Four years without Jacob

I can't believe it's been four years (yesterday) since Jacob's death in Iraq. In some ways it feels like just yesterday, and in other ways it feels like a lifetime ago. But no matter how long it seems, we will never stop missing him.

My sister found this picture of Jake and me the other day - I don't think I'd ever seen it.

:(

I'm due for a new phobia

Gentle Readers,

I was going through some old posts because I had to remove one in a random fit of paranoia. I didn't delete it, but just saved it as a draft so that one day I can repost it. (As if anyone would go back and find it.)

Anyhoo, in reviewing some other old drafts I had sitting there I found this one and figured it was time to post it. Sometimes I start to write something but get tired and plan to finish it later -- but never do. That's what alcoholism and drug addiction have done for me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

In any event, as mentioned in the post itself, this little story was inspired by the now-defunct blogger "Pink Fluffy Slippers." I hope she didn't actually get cancer. But her link is defunct so don't even try it.

Love and Coasters,

CP

***********************

Our friend Pink Fluffy Slippers recently posted her Five Random Things, wherein she confessed that she's afraid that she'll get cancer and have no one to drive her to chemo. (I guess the whole hair-falling out and dying thing is merely a secondary fear.)

This reminded me that I'm about due for a new phobia.

I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood being afraid that I would develop schizophrenia, because I have a brother who has it. Not only did the genetic factor frighten me; being told that "you're acting just like your brother" was always my mom's favorite method of trying to control her other children.

While this issue with my mother still plays a role on my parental grudge list, my fear of schizophrenia subsided more and more the older I got, and was almost gone by my mid-thirties. (Schizophrenia usually strikes in the teens or early twenties.) This fear was then replaced by the fear of Tourette's.

I haven't read up extensively on Tourette's, but I'm pretty sure I don't want it. I have a hard time resisting my strong urges to talk to myself, and sometimes wonder whether I may actually already have a mild case of Tourette's that might get worse as I age. The last thing I need right now is an affliction that will cause me to shout obscenities at strangers.

But if you ask me, I think the best thing that has happened to Tourette's patients is the advent of cell phone Blue Tooth technology, which involves those wireless ear phones that you're seeing more and more cellular customers using. At least once a day I see some guy walking down the street, talking to himself. I used to assume a guy like this was just another crazy until I could actually see that he was talking on a wireless cell.

But now my default belief in such situations is exactly the opposite. When I see someone who looks like he's talking to himself, I automatically assume he's using a wireless headset on his cell phone. In other words, a high percentage of the crazies (i.e. the ones who aren't totally dishevelled looking) now have a free pass because everyone just assumes they're saying "cunt!" to someone over the phone.

Which makes Tourette's seem a lot less scary, now that I know it will be so easy to hide.

Guess I need a new phobia. Got any ideas for me?

R.I.P. Socks

I'm heartbroken. Socks has died.

Facebook is Dead to Me, and other tales of woe

Well Gentle Readers, it's official: as far as fun on Facebook is concerned for me, les jeux sont faits. Most of you have already seen my tales of high school woe as awoken anew in my prior article about Facebook.

(Note how I get all fancy by using the word article to describe the drivel that I publish on this blog. Oops, now I said publish. Hee hee.)

Well as of about 23 hours ago, Facebook became officially dead to me, at least in the sense of my being able to share anything pretty personal on it. Because due to my prior stupidity of letting ONE WORK FRIEND join my group, my former BOSS is now my Facebook friend.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Not that it matters, really. So far on Facebook there is really nothing to hide. A few of you who are on Facebook do call me "CP" there, but that in itself is not enough to out me as the world's crabbiest blogger who maintains the warmest and most welcoming webspace on the Internets.

My beef with my prior boss joining my little Facebook universe is that it completely kills off any possibility of being my true bitchy self on that forum. And what's the point of that?

Not that I wasn't bitchy to his face when he was my boss; far from it, in fact. I regularly bullied him into meetings and conference calls with all the enthusiasm and aplomb of a guy completely unafraid of ever losing his job. On more than one occasion I even berated him publicly for interrupting me and/or not letting me talk enough during our team meetings. I think he may have been a little afraid of me. No one really knows what to do about such a loose canon.

But, because I'm not as retarded as I sometimes pretend to be, I was always careful to preserve my crustiness to in person contacts and NEVER to memorialize my virtual hemmorhages in writing. My pretend life online is where I get it all down on (virtual) paper, for the sick pleasure of my Gentle Readers.

Anyway, I can't exactly drop out of Facebook now, but I'll have to be doubly, no, triply extra careful of anything I decide to put up there now.

Crustily yours,

CP

PS: "CP" is fine, Facebook friends, but if anyone accidentally calls me by my full blog name, "Coaster Punchman," while on Facebook, I may have to go up the river and take names. And you should all know what that means!

13 random items on Friday the 13th

Random fact: This is a map of Balboa park, which is a few blocks from our house. PG and I got married in the Redwood Circle.

1. I love reading everyone on my blog roll, but I haven't been doing so for a while. When I start to think about logging on and catching up with all of you, I get overwhelmed and then I don't do it. I am starting to understand why some of our blogging friends have closed up shop. But I simply refuse to let CPW die.

2. I am having dinner with Tanya Espanya tonight. She is here with Rowbear and spawn, and after threatening to cook for me has now decided to take me out for Mexican.

3. My friend Sarah and her husband and two spawn are coming to my house tomorrow. I'm supposed to feed them drinks and then take them somewhere local for dinner. I've considered cooking but I get frustrated when I think of things to make and then realize 3 of the implements I would need are still with Poor George in New York.

4. Poor George plans to be here next month, with the rest of our stuff. Except that he's decided (with my approval) to give my piano to some good friends of ours. Because we want to buy a grand piano, so why pay to move my console across the country? I have mixed feelings about this because I don't want to live without a piano for too long, yet I don't know when we'll be able to afford a grand. Poor me.

5. 30 Rock is the funniest show ever. Except for The Office. But 30 Rock may even be funnier. I can't decide, and you can't make me.

6. Our bedroom is lavender and purple. Is that really gay or just a little gay?

7. I love my job. I don't make enough money, but it's the perfect job for me. The only downside is that since I'm no longer a Strategic Sales Executive I don't have as much to bitch about, which makes for much less entertaining reading for you. Suffer.

8. My life is so quiet compared to living in the big city. It's strange. I like it, but it's strange.

9. I go country western dancing every Thursday now. I've been toying with the idea of having a country western wedding reception, since PG and I originally planned on having a "big" party to invite our friends and family to with more than a week's notice. It would be really fun. We could have an instructor for a few hours to teach the novices how to do the steps. Help me sell PG on this.

10. [deleted by the censors]

11. My friend Shelly and I got really drunk at a work conference a few weeks ago, and decided (while drunk) that it would be a good idea to go into a video booth and make a tape of ourselves drunkenly pitching one of our products. We both had remorse the next morning, but even more so a day later when they decided to play it in front of 2,000 of our colleagues. Apparently we "won" second place for the "best pitch." We each got a $250 gift card as a prize, but I asked my boss if I could be fired instead. I looked like a TOTAL dork.

12. On the same night that I made the drunken pitch video, I told my work friend Lori over and over how much I loved her. I think I've become too isolated in this job because I don't go to an office, and the only people I talk to during the day are my clients. I'm getting weirder by the second.

13. It's Friday the 13th, so I think I'll end on 13. Anyone have any good tips on how to stop procrastinating? Or how to treat a harelip?