Half Year Adjustments

Wednesday July 1st, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

And, as the whistle blows…halftime 2009 is officially here. Time continues to zoom by at a pace way faster than I can process it. All I can hope for now is a painless death with a shot at better circumstances if indeed there is life after this episode of cosmic flatulence.

Until that inevitable time I’m still stuck here for some reason. Or is there any reason at all? Is it just random chance? Sometimes I wonder. I look around at a planet so filled with craziness on every level and it makes me ask why I was ever born at all. Did I screw up in another life? Is this my punishment? Will it get better? It’s all boiling down to a question.

Whatever the answer is, none of it seems to matter now. I’m here and have to play out a hand of cards I was dealt. The choices I make today will help to shape my tomorrows just as my choices until now have gotten me to this point. It’s not easy to keep making them.

The cruelest joke of all in this life is that the only thing we have no choice about is that we all have to keep making choices. That’s deep. I don’t think anyone can just stick their life on automatic pilot and not pay attention to it. Sooner or later it will crash and burn.

I sure don’t want that but I feel like I’m doing an iffy job as a pilot. Whatever I had as a flight plan has blown out the cockpit window and now I feel like I’ve drifted out of touch with the control tower and hope I can get back on course somehow. I feel completely lost.

I really did have simple goals in life. All I ever wanted was to be ‘normal’ but that’s the last word I’d use to describe how it’s turned out so far. I feel like a circus freak who never got to live a regular life. At least Michael Jackson had a few hundred million to play with along the way. He was a freak too but his toy box was a lot bigger than everybody else’s.

From all accounts I hear he just wanted to be normal too. Who doesn’t? The human life experience can be a blast at times but when it goes bad it’s a nightmare. Staying in sync is no easy task for anyone and it seems like very few ever do that. I want to be one of them. I’ve been in that groove and it’s wonderful. Then I fall out of it again. I want to stay there.

But how? Sometimes I feel like I’m right on course and other times not. Right now I am so confused I don’t even know why I’m here much less where I’m going. It’s all a big old mess. I sure thought I’d have it figured out by now but I don‘t. And time continues to slip.

I made some decent choices the first half of this year but also blew some others. I didn’t get to a lot of things I thought I would and that’s frustrating too. I don’t want to be having this same talk six months from now so I need to change my strategy to make that happen.

I think it boils down to contacts, choices and vibe. My vibe has to be positive and that’s a lot easier if I hang around positive people. My choices have to be clear and shared with others so I can help myself stay on some kind of a consistent course. That’s the first step. I spent all day today sorting out what I need to do to rebuild my life from the ground up.

Vibe is very important. I really believe that even though it sounds like ‘moonbeams and star dust’ like my cousin Brett says. The vibe a person puts out is what comes back and it can be changed depending on the choice of the person. Mine could use a major tune up.

I try very hard to be a good person but I think it’s more than that. ‘Good’ and ‘nice’ are not enough. I’m sure Hitler thought he was a nice guy and in his mind he was doing good. History suggests differently but it depends on who you talk to. Some people liked the guy.

I sure don’t want to compare myself to Hitler but I’m finding that I still have a knack of polarizing people myself. I’m either loved or loathed probably because I put that vibe out. If I like someone I make it known immediately but if I don’t I do that too. And that’s how it comes back. I have a lot of people in my corner but also a few who hope I die in a fire.

That boils down to contacts. Who do I choose to spend the majority of my time with? If I surround myself with quality people it will keep my vibe up to snuff. Lately I’ve noticed I’ve been clashing with some people and I never enjoy that. That’s not what I want to do.

I want to put out a vibe so strong those people can’t penetrate it. I don’t want to have to be in a position to ever have to deal with someone like that. I don’t wish any bad on them but I do wish them to be far away from me. Those two comics who owe me money owe it because I was stupid enough to lend it. That’s on me. It will be a bonus to get paid back.

But if they don’t I can’t keep dwelling on it. And that boils down to choice. I choose all the things I think about and I don’t have to think about those guys or that money. If that’s what I think about it’s preventing a lot bigger and more creative thoughts from growing.

Piss on the both of them for not paying me back in a reasonable amount of time but piss on me too for letting it happen. Also, piss on the rude and boorish club owner who put my self esteem in the mud but again piss on me for ever allowing it to happen. His little toilet isn’t where I need to be working anyway. In reality he did me a favor by chasing me off.

I talked to Tim Slagle today and he made a hell of a point. He said if I blow that guy off like I’ve been doing it’s the same as Bob and Tom blowing me off. My sister too, I guess. I haven’t answered the guy’s calls and don’t intend to because I’ll say something ugly I’ll be sorry for later and I don’t want to put myself in that position. But Tim made his point.

How do I handle it? Good question. Bob and Tom may never talk to me again but quite frankly they didn’t have a good vibe when they did. They were in a bad mood and I had it spill over on me for whatever reason. Enough with pissing on people already. That’s not a final answer and it smells too much like piss. I’ll tweak my vibe until it’s right. But how?

These are the things I’m trying to figure out as I head into the second half of this year. If I change my vibe and improve my choices a different result will happen. The contacts I’ll develop will also have a part of that bigger picture and the good news is I’m the one who gets to pick who that is! That’s the best news I’ve had in a while but it was always there.