In Which I Take Stock of my Monkeys

Something happened almost two weeks ago. Due to the potential audience of my blog posts, suffice it to say that this event caused me to take a step back and take stock in my current "situation" and "position", as the words "undisclosed" and "no transfers" got tossed around. Bob Cratchit was threatened with this after he vocally subscribed with Scrooge's nephew Fred regarding Christmas. I think that's eloquent enough...

I must admit, I've sort of grown comfortable in my current position. I finally have a supervisor who I like and appreciates me for my work, I've been given the permission to work from home and love every minute of it, but the volatility of the industry has me wondering. For one thing, it has me wondering "What next?" Not as someone going through constant trials and then having another trial come upon them and shaking their fists heavenward and shouting "what next", but as in career-wise, what is the next step?

Currently I am pursuing and am halfway to attaining, an AA in General Studies with a Concentration in Business. After that I will be following that up with a BA in I-Don't-Know-Yet. But I haven't looked at the market in a while, so to speak. However, that would mean giving up the chance to get these degrees - at least, the chance to get them at no cost to me.

Taking stock of the situation, taking stock of my position, taking stock of my...location. What if some awesome job opportunity presented itself in, say, Oregon? Well for one, I would never know because I haven't been out there looking, but I hear that Oregon is one of the 10 states where the job market is exploding. Am I really so tied to Wisconsin? Who knows...that BA is a ways off yet, thinking 2-4 years away. And we just went through the whole moving fiasco...only to find ourselves right back in the city we were intending to leave a year ago...

It once again makes me go back and "dust off history" (consider further my last post, In Which History Gets Dusted Off). That post I focused on Paulina, who traversed the Eastern United States in an effort to find her sister, Anna. Whereupon finding her, stayed with her and lived with her and her husband and family until meeting my great great grandpa, Frank. Now I think of Frank's side of the story. While I don't know the schematics of it all, Frank came here to avoid being forced back into the Austrian Army due to lack of Draft Card, which I'm sure being forced back into the Army was the least of the potential punishment...but that's neither here nor there. The fact is, sometime around 1901 he came here. Landed I'm sure in New York City where Paulina found herself just a year previous, and as a hard-working, (probably) liberal-minded (The Google tells me through Wikipedia that typically, Austrian immigrants as well as Polish were of the liberal persuasion) 30-something single Catholic, I can only assume traversed the country as well just trying to attain a job to sustain himself.

History has shown me that my individual family roots had come to this country (excluding perhaps the English Colonial ancestors) due to either religious persecution or a better opportunity to escape the constant war and strife of the European scene at the time...almost reminiscent to today's America, but that's another blog post. I seem to be developing a theme of "Piecing Together History", as it were.

Anyhoobastank (credit to Wheezy Waiter for introducing that word into my life, seriously check out his channel it's amazeballs) it makes me wonder, not to sound like Adam Levine, what it was that brought Frank ultimately to Iron Mountain, Michigan. And even more than that, what took him in such a short time from Iron Mountain all the way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Nowadays that's about like an 8 hour trip, I can imagine it taking probably thrice as long in the early 1900s. Was it the influx of German and German-esque immigrants to the Milwaukee area? Although Chicago would have sufficed as well...what was it that took them precisely to Milwaukee?

So now, four generations later, I find myself in similar shoes, so to speak. No, I'm not contemplating fleeing the US Army (they wouldn't take me even if I wanted them to), but I find myself a hardworking, liberal (sorta)-minded 30-something Catholic wannabe (albeit married with children), asking myself is my current city the best location and is my current position the best position for me to have at this very moment in time?

The answer remains to be seen. As the scientists put it, "Further research is needed." The job market in Wisconsin is stagnant at best. Like Frank, however, I have family here, although his was admittedly possibly smaller than mine is at present, he had family that he left in Michigan to remove down to Milwaukee. It was for a job that my father removed us from Milwaukee to my current city. Is the perfect well-paying job just waiting for me in some place like Bend, Oregon (had to say that just for the name), and I'm too focused on what I'm doing now to catch it? Could it be that there's life outside of Wisconsin? Those last two statements are facetious but you get my drift.

As to the monkeys referenced in the title, it is too soon to discuss one of them; suffice it to say I took one important step to remove it from my back. Tomorrow the recipients should receive their correspondence and responses may or may not come. But the ball is officially out of my court, not that it was even ever in my court to begin with...but were it kicked over there, I've returned it back to the opposing side. The Collective Soul album title "Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid" comes to mind. I took care of those, and await the results. Albeit not one of my monkeys, I've also begun writing letters to my grandfather, because it dawned on me that I cannot get down to where he lives (a little over an hour away) as frequently as I'd like to, and even when I do, I can't fill him in on everything going on in our lives, because so many other people are doing so. As he is not online, I've done the next best thing (and some would argue, including myself, an even better thing): written correspondence. Summation - there is something to be said about a hand-written letter.

The other monkeys are my vehicles. Let me preface by saying being in an upside down car loan sucks. However, being that the Teacher has allowed us to climb further out of a debt hole by utilizing it, I can only see it as being a friendly if not annoying monkey on my back, not one that is doing me harm. And while climbing out of a debt hole using more debt doesn't seem to make logical sense, it's more of a consolidation thing than it is a debt thing. That being said, it still sucks. Especially when the vehicles now need more work in them than they are worth. It will take some thrusting to get these monkeys off our backs,

Time - on its resume, it would have to include professional healer of wounds, single entity in which futures and fortunes are told, and flight extraordinaire (at someone else's fun expense).

Wake Up and Rise Above

Toxicity - Webster defines as "the quality, state, or relative degree of being toxic or poisonous"

Toxic - 1: containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation, i.e. toxic waste. 2: exhibiting symptoms of infection or toxicosis. 3: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful. 4: relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market.

The weird thing about intoxication is that it can be both good and bad. My coffee this morning is intoxicating (not literally, but a metaphor for being good, duh. I didn't spike it...although...that thought has crossed my mind, I won't lie.) Some degree of intoxication can be good, however most of the time people take it past the point of fun and venture into the drunk category. One reason (of a few actually) that I do not drink to get drunk anymore, is that ever-so-fine line between the two. I think to an extent with some people that must come with age. Speaking from a gonna-be 31 year old's point of view, it might be premature...but as my Facebook "On This Day" just reminded me ever so gently, I did do a brief stint in the drunken days...but I digress.

That's not to say I don't drink at all, just the other night I made the wife and I a strawberry banana smoothie with frozen yogurt and wine. It was delicious. And I do enjoy me an Amaretto and Sour, and a Moscow Mule, and I'm quite fond of IPAs (312 by Goose Island is delicious and yes I know that's not an IPA, that it is a wheat ale, but it's one of my favorite beers), but it's not an everyday thing, nor even an every weekend thing. I have my reasons for having no desire to get blinding drunk anymore, which I don't care to discuss here because I'm still too embarrassed by them and that alone is what fuels my temperance, if you want to call it that. Suffice it to say that if you have to be reminded the next day of things you said (and/or did), and you have absolutely no recollection of having said (or did) anything like that, you've had too much to drink. And to do that every time you go out...yeah that is my reason and that's all I'll say.

I'm not getting up on a soap box either, going all Carrie Nation (she's kinda famous for smashing liquor bottles at a local bar here) and preaching temperance to everyone, I'm actually reminded of a meme post from Catholic Memes with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI having a rather large beer (think Das Boot) with a reference to a line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A quick Google search for said meme turned up fruitless but it doesn't take away from my point of I don't drink much. Which isn't even the point of this blog post anyway but as the subtitle of this blog should say, "But I Digress..."

Update: I found the meme:

And if you're wondering, CCC #2290 states: "The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur the grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

All of that being said...toxicity enters our lives, and sometimes we don't recognize it at first. Sometimes it takes an unobtrusive third party to kind of "bring us to our senses", and to realize that some sort of toxicity has crept its nasty way into our lives. It can be a toxic family member or friend, using guilt or manipulation to persuade you into performing their demands at the risk of your personal satisfaction. Those with Stockholm syndrome will derive some sort of pleasure even while they are doing what they don't want to do, but sooner or later we have to take a moment to take stock of what we do, who we do it for, and why we are doing it. Either something happens that wakes us up to who that person or those people really are, or oftentimes that unobtrusive third party will put their two cents in that will ignite a spark to the aforementioned self-assessment. However, that unobtrusive third party generally can't be truly unobtrusive unless they know the intimate details of both parties, otherwise they are just getting your side of the story, and unless you are being painfully truthful, that story will always be tilted in your favor, even if ever-so-slightly.

That being said, even this tilted point of view that the less-than-unobtrusive (because obtrusive was definitely not the word I was looking for here) third party has, will almost certainly lead to points that you yourself had not given thought to, for one reason or another. They may be incorrectly founded, but at some level they are points worth considering. One being the occasional or sometimes recurring notion that you may not be as important to a particular individual as they are to you. On a more serious tone, there may be indications of actual abuse where you just saw harmless...whatever.

One "problem" (and I use the quotes intentionally) of an Aspie brain is being less able to detect people's true intentions. Simply put - you take them and their words at face value because that is what is logical. This makes guilt and manipulation a more powerful tool to the toxic individual because you're now easier to manipulate. Juxtaposed with guilt trips, you are putty in the toxic individual's hands.

Until you wake up.

In a seemingly unrelated but assuredly related segue, toddlers sometimes make the best therapists. You gently vent your frustration in the form of a singsongy story time voice and boom - save yourself a $200 therapy copay. "So-and-so can't find it in their heart to do such-and-such possibly minuscule-but-turned-mountain of an annoyance or otherwise timely detestable thing, and wouldn't you think after I did some altruistic thing they could do my <insert timely requirement here>?" Toddler's response: a non-sequitur-esque and joyfully emphatic "Yeah!" If that doesn't melt away your frustration then you my friend possess no soul.

And so, Aspie or Neurotypical, when we wake up, when we see for ourselves that toxicity has crept into our lives, we do as Miranda Bailey and Cristina Yang did in Grey's Anatomy when they were forced through obligation to their Hippocratic Oath to treat a Neo-Nazi white supremacist, and we "rise above".

An Aspie brain is a beautiful thing that must never be thought of as a defect or a problem to society. Some of the best things to come into this world do so through the minds of Aspie greats. Don't underestimate us.

Decapitated Chicken Syndrome

Intimidation is a horrible thing; it provokes wars. I hate feeling intimidated, repressed, inferior, not good enough... No matter who it is, we will call that entity "The Man", for all intents and purposes, because that's really what it boils down to when you think about it. The more important question then, would be "Why does one let themself feel intimidated?" Experience proves fighting "Ego with Ego" does not work. "The Man" will just amp up his or her intimidation factor, which will make you feel either A.) even more intimidated and repressed than before, or B.) provoke war, which could lead down an irrevocable and devastating road.

These are just some musings...

One can expend a lot of time and energy to stay connected to family and friends, through various media. But all of that time and energy is wasted if the other side of those connections don't share the same desire. And life moves so fast, that keeping all of one's connections, easy though it may be through technology, gets to be difficult. One simply must slow down, maybe even unplug for a while, and regroup. Regather one's thoughts, and then come back to the table at that slower pace, and take time to have a cup of coffee :). To surprise someone with a cup of coffee and take time to catch up. So simple of a light bulb, so great of a "Duh!" moment, but at the times when life moves so fast one does not think they have the time, but it can make all the difference in the world to another person. All the technology in the world cannot compare to a person-to-person interaction, no matter how brief.

Amazing Perk of having OCD & ADD - One can obsess about a different thing each day. It obviously has its downside, mainly that something requested of me may or may not be done, and if it's not, it usually takes 2 weeks or so for me to do it. I've really got to work on that.

The last 4-5 months have been somewhat of a void, creatively-speaking. I last posted to a blog in January, and until Sunday had not posted a YouTube video since March 12. Leaves me wondering, "What happened to my creativity?!" GAH! Contrary to what I may make myself believe, I have not unplugged, as I have mentioned before. This was another one of those times when life just moved so fast that I couldn't keep up with myself. Combine the previous two paragraphs, and well...hello, My name is Eric.

I'll tell you what it is, it's DCS - Decapitated Chicken Syndrome. Think about that, chew on it a while before you digest that. Being an idiom idiot, I come up with my own idioms that make sense to me, but nobody else. It's so cliche to say "Running around like a chicken with its head cut off". To-do lists get too long. List items do not get accomplished, more lists get made, everything is rush-rush to get this one thing done...pretty soon one is in a tailspin of getting their things accomplished while thinking of the other things (or not thinking, as it were), of what else needs to get done.

Timidity Sucks. Oh, it's easy enough to say, "Well then stop being so timid then."...but it's a mindset. One has to completely reprogram one's brain to stand up and say something, to fight back, to dare to risk embarassment and humiliation and just get up and say what needs to be said, or do what needs to be done. It surely has a big factor in intimidation, I mean look, it's right in the word. Intimidators intimidate the timid. Use them, take advantage of kindness or even just the fact that they know the other person will not fight back. What is it, though, that makes the timid not want to fight back? Especially when one is a hot-headed spitfire, maybe even Passive-Aggressive?

That's truly the question. How does one fight Passive-Aggressiveness? Although at very few times, passive-aggressiveness can be humorous, it really doesn't help anyone.

As an afterthought...take advantage of breaks that come your way, if even brief or miniscule. What you do with that break...

A second afterthought, one which I struggle with continually...one must choose his battles, and choose them wisely.

Roller Coasters and Damage Control

I need to find a way to calm the angry voice. You know, that one that starts saying things before the brain actually gets to interpret the situation and realize what is happening...or isn't, for that matter.

Here's the deal, broken down - a situation arises, the brain reacts and doesn't have time to process what's going on, and just reacts. As much as one knows one should probably stop and think about the situation, one cannot help but blurt out what is in one's mind at the time. Or maybe that's just me.

So, the question of the evening is: How does one calm that angry voice, that doesn't involve speaking what is on one's mind without regard to others' feelings or the correct perception of the situation at hand? Or maybe, without too much fanfare, the question should be, how does an Aspie stay in relationships?

A constant roller coaster is no way to dance the dance of life. Going from slow dance to Gangnam Style and back again isn't healthy, especially when others who are watching you attempt to dance can't figure out what dance you're actually doing. One thinks they have a grasp as to what moves to perform and when, and then one false step and suddenly you're either dancing something you didn't intend to or you've fallen down on your face reaching your hand up for someone to help you out, but the crowd around you is so shocked by what they've just seen that you are just grasping at dead air.

Side Note: Where did the phrase "Fly off the handle" come from, and how did it come to mean what it does? (I say that because at that very moment when it came to describing the all-too-familiar idiom, I was at a loss for words)

Silence is golden, so they say. But what if one is incapable of silence? What if the connection between the brain and the mouth is as an automatic baseball launcher, and words, phrases, thoughts, ideas, opinions, or even just the random expletive, are just balls that are haphazardly dropped....that's not really a good way to describe it. What if one felt so strongly of an impulsion to rid the mind, psyche, what have you, of the words, phrases, etc, that if they did not vacate themselves of the words and phrases, they would, in essence, burst? Some people do not understand that, others do, others tolerate it, others are clueless and intolerant.

Needless to say, sometimes that essence, and sometimes that character trait, can be quite frustrating for not only the individual or individuals it is being launched upon, but even more so for the launcher themselves. I say even more so because after the fact, after they realize and give thought to the situation, they've already launched their missiles, and so any explanation is damage control at best.

It's up to the blown-up cities to decide whether or not to accept the Damage Control.

But I Digress...

This SHOULD be the title of my blog. That is Me in a Nutshell, one big giant Digression. Not being self-deprecating here. Rest assured, I firmly believe that if I were not here, the people that know and love me would definitely feel the void, and they'd be looking for my usual daily...hourly...minutely...momentary....Non-sequitors, whether they would like to admit it or not. To deny so would make them bold-faced Liars. But I digress... (see how fitting and utterly appropriate it is???)

We are fast approaching Christmas. It frustrates me how few hours there truly are in the day. When one is not working or tending to their family's wants/needs/etc., one has so few precious minutes to accomplish anything, and poof...it's gone. And when you have Severe A.D.D., even on proper medication, you find yourself jumping from project to project, and most of them end up becoming unfinished projects. Hello, welcome to my past 20 years. Endearing though it may be for some (very few, more likely), it is most annoying to myself. "Duty Calls" has become the death knell to my To-Do Lists as of late...that in combination with putting too much on my plate at one time.

I once worked with a girl at Target who said (Pardon my French as I quote her) “If you choose to flop over and take it up the ass, the only thing you’ll get from it is a sore asshole.” I didn’t get it at first, for obvious reasons—idioms and euphemisms are lost on me. Older and wiser me understands this now, and no not from experience. It's true; you gain nothing by letting people walk all over you...letting them manipulate you...letting them make you feel any less than you ought to.

One Thing At A Time was...is, never in my lexicon. I've always been trying to multitask, whether or not on purpose, which inevitably leads to overfilling my plate like always, or becoming a decapitated chicken.

Et Tu, Brute?

Experience has taught me that God can sometimes be like an overly-caffeinated celebrity chef making his world famous--or maybe even just his newest--recipe for the first time on Live Television. Or maybe Gallagher at a Farmer's Market...but with the new Geico commercial, that's kind of cliche. I shake my fists at Geico; that would have been the best simile. Way better than the over-caffeinated celebrity chef. But I digress...

Let me back up a bit. I am extremely flattered that the Lord seems to think I can handle as much as he apparently does. He knows my level of patience, which anyone who knows me would be saying "What patience?" right about now. Still confused? Understandable. Well, about a month ago, I found out that my mom's heart condition is hereditary. After 40 years of smoking and to the point where she said she would never quit, she said that week that she wanted to quit. So I told her to pick a day and that I'd quit with her. She picked Black Friday. Thus, since November 23rd, 3:00 AM, I have not had a cigarette. It has been hell, let me say, but then again it has it's trade-offs. I still crave nicotine like there's no tomorrow...but I have willpower to not smoke, which is very new to me. 

Willpower...what is this concept?

Moving on...Hereditary Heart Disease, quitting smoking, ah yes. Black Friday we went to the in-laws to hang out. On the return trip home, just south of Mt. Calvary, a deer decided to attempt to take out my wife's 2008 Dodge Caliber. You think I'm joking. She (I know it was a doe) strode out from the south side of the road, crossing the eastbound lane and struck the driver's side headlight. Like it was an INCONVENIENCE, and MY car was in HER way!! Just BAM! head butts the thing, my 70 mph spun her around, she dents the driver's side wheel well, takes out my driver's side mirror completely (which has been held together with packing tape for the last 4 months), and DECIMATES the driver's side rear bumper. To the point where the sheriff I called to notify of said Altercation with the Doe, told me to safely continue my journey home I had to remove the bumper. Which I simply tore off from the crack...no comment.

Moving right along. Three more things happened that it is too soon to talk about. Two of them are on the negative side, one is pretty positive if I do say so myself and would qualify as the Positive Whipped Cream on top of this whole month. The other negative thing that I can and choose to talk about, I will do so after tomorrow. Because of this though, this blog exists. My Vlog will come into existence because of it. My Rooftop Leap List has come into being because of it, and a whole new attitude on things is coming about. I'd like to put that in an entire post. 

The important thing to remember though, when it seems like God is watching you going "All right," rubbing his hands together, "Let's throw a little bit of this (negative thing) at him, and then maybe some of this, and that...and we'll see what happens." He stirs the pot a little bit and goes, "Mm-hmm, okay now let's throw on some of this, this, this and this. OH THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART!" and then throws on more, all the while with a maniacal smile on his face as he adds more and stirs...whoa. Tangent. Crazy Adderall-induced Tangent.

The Title "Et Tu Brute" is dual-faceted. Don't get me wrong, I will never choose to give up my faith or Question God and his intentions, but there came a point where I basically said this...almost like a "Really?" "What Next?" "For real?" It also, as of late, has a personal connection to my life besides the events of the last month. I haven't figured out a way to Code this yet, so that I can divulge what happened without making the guilty party known...but when I do, I'll post it too. And who knows, maybe by then I'll have a whole new mindset on it, and it'll be nothing more than an overreaction on my part (which is entirely inside the realm of possibility)

What I can say is this. God is in control. He always will be. That is a constant. That being said, do not let what people want you to be, or more importantly, what people think of you, run you, run your life, run your decisions, or make you be someone you do not want to be. It took me to find out...what I found out last week...to figure that out, but the important thing is that I have. I have come across a few pertinent quotes yesterday, that you'll find below.

George Washington said, "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." Very Important for Anyone to remember. You don't just give all your trust to one person or a few people, at the drop of a hat, they have to earn it, and you in turn have to earn theirs.

The other one is from Dee Hock, founder and CEO of the Visa Credit Card Association (though this kills me to put a quote from such a guy on here, the quote is a good one and pertinent at that): "The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it."

This Blog--more specifically, this entry, and possibly a few more like it, is me doing just that. Cleaning out a corner of my mind so that Creativity will instantly fill it. But i figured I might as well share with others, so that I in return may get satisfaction of entertaining others and not only that, so that I could quite possibly get some encouragement from you, my readers...as I go about my day as an Attention-deficient, Nicotine-starved Aspy with an Oversized Left Ventricle, trying to find his voice in the Deafening Silence of the World.

So...Final Summation...Be You. Be You Regardless of anyone or anything else. As long as your focus is on the Lord, everything else will fall into place. My English IV Teacher told me that...well actually he said it in an interview for the Reporter. I paraphrase here, of course. It HAS been almost a decade, you realize. As much as it will pain me, and it quite possibly will...I've got to take my own advice. Bill Cosby said "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." 

"If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much." - Dale Carnegie

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you've failed by default." - J.K. Rowling