Simplicity Plus Variety

I have recently set upon my 27th rotation around the sun.  The event got me to thinking about my past 26 revolution
s and the lessons I learned during them, as well as what I’ve come to find out about myself in my ongoing goal of continued existence.

1) I’m not sure when nose hair became an issue for me, 2 years ago? 3?  Never the less, I spent an inordinate amount of my grooming time removing unsightly (and tickley) nose hair. You’re welcome for the visual.

2) Never… ever… let someone tell you that you’re “too old for that”.  If it brings you joy and doesn’t cause any direct harm to adjacent peoples, do it.  If you’re 45 years old and all you want to do is color in a coloring book, by God, grab a crayola.

3) Life isn’t nearly as hard as people make it out to be.  It’s quite easy, in fact.  Wake up, do whatever it is you do to make sure today is a success, go to sleep.  You can fill in any free time with items from #2.

4) Your relationship with whatever deity you’ve chosen is your choice and your business.  Religion would have you belief it’s for everybody, it’s not, it’s between you and your creator.  Besides, even people who share your belief structure rarely want to hear your particular opinions on the matter.

5) Don’t be an asshole.  I know, it sounds simple, but it’s amazing how hard this is for some people.

6) There is no greater joy in life than an egg sandwich.  Period.

7) As you get older, the line between your family and your friends begin to blur.  You find your family becoming some of the best friends you could ask for, and your friends will become your family.  Both of these are immensely good things.

8 ) Fight for your time.  I stole this idea from a Men’s Health Magazine article.  It reads as follows:  “The brief stretch of time that is your own is worth fighting for.  You  may not get it utill 10pm, but make sure you get it, because after commute time, company time, dinner time and quality time, your time is the last defense against total annihilation of the self.” I’ve begun to live my life by this sentiment.

9) Find someone to love, who loves you back.  Not someone you’re in love with, and who’s in love with you back.  Once the flirty, touchy feely, dating stage is over, you’re left with just them and you, and one of you is going to fart, or otherwise do something horribly embarassing or disgusting.  You have to be able to share even these moments with that person, that is Love.

10) Never, ever, feel the need to justify your favorite movie.

11) If you feel scummy, dirty and run-down, wash your face, change your socks and put on fresh deodorant.  In a pinch these three items will make you feel like a brand new man.  At least untill you can find a shower.

12) Life is in the details.  The big picture is fine and all, but nothing compared to the infinite tiny details that make up the larger image.

13) I always thought life ‘with’ someone would be a non-stop sex train to bootyville.  I’ve discovered I’m way too lazy for that.

13 lessons and commandments from my life thus far.  I’m sure I’ve left some out, but I told myself I’d stop writing when they stopped coming naturally.  I hope these help you, they’ve certainly done wonders for me so far.

…or was I ambushed?

I had an epiphany this weekend.  As I sat, eating lunch with my newly married friend, I could almost hear an audible click when the switch turned on.

I think I’ve become and adult.  I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to, but never the less, it happened.  I’d  been fighting the development since pretty much birth.  I think most of my circle of friends has in some way been trying to cling to that innate childhood that we all have.  I suppose that, in itself, isn’t very unique.  I’m not sure anybody really wants to thrust themselves into the workforce, sell their toys and wake up early every day, but I digress.

In my revelation today I had almost an out-of-body experience.  I could see myself sitting there with Amy, speaking with Ben and Lisa about buying a house, after Ben’s wedding.  We weren’t talking about videogames, or comics, or any other myriad of other dorky topics that we usually relegate ourselves to, we were talking about lame-ass adult topics.  I’m not sure if it’s because we had our significant others with us, that we didn’t want to exclude them from conversation, or if that’s actually what we ‘wanted’ to talk about. Either way, the scary thing is it didn’t feel out of place or odd at all.  God forgive me if I’m maturing at the ripe old age of 26 and 49/50ths I turn 27 in 4 days) but that sure seems the place I’m put upon now.

I don’t know, it wasn’t a ‘bad’ thing, it wasn’t exactly a ‘good’ thing either.  I suppose it’s just the natural progression of things.  As much as I’ve been fighting it, I think I knew it was a losing battle.  It was like the Hoth battle, I had to buy enough time to evacuate my fun stuff before the lumbering assault of adult hood finally descended upon my happy little immaturity.  In fact, this strip was mentioned this weekend, and it sums it all up perfectly:

With that, I depart.  A little older, a little wiser and a little more evolved I supose…

… I can never follow that edict, it seems.  I take it home, think about it, obsess over it, stress it out, then wonder why the clock says 2am and I can’t sleep…

I work in an industry where I work hand-in-hand with people on their homes.  Very much a service-based industry, which makes me something akin to a garbage man or something along those lines.  I also worry and stress over little, piddly things…. a lot.  With that in mind, I take close, personal interest in my projects.  Probably a little more personal than most contractors in my position do.

With that come several benefits, of course.   You establish yourself as a person, as a face of the company, therefore the people are more likely to trust you if any changes or problems come up, and are much more inclined to refer you to other people for further projects.  As odd as it seems, I can recall almost every client I’ve ever had, from almost the first day I started doing this kind of work.  I can remember practice clients we had in college, clients I had working with Mom and Dad at the garden center, and almost every client and design I’ve done professionally in my various positions in various companies.  Again, huge benefit to that is those people saw me as a face, as a person they can trust their money and their homes with.  The satisfaction of people’s faces makes all the time worth it…

Ahh… but every coin has a flip-side to it.  When clients are unhappy, I don’t sleep well.  My stomach doesn’t settle when I know there is somebody out there who thinks I, or my company, did a bad job.  Oh, and God help me if there’s someone genuinely pissed off about a project.  I sweat bullets and jump through hoop after hoop trying my best to satisfy them, of course this goes unappreciated, but at least I know I tried.  Add to that the fact that I worry and obsess over the smallest things, tone of voice, not enough “…”s on a text message, “what did they REALLY mean by ‘I’m fine’” and it’s a perfect storm for a upset stomach and rattling brain when you try to sleep.

I guess I wrote all of that as sort of an exercise for my brain.  I had a client call in last night on a project and was unhappy with it.  Not mad, not pissed, just unhappy with some things and would like me to look at it.  Instantly my stomach knotted up and I felt  queasy.  Mostly because I knew this person would be a huge pain in the ass to begin with… but still… it upsets me when I know we did a good job and it wasn’t good enough for someone, that bugs me.   I suppose at some point I need to grow a thicker skin and learn to tell people off.  I’ve heard numerous stories about contractors blowing up at a client because of some issue or another.  As a professional and a person I can’t even fathom doing something like that, let alone to someone you’re trying to eek thousands of dollars out of.  But again, the flip side of that is, I’m also starting to understand at least WHY some people have done that in the past.  This season is my first season being THE contact for people, being THE designer.  At my previous job I was one of about 5-6, depending on the day, on a design team of sorts, at the one prior to that I was the lone designer, but most everything bounced off the owner.  It’s a whole other monster being the one guy.  Anyways, long story short, I can understand why people blow up on clients now.  Not that I ever see me doing that (and keeping my job) but still… unreasonable expectations are hard to meet, and finicky clients are impossible to please, those are two edicts every person in any line of work can agree on…

Either I need to learn how to let things go and not even THINK about them when I get home (Which might be an unreasonable expectation knowing my personality) or just tell off some finicky clients (which wouldn’t sit right with me personally)   I’ve always tried to live by the phase “whatever you do in the day, you have to sleep with in the night”.  Well, that doesn’t really work when you do good in the day and you STILL can’t sleep at night… maybe I just need to be an asshole and at least satisfy one half of the equation…

(I found this blog in my “drafts” folder on wordpress, I don’t feel it’s exactly complete, but there’s no way I could get back on the same train of thought now… so… enjoy?)

I’ve begun to have a recurring dream in which I travel to a different dimension.  Wait? Where is everyone going?  Sit down!  Really, in these dreams (I’ve had 2 or 3 now) I go into the basement of this old run down building, I imagine it would look like an old hospital if I were to draw it out or describe it, the outside are huge, stark white walls that go straight up, almost no features besides the blank, black windows.  I go inside and to the lower basement to find a hole in a brick wall.  The hole itself is made out of brick as well, almost like a sewer, but not dirty, and I can just barely get through.  On the other side is this machine that is apparently used to open a passage to an alternate dimension.  I don’t really recall any misadventures in this alternate dimension other than it feels like I have a set role there in that it seems like a totally different, but separate life.  The entire time I’m on the other side though, I’m worried about getting back to my own home.  Apparently in use of this machine the dimensions are numbered, and I’m never able to get the number of my home dimension before I travel, so every trip back is a panic in that I might not have the right number, or I might only get half way and get stuck somewhere.

So far I’ve not had any troubles getting back, and the number I can barely remember turns out to be my own home, but still.  The tension and panic that well up during the process of trying to get home are pretty intense.

I looked up a dream translation website (which are even more useless than this one) and it notes that tunnels and passages are symbols of undergoing a journey of self discovery, trying to unlock new levels of awareness about yourself.

So that’s interesting, near as I can tell I’m slowly opening myself to becoming an interdimensionally aware superbeing… Either that or I need to stop drinking copious amounts of vitamin water before bed.

Marv looks a little different in this one.

Watched “The Wrestler” last night with Amy.  I really wanted to see it, not because it had to do with wrestling or anything, but it seemed like a very “Tim” sort of a movie, with the underdog type of character…  It also helped that it was nominated for various Oscars and Best Picture awards… not to mention Mickey Rourke, I love that dude…

Anyways, the actual movie:  Much better than I thought it’d be, and I thought it’d be pretty good.  I won’t go into actual details and plot points and such, because that’s boring as all hell.  To be perfect honest, I wasn’t very impressed with the first half of the movie, which is where most of the eponymous title comes from.  Almost the total first half of the movie is “The Ram” as a wrestler and everything that goes with.  It’s entertaining, and it provides you a look into the more seedy side of the business if you didn’t know already.  It feels more like a documentary in the first half than a movie, which isn’t a bad thing, I guess.

The second half of the movie is where it really took off for me.  By this point I was already a little put off a little and wasn’t liking it as much as I’d hoped, but when we get to see inside “Randy” the person, the movie comes into it’s own.  I’m not sure I’ve ever pulled as hard for a character to make it than I did his.  I almost just typed “he’s a horrible person, but you root for him anyways”  but he’s not really a horrible person… He’s just him, and that’s what makes it so tragic, I suppose.  You want to jump through the screen and give him a hug, the deconstruction of the character is amazing, and really hard to watch at times.

All in all I really, really liked it.  Like I mentioned, I liked it better than I thought I might, and MUCH better than I did from beginning to end.  It’s very fitting with this current mindset I’m in of maturity and growing up and hopefully not growing out of life.  If you can separate yoursel from the absurdity of professional wrestling, it’s probably one of the best character-driven movies you’ll ever see.

If nothing else, the Springstein song at the closing credits will bring a tear to your eye…

I can't help but feel I look like this when I try to pretend I'm an adult.

Ok, I admit, the title is pretentious as hell.  (Even moreso if you’ve seen the Scrubs episode in which there’s a musical interlude by the same name)

What I mean by that is, I look at the elements of my life as sort of placeholders at the moment.  Given, there are exceptions such as Amy, my familiy and my friends that are absolutes I can build my life around, but it feels like pretty much everything else is “good enough for now until I get the real one”.  I look at what I do, my activities, how I spend my time with almost a viewpoint of “well, I can’t do this when I’m an adult, so I’d better live it up now”  when in all actuality I’m 26 (nearly 27) years old, and if I’d been born 30 years ago I’d most likely have 2-3 kids by now and living that ‘adult’ lifestyle.

I don’t exactly know what that means.  Whether it’s a lack of maturity on my part or not.  I’ve always said I’m a kid at heart, but at the same time I look at myself as something of an old soul.  When I look at little kids now, I have a feeling of wanting, in that I want to have kids, I want to have a miniature version of Amy or myself walking around.  I want to have the wife, 2.5 kids and a house in suburbia, but at the same time I still want to be able to fire up the Xbox and disappear into a game for hours on end and I know when one hits, the other becomes an impossibility.

That comes back to the original thought that life hasn’t started for me yet, which I suppose is an optimistic thought.  I’m 26(27) and I still feel like I have my whole life ahead of me.  On second though, that’s HUGELY optimistic, probably to the point of being naive.  At the same time though, when does that stop being realistic?  I know I can’t remain an overgrown child indefinitely no matter how appealing that thought might be.  However, if I rush myself into that lifestyle, will I just feel like a little kid trying to fill an adult’s shoes?

At what point do I stop waiting for my real life to begin and decide it began long ago without asking me for permission?

As an afterthought:  I heard a commedian on youtube, (Dylan Moran, go watch, he’s hilarious) say this about men and growing up after discussing how difficult aging is for women: 

“If you’re male, you have your finger up your nose, the other hand on your dick, then you get taller.”

I suppose I’m on the right path, with that in mind.

In a effort not to look like Kool-Aid here, a crusade has begun. Oh yeah!

I’ve decided to go on a diet starting next week.  I’m not sure what inspired me to do so.. Could be my new boss’s story about losing 45 pounds by simply cutting out his nightly beer intake and fast food, could be the fact that I’m getting married in less than a year and I’d like to look fit, but it’s probably the idea that I’d rather not have the appearance of some sort of jelly-like creature when I take off my shirt.

When I dove headfirst into unemployment (or rather, was pushed into the unemployment pool with my shoes still on and my wallet in my pocket) I hit some sort of depression that I’m sure helped contribute to my already terrible eating habits.  I also know for a fact I mostly sat on my ass all day and stared at the computer wating for Careerbuilder to post “Tim Hickmans Only” jobs.  Sure I mounted the Wii fit for a few cursory “I’m going to get thin” attempts, to which I’m sure the Wii fit rolled it’s little electronic eyes and humored me while I sweated and hacked around the apartment trying to figure out how the in hell you’re supposed to do the tree pose without some sort of handle.  And I honestly, honestly told myself I was going to jog at some point in the day.  Needless to say, no running was to occur.

But this time…. THIS TIME I’m determined.  I’ve made Amy aware of my plans, so that way I have a witness to tell me incredibly annoying things like “I thought you were on a diet” and I can respond with “Lay off me, I’m starving!” all Chris Farley style.  I would imagine she’ll be the most pleased out of anyone if I finally lose some weight.  At least that fat guy would stop trying to climb on top of her and sweat for 2-3 minutes while she thinks about the regular-sized person who tricked her into a relationship.

I’m not exactly sure what my “gameplan” is.  I think just mostly less “shit” food and more “good” food.  I still almost refuse to work out, it’s no fun and you can’t make me do it.  Though, we have talked about buying some bikes, that would be fun.  Banana seat, ch-ching bell, streamers…. no, wait…  Then again, our apartment complex is all hills, so I’m sure that’d just lead to some news report about a fat guy collapsed in a storm drain somewhere.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, just mostly putting out a declaration to the masses.  If you see me eating bad, fried, unhealthy shit in public just walk up and ask me to truffle shuffle, I’ll get the point.

PS>  This will prove to be harder than I thought.  I bought some dried pineapple today instead of candy… turns out this shit has more sugar in it than about 9 snickers bars.  Awesome, even fruit is against me…

Snapped this before the show started. Cody said every time he looks at it, that it makes him laugh. I'm not sure if he's laughing at me or with me, but either way it's hilarious.

Recently Amy got us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Music Hall here in KC.  I’ve always liked going to the theater.  It gives me the illusion that I actually have a touch of class.  If nothing else I really enjoy looking at the architecture in the old, opulent show halls.  I’m not educated in architecture or anything, but if I were to classify it, I’d say it looks like w

hat the 40’s looks like in movies.  Lots of marble and brass, all arranged in ways that make you pause and just look at a hallway, as odd as that sounds.   Tangent aside, the show was actually quite good.  I’m not exactly an Opera/Musical buff, but as far as I can tell it was very well done.  You can tell this particular iteration was made in the 80’s though, lots of bombastic scores, fireworks and giant moving stage pieces.  Of course that’s what I really dug, but the singing was pretty good as well.

What bothered me was the general lack of class exhibited by almost everyone around me.  The guy in front of me was so drunk he was teetering, and kept trying to get his female companion to ‘leave this shit and hit the bars’… and the other female companion was flashing her new bra to the man with her.  People showed up in jeans, thankfully no t-shirts though.  I don’t know, I guess I just expect more out of people.  I like to think that everyone has a certain appreciation for attending an “event” and it kind of bugs me to see people not really appreciate where they are and what they are taking place in.

All in all, though, it was a great evening.  It’s always nice to get out and attend a fancy shmancy show and feel like royalty, if just for an evening.  It helps when the actual show is fantastic too…

This is probably the 2nd? 3rd? blog that I’ve attempted to assemble.  Instead of making this a harrange of my daily events, or some ill-fated attempt at depth, I think this time around I’m just going to post thoughts, occurances and general time wasting.

Here we go again kids… Welcome…