those in the picture: sister’s friend, yours truly, sister 1, mother, father, sister 2, brother-in-law.

Maybe a trip to the beach soon…

His name is Deuce. He’s supposed to be my daughter’s horse. But she was out of town for about a week right after we got him and in the interest of getting him acclimated to the neighborhood I was gonna go out for a quick ride one evening.

Now…please don’t get the wrong impression…I can ride. I’ve been riding horses since I was a kid. I rode bulls for about a year when I was 18-19 (thinking rodeo was the best way to kill two birds with one stone: do something wildly fun AND have lots of hot women wanting to ride me–instead I almost killed myself–via bull, not woman)…ok, ok, can’t ride bulls very well but I CAN RIDE A HORSE, I SWEAR!

Let me say this out loud: Deuce is mostly a huge doofus and is not the dominant horse in my two-horse herd. Read: 1,300 pound submissive wimp.

So I hop up in the saddle that evening and then the next thing I know, my neighbor from across the street is waking me up from a nap–and I was dreaming dammit! … I have no clue what went down (besides me) between the time my ass hit the saddle and my neighbor was rudely disturbing a nice nap.

It took me a few minutes to get up and I muddled around…the horse was snacking on the neighbor’s flower bed and a mere tap on the feed bucket motivated him to come swiftly back to the barn. I know I unsaddled him, etc. but I don’t remember much of it. My neighbor called my buddy that lives with me and that’s probably the only time in recent history he’s cut short his gym session.

The ride to the hospital ER was…forgettable–forgotten…but I distinctly remember being dropped off at the door while  the truck was parked and I staggered up to the triage desk or whatever you call it. Head injuries tend to get you quick admittance, even if there’s no visible blood. I staggered to one of the curtained off exam areas and proceeded to develop a severe aversion to all things brighter than a nightlight.

X-rays and CT scans showed no broken bones but I did still have a slight concussion…doc said go home, rest, take some vicoden and call me in the morning…

That happened last summer. Luckily insurance paid the $5000 ER bill. Me and the horse have kissed and made up. He doesn’t hold it against me. Daughter has ridden him a bajillion times since.

It’s all good. I might try riding bulls again even.

Someone has finally made me understand that I’ve been chasing something that doesn’t exist. I’ve been chasing it for many years now. Its not easy giving up on a dream.

I’m here to tell you that when you find your soulmate, unless it is a RL thing, its not really a soulmate…it’s pretty damn close but no cigar.

Do I drift away or hang on to this lingering love of a lost dream?

It appears that no one else really gives a damn about the soul I put out there…

I am the outsider now. I put myself here. It seems like that is where the ones I care about want me from now on…conveniently accessible yet out of sight/out of mind.

http://thereifixedit.com/

http://www.failpictures.com/

http://poorlydressed.com/page/2/

http://www.eatliver.com/

One day recently, on a Walmart hunt for who knows what, I was stopped dead in my tracks by…yes…a Person of Walmart…I couldn’t react fast enough and besides, I don’t think I had the actual nerve to point my phone at the woman to take a picture of her…ensemble…to share with you guys…needless to say it was very special with lots of her 300 lbs and various and sundry tattoos exposed to the world.

But we can always just go here and perhaps maybe someone else was fortunate to snap a picture of her….

If the People of Walmart don’t do anything for you, perhaps you are a narcissist and you are convinced there is no one else in the world that has it worse than you, works for a boss worse than yours, is married to someone worse than your spouse, has kids as bad as yours, is uglier/meaner/stupider than your mother-in-law, etc…then this is the site for you.

…however, if there’s still a passle of still packaged objects sitting in the middle of your dining room table…still there precisely because you dread severing an artery while trying to extract them from their packaging…then I’m just in time!

…and as grandpa would say…”it’s colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra out there.”

There are words that people use…entertainment, addiction, dependence, therapy, escapism…I think I have experienced all of the above regarding my online life.

But do normal people spend six years out of their lives sitting at their computer during some portion of the day (that doesn’t include work hours)? I don’t know. Maybe more than I realize.

I’m thinking about this because a close friend of mine was pondering a similar issue today.

I’ve needed to be here on a daily basis for six years now. But what difference does it make what I choose to do in my free time? The pursuit of happiness is one of the unalienable rights. Then why do I feel guilty sometimes for wanting to spend hours here?

It’s kinda shocking…six years. What draws me here? The social interaction. The positive feedback from other people. Feedback that I need in order to feel good about myself. Because most of the time, I feel empty. That is the main reason I must be here every day. And sometimes it concerns me…I guess I must be suffering in this area in my flesh and blood life. I guess there is an element that’s missing.

But I try to be balanced. I try to be engaged with the people in my living, breathing life. But I am afraid to be myself outside of here. I am.

I was sitting way up high, in order to watch the game and keep an eye on all the going’s on. I spent a good two hours observing teenage female behavior. I didn’t expect her to sit next to me the entire game but I also didn’t expect to be totally abandoned the whole time.

My daughter and her designated girl pal of the evening spent the entire game standing along the fence that separated the stands from the field. How can you enjoy a football game standing with a chainlink fence and the cheerleading squad between you and the field?

Aha, I was enlightened when I asked later!

“Dad, (said with enough inflection to let me know I’m totally clueless) I can actually see Jacob from there (and he can see her seeing him in all his football glory–it makes perfect sense now).

When I was a kid, going to a football game meant actually either playing or watching the game (I played baseball exclusively, things are so different now). In high school, we went to WATCH the game. Yeah, we noticed the girls too but I guess all this time I thought they actually watched the game too. How stupid am I again? I’m being constantly reminded on a regular basis lately.