Taking a step back

It was a terrible weekend. Its forced me to take a step back.

This will sound like a lot of whining.... because it is.... but by the end it'll have a point, I promise.

Friday started off with the Women's Basketball coaches for Oklahoma State University dying in a plane crash. If you don't know already, I went to Oklahoma State way back in 1996, and while I was tossed out after that one year and ended up graduating from another University, it was one of the two best years of my life, so I always consider OSU my school, even if I'm not exactly a Cowboy.

Later that night our # 2 overall football team lost to unranked Iowa State and probably cost us a shot at the National Championship. You never know how emotional events affect things, and there's no way that team wasn't feeling the impact on that night. OSU has had too many tragedies in recent years.

So it was a black Friday one week early for those of us donning the black and orange.
But that wasn't the worst part.

This broken arm is costing me all of my extra side cash, which basically means there's not much of a life. I had been looking forward to a couple of events Saturday for about a month now, but I had to cancel my plans to go because of how broke these doctors bills have left me. They fitted me with a new cast which allows me to move my elbow, but its tighter and more restictive around the wrist.

The elbow looks gnarly now, I have no muscle in that arm anymore, and the pain getting the joint used to moving again is indescribeable. And that's after only two weeks. But another nasty side effect showed itself. I'm claustrophobic, can't stand to have anything pinned where it can't move. If I were buried alive like Ryan Reynolds I'd go into a fit and drop dead, so this cast has made me so uncomfortable over the past few days that I have to medicate just to stand life. As a result, I've been between a daze state and aggravated. And its cost me all my spending money to be there.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Sunday morning started off well enough, my softball team put up a quick 10 spot and we won the first game of the championship. We only needed to take one of the next two in order to finally win it all. We had the lead late in both games, but couldn't hold on. Worst still, we gave the games away, they didn't beat us, we did it to ourselves with bad mistakes, and there were spots where I could have made a difference had I been able to take the field. So we lost the big one and no one to blame but ourselves.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Later in the day my Buffalo Bills got smoked by a pig Miami Dolphin team, proving that they aren't ready for prime time, PRE-tenders rather than CON-tenders. And to make matters worse, the NY Football Giants played like trash and may not be ready either. I tried watching the game with some buddies, but by half the irritating arm syndrome had taken over and I had to get out of there. My softball season is over, my football season might as well be, so now there's nothing to look forward to until March or so, playoff Hockey time, and I can't even hang out with the guys for more than two hours......

But that wasn't the worst part.

Have you ever felt something so strong that every fiber of your being, every ounce of what you are and the very Universe around you is screaming "THIS IS IT! THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN!" and in order for the world to be right, that vibe, that feeling has to be true because there's just no going back to the way things were, to looking at the world the way you once had if you're wrong?

For the better part of a month I've had that vibe. Certain things had been progressing in a way that it just had to be, there couldn't be any other possible outcome, because every bit of me is overwhelmed with this sensation, THIS IS IT! THIS IS GOING HAPPEN! Either I'm right or I'm completely insane. Both are strong possibilities.

And then I saw something. That something.... well.... it would be completely ridiculous to suggest that it was me. So I have to be wrong.

At the same time..... the way things had been going, with everything pointing towards it.... it would be completely ridiculous to suggest that its anyone else.

Regardless of whether I'm right about "THIS" or I'm just nuts, I've been better because of it, and its not something I ever want going away. But if I'm wrong, it will.

My intuition has always been my north star, my guiding light, and whatever "THIS" is, I want it so much that I may be seeing signs where there are none. I can no longer trust myself, or my gut feelings.

THAT my friends is the WORST!

The point today wasn't to cry about my problems though, but its the perfect week to bring this up. How many times have you had a day like this, or a weekend, or a week, month, even whole years like this, when nothing seemed to go right, nothing went your way, everything that you had been looking forward to was completely wiped out and it seemed you lost every reason you had to even wake up in the morning and keep going?

How many times have you been so rocked by something that now you even doubt the things you were sure of? As my boy Bruce Springsteen would say, "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of!"

A friend of mine said recently that too many of us focus on the bad all too often, rather than focusing on the good. And when you're going through this, its so easy to get stuck in that negative spin, isn't it? Its so easy to see everything that's gone wrong, and lose sight of all you have that's good in your world.

Then what's a person to do?

Its fitting that this is Thanksgiving week, because its times like this, when everything seems to just suck, where it becomes imperative to take a step back, take a breathe, and focus on the things that you appreciate in life. "Yeah, that sucked, but Thank Fuck for THIS!"

Not only will it keep you going, but it will help put that smile back on your face and give you the strength and energy to forge ahead towards something good.

Hope Dworacyk is something good

That's body paint!

Or, again, as my boy Bruce would put it "Let the broken hearts stand as the price youve gotta pay. Keep pushin till it's understood and these badlands start treating us good."

So tomorrow I hope you'll join me as I tell you about all the things I appreciate in life.

Later People!

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name....

There's an odd energy in the air this morning, and I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, all I know is that something is in the works. If you can, hit play on the video and listen to the theme music while you read today.....

After an entire weekend, sick, stuck in the house, I was getting stir crazy, I had to get out of there, but alas, at 9PM on a Monday night and real football still a ways off there isn't much to do out there. That's life as you get older and most of the people you know are married with kids. Which got me to thinking about all those days when they weren't, or still hung around if they were.

"Is the rain ever going to stop?" I heard from a friend. No, it isn't, Climate Change, baby!
"The economy sucks! When are things going to get better?" Not any time soon, so buckle in. Like I was saying yesterday Inside Why We're... the system is rigged like a Vegas Casino and the house always wins.
"Why can't I find anybody? dating sucks" Yes it does Brett, yes is does. And they're looking for someone to fill their holes, not to fill yours, so accept you might be stuck in that cycle for a while.....

And then it hit me like a Pimp on his bottom whoe
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name....

I'm never so good as I am when I have that place that I can always go and be surrounded by friends, knock down a few, and laugh about whatever daily nonsense is going on. In high school it was the basement of a couple of friends, you never had to call, just show up. If they weren't home their mom would throw down the keys.

At Oklahoma State it was the house. My buddies moved in during my 2nd semester and we would have parties where a thousand kids would walk through the door by 10:30 and picked up by cops stumbling around, drunk, 3 miles away by the end of the night. It was right across the street from the dorms and though I didn't live there I might as well have; I had my own key.

McCann's in Astoria was good to me for a long time. I think I was in there literally every night for about a year until the party moved somewhere else. You never do so well (and I mean with the ladies) as you do on your home turf, and it's comforting to know you can just show up and someone you can chill with will be there.

And in Vegas, there was Larry's Villa, the strip club with pregnant dancers and meth addicts that I called my bar, and the Garage. All hail the Garage! (Pronounced Gah - Ridge).

Larry's Villa

No matter how old you get you're still always that kid in the tree house, your home made fort, where all the members of the club gather and find sanctuary from the outside world. Once there, even for just a few hours, everything is ok, the world is right again.

We all need our sanctuary's. But where does one go when you no longer have that place? The real beauty the show "Cheers" is that it captured all of that perfectly. It's why we fall in love with things like Seinfeld, Night Court and Married with Children. Its why we fall in love with the bar down the block, even though its a dump and half the customers are passed out with three green teeth. For some of us, the lucky ones of us, that place is our job, and the rest of the world is a cake walk from there. I've been lucky enough to have a few of those. You always look back on them as something that just can't be replaced.

And looking back, at these places, at the people who filled them, and filled us, it isn't something out of a Bruce Springsteen song trying to re-live our glory days... no, it's more akin to your old favorite room, to where the heart is; Home.

I never had that room in my parents house, I always moved around too much to set roots to a place that way, at one point we up and left about every 8 months. It's difficult to find that place in the world where you know exactly who you are and where you fit in like that, which I guess is why my passion has always been for those people in my life. Why once I call you friend, in my heart, you'll always be just as if we were transported back to that place again, that basement, that house, that bar, that gah-ridge.

So where do you go where everybody knows your name? Where is it that they're always glad you came?

Huh huh, he said came!

It's times like this that we need that the most. So grab me a beer and save me a seat. I'll be right there.