Like Week-Old Baklava (Wait for it…)

Whenever the subject of America’s status as a world hegemon (or how that status will decline over the next 75 years or so) arises, my “go-to” argument is simple.  That simplicity should key you into the fact that it didn’t come from me!

“When I look at our country I see a lot of people who feel no necessity, who have lost the sense of limitations, of their days being numbered, of feeling compelled to move in a particular direction. Too many Princes, not enough New Princes. In countries like China and India, it is much different, and perhaps in 50 years America will no longer find itself in a preeminent position for that reason. All nations rise and fall in patterns, and to Machiavelli the fall of the Roman Empire came with its distance from its origins, from the necessity to create and expand. It became a nation of fat, privileged princes.”

Robert Greene’s Power Seduction and War Blog http://www.powerseductionandwar.com/archives/machiavelli_for.phtml

How can you defeat that argument? When you think about it, there is no evidence in the last 40 years that would justify America’s self-image as a benevolent but assertive “pioneering” nation. And let’s face it, the people that were around back then have lost their edge as well… to the point where they are withdrawing their money from American banks like scared children. I think that it’s important that American leaders take a good look at their constituency and realize that they are no longer rugged, rebellious individualists like this guy.

He came, he saw, he facilitated the purchase of low-end options at fast food restaurants. Such is the growing legacy of the original "G-Dub."

With the Vice-Presidential Debate on the horizon, I’ll offer another way that we’ve out grown (in the belly!) our favorable image. Tonight, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are going to use the hallowed campus of Washington University (in St. Louis!) to perpetuate another time-honored deception: that the way that Americans make their decisions is still a Town Hall style format where community leaders battle it out verbally among educated members of the community.

Maybe I was in the minority when I realized that John McCain’s slumpy shoulders and broad tie made it impossible for me to process much of what he had said last Friday in the Presidential Debate. (I certainly wasn’t in the minority when I noticed the inherent creepiness of his stiff upper lip). Two decades of multi-tasking, exposure to tabloid news, and good old fashioned prejudice have hardened my receptive channels to the point where any type of theoretical illustration would require a rough cross-section of Andy Reid’s pulmonary artery. The only thing I will allow John McCain to tell me is how absurd it is that a 72-year old man would become the leader of the free world.

Not that I’m saying I’m right about the whole situation, that would be foolish. There are probably a few thousand Americans that would say that it’s absurd for a black man to be president of the United States… and when they saw Barack Obama last Friday, they probably heard loud rap music in their collective heads.

...in response to that, sir, I offer this retort. "David... David... David Banner!"

Back in the 1700’s, things were probably different. That congressman you might vote for? If he pisses off the wrong farmer, your state’s tobacco supply is DONE until his term is through! And nicotine patches aren’t going to be around for another few centuries. You had to pay attention back then, or it was your ass. Because crazy shit was going on… everywhere. Ever heard of the War of 1812?

And that’s really the problem with our self-image as a country. You can’t be a pioneer when there’s no pioneering left to do. You can’t be a “back against the wall” kind of guy when you live in a $250,000 house. You can’t be a nation of military excellence when lack of public support has kept you from clearly winning a war in this century and almost half of the last. (I mean… John McCain is probably the only American that knows the difference between a strategy and a tactic these days!)

And you can’t make informed decisions about how 21st century America is going to handle the next four years when our leaders keep pretending that Americans still embody these types of 18th century values and still subscribe to the antiquated notion of “The American Dream.”

Even so, I’m going to watch the debates tonight. I bet that Sarah Palin falls apart like week-old baklava.

Bear Blog ‘08

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is awesome.

That is all.

A fear mongering park ranger advised me that these beasts would be on every trail. I only wanted to see the cute, cuddly cubs... but after handling the traffic in Pigeon Forge, I wasn't afraid of shit.

I kid… but the first sentence is definitely true. Despite the unfortunate evil of travelling through Pigeon Forge (which boasts Dollywood… an area which can very well be described as nature’s opposite) and Gatlinburg (the world’s premier hillbilly tourist trap) a trip to GSMNP can appease anyone who would consider themselves a lover of nature.

My friend Julia and I hiked Rainbow Falls and Chimney Tops (respectively) on consecutive weekend days. Saturday’s hike was moderately difficult, though its most challenging feature was the false promise of bears.

(Note: From the day that we planned our trip to the Smokies, Julia and I knew that our 6.5 hour drive would be redeemed with the sight of a bear. Moreover, the trip would be legendary if we had to confront a bear along one of GSMNP’s many trails.)

We were about to approach the first bridge when a friendly couple gave us these encouraging instructions: cross the bridge, walk about 200 feet (all hikers are experts in approximating distance in feet), look up to your right, see a cute little cuddly bear hanging on a tree, and be watchful for its mother… she must be around somewhere!

This was our third bear warning of the week (you’ll notice that I’ve already mentioned the second in the above caption). The first bear warning actually took place on the preceding Thursday, in the safe confines of Max & Erma’s Restaurant on Kenny Road in Columbus. Julia’s mother told us that she hoped we wouldn’t run into a bear… and this comment sparked a bear discussion that would make even the least humble Grizzly in America blush under his thick facial fur.

Usually, the most prevalent topic of a bear conversation is “bear encounter advice.” We all know the last resort: aggressively clapping your hands, screaming “bear” at the top of your lungs, and throwing non-food objects toward the bear to scare him off when he’s really intent on stalking you. For the most part, however, the kind of things you would do to avoid this all-or-nothing approach are somewhat contradictory. You’re supposed to separate yourself from any food that the bear may be interested in, but you shouldn’t feed it. If that doesn’t work, you should change your direction of travel, but you should never run away from the bear!

All of this advice was in my mind as I crossed the first bridge on the Rainbow Falls trail. I travelled a couple hundred feet, looked up to my right, and saw a few trees… but no cuddly cubs hung from any of their branches. Disappointed, Julia and I stowed away our bright yellow bear encounter worksheet and lurched across the rest of the Rainbow Falls trail as bear-proof as the many trash cans scattered across Smoky Mountain National Park that share that ultra-dubious distinction.

Happiness is a Sweltering Prison Cell

A large chunk of the lessons I have learned in life so far fall into the realm of “relativity.” An equally large (if not more sizeable) portion of what I have learned about relativity is this: regardless of your age, situation, or stature…  the only guarantee in life is that some of your days are going to be better than others. The upshot of that assertion is that we will never escape the neurotic feelings surrounding a decrease in our perceived standing… and no matter what horrific depths we reach, we will never cheat ourselves of the positive feelings that arise from improving our situation.

The National Geographic Channel’s Locked Up Abroad series is a great example. (As a plus it doesn’t depress you as much as the illogical “Gas is only $3.50 a gallon… I better fill up” sentiment that has swept the nation since the summer of 2008.)

"Maybe the Patriots' 2008 Super Bowl loss wasn't the worst thing that could have possibly happened to me.'"

In case you haven’t seen it, Locked Up Abroad usually tells the story of a slacker 20-something who is so unimpressed with everyday life that he or she decides to smuggle drugs to hit it rich/travel to a foreign country/get laid for once. Invariably the slacker is caught, goes to jail, and reforms their life after seeing how bad things can really be on our seemingly friendly planet. Sometimes it takes some ”other-worldly” support for the slacker to accept a life of dodging stray bullets in his cell block, and this need is fulfilled when he turns to religion. (I like these cases because you get a pretty, simplified picture of how the idea of religion was created in the first place.)

The likelihood of my ever landing in jail is somewhat low… but I’ll tell you this much: any given day in which I am granted release from prison is going to be the new greatest day of my life. 

I know this, because over the course of less than one hour, I have: a.) devalued my car keys so much that I left them on a salsa counter at North Market, b.) valued them so much that I went crazy looking for them, and c.) had the finding of said keys improve my mood to a level it would have never reached had I not lost them. (Note: the effect that not having a car can have on your level of freedom pales in comparison to that of a prison sentence.) The very fact that a single item like a car key (or even a complex idea such as freedom) which serves one purpose but can be perceived 500,000,000 different ways by one individual is proof that the human conscious isn’t exactly rooted in the world of logic.

The range of emotions I have felt after seeing this same object in different situations is pretty fucking wide.

In a world with a high premium on external success (family, money, meaningful relationships, etc.) it’s easy to confuse these results with feelings of internal success (forgetting that internal success is always out of reach.) If you have been looking for the moment where you say “Phew! I’ve made it” and ride into the sunset with your shirt tails flapping merrily in the wind, I’ve got bad news for you.

The road to that destination travels squarely through the Venezuelan penal system.

On Alarm Clocks and Caffeine Abuse (part 2)

Since the subject is still part of the title, I’m going to go ahead and spout it out: before falling asleep at around 2 a.m. last night, I set the most devious alarm spread known to man! I had alarms sounding every minute from 6:00 to 6:05 in a range of ringtones varying from a loud vibration to a 10-second clip of “She Got It” by 2 Pistols (feat. T-Pain)… and let me tell you, all five read alarm:on by the time my head hit the pillow!

It's 6 a.m.!!!!

The effectiveness of this alarm spread led me to a few ethical questions. Mainly, I wondered if man should have this option; freely drifting between states of consciousness at a predetermined time like some sort of arrogant deity. To frequently use this alarm spread, which I have affectionately named ‘The Bag ‘O’ Tricks,’ would be to play God in the worst way.

My response to this concern was reminiscent of Brett Favre’s infamous 2001 laydown to Michael Strahan. Still fully awake from the cacophany that ensued, I went back to sleep until 6:42… minimizing the effect of ‘The Bag ‘O’ Tricks’  and achieving a clean bill of health from the man upstairs all while grabbing 30 bankable sleep minutes for the upcoming work day.

Generally speaking, I wake up late, hurry to work, and slog through my day relying on short spurts of caffeine to keep me going like a $5 bill at the pump. So I find it ironic  that on the second day in as many months in which I actually wake up at a reasonable hour, my first thought is this: “Wow. I’m going to have enough time to have a cup of coffee at home.”

It makes sense, because I basically view coffee on a work day as I would alcohol on a night out. If you have the time to sneak in a drink at home to make the ride/walk to your destination more enjoyable, why not take that opportunity? ‘Pain will tell you… it’s important to set the mood in advance.

On Alarm Clocks and Caffeine Abuse (part 1)

“If we pull this off, you can come up to my room and the word ‘no’ won’t be in my vocabulary.”

That was the last (or at least most absurd) quote I heard while drifting off last night “during” FOX’s ‘Prison Break.’

during (preposition) d(y)ûring

1. Four minutes into

Example: I can’t believe Carlos Quintana fell down and was counted out during his rematch with Paul Williams back in June.

I retreated to my bedroom at around 8:30 p.m., waking up at 12:30 a.m. to text a friend. According to the idea that hours of sleep are bankable, I needed only four more hours of good sleep between 1:45 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. to ensure a well-rested day at the office. My sleep schedule was thoroughly shot, so I decided to set an alarm time spread to minimize my risk of sleeping “naked” past 7 a.m.

The idea of the alarm time spread is to never be sleeping “naked,” or in layman’s terms, never be asleep without a loud series of vibrations or sounds in between the current time and the time when you need to be awake.  This would probably be an easy problem to address if I had some sort of time-sensitive wake and bake scheduled every Tuesday morning… but I don’t. I work at Morgan Stanley. 

It would also be easier if my alarm response was robotic. I don’t get out of bed when I hear the alarm, I get out of bed when I am woken up by a loud sound, look at the time, and think ‘Oh shit, I’m going to be late.’ (As opposed to thinking ’That’s loud, I’m going to hit the snooze button so I can get back to sleep.’) 

 

When this thing goes off, you want to be looking at a number low enough to get yourself to work on time... but be warned: a number that's a little too low can allow complacency to set in.

A few notes on alarm spread theory:

1. Don’t be optimistic: I made this mistake last night. I’m not going to wake up at 6 a.m.! So why set my alarm as if I will? Opening my alarm position with an unrealistic time does nothing but create the need for a fresh alarm spread to bet set… by an angry Chris Tibbs who was violently robbed of his Fourth of July trip to New Orleans.
2. Beware the Siren Snooze. Has the Snooze button ever given me anything aside from inspiration from this post? No. But I pressed it this morning and I will press it tomorrow morning. This paradox calls for the snooze to be taken into account when creating the alarm spread.
3. You’re only as good as your technology. In my case, this means understanding my cell phone’s snooze limitations. I can only press ‘Snooze’ five times in total before the option is unavailable and the ‘Dismiss’ button is the only way to stop the vibration/annoying sound. When I’ve reached the five snooze limit while still groggy, the ‘Dismiss’ button is quite attractive. (Of course, pressing ‘Dismiss’ ensures that you will be sleeping buck naked.)

 

Getting back to this morning…

So we’ve already established that I made the mistake of opening my spread with 6 a.m. True to alarm spread theory, I jumped up at 6, but only to set a fresh spread. I hazily entered 6:55 into the alarm time field and didn’t think twice before heading back to sleep.

(drumroll, por favor…)

I ended up sleeping ass naked until 7:33 a.m., approximately 30 minutes before my work day starts. I was foiled by my decision to use the complicated manual alarm system (as opposed to the BlackJack’s weekly repeating alarm set up) while groggy, which opens one up to the many pitfalls of using this user-unfriendly system, i.e. setting a P.M. alarm, or forgetting to select alarm:on (are you serious?!).  I jumped up, screamed ‘Fuck! I have to leave in two minutes!’, and frantically brushed my teeth… the classic victim of poor strategy.

 

Too bad, because I have been in for a hell of a day. For that reason, I will have to save the caffeine addiction discussion for tomorrow. Stay tuned…

Blog Now, Work Later

This morning, during the brief Cleveland Avenue leg of my daily trek to Easton, I noticed a car that had three bumper stickers. There was a W’04 sticker, which would indicate that the driver was a Republican of the flaming variety, an ambiguous war-related sticker which read (not-verbatim) “Large is the Gulf of an Unnecessary War,” and the clever “Drive Now, Talk Later,” a piece of anti-technology doctrine that may as well have been ripped from The Unabomber’s Manifesto.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to quickly sketch the driver's face as I saw it through his rear-view mirror.

I’ve always looked statistics like “Vehicular Crashes from 2002-2006″ like a random numbers chart. (On an unrelated note, my disapproval at the way that a ‘7′ looks on a roll of dice has influenced me to search for a bumper sticker that says “Roll Lower Than 6 or Higher Than 8!”) Let’s face it, cars are going to crash, people are going to die, and their loved ones are going to campaign against any factor that slightly affects the intrinsic risk in driving a vehicle capable of moving at 100+ miles per hour. If I didn’t know from firsthand experience that making a call on a cell phone during a car crash is infeasible, I would even suggest squeezing in a last call to your spouse/mother/sister/child in the event that a fatal car crash is inevitable. (Not only will you redeem yourself, you can have the opportunity give meaning to the somewhat useless “Voice Dial” feature on most of today’s cell phones.)

If it came down to it, I could probably initiate a NASA rocket launch sequence, send a flirtatious text, and choose the next song on my Microsoft Zune at the saaaame time… all while driving on 270 with a Spaten Optimator nestled in my lap. Out of respect for my God given multi-tasking talents, try to excuse my stance on bumper stickers like this or laws like these.

Interestingly enough, the bumper sticker (especially in Ohio where driving with a handheld cell phone is still legal) is harder to ignore than the litigation. The idea of the bumper sticker somewhat legitimizes a cause. If I saw a car driving in front of me that had “Drive Now, Talk Later” spray-painted on its hood, I would think it was the view of an isolated moron. The fact that there is a market for a similarly worded bumper sticker indicates that said morons are out of isolation and have organized some sort of cult that worships intense, singe-minded focus to their current task.

"Move left foot now... Move right foot later!"

In at least a few states, according to the above link (see:these), the technophobes have won. To me, that means two things: a.) My virtuoso multi-tasking performances may soon be limited to work, and b.) This guy has a big smile on his face.

You Can Call it a Colum-back

Haven’t posted here in a while due to a few minor inconveniences (i.e. moving, disruption in internet services, etc.) and prolific abuse of overtime privileges (i.e. coming in today at 9 a.m. to help out an already overstaffed client support queue). In fact, I’ve put in 52.5 hours this week (as of 1p.m. this afternoon), a small percentage in which I have offered any reasonable service to anything or anyone besides my wallet.

A few things I would like to touch on concerning the new place:

• The view is brilliant. I have my doubts that anyone in the city of Columbus has a better view of downtown C-Bus at night from their bed when their blinds are drawn. It’s like the place was made for people with a low enough self-esteem to make such an observation.
• The service at the Seneca has been excellent. I came to move in at 11a.m. having not signed a single page of our lease agreement and had a key, parking pass, and building badge in my hands within a little over a half hour. Even more impressive, the leasing consultant I worked with later told me this was his part time job and that he was still a student at OSU.
• My roommate and I have reached an unbelievable level of abstraction in making jokes about the view. Highlights: a.) after a 10.5 hour day of work I walked in and immediately offered, “Well, you have to earn the view.” b.) my roommate mentioned that as a punishment for editors note: engaging in nondescript possibly illegal activities in our apartment the Seneca would probably drop a “Who Shot Mr. Burns”-esque metal block over our view, and it would serve as a mirror for us to look back at ourselves, the people solely responsible for ruining our view c.) after suggesting that the old Seneca hotel may have been haunted, in a creepy voice I said, “How do you like the view?”
• It really is awesome to be back in civilization. Even if it’s civilization with late 80’s technology (read: no internet, cable).

It's not a question of whether you are jealous of my view, it's a question of whether your jealousy poses a threat to my likelihood of being alive to see the view tomorrow.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I would like to get to my main topic for this comeback post. It’s been a long week, and I’ve seen a lot of crazy behavior. I refuse to pass up the opportunity to criticize such behavior… if you know me, you know that it’s what I live for.

One of the more captivating benefits of a fifty-two hour work week is the inevitability that it will put you in the position to see at least a few dark aspects of human nature. Despite my undying passion for witnessing such events, I have a particular sensitivity when I am involved in them; in fact normally when I see someone display self-absorbed or inconsiderate behavior I crawl into my shell like a turtle. I am simply not willing to accept the social responsibility of being able to see when someone’s being a douche when they are clearly oblivious to it.

During one of my 10-hour days, I overheard two women in adjacent seats who were having a socially relevant conversation regarding the importance of male role models in an man’s adolescent period. Being a man who is easily interested in hypotheses concerning the root causes of psychological behavior, I slowly keyed in on the conversation. It was moderately interesting, but for the wrong reasons. I started to notice that the conversation went like this (I don’t remember the real names):

<Woman A>: Mark missed out on having that physical rough style of play when he was growing up, and I think it made him more sensitive.

<Woman B>: Sean felt always said that he had two mothers growing up, because my sister helped out so much around the house.

<Woman A>: I wish Mark would have had a positive man in his life to serve as a role model.

<Woman B>: Sean definitely needs someone to show him how to be successful man.

Well… you get it. It was a compelling paradox: there was no overlap whatsoever to their conversation, but each party was ostensibly aware of what the other was saying.

Is this how normal people talk? Is this how I talk? Probably not, considering the fact that I found it difficult to write the above sequence without any transitonal phrases like “well thats interesting because” or “I’ve noticed the exact same thing.” Is my perfunctory use of transitions during a conversation a good thing, or is it just something I throw in to appease the object of my narcissistic rants?

It’s easy to come to the conclusion that this phenomenon, the “multi-person conversation in a vacuum,” is somewhat limited to trivial work discussions, which are often very superficial in nature.  The expectations of superficiality in personal conversations at work must lead people to decide that if they aren’t allowed to delve deeply into their personal gripes and experiences, they won’t consider even a word of what a co-worker has to say.  I remember a time when one of my co-workers was talking about getting back to working out (a subject which is often one of the usual victims of the Conversation Vacuum) in an almost prosaic manner that was impossible to interrupt. It went a little like this:

<Co-Worker>: Yeah I’ve been trying to get back to working out, so a couple friends and I went to the gym…

<Me>: Yeah, I tried to workout some–

<Co-Worker>:… It’s a lot easier to work out when you’re competing with your buddies. You know, we’re just throwing weight on the bench and competing to see who can do the most reps. It’s a lot more fun like that than doing it on your own…

<Me> Yeah, I agree. Even with running it’s easier–

<Co-Worker> …so yeah, we get together and work out a couple times a week. Well, sorry, I’ve gotta get back from break.

As far as my co-worker was concerned, our entire conversation may as well have occured inside one of these.

The apology was unnecessary. His return to work was a tremendous weight that was lifted from my shoulders. Not only was I free from the responsibility of feigning interest in his story, I was instantly free of the guilt I felt in reinforcing his antisocial behavior.

Here’s my solution to this phenomenon: On your spare time at work, post in your blog. No one can interrupt your memoirs that way, if they comment you can easily ignore them. (Let’s be honest, that’s you what you already do, and this method saves you from criticism by sane co-workers.) If they want to hear about how you are finally deciding to shed the pounds or how you are incensed about one of your friend’s sons playing rough with your kid, they can always read your latest entry… not that you should hold your breath.

Either work or blog, that’s what I say to the Vacuum Crowd. The Firm doesn’t pay you to make a fool of yourself.

Tears and Welts, They Say

I don’t know what to say after last night’s fight. HBO’s brilliant post-fight montage displayed the kind of emotional and physical pain that Miguel Cotto endured (so to speak) during the 11th round of his eventual loss in a way that words fail to live up to.

To put it quite simply, if you are not a boxing fan, you should be. Last night’s action was more of a sociological experiment than a sporting event… more of an Aesopic fable than a brawl. I can even hear the moral of the story in my head:

Consistency and heart will always beat talent and overconfidence.

I’ve once heard it stated that the essence of martial art was to consistently be the first, in battle, to return to one’s original combative stance. I think Miguel Cotto would agree with me. If he chooses to look at tape of his first loss, he will notice that Antonio Margarito looked EXACTLY the same and was doing the EXACT same things in the 11th round that he was doing in the first. The only difference in the action was Cotto’s effort, which slowly drained through the fight’s numerical progression.

Antonio Margarito would like to take this time to remind us that "Cotto" rhymes with "Joto" (a derogatory Spanish term for a homosexual man)

In case you missed them, the first six rounds were fantastic for the Puerto Rican fighter. He looked like a bizarro Floyd Mayweather, throwing counter-punches with pinpoint accuracy and limiting the offensive effectiveness of his opponent by slipping, catching, and absorbing contact in a way that we haven’t seen since last December (when Mayweather stopped Ricky Hatton in 10 frames). Those opening rounds led me to believe that Cotto would outpoint or even stop Pretty Boy Floyd if the two were to ever face each other.

Margarito, for his part, looked EXACTLY the same fighter coming out for the seventh round’s opening bell as he did for the first’s. He still employed that awkward, herky-jerky stalking movement in the center of the ring before pinning his opponent into a corner where he would throw power punches with blind aggression. It was becoming clear that Cotto’s skillfull counters were having no effect on the Tijuana Tornado.

Margarito’s robotic consistency had to effect Cotto, perhaps more emotionally than physically. Margarito was unable to land cleanly, but his punch volume wouldn’t taper as Cotto’s would. Before we knew it, early in the 11th, Cotto had taken a knee… much in the same way that Zab Judah took a knee at the mercy of an incredible Cotto onslaught in their June 2007 welterweight title fight. Shortly afterwards, Cotto threw a desperate 3-punch combination which landed cleanly but (surprise, surprise!) had no effect on Margarito.

The two clinched, and as referee Kenny Bayless shoved them apart, Miguel Cotto began to backpedal from one neutral corner to the other, where he would take another knee.

I hope that this bloody reverse death-march will not be the last act of Miguel Cotto as welterweight champion, but in boxing, it is always a possibility. Often in boxing history, a fight like this takes that special something right out of a fighter… and it never returns.

Only Miguel Cotto knows whether or not this fight will be his Waterloo. He may not know, just yet, but even if he does… he can’t tell us. According to the Associated Press, Miguel was unable to provide a post-fight interview because he couldn’t speak clearly through “tears and welts.”

Captain “Credit” Crunch

I hope this isn’t the beginning of something awful.

Usually my view of the economy is somewhat selfish. I’m a not a major investor, but I would like to see at least some short-term signs of hope for the companies I invest in… especially the company I both work and invest in. At most, I’m annoyed with the fear that has surrounded the economy since the Bear Stearns collapse. Even if the concerns are rational, you must forgive me. You don’t know how many times a week I am asked about Morgan Stanley’s FDIC and SIPC insurance limits.

But this? Something out of the movies. I guess I shouldn’t use that cliche like it’s an indicator of something special. Just last week we saw seniors standing in line outside of IndyMac Federal Bank trying to withdraw their money from their failed institution in a late 2000’s recreation of the famous scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I guess truth is stranger and more sobering than fiction. The idea of a human being deciding to end her life over a house boggles my mind. Hearing that SunTrust Bank (perhaps power-drunk from the decision to foreclose on Scott Storch’s multi-million dollar home) sold $1B in Coca-Cola is less relevant, but equally bizarre.

Are things really that bad?

I sure hope not. I just spent $20 washing my car.

Do Some More Drugs

I’m upset that it has taken me 22.999 years of life to realize that there is no mystical aspect to the dream world… whatsoever. A good excuse: there was a good 2-4 years toward the latter part of 22.999 when I wouldn’t have dreams due to varying amounts of drug/alcohol use, so before I finally cleaned my act up, I essentially was going off of memories of what dreaming had been like back in the late 90’s. But I digress.

Ever since I made the commitment to let some of my “out-of-work” experiences (i.e. good sleep, staying sober on weeknights, etc.) affect my “in-work” experiences my dreams have returned. And you know what? It’s bullshit.

I don’t have psychedelic dreams like I used to… or dreams about long lost friends that I haven’t thought about in ages. Instead, I dream about work.

I dream about putting margin on a client’s account, choosing the right documents to journal a deceased owner’s portion of a joint account to his/her estate, and I dream about changing the systematic investment options on shitty, low-performance Morgan Stanley mutual funds.

Do you really think that the act of locating deferred sales charges for mutual funds that underperform the S&P reflects my inner fabric?

For those of you keeping score at home… you’re right:

My job is so menial and unfulfilling that I chose to drink and smoke whenever I wasn’t at the office. When those factors started to interfere with the quality of sleep that I was getting on weekdays, I made the effort to cut out some of my bad habits. My reward? Another eight hours of work that starts when my head hits the pillow every night.

Hey Columbus, where’s the weed at?