The musings of a madman...

       Sometimes all it takes to ruin a situation is the situation itself…      We have been in this house for almost 17 months now.  I am a decent neighbor; I KEEP the grass cut, my dogs don’t run loose in the neighborhood, I pull my trash cans up from the street as soon as they have been collected and I don’t shoot in the air on holidays. … but I don’t particularly like people, so the BEST neighborly thing I do is minding my own fucking business and leaving people alone.      My wife, on the other hand, is a peopler and has a gregariousness that would cause me to cower into my mancave and lock the door. Compromise: when she decides to entertain, I will make sure the house is clean while I agree to be at least cordial and attempt to refrain from cursing around children.  No promises on that last one.      In that we are now in a neighborhood of people around our age who have children aroun...

September 3, 1998… I was 19, it was a Monday.      I had to work that morning and needed to be there to open the store, so I was in the mall at 9:30am.  When one of my guys got in with me, I snuck away to whatever FYE was 20 years ago to make a quick video game purchase. If I had known that the game I was about to buy would change the direction of the next year(S) of my life, I would have--…  fuck that, I’d have bought THREE!      I worked 9:30-6 that day and IMMEDIATELY rushed home to my Playstation (the boring-looking-ass Playstation 1!), locked away in my bedroom and proceeded to not be heard from other than to work, eat, bathe or shit for weeks.  If at any point I can remember a favorite game becoming my favorite that quickly, this was the time. The story was fun going through.  It was engrossing to have a story with layers and twists and shit, mixed in with the “sneaking around and cutting dumbass guards’ ...

     Being mad and angry will sap the energy out of a person.  I don’t have a lot of that to spare, and none laying around just to be giving out and shit, so I tend to no let things get to me a lot of the time.  The beauty of staying cool under the heat is how that in itself is enough of a response to send whomever is acting out deeper into their rage.  Try it when you get bored.      Another thing I do is apply silly humor to an otherwise serious conversation if I feel it might head in a direction that might soon turn too ugly.  Mainly, this is done to make someone who did not want to be amused laugh at you anyway to diffuse a situation. Scene 1: Mimi: “Phillip…” Me: “Yes, dear?” Mimi: “I appreciate you cooking, but how, I mean how is there food on the CEILING?” Me: “My creativity is not the type to be easily contained.” Mimi: “Well can it be cleaned up after?  How come when I cook, I wash dishes but w...