Good Mood

I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning. I had the usual panic attack at about 2am when I got up to take a leak, but I’m getting used to that. The reason I’m in a good mood is because I instant messaged with a dear old friend from my past life a couple of times during the day yesterday. We talked about nothing earth shattering, just everyday stuff, we teased each other and laughed about life’s little things. Neither one of us had an agenda other than to be each other’s friend. It was great to just be me again for a few minutes and not be afraid. Thanks “S”!

Monday, November 13, 2006

I found this cool site with all kinds of team logos. http://www.logoshak.com/




These are pretty cool...brings back a lot of memories for me.

My Weekend Is Here!

My weekend is here! Got some work stuff to do at home and a meeting today but otherwise I’m off. Also have a plumber coming and stuff to fix, and fire wood to split, and errands to run, and….and…and!!!!!!! Otherwise I’m off

LOL

It snowed like crazy last night. Started when I left work….go figure. It was blowing hard out of the South. Guess which direction I was driving. You guessed it South! Almost zero visibility…not fun. But I made it Ok…always do.

Again I went to bed kinda early. Cut up some fire wood and had a couple of Miller Lites first though and had a pretty good dinner.

Tried to watch the end of a football game but fell asleep.


Oh yeah, the Packers beat the Vikings yesterday! That’s a good thing.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

View From The Coast

Here are some shots I took while on the Pacific coast in Northern Oregon this summer.
And ofcourse I couldn't resist throwing in one of "Our Hero"!

Wind Me Up


I’ve been tired a lot lately. I get home from work at night and I’m just spent. I have been crashing out as early as eight lately. I don’t feel sick or anything just stressed and mentally tired. It’s winter here too and it gets dark before I even get home so I suppose that has something to do with it. I do get up early though as you can see by the post times on this page. It’s just kind of boring around here at night too.

This life is such a far cry from my old one. There’s just not enough happening in this area at night to keep me motivated. Plus I never know what kind of mood my partner is in so I usually camp out in my room and fall asleep. I can’t have my TV on too loud and I definitely cant listen to music very well because she claims to have this superior hearing and yells if it goes up over three!....So I don’t bother trying very often.

I wonder if being tired is a form of depression? Could be I guess…don’t know. Before I came here I was almost never depressed except for right after Kathy died, but other than that rarely did I feel really down. During the last two years I’ve kinda slipped into a coma in regards to a lot of things. I just go to work and see what the day brings then come home and crash…kinda like a wind up toy I guess.


In the morning I’m wound up tight (right now). I feel energetic and creative, even optimistic! I know you can’t always gather that from my writing but for the most part I am. I go along like that all day ‘till about two or three then I start to get a little tired.

I leave work about four-thirty and it’ almost a forty minute drive….that’s when I get tired. It's a crazy drive sometimes especially in the winter. I go across the high desert and through a high pass and they don't always plow right away if it snows so I'm on edge alot. Also you are constantly on the look out for deer. I haven't hit one yet but have had alot of near misses.

Once I get home it’s pretty routine like I explained before then I crash and start the whole thing over.


Pretty boring.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Veteren's Day

Just wanted to give a "shout out for all the vets who have and do protect and serve this great country. God bless them!

Let's Roll!


I wish I had something profound to say this morning, but I don’t. Just getting up to go to work…again. I love my job, but I need more in my life than the job! I guess that’s the problem with having had such a full life at one point then reducing it to almost nothing. Leaves a lot of time for regret and self-pity.

Winter is here…that doesn’t help the feelings of depression one bit! On the drive home last night the wind was blowing across the high desert like I’ve never seen before. As the sun was setting I could see huge clouds of dust blowing across the fields and tumble weeds were flying everywhere. Talk about a feeling of desolation and bareness.

"Snap out of it Cliff! You know things really aren't that bad! You still have a lot to live for, you know that! "

Very true. Time to pick myself up and get going again. This really has been an adventure, but for some reason I get the guilts and blahs. Lonliness sets in when I least expect it and then I strat feeling sorry for myself. I forget why I chose to come here and loose faith that there really is a destiny here. I relly need to be a little tougher on myself when I start feeling that way. After all I've been in a lot worse spots and have come out of everyone of them in better shape. So come on let's roll!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Sitting In The Dark

I got a lot accomplished yesterday considering I didn’t start ‘till two in the afternoon. I finished the shelves in the garage and put everything away. It looks pretty good. Today I’m going to organize my work bench a little and there are some leaky faucets I need to fix.

I feel asleep before ten last night which caused me to wake up about one-thirty. I hate it when that happens ‘cause I usually wake up feeling very depressed and lonely. It was too early to stay up and too early for coffee so I grabbed a bottle of water and sat on the back porch and smoked cigarettes.

I remember my dad (the original Papa) always getting up in the middle of the night when I was a kid. He’d sit in the kitchen with the lights off and smoke. Sometimes if I came down for a glass of water he would sit very quiet and say “Boo!” just before I turned the light on. He scared the shit out of me every time right up till the day I moved out at age eighteen.

I never really thought about it much then, but I do quite often now. In fact when I sit alone in the dark he is one of the people I think about. I wonder too I if he was thinking about some of the same things I think about. Was he sad or depressed? Did he think about the past and the way things might have been had he chosen another path in life? Did he ever just sit there and cry like I do sometimes? I wonder.

When you are a kid you never think about your parents as people who have problems. At least I didn’t. All the troubles in the world and in there’s kept from us when we were small. I think that’s a good thing in many ways. When I was a kid I was allowed to be a kid. I was allowed to run and play and explore the world…(well the neighborhood anyway). We weren’t blasted and bombarded about news of the economy and the war in Korea. Issues of the day were kept to black and white for us. We weren’t forced to make any moral or life-style decisions at an early age as kids are forced to do now. We accepted the decisions and beliefs of are parents. That was law and you not only obeyed it you accepted it. We were taught love of God and country in that order. We were told to respect our teachers and policemen and the flag. We were taught the Ten Commandments and prayed every night as a family.

It’s just my opinion, but I believe this country would be a much better place if some of the practices used to raise children then were used now. There is plenty of time for the child to grow up and sit in the dark and worry or cry. Let the kids be kids. Raise them yourself. Don’t rely on the media and government or peers do the job for you. Keep it simple: black and white. There’s plenty of time to ponder moral implications and the global effects on commerce and bla…bla …bla.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Drifting Along


It’s funny how the days just drift together. Day after day I just drift along with them. Sometimes I feel like I’m serving some kind of punishment, a prison term. It’s been more than four years now that I’ve felt this way. I just can’t seem to break free of the depression for more than a day or two at a time. I’ll get motivated about something then just let it go. I’ll start a project or a book and suddenly I just drop it. It’s hard to explain and even harder to experience.

The worst part of my existence right now is the memories. It’s not the memories themselves that are so bad, I have so many wonderful ones of Kathy; it’s the realization of what I had and chilling fact that I’ll probably never be that happy again.

You know that old adage; “You don’t know what you have until you loose It.”, it’s true, very true.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Don't Fuck With My Bratwhurst!


Is everybody havin' a good time?!!!
I'm trying! Things at work are going better. I have a full staff for the firs time in almost a year. We are starting to get more things done and that's a good thing.

Home life is ok...ever since "the flying brat incident" I've been staying in my room and keeping my mouth shut. Oh I never mentioned the flying brats here did I? Well let's just say "somebody" had another temper tantrum recently and tried to see if bratwhurst can fly...that was pretty much the last straw in a long line of last straws for me. You can call me "stupid and dickless", you can you can call me "a pathetic excuse for a man",(those are actual quotes by the way), you can even tell me I am a terrible singer !!!!, but don't ever fuck with my brats!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Hangin' With David



I just woke up.
I had a dream about David Hasselhoff (no I’m not gay!). It was a long dream and was pretty cool. We were at this very plush hotel…we worked there and I think he was my boss. He had this huge office and I kept going there to see him. I remember going up and down steps with him and we were always carrying guitars (I don’t play the guitar). We were also driving together. Sometimes he was driving KIT (the car from Knight Rider), and sometimes I was driving a red 1998 Ford Taurus (my car in real life). We were also by water a lot (must be a reference to Bay Watch) and one time in the dream I remember being concerned ‘cause I parked with one wheel in the water.

In another part of the dream I went to a hotel room to do something for the guests (which is what I do in real life), and the room was trashed…furniture moved so I couldn’t move very well. There was this fat Muslim guy laying on the couch and this hot Muslim chick just hanging around…then they left. Then suddenly I was standing in a garage of what seemed to be a home in a poor part of town. There was a problem involving a small boy and a woman, but I can’t recall the problem, but I guess I fixed it ‘cause the next thing I knew I was back in David’s office telling him about it.

End of dream. Weird.