I'm feeling that I'm sober...

Even tho...

You know the rest.

Despite not getting down to my "dream weight" before this weekend, I must say... whatever?

Keep in mind, I only ballooned up to 138lbs this winter and not my normal "things are getting out of hand" low 140s.  You just gotta go hungry.

I mean, the only goal I had all year was to win the SS class at PMBAR and crack the top three overall.  Looking back, my time preparing for the event woulda been better spent staring at a map than riding fifteen more minutes of junk miles or doing sit ups.

I feel fit tho, so I got that going for me.

The Pie has the good camera so I used the iPhone and a mirror but at least I remembered that I wanted this photo for good blerhg but I just got done mowing the lawn because a big part of preparing for a stage race is timing your yard maintenance and you gotta crop out things like the toilet because mebbe you haven't flushed it and didn't take the time to put on ironic jorts or pull down my pants to that oh-so-close to showing pubes but gotta show that cut and mebbe some veins because not Iggy Pop ripped yet but realize people read this at work so okay.

What was I talking about?

My legs are doing what I ask of them lately.  Not sure how much more unnecessary Dick I could get rid of, but I feel like I'm coming into the weekend with a full pack of matches.

A full pack of matches...

My dad was a consummate smoker.  A life timer.  I guess you could say he did eventually quit, but not until they put him in a bed at the VA hospital that he never got out of... oxygen, pesky nurses, loved ones who don't really wanna get blown up.

Back when he was the King of All Things Video, he kept his cigarettes and matches under the counter at the Theater Video.  Side by side.  Same place every day.  Yeth, there was smoking in my dad's video store.  Ashtrays everywhere.  I can remember back to when a couple of his employees (and my coworkers) were smoking teenagers, and that place looked like an AC/DC concert when the show's over and the lights came on.

Second hand what-what?

Twenty cigarettes in a pack.  Twenty matches in a book.  Side by side.

Sometimes a customer would ask to bum a light... or even a smoke.  For them, he had an extra pack and book set aside.  Gimmes.  There was no way he was gonna give someone his fifteenth match that was going to be used on his fifteenth cigarette.  When he ran out of both at the same time, he'd open a new pack and book.  That's the way he was.

It's no wonder that I have some of my anal compulsion.  Eggs.  I eat two a day.  Sometimes The Pie will be making eggs and vegetables for supper.  She'll put in three eggs.  Or five.  An odd number, regardless.  This hurts my head, because at some point, I'm going to pull out a carton with only one egg when I'm making breakfast.  Of course, I just need to grab the next carton and open it.  Leaving it with eleven eggs.

"Why can't you just eat one egg or three eggs for breakfast if it means that much to you?" ~ The Pie

Sigh.

I can see the future, and it is bleak.  Bleak.

She threatened to dig into the three cartons of eggs in the fridge and take one egg out of each before she left on vacation.

It was only a threat tho.

I think the death of Chris Cornell made me think about my dad.  Death does that.  Euthanizing a dog, someone I tangentially know passes, a brilliant comedian who lived a quiet, tortured existence, an artist who's music went straight to my heart and head.  It must be the familiarity, I guess.

The finality of seeing someone's life force being snuffed out, and the ability of the brain to store that information in a lobe with a direct line to conscience thought any time the word "death" hits home.

So, Chris Cornell dies and I find myself at work walking towards the elevators and getting choked up thinking about my dad who's been gone for nine years and matches and school bus rides and all kinds of shit just keeps getting pulled to the front of my brain full-on avalanche style.

I'm looking forward to spending hours in the woods tomorrow with my bike and an earbud keeping me company.  And the sneks.  I heard they're out and about lately.

I hate sneks.  So does my mom.  I guess I get that from her.

I spent an uncomfortable amount of time last night night talking to Watts on the phone and listening to Chris Cornell and not watching Archer and not getting banana bread crumbs on myself... and I was wearing clothes the whole time... so, progress?

Demons.  We all have them.  It's about beating them and never giving up.  Ending your own mortality based on... ?

I wished I had better words.  I wished I wasn't turned into a temporary pile of shit because someone I never met decided to check out.

But apparently I did.  I stayed up late last night and watched and listened and wondered.

Blow up the outside world.