Two-year anniversary (highly unedited)

I’m not sure if I’m going to commemorate every anniversary, but it was important to reflect upon this one.

Two years ago today I had heart surgery. It was minor surgery, as far as I’m concerned, but some people think any heart-related surgery is significant.

For the past month I’ve done a lot of thinking about this anniversary. I’ve thought about how my life has changed in the two years since my surgery. The sad truth is that my life hasn’t changed enough. It has improved, but is it a life worth living? Not really.

Since the fall of 2003 my life has been on an emotional roller coaster. But like all roller coasters, when the ride ends you’re at the same place you began. That’s a great summary of my life in recent years, and that’s not something to be proud of.

I have a bad habit of remembering dates associated with my heart. On Dec. 6, 2004, I was told I should have a pacemaker. I remember the mixed feelings I had about the news. I still have those mixed feelings to this day.

It wasn’t until Oct. 7, 2005, that I decided I’d have the surgery, allegedly as a commitment to a better life. I remember that evening well. Three months later I had the surgery.

While I occasionally have been inspired to try new things in life, I haven’t make it a mission to do so. I have been busy with plenty of trips, bicycle adventures and the usual annual activities and get togethers, but the sum of all those parts doesn’t keep me warm at night.

So here I am, two years removed from surgery, and my life is relatively meaningless. I’m such an ass for thinking that. I have family that counts on me, friends that appreciate me, yet my life doesn’t seem to be very meaningful. I’ve thought that for years, yet somehow I have failed to find meaning to it.

I have needed a new job for a few years, and although I don’t know when it’s going to happen, it’s priority one, because every week that goes by at the newspaper is another week that bankrupts my soul. I’m not sure where I go next, but I can’t afford to stick around much longer, on multiple levels.

I’ve had a few conversations with friends about various aspects of life, and one of the things that came up was a discussion of what the importance of a job is. Is a job supposed to make us happy, or is it supposed to be a means toward achieving things that make us happy? You could argue it’s some of both. At this point my job accomplishes neither, and I have to find one the provides one or the other, if not both.

But even if I find a job that provides both, will I be happy? I doubt it. Happier? Yes. Happy? No.

I knew years ago what would make me happy. I found out the hard way.

Nearly nine years ago I met Rebecca. I was minding my own business and relatively content with life when I met her. She took a liking to me, and before long, we started a relationship. It ended up being a relationship that lasted all of five weeks.

For five weeks we spent a lot of time together and pondered the future. She said all sorts of wonderful things to me. She told me how happy I made her, how wonderful I was...all sorts of great stuff. I couldn’t believe how happy she made me, and it came when I least expected it.

I’m still not sure what exactly happened, but after five weeks we spent a less than spectacular Friday night together. It didn’t seem to be that big of a deal, but she quickly started to withdraw from me. Within a week she pulled the plug on our relationship, and I was stunned. When I reflect back upon the sequence of events that occurred in that final 24 hours, I am still stunned at how crappy she treated me. She led me to believe she was a wonderful human being, yet she treated me as disposable with barely a hint of guilt.

The emotional scar that left upon me was stunning. I had no idea what I was in for once she disposed of me. Within a few months I learned enough to know that she was a lousy human being, yet that didn’t ease the pain. I remember several distinct moments in the months that followed my five weeks with Rebecca, and they weren’t pretty. I leaned on friends, I leaned on family, but it took a long time for the pain to subside, an embarrassing amount of time. I didn’t fixate upon it for hours a day, but I felt that pain each and every day for a ridiculous amount of time.

I remember moments of happiness with Rebecca, but the moments of pain after the fact are much more vivid. Perhaps that’s how I’m flawed as a human being. The pain tends to trump the happiness in my long-term consciousness. I wish it wasn’t that way.

I learned a couple of important things. One of the lessons I learned is rather cynical, but that’s to be expected from me. Basically I try not to forget that there are people like Rebecca, people who are capable of shitting upon you with little or no remorse. It doesn’t mean I expect and look for the worst in people. I don’t. While I can have little or no respect for people, I could never treat somebody the way Rebecca treated me.

I learned one other thing from that experience, and the soul searching afterward. I have expounded upon that lesson in the years since, but arguably it’s apples to apples. Thanks to Rebecca I learned that I wanted to get married. It may sound corny, but that’s what I learned.

By the time I met Rebecca a couple of my friends were marking three or four years of marriage, and a few others had joined the rank. I never thought much about if or when it would someday be my turn. Ironically I always thought I’d be the type of guy who would end up being too independent and non-conformist to wind up married. But thanks to Rebecca I learned a very important lesson about myself. Too bad I had to suffer such a deep emotional scar to learn that lesson.

In the years since Rebecca I didn’t set out upon a mission to get married. I’ve heard it said that you find someone when you least expect it, when you’re not looking. I thought I found that person in Anne-Marie. I was wrong.

I’m too tired to recap that relationship, but I thought we would one day be married. I still don’t understand how all the positives of our relationship were trumped by what seemed to be minor negatives, and I never will. While I didn’t have quite the deep scar at the end of the relationship, my life took a darker turn after the fact. The years since Anne-Marie comprise the roller coaster I spoke of.

So what have I learned in reviewing my life during the past month? I was right nearly nine years ago, I want to get married. But more than that, my life doesn’t mean much to me because it’s not a great job or riches beyond my wildest dreams, or the promise of them, that will ultimately make me happy. The one thing I want more than anything is somebody else to live for.

It seems a bit ridiculous and flawed, but it’s true. When I’m living just for me, I don’t push myself as hard as when I’m living for somebody else. I will never be as successful in life if I’m doing something just for my benefit. That seems backwards and wrong, but my life would be most meaningful if I lived it for somebody else, not for me. Part of me thinks that’s pathetic, but it’s also true.

If the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith came to my door and told me that I had two choices, I could either die tomorrow or I could live until I’m 58 years old, but would never find that person to share my life with, that person to live my life for, I’d ask her how to pack for the afterlife. But we don’t get choices like that in life, so I have to keep on keepin’ on, whether it seems worth it or not.

While I’ve wanted to get married, I’ve never felt compelled to have children. I’ve never thought I needed a family to be complete, unlike my buddy Roast Beef, who in an e-mail a year ago told me his biological clock was ticking. I didn’t think guys had those.

Right or wrong, I’ve never been inspired to dedicate my life to some broad, noble cause. I’m not opposed to the idea, but that’s not me. For whatever reason I’ve wanted one person to share my life with, somebody whose life I would put ahead of my own. In simple terms, I’m the kind of guy who wants to give my girlfriend more back rubs than I receive.

So armed with this realization as I commemorate two years with a pacemaker, what do I do? Some people actively pursue relationships. Some people evaluate those relationships in terms of whether or not they’re going to lead to marriage, and possibly a family. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not me.

Rush once told me that if he was single he’d try his hand at internet dating. It would seem that in this day and age it should be easier than ever to find someone. In theory it is, but somehow that seems a bit disingenuous to me. I met Anne-Marie through the internet, but not because we were looking for a relationship, we met through our mutual search for concert tickets.

But if I hold out for old-fashioned romance, I’m liable to die alone at 58, based upon my track record.

I learned recently that although my life is less than spectacular, it’s not a complete disaster, and perhaps I shouldn’t worry so much about having a life worth bragging about before I open myself up to the possibility of finding someone to live my life for. For me, that’s easier said than done, given my emotional roller coaster.

Since having pacemaker surgery I’ve become far more emotional, and sometimes that irritates me. I can easily be disappointed by life and let it get me down.

But as I sit here two years after pacemaker surgery, I’m compelled to keep trying to achieve the dream I had on Oct. 7, 2005. I’m not sure how I want to go about achieving it, but perhaps I need to turn to a few unorthodox measures, unorthodox by my standards, anyway.

If I don’t focus on my dream, then I might as well get hit by a truck tomorrow. I don’t care how many “Miss Congeniality” awards you give a beauty pageant contestant, if she never wins a crown, she’ll never be happy. I cherish my friendships and the people who choose to include me in their life, but thousands of friendships won’t trump the purpose of my life, a purpose that has yet to be achieved.

Unlike Roast Beef, I don’t have a biological clock that’s ticking, but I’m in a very real game of beat the clock. Wish me luck.

End of an era: follow up (unedited)

I received an unexpected anonymous comment on Saturday in response to my most recent blog, about the loss of my favorite blog and the possibility that at some point my blog may end as well:

“Keep writing. People are reading.”

I have no idea how many people, if any, read my blog. I don’t use any sort of device to track how many people visit my blog. And it’s not important for me to know.

I appreciate any feedback I get on my blogs, should somebody find them, but I don’t promote them. I don’t post a lot of comments under the Fonzie monicker, so the opportunities for people to find me are limited, and that’s fine. Some people write a blog for the purpose of reaching an audience, but that wasn’t my goal when I started the blog. It’s still not.

My blog isn’t meant to be a personal memoir, but at times I write about my thoughts and feelings. I try to write things that I wouldn’t be ashamed to have my mother read.

I resist the urge to rant about how lousy my employer is. I have done it a bit, anonymously, and I doubt I’ll start naming names when I finally walk out of there for the last time, but I know I’ll blog a bit about how ridiculous my company is.

I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll share my blog with my friends. I’ve only shared knowledge of it with one friend thus far, although there’s no reason why I shouldn’t share it with others.

As I noted, I have mixed feelings about my blogs, and the purpose of them varies from time to time. Sometimes I blog about bicycling mileage simply as a reminder, and inspiration, to myself as I push myself toward various goals. I do appreciate having chronicled about a few of my bicycle adventures, as I know I’ll want to remember the details vividly in the years to come, as silly as that sounds.

The bottom line is that I enjoy putting a variety of thoughts into words and being able to look back at them now and then. If things in my life change and I have to abandon the jukebox, so be it. I do it for myself, and nobody else.

But anyone is welcome to peruse and comment on my misadventures, it is appreciated, and surprising when it happens.

End of an era

All good things come to an end, and I shouldn’t have been surprised by the announcement.

The inspiration for my blog – the reason I decided to take a crack at putting thoughts into words – is history.

There are no more thoughts from the D Nation, the fictional place my good friend D Cup posted his thoughts. He wrote far more thoughtful blogs about far more meaningful topics than I tend to write about. But he also wrote about his misadventures, and they were equally as entertaining.

For reasons I don’t know, he closed up shop last month. Part of the problem is that he wasn’t able to blog about politics or anything related to his work as a reporter for the Associated Press, and that took some wind out of his sails.

But he was able to continue blogging about his travels and his chance encounters with a colorful cast of characters. Those tales will no longer be told.

That’s disappointing, but life is full of disappointment. People disappoint us on a regular basis. Sometimes they intend to disappoint us, sometimes they have no control over it, sometimes they don’t realize they’re doing it. But life is all about overcoming disappointment, great and small, and moving on.

Sometimes it isn’t easy to overcome, but basking in your disappointment only makes things worse. If only there was a pill....but that can be said about so many things in life.

I never set out to blog for the masses, to entertain a group of random strangers who would fawn all over me, or for my friends and family, and thus far I don't. I never set a goal or mission when I created what continues to be an anonymous blog. I still don’t know what direction my writing will take, or if it will end. Part of me wants to break from my past, so sometimes it seems that blogging is counter-intuitive to how I want to live my life.

Perhaps I’ll have a better picture of where this blog, and my life, is going on Sunday. That’s an important blogging day.

But I don’t think my blog is going away, although there’s a distinct possibility it could.

Final thoughts from Florida (unedited)

So thanks to me, in a small way, The Queen and her husband can celebrate their anniversary on Dec. 29, instead of Dec. 30. Had somebody not fetched the marriage license, it wouldn’t have been filed until the 30th, and legally their anniversary would fall on that day.

Following the ceremony we had dinner at a seaside restaurant outside of the main drag of Marco Island. Dinner was uneventful. I was seated amongst the outcasts. I sat with two of the groom’s friends, the two who attended but didn’t make the groomsman cut. One of the two dudes brought his fiancé with. She wasn’t a fiancé when they arrived on Marco Island, but the night before the wedding he proposed. You’d argue that he stole the wedding couple’s thunder, but that honor belonged to Mandy the starfucker.

Speaking of Mandy, she sat at my table, too. She seemed rather interested in Bart, who had recently ended a six-year relationship.

Sometime prior to Saturday’s nuptials Mandy was informed to clean up her act. I’m not sure by whom, but I think an intervention would have been more appropriate.

And for the most part she was rather low key and well behaved. She mingled with the celebrity a bit, but toned it down quite a bit, much to her disappointment, I’m sure. At the end of the night they walked from one bar to another nearby, for what purpose I can’t imagine, but Mandy put on much less of a show than she did on Friday night. I might have been the only one who was disappointed.

This seaside restaurant and bar was pretty quiet after dinner, so although we spent a few hours drinking and socializing, nobody bothered the celebrity, except for a couple members of the wait staff at the end of the evening. The first time it didn’t seem obnoxious, but the second time it was downright ridiculous. Yet the celebrity was quite polite to the gap-toothed hillbilly who fawned all over him. God bless him.

Although I spent two nights hanging out with a bona fide celebrity, I never met him. I was never formally introduced to the groom’s buddies, and since I never had a conversation with him, I never met him. While he was more than happy to pose for pictures with everyone in the wedding party, I don’t have one. And while he won’t know any better, my actions were by design, out of respect for him.

Yeah, it’s neat to get a picture with a celebrity, but he was there to hang with his high school buddies for a wedding, not promote himself or pacify fans. Unless I wound up being introduced to him or talking to him, I determined I’d treat him like everyone else there, and if that meant I never got to shake his hand or get a picture, I was fine with that.

The rest of the weekend was enjoyable, albeit a bit anticlimactic. Several people were gone by Sunday, including the celebrity, and after three nights of mass consumption, New Year’s Eve was a bit tame for those of us who were left, particularly since we were all boarding planes the next morning.

But it was worth all the trouble to be there. A holiday respite in Florida is something I should make a point to do every winter.

It's official (unedited)

The Queen is now a wife.

There was little doubt. Little did I know I'd have an important role in it happening, but I did.

Saturday was quiet and low key for me. I dipped my feet in the pool in the afternoon prior to the wedding, but otherwise it was an uneventful day leading up to the wedding, held on the public beach in Marco Island. It wasn't crowded on the beach at 4:15 p.m., but there were numerous people who were curious as to what was going on, as one would expect.

Other than the bride's simple white dress, you wouldn't immediately realize there was a wedding about to take place. I suppose the fact four women wore the same basic black dress, while four men wore matching black shirts and tan shorts, gave something away. The most obvious sign was the metal arch we constructed and tied flowers around. That stood near the water, with the bride and groom underneath it during the ceremony.

While it wasn't particularly wavy that day, the small waves lapping at the shore were enough to make it difficult to hear the minister as she faced the wedding party. With about 15 of us standing behind her watching, we heard very little. Oh well, it was your basic ceremony, I didn't miss anything fascinating.

My job began immediately after the ceremony. The Queen forgot to bring her marriage license. Although the minister is supposed to have it before the ceremony, it was decided it could wait. That's where I came in. I was nominated to run back to the house where The Queen and her husband were staying. I'm not sure if there was a reason why the signing of the license couldn't wait until Sunday, but I was asked to fetch it, with a sense of urgency about the whole thing.

There I was, running across the beach toward my car, directions in hand. I was on a mission. Despite a little trouble finding the bag containing the manila folder which contained the envelope with the licenses in it, I succeeded, much to the relief of The Queen, who was standing by on my brother's phone, hoping I would find it. (She wasn't sure where it was, but was convinced it was in the bedroom of the house. She was right, but my delay in finding it caused a moment of panic.)

If not me, then someone else, but as far as I'm concerned, if it wasn't for me, The Queen and her boyfriend wouldn't be husband and wife.

While I enjoyed having an important job on the wedding day, I missed a couple entertaining moments.

The area of the beach where we chose to hold the ceremony, was down the beach a little ways from the public access point to the beach. That was to get away from the highest concentration of people on the beach. As it turned out, we chose an area near a decent size hole somebody had dug into the beach, which seemed to be entirely covered with tiny shells. The only indication of sand along the Marco Island beach was right at the edge of the water.

After I departed, the minister -- an older woman -- managed to step into this rather sizable hole, and down she went. She wasn't hurt, it turns out, and most people thought it was funny, although they had to hold in their laughter when she fell, I learned.

While I missed one of those "America's Funniest Videos" moments, I also missed the starstruck goofball offering the celebrity a beer. When we arrived at the public parking lot for the beach, several people were standing around waiting for the rest of the wedding entourage to arrive. The celebrity was amongst them.

A shirtless dude in his 50s, holding a bag of chips, immediately recognized the celebrity, which surprised me a bit. He didn't think twice about jumping into our circle to say hello and shake his hand. I thought it was a bit bizarre that this guy was so enamored by an actor young enough to be his son, but even old guys can be starstruck, I guess.

But it didn't stop there. The dude found his way to where we were on the beach and made sure to greet the celebrity again. At this point I knew the guy was creepy. He seemed to watch our wedding entourage for quite a while from a short distance, seemingly pointing out to a few people he was talking to that the celebrity was part of our group. I found that rather tacky. At a bar, I understand it, but when the celebrity is at the beach for a wedding, leave him be.

While a few people were fascinated by the idea that a wedding was taking place on the beach, and a few others were aware that a celebrity was amongst the wedding party, most people paid no more than a glance if they were passing by, which I thought was nice.

The celebrity stalker, however, wasn't finished. I missed it since I was on my mission, but the stalker had returned to the parking lot prior to the wedding party, waiting for the celebrity to make his way back. Now with a shirt on, the stalker jumped out of his vehicle, with a beer for the celebrity, and proceeded to talk to him again, pointing out he is buying real estate in the area and is a semi-retired life coach who thinks he could help the celebrity. I was a bit dumbfounded when I heard the story, but I bet crazy shit like that happens to the celebrity all the time.

I'm guessing the one thing the life coach doesn't teach is tactfulness.

Surreal (unedited)

I've seen touristy Florida before, but somehow the surrealness of it still boggles my mind.

On Friday afternoon I made a cameo at the local Pubix grocery store. I was looking for a little booze and figured a state that sells single cans of beer in its convenience stores would sell liquor in its grocery stores. I was wrong. You could get beer at Pubix, you can get plenty of wine at Pubix, but vodka and gin, those are taboo. Instead I had to go across the highway to a Walgreen's, which has a separate little liquor store. Why there wasn't a normal liquor store in the area I don't know.

The area where we're staying is on the outskirts of Naples, and it's bizarre. There are tons of resort developments all clustered together, along with housing developments. The housing developments around here aren't that spectacular. They look like nice houses, decent in size, but these aren't gigantic mansions. I'm sure they're high buck nonetheless, and it's odd to see that some of these developments have gated entrances. It must be a vanity thing. Burglars in Miami are never going to find their way across the state to some remote area outside of Naples, and if they do, I'm sure every home in the development has a security system. The gated entrances seem to be a bit of overkill, but it must make people feel better about their status in life.

What I can't figure out is what the hell you do around here if you live in one of these developments. I guess you go golfing somewhere on a daily basis, or perhaps you have a boat docked somewhere and you drive to your marina. But I'm use to real cities, like Minneapolis, where parks, corner convenience stores, neighborhood hardware stores, bars and restaurants all intermingle. You don't see any of that. I'm sure people know their neighbors and have places to go and things do to. Perhaps they all drive into Naples to go bowling, see a movie, check out a library book or rent a DVD. But you don't do that around these developments, for whatever reason. I don't care how much money you have to have to live here, I don't care how sterile and white it is around here, I don't care if the beautiful gated neighborhood is simply a winter residence for people with too much money, it seems so artificial and bland.

From there the surrealness got worse. After talking to my buddy Roast Beef for an hour, and learning he's getting married in February in Maui, marking another chapter in his bizarre life, I headed to Marco Island for cocktails with the wedding entourage. Wow, that was more entertaining than I would have imagined.

My cousin, The Queen, is getting married to her longtime boyfriend. Her boyfriend grew up with a dude who is a bonafide celebrity. I have seen him in at least seven movies, including two as a co-star, so yeah, he's a celebrity. The bar we were at was on the water, so it draws its share of people each evening. When the wedding party arrived there after the dinner, word of the celebrity's appearance spread quickly.

Our group gathered upstairs from the bar, on a patio overlooking the water. There were about 25 of us from the wedding party up there, taking up a bunch of room. But a few people wandered up there for a while, some obviously trying to get a look at the celebrity, who is quite down to earth. At one point he sat down to chat with the boyfriend's mother, who watched her son's friend grow up, move away and become a celebrity. I was quite impressed.

When those who worked their way upstairs decided it was a good time to interrupt the wedding party for a picture, the celebrity politely obliged. People would thank him, and he would thank them in return. It was fascinating to watch. The boyfriend said that it's a lot worse a lot of places he goes, this was a low-key night.

The funniest thing to watch, however, was Mandy. She is The Queen's friend and co-worker who has a boyfriend, evidently. How would I describe her? I'm not sure. Vapid is not the right word, but that was the first word that came to mind. She's very plastic looking -- probably 100 pounds, soaking wet with a toolbelt on -- and probably highly fascinated by celebrity. She certainly was fascinated with the male celebrity that came to his buddy's wedding without a woman on his arm.

I never was introduced to the celebrity, even though I was within 5 feet of him many times during the evening. Mandy made his acquaintence quickly, however, and wouldn't let him get too far away.

Mandy pounded a few drinks, fawned all over the celebrity, clutching him whenever she had a chance, and made it obvious she wanted to be a starfucker. Many of us in the wedding party were talking about her through the night, as she turned out to be quite a source of entertainment. Ultimately he shot her down, and she seemed a bit pouty. Given she was drunk by the end of the night I'm sure she has no clue how embarrassing she was, and she probably doesn't care. But watching Mandy in action was worth the price of admission and the perfect cap to one of the more surreal days I've had in many, many years.

Soul searching (unedited)

I still feel guilty that I have so little appreciation for this past Christmas. I should be thankful for all the blessings I have, and I am, but somehow that doesn't keep me warm at night.

So yesterday I began my adventure to Florida. I flew standby thanks to Monica, and although my travel to south Florida didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, I made it to West Palm Beach around midnight. Three hours later I was arriving in Naples.

Spending several hours waiting for an open seat at the Newark airport gave me a lot of time for soul searching. If I was to tell Rush this, he'd probably comment about how the exercise took me 20 seconds or that I probably failed to find anything during my search. But having a lot of time to yourself, not knowing when or if you're flying to south Flordia, turned out to be too distracting to work on my "Snakes on a Sudoku" puzzles or read a book. I worked on the puzzles for a while, but ultimately I would end up pondering my life, and what it all means. I'm not sure I answered many questions, but I pondered quite a bit.

As if I hadn't had enough time for that at the airport, I drove for about two hours to get to the resort. I enjoy being out on the road, I wish I could spend more time and money on the highways of life. It's often a great experience. I miss making road trips to Michigan to visit Roast Beef. If I manage to live past 58 and can actually afford to retire I doubt I'll be buying an RV and driving around the country, I'll be too old and cranky for long days on the road, I'm sure. I have to find ways to do these things now, while I still have a good heart and energy.

Driving down the east coast of Florida wasn't that exciting. Highways at night in Florida aren't much different than anywhere else in the country. When I reached Alligator Alley, however, and started heading west to Naples, I got a charge out of that. As soon as I hit Allegator Alley it was noticably different from my journey down the Florida Turnpike.

There were plenty of lights, billboards and businesses along the turnpike, but Alligator Alley offers almost none of that. At 2 a.m. there aren't a ton of cars crossing the southern portion of the state, there are few exits and few signs of life in the form of billboards or gas stations across Alligator Alley. There's a sense of alienation while driving across Alligator Alley at night.

I haven't driven through the desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, day or night, but from the descriptions I've heard, driving across Alligator Alley overnight is a lot like driving through the desert at night. Given the millions of people who flock to Florida for retirement, and the millions more who flock here for warm weather in the winter, it seemed odd to be driving for 80 miles through the state and see so few signs of life, relatively speaking. But the open road, the general darkness all around me, the techno music on Y100 from Miami and a little fog here and there made for an enjoyable trek to Naples.

Despite all the uncertainty and doubt I dwelled upon in Newark, driving across Florida was a nice contrast, full of optimism and hope. I already know I can't repeat 2007, but at the end of the year I can say I'm better off than I was at the start of the year. And that's something I have to build on, it's the only way I'll survive.