Mapping Memories

The Land of Confusion

Life was pretty confusing for me as a kid in Sand Land. I have very few memories from that time; I barely spoke the language (though I could read and write), and, as I often couldn’t understand what was going on around me, I spent much of my childhood in a world of my own imagination. We moved around a lot, and so my treasured childhood possessions often ended up in lost luggage or abandoned, leaving nothing to remind me of that time…

But a few memories stand out in my mind: Frozen Suntop Juice boxes with collectible stickers, warm, U-shaped za’atar rolls they served for lunch, and a mysterious, trapezoidal concrete building I liked to climb.

“Can’t you see this is a land of confusion?”
– Genesis, 1986

A Few Words About a Mysterious Trapazoidal Structure…

I don’t recall what the structure was used for; it might have been concrete bleachers, bathrooms, or a storage building. It was made of solid concrete, which wasn’t particularly remarkable at the time and place, but what was noteworthy about it was its sloping sides. They looked something like this:

I recall some details, such as it being adjacent to the outdoor basketball court, and that you could see the dirt soccer fields and jogging track from it. Having poor proprioception, I couldn’t swear to direction or orientation – the sun always hung oppressively in the sky with recess being in the middle of the day, and it was always dry and dusty.

I didn’t play basketball, wasn’t very good at soccer, and wasn’t particularly social, so I usually looked for ways to spend my time by myself. On a whim, I decided to try to climb the sides of the building. My first few attempts failed, but I worked out that with a running start, as long as I maintained my momentum, I could sprint most of the way up, catch the lip of the roof with my fingers, and pull myself up the rest of the way.

I don’t know why this memory has stuck with me all this time, but as the years marched on, I began to wonder just how accurate it was. After waking up one morning thinking about it, I decided to look into it…

Putting Together the Pieces

I knew the city’s name, but hadn’t realized until I looked closely at the map that it was divided into an old part of town and a new industrial city, built only a few years before my family’s arrival in the early 80s. I have other fond memories of my black BMX bike, and my father would sometimes drive us down to the long, concrete promenade that ran parallel to the ocean.

We lived in a new subdivision, and every house looked much like the rest, so finding a particular neighborhood was out of the question. Though how many elementary schools might there be, given that some were for expats, and the one I went to was for nationals, and was a boys’ school (though most aspects of life in that part of the world are segregated).

After an aerial search on Google Earth, I eventually located what I think was the school. According to the scalebar, 90 pixels represented approximately 20 feet, which, if true, is a remarkable resolution of ~0.067 meters/pixel or about 6.7cm/pixel. So I measured a known object (passenger sedan) for scale, and sure enough, the dimensions worked out to be about 2.66″ per pixel, which is remarkably good!

After carefully reviewing large areas of the map, I finally found what I was looking for:

The details loosely align with my memory; however, I recall there were two soccer fields (side by side), both dirt, not grass (which was rare and very expensive at the time). If you wind back the clock to 2006 or earlier, you can see that my recollection was accurate (i.e., dirt soccer fields):

The more recent image seems to have a scale of approximately 2.7″ per pixel, which is remarkably good. This would give the mystery building a footprint of approximately 80′ long by 40′ wide.

Filling in the Blanks

The names of both the district and the elementary school were also familiar to me after reading them, as well as other secondary details, such as the thoroughfare, named for the King whose visage appeared on the local currency at the time.

All that to say that I was as reasonably sure that this was indeed the location I spent many recesses, sipping an orange Suntop and daydreaming before being thrown back into the endless boredom of the classroom. The only thing I can liken it to is the Adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon, if Charlie only understood about 25% of what was being said…

Vindication, However Limited

Although I tried to find pictures of the grounds, most outdoor shots featured the soccer field and faced west (away from the structure/basketball court), so I suppose I’ll just have to be happy with what I found. It’s quite remarkable when you think about it in its entirety:

The structure still existed 40 years later
Sufficiently detailed satellite photos were available and [publicly] accessible
The names of the district, the school, and the thoroughfares were familiar to me, once I’d read them
The memory turned out to be true, not some invention of my overactive imagination…

For instance, one of my childhood friends who had a similar ancestry to mine used to make up stories about how Kermit the Frog would sneak into your bedroom at night and shove needles up your butt, then collect your diarrhea in a glass jar (yes, really), which was accompanied by the song of the same name.

It’s fair to say that I had a very strange childhood…

Life is Harder for Some People

I don’t have many friends, but I try to look out for the ones I do. Most of my life has been an uphill struggle, and while the top of the mountain isn’t as tall as the dreams of my youth, it has a pleasant view, and I can see myself being happy here for a very long time (if I let myself be). It’s lonely up here, though, and as much as I’d like to bring my friends with me. My work often feels like I’m saving the world, yet I cannot save my friends from themselves…

“Hey, hey, I saved the world today!
…And everybody’s happy now,
The bad thing’s gone away!
And everybody’s happy now,
The good thing’s here to stay!”
– Eurythmics, I Saved the World Today

It seems that life is just harder for some people, even for simple things like keeping a job or even an appointment. They mean well, but have proven time and again to be utterly unreliable. I’ve given this problem a lot of thought, trying to understand why some people make it, and others don’t. What follows are my reflections on this…

Safety Nets

About 20 years ago, I was completing the last year of my undergrad. I’d quit my internship for my first big-boy job, working for a local telephone division in enterprise support. I’d get up around 7 or 8 pm, eat something, then head to the office to start my shift at 10 pm. I’d work until 7 am, drive 40 minutes to school for my 8 am capstone courses, then on to my second job working at the library, and finally, home sometime early afternoon to try to sleep, then do it all over again the next day.

I did this because I had to support my wife and myself. There were no safety nets, and no one to turn to for help. My mother and father separated when I was 10, my eldest brother left home when I was 13, and my parents officially divorced when I was 15. I wasn’t particularly close to my other siblings, and I left home the first chance I got, and never looked back. I had to learn self-reliance because I had no choice. I had no one else to look to but myself. I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned from them.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve had smart, capable friends in their late 20s, even 30s or 40s, who couldn’t keep a job at a fast-food restaurant for more than 2-3 months at a time, let alone pursue any career. Most of them lived with a parent, sibling, or friend. Hell, I’ve taken in many friends to help them get back on their feet, and it almost always ended the friendship. Easy come, easy go, I suppose… people tend to take things for granted when they don’t have to struggle for them.

They give themselves permission to fail, reasoning that someone will always be there to help them. They may not be proud of it, but that blow to their pride isn’t a sufficient deterrent, or they just refuse to accept responsibility…

It’s Always Someone (or Something) Else’s Fault

A common trait among my friends who suffer from this is a tendency to deflect responsibility onto someone or something else… This is normal for children, but I expect better from grown-ass men…

Yes, sometimes, somebody might have it in for you. Yes, the odds aren’t in your favor, and things are harder than they have to be, but that’s life! The trick is to accept the hand you’ve been dealt, and make the most of it! But what does that look like?

For me, it was turtling up, buckling down, and making do with what I had for years on end. I didn’t go out. I lived modestly. I didn’t take vacations. I didn’t travel. I stayed at home, and my computer was my sole source of entertainment. But not these guys!

I have a friend we’ll call “Cap’n Fazoli”. He had aspirations of doing contractor work as a side hustle and needed a work truck. Around here, that shouldn’t cost more than $3-5k if you know what to look for. It doesn’t have to look good; it just needs to run.

Instead, he found his “Dream Truck” (a late-70s show vehicle) and paid about $10,000 for it (borrowed from his parents, of course). It wasn’t long before the cracks started to show (oil leaks, wiring problems, etc.. It became apparent that it would need a lot of work and was never intended to be a daily driver, let alone a proper work truck.

Now he’s saddled with a $400/month payment (about a quarter of his paycheck). He complains about money trouble but continues to spend cash he doesn’t have on things like guns (bought an $800 pistol), going out to eat, and frequent vacations, even though he hasn’t been in his job long enough to have PTO to use.

Fazoli blames his wife, who, admittedly, he should never have married. She’s mentally unstable and suffers from frequent crash-outs. These episodes seem to be limited to her interactions with him (and other social situations like work), leading me to believe that this is how she’s learned to manipulate him into getting her way…

I have to remind myself that he alone is responsible for his own situation, and he alone has the power to change it. All I can do is try to be there for him when he needs someone to talk to, and encourage him to work it out for himself.

I did manage to get him a job working for a municipal government, so if he can stick with it for 5-10+ years, he’ll have a nice safety net. He’s just now finished his 6-month probationary period, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

Some People Aren’t Ready for Help

“It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person’s behavior. I spoke of myself as ‘responsible’ for this group; that was verbal shorthand. The most I can do, or you, or any leader-is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Farnham’s Freehold, 1964

The last point/realization is the most devastating: Some people aren’t going to make it, and there’s nothing you can do to help them. Porkbun was one of them. Porkbun was a big, friendly doofus, touched with the ’tism. Now that I think about it, conversations with him were a lot like conversations with generative AI; he was overly eager, enthusiastic, could repeat facts he’d learned, but utterly dependent on being told what to do and how to do it. No imagination.

There came an opportunity at my side hustle to bring on someone to handle the low-hanging fruit. They didn’t have to be particularly bright, and the position wasn’t well-paid, but it was just perfect for someone who needed help breaking into the industry. I arranged a call with the CEO, and everything went well, but then he had to go and shoot himself in the foot.

I made the mistake of having a side channel conversation with him in Discord, which he took out of context and shared with his mother. Mother Porkbun then insisted the whole thing was a scam, which utterly baffled me. I spent about an hour on the phone with him, explaining that, for that to be true, it would have been a long con to put Victor Lustig to shame!

I patiently explained that, over the course of several years, I had helped him with job applications, reviewed job postings with him and explained the particulars, helped him with his resume, and even hosted his website, which was intended to be a portfolio of his work that he could share with prospective employers.

It was then that I realized that I was not dealing with a 28-year-old man, but rather a child – incapable of making his own decisions. So I rescinded the offer, citing that I didn’t think he was ready, and withdrew all personal association with him.

I asked if he had any interest in keeping his website, and although he’d only logged in 7 times over the 3 years I’d hosted it for him, he insisted he did, so I backed it up and helped him transfer it to his own provider. With that, I washed my hands of him.

I don’t blame Porkbun – he couldn’t help what he was. The fault lay with me for not recognizing his limitations. One day, I’ll learn to mind my own goddamn business…

Grumbles From the Grave: I am Tom From the Boondocks

Below is an email I received from Jim nearly 10 years ago. Looking back, it was probably one of the most lucid and self-aware messages he’d ever written to me, and it provided some profound insight into how troubled he was then…

On Friday, April 29, 2016, at 1:18 AM, Big Jim <email@redacted.null> wrote:

Joe Jim,

I have two overwhelming fears in life, phobias, if you like. One you can probably recall from our previous talks: violent home invasion. I am deathly afraid of some shit bags kicking in my door and torturing my mother and myself. This fear has subsided since I left Gary, IN. I live in the country on the out skirts off a really small town where crime outside of drunken driving does not occur.

I have nothing to fear like I did before, or the guilt of thinking I did something wrong. I have told many people to get off my porch before, no matter what their story was. Maybe all those claims of needing to use a phone, or “I’m bleeding, please help,” were true. I have no idea, but I never lost sleep – or my life – over them.

My other fear is wrongful imprisonment and being railroaded through the system. I have no defense against this. No amount of security lights, guns, or dogs is going to help. I feel like I am dangling in the wind by the powers that be. I am honestly fucking terrified.

It is not always enough to know you are innocent. This whole situation has me stressed out to the extreme. I am not eating or sleeping well. For the past week, every time a car slows down in front of the house and my dogs start barking, I am thinking, “Great, here we go. I am going to get hauled off.”

I know this is an irrational fear. I am more likely to get run over by an Amish buggy, but my rational thinking side does nothing to help the butterflies in my stomach, sweaty palms, and deep-seated fear of becoming a statistic.

I am Tom from Boondocks.

Sadly, he managed to manifest his fears into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and all his worst nightmares came true…

On June 24th, 2019, Jim got into a verbal altercation with his mother. What followed is unclear, but the police were called, and Jim, who was outside with a rifle slung on his shoulder when they arrived, went back into the house, up to his room, and passed out.

SWAT went upstairs where Jim was passed out at his computer, and he awoke to the smell of blood (his) and gun powder. They shot him from behind, twice in the arm, and once in the leg. He almost died in prison when his wounds became infected, but he pulled through, though it left him with severe nerve damage – a sensation of constant pain and discomfort he described as agonizing pins and needles that never went away.

Arguably, it worked out for the best; It was the kick in the ass Jim needed to turn his life around, although perhaps too late… He moved to Mexico, lost 120 lbs, met a lovely woman, and got married. He lived a quiet life, managing his pain through pot and LSD, and once again, we gamed and we bullshitted about fitness and food. In life, there are no happy endings, but his was as close as one can hope for.

~~~

Footnote: The featured image is a picture of Jim’s dogs, sent to me on August 25, 2015. The doggo on the right is Darwin, I never knew the name of the other.

Murdered for Wrongthink

I Just Can’t…

I tried. I really tried to imagine someone I didn’t know personally, but strongly disagreed with [politically]. Then I tried to imagine gloating over their murder, and I just couldn’t do it. I can’t understand why people, the left in particular, think it’s socially acceptable to celebrate the murder of a political opponent, guilty only of having a difference of opinion.

I didn’t particularly like Charlie Kirk. His videos always felt like he was punching down. He went to campuses, and engaged over-educated, Adoral-addled retards, then posting these interlocutional encounters on YouBoob with masturclickbator titles like, “CHARLIE KIRK DESTOOOOOOYS SOME DUMB A$$HOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11”

These fuckers didn’t stand a chance – he knew their arguments better than they did… But what they lacked in debating skills and intellect, they made up for in sheer numbers. It takes a lot of balls to face down a crowd of hostile ideologues – ask me how I know? This might be why I have such a strong distrust and hatred of large gatherings…

It’s a Different World Now

I feel fortunate that I was an adult before social media became a thing. I think back to the most embarrassing moments in my young life, and feel very fortunate that none of them were immortalized on the internet… I’m further grateful that I can distinguish between internet memes and reality, but many young people today can’t. To them, the morality of murder depends solely on the ethnicity and sexual orientations of those involved – traits I couldn’t give two shits about…

“…you know that color does not matter to me. I want to know other things about a man. Is his word good? Does he meet his obligations? Does he do honest work? Is he brave? Will he stand up and be counted?” – Robert Heinlein, Farnham’s Freehold (1964)

Color doesn’t matter to me, either. It can’t! I’m a fucken half-breed myself, and don’t fit in anywhere! An unrepentant, life-long misfit who has finally reached an age and level of success where I proudly extend my middle finger and proclaim a cathartic, “Fuck you!” to people who bother me. But I don’t want to change them, and I don’t demand that anyone think the way I do, or believe what I believe, and would certainly never murder someone for voicing a contrary view!

It’s early days yet, and from what I’ve read, the asshole who did this used a Mauser 18 Savanna, chambered in .30-06. The irony is that the shooter, who is purportedly ‘anti-fascist’, would choose a modern Mauser rifle. Yep! The same manufacturer who armed the Third Reich… Then again, the world has never been short on walking contradictions…

“I’m a man without conviction.
I’m a man who doesn’t know –
How to sell a contradiction.
You come and go, you come and go.”
– Culture Club, Karma Chameleon (1983)

Resilience

After moping around the Tree of Woe for a few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that what these Stalinistic shit-heels lack is resilience – their fragile little egos can’t stand to be disagreed with, and believe that the world must change to suit them. I know better – the world is what it is, and before you can change it, you have to understand it, and perhaps I never will… This is why I’ve elected instead to carve out my little nook and live content in my own life and leave everyone else the hell alone to live theirs…

Idle Hands

I had lunch today with some old college buddies. Our politics run the gamut from moderate left to moderate right, and everything in between. But through all of this, we found humor and camaraderie in the Library and the pub down the road. We drank to the solemn memories of those who passed, and to bright futures we dreamt of all those years ago, just now coming to fruition.

I never understood the phrase “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop” until now, or the more modern turn of phrase “unemployed behavior.”

It seems to me that many of the World’s sorrows are sewn by those who have nothing better to do…

“If your heart is good and weary,
Thank the Lord that you’re not a bum!
You got a job, and you’re not a bum!
You’re in love, and you’re not a bum!
But you could be,
Pretty quickly,
You could easily become a bum!
If your money flies way,
If you lose part of your brain!
But you’ve not lost everything now,
So go ahead and stand up tall and be proud!”
– “The Real” Brad Neely, America Now – Topic: Morale (2009)

I’ve been out of work before. There have been times in my life when I didn’t have a place to stay and didn’t know where my next meal would come from. I’ve excavated dirt by hand and hauled concrete for $6.00 an hour. I’ve waited tables and washed dishes. I’ve called strangers on the phone and talked them into changing their long-distance phone plans (remember when that was a thing?), and sold timeshare pitches disguised as inexpensive minivacations…

Eventually, I took the plunge and borrowed a metric ass-load of money for school, and spent it on an education from a vocational school as a working adult in my mid-20s. I never had the ‘college’ experience with dorms, parties, and so on… Likewise, no one ever came to my school to debate anyone – the most excitement we ever had was a Library employee who no-showed on his third week, and we had to escort his drug dealers off campus when they came to pick up his check #TrueStory.

But it kept me busy! At first, I worked part-time at the Library, which was enough to cover insurance and gas money. Then I landed an internship. The semester before graduation, I was hired full-time to work overnight at a major telco, troubleshooting connectivity issues on enterprise circuits.

Point being, I was always too goddamn busy to get into trouble! I didn’t have time to sit around, getting my dick sucked by a tranny in a furry costume while plotting to ‘unalive’ (as the young people say) my political rivals on Discord…

Besides, Jim never did make good on his threat to ship me a helper primate, although sending me a Thai Ladyboy dressed up as one would have tracked with his sense of humor…

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…

As I write this, a couple of contractors are redoing my guest bathroom. One of them has made some offhand remarks about “the crazy guy in the white house.”

This didn’t upset me, and I only mention it to illustrate a point: The difference between the side I sympathize with and the one that murdered Charlie is that the latter would have…

Fired him on the spot
Accused him of being a Nazi and/or Fascist
Taken to social media to dox/publicly shame him/get him ‘cancelled’
Maybe even assaulted him (because it’s okay to punch Nazis)
Nazis are anyone you happen to disagree with at a given moment…

The prior (like me) would have ignored the comment (as I did). I don’t have to like what he said, and certainly don’t have to agree with it, but I do hold sacred his right to say it. I don’t agree with his opinions, but many others do, and for all I know, maybe I’m the asshole?

Left or Wright?

The other day, I found a cartoon created by Colin Wright to describe his experience as a “center-left liberal”:

This mirrors my experience, and the irony isn’t lost on me… I have a feeling things will get worse before they get better, but I sure hope they get better in my lifetime… If not, well, I suppose I’m used to my hermetic lifestyle!

Variation on a Theme: Life is Short

Prologue

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone
drops to zero.”
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become increasingly more protective of my time. I contemplated why that might be, and arrived at the following conclusions:

It’s Valuable – My time is worth more now than it ever has been in my adult life… education, experience, professional certifications… I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I do well enough that I don’t sweat the big stuff anymore…and get to pick and choose what I wanna spend my time on.
It’s Finite – According to the actuary tables, I’m expected to be here another 11,000 days or so, most of which (60-73%) will be spent working towards retirement. So, if I’m lucky, I might have 3,650-5,475 [relatively] carefree days to enjoy what’s left (~14% of my overall lifespan). Of course…
…I Don’t Know How Much More I Have Left – None of us do! I sure as shit didn’t expect Jim to pass away when he did… I sure hope I live a long and evil life, but I could just as easily fall off a step ladder and break my silly neck changing out a light fixture…

No More Mr. Doormat

In the past, I used to go out of my way to keep people happy – not because I’m a nice guy (although I try to be), or that I really care about what other people think of me, but to avoid the hassle of being on someone’s bad side. Honesty and fairness are important to me, and I try to be conscientious and treat people the way I’d like to be treated. For example, if a neighbor needed my help or expertise, I’d generally offer it if possible, and have many, many times. I don’t ask anything in return, nor do I expect it.

A couple of years back, I developed shingles, which manifested as painful blisters across my ribs. Movement was painful, and heat exacerbated it. I couldn’t mow for a couple of weeks, and my lawn got out of control. Rather than offer to help, he sent me a passive-aggressive email to complain about it, citing that he found a [black] snake skin in his yard, and assumed my tall grass was the issue. By then, I’d given him hours of my professional time to help him with his website, answered his cybersecurity questions, and dealt with other inconveniences (e.g., interrupting my work to get his kids’ sports balls out of my yard). Initially, he was gracious and affable, but at other times, his requests started to feel like politely worded demands. Ashamed of my yard and embarrassed by his email, I spent $2,500 to clean it up, and $1,500/year ever since to maintain it.

Now, 8 months after paying off my home, I’m finally getting around to some much-needed renovations. Seeing the 14-yard roll-off dumpster in my driveway, my neighbor offered to “give me a couple of bucks to throw a couple of things away” in it. I don’t know why this bothered me so much – perhaps his sense of entitlement had gotten to me. Maybe I was just tired of his shit and had enough…

As Old Man Bob Heinlein, by way of Lazarus Long, once wrote:

Do not confuse ‘duty’ with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.

Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants, “just a few minutes of your time, please, this won’t take long.”

Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time, and squawk for more!

So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise, you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.

~ Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

He’s right, you know! I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I need to take care of myself, my home, and my family. I don’t have the bandwidth for anything else, and as Jim reminded me just 5 months ago, life is short!

Let the Choice Be Mine, and on My Terms…

I’d replied to his initial email to let him know I received the request, but wasn’t sure how much room would be left over after I was done (true, but misleading), and that I would let him know by the middle of the week.

I feel sure he had no intention of giving me any money to throw his garbage in my dumpster rental, and I might have let him do it had he been more forthright about what exactly he wanted to get rid of… In fact, he didn’t specify until I’d called him and asked, and even sounded a little indignant when I didn’t immediately agree to let him do this, claiming that he could pay $12 and have someone haul it off for him!

I’ve had lots of junk hauled away over the last few years, and NOT ONCE did it cost me less than $200, so I don’t know who the fuck he thought he was kidding… I don’t want or need his money, but I resent the entitlement and disrespect.

I sat on it all week. Friday was the 4th of July, and in my town, fireworks are permitted the day before, the day of, and the day after from 10 am until hours after I’d normally turn in for the night. The dogs fucken hate it, the loud noises and lights scare them shitless (literally – their little assholes pucker up tighter than a snare drum, and they can’t squeeze a nugget until it’s all over)…So this time, rather than going out to the in-laws with the wife, I stayed at home and looked after our little fuzzy retards. All that to say I was already in a bad mood, and feeling petulant…

So bright and early, Sunday morning, after cleaning up bits and pieces of burnt paper and streamers that blew into my front yard from my asshole neighbors who couldn’t be bothered to clean up after themselves, I wrote the most polite email I could muster (names redacted to protect the guilty):

Hi [Insert Entitled Neighbor’s First Name Here],

Sorry for the late reply! It’s been a busy week and a stressful weekend, especially for the doggos… They’re terrified of fireworks, and being at the bottom of the hill, I spent the morning cleaning up fireworks debris that blew in from the rest of the neighborhood :|…

Now that things have settled down, I’ve finished my part of the cleanup, and there’s about a third of the bin left. I’d like to take you up on your offer to contribute toward using the remaining space for your own use.

The rental was $[not cheap] for the week. I can offer you the remaining portion for $100. If you’re interested, I would need your confirmation that nothing you dispose of will be on their prohibited items list [link redacted]. As the rental is in my name, I’m responsible for the contents.

Let me know either way!

Thanks again,

To my relief, he didn’t reply. By the time I’d thought to check the house for any last-minute things I wanted to dispose of, the bin company had already come and gone…

Whether the request put him off or he simply didn’t see the email in time doesn’t matter… It’s over. Of course, I’m such an asshole, I was actually upset (briefly) that I didn’t get a chance to check the bin to be sure nothing else was placed in it… I doubt it, but I’ll never know, and I’m fine with that.

Epilogue

Over the years, I’ve replaced all of the major appliances (AC Unit, Water Heater, Fridge, Stove, Dishwasher, Clothes Washer, and Dryer), so functionally, it’s in good shape. Cosmetically, it’s a disaster area…

Now that the house is paid off, I’ve been saving up for much-needed renovations. I started working with a buddy of mine, but progress was slow because he has a full-time job as a maintenance guy for an apartment complex and is on-call every other weekend. Progress was slow, and while I was prepared to work around that, he had a sciatica flare-up, which put the kibosh on our efforts.

The projects languished for about a month, and after reaching out to a couple of general contractor referrals, I finally got one to come out and make a bid. It was a little more than what I wanted to spend, but within my means, and so I went for it!

We’re about 4 weeks into a 2-week engagement… the peeling drywall tape has been repaired, the walls and cabinets have been painted, and the new flooring is put in, the quarter round (most of it) is laid. All that’s left is one more day to paint the quarter round and do some touch-ups.

Once that’s all done, I’ve got a maid service coming to deep clean, and then it’s on to the bathroom remodels…Life’s too short to live in a nasty house, and by the time we’re done, it’ll be in better shape than the day we took ownership of it. I can’t wait!

If the passage of time has taught me anything, it’s that things that seemed to matter so much in the moment soon become a forgotten memory. What was it that Tyler Durden once said about this?

“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!”

No, that’s not it…

“No fear! No distractions! The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.”

Yeah, that’s more like it!

10 Year Anniversary of PorkCircus.com!

PCY10.BAT

@ECHO OFF
:LOOP
FOR %%C IN (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F) DO (
IF /I "%%C"=="0" (
COLOR 70
) ELSE (
COLOR 0%%C
)
ECHO. Happy 10-Year Anniversary!!! www.porkcircus.com
)
GOTO LOOP

Happy 10 Year Anniversary, Jim!

I wish you could have been here to see it. I’d get us a McWhopper, slathered in extra Hot Mustard (which has mysteriously returned after being unceremoniously pulled from shelves about 10 years ago), but feel that simply talking about it as opposed to actually doing it would be more in line with Jim’s style :).

I didn’t realize until writing it that there’s a kind of magic that’s lost when you bring something from your imagination into reality. Maybe deep down, Jim knew something I didn’t. Or maybe I’ve come to learn that things that sound good are often disappointing when you finally get your hands on them.

Previously-Unpublished Posts

This post was written by Big Jim on August 17, 2015, entitled “The Beginning of Good Things to Come.”

It was the first time Jim had shared the phrase “Pork Circus“ with me, which he later explained over an email exchange:

“…And the Pork Circus comes from an old joke an ex-friend with mental issues use to kid me about. He had 2 or 3 culinary art degrees and always said I should open up a restaurant, the name being “Big Jim’s Pork Circus, Home of the Flying Beef Trapezes”

I can’t recall why this never made it to the site. I suppose it didn’t fit the absurdist humor theme we’d settled on, but now that he’s gone, all I have to remember him by are the words he left behind. So here they are, warts and all…

Pork Circus: The beginning of good things to come.

I am a slacker of the highest order. I was a NEET before there was even a term for people like myself.

I wake up every day in anger and depression and still manage to see the beauty in the world; and more importantly, in humanity. My self-hate is tempered by the people I am lucky enough to meet. Without them, I would truly be a lost soul.

I am starting this blog because people all my life have told me to write. Persons who had no vested interest in whether I lived or died. People who could have walked away from me without a second thought.

I am going to rant, rave, and vent. I am going to hate and work myself into a fit. But I am also going to love what is human about all of us. All of our collective shortcomings. Culture and history are baggage. A giant rucksack of fuck we put on everyday when we leave the door. A burden so great, we don’t even know we bear it.

Thank you, Joe-Jim, for getting me started.