Thinkin bout the times you drove in my car

thinkin that i might have drove you too far...

*

i was on my was back from getting my haircut when i walked by the burger shack that opened up next to the Capitol Grille, essentially across the street from the burnt husk of my restaurant here in Charlotte. they have an ecclectic playlist, mainly from the '60s and '70s, i can't complain, this is the classic rock rock that i grew up with before i thought that Top 40 was ok (mid 80s, gimme a break).

but i'm walking by today and "Badge" is playing, i come in earshot of it just as the bridge is coming between the verse and chorus, and it reminds me of different times. mid-90s, Kurt is dead, Ticketmaster, Neil Young, why should i care, OK Cola, and discovering music that no one cared about at the time. i like Clapton, and in the day he was, well, God.

of course i remember liking Journey at the same time, but these discretions i'll let fade into the sunset of my youth.

*

as an aside, i'm in Columbus this weekend, probably the ATL the following two weekends, and then back to DC. the times, they keep me a rollin'.

this feels like the nite

my plane goes down.

*

you never feel like you're creating memories for yourself when you really are. that schoolyard fight in second grade, the first time you feel like you're falling in love when you're 13, when you first hear a song.

i'm sitting on the side of my hotel bed in Bethesda, MD, as i'm here on loan from my company because they don't know what else to do with me. took care of office work, something severe, and we'll see what the results are. in between i just did my thing and amy trying to get their inventory under control.

it sucks having all this pent up energy to get my own store under control, yet i can't, cause, well, it's not there right now. so i try to channel it into these other places. reading, writing, work. work is the hardest, i'm stepping into a place i don't know and usually have to adjust...i don't like it, but if the product isn't there it's NOT there.

i spent four hours closing out our store here last week...i see more of it this week.

i think i know my geography pretty damn well

the problem with travel is that you get used to it. time in hotels, expense accounts, spending money because you're not at home. home. i know i live in Charlottw but my life is spread out between three cities. trying to consolidate life is so much harder than just getting rid of it.

*

i don't listen to new music, and it bothers me. listening to old MM, nothing that comes out these days inspires me, but maybe i'm looking in the wrong places. i'm yet to find a WYEP in Charlotte, a radio station that does everything for everyone.

am i getting old?

(don't go back to)

rockville.

*

oddly enough, i get to for the next week or so. the company shipped myself and a FOH mgr up here to Bethesda since there ain't much to do in Charlotte for some odd reason. so they have us shacked up in a huge-ass Hilton in...Rockville.

craziness. never in a million years would i have ever seen myself working up here. the world, and music, is very, very small.

*

initial observations:

don't by beer by the case, or at all. $$$ x 1000

Bethesda seems alright, but like a dummy i didn't stay in town after work, i went back to the hotel. seems the nightlife is worthwhile and the only place around outside of Georgetown that has anything going on.

the pub is small out front and huge in the back. i mean, i wish i had this much space in Charlotte. for the amout of business that they do here, they need what i have. silliness.

and that's about it.

*

finally gonna have all the bits and pieces of my life in one place at the end of this month. first time in five years. getting all my crap from both Columbus AND Pittsburgh, moving it down to Charlotte after my grandmothers 90th. this is a huge relief and bonus in life. as my buddy Mark would have said years ago, "life consolidation."

growing up

looking for a place to live...

*

i take minimal stuff with me when moving, usually finding a storage site or friends/family to help me out. i never moved all my life to Madison, WI, and in hindsight it both helped and hurt me. i never established roots there, but at least i'm not looking at a 14 hour trip and back to get stuff...because it's all in Pittsburgh and Columbus.

i have the pleasure of my grandmothers' 90th birthday at the end of this month (the years really do pass by quickly as you get older) and i'm hopefully hitching a ride up, and the renting a truck to carry everything back down.

Everything.

it makes me pause. i committed myself to Pittsburgh, loved/hated it, but i was established, set, made a life. Madison was always a stopover point, just a station, but i didn't know where the next stop was. i moved everything, boxes, crates, of crap from grade school. model aircraft carriers, posters of science fair stuff, everything. granted i cleaned it all out finally in The Great Purge of 2002, but the people who bought my place in Pitts had a lot of crap to sort thru.

and now, i'm taking a trip up there at the end of the month, gonna rent a truck, and just gather my life. it's frightening. reclaiming yourself from storage, from on pause, from...well, i don't even know anymore.

my father finally wants to put his old house on the market. i'm reminded of how the red maple in front of where i grew up, a tree that my grandfather passed by on his way to Montrose, is no longer there, and how my grandmother was shocked when i told her this a year ago.

*

i don't like getting old. it all ends up passing by.

tell her not to go

i ain holding on no more...

*

we're still doing the Taste of Charlotte, despite not having any food ("no shepherds pie? what am i supposed to do?") and we are merely manning the booth to spread the word that we will be back...in four to six months.

but in the meantime, we spread the word, let people know what happened, and reconnect with our regulars and employees. and we had a lot of both tonite.

*

when i first got down here, literally a year ago this last week, another server had just started. short, long blonde hair, intelligent (Ph.D in psych!), we connected at first and even though i was trying to make sense of my world then, my AGM suggested that i should ask her out.

i balked, mainly because of the damaged goods excuse, which is a very good reason as i look back at it a year later. right person, wrong time. but i knew there was something else that didn't quite mesh.

*

she stopped by today, with a load of other employees, as well as her boyfriend of (i think) seven months. and it was seeing her outside of the confines of work that i finally understood that subconscious feeling that i had: she looks exactly like the woman i dated back in 2004 (with the three year old daughter).

at nearly the same time, in this reflection, epiphany, whatever you want to call it, i realized this: i don't listen to music anymore, i don't read. i've stagnated to the point that i prefer a decent rerun of SNL or Monk to just going out and simply trying to meet anyone.

i don't listen to anything because it still hurts. i brought a shitload of cds with me to NYC and never even brought out the cd player once. i brought three books with me (12 hour train, i'll make mincemeat of them) and didn't crack the spine of any of them. i was finally going to tackle Boswell's Life of Johnson...Ha! i shun these things because all they do is remind me of other lives, different places, possibly so-called happier times...we all have excuses, these are mine.

and of course this all happens in the shadow of the wedding i went to up in NYC three weeks ago. nothing puts it more in perspective when you attend the wedding of the one person you were sure was never going to get married. playboy days are over, time to get serious.

*

completely by happenstance a former server sat down next to me during the final minutes of game 4 last week. she's now a manager and banquet coordinator for a place just down the street from where i work.

we'll see.

*

tell her something in my mind, freezes up from time to time

train in vain

some things you can't explain away...

*

i sit on the edge of the bed, my cds (because i can't ipod this crap) before me.

i wonder, is it worth it? i press stop. you don't have to break your mothers heart...and i dont care. i've seen the goodness of our hearts...and the worst.
one gets tired...we all do. i remember myself last year this time...lost, floundering.....

not anymore. fire or not, future is not dictated by those who are short-sighted. if you can't see the future then get the hell out.