TWisting faded memories

The last few days I’ve been thinking about the past. A couple of funnyish things. I have no idea why I was thinking about these things. I guess cuz my mind wanted to.

When I was like 11 or 12, I think it was Summer. My brother who was about 16 at the time was playing softball down at the fields near our house. I was invited to play. My brother included me in everything when I was a kid and that really shaped who I am today. It was cool hanging with him and his friends. I hung out with these guys; I learned from these guys, I idolized these guys. They were all really cool to me. So I was very excited about hanging out with them and playing softball. I don’t think the game had been going on that long. I was hanging out in the outfield or something. I think I was in the infield. Well this guy comes up to bat and he had kind of a pointy head. Not like crazy pointy, but pointy enough to notice. One of my brother’s friends says to me, “Tell him to ‘give it up missile-head.’” Making fun of people then was not my style, it certainly isn’t my style now, but this guy pressured me into it. So I said it. The guy said something like “shut up” back to me. The guy by me goes “say it again.” So I said it again. The guy batting, the guy with the pointy head says “If you say that one more time, I’m gonna do something about it.” Or something like that. These guys are 16, I’m just like 11, so the guy next to me says “say it again, we’ve got your back.” So I said it again. The guy drops the bat and comes running out after me. I got ready to fight him, but he pulled some Ninja move on me, put his foot behind mine and then pushed me over it. I fell on my ass, felt like shit, started bawling and ran home. I dunno what happened to the guy, but I’m pretty sure he was universally ostracized over that move. I have no idea what the point of that story is. When I think about that guy, I think, “man, I bet he wishes he could go back and undo that.” I wish I could go back and not say that shit, cuz that’s not like me. I’ve done a lot of things that I wish I could undo, I guess that’s life. You have to live with the decisions you make.

So let’s get onto a story where I don’t come off looking like a puss. I’m waiting for the train today and a guy walks by that I recognize. I used to trade in the same trading crowd with him back in the day. I dunno what it is about trading, but a lot of guys who are complete dweebs develop some kind of hard-ass mentality, sometimes those guys get called out. This guy was one of those guys. When I started out on the floor I was with a firm that didn’t get a lot of respect. I was trading, but I was using a machine and I was just there basically to take money out of the other traders’ pockets, so not only did I get zero respect, but people resented me on top of it. I used to bring a newspaper in every day and read it over the course of the day. I used to leave it out so anyone could read it. I get back from lunch and I don’t know, this guy prolly had been getting on my nerves for other reasons, anyway he was reading my paper. He was sorta taking his time. Finally I walked up to him and I said, “Give me my newspaper, I want to read it.” He says, “I’m not done with it.” So I say, “If you don’t give that newspaper, I’m gonna take it, roll it up, and jam it in your ass.” He gave me the newspaper. Sometimes on the floor you had to do shit like that just to show everyone around you that they couldn’t just walk all over you. Good times. I see the guy around. I say hi. I mean we traded together. I let bygones be bygones, but whenever I see him, I always think of that incident.

I thought I had some other stuff to talk about. Not much on the online dating front. I did talk to a woman last night. That was fun. It was a good chat. We talked a little about our exes and stuff. It was funny cuz on my profile, it says divorced. Well I’m not divorced yet, but will be hopefully soon. This usually comes up fairly early in conversations or first dates, just to get it out of the way. I’m a full disclosure kind of guy. So I told her the truth that I’m not divorced yet. Usually that’s enough. The last date I went on, the woman wasn’t divorced yet either. Way back I was IMing a woman and the same thing, she wasn’t divorced yet. It’s not like I’m the only one. Let’s face it, separated is kind of a turn off, it implies that you might get back together with your ex. I’m not getting back together with my ex, so divorced is the right choice. Well last night this woman asks, “why do you put divorced on your profile if you are separated?” So I break it down and go into a little detail about how we’ve been separated for almost two years, that the divorce has been going on for a year and a half almost, etc. The she says, “yeah, I usually don’t have any interest in people who are separated.” Case and point why you don’t put it down, I’d rather have the chance to talk my way out of it than to be dismissed out of hand. She went on to say that she can see how my situation is different, and that she’s still interested. It’s just like, chalk one up for not putting separated. That was just one little snippet and it was an issue we had to deal with, so that was good to get it out of the way. We talked a lot about online dating. It’s really a crazy concept. The stuff that the women have to deal with is crazy. Well not that surprising, basically that most of the guys that contact her are just trying to hook up. I was telling her that I think it’s worse on OKCupid. I think that there are some real freaks on OKC, at least that’s what the girl I took to the Gage was telling me.

I guess bands don’t have to wait long after Lolla to come back to Chicago. Which is good, I mean once Lolla is over, who cares right? I dunno, I guess part of the point of Lolla is to get people in there cuz they think they won’t be able to see X band for a few months. If that notion is challenged, it could affect ticket sales in the future. I’m guessing it’s built into some of the contracts, probably for the headliners. Well the bands that are coming back are The National, Social Distortion, The New Pornographers and Mumford and sons. I would def like to catch the National, I don’t think I want to see Social D again. I’ve seen them a bunch of times and I’m ready to move on.