Fuck beer pong. The game makes no sense to me, even drunk.
This is me and all drinking games.
Only in situations where I know people.
If I'm at a party and I'm a +1, knowing no one there, drinking games are a pretty good way to get to know people.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
0
AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
I went to Edinburgh and I assure you I ain't no rich-boy!
Are you thinking of St. Andrews?
0
David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
So once upon a time I was walking down the street and looked across the street where some guy was walking his dog and I looked at the dog and did the 'sup nod and the dog looked back and did the 'sup nod as well and I kept walking for like ten steps more before I stopped and thought...
@The_Scarab weren't you the guy who rolled a set of dice in such a way that had about 2 million to one odds
Yeah. That was my first year of uni. First years were allowed in the new student housing blocks, but once you get to second year they kick you out into privately owned accommodation on the streets so the freshmen can take your old digs. End of the year was like mid August I think. We had weird schedules and after an entire lifetime of summer holidays it was kinda sad having to work through.
Five 20s on five D20s at once. I don't know if the odds are worse or better than if I had rolled one die consecutively, but either way they're still astronomical.
Here's the original post if it's been lost in the forum reshuffle:
This is a story about people I know nerding out. Not myself. But it is a cool one anyway so I'll tell it regardless.
Basically, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons in my life, not the table top version. But I did come very close once...
In the year of our Lord two-thousand and three I was in my first year at university and just moving in. The dorms at my campus comprised of 'blocks'. Imagine six individual rooms arranged in a sort of octagon shape with an entrance and a fire exit comprising the remaining two sides. And in the middle was a lounge/kitchen combination area that had a sofa, a TV and all the trappings of a modern house, except cheaper and nastier. But it was homely.
Anyway, it was my first semester and no-one had yet formed any cliques and everyone was still sticking to small friend groups formed at the freshman's dance, as is normal. There were student union interest groups and clubs and all kinds of other extra-curricular things for all kinds of things, including DnD and games and everything. But it was the first weeks of university life. I can barely remember any of it for all the copious intoxication, so I was unconcerned with getting on that ladder so early.
Flash-forward to a quiet Sunday afternoon and everyone is either still in bed or actually down at the library because shit the work load is just kicking in and this ain't no game, son. It's summer and breezy and quiet and I stumble into the lounge area and grab some cornflakes and just chew them right out of the box, and I see arranged on the ping pong table is a game of Dungeons and Dragons and surrounding it a swarthy band of nerds (of which I count myself a member to this day).
There were a few of my flatmates and some others from another block. The game was just about to start and I'll be honest, I was still trying to shake off my nerd tendencies from high school and do the 'now I'm at university I can be the cool guy' thing. Become an enigma for once. Whatever. So I acted disinterested even though I knew enough about the game to warrant me walking over to inspect. I was a nerd in denial, and yet they were friendly enough to invite me to join them.
It was an entirely new campaign that they intended to run for the whole year. And while tempted I was still sticking to that fake cool guy persona that eventually evaporated by about the end of the second semester, but back then at the beginning I thought I could make it last.
So instead of flat out saying no, or pulling some other egregious insult out of my ass which was not fair on these people, my only friends at the time, I simply picked up a pile of five (5) D20s and shook them in my hand, and rolled them onto the ping pong table, as though curious over these strange and unknown devices.
I rolled five twenties.
Utterly stunned by this event, which I don't need to tell you is mathematically unbelievable, they all stood up, flipping chairs over and screaming at the heavens. They were like 'you fucker you have to play in this campaign, we need some fucking dps'. One guy, who later turned out to be my absolute best friend and flatmate for the last year, passed his hand over the rolled dice and blessed them, I shit you not, in spoken elvish. There was even talk of retiring the dice entirely.
But instead of reacting as they did, in a fashion that I would have no problem with doing today, I was a pathetic wannabe in university, as I said, so with all the force availed to me by almighty God Himself, I kept a straight face, pulled out another handful of cornflakes, started chewing them, rubbed my eyes and said softly 'Nah, I don't wanna play guys, I'd probably be really shit at it'. Then I turned around slowly and walked right back to my room.
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
I went to Edinburgh and I assure you I ain't no rich-boy!
Are you thinking of St. Andrews?
Half of my extended family is from Glasgow, so by the blood of my ancestors I am sworn to hate everything East of Falkirk.
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
I went to Edinburgh and I assure you I ain't no rich-boy!
Are you thinking of St. Andrews?
Half of my extended family is from Glasgow, so by the blood of my ancestors I am sworn to hate everything East of Falkirk.
Almost all of my family are from Dundee (apart from 1 grandparent who is from Liverpool), so we are sworn to hate everyone no matter where they are from.
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
I went to Edinburgh and I assure you I ain't no rich-boy!
Are you thinking of St. Andrews?
Half of my extended family is from Glasgow, so by the blood of my ancestors I am sworn to hate everything East of Falkirk.
Almost all of my family are from Dundee (apart from 1 grandparent who is from Liverpool), so we are sworn to hate everyone no matter where they are from.
At least neither of us come from fucking Aberdeen.
So, I'm going to spin another yarn about the military, boot camp specifically.
Everybody has boot camp stories; it's the time in your life that is probably ingrained in your damned DNA whether you will admit it or not. It's a formative experience where you shed a great many of the notions you have about what's funny or not, what the true meaning of exhaustion is and exactly how hungry you have to be to eat an entire tube of jalapeno cheese spread by itself.
But I'm going to tell long and winding story that may or may not have the punchline you're looking for. If you laugh at it, great ... totally awesome. If you don't get it, it's no big deal but you might have gained a little understanding about the surreal nature of recruit training.
Back when boot camp started, we had three drill instructors (DI's), two junior and one senior. The junior DI's were like overprotective mothers in the sense that they were always up in your shit, correcting every last mistake with fury and noise, berating you for being slow and telling you how you'll never amount to anything if you keep slouching like that.
The senior DI was like a partially indulgent dad mixed with the angry vengeance of an archangel; when everything was cool, you actually felt some small semblance of normal humanity from him, he might even take pity on your injury or illness if it was in the cards. When everything was not-cool ... well, there's no worse feeling in your entire tiny world of a platoon than when he would look at you in disgust and question your conviction to become a better person.
I take that back, there was one thing that was actually worse: when he got mad. We saw it maybe five times in the space of 92 days, three times within the first 6 weeks, once again at about week 8 and the final time at about week nine when one kid mouthed off; I still remember that kid's name (Kosobucki, a prodigious fuck-up) and actually thought his punishment was more along the lines of torture than anything. Granted, he deserved it, but whatever.
About the end of week eight, we picked up a fourth DI, a man straight out of Drill Instructor School by the name of Staff Sergeant J.L. Almaria. Now, this upstanding marine was hand-picked to be our fourth DI, his personality assessment was matched up by a set of rigorous criteria to mesh with the three other DI's we had. But all us poor little recruits didn't know that, we didn't know that nearly every step of each phase was calculated and measured to best break down bad habits and form good ones.
We thought we had been assigned a crazy person.
The man was about as tough as you could get without being carved out of actual driftwood; a native born son of the Philippines (Manilla, IIRC) he had grown up in the shade of Subic Bay, a now retired U.S. Naval base. He had grown up with marines and sailors in his streets and admired them, especially the jarheads. He thought of them as tough guys and he came from a family of tough guys. It seemed like a natural fit and he never thought otherwise.
Back in his heyday, he climbed Mount Fuji with his entire infantry platoon. He was carrying an entire M2 .50 caliber machinegun ... the barrel, the receiver and the tripod ... nearly 130 lbs. of metal in addition to a fifty pound pack. He did all of this to prove that nothing Japanese could ever beat a Philippino.
However, instead of the overprotective mothers we had in our other junior DI's or the partially indulgent daddy in our senior DI, SSgt Almaria was the crazy uncle that sneaks you a Playboy but will totally fuck with you about how much you jerk off.
Now, Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Almaria had a fairly thick accent despite his facility with the English language and he possessed all manner of creative insults, but sometimes they were a little hard to follow; to best describe it, I will turn to the comedian Jo Koy and his parody of his mother's speech patterns.
Now, I need to take a step back and explain something else; earlier in the thread, I spoke of the obsidian titan that was Sergeant Jones and his fondness for twisting our names into a insult based upon his 'command' of the Japanese language. Sgt Jones also had a thing he would do when he had evening duty and would tuck all of Mother's Little Darlings in for the night.
He gave us his Words of Wisdom to go to sleep thinking about; such famous little speeches have been seared into my mind:
"Don't be a jerk; be a jerker."
"When you get married and your wife is pissing you off and she asks you to cook dinner, don't just toss out an MRE and say, 'Here, woman. Chow.' They hate that."
"When you poor little recruits get out into The Fleet Marine Force, you're gonna get hazed. Suck it up and laugh it off. Nobody likes a tattle-tale and nobody wants to have a beer with a candy-ass."
So, one fateful night, SSgt Almaria has evening duty and it's the night before Rifle Qualification; we've spent two weeks prepping for this next day, every last minute of our focus has been on shooting straight and shooting well. The next 24 hours are critical because failing Rifle Qualification gets you dropped from the platoon and sent back to another platoon, one full of strangers. It's a fate worse than death to leave your platoon, your new family. We're nervous, we're tense and it's showing. Some lone recruit down at the end of the squadbay (I think it was one of the Royal twins, Chad or Keith) asked SSgt Almaria for our Words of Wisdom for the evening.
"Words of Wisdom?!? The hell you talking about, recruit?!?"
"Well, sir, when DI Sgt Jones is here - "
"SHUT YOUR LIPS, YOU! I know what you want."
He pauses and thinks for a moment; this is a critical moment in our lives, the next few words could make us or break us.
"I would wish you good luck on tomorrow's Rifle Qualification ... but luck is for pimps and assholes."
Darth Waiter on
+18
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
I can relate to your stories about the military. Hell, just reading that brought back images of Drill Sgt's Jardine, Rodriguez, Moss and... fuck. I forgot our senior Drill Sergeant's name. he was Hispanic too. I can see his face. This is going to haunt me.
0
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
You want to hear a story about dick trauma? I haven't gotten laid in almost 10 years. That's pretty fucking traumatic.
Well, not regularly.
OKay, I posted this a few weeks ago in the thread and... uh.. this isn't a problem any more. Like... at all.
+22
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
noice
+5
Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
edited June 2013
over the past few weeks I've noticed that on some nights, after most everyone in the house has gone to sleep, my desk will start to shake ever so slightly, upsetting my monitor enough to be annoying (and to give me slight motion sickness if I'm playing a shooter)
the cause has been something of a mystery
until tonight, that is
I just came back inside from having a cigarette to hear the unmistakable sounds of fornication drifting out of the room next to mine, where the gentleman who lives there is no doubt giving his girlfriend a raucously enjoyable time (if her emissions are any indicator, and I think they are)
and so now I go to bed, not because I am particularly tired, but because using my computer has been made troublesome by vigorous sex
So I've been teaching myself to be more social lately. And I've met some interesting people.
One of these is Jin. A Japanese dude who's been in South Africa for 11 months now.
Jin is amazing. He has a license to handle explosives and toxic substances, and he's also a licensed auto-mechanic. He asked me what kind of car I drive and I proudly told him it's a Japanese one. He looked impressed.
I told him it's a Toyota. His face fell.
Jin's opinion on Toyota:
"Toyota!? Toyota fuck!"
His English isn't the best, but pretty good considering he couldn't speak any when he first came here. The most amazing part of Jin though, is the teachers he had in the special-ed school he went to. Turns out Jin was labelled with a learning-disability and he was sent to a special vocational school in his home town. It was almost entirely focused on teaching the kids trade skills to get them jobs in factories and other blue-collar jobs.
There were two teachers he mentioned who I thought were amazing. His science teacher and his maths teacher. Both them of them, instead of giving up in the face of teaching a class full of boys who either didn't care, or couldn't really learn the things they were required to teach, rose to the challenge.
The science teacher taught them enough chemistry to get them to pass their exams, by letting them cook hot-pots in class everyday. Each ingredient was a chemical, and the gas burner was the energy needed for the reaction. They (hohoho) ate it up and only the truly hopeless kids didn't at least pass.
The maths teacher, taught them how to add, subtract, divide and mulitply by letting them play boardgames with their allowances at stake. This did have some unfortunate consequences as some kids would basically mug the others to get more pocket money to play the games, but at least they could now count, which they mostly couldn't before.
Jin also warned me:
"Don't come to Japan and think people are like me! I am very strange Japanese!"
Thanks, Jin... I'll remember that.
I also met a girl named, Nozomi who has no idea how to hug people. But she'll still try. She sort of hurls herself at you with her arms open like she's trying to body slam you. Luckily she weighs almost nothing and can get away with it. I also thought until recently she was like 15 but it turns out she's 23. Nice girl though, shame she's going back soon.
PS. Jin also says I look like a Yakuza. Apparently this is supposed to be a compliment.
Let me tell you a story about the night I got high and found God, and how he turned out to be Lawrence Dallaglio.
Back when I was at university, I lived in the old student housing for my second and third years. The place was, and still is, an urban campus surrounded by winding roads and an abandoned warehouse. So most of the function rooms and student facilities are old terraced houses, with second-floor overhangs and crooked bay windows facing the street.
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
For those of you who don't follow rugby union as a sport, Lawrence Dallaglio was a flanker for England and captain of the national squad. But more importantly than that, he was a savior. A man-mountain, Dallaglio would often come on in the dying moments of a game and win us the day with a ferocious tenacity that made him a legend among legends. In the winter of 2003, when this story takes place, he had just become immortalized after winning us the Rugby World Cup, against Australia, no less, our mortal enemies.
Now, I didn't actually happen upon a sporting great in a dark and ominous alley, of course. It was a life-size cardboard cutout in the front window of my friend Zoe’s house, about one hundred metres from my own. I guess in the dim light, and shrouded beneath the sash curtains, it looked like the man himself. But anyway, let's backtrack a little.
So the exams are all over and most of us have aced them all. There’s nothing on the slate until January 3rd when a group of six of us are scheduled for some work experience at The Times. So we did what any students would do with a whole lot of time on their hands: take tabs of ecstasy and listen to an endless trance megamix in Owen’s loft conversion, overlooking the entrance to the main university campus at the end of the street.
It was a bad trip and I was feeling terrible the whole time. It was the first time I'd done anything worse than weed and I very nearly chickened out of the whole thing. Not least because I was that evening’s designated third wheel, with everyone fucking everyone else right there on the carpet, while I lay back on a sofa and quietly watched people walk in and out of The Ganges on the far side of the road, inhaling charcoal kebabs like air. Seeing this made me hungry so I evaporated from the building and found myself walking down the street back to mine, barely able to think, wishing I'd just stayed in and watched some Have I Got News For You instead, like I did every Friday. That’s when I stumbled up to Lawrence Dallaglio, and had what should have been a transcendent, life-affirming experience.
I've been told I was out there for an uncomfortably long period of time, staring right into the window, mouth agape and eyes completely bloodshot. I mean, it wasn't like the cutout blocked the entire window, you could look past and see right into her front room, lit up by a TV in the corner, half a dozen people sitting around it, smoking and drinking. And there I was, wavering in the cool air, looking up at six-foot-five-inches of muscle and determination, wrapped in the pure white colors of English victory. I was completely transfixed by his presence and sick to my stomach.
I can't adequately describe what it felt like. It was like, even though he was grimacing in a rugged pose of sporting prowess, it felt like he was smiling. Like everything was going to be OK and there was nothing to worry about, and your dissertation is going to go fine, stop overthinking it and just get it down on paper. And even though the people at The Times are going to look down at you and laugh, that's OK too because it's one more rung on the ladder to success.
In that moment, he took all of my doubts and fears in his gigantic bear-claw hands, and like a spindled rugby ball he carried them with him all the way to the try line. His chiseled jaw and furrowed brow weren't angry, they were sad. Sad that I had spent night after night losing sleep over trivial inconveniences. Like how I would go about apologizing to that girl from my first year law class, who I embarrassed in front of everyone by pointing out the lecturer was talking about Deepthroat the FBI informant, not Deepthroat the pornographic movie. Or how I was afraid to speak with the accounts department because they had charged me twice for tuition - I had paid it manually on the same day they withdrew it automatically, so in some crazy sense I figured it was my own fault and I deserved financial ruin. Or even how I should stop lying awake at night alone and scared, and finally work up the courage to ask Zoe out and have a proper university experience.
Anyway, somehow I managed to get back to my place and crawl into bed, where I wept uncontrollably for a solid two hours. And when I woke up the next morning, none of those things got done. I graduated two years later having never apologized to that girl, and to this day I cringe and shake when I remember that moment every other month. And the university still owes me about two-grand from the time I paid double fees, but I've never called them because of crippling anxiety and because I don't want to have money troubles anymore. So I just put it out of my mind and figure they'll catch the error and pay me back eventually, but they never will. And Zoe ended up living in Tibet, working for Christian Aid and meeting a whole bunch of interesting people and posting about it on Facebook to her friends, of which I am one, even though we never speak and haven’t seen each other in years.
Fucking Lawrence Dallaglio. I was supposed to have a life-altering experience and instead I got nothing. For a brief moment I saw everything and everyone. I rose out of my body and had the overwhelming sense that my legacy was secured. Everything was in place and there was no need to be afraid of anything, not now and not ever again. Like a smile, but from within.
But what a mess everything turned out to be. We ended up losing to South Africa in the final of the following world cup. What a bunch of bastards. Dallaglio wasn't there for us that day, and now I realize he wasn't there for me either, on that cold street in the winter of 2003.
OI NOW SON
YOU'VE GOT TO GET THAT TWO FLIPPIN GRAND BACK. YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CALL THEM, I RECKON YOU COULD SORT IT OUT WITH EMAIL. JUST THINK OF WHAT YOU COULD BUY WITH THAT MONEY MATE.
SORRY IT DIDN'T WORK OUT WITH YOU AND ZOE. I KNOW YOU REGRET NOT TELLING HER HOW YOU FEEL. I'VE BEEN THERE MYSELF BELIEVE IT OR NOT. I CAN PROMISE YOU THOUGH, WHILE THERE MAY BE NO ONE ELSE LIKE ZOE, YOU AND I ARE BLESSED TO LIVE IN A WORLD THAT'S FULL OF WOMEN WHO ARE ALL JUST AS WONDERFUL IN THEIR OWN WAY. YOU'VE GOT A WHOLE LIFETIME OF CHANCES AHEAD OF YOU MY SON, WHENEVER YOU'RE READY TO TAKE 'EM.
AS FOR SOUTH AFRICA DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED OR WE'LL BE HERE ALL BLOODY NIGHT.
+12
AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
My cousin and his wife planted a lemon tree as part of their ceremony and pledged that “their marriage would live and grow as long as this tree does” at which my dad muttered “lemon trees usually last about 20 years.”
+19
Binary SquidWe all make choicesRegistered Userregular
My cousin and his wife planted a lemon tree as part of their ceremony and pledged that “their marriage would live and grow as long as this tree does” at which my dad muttered “lemon trees usually last about 20 years.”
Maybe he was planning on replanting a cutting from the tree, allowing the 'tree' to continue far beyond it's initial lifespan?
Guys, I'm going to level with you. There's something to me that I really don't like to share with anyone because it's a thing I haven't really been able to face and overcome, and as such I can't really put a funny spin on it with some knowing attitude that I can handle it because, thus far, I really haven't in any long-term way.
I am unemployed, and have been since around 2001, having lived off of SSI (Which I qualify for due to having ADD and Aspergers) for pretty much all of my adult life.
I also haven't really gotten anywhere with my education for a mix of reasons that include lack of funding, lack of ability to learn much of anything from lectures and note-taking, but I think the biggest reason is probably an intense fear of failure that my Dad helped to reinforce into me and my siblings. This was mostly the result of him screaming obscenities and insults every chance he got whenever we made mistakes of any kind during one of his bad moods. (I'm talking things like WHATS WRONG WITH YOU, STUPID ASS, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER, STUPID SON OF A BITCH, etc)
Also, largely, I have what seems to be a crippling fear of any significant changes to my daily routine. The very idea of going out and making some of the changes i need to make tends to make me very uncomfortable, and for years it's been hard to even really figure out any real plans of any kind, because as soon as I start thinking about it, I begin to get really tense and find myself wanting desperately to think about anything else.
I don't remember exactly when it started, but sometime around high school or middle school onward, I started to have regular thoughts about suicide, and have just had this passive understanding that I would eventually just resort to ending my life in order to stop thinking about what a miserable useless prick I am, who can't maintain any sort of daily life to give any sort of meaning to my existence. I've had times where things were going well, but even then there was this fear that it was all just temporary, and I would eventually just revert to doing nothing and having nothing to make me feel like my own existence is worth living. It's gotten worse in the last couple years since i moved out of my mom's house and into an apartment, because now I haven't the money to keep going back to school and have basically sat on my thumbs and done nothing for the past 2 1/2 years.
To be honest, the only time in my adult life where I actually felt like I had anything going was after I discovered music. And honestly, it was an amazing thing to learn about myself, to see I had talent for reading it and playing certain instruments, and just how easily I took to it. But it feels sort of like the magic of all of that has sort of faded over the last few years, and I find myself less and less inclined to work on anything. Before that? Honestly? I had next to nothing. I had my writing, but that didn't really go anywhere.
Up until then, life was honestly pretty empty. And now I'm afraid it's going back to that again. And I really, REALLY don't want it to. But sometimes it seems like I don't have it in me to make myself do much of anything. At least not for very long. I want to change that, more than anything. I Just don't know how.
Looking at what you have been through in the past 12 years (and even back beyond that, evidently), it is overwhelming to think that you've been through all of that and have found a way to survive it. Do not discount that. Having a negative role model like your dad, and growing up believing not just that you didn't measure up, but will never measure up, that is huge. Having ADD and being on the spectrum on top of that is even huger.
Given all that, and likely a much bigger and more complex picture than what you've been able to put into words here, it is intimidating. It is hard to know where to start. It must feel like odds are stacked against you. And I'd be tempted to agree with you. But you've made it this far.
You have already shown that you can survive. Hold onto that - it is the victory, however small you may think it is, that proves you are stronger than what you're up against.
So what's next is how to go from surviving to living. It sounds kinda new-agey and hippie-esque, probably, but let's face it - you've had enough of just going from day to day with the same old same old. You want to have something to look forward to every day, something to enjoy every day.
With a picture that is as intimidating and as, well, huge as yours, it's tempting to stare at it and despair. Where do you even begin? It's so huge, so seemingly immovable - what's the point of even trying? And even if you *did* try, you're going to fail eventually, so why bother? Can't you just knock it down and start over?
It's not hard to see why this has been going on as long as it has. This is the sort of thing that would paralyze a lot of people.
But like with any piece of art, you can look at it many different ways. Right now, it's looking like a very sad picture, with lots of missed chances and perceived failures, lots of self-loathing, lots of hopelessness, poor relationships, and lack of direction.
There's another way to look at it, too. Strengths. Opportunities. We already know you have survived. That is a huge strength. You have borne this picture on your back the whole way and you are still standing. Good on you.
We know that you have previously enjoyed music and writing, and have been surprised at your talent for both. Even if they didn't go anywhere, you still enjoyed them, had experienced some semblance of self-worth with them. What else could be out there that you may have a natural talent for that you haven't gotten the chance to try yet?
Most importantly - you want to change. As scary and as anxiety-inducing as change may be, you still want it. We are not shitting people when we say this is the biggest thing. Wanting something different from what you've known all your life is huge. It is the equivalent of moving into another country where you don't speak the language and may not know many people. Fucking terrifying. But you want it anyway. Good on you, because that is fucking amazing.
There are many possible places to start, and I wonder if you haven't already narrowed it down: you've identified that feeling you get when you enjoy music, and you want to hang onto it. That might be your goal.
So why do you think that enjoyment is fading? Is it because it wasn't getting you a job, or because you don't think you could pursue it with much success, or because you don't know, the spark just kinda went away? Or because something in your brain is talking you out of thinking that there was something you were good at and could be happy with? Like a "yeah, so I can do that, but so what? / who cares? / meh." Or because you're getting a bit bored of it?
Those questions can sometimes offer up a direction, or at least a better understanding of what your own priorities are.
From there, maybe you can come up with something to change or do differently that you believe will help you meet your goal. Do it one day. Then the next day.
Or have a list of little things you can do, and do at least one thing from that list on a given day. Little goals for you to reach. One day at a time.
Spend 30 minutes at your local music store and talk to people. Listen to a new composer or band. Exercise outside for 30 minutes! Read a book out in the sunshine for 15 minutes. Cook a crazy new dish you normally never would. Etc etc etc.
If you can't pick something or are having trouble sticking to something that you really believe would be helpful, well, that's where help comes in. Support - counseling, support groups, even friends to start with - can also have a role in helping you shout down that voice in the back of your head that tells you there's no point to any of this, that you're going to fail anyway, or that you aren't worth the effort. Cuz I can imagine those voices are a doozy, and there will be bad days where they are super loud, maybe when you've stumbled a bit, and sometimes it's handy having someone who gets you back you up with your own, new voice that says NO, FUCK YOU, I DESERVE TO FEEL GOOD, and help you keep moving forward.
5 steps forward and 3 steps back is still forward.
I kind of forgot about my the post i made in here, and so I never actually caught this until just now.
Thank you so much for this, Viv. I don't even know how else to say how I feel, right now, but this is the best thing anyone's ever said to me.
So, now I'm going to get dressed right now and go for a walk, because I seriously need the exercise.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.
Switch Friend Code: SW-6680-6709-4204
+7
David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
Who likes Crazy Golf?
When I was a kid, we often went to my godmama's beach house during the summer and the nearest town was a kinda touristy little place with a nice beach and a harbor where you could buy fresh fish and a sizable crazy golf course. So we played a lot.
Now there was one hole where it was basically skee ball. You had to really wack the ball to get it to go in and my mom was always terrible at it. I kept telling her to go for it, but every year she ended up conceding the hole because she always did the thing where you put the golf club right on the ball and then just kinda push it forward, rather than get a good swing. One year, I'm about ten, I finally convince her to just swing for the fences on it. And I'm certain that she'll get the ball up there now, so I'm watching and watching and she pulls back and *crack* smacks me right in the nose on the backswing.
I'm crying, there's some blood, I'm fairly certain my nose is crooked now, I mean, I just took a golf club to the face. Ice cream eventually fixes things.
It's now a year later. Same town. Same crazy golf course. Same hole. I am a year older and a year wiser. This time, I move to the other side of my mom. She rears back, whacks the ball, the ball flies through the air and goes in the hole.
But I see none of this because every swing has a follow-through. And somehow I managed to get smacked in the face with a golf club on the same hole two years running. This time at least it's the other side, so if my nose as crooked, it's not anymore.
That was the last year I stood on the same side as my mom when we played crazy golf. On any hole. I didn't need the ice cream that badly.
+17
TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
A friend of mine missed the premiere for Man of Steel because a drunk guy in front of him threw himself in front of a train. Due to amazing luck, he didn't die. He just got himself stuck under the train.
So as New Yorkers got off the train, they'd yell and ask if the guy was alright. He'd respond with a MUUUUUUUUUUURGH and drunken slurred words. They'd breathe a sigh of relief and then enthusiastically say, "Fuck that guy."
+12
TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
edited June 2013
whoops
TrippyJing on
0
Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
here is a story about my dad, because today is the day for stories about dads
When I was fifteen or so, the office in the basement of my dad's house had this hilariously oversized desk in it. It came from a time before furniture makers understood much of anything about computers, so instead of having an open back, like a sensible desk of today, it had a solid back with a two-inch diameter hole to put cables through, and combined with the fact that the desk was up against a wall, it made for a difficult operation any time I needed to add or remove any peripherals.
I had to fashion a device.
The device was, essentially, a wire coathanger that I had straightened and clipped some of the extra wire off of.
One day, I was carrying this tool downstairs, and my dad stopped me along the way.
"Hey," he said. "What have I told you about coathanger abortions?"
"Um...put down newspaper?"
"That's m'boy."
And then we both went back to whatever it was we were doing.
+20
Snowbeati need somethingto kick this thing's ass over the lineRegistered Userregular
Let me tell you a story about the night I got high and found God, and how he turned out to be Lawrence Dallaglio.
Back when I was at university, I lived in the old student housing for my second and third years. The place was, and still is, an urban campus surrounded by winding roads and an abandoned warehouse. So most of the function rooms and student facilities are old terraced houses, with second-floor overhangs and crooked bay windows facing the street.
The point is that as you walk home after a night of debauchery and student hijinks, you're not staggering across pristine lawns to a block of flats in the middle of field, like those rich-boy universities in the north, Leeds or Edinburgh. Or those Oxbridge fools with their medieval courtyards. No, you're tumbling down a rabbit hole of claustrophobic London streets, every cobbled pavement a direct insult to your inebriated sense of balance. Walking home at night was a moody, sordid adventure that was totally unlike the safe and inviting village I grew up in. And it was down one of these streets that I was visited by the heavenly visage of Lawrence Dallaglio.
For those of you who don't follow rugby union as a sport, Lawrence Dallaglio was a flanker for England and captain of the national squad. But more importantly than that, he was a savior. A man-mountain, Dallaglio would often come on in the dying moments of a game and win us the day with a ferocious tenacity that made him a legend among legends. In the winter of 2003, when this story takes place, he had just become immortalized after winning us the Rugby World Cup, against Australia, no less, our mortal enemies.
Now, I didn't actually happen upon a sporting great in a dark and ominous alley, of course. It was a life-size cardboard cutout in the front window of my friend Zoe’s house, about one hundred metres from my own. I guess in the dim light, and shrouded beneath the sash curtains, it looked like the man himself. But anyway, let's backtrack a little.
So the exams are all over and most of us have aced them all. There’s nothing on the slate until January 3rd when a group of six of us are scheduled for some work experience at The Times. So we did what any students would do with a whole lot of time on their hands: take tabs of ecstasy and listen to an endless trance megamix in Owen’s loft conversion, overlooking the entrance to the main university campus at the end of the street.
It was a bad trip and I was feeling terrible the whole time. It was the first time I'd done anything worse than weed and I very nearly chickened out of the whole thing. Not least because I was that evening’s designated third wheel, with everyone fucking everyone else right there on the carpet, while I lay back on a sofa and quietly watched people walk in and out of The Ganges on the far side of the road, inhaling charcoal kebabs like air. Seeing this made me hungry so I evaporated from the building and found myself walking down the street back to mine, barely able to think, wishing I'd just stayed in and watched some Have I Got News For You instead, like I did every Friday. That’s when I stumbled up to Lawrence Dallaglio, and had what should have been a transcendent, life-affirming experience.
I've been told I was out there for an uncomfortably long period of time, staring right into the window, mouth agape and eyes completely bloodshot. I mean, it wasn't like the cutout blocked the entire window, you could look past and see right into her front room, lit up by a TV in the corner, half a dozen people sitting around it, smoking and drinking. And there I was, wavering in the cool air, looking up at six-foot-five-inches of muscle and determination, wrapped in the pure white colors of English victory. I was completely transfixed by his presence and sick to my stomach.
I can't adequately describe what it felt like. It was like, even though he was grimacing in a rugged pose of sporting prowess, it felt like he was smiling. Like everything was going to be OK and there was nothing to worry about, and your dissertation is going to go fine, stop overthinking it and just get it down on paper. And even though the people at The Times are going to look down at you and laugh, that's OK too because it's one more rung on the ladder to success.
In that moment, he took all of my doubts and fears in his gigantic bear-claw hands, and like a spindled rugby ball he carried them with him all the way to the try line. His chiseled jaw and furrowed brow weren't angry, they were sad. Sad that I had spent night after night losing sleep over trivial inconveniences. Like how I would go about apologizing to that girl from my first year law class, who I embarrassed in front of everyone by pointing out the lecturer was talking about Deepthroat the FBI informant, not Deepthroat the pornographic movie. Or how I was afraid to speak with the accounts department because they had charged me twice for tuition - I had paid it manually on the same day they withdrew it automatically, so in some crazy sense I figured it was my own fault and I deserved financial ruin. Or even how I should stop lying awake at night alone and scared, and finally work up the courage to ask Zoe out and have a proper university experience.
Anyway, somehow I managed to get back to my place and crawl into bed, where I wept uncontrollably for a solid two hours. And when I woke up the next morning, none of those things got done. I graduated two years later having never apologized to that girl, and to this day I cringe and shake when I remember that moment every other month. And the university still owes me about two-grand from the time I paid double fees, but I've never called them because of crippling anxiety and because I don't want to have money troubles anymore. So I just put it out of my mind and figure they'll catch the error and pay me back eventually, but they never will. And Zoe ended up living in Tibet, working for Christian Aid and meeting a whole bunch of interesting people and posting about it on Facebook to her friends, of which I am one, even though we never speak and haven’t seen each other in years.
Fucking Lawrence Dallaglio. I was supposed to have a life-altering experience and instead I got nothing. For a brief moment I saw everything and everyone. I rose out of my body and had the overwhelming sense that my legacy was secured. Everything was in place and there was no need to be afraid of anything, not now and not ever again. Like a smile, but from within.
But what a mess everything turned out to be. We ended up losing to South Africa in the final of the following world cup. What a bunch of bastards. Dallaglio wasn't there for us that day, and now I realize he wasn't there for me either, on that cold street in the winter of 2003.
OI NOW SON
YOU'VE GOT TO GET THAT TWO FLIPPIN GRAND BACK. YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CALL THEM, I RECKON YOU COULD SORT IT OUT WITH EMAIL. JUST THINK OF WHAT YOU COULD BUY WITH THAT MONEY MATE.
SORRY IT DIDN'T WORK OUT WITH YOU AND ZOE. I KNOW YOU REGRET NOT TELLING HER HOW YOU FEEL. I'VE BEEN THERE MYSELF BELIEVE IT OR NOT. I CAN PROMISE YOU THOUGH, WHILE THERE MAY BE NO ONE ELSE LIKE ZOE, YOU AND I ARE BLESSED TO LIVE IN A WORLD THAT'S FULL OF WOMEN WHO ARE ALL JUST AS WONDERFUL IN THEIR OWN WAY. YOU'VE GOT A WHOLE LIFETIME OF CHANCES AHEAD OF YOU MY SON, WHENEVER YOU'RE READY TO TAKE 'EM.
AS FOR SOUTH AFRICA DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED OR WE'LL BE HERE ALL BLOODY NIGHT.
this is incredible
both of you deserve hats
+3
TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
Man, my mom was too damn observant when I was younger. A friend of mine had gotten a hold of a treasure trove of dirty magazines, and gave me a few. So I took them home and decided to use my super secret special hiding space, which was at the back of a cabinet in my bathroom. There was an old mouse hole back there I put them in, and I made sure there were plenty of towels and toiletries obscuring it, and so I went to out to play secure in the knowledge that my porn was safe.
Well guess who was waiting for me with my stash sitting neatly on the bed? Yep, she found them. I swear she must have had a hidden camera or something, because how the did she find it?!
Posts
Only in situations where I know people.
If I'm at a party and I'm a +1, knowing no one there, drinking games are a pretty good way to get to know people.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
holy shit
RIP Dwayne McDuffie
whoever took 2 minutes to read that has already wasted years trying to get out of sixth grade
because they don't read as quickly as I can
(I can read quickly)
(why are you never proud of me, Dad)
I went to Edinburgh and I assure you I ain't no rich-boy!
Are you thinking of St. Andrews?
"I don't even know that dog."
The End
I gave him one back, walked ten steps, and wondered who the fuck does a 'sup nod to a dog
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Yeah. That was my first year of uni. First years were allowed in the new student housing blocks, but once you get to second year they kick you out into privately owned accommodation on the streets so the freshmen can take your old digs. End of the year was like mid August I think. We had weird schedules and after an entire lifetime of summer holidays it was kinda sad having to work through.
Five 20s on five D20s at once. I don't know if the odds are worse or better than if I had rolled one die consecutively, but either way they're still astronomical.
Here's the original post if it's been lost in the forum reshuffle:
Half of my extended family is from Glasgow, so by the blood of my ancestors I am sworn to hate everything East of Falkirk.
Almost all of my family are from Dundee (apart from 1 grandparent who is from Liverpool), so we are sworn to hate everyone no matter where they are from.
Man I'd have at least gotten a coffee date.
At least neither of us come from fucking Aberdeen.
Scotty was from Aberdeen.
In real life and the show iirc
The actor was Canadian.
But I'm not going to.
Dogs are good people.
Aberdeen, Canada.
oh my god
there are 31 Aberdeens in North America.
Fuck this shit.
Everybody has boot camp stories; it's the time in your life that is probably ingrained in your damned DNA whether you will admit it or not. It's a formative experience where you shed a great many of the notions you have about what's funny or not, what the true meaning of exhaustion is and exactly how hungry you have to be to eat an entire tube of jalapeno cheese spread by itself.
But I'm going to tell long and winding story that may or may not have the punchline you're looking for. If you laugh at it, great ... totally awesome. If you don't get it, it's no big deal but you might have gained a little understanding about the surreal nature of recruit training.
The senior DI was like a partially indulgent dad mixed with the angry vengeance of an archangel; when everything was cool, you actually felt some small semblance of normal humanity from him, he might even take pity on your injury or illness if it was in the cards. When everything was not-cool ... well, there's no worse feeling in your entire tiny world of a platoon than when he would look at you in disgust and question your conviction to become a better person.
I take that back, there was one thing that was actually worse: when he got mad. We saw it maybe five times in the space of 92 days, three times within the first 6 weeks, once again at about week 8 and the final time at about week nine when one kid mouthed off; I still remember that kid's name (Kosobucki, a prodigious fuck-up) and actually thought his punishment was more along the lines of torture than anything. Granted, he deserved it, but whatever.
About the end of week eight, we picked up a fourth DI, a man straight out of Drill Instructor School by the name of Staff Sergeant J.L. Almaria. Now, this upstanding marine was hand-picked to be our fourth DI, his personality assessment was matched up by a set of rigorous criteria to mesh with the three other DI's we had. But all us poor little recruits didn't know that, we didn't know that nearly every step of each phase was calculated and measured to best break down bad habits and form good ones.
We thought we had been assigned a crazy person.
The man was about as tough as you could get without being carved out of actual driftwood; a native born son of the Philippines (Manilla, IIRC) he had grown up in the shade of Subic Bay, a now retired U.S. Naval base. He had grown up with marines and sailors in his streets and admired them, especially the jarheads. He thought of them as tough guys and he came from a family of tough guys. It seemed like a natural fit and he never thought otherwise.
Back in his heyday, he climbed Mount Fuji with his entire infantry platoon. He was carrying an entire M2 .50 caliber machinegun ... the barrel, the receiver and the tripod ... nearly 130 lbs. of metal in addition to a fifty pound pack. He did all of this to prove that nothing Japanese could ever beat a Philippino.
However, instead of the overprotective mothers we had in our other junior DI's or the partially indulgent daddy in our senior DI, SSgt Almaria was the crazy uncle that sneaks you a Playboy but will totally fuck with you about how much you jerk off.
Now, Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Almaria had a fairly thick accent despite his facility with the English language and he possessed all manner of creative insults, but sometimes they were a little hard to follow; to best describe it, I will turn to the comedian Jo Koy and his parody of his mother's speech patterns.
Now, I need to take a step back and explain something else; earlier in the thread, I spoke of the obsidian titan that was Sergeant Jones and his fondness for twisting our names into a insult based upon his 'command' of the Japanese language. Sgt Jones also had a thing he would do when he had evening duty and would tuck all of Mother's Little Darlings in for the night.
He gave us his Words of Wisdom to go to sleep thinking about; such famous little speeches have been seared into my mind:
"Don't be a jerk; be a jerker."
"When you get married and your wife is pissing you off and she asks you to cook dinner, don't just toss out an MRE and say, 'Here, woman. Chow.' They hate that."
"When you poor little recruits get out into The Fleet Marine Force, you're gonna get hazed. Suck it up and laugh it off. Nobody likes a tattle-tale and nobody wants to have a beer with a candy-ass."
So, one fateful night, SSgt Almaria has evening duty and it's the night before Rifle Qualification; we've spent two weeks prepping for this next day, every last minute of our focus has been on shooting straight and shooting well. The next 24 hours are critical because failing Rifle Qualification gets you dropped from the platoon and sent back to another platoon, one full of strangers. It's a fate worse than death to leave your platoon, your new family. We're nervous, we're tense and it's showing. Some lone recruit down at the end of the squadbay (I think it was one of the Royal twins, Chad or Keith) asked SSgt Almaria for our Words of Wisdom for the evening.
"Words of Wisdom?!? The hell you talking about, recruit?!?"
"Well, sir, when DI Sgt Jones is here - "
"SHUT YOUR LIPS, YOU! I know what you want."
He pauses and thinks for a moment; this is a critical moment in our lives, the next few words could make us or break us.
"I would wish you good luck on tomorrow's Rifle Qualification ... but luck is for pimps and assholes."
It's nice to see them appreciated.
OKay, I posted this a few weeks ago in the thread and... uh.. this isn't a problem any more. Like... at all.
the cause has been something of a mystery
until tonight, that is
I just came back inside from having a cigarette to hear the unmistakable sounds of fornication drifting out of the room next to mine, where the gentleman who lives there is no doubt giving his girlfriend a raucously enjoyable time (if her emissions are any indicator, and I think they are)
and so now I go to bed, not because I am particularly tired, but because using my computer has been made troublesome by vigorous sex
One of these is Jin. A Japanese dude who's been in South Africa for 11 months now.
Jin is amazing. He has a license to handle explosives and toxic substances, and he's also a licensed auto-mechanic. He asked me what kind of car I drive and I proudly told him it's a Japanese one. He looked impressed.
I told him it's a Toyota. His face fell.
Jin's opinion on Toyota:
"Toyota!? Toyota fuck!"
His English isn't the best, but pretty good considering he couldn't speak any when he first came here. The most amazing part of Jin though, is the teachers he had in the special-ed school he went to. Turns out Jin was labelled with a learning-disability and he was sent to a special vocational school in his home town. It was almost entirely focused on teaching the kids trade skills to get them jobs in factories and other blue-collar jobs.
There were two teachers he mentioned who I thought were amazing. His science teacher and his maths teacher. Both them of them, instead of giving up in the face of teaching a class full of boys who either didn't care, or couldn't really learn the things they were required to teach, rose to the challenge.
The science teacher taught them enough chemistry to get them to pass their exams, by letting them cook hot-pots in class everyday. Each ingredient was a chemical, and the gas burner was the energy needed for the reaction. They (hohoho) ate it up and only the truly hopeless kids didn't at least pass.
The maths teacher, taught them how to add, subtract, divide and mulitply by letting them play boardgames with their allowances at stake. This did have some unfortunate consequences as some kids would basically mug the others to get more pocket money to play the games, but at least they could now count, which they mostly couldn't before.
Jin also warned me:
"Don't come to Japan and think people are like me! I am very strange Japanese!"
Thanks, Jin... I'll remember that.
I also met a girl named, Nozomi who has no idea how to hug people. But she'll still try. She sort of hurls herself at you with her arms open like she's trying to body slam you. Luckily she weighs almost nothing and can get away with it. I also thought until recently she was like 15 but it turns out she's 23. Nice girl though, shame she's going back soon.
PS. Jin also says I look like a Yakuza. Apparently this is supposed to be a compliment.
STEAM
OI NOW SON
YOU'VE GOT TO GET THAT TWO FLIPPIN GRAND BACK. YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CALL THEM, I RECKON YOU COULD SORT IT OUT WITH EMAIL. JUST THINK OF WHAT YOU COULD BUY WITH THAT MONEY MATE.
SORRY IT DIDN'T WORK OUT WITH YOU AND ZOE. I KNOW YOU REGRET NOT TELLING HER HOW YOU FEEL. I'VE BEEN THERE MYSELF BELIEVE IT OR NOT. I CAN PROMISE YOU THOUGH, WHILE THERE MAY BE NO ONE ELSE LIKE ZOE, YOU AND I ARE BLESSED TO LIVE IN A WORLD THAT'S FULL OF WOMEN WHO ARE ALL JUST AS WONDERFUL IN THEIR OWN WAY. YOU'VE GOT A WHOLE LIFETIME OF CHANCES AHEAD OF YOU MY SON, WHENEVER YOU'RE READY TO TAKE 'EM.
AS FOR SOUTH AFRICA DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED OR WE'LL BE HERE ALL BLOODY NIGHT.
Maybe he was planning on replanting a cutting from the tree, allowing the 'tree' to continue far beyond it's initial lifespan?
I kind of forgot about my the post i made in here, and so I never actually caught this until just now.
Thank you so much for this, Viv. I don't even know how else to say how I feel, right now, but this is the best thing anyone's ever said to me.
So, now I'm going to get dressed right now and go for a walk, because I seriously need the exercise.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.
When I was a kid, we often went to my godmama's beach house during the summer and the nearest town was a kinda touristy little place with a nice beach and a harbor where you could buy fresh fish and a sizable crazy golf course. So we played a lot.
Now there was one hole where it was basically skee ball. You had to really wack the ball to get it to go in and my mom was always terrible at it. I kept telling her to go for it, but every year she ended up conceding the hole because she always did the thing where you put the golf club right on the ball and then just kinda push it forward, rather than get a good swing. One year, I'm about ten, I finally convince her to just swing for the fences on it. And I'm certain that she'll get the ball up there now, so I'm watching and watching and she pulls back and *crack* smacks me right in the nose on the backswing.
I'm crying, there's some blood, I'm fairly certain my nose is crooked now, I mean, I just took a golf club to the face. Ice cream eventually fixes things.
It's now a year later. Same town. Same crazy golf course. Same hole. I am a year older and a year wiser. This time, I move to the other side of my mom. She rears back, whacks the ball, the ball flies through the air and goes in the hole.
But I see none of this because every swing has a follow-through. And somehow I managed to get smacked in the face with a golf club on the same hole two years running. This time at least it's the other side, so if my nose as crooked, it's not anymore.
That was the last year I stood on the same side as my mom when we played crazy golf. On any hole. I didn't need the ice cream that badly.
So as New Yorkers got off the train, they'd yell and ask if the guy was alright. He'd respond with a MUUUUUUUUUUURGH and drunken slurred words. They'd breathe a sigh of relief and then enthusiastically say, "Fuck that guy."
When I was fifteen or so, the office in the basement of my dad's house had this hilariously oversized desk in it. It came from a time before furniture makers understood much of anything about computers, so instead of having an open back, like a sensible desk of today, it had a solid back with a two-inch diameter hole to put cables through, and combined with the fact that the desk was up against a wall, it made for a difficult operation any time I needed to add or remove any peripherals.
I had to fashion a device.
The device was, essentially, a wire coathanger that I had straightened and clipped some of the extra wire off of.
One day, I was carrying this tool downstairs, and my dad stopped me along the way.
"Hey," he said. "What have I told you about coathanger abortions?"
"Um...put down newspaper?"
"That's m'boy."
And then we both went back to whatever it was we were doing.
this is incredible
both of you deserve hats
Oh, you've got some clothes for me? Thanks.
No, mom. That's okay. I can put them away myself.
No, mom. I can...please don't open that drawer.
Let's just close that and ignore the porn.
Man, my mom was too damn observant when I was younger. A friend of mine had gotten a hold of a treasure trove of dirty magazines, and gave me a few. So I took them home and decided to use my super secret special hiding space, which was at the back of a cabinet in my bathroom. There was an old mouse hole back there I put them in, and I made sure there were plenty of towels and toiletries obscuring it, and so I went to out to play secure in the knowledge that my porn was safe.
Well guess who was waiting for me with my stash sitting neatly on the bed? Yep, she found them. I swear she must have had a hidden camera or something, because how the did she find it?!
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