Happy birthday, Olivia

If she hadn’t been killed at Sandy Hook, she’d be 7 today.

My heart aches for Brian and his family.

I think it’s a three patch problem

yes, that’s a fully clothed belly flop into the Charles

Since a huge part of the GORUCK Tough family believes that what happens at the Challenges stay at the Challenge, I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow of what happened.

I did get a lot of questions about why I chose to go into the ocean fully clothed a while ago. All I could say at that point was there are a lot of Challenges where people wind up in water. I wanted to make sure my moisture wicking clothing would wick moisture, I wouldn’t get blisters from walking in wet socks and shoes, and what the ruck would do in water (hopefully outside of drowning me).

Well, this is why.

——

Yesterday, I went to The Dirty Girl mud race to cheer on a friend from the UCMB. I thought I wouldn’t be in good enough shape to do it, but judging from some of the competitors, I could have/should have joined in.

Well, I will next year.

While I was waiting for them to get out of the woods and into the part of the race I could see, I decided that I wanted to run the Manchester Road Race with a friend from elementary school and do a Zombie 10K with my gym buddy. (I’ve discovered that this sort of thing is better with friends.)

I’ve become one of “Them”... I never, in a billion years, thought that would happen. I played volleyball in high school and was in the Marching Band, but I’d never consider myself particularly active. (Marching band is hard work, Peanut Gallery, so don’t even go there.) I guess I can consider myself active now.
——

My friend in Belgium turned me on to a VPN program that lets you watch BBC shows as they air. This is huge to me because it looks like we get edited versions of Top Gear here (it’s like they cut out certain sections for the US audience) and today, Top Gear has Benedict fucking Cumberbatch on it. If I waited to watch it here, I’d have to wait an entire week. That’s just not acceptable when I have the power to watch it today.

Obsessed much? Or impatient?

Flip a coin.

——

Also… MY FIRST DAY OF WORK IS TOMORROW.

I never thought I’d be so happy to see a Monday in my life.

Aggressive Scrabble and jello underpants.

matt nathanson :: ll bean, freeport, me :: 07.04.2013

OK… let me preface this by saying HOLY. MOTHER. OF. FUCK.

L.L. Bean does free concerts over the summer and they’ve had some pretty big names. This year, I was clued into the fact that Matt Nathanson was playing there on the 4th. I’m not a die hard fan, but I have a few of his albums and I really like them. They’re good background music because they’re kind of slow and chill. But, yeah, nothing I’m going to know 100%, as opposed to, I don’t know, like R.E.M. (I will always think of that guy in Cleveland who was so impressed that I knew every single song R.E.M. performed that night.)

Not only is Matt an incredible musician, he’s pretty hilarious in between songs. (I took notes! I don’t know why, but I’m mostly glad I did. You’ll see why I say ‘mostly’.)

Before he sang “Run”, he pointed out that it’s normally sung as a duet and that it’s about “an aggressive game of scrabble - the kind where you lock yourself in a hotel room and don’t come out for three days.” However, when he sings it by himself, it’s more like playing solitaire. (I think the family friendly version was a bazillionty million times better than what he could have said!) I will never be able to look at a game of Scrabble the same way again.

I was trying to use the notes app on my iPhone to keep track of the set list and make some notes. I was more successful with some notes than others. I *think* one note is supposed to say “look back at life, regret punches you in the face”... but I have no idea what that means, or what the point of it was. It must have seemed really deep at that particular moment.

While talking about “Room @ the End of the World”, he said that L.L. Bean was definitely where you wanted to be for the zombie apocalypse. He’s not wrong.

Another WTF note: “jello underpants”.

note to self: CONTEXT!

——

It was also an amazing day because after 10+ years of “knowing” her online, I finally got to meet E in person.

It’s so weird to see someone in person for the first time and fall into conversation easily because you’ve followed their life over the years, and vice versa.

I don’t think that feeling will ever get old.

Dog bless teh interwebs. Srsly.

——

Sound check:
Faster
Car Crash
Under Pressure
Wedding Dress
To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts

Setlist:
Mission Bells
Mercy
To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts
Modern Love
Run
Laid
Still
Detroit Waves (featuring The Doors’ “Break on Through”, Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”, and “Amazing Grace”)
Sky High Honey
Room @ the End of the World (featuring Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”)
The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkle cover)
Car Crash (featuring U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”)
Wedding Dress
Faster
Under Pressure (Queen/David Bowie cover)
Come On Get Higher

For every sad, there is a happy

i love whomever made this!

I had that ‘refresher’ interview on Friday.

What a weird time… but I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s start at the beginning. Shall we?

It started with him emailing me. In it, he told me that he wrote me this really long email, but never sent it. Then he wanted to know how my job search was going.

Turns out, that after my interview with him at the end of May, he had to make a political hire. (Whether that’s a lie, I don’t know…)

So Friday’s interview was lunch off-site because he didn’t want to be anywhere in the building when we talked. Walls have ears and all that.

During the interview, he told me more than once that I was his first choice. I guess to prove that it was a political hire? Again, I don’t know…

We chatted. We laughed. We bonded.

He pulled out real-life financials, invoices, and reports and asked me to analyze them.

He pop quizzed me several times on accounting techniques. (He kept apologizing for it, but it was kind of funny. I apologized several times for rolling my eyes.)

He asked me how to fix a printer. (I’m fucking serious. It was pretty hilarious.)

He told me exactly what he wanted me to take ownership of.

He told me exactly what he expected of me when I started.

Then, without meaning to, he pulled a Sherlock when he asked me if I was OK with him singing in the office. (For reference, during Sherlock and John’s first meeting, Sherlock says, “I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”)

I wasn’t sure if I should laugh hysterically or hug him for that.

He said I should hear back from him soon. He wasn’t sure if the owners needed to be involved or not before he made a decision. (I don’t know if they need to be - they got the resume and gave it to him, so obviously, they liked me on some level.)

I don’t want to be to optimistic, but I’m hoping to hell this means that I’m getting an offer.

Soon.

——

After moping around this morning for too long, the Duke of Stud texted me. Didn’t exactly help, per se, but he distracted me and made me laugh for a little bit. I can’t complain about that.

We’re figuring us out. Day by day.

He’s getting better, but I still feel like he’s still a ticking time bomb.

I guess I’ve been burned by him too many times.

BUT…

He offered to do something like the GORUCK with me after the spring of 2014. I’m looking forward to that. It’ll be nice to do it with friends…

After we got done talking, I realized that while I didn’t do the PT with the team, I walked the entire thing with them (however many miles). WITH MY RUCK ON. IN 90 DEGREE WEATHER.

I guess that’s something to be proud of.

... and so I will be.

I need a mulligan!

silly americans, pants are underwear!

Unfortunately, I’m still one of those assholes who make fun of Americans’ misunderstanding of English words…

——

I had to apologize this morning for Guinness biting another dog at day care. Not really his fault (there was a skirmish in the pack and it was self-defense), but he broke the skin and the other dog needed stitches. It’s easy to forget he’s a big, tough, STRONG German Shepherd because he’s so ridiculously gentle most of the time… but dogs will be dogs, and he is a dog. Too many people forget that their dogs are dogs. I try not to.

——

I got an email this morning that… I don’t know. I’m posting a heavily edited version here so I don’t lose it.

Ok, I don’t want you to think I am ignoring you… It isn’t anything to do with you, but more to do with a friendship you have rekindled… I’m not asking you to be involved. In fact, I am asking the opposite. I just wanted to inform you.

This person’s timing is freaky. This is now the second time they’ve brought up a topic on the tail of someone else bringing up the same thing. It’s the second time I’ve revised a blog entry draft because of that fact. (Get out of my head, you! *grin*)

The good news is that they were much nicer about it than the other person.

I’m never going to judge them for deciding to stay away from him.

I know that he’s done some major damage to people. I know he still has the potential to do some major damage. I know most of it is unforgivable. 

I do. I really do. It’s why we’ve done our little back and forth over the years. It’s why this time, I’m keeping my walls up. It’s why this time, I’m keeping my distance. A bit.

There’s only so much I can do… Moth to a flame, baby. Moth. To. A. Flame.

He needs me, and oddly, despite all the damage he can inflict on me (especially now when I’m a mental mess), I need him, too.

I’ll never be able to explain it. I’ll never be able to cut him out of my life 100%. Dog knows I’ve tried. More than once. Going all the way back to 1994.

Outside of my parents, there are two people whose absences from my life have cut me to the bone. They were the people who meant the most to me and were there when I needed them the most… and then they were gone.

He was one of them.

I’m glad that I don’t have to chose him over the note writer, and the more I chew on the other person’s reaction, I’m glad I’m choosing him over them.
——

In happier news, I finally heard back from the hotel chain. He wants to do a ‘refresher’ interview since we last met in May. (I don’t know what else to call it…) So I guess I’m going back for a third.

Fingers crossed!