Fakes

Humans are gross. That I have realized my short life so far but I realized it to a different extent when my "friend" from Washington visited me in February. She and her younger sister I had not seen for about a year but then only briefly did I know them when we met in Germany. I roomed with S (I'll just say S for the sake of saving her reputation) and noted then that she was a bit messy but even then I thought ' when you're on vacation and on the go, who cares about being really neat and tidy?' (Except for me of course) But when S and her sister came to my 3rd floor 2 bedroom apartment for the first time; let's just say after they left I felt the need to steam-igate my apartment. I washed everything that could be washed and sprayed and wiped and dusted and vacuumed - not in that exact order. I wish I could wash sofas but lint rollers and antibacterial Febreze and sunning sufficed for now.
I wish I took a picture of the scene I came home to one afternoon from work but then I'd be mean right? By some standards at least. S and her sister ran a business; a wedding guide business; and so when they are crunching ideas things are scattered everywhere and frankly I don't know how any ideas can flourish in the mess they made. Piles of stuff lined my dining table, boxes, papers and so on which are easy to neaten up and box up really but in the kitchen, bowls of half eaten food were left out on the counters spoons half sucked and left on the countertops next to them and dirty dishes sodden with food lay in the kitchen sink. I couldn't help it; I exploded and sent a barrage of texts to S asking if only they could just have left the dishes in soapy water at least. I don't mind washing dishes, it's always easy once the gunk has been rinsed off or soaked off in hot soapy water. I find it a pleasure to wash dishes dreamily rinsing them in scalding water. Just kidding about the scalding part. Although I do know someone who does that.

So really you can gather that I should have expected this from them having been privy to the experience in Germany, however the part that made me cringe lately was long after they had departed the east coast and settle back in their hometowns S announced via email the she was getting married to her fiance I met while they visited. Now that was expected and I sent my congratulations and was excited to find out all the planning details as they progressed blah, blah, blah. A few months into the planning I received an email of their first engagement photo and it was ultra gorgeous and believable. You always want believable pictures rather than the tense posing picture your great grandparents used to have where they never smiled. They made you think their marriage was a death sentence which it usually is but that's another article, on my theories anyway. So after viewing the picture I remembered that S had mentioned they would be keeping everyone abreast of the progress via her wedding guide blog so I looked it up to see what was going on. They had an interesting photo session of the wedding dress shopping experience and a nice little write up by S but once I was done reading and casually flipped through the blog for more content I discovered an earlier post in which S had a picture of her work station with a very neatly arrayed assortment of materials, practically polished without a speck of dust or a bowl of half eaten food.
I recoiled at that moment! the thoughts running through my head - was it all a mean cruel joke?! Were they just mean to me when in fact they are neat and clean in their homes? S had become a complete fraud in my eyes. I knew it wasn't true and so every bit of her business became a lie. Would you trust someone who could not organize themselves to give you advice on organizing anything?

I will live on islands

Would you leave a country where you can see this everyday in 75 plus degree weather?

It's been a long winter and nothing much else but a routine of working and working out. I have been contemplating whether I am interested in riding for MS again; which I don't mind because it is truly a wonderful ride down the cape but sometimes I just get the feeling that the team just doesn't go with my personality (uh...don't you have that problem all the time?) shut it!
Teams are a really great way to stay motivated and meet lots of people while keeping in shape physically and mentally but you need to choose a team that is just right for you. Think about it, would a 50 year old man enjoy riding in a team of slender 20 somethings who are bent on breaking every charity record there is? Ok, bad example, but you get the point, it's about what you want out of the team. When I joined TVR I didn't want anything out of the team. I just wanted a way to stay active and helping out a good cause just happened to be part of it. I was fortunate to meet some truly dedicated and interesting people with more heart than a cardiac unit and I guess that may be why I didn't get much out of it. I didn't have their motivations. Now that I've ridden with them I get more of a sense of my kind of team. For starters more diversity and I don't just mean black. Although I like charity work I am not bent on saving the world and curing all diseases. Last I checked only Jesus could do that. (Oops I said the word Jesus. There goes my blog!)
A bunch of people who are balanced and enjoy riding while having fun and occasionally fundraising where the word competition does not factor into the event, is my kind of cool. Age is not necessarily a factor. Every age has something to offer, but let's face it, if you're 16 you have less to talk about than that 50 year old guy.  I may just be thinking unrealistically but it's not just because I can't keep up (I've managed clocking 50 mind you) but riding on a team should be enjoyable not intimidating. You should feel like one of the pack and not like prey being circled upon. Ok, that may be an extreme euphemism.

Lovin Grouplove

Discovering Grouplove from the SXSW recommendations of SPIN magazine I delved into their world of emotionally charged music. Generally a feel good sound, their music is guaranteed to have you bopping all day. Interestingly the band's lead singer Christian Zucconi met his girl and artist Hannah Hooper in New York and went to live on an artist's commune on Crete where they met the rest of their band - Andrew Wessen, Ryan Rabin and Sean Gadd. They must have picked up more than just a band there because what was produced is truly a fun sound, original in it's own way. When you listen you don't say "that sounds like _________", except for the frontman's voice I thought had a seeming semblance to Ben Brewer of The Exit. Even better than listening to them is watching Christian move behind the mic and truly enjoying what he does. No offense Hannah!

and before I knew it...

The moment was gone.

After Lord of the Rings

"What about his legs? he wont be needing those" I woke up this morning with the idea of beginning a modern drama with those lines and set as the two actors playing orks and goblins in that scene complete their most poignant part to play in the whole movie and following their real lives off set to reveal not so exciting but somewhat interesting lives. Why? because it's what I wondered at that part of the movie whereas most of the movie I pondered how annoying Frodo is, how handsome Aragorn and Legolas are and how much I appreciate someone like Gandalf.

Too old for crime

How do old men survive long enough to become old crime bosses? The thought came to me while I was on the train and I saw an older man greet a young thug with all the various hand shake signals fervor that befits a teen gangster and the thought entered my head that they might know each other from being gang related. Its probably a stretch but my imagination is expansive. Gang related activity came to mind because of the style of handshake I thought I might have recognized as well as the high probability seeing as they were hispanic in origin. Maybe a stereotypical thing but in my neighborhood I've seen some things quite resembling gang initiation. You may think like me - It seems highly unlikely that an old person would be suitable to that lifestyle and if at all it is true that an old person is involved in a gang I think the odds are that he either has established years of loyal goons or he himself is/was a loyal goon. But we've all seen the mafia movies where the old boss eventually gets overthrown by the younger one unless of course he had a son he was grooming for the position. Still there's no guarantee of loyalty when it comes to power struggles. Just imagine though that an older man wanted to make the 'career' switch late in life. I'm sure it would be too difficult to juggle the hectic pace of keeping alert for cops while making sure he took all his Simvastatin and when exactly would he be able to take his Aricept pill before bedtime if bedtime doesn't come or ends up being really late. Just think for a moment what it would take. My mum started going to bed at 6pm after a certain age. Apparently it's called sundowning especially in cases of early dementia. It would be an hilarious idea for a screenplay - elderly Tony Montana who swears all the time yes but has all the ailments and eccentricities related to aging while his goons and minions try to figure out what he really wants as he could never remember that he has said the same thing to them everyday for the last 6 months. Its funny but life is funny in a heartbreaking sort of way. My misfortune and heartache can be a bestseller and movie in a few years. Growing old is no exception as families deal with the changes to their beloved parents providing fodder for many a laughing moment in the later years as we recant stories to the younger ones who will never appreciate them...So back to being too old for crime - I think its probably the best time for crime because you don't have much time. What are they going to give you? life?! yeah we could only be so lucky in our older years. Plus if you look old, half cripple and senile then who'd believe you were in charge? Alright so now you know what I'd be doing in my late years. My mum has become a pilferer of sweet and low artificial sweetener packets. If my mum weren't suffering from dementia she would be appalled at me telling this but she'd never done this before to my knowledge and thus can attribute it to her failing brain. Plus she seems to care less now for what people think than ever before. If she desperately needed to "pass water", she would do it on the street expecting that people would naturally avert their eyes as befits decent respectable people because it's just wrong to stare.
There's also a matter of guilty conscience that older folks just don't seem to have anymore. They've tended to make peace with all their youthful wrongdoing by then and have forgiven all those involved and especially their selves. Im usually quite amazed at the spiritual clarity with which my mum explains things while she couldn't tell you what happened in the last 2 minutes.