Frank (Slept Here)

In the moments before the music started I thought of the last time I had been to a late night concert and every possible reason I should have stayed home. My mind drifts to the girl I was with at my last concert, the fact that she is not with me tonight, and the reasons why that is so. In a few hours these thoughts will reassert themselves but for the moment Ted Leo is ready to play four feet from me. When he begins I know I’m in the right place. Every time my feet leave the ground it’s clear I’m not there to be reminded of something I used to be. I’m there because of who I am.

When it came time to schedule my trip to Chicago I went ahead and took Tuesday off of work in addition to Monday. I knew that Ella and I would be back Monday night but I assumed, correctly as it turned out, that after 26 hours in a car I’d want an extra day to recover before heading back to work. That morning I wrote this post and in the process went through part of my blog archives to consult a particular post I’d written some years back…and then got sucked into reading several years’ worth of archives. I went through my old posts and realized that I didn’t like a lot of what I was reading. There is a good reason for this; for the first few years of this blog I was dealing with depression and not dealing with it well at all.

I did a lot of things wrong during that time but one of the primary mistakes I made was making my world small. I withdrew from people and pushed other people away until I found myself alone and more miserable than I have ever been in my life. Even today it is hard to describe how I felt back then but the best way I can put it is that I felt a heaviness on my life, like a sad weight that I carried around with me everywhere for years until it seemed like I was unable to do anything the right way.

The heaviness I used to carry with me feels like ancient history, so much so that after reading through the past I found it hard to recognize myself. I was thinking of those posts earlier today as I stood over a spilled milkshake in a parking lot. I had gone out at lunch to get a cheeseburger and a milkshake because for the past few days I’ve been feeling the heaviness again. When I feel bad I like to eat take out food and drink milkshakes – actually I like to do these things all the time, but even more so when I feel down. Today I really needed the small comforts and one of them ended up on the pavement as I went to open my car door. This was not the end of the world though, thanks to having learned a little from my past. Earlier in the day I had done something that the old me would have never done: I told people that I was feeling down. So as I stood there holding my lunch in a puddle of spilled strawberry milkshake I didn’t feel alone.

The heaviness will not bring me down again. I will out-think this thing faster and easier than I did before. The fact that I am telling you about it without having to dismantle my life first is a positive sign. The fact that I laughed over seeing my favorite beverage all over my feet is another good sign.

I’m going to be fine. Thanks for listening.

While I was in Chicago I was, by chance, brought face to face with a reminder of past personal failures. I looked at this reminder for a minute and then turned away because there was no reason to look any longer. I cannot change the past nor control what people thought of my then (or now).

In the past, reminders like this would knock me back and it would take me time to regroup but today I’m not feeling too bad. I’m never going to be happy with certain segments of my past but I should give myself some credit for using them as learning experiences for my future.

It’s a step in the right direction.

After a very, very long time in the car, Ella and I are back from Chicago.

The less said about that trip, the better.

Yesterday I ran the Workforce Challenge Road Race, a 3.5 mile run in which companies, organizations, and government agencies from all over the Albany area assemble teams and compete against one another. I did not enjoy it.

After last year’s Workforce Challenge the boss of Ella’s company discovered I was a runner, and so as a spouse of one of their employees I was drafted to compete on their team. I’ve run a half marathon and countless 5k’s before this and yet I enjoyed all of them more than the Workforce Challenge race I ran yesterday.

Perhaps it’s just the fact that it was hot and humid that contributed to my unhappiness but the thing I really disliked was the sheer size of the race. There were close to 10,000 entrants and I was shoved and stepped on nearly the entire time. I prefer either A) smaller races, like the 5k I ran a few weeks ago that had only 250 people and allowed me to get a good place on the starting line, or B) longer races that don’t require me to get out to such a fast start. Yesterday I got an awful spot on the starting line and had to weave through the crowd and jump up onto the sidewalk at times to get around people. Normally I’m not quite so competitive in road races but I was part of a team and my overall place mattered in the scoring. When I find myself swearing out loud during a race, getting elbowed in the ribs and having my heels stepped on by other runners, it’s time for me to rethink what I’m doing.

While nobody likes getting trampled and shoved, I feel like my training hasn’t really prepared me for a race this short. Even when the crowd thinned and I could run at my own pace I found that I had trouble moving up because I’m simply not as fast as I was in years past. With the marathon as my main focus, a 5k (or 3.5 miles, as this race was) just feels like a quick burst. I can get some of my old speed back by doing shorter, faster training runs, but I’m not there yet.

I was looking to run another 5k next month but after yesterday I’m thinking I’m going to forget it and focus on my marathon training and revisit the shorter races another time.

Ella’s coworkers seemed very pleased with my performance, and I’m sure that if they ask me to run it again next year I will, but today I’d rather not think about it.

Quick! Ask me what my three least favorite things are…

Okay, I’ll tell you: my three least favorite things are Nickelback, the fact that Nickelback has been allowed to record and sell music, and the fact that lots of people listen to music made by Nickelback. While those three things are all hateworthy, I often wonder what I’ll hate once Nickelback breaks up and all its members die. I’ll probably still reserve one hate spot for the fact that they existed but I’ll need two new things to truly despise and I’m not sure what they will be. Actually, that’s not true; I know what one of them is.

Currently at number four on my hate list: parades. Parades are the only things that should be allowed to like Nickelback because they’re all that’s keeping them off my least favorite things list.

Having said this, you might ask why I’m going to Chicago to see a parade this weekend. It’s a good question, and even I’m not quite sure it’s justified by my reasons. It’s the annual Lilac Day Parade in Lombard, my grandma’s town. Lilac Day is a big deal in Lombard, and over the years it’s evolved into the de facto family reunion for my mom’s side of the family. I’m going there to see relatives and eat food and hope that some combination of those two will keep me occupied during the three hour parade. Three hours of firetrucks and crappy floats and fidgety kids crawling down the road. Just about anything except Nickelback will be more preferable. It’s the price I have to pay for seeing my sister and my grandma and the various aunts or uncles who decide to show up. At least they can’t say I don’t make sacrifices for them.

Why the hate? Like most things I dislike, my anti-parade feelings started when I was a kid. In Trenton, the town I grew up in in southeast Michigan, most kids were encouraged to participate in things like team sports, Boy/Girl Scouts, or music programs. These activities were supposed to teach us something but I wouldn’t say I was encouraged to do them. I think the phrase that best describes the situation would be “forced to participate.”

Activities may be great for building character but they are also good for getting kids out of the house for hours at a time. The worst part wasn’t the sports or activities (they weren’t all that bad); the bad part was the parades we were forced to march in in conjunction with the activities.

Several times a year all of the kids who were involved in organized activities gathered at the library and then walked the 3/4 of a mile to the shopping district at the end of West Road.

These parades may not sound so bad but believe me, it was like the Bataan Suck March for every kid involved. It was probably worse for the parents who had to stand on the side of the road in the rain (naturally, it always rained on parade days) watching one miserable kid after another trudge down the street in a hand-me-down uniform while the band played “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

My parents would have hated it too – that is, if they hadn’t just dropped me and my brother off with instructions to call when it was over. I have to hand it to my parents, they were pretty smart when it came to avoiding things like parades, taking kids to the dentist, and encouraging me to do anything some other things.

There was only one time I ever enjoyed a parade, and it wasn’t really a parade. It was the overnight practice for the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago. I’ll never forget coming up from the Jackson Red Line Station at 3 AM to find State Street filled with artificial light and all of the acts practicing their routines. Of course, it probably helped that I was really drunk at the time. Just like I plan to be at the Lilac Day Parade.

At the slightest suggestion that we might need something for the house I’ll offer to go to the store. In fact, I’ll fight to be able to go grocery shopping. You see, my wife usually does the bulk of the shopping for household items because: A. She’s a woman, and B. I’m an idiot (I’m joking about one of those reasons). It’s a good thing she plans our shopping because left to my own devices I’d buy $200 worth of cereal and candy each time. Ella, on the other hand, generally buys food that will sustain us. My lack of planning aside, if you send me for specific items it’s a safe bet I’ll come back with the right things, so while I don’t get to handle big shopping trips solo I am allowed to go buy Cheez-Its, cake, and ice cream on my own. I look forward to these trips because I like going grocery shopping, but not just anywhere – there’s one specific store: the Price Chopper just across the river in Watervliet.

For those of you not from around here, Price Chopper is the local Albany area grocery store chain, and for the most part it’s awful. Maybe I’m just spoiled by my Chicago years when I had easy access to Jewel, Dominick’s, and Valli, but I’m stunned at how a chain of stores as ugly and poorly run as Price Chopper can stay in business. The floors are dirty, shelves are left un-stocked, their prices are generally not “chopped,” and each store has its own arcane layout that makes it impossible to find anything. And the worst of all their stores is the Watervliet store (colloquially referred to as the “Ghetto Chopper”) , which is so rundown and dated-looking that it’s like stepping back in time to 1982 whenever I walk in. And yet I like it a lot. Why? – two reasons:

1. My love of people-watching has been documented in this blog before, and this store doesn’t disappoint. It’s like that “People of Walmart” website, only better. Troy and its neighbor Watervliet have more than their share of exceptionally weird-looking people, and they all like to shop at the Watervliet Price Chopper. It’s like taking the most fascinating people from the most backward, rural Walmart and packing them into a store 1/4 the size.

2. Every time I walk into this Price Chopper they are playing “Bust a Move.” Did you know that it’s impossible to be in a bad mood when “Bust a Move” is playing? It’s true because I said so. Don’t believe me? Click here and listen for yourself.

See, you feel better, don’t you?

Now I don’t own “Bust a Move” and I have no desire to. I think that Young MC is best enjoyed in moderation, but I know that whenever I feel down all I have to do is go to the Watervliet Price Chopper. The produce will be wilted, the meat selection will be disappointing, and I won’t find anything else that I need, but I’ll hear “Bust a Move” and probably see something like a man in leopard print pants with a cart full of condoms and I’ll immediately feel better.

Today is Mother’s Day and I think it would be disrespectful to not at least acknowledge my mom. We’ve had our ups and downs over the past few years but she is the only mom I have and I still love her regardless. I thank her for being kind and nurturing as I was growing up, instilling a love of science and nature in me, and buying me back from those people after my dad sold me. Thank you mom for pushing me get through the Boy Scouts even when I wanted to quit (having “Eagle Scout recipient” on my resume has been very helpful). Thank you for coming to every one of my track and cross country meets regardless of the weather. And thank you for never giving up, even when it seemed as if the wheels were really coming off everything a few years back.

In addition here are a few of my favorite things my mother has done that can be shared in a public forum:

-She once called my school to report that I would not be coming in and said, “He’s got a stomach thing.  Or a hangover.”

-Once on a camping trip she caught a snake with her bare hands and then posed for a picture with it.

-She once referred to someone she works with as a “noob.”

-Even though she abhorred violence and wouldn’t let us play with toy guns as a kid, we were allowed to watch movies like Die Hard as long as we wore sunglasses during the violent parts.

-In third grade my teacher was convinced I needed special education classes, and when my mom found out about this she called my teacher to give her a piece of her mind. A few years later when that teacher passed away my mom said, “Don’t feel bad, she thought you were retarded.”

Here is a picture of my mom and me from 2003 or 2004. Rather than point out where this was or how much we’ve both aged since then, what I’m most interested in is…where did I get that shirt? I have no memory of it and it looks something Tom Selleck would wear on an episode of Magnum P.I. If I still had that shirt I would wear it. Often.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

There are few feelings worse than waking up to a reminder that you did something ridiculous, like drinking too much and giving a clown a handjob, or maybe worse. This morning I woke up and checked for white makeup under my nails but there was none. I was relieved to have once again dodged that situation. However, I wasn’t completely in the clear. When checking my email I was struck with the cold hard realization that I had created a LinkedIn profile. I don’t have a good reason for being on LinkedIn – I’m not what you would call a business professional and I have little inclination to network with anyone. I most likely created one because my wife has one and she’s smart, so I usually try to do like she does. Plus, if she has something it’s usually worth having, like boobs and an ice cream machine.

Creating the profile allowed me to create my own business network for Frank (Slept Here) Industries; sure, I’m the only member but I’m also the president. I don’t see you being the president of anything but if you ever need to pad your resumé I’ll say that you worked for me. Potential employers will know that it’s a legitimate company too because it’s on the Internet.

This is my first executive office of any kind; I just hope I don’t go mad with power.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve found it difficult to listen to Jeremy Keen’s music, even though it’s meant so much to me for so long. This is largely because I’ve come to associate it with some dark times. Gone are the days when I’d pass the night on the floor with my iPod, a half empty bottle of Early Times within easy reach, the song “Tomorrow” on repeat:

You stood with your hands thrust in your pockets

And I stood with my heart in my throat

Never told you that I was sorry

For what it’s worth now, I still feel the same

I’m gonna love you like always

Reach for you when the night won’t end

I’ll keep looking out for tomorrow

Tomorrow’s where our life begins

Never mind all the shit that we’ve been through

Never mind all the shit that we’re in

Just keep holding onto tomorrow

Tomorrows just keep rushing in

I’m gonna love you, my darling

Reach for you when the night won’t end

And I’ll keep looking out for tomorrow

Tomorrow’s where our life begins

Love will conquer, love will conquer, love will conquer all

Love will conquer, in this stillness come here it gently call

I’m gonna love you, my beauty

Reach for you when the night won’t end

And I’ll keep looking out for tomorrow

Tomorrow’s where our life begins

These days I don’t feel as lost and alone as I did back then, and I’ve learned to take different paths, ones that don’t end with me sleeping drunk on the floor at night. What I’m saying is the music hasn’t changed, I’ve changed. Jeremy Keen is one of my favorite artists that I no longer listen to much. His work is still great, but it’s just not where I am at the moment.