Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Boring, thy name is "Erik"
I never imagined life going this way. Of all the options I considered as a kid: astronaut, racecar driver, fighter pilot, assassin, etc, 30-something office worker renting a room from his 'rents never seemed to come up, yet here I am. At 30 years old, I have no interesting drug stories, no Tucker Max style tales of debauchery, no genuinely bad behavior to speak of, and effectively few tales to tell. I'm sitting here thinking about all of this and it hits me, I'm boring. I'm not just boring, I'm utterly and incredibly mundane. The only thing more bland than my existence would be sand or maybe network television. When you are sitting in front of your computer and the realization that you are as entertaining as an infomercial, you start asking yourself, "How the fuck did I let this happen?"
I'm a decent looking guy with something resembling wit at my disposal. I have a moderate level of intelligence, can draw, can paint, have attended a top shelf racing school, can ride a motorcycle, have punched friends in the face for fun, and have drank myself uncontrollably stupid on more than one occasion. And yet the fact remains, I am painfully boring. Not only that, I find most people boring, and by most I mean nearly everyone. The fact that I'm boring disturbs and unsettles me. Boring is a tragedy, isn't it? Boring is an utter failure of the mind to insight the fires of the soul so that we can propel our bodies through this space in a fashion that is something other than ordinary. How the fuck have I ended up being so incredibly bored and boring at the same time? Can a boring person truly be bored? Doesn't the state of being bored insinuate that you would normally have something interesting to do?
I'm bored with celebrities, but I'm also bored with the common "every man". The proletariat and the "elite" are equally boring, if for different reasons. Art is interesting again, but I find myself completely without direction, creatively. Luckily, I'll be in another drawing class this Summer. Maybe that will spark the fires again. Who knows...
Had a little run-in with a couple of office folk yesterday. It all started when I made the mistake of mentioning that I got an account on Match.com. Now, given my history with women, which is to say little or no, I'm already a bit touchy about the subject. So it was unfortunate that the fact slipped past my lips before I had time to pull it back. It was even more unfortunate that the girl who happened to hear it decided to start giving me a hard time about it. Things went from bad to worse when another girl overheard us talking, then yet another started laughing, presumably AT me. Not good, and I reacted a little more harshly than anyone expected, apparently.
Things have been settled, more or less, but I find myself still being bothered by the fact that I was bothered at all. After all, my reasons for signing up on the site are not rooted in difficulties meeting women. Meeting women is easy, they're everywhere. Meeting single, interesting, available, and compatible women, that's something else entirely. So I didn't log on to Match looking for a fuck buddy, hook-ups, or even Ms. Right. Really, I'm just looking to get back in the mix and find some chicks to grab dinner or take a trip to the beach with.
And again the reality that I'm getting older gets battered home. I'm not 22 anymore. Some people say I look like I am in my mid-20s, which is great, but I'm not, so dating girls in their early to mid-20s really isn't as ready an option as it used to be. Which means my potential target demographic is moving up...now we're starting to talk late-20s. There's something a slight bit depressing about that. Women in the late-20s, or even early-30s (good lord...I'm almost in my early 30s!!) are going to have a lot more history and baggage than I do, generally speaking. It sucks, because I have the relationship history of a socially dysfunctional 16-year old, the mind of a withering 85-year old, and a body that could pass for 25...ish. I'm feeling more retarded every day!
Anyway, I'm going to stop in at Fletcher's this Saturday to talk motorcycles. I'm not worried about getting financed, as I'm almost totally free and clear there. My main concern at this point is getting the price where I want it, making sure I get the extras I'm looking for, and getting it all home in one piece. My thinking is that I'll let pops put the first miles on her. He's always wanted a big bike, though his steed of choice is the Road King. I think he'll enjoy riding something as nostalgic as the Deluxe and I'd hate like Hell to crash the thing on its maiden voyage. Never having handled a bike that heavy, I think it would be wise to baby step my way into this "big twin" thing.
Once she's at the homestead, I'll start toodling around the neighborhood and getting the feel of her before hitting some of the lesser traveled streets and boulevards around here. It should be interesting, to say the least. :)
Labels: life, motorcycles, retardation
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Erik, we think it's great that your getting your bike but we both feel that you need to be more confident in yourself. If you’re uneasy about driving it then you might make mistakes. You just took the safety course, you'll be fine!!! I’m not referring to the drive home, if you want your Dad to drive it that’s great. Just be more confident in yourself and your abilities and you’ll do fine.
I appreciate the vote of confidence! lol I actually received the fewest point deductions of anyone in the class (3 for putting a wheel outside the box on my double U-turn), but only because the most experienced rider there was totally over the whole exercise, so he half-assed his test and still passed safely under the point limit.
What I'm saying is that I feel much more confident and have few worries about riding the bike itself, I'm just not so sure about traffic. A bike this heavy (~700lbs) does not duck and weave like a 400cc entry level scoot, so I think it's best to baby step it. Give me a couple of days driving the thing around the ol' hood and I'm sure I'll be alright with a little highway action. Dad is already talking about some weekend rides. It should be good times. :D
How's Scott's chopper coming? Has he located a parts bike yet?
i just want to echo what you said to me a while back. something along the lines of "for god's sake slade, why the bloody hell do you care about impressing a bunch of hormone-high frat jerks?!" if you're doing what's right for you (be it the the match.com deal or whatever else), does how a bunch of judgemental snobs who know next to nothing about you feel about it really matter? i think not!!
Point taken. Some of the offense I took was a misunderstanding on my part, so I overreacted a bit. The real trouble I have is that I allowed the situation to bother me to begin with. I guess I'm not as immune to being made to feel insecure and defensive as I would like to think. Something to work on...
He's found quite a few things but when he ordered the frame he promised me he'd take it slow. I'm not ready for him to drain the savings account when we only have one car that fits the family. It's eight years old with over 100,000 miles... if it breaks we need money to replace it. I'm not saying he needs to wait years, but just do a little at a time ya know :)
Plus, we're trying to figure out a way to move back to FL, be it with the Army or without and as you know the property taxes and insurance are more expensive there than here so we're just trying to balance everything. By the way, please don't talk to your Mom and Dad about us and FL. Scott doesn't want to say anything to them about it just yet because he's not sure what he's going to do and he doesn't want it to be the topic of conversation every time they talk... plus they'll get their hopes up. But just so you know, he's thinking about re-enlisting as a recruiter for that area which would give us three years there and time for him to finish school with his RN. Then he'd get out and we'd just stay there. I know... a recruiter!!! :) But, it would get him back to FL. He's still tossing the idea around so nothing definite and he can't do anything until he's been here for 12 months so he still has a few months to think about it.
imo, the hardest part of solving problems is isolating them in the first place. you're a little insecure. you're human. you'll overcome it.
:)
Laura - Good times! I think Scott should step it up a bit, but obviously the fam comes first. That said, I hope he finds a super deal and gets his scooter together in a hurry...Sturgis is in August, you know. ;)
And I think it would be awesome if you kids came back to FLA!! I won't mention it to the rents, but I will most definitely throw in my vote of support! Being a recruiter might not be the most fun a guy can have in the military, but it beats deploying and missing out on the kids growing up and sure beats the hell on raising them babies so far away from the rest of the fam! :))
slade - Yeah, I like to think that I no longer have to question myself, but every once in a while, some little nibble of insecurity will jump up and bite me. At my advanced age, I should be beyond all that, damnit!