One ring

The future Mrs. Surly Pump Monkey has been asking me for a couple days now when I'm going to blog again. I guess I have been remiss but at least this time it's only a week.

I'm not sure if the reality of being engaged has sunk in all the way yet. I do know the ring looks pretty on her finger and I keep finding myself looking at it (perhaps partly to reassure myself this is happening). We went with a sapphire partly because I'm poor and partly because I have issues with diamonds (as in I don't like them and hate the DeBeers Corp. and it's marketing schemes). The thing is it looks really good on her finger.

This is all new to me but I don't mind it. It's comforting to know that I have someone with whom I want to spend the rest of my life with and we've made a step to insure that it happens.

It still strikes me as funny in a way that this all started here on the Internet. Oh our modern world.

Pablo will no longer be a bastard

Yes, yes, I fully intended to get here earlier but I got distracted. But my character is now a level 51 psionist and a level 40 cleric. Yeah, I shouldn't be wasting my time playing that game but I am somewhat entertained by it.

I managed to get back to Steamboat for a day or so. If I didn't see you sorry, it was a rush trip. I was there to marry off Brett and Nikki. It was good to see those who I got to see though, Paradox and Penny's parents. Apparently the ceremony went off well even with my having to ad lib part of it.

I met Phrank's mother this weekend, it was interesting. Phrank and her mother aren't that much alike but there are some things that they do exactly the same (I'll probably get slugged for that). Anyway, her mother was nice and if nothing else fawned over the cats.

In other news, I have ordered a ring for Phrank and as far as I know we will get married someday. Or something like that. Knowing that I'd never be able to find anyone quite like her and seeing that she wants this to work I figured it was time. Perhaps a bit soon but compared to my grandparents we're waiting forever (they got married the day after they met).

Good you've all recovered.

We haven't set a date. A year, yes. Sometime in 2008.

Wow, I've never done this before.

slugs

I'm not sure how I feel about myself these days. There are quite a few times when those thoughts of self-doubt and self-loathing creep into my head and I just can't seem to shake them. When I screw up or get my mistakes pointed out I get upset. Upset with myself but it perhaps appears as upset with other people.

The flip side to this is that my moods are affected by other peoples moods even though I try not to let it happen. When people around me are being crabby or grumpy towards me it gets to me even if I'm not the cause of it. I know that I'm not supposed to take it personally but sometime I do.

Over the years I've found myself going through various ebbs and flows of this stuff. Especially the self-loathing. It feels like it has to be peaking right about now because the insomnia is the worst it's been in a while and the thoughts that will be unnamed are the strongest.

I guess I should just remember that this too shall pass.

Hijacked!

Well, as you can see, this blog was hijacked yesterday by the lovely and talented Phrank. She says pirated, I say hijacked. I'm going to have to fix it so she can't get in here.

So what have I been doing instead of writing this here thingee? Let's see, you all know about the furniture, the fact that I talk in my sleep and I drool. Computer/Internet wise, I've been sucked into once again attempting to figure out UNIX with very little success. I can't even get the newsreader to work right. Not only that but I found a free VAX/VMS network to login into. Geez, the network OS of my youth. An aside to all you former BSU Refugees, I can't remember any of the old commands from VAX and it's just not the same in you can't tell where people are sitting any more. I know, geek, geek, geek.

The Surly Mayfly rolled over to 200000 miles this weekend. I was pretty excited about that. I even managed to get a picture of it rolling over. Although it may be considered cheating because I drove around the parking lot until it did. But now I need a new thing to obsess over.

I'll probably just stick with the UNIX thing for the time being. I'm way too distracted to write anymore right now.

ghostwriting--the wave of the 21st century

here's the thing, dear readers (that's right...you two guys over there), i've grown tired of checking keith's blog every morning thinking we might see a new post. sometimes destiny is what you make of it so here's a post. (you gotta think i'm going to get in trouble for this one!)

while the lug is still a snoring, drooling, babbling wad under the covers with a cat on his head, i've pirated his blog. funny, i don't feel like i pirate although i'm musty like one as i took yesterday off with the bathing gig. and the babbling...yes, he babbles in his sleep. being a good, often paranoid girlfriend, i used to try to break the code, so to speak, and figure out what he was saying. perhaps i would get some clue...some something...another woman's name or a location...(yes, yes i know the humor in this as keith is one of the good guys. he tells on himself for god's sake.)...i blame this all on aaron spelling and his 1980's and 1990's creations. damn you, melrose place!

i digress.

often.

today looks to be a day of bliss. yesterday we purchased new living room furniture as the existing futon could have been used as a torture device as its designer had obviously never heard the word 'comfort'. friday i went to the preview at the local auction house to find the perfect sofa. i found one that was perfectly aesthetically pleasing being a retro 1970's yellow and white flowered number. a bit too stiff though. i plopped. i sprawled. i reclined. and then i found it. (insert angelic mantras.) it's not pretty but it's not ugly. but, oh my. plus, the couch had two friends--an overstuffed recliner and an overstuffed rocker recliner.

so yesterday morning i took my barney rubble to the auction, pointed at various sofas and said, "sit there" and "what do you think". we agreed on the comfy sofa and his two friends. imagine how soft you'd imagine delta burke's bosom would be in her last two years on 'designing women'. the set is that soft.

the time came for bidding on my sofa and recliners. yes, i was already possessive telling grown men to please take their feet off of my couch. only one other bidder and myself were after the set. the other bidder was the owner of a shop who resold everything he bought. as the bidding got higher, i finally glared at the guy and yelled, "hey man, it's my couch and i'm poor!". the guy stopped bidding and we got the set for $85.

the plan for today involves lots of quality recliner and couch time. i'll make breakfast and read the sunday paper in my lovely recliner. after doing the morning dishes, i'll return to my recliner to enjoy today's race. i will nap and in my naptime, i will rejoice.

sweet blessed comfort.

I was wrong...

There are times when I screw up. Seemingly, when I do two things happen, I screw up more than once in a short amount of time and I make it worse by not coming right out and admitting I screwed up. I find myself operating under the assumption that I am perfect and how dare someone tell me I'm wrong. When I am confronted I'll protest and justify until my face turns blue which almost always makes the situation worse.

It took me until very recently to realize that not only do I screw up but in fact I need to admit it and face the fact that I did screw up. It's an ego thing to not admit I'm wrong (which is another surprising discovery, considering for years I thought I had no ego). Looking back it suddenly makes sense where I get it. I don't think my father ever admitted he was wrong about anything. I'm sure one of the siblings can set me straight if that's not the case. Anyway, it occurs to me that I'm just emulating him when I act like this.

What I need to learn is that if I can't just immediately admit that I'm wrong then for the time being I just need to keep my mouth shut until I can admit it. Sometimes silence isn't such a bad thing.

Cute widdle bunnies

First let me get this out of the way:

"But he said no mowe swippery swope!"
"Oh, the administwation is mewely pandewing to its cwazy voting base again."

Thanks to this post at Sadly, No! the phrase "mewely pandewing" has been stuck in my head for the last day. Stupid bunnies.

We can move on now with that out of the way.

It seems that there has been a small pattern develop in the life of my lovely and talented girlfriend. Every so often a former beau will contact her, seemingly out of the blue. It's happened enough that now I don't think it really phases me anymore. At first it was a tad disconcerting but I learned that I really had nothing to worry about and it would do any good to worry about it anyway. Also, most of these guys were more in the "it's been a long time, how are you doing?" catagory.

Sometimes I'm surprised at how secure I really am in this whole relationship with Phrank. I know at times it seems that I'm not that secure but when I really think about it I actually am. There really isn't that much to get worked up about and when I do it's pretty much just me driving myself crazy. Sure we have problems but show me a couple that doesn't and we'll probably be looking at a couple of people in serious denial.

It's been said here before but I really do still think I'm pretty lucky or bless if you will. I've got a woman that loves me and accepts me for what I am right now. On top of that she makes sure I take better care of me including preparing healthy meals (I do the dishes). It makes me happy to know that I deserve to go to sleep next to some one as awesome as she is.

Last cigarette (who the hell sang that song, anyway?)

Sometime in the next several hours, I'll have hit three weeks without smoking. Not bad for never tried to quite before, I think. There are still moments when I really want one, especially after work, skating and doing the dishes but it's not every time. Most of the time I don't think about it. Of course, it hit me tonight that to make it work I can't allow myself to ever have one again. Ever. Bummer.

There was a time when I enjoyed smoking actually. Back when you could still buy single cigarettes here in Colorado, I would smoke maybe three a day. One in the morning on my walk to work (this was before I had a car), one after work and another sometime in the evening. I'm sure there were times when I would have more than that but it was rare. In those days I would get a buzz off each of those cigarettes (that buzz is what gets you hooked by the way) and I enjoyed that buzz. It's hard to describe just what it was like now.

My guess is that I will miss those death sticks. They were always there for me. Anytime there was a crises (or I had to talk to certain people on the phone (mostly mom)) there was a cigarette. If I was upset, I believed that cigarettes would calm me down, when it fact it was probably just deep breathing. Perhaps I should have said goodbye to them.

And the thing is after writing all of this, I still don't want one. Or at least bad enough to have one.

Useless idiot?

I think I've stumbled (and thousands of others) across what could be the greatest piece of writing on the Internet, ever. First go read this, I'll wait. Done? Good. Did you notice the source? Yes, the man quoted the The Onion. An article from 1999 no less. This post of Pete's garnered several hundred comments informing him that a) he is an idiot and b) The Onion is a parody site/paper. I think the best comment may have been this:

I'm pro life, but sweet Jesus you're an idiot. For your next post, how about a passionate speech on the need to immediately free Prince Albert from the can?

But it gets even better. Pete is either too obtuse or to proud to admit that he'd been had. He had to go and write another post quoting even more of the original parody and defending his original post is some twisted way that you will just have to read for yourself. Sheesh. Double sheesh actually, because there is a third post decrying the language used in the comments from the two previous postings.

Now I'll be the first one to admit that I can be something of an idiot sometimes. But geez, I usually drop it after I realize that I was wrong (of course, there are times where I'll hold out until it's just painfully obvious). Although, I also don't have an extreme position that I'm holding onto and obsess over (and no Wikipedia does not count!) that leads to blindness of sorts. I guess I'll have to check on old Pete for the next few days and see what comes of it.

Rainy Monday...I mean Wednesday

The thing about having a holiday/day off in the middle of the week is you can sometimes end up with two Mondays. Which was sort of the case today after having yesterday off. Actually the only real reason for this was because it started raining (and yes we need it desperately, I'm not complaining) almost as soon as I walked out of the door of work. This after the storm clung to the mountains as if we were approaching Mordor for the entire day up until I left. Heck I spent a fair amount of the day watching the clouds just rest there. Somedays it really looks like there must be an evil wizard deep inside Cheyenne Mountain.

Anyway the only reason the rain slightly annoyed me is because I wanted to go skateboarding after work. There is a skatepark within five minutes of work (depending on traffic, of course) and I'm beginning to get the hang of this park. I've managed to go everyday since Saturday and I kind of like the habit I'm getting into.

It's been good for me to get out and skate ever since I started this quitting smoking thing. For one, it helps reinforce why I'm actually quitting in that my lungs will be stronger eventually. And while I'm doing it I don't really crave a smoke (although I still can't say the same for after skating).

The truth is I didn't even think about the reasons for quitting until after I stopped. Apparently this isn't the best way to go about it but I've never been known for picking the best methods of doing things. I do know that I was getting sick of the money I was spending on the damn things and that someday the smoking would catch up to me in the form of a portable oxygen tank.

And almost five hours later, it's still raining. If this keeps up the grass on the hills may yet turn green.

Forty-eight hours

A few minutes ago I hit forty-eight hours without having a cigarette or any form of nicotine. Right now I don't want one because I wouldn't want to go through the last two days again.

At some point last weekend I came up with the brilliant idea that Phrank and I should quit on July 1st. As the state of Colorado instituted the smoking ban today I figured that it would be appropriate. Of course when I woke up yesterday morning and had no cigarettes left I figured I might as well start quitting then.

Ugh. Talk about out of it. I was incoherent and loopy all day yesterday. Not to mention tired yet restless.

Today I've just been grumpy and itchy. Which isn't such a good thing because Phrank is grumpy from not having any cigarettes. Of course she was smart enough to use nicotine gum but it's not any easier on her as the no cigarettes hack has descended on her. We cleaned the house for most of the morning and after which I made myself scarce as much as I could. I knew being as grumpy and irritable as I was feeling, I could actually say something that I might regret and I didn't want to do that.

Here's the strange thing, the cravings aren't yet as bad as I thought they would be. I've yet to fully tell myself that I want a cigarette. Yeah, there's been moments where I crave just a hit of nicotine. That's the physical addiction. I'm wondering about the mental part. Perhaps the fact that I'm trying to change my routines is helping. For instance, I would always have a smoke after eating, now I've been trying to take a small walk after eating. It's weird, even some of the triggers that usually send me straight for a smoke have happened and I haven't even thought about one other than "I used to smoke when this would happen".

All I can say is I hope I can make this last.

Idiots

I really try to keep my political opinions to myself. Not just by rarely writing about them here but in my daily life. I find that if I keep them to myself, people tend to not offer their own opinions. It has been my experience that most people who ask me about politics almost always have an agenda, usually they want an argument or to start a monologue.

Tonight I think I'm going to break this rule. Once again, the stupid flag desecration amendment failed to pass, although this time it was a heck of a lot closer. Only failing by one vote, I wonder to myself who the hell are these people in the Senate? I get the House, all the loonier ones end up there (on both sides I might add) but the Senate is supposed to be where the more thoughtful politicians end up (emphasis on supposed). Here's the thing, as far as I can tell the flag is just a symbol of this country. When people say they fought for the flag they really mean this nation. I can't imagine that some protester burning the American flag is really going to bring this nation to it's knees. The current administration on the other hand just might (I'll stop right there). When it comes down to it, a flag is just a piece of cloth. Sure it may be loaded with symbolism but it isn't much different than the ragged jeans on the floor of our bedroom.

I realize that this issue is just the tip of the iceberg and if I really wanted to talk about the idiocy of those in power I could pick some more substantive issues. Such as the ongoing war and corresponding reduction of our civil liberties and privacy. Something tells me that this flag thing and all of the other stuff is related. Or at least symbolically. It smacks of more of the same rising nationalistic streak we seemed to be going through as a nation in the last six years or so. Patriotism is one thing but there is such a thing as too much patriotism.

What do I know, I'm just an idiot with a keyboard?

Soapbox derby, stupid money

Soapbox derby
Originally uploaded by surly monkey.

So there are actually quite a bit of things to do here that don't always require money. Case in point, on Sunday Phrank and I headed downtown to check out the soapbox derby. I actually thought the cars might go a bit faster than they did but it was still pretty cool. Perhaps the best part was seeing the kids who had spent the time to make the cars excited to race them. There wasn't that much of a crowd but what was there was fairly enthusiastic.

For some reason money is one of the biggest issues that I let cause me stress. There always seems to be a point when the realization hits that yes I will get paid at the end of the week most of my check is already spoken for. The thing is I've almost always been broke and the few times I wasn't, I wasn't any happier. Knowing that should be enough to keep me from getting down about not having any money but it doesn't always. Like most things, that stressed out feeling seems to pass after a few hours. The concern is still in the back of my head but it doesn't bother me so much.

Having said all that, I'll gladly let one of my wealthy readers buy me a new computer. Oh right, you all are as poor as me. Oh well.

Goddamn Cat.

I was almost asleep when one of the cats decided to step on my head. Unfortunately, when I'm awakened while drifting off I find it pointless lay there trying to doze off again. So now I'm sitting here in my underwear hoping to get tired again. Soon I hope.

Tonight I realized something about this thing with me and Phrank as we were sitting at Denny's (there's a Denny's here!). Sometimes our relationship takes work (all relationships like this do) but for once I like that it does. For the longest time I always wanted the easy way and I didn't want to work for anything worthwhile. Why bother on trying? And the thing about this one, it's always so much us that needs work but myself. Or at least with her and with her help I'm beginning to see things in myself that I've never dealt with or even been aware of. It can be frustrating for her I know and the fact that I still can't always verbalize about them doesn't help.

Last weekend she revealed something to me that I don't know exactly how I would have handled in the past. I guess back then I would have walked away or tried to punish her somehow. I did withdraw some, which is my standard defense mechanism and isn't the healthiest way to deal with stuff. I didn't even realize that I was doing it.

The thing is through all of this, I still consider myself to be pretty damn lucky. I couldn't ask for a better woman. Not only does she treat me better than I could ever let her know (and that's another thing I need work on) but I kind of won in the hot girlfriend lottery.

Steamboat gets invaded

I've discovered that living with Phrank has cut down on the amount of time I spend online. Which isn't really a bad thing but I do find myself less inclined to pay attention to writing stuff here in this space. Of course my sister would say it's because I don't have anything to complain about anymore. There is a bit of truth to that but I'd like to believe that I didn't complain that much. Admittedly, when I started this I had a job that was pretty crappy (or at least the customers sucked).

After hearing the news about what is in store (and has already started) for the Steamboat area, I can safely say I'm damn glad I'm not there this summer. It seems that Rainbow Family has decided to have their national Rainbow Gathering about forty miles north of Steamboat. Man, I would be one hateful jackass if I were still working at the gas station this summer. I can't imagine how much more insane this is going to be compared to the 4th of July hippiefest they tried for a couple of years with the String Cheese Incident. At least the Rainbows won't be sticking around town that much once they stock up and get chased off for panhandling (as a side note, I've never seen more scorn heaped on panhandlers than I have in Steamboat). But there is still the normal hordes of overweight softball parents and their screaming broods of children. I'm not really missing that part of summer in Steamboat.

Anyway, those of you up there reading this, I feel for you. But at least all I have to deal with is the heat here. Oh and rightwingers.