Last year was by pretty much every measure, the best year of my life. This year however………..well, it has pretty much been about the opposite of 2011, quite possibly the worst year of my life or among the worst years. The year has been one thing after another. And September, well it very well might stand out as the worst month of the year which is one of the reasons why I’m so glad it is just about over. The funny part is that the month appeared to start off good. My roof was finally fixed after being damaged in a storm earlier this summer. And I had a fun BBQ at my house on the first as well. But that is pretty much where it ended. And everything that seemed to get better actually didn’t.

The next night I was throwing up not from drinking but because I was actually sick. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was the first time in nearly eight years that I threw up. And throwing up is my second biggest fear so for me it was a huge thing. You might remember that back in August my transmission died. Well later that first week of September, I finally got my car back after not having it for a month. A week after I got it back, the check engine light went on. It went on again last weekend, although when I took it to the dealer they were unable to find anything wrong with it. Although that is certainly good news, it is also kind of disheartening as well. I mean, if they couldn’t find anything wrong with it, than that means that it can very well happen again and again. While the car did not perform any differently when the check engine light came on, it give me an uneasy feeling to be driving with it on. Even though the thing is still under warranty for another two years or another 27,000 miles, it is still always a pain in the ass when your car breaks down.

Speaking of breaking down, about a week and a half ago I started having lower back pain. By Friday of last week, it was all out extreme pain, forcing me to go to the immediate care for the first time in my life, but not before suffering through a day of agony and extreme discomfort. Turns out I was having muscle spasms. The doctor gave me three painkillers along with a shot and back exercises to strengthen my back. She also told me to not do any physical work for a week. I’m happy to say the back is doing better now, but I’m concerned that it will happen again at some point.

Like I said before, things that I thought got better actually didn’t. I went into my spare room last Sunday which is the room that the hole in the roof was over. I know this sounds weird, but I often times go weeks without going into some of the rooms in my house. Alas, I had not been in this room since the roof was fixed. I was shocked to find that there was a rather significant hole in the ceiling that was a result of the contractor fixing the roof. Initially I blamed them but when I discovered mold and water damage over other parts of the ceiling, I realized that the drywall had been weakened by the water that leaked in from the hole which was covered by a tarp for two months, but realistically, there was still water that got in. State Farm says they will pay for it, but honestly I see no reason why they would pay for the whole thing, after all they didn’t pay for the entire damage to the roof, fascia and siding.

Thankfully we have less then 24 hours left in the month. October has always been my favorite month of the year, so I’m hoping it will be the month when things finally start to turn around.

I’m nothing if not a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, pathetic as they might be. I’ve long watched them, win or lose. The 2005 season was not a particularly good one. In fact, they finished a disappointing 79-83. The season was not without some highlights for the Cubs though, they had the league batting champion that year in first baseman Derrek Lee. But for the most part, the season was not a good one, especially coming off the 2003 and 2004 seasons when they were among the best teams in baseball.

But, being the ever loyal fan, I was still watching on a boring Saturday night, July 9 when the Cubs were playing the second game of a three game series against the Marlins in Miami just before the All Star break. The game had gone to the 9th inning when manager Dusty Baker called upon fresh rookie Adam Greenberg to pinch hit. Greenberg had just been called up earlier that day. Whenever the Cubs call a new guy up, I’m always excited to see them play for the first time, so I paid close attention as he stepped to the plate for the first time ever in the big leagues. And the first pitch came in like a laser and hit him right on the head. I remember jumping in my seat a little and letting out an “OH” when I saw it. I’d like to say that was the first pitch he saw, but honestly, I don’t think he ever saw the damn thing, which is probably why he got hit. He left the game with a concussion. Sad way to end your first plate appearance in the majors. But, he would be back soon enough, or so I thought.

Here we are though, more than seven years later and sadly, he has never made it back to the majors. He missed the rest of the season with a concussion and vertigo symptoms brought on by the hit to the head. He struggled in spring training the next year and as thousands of other players can attest, it is not exactly easy to get back to the bigs. Soon he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers and I believe eventually the Kansas City Royals but couldn’t make it to the big league club at either stop. Over 17,500 players have played major league baseball and Adam Greenberg is the only one who’s career ended on the first pitch. In fact, because he was pinch hitting, he never even got to play the field. He walked into the batters box, got set, then got hit in the head and that was the extent of his major league career. Jeez, how fucking awful is that? Can you imagine, working your ass off for all those years, your life long dream to play in the majors and it’s over before you even get a shot to do anything?

But another big Cub fan is stepping in to help get Greenberg an actual at bat in the majors. See, because he got hit by the pitch, it is not an official at bat, but instead just a plate appearance. So this fan started a website in which to help support Adam’s cause. While I certainly do not believe he should take the place of any other player who legitmately earned his way to a team this season, I also think that he probably deserves another chance. And what better team to give him a chance than the Cubs. After all, they are horrible this year and you can’t tell me he is going to do any worse than some of the players they have out there this season. But you can check out his story for yourself at this site:

http://www.oneatbat.com/

Man, I have really grown to hate abbreviations. It’s not that I hate the traditional abbreviations. Shit it just makes sense to abbreviate certain words in certain situations, like doctor or street or things like that. And it is not like I hate to shorten longs words like miscellaneous to something shorter like misc. All of the above makes sense. Or even to shorten proper names, like how the Philadelphia 76ers become the 6ers. No what drives me nuts is the text message abbreviations. And it is not even the fact that they are abbreviated in text messages. I’m not a big fan of that, but I do it myself from time to time; it is totally understandable if you are trying to text something quickly. No what drives me nuts is that this is how fucking people talk nowadays!

Maybe this is a sign of me getting old, but why the fuck do people have to say OMG instead of oh my God. Or how about WTF. Come on man, you are taking a perfectly cool phrase with the mother of all bad words and turning it into a douchey saying. Look if you are going to use the word fuck than, really use it; don’t fuck with fuck. Obviously if you are using the phrase WTF than you have good reason to actually use the word fuck, so why sell your anger, disgust, excitement, or happiness short by not going through with it and actually saying the word fuck. Fuck. I mean it’s such a great fucking word. When you abbreviate and not actually say the word, well, that’s swearing abuse. My mother would be ashamed if she heard me talk like that; after all the word fuck had to be among her two or three favorite words in any language.

But by far and away the one that really annoys the ever living shit out of me is LOL. Yes, I use that phrase in texts. And I use it in email. And I use it in an IM. I use it in just about every type possible. But, you know where I don’t use it? In person. Somebody asked me today if I ever said that and I said “no, you know what I use instead? I actually physically laugh”. See that is the way you express laughter. You actually laugh. I know, novel thought ain’t it? I gotta wonder about the direction our society is going in if instead of laughing at something, we just say LOL. Shit, it’s not LOL if you are not actually, you know, laughing the fuck out loud. And the worst part about it is that it is not bad enough that this type of shorthand language is popular among teens, it’s that it has seeped into the vocabulary (or should I say lack of vocabulary) of adults. And not just young adults. I mean like people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Teens sound stupid talking like that; when adults do it they sound beyond fucking stupid; they sound rigoddamndiculous. Honestly, I think if you are an adult and you are caught speaking like that, you should start to lose certain adult privileges. Like drinking. Or gambling. Or voting. Then again, a lot of drunk people can’t formulate a sentence anyway so maybe speaking in abbreviations is a step up for them. No no, I’m totally right on this, no self respecting adult should ever speak like this.

Way back in May, I went on a boat ride in Jamaica that was incredibly bouncy and me being a little guy, got bounced up and down on the metal seats we were sitting on. After the ride, my back and butt were sore. Ever since then I’ve experienced some pain in my tailbone every now and then, but is only when I sit for too long in the same position on a hard surface. Now flash forward to this week. On Tuesday, I started having some pretty significant pain in my lower back/upper ass which I attributed to the tailbone. Only this time, it wasn’t just when I sat a certain way. It was a pretty severe, sharp pain that would come and go. I didn’t know what it could be but started to go through the five stages of grief:

1. Denial- This was most of Tuesday. I kept telling myself it was nothing, “oh it’s just a little pain, nothing serious, it’s mostly just in your head. How the fuck could it still be sore from something you did in May?”
2. Anger- Tuesday night I was pissed because I could not sleep because of the pain. I was in bed mentally yelling and swearing at my back “fucking stop hurting already you asshole!”
3. Bargaining- By Wednesday I was debating on when I should go to the doctor. “Look, I’ll make you a deal, if it is still hurting by Monday you can make an appointment to go to the doctor.”
4. Depression- As the pain came and went on Wednesday and Thursday, I grew kind of scared and worried that it was a fracture of some kind and that I would need surgery and would have to miss time at work not not be able to work out and get fat.
5. Acceptance- Friday morning about 4:30 I was woke up by the pain in my back. I did fall back to sleep eventually but spent much of Friday morning in occasional agony as every now and then I was have the pain followed by a few more spasms of lesser pain. I finally said then that this really fucking sucks and called the doctor who gave me a referral to the immediate care in his building.

A lady I worked with said she has similar pains in her back and that it was muscle spasms. She said sometimes the pain is worse than labor pains. Now it has been years since I was pregnant, so i really don’t know if this was worse than labor pains. All I know is that it really fucking hurt. On the pain scale of 1-10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest level of pain, this was probably an 8. And it seemed like anything triggered it. I might move the wrong way and there it went. I’ve also had a cold this weekend, so if I coughed or sneezed than the pain would come. When I went to sit down, I would get a spasm. The only time it seemed fine was when I was standing perfectly still without doing anything.

By the time I left work, the contractions seemed to be only a few minutes apart. And being that I’ve got a car that requires one to sit while driving, I knew this would be the most painful drive of my life. Even the slightest bump on the road would set it off and I would be gripping the wheel and clenching my teeth with agony. What made it even worse was that I hit some traffic on the way there which made it longer than it should have been. The drive should only be about 20 minutes, but it was closer to a half hour. Fortunately though I did not have to wait so long before getting in to see the doctor who diagnosed me with muscle spasms and gave me a shot along with three pills to take. I’m doing much better today but that is with meds. I don’t know how it will be without them. All I know is that this whole thing has been a giant pain in the ass, or a P.I.T.A. as I like to say.

Remember Stacey Peterson or Drew Peterson? With America’s fast paced forget you yesterday news cycle, people tend to forget certain news stories or people. Hell, I’m sure a lot of people have a faint memory of George Zimmerman or Trayvon Martin. Shit, some people have forgotten all about the Todd Aiken legitimate rape comment and that was just last month. We have become a society of short attention span theatre. I don’t expect everybody to remember the Petersons, but I’m sure some of you do. For me though, I remember them very vividly because, for one I have a ridiculously stupid memory. And also, I live in the town right next to where they lived in Bolingbrook, Illinois. So not only is it a local story here in the Chicagoland area but it is also a very local story here in my community.

But let me back up a bit. Bolingbrook cop Drew was some 30 years older than his fourth wife (yeah that’s right his FOURTH fucking wife) Stacey Peterson. In October 2007, Stacey went missing and has not been seen or heard from since. Drew said she ran off with another man. The rest of the world naturally assumed that he murdered her because, well, it is very very very very very very very very very very very very very likely that he did. See his previous wife, Kathleen Savio was found dead in a bathtub and her death was ruled an accident. But, after Stacey went missing, people started to think that maybe Savio’s death was not an accident. The investigation into her death was reopened and yadda yadda yadda, he was charged with her murder. And a few weeks ago, he was found guilty of Savio’s murder, mainly based on heresay. Of course he is appealing and very well might have the case overturned on appeal as there were quite a few problems with the trial and the evidence. But for now, he is guilty of murder. And meanwhile, Stacey has never been found. Which begs the question, if she ran off with another man as he so arrogantly suggested, than wouldn’t it be logical to think that maybe she might reemerge now that he has gone away, especially since she has kids that she hasn’t seen in five years? Oh wait. She very well might not be able to reemerge since her remains are in all likelihood stuff in a blue barrel quite possibly buried in cement in the new extension for I355 that was being built at the time not more than a few miles from my house.

This case is literally, very close to home for me. For example, every day I drive past the subdivision where the Petersons lived. And when they were searching for Stacey, they looked in a river that is walking distance from my house. The jail that Drew currently calls home is about a 10 minute drive from where I live. One of the last people to see Stacey alive, a friend of her’s named Scott,  is an acquaintance of mine from about 15 years ago. The Denny’s that they met up at in which she told Scott that she feared for her life just weeks or even days before she went missing is the very same Denny’s that I hung out at until all hours of the night back in the 90s. In fact, it is the same place where I met Scott and the same place that Drew patrolled when he was a 3rd shift Bolingbrook cop. Hell, I’m quite certain that I had seen Drew come in there a time or two during my time there. Follow me here, but my brother’s brother in law’s father was also a Bolingbrook cop who knew Drew a bit. While normally I don’t pay too much attention to stories like this, because it was so close to home, I kinda paid close attention to it, especially since there were missing person signs of Stacey up everywhere over Bolingbrook and my town, Romeoville.

Still I have to wonder though, will Drew Peterson always be remembered as an infamous and notorious wife murderer? Hell, Lizzie Borden is still remembered for killing her parents and she was acquitted in the 1892 murders. Leopold and Loeb are still remembered nearly 90 years after they committed in their words “the perfect crime” when they murdered a 14 year old boy. More recently, people remember Susan Smith for killing her own children back in 1991. And another infamous Peterson, this one named Scott, was convicted of killing his wife and unborn child in 2002. My guess is that no matter what happens, Drew Peterson will always be remembered as the wife killer and years from now people will think he was convicted of killing Stacey and not Kathleen Savio. Either way, I hope the motherfucker never sees the light of day again.

Wow what a difference a few days make in America’s world standing. Previously, people hated us. Now the violently hate us not for something our government did but for a movie that one of our citizens made. Oh, I’m sure they hate us for many other things, for example our constant meddling in the middle east, but they kind of just limited it to burning our flag in their country. Now they are attacking our embassies. All because of a movie that made fun of their so called religious profit. Jeez people, chill the fuck out, would you?

See this is the difference between our American culture and their culture. It is not just freedom of speech. It is not just the ability to take a joke or to be offended by something. It is our ability to rationally disagree or passively find something offensive. Sure, we protest. Of course, we write letters. And yes, we get angry. But, we know something that is said by somebody else that we deem offensive does not justify death. I may disagree with Republicans on damn near everything, but I don’t think they deserve to die because we have a difference of opinions. Sure there are some radical people in our country; people who we believe are hurting America or who don’t seem to respect others and who hate people because of their beliefs. But, very rarely does that result in a violent protest that kills people. We have our issues but respecting people enough to kill them for their freedom of speech is not one of them.

In my lifetime, America has never been as sharply divided as it is right now. EVERYTHING seems to be political, even things that would seem to be impossible to be political but yet, they still seem to turn political.  It seems like people can’t seem to have a simple conversation without conservative or liberal values being invoked into the conversation. Yes, I’m guilty of it too. But, our mentality has always been the right to say what you want without fear of being murdered for how one believes.

Countries around the world are always going to hate us. It’s just the way it is when you are on top of the world. The question though, is how do we get them to stop killing us? How do we make it safe for Americans to travel the world? How do we spread our belief of passive disagreement to their world? I don’t know much about anything, but this much I am certain: this is not an easy problem to solve. It is not a problem that either Obama or Romney can solve. Anybody who thinks either side can fix this problem is simply fooling themselves. There is a lot of bad blood and angry, hateful, anti-American sentiment that lurks in the world, especially the middle east. It is not something that can be fixed overnight or even over the course of a few years. And it is not something that any president or political figure can cure by waiving some magic military wand that all of a sudden makes them love us. Or at least stop killing us. Or plotting to kill us. Or attempting to take us down. And it is not like we can just send them a survey asking them why they hate us so much. But, we do need to somehow start planting the seed of an olive branch so that they can eventually realize that violence is not the answer.

Politics is always a big deal not only on Xanga, but all over the internet. And actually not just the internet, but, well pretty much everywhere. Everybody has opinions. And as I like to say, opinions are kinda like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink. There is so much divide all over the place; I can’t remember a time in my lifetime that the country has not only been so divided, but also so heated and hated. People don’t seem to start off in the reasonable middle; they seem to start off at the crazy extreme and try to find ways to get crazier in their overreactions to what the other side is doing or saying. The rhetoric is so vile and like nothing we have ever seen before. But yet, one thing that everybody seems to agree on is how awful and broken the system is.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are so far off from what they used to be that they are virtually unrecognizable. It is hard to say at what point each side ceased to fight for what was best for the country and start focusing on what is best for party or for the special interests that paid to put them into office. No politician seems to be honest and genuine; they all seem to be full of shit and say whatever they need to say to get elected or get more money to get elected.

And speaking of money, that is a big problem with what is wrong with politics today. Do you realize that it is going to cost over a BILLION dollars for Romney and Obama to run for president this year? A billion fucking dollars. Raise if your hand if you A. think that is is totally fucking nuts B. know that we can come up with at least a billion better ideas as to how to spend that money and C. it is totally fucking nuts. For crying out loud, a billion dollars spent on something everybody pretty much loathes. Have you ever actually liked a political ad or known anybody who enjoys political ads? Nobody likes to keep watching commercials ripping politicians. People hate coming home and hearing another stupid message on their answering machine about politics. And I know everybody is damn sick of driving down the road and passing three dozen political signs. But yet, this is what the billions are put into: political ads. And for what? To help elect another fucker who can honestly care less about you and only wants the power that comes with politics.

A few years ago a third party emerged called the Tea Party. They claimed to be a grassroots political campaign that was not run by money or sold out to special interests. But, that lasted about five minutes before they got involved with the Republican party and they became just another political organization bought by special interests. While I strongly disagree with just about everything they stand for, I like the idea of a third political party to come in and shake things up. Unfortunately for liberals like me, there is not a liberal version of the Tea Party. Unless we do something about it.

Since about 2004, I’ve been a big Obama supporter. I voted for him for senate and of course president. While I do agree with him on many issues, he has done a couple of things that really ticked me off. For example there is his use of drones to take out enemy combatants in the Mideast. Certainly it is better than the alternative of boots on the ground that the Republicans would no doubt want to do, I simply can not support an idea that results in the death of innocent people. Sure, we have killed many enemies with the drone attacks, but we have also killed a lot of innocent people as well. As a peace loving liberal, I find it hypocritical to support such atrocities.

Also, there is an issue with the leaks of national security secrets which may or may not be done by the Obama administration. I am at heart, a cynic. The administration says they have not been leaking these secrets but being a cynic, I find that hard to believe. When the Bush administration outed an undercover CIA agent, I was outraged. To remain consistent, I should be outraged with this as well. So those are two of the reason that I’m not sure I can vote for Obama again. Then again, I live in Illinois. We will be heavily supporting Obama so my measly vote one way or another will not make any bit of a difference.

So who to vote for? As far as I’m concerned, Mitt Romney is not even a option. I have long been intrigued with the Green Party though. In fact, I even voted for the Green Party candidate for governor, Rich Whitney, in 2006 instead of voting again for the now infamous Rod Blagojevich. For those of you not too familiar with the Green Party, they share many of the same views and values as the Democratic party, only they do not take money from special interests. And a big part of their platform is the environment, which is an important issue for me. Their candidate for president is a lady by the name of Jill Stein. Her running mate is a lady by the name of Cheri Honkala who has an amazing story to tell and who has overcome a hell of a lot in her life.

Now it should make it clear. I fully know that the Green Party will not win. I’m realistic to know that either Obama or Romney are the only two who stand any chance of winning. And for that, I am rooting for Obama to win. But, he does not need my vote in Illinois. The Green Party does need my vote. Perhaps you live in a swing state and if that is the case, then Obama probably needs your vote. But, maybe you feel he does not deserve to be re-elected. If that is the case, than I encourage you to take a look at the Green Party as an option. Look, the day has come to look at other options. Our country needs to fix our broken political system. And while right now a third party can not win. And probably not in the next few elections. But, what about down the road?

I’ve had a very busy couple of weeks so I didn’t have a chance to post about something that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was shopping at a local rather large supermarket in the area, Meijier. Those of you not from the midwest might not be too familiar with Meijier, it is one of those huge ass fucking stores that sells EVERYTHING but cars and brand name crack. It was the first of it’s kind in the Chicagoland area coming around about 13 years ago and now you have all the other stores like Wal Mart and Target following suit in becoming massive sell everything but hookers stores.

So anywho, I bought a few bags of potato chips, a carton of eggs, hashbrowns, pancake mix, and a large bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum, you know, the size with the handle. Normally I would pay in the self serve cashier lane, but decided to go to the lane that has an actual cashier because I was buying booze. The cashier lady rang up the shit and put it all in bags. She put all of the chips in one bag and than proceeded to put each thing in it’s own bag. Now this just simply did not make sense to me, seeing as I was going to have to carry all these bags myself. Plus I didn’t feel the rum needed a bag, as it has a handle and is easier to carry without a bag. So quickly combined some of the bags (and took the rum out of the bag) as she worked on getting me my change. She told me thank you, I told her thank you and then she said under her breath “now get out of my sight.”

What? Did she just say what I thought she said? I stood there for a brief second stunned before pushing my cart and walking out, thinking the whole way to my car and home what she said. I was kind of pissed, after all I certainly did not think I deserved to be treated that way. Than again, I am me and sometimes I have a way of pissing people right the fuck off without knowing it. Maybe this was one of those cases, however I’m in customer service myself and customers have said far worse to me personally and I have never responded with anything even close to that. I just could not let it go, so later that night I called the manager of the store and complained which was something I have never done before.

Perhaps I was a little bit more sensitive to the whole thing because I am in customer service myself. But I’ve decided to make it a point to start complaining when I receive over the top poor service like the example above and also to start rewarding over the top great service as well. Customer service in itself is not hard. It’s rather easy actually. But, it is hard to do it well, especially when you have to deal with some pretty difficult assholes from time to time. I firmly believe people deserve to be recognized for a job well done and for a job poorly done.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been very open minded and welcoming when it comes to race. I know a lot of people say they aren’t racist or prejudice, but in reality they are, but for the most part, somehow, I am. Why do I say somehow? Because when I think about my background and where I came from, it almost defies odds that I’m not racist. How is that you ask? I’m full Italian, my grandparents were all born in Italy. My dad was born in 1930 in what was then the Italian area of Chicago, the middle child of five boys. My mom was born in the same area of Chicago four years later the last of nine children. They got married in 1955 and I came around tied for the last of six kids in 1975. That is not just a big generation gap, but a huge generation gap. Shit, they were old enough to be my grandparents for fuck’s sake.

Racism has always been strong within the Italian community and when you throw in the fact that my parents were from the much older generation that still had segregation and major race issues. So it was only natural that my mom was kind of racist. So how exactly can somebody be “kind of racist?” When we were growing up, my mom always told us she would disown us if any of us ever dated a “colored” person. Yeah, she came from the generation that used the term colored. I guess that was much better than THE word many members of her family uses. My mom did change though; when my cousin’s daughter married a black man, my mom supported her and even babysat her kid.

My dad, well I’m not entirely sure about him because he died when I was four. And it’s not like I can go up to my relatives and say “so about my dad, was he racist?” But, based on what I know about his brothers and their kids, I would have to say he was probably racist. What is so disappointing is that most of my cousins on my dad’s side, are racist. They use all the terms and stereotypes that exist about blacks and many other ethnicities. One of my cousins was always a liberal but when Obama got elected all of a sudden he transformed into this extreme right wing nutjob who LOATHES Obama and grows angry if you even bring up his name. Although she is not related directly to me, my one cousin’s sister in law blames everything on the blacks, and I even heard her make a comment once in which she said “just look at them, the only thing white about them is their hands.” It disappoints me greatly to hear talk like this from anybody, especially my generation. I mean it’s not like we were raised during the time when segregation was prevalent and blacks were treated like second class citizens. Hell, for most of my life, biracial love has been socially acceptable. My siblings and I though are not racist. Go figure.

When I was about 12 or 13, we had some Mexican families that moved in on the street. My mom, of course, was not thrilled about this turn of events. And when a couple of them bullied my brother and I a little bit, it made me grow to prejudge Mexicans for a few years. I did outgrow that though by the time I got to high school and became good friends with some Mexicans. I’m not quite sure what it was that made me overcome my prejudice against Mexicans, but I think a lot of it had to do with playing basketball with some Mexican guys in gym class. I learned to realize they were not much different than me: normal, every day kids who couldn’t hit a jump shot either.

Perhaps because I’m gay and having to fight for my own rights, I can bond and relate to other minorities. But that still does not explain why I was fine with them when I was a kid before I knew I was gay. Than again, with kids, it’s different. Kids don’t prejudge. They just play. They have fun with other kids regardless of race. What is it that makes them turn as they start to grow up? Oh, no doubt parents play a huge roll. Racism can be a vicious circle but it doesn’t have to be. After all, I’m proof of that. At some point, people need to let their preconceived notions fade away and learn to get to know people for who they are, not what they are.

If you have been reading me for a while, you might know that my biggest fear in life is death. I hate dying. Especially dying when it happens to me, which fortunately has not occurred yet and won’t for a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long time. Very long time. VERY. LONG. TIME. But my second biggest fear is probably vomiting. I hate vomit. Hate it. Am totally disgusted by it. In fact, I think vomit is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever come across. When somebody tells me they were sick the question I always ask is “did you throw up” and if they say yes I cautiously back away under the fear of me catching what they have. I also never drink enough to make me throw up; although I have put up with some nasty ass fucking hangovers all in the name of avoiding barfing. Fortunately I’ve got a very strong stomach and a very strong immune system so I often times go years with out throwing up. But that still did not make Sunday night any easier.

Saturday night I got kind of drunk, but not totally hammered. In fact, I have drank much more and got much much drunker. But, Sunday I was not feeling well for much of the day. Sunday evening though, I started getting these nasty cramps in my stomach and even had the chills. I generally felt blah and felt like I was going to throw up. I knew this wasn’t a hangover. I think I had some sort of bug but hoped that it would not result in my throwing up. But, for much of the night I had this feeling of dread, knowing that the inevitable would eventually occur. And finally about 10 at night BOOM! it hit.

Before Sunday, the last time I threw up was in October 2004. And before that it was 1998. And before that it was 1988. And before then I have no idea when it was, but I was a kid so I would imagine it was often enough. As much as I hate to throw up, I’m glad it is not very often at all. Shit, in the time since I last threw up the Red Sox have won two World Series. Hell, at that time, Barack Obama was not even a Senator yet. Shit, I was not even working at my current job, just starting a few weeks later. Fuck, what was Facebook back then? Hell was there even an iPhone? I certainly hope it is at least another eight years (even longer, hopefully) before I throw up again and I wonder what will be different about the world than.