Stripes: number 16 of 52 over here.

Recently, we received a workbook that outlines our understanding of the sales process at my workplace and were asked to go through and complete it. Upon sifting through the nonsense, I came across an “attitude assessment” that used “yes” or “no” answers and a Cosmo-style points system to rate our attitude, and one of the statements hit me pretty hard.

“I tend to focus more on what I dislike about people rather than what I like.”

*raises hand*

I think it’s safe to say that if you value our acquaintanceship, you might as well refrain from pursuing anything more because unfortunately, the more I know about you, the less I’m probably going to like about you.

I’m sure there’s a laundry list of personal issues that lead me to this point, but you might as well just call me an asshole because it’s probably what I think of you.

Perhaps it’s some kind of defense mechanism to protect me from letting people into my life, assuming I’ll just be hurt by them, or maybe I’m simply becoming more and more intolerant and unforgiving of an individuals shortcomings, despite the fact that I probably share some of the very same ones, or maybe I suffer from an inferiority complex and can’t help but push myself up on a pedestal by picking out all of the little things that bother me about you, but I am most definitely guilty of this.

I meet someone, I get a sense of their attitude towards life and the way they present themselves and a few of their opinions and that’s all I need. I develop a quick opinion about the individual without knowing who they really are, weigh it all out without even considering how thick of a mask they wear, and voila, if I dislike more than I like, they’re a victim of my prejudice before I even think of asking any questions.

And I say victim because if I don’t like you, you’ll usually know it.

Chances are you have fallen into this inescapable trap that I set because, really, it’s rare that anyone is safe from it.

For all of the above, I am sorry.

I am inexplicably, undeniably, unabashedly apologetic for being so out of touch.

I’ve always considered myself to be fairly down to earth and calm and collected but I think these are all just adjectives I’ve been using to mask how uptight and on edge I really am and despite my cool and relaxed demeanor, I’ve been this way for years.

Today, I witnessed someone with diabetes crash. Their blood sugar went way down and it was as if they were blacked-out drunk. Completely incoherent and unbelievably vulnerable.

This individual just so happens to be the latest in my string of prejudgments.

Up until that point, I couldn’t stand the guy. He was full of shit, condescending, belittling, a follower, a brown-noser, etc. etc. etc.

Every move or sound he made got under my skin.

But after that point, none of this seemed to matter to me anymore. It didn’t matter because I had a chance to see him when none of what made him that way mattered to him. I got to see someone who had, for a moment in time, completely shed every layer of skin that had been tainted by the world around them.

He was pure and innocent.

He was human.

Sure, the minute his blood sugar levels are back to normal, he will also be, but that wont make me forget the fact that he showed me what we all have inside of us.

What we’re all covering up.

What we’ll probably never show anyone as long as we can control it.

What most of us don’t even know how to show even if we wanted to because it’s buried so deep that we can’t even find it.

You hear stories of evil people who, despite all of the wrong they’ve done, have mothers that still love them and I think it’s because these mothers can’t help but hold onto the moment that they brought that life into the world. They can’t help but remember a time when their son or daughter wasn’t subjected to the influence of the outside world and lead down the path they followed and they were just a small ball of vulnerability and innocence.

It’s something I have to keep reminding myself.

We were all that way once and despite how awful we may be, it’s still and will always be inside of us.

Love is protecting each other from the many trials and tribulations in life.

Such as rabid moose with carpet like fur.

Love is finding a balance.

While one paddles, the other drinks a gin and tonic.

See? Balance.

Love is solving problems together and learning from your mistakes.

ie. Neither end of a fork is going to get you up shit creek very fast.

You’re still without a paddle.

Love is spending time with family and friends… and gnomes.

Just watch out for evil, sinister gnomes.

When you cross one of these, go back to point #1.

Most importantly, love is remembering to have fun and not take life too seriously.

Kind of like paddling a cardboard boat with a cardboard oar and staring off into the distance when the distance is a wall four feet away.

That is a real gin and tonic, though.

What?

You’re drunk.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.

Cheers!

This is me wishing I could walk on air.

The babyface and I are training for a half-marathon and already subjecting my legs to 45 hours on concrete floors every week, its tough to find a time when my legs are healthy enough to run longer distances.

Never mind longer distances, I only got 1.5 miles in the other day before my knee and ankle started to hurt.

At one point I was all “push through the pain” but that would just end up putting me out for longer periods of time.

The key, I suppose, is to get my ass to bed and out of bed earlier so that I can do it before I go to work instead of trying to do it after a 10 hour shift.

Yeah, I’m lazy and stupid.

What?

Number 15 of 52 for my 52 week project over here where the theme was pain.

One of the first things that came to mind when I read the theme was the mid 90′s movie A Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, when she was actually in a lot and before he was in everything.

To this day, I still enjoy that movie and at the time, I loved it and because I loved it so much, I took a quote away from it that has stuck with me to this day.

The premise of the movie is that Geena Davis’s character had a dark past that was covered up by amnesia and after getting into a car accident, everything started to slowly come back to her. At one point early on in her remembering things, she took her daughter to a local skating rink and when her 8 year old daughter fell and started crying (by the way, if you’re a Californication fan, the daughter is the IRL younger sister of Mia), something clicked and instead of consoling her daughter, she grabbed her, pulled her up and said to her “Life is pain. Get used to it.”

Depressing, I know, but as sad as it sounds, I think this quote is ultimately a part of my foundation.

I tend to be an extremely care-free person who doesn’t worry about much of anything, which since I’ve been married, I’ve come to realize this isn’t the best quality to have, because if I’m not worrying about anything, that means the babyface is worrying about everything and that is completely unfair, so it’s something I’m working on.

I think, though, that what makes me worry so little is the fact that I understand how much pain there is in the world and in life and because of this, I’ve built this wall to protect me from it.

I’ve gotten used to it.

This is not to say I’m completely void of emotion and heartless, but more so that my emotional extremes are reserved for times when they are really necessary and at most other times, I’m calm and collected.

I think this quote goes hand in hand with the “expect the worst and hope for the best” that my brother shot my way when I was younger.

Ultimately, life is pain, and this goes back to an earlier post where I discussed how I tend to remember the more negative points in my life than the positive, simply because it’s from the negative that we learn. Not to mention, without pain, we would know no pleasure.

But if that’s the case, maybe I should start letting a little more in, yeah?

As far as my picture goes, my mind wandered from idea to idea, and after watching 12 or 13 episodes of Dexter, I was inspired to emulate everyone’s favourite blood spatter analyst.

My 14th entry in my project 52 over here tackles the theme of night. Not a particularly difficult theme to emulate as each and every one of us is familiar with it.

It’s dark, sometimes moonlit, and if you’re far enough away from the city lights, starlit as well.

Sometimes I dream of blackouts, if even just for one night so that we can all be reminded of how beautiful the night sky is.

When I was younger, my brothers and I would use the one city light on our street for target practice for our slingshots and BB guns. It would take the city longer and longer to come out and repair it each time, so we ended up having that much more time to see the stars the best we could. There weren’t many more street lights in our area, so by knocking that one out, we had a pretty good view of the stars and even the northern lights during the colder months.

While I do miss the northern lights, I sense never having to miss a clear nights sky again coming our way soon enough.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage