*SHIT*.. Seriously... I may be loosing my mind...
Things have been busy lately, deadlines looming, papers pending, whatever. Nothing I haven't dealt with many times before. Added to that is the fact that I need to find a job, before I become a destitute debtor.. you know blah,blah,blah. Towards that end, today my boss was supposed to be offering me a job (which they still haven't done yet) so I was a bit more nervous than usual last night, but still cool.


So last night I conscientiously went to bed early. Did a little boring reading, turned off the light, and started to doze off. I started having a dozing dream. The type where the dream is vivid, but you're aware that you're awake. In the dream, I remember that for some reason I was driving down a road in a Jeep Cherokee. This is odd since I've never owned or driven a Jeep, but there you have it, I specifically remember that detail. Seemed perfectly normal in the dream, does that mean I want a Jeep? Who the fuck knows. Anyways, everything's going fine I'm toodling along on some country road without a care in the world. Living the happy go-lucky life of the dream motorist. Then I look in the rear view mirror and see a guy hanging on my bumper. Specifically its Prince what's his name from England (the tall blond one) riding a skateboard holding onto the back of my car. He gives me a goofy British grin and waves, and I. Just. Go. Ape-shit. I start careening all over the road and yelling. Finally I wake up choking and in a panic. Literally choking.


What the Hell? I don't even want to know what that means! I'm not a royalty nut. I saw a PBS program about him a couple of months ago, but I sure as shit don't think about the dude. I'm juggling a lot of pies here! Life decisions! Where did this come from? And why did the sight of this royal wanker just completely wig me out?? Its like I dreamed a spider was crawling out of my mouth or something... ugh... I think maybe that it was just the complete randomness that shook me. My sub-conscious is a mean @#@%@$#, but this was totally weird.

I got like 4 hours of sleep last night. All the nervous energy immediately started me on the path of introspection..

P.S.. Uhmmm... should I mention here that I love Women? LOOOOVVVEEE THEM....

... and I didn't kill Diane or anything either...

I think I'll stop thinking about this now....

Also I don't dislike the british.... or white people....

..now..

A shite day
Alas, I find myself on the crap side of life's balancing act today. This morning I woke up 5 minutes before class and after 15 seconds of groggy deliberation, dropped my head like a dead man. Yet my brain refused to release the usual cocktail of endorphins over this minor triumph of physiology. The guilt I felt over ditching combined with my vague irritation about being woken by NPR interviewing Spaniards, ruined my extra hours of rest. Eventually I got out of bed, strapped on my slog-through-the-fucking-mud boots and pushed off.. The weather has sucked lately, but that's not the source of my feeling of foreboding. Although nothing's really wrong yet, I don't feel right. This is the quiet before the storm. I can feel the charge in the air. God's finger is poised over the big red kick Patrick in the ass button, and it'll drop any time.

In fact I know when.. I stare at my calender like a zombie and wonder what the hell I'm going to do. In the last day or so, I've been reminded that I have about fifty things due in the next couple of weeks. And yet, I'm not exactly springing into action here... Ya see, I don't actually feel like working.. I'm not really feeling any urgency. I just feel non-plussed. Like I'm not even in the driver seat on this one. I'm just waiting for consequences.. The 11th hour isn't for a few minutes yet so I'm not quite worried.

In addition to this my thesis advisor still hasn't gotten back to me about the draft I submitted two weeks ago... He wants the final draft in 2 weeks. @$*$@$)(@$@)$$)@($@$. Arse. My project doesn't even freaking work yet!!!

A beautiful day.
It's perfect here in Chapel Hill. Blue Skies, 70 degrees, breezy, mp3 player, laptop. A moment of relaxation where I close out the rest of humanity. To my fore are the not quite verdant lawns of the University of North Carolina. American flag flapping, brick edifice, spires and the whole bit. Sparse streams of students trickle across the quad en route to whatever they do with their time. It's still too early for most of the little blighters to be up, so that they add a picturesque quality to the view rather than mob the scene. Kind of like those crooked m's that artists draw in the corner of paintings to signify life in empty sky.

I'm sitting outside my building typing away on my laptop enjoying the weather and my temporary freedom. God bless Academia and Wireless internet. Huzzah. Moments like this, may tempt one to consider the on-rushing prospect of a life of servitude (read: career), but to be so dismal on a day like this would be crass. Besides moments like these make it hard to take anything all that seriously.

Where are you right now? Inside staring at some cubicle wall? I'd laugh if I didn't know that I'm just a cog looking for its place in the great machine. Well.. not really looking.. but I can hear grinding in my future.

El Jefe: Life is balance
I've posted things here that have weirded me out before, and yet I hesitate to post this...
But in order to establish continuity and balance I thought throw it out there.
Any of you that read my earlier post on January 28th know of my rather unfortunate run-in with a mentally handicapped woman. Well last Sunday I had another such run-in but in a completely different way....
I have trouble talking about this...

So let's set the scene.

Sunday night around 9:00, El Jefe walks into his favorite pool dive, Zogs. As always, Zogs is sparsely populated with just enough people to take all the tables. Typical of them, Jefe's lame-o friends are running late so he sits down at the bar, orders a drink, and asks the bartender who knows him by sight to put him on the pool list. Your author sips his drink, eyes the TV and idly wonders if he puts money in the jukebox now, whether James Brown's "Payback" (his pool theme song) will come on too early to set his groove. He decides to err on the side of caution, and simply switches his attention between watching basketball highlights and watching people in the bar's wall mirror.

It should be mentioned that as usual, there were no women that piqued El Jefe's interest, this after all being a pool dive. El Jefe has female friends that claim to patronize Zogs, but he personally has rarely if ever seen such activity.

Scene set

Half way through my beer, the bartender, a guy whose name I keep meaning to get, informs me that my table waits. I thank him and head over there intending to play a couple warmers of nine ball till the lads show up. When I arrive, I'm met by a group of rather strange, but friendly group of people. It would seem that I have run into some chaperoned group of mentally handicapped people who were just heading out. One of them, a rather large woman by the name of let's say Sally, I honestly don't remember, comes up and introduces herself. We shake and after I'm introduced to some of the rest of the gang, she asks if they can play with us. I say that I'm waiting for some buddies of mine, but sure I'd be willing to play with them until then. This caught me off guard because I was wondering as I sat at the bar if the perpetually drunk guy with a nearly unintelligible slurred voice would yet again horn into my game this evening. I racked the balls up and just as she's lining up the break her chaperone comes over and informs her that it really is time to go. After a little argument, she breaks, rather badly, and toddles off to pay her tab. Never one to waste a break, I continue to sink balls and wonder just what I've stumbled into.

As I play, Sally sidles up and watches me shoot. I start to notice that she's getting a little close to my bubble, but I try to concentrate on the game. After a bit of this, I notice that she keeps trying to hand me a piece of paper which I try to ignore feigning intense concentration on my play. Eventually she just walks up to me and hands me the paper and goes off to join her group. One of the chaperones shoots me a concerned look and they leave in a semi-orderly fashion. I continue to play for a bit with this crumpled piece of paper in my hand until I gather the courage to give it a look. As I had feared it was a cell phone number and a message to call anytime.......

Some of you might laugh at this latest incident, but I'm quite embarrassed and wonder if a gentleman couldn't have somehow avoided such a situation. I for my part sported a blush for the next hour and a propensity to glance over my shoulder watching for what life will next fling at me.

And can I just say that for those who are starting to wonder, that I'm not the sort who goes around assuming everyone is mentally challenged... This woman clearly had cerebral palsy while the woman from January may have simply been possessed by the Devil for all I know.

Yours, life-challenged
el Jefe