Blocking out the bad

Sunday after work I came home in a terrible mood; nothing I’d done all day seemed to work out for me, work was awful and reminding me again why I want out of there and the aforementioned job kept me inside on what was a gorgeous day that was hard-earned after what has felt like three straight months of sub-freezing temperatures.

I came home, gave my wife (whom I hadn’t seen since late Friday night) a big long hug and sat down on the couch.

Suddenly, everything got better.

The first thing that I did was finally hook up my brand spanking new computer. Long gone is the Windows 2000 running, loudly humming dinosaur with only a 30GB hard drive and in its place was sleek and sultry Windows 7-enabled, 300GB hard drive-having beast that is going to help me get a lot more writing and reviewing done. Writing is just a lot easier on this because the machine isn’t locking up every few moments. When your tool becomes easier to use, you want to use it more.

Yes, that is in fact what she said.

ANYWAYS, with the computer loading up the myriad of programs that I enjoy and the wife sitting on the couch watching the Oscar’s my home life finally felt normal.  We stayed up until Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin said their final goodbyes and then headed to bed.

I fell asleep fairly quickly and was pulled from my slumber at 9 AM by a ringing telephone. Usually I hate the sound of the phone first thing in the morning, but this morning it was a job, THE job. The one I whined about on here last week.  They were preparing to check references, and wanted to make sure that my last name was in fact what they were reading on the paper (spoiler alert: it is).

Armed with that good news I departed to Asheville for my soul destroying job. Today however, the job wasn’t so bad. The people shopping were rather sweet and my coworkers didn’t make me want to punch them. But the best surprise was later on in the day.

I was minding my own business at the front of the store when a woman walked in. I knew her. I immediately stopped and asked her name and when she told me that he name wasn’t what I thought it was, I sank a little bit. Suddenly she told me her maiden name and it all came into focus. This woman was one of my First Grade teachers. Well, she wasn’t a teacher so much as she was a teacher’s aid, but still. This woman was directly responsible for teaching me how to read, write, think and speak. Crazy.

Immediately a rush of thoughts shot into my brain. Nothing bad or tragic, but little things about First Grade, stories and songs we’d sing. Places we’d walk and the things that my teachers taught me, those mints (which I think were Starlight Mints) that I brought this woman for Christmas and the kiss on the cheek that she gave me upon opening the wrapper all flooded my head at once and I was right back there. My head was a bottle of Diet Coke and this woman and her stirring of my childhood was a mint- not the Starlight mints that I’d given her, but a Mentos dropped into the 2 Liter bottle of soda in a grade school science class somewhere, only instead of soda showering the walls and desks below the bottle it was tears running down my cheeks.

I don’t know why I got so upset, but I did. I felt that rush of memories, of being alive. I felt my past come up and grab me, and it felt so strange. I remember being a child, but I don’t. My memories are based upon photographs now and without those faded memories in my grandparents’ family album I have nothing left- or at least I’d thought. Then this woman walked into the room and made everything so fresh in my mind.  This woman had drawn that out of me and it was insane.  I was reduced to this sad state: crying in a Corporate Book Mart superstore in the greater South Tunnel Road shopping district.

We talked and exchanged pleasantries. I told her about my life and later on told her that I had a scan of a class picture from when she was a teacher. We exchanged emails and I sent her the picture upon returning home.  It was almost as if we were old friends instead of me a child and her the woman who helped make sure that I can type this blog that you, the reader are currently enjoying (I know “you, the reader” is a bit impersonal, but I don’t know whom exactly visits this blog, so I am forced to keep it vague. Also, it is a bit presumptuous to think that you are enjoying this blog, but I figure that if you are still reading this after the almost one thousand words that I have written so far, then you are either looking for a secret meaning to all of this or that you are enjoying it, so I say thank you for enjoying the blog. Also, if you are not enjoying this and looking for a secret meaning, then I am sorry and there is no secret meaning- you may now go back to reading Wikipedia entries about Nicholas Sparks novels).  But ANYWAYS, it was remarkably nice to have someone pop up and remind me that I was a kid once, and that the world was (and still is) wide open for me.  Predestination is for pussies.

Some part of me wishes that she could read this entire blog. Maybe it would be neat to see an ex-student’s ups and downs, trials and tribulations, fuck ups and dust ups and think for a moment “I helped with this? Dear lord our public school system is doomed”.

Actually maybe not.

Either way, it was a wonderful moment to see her. For all of the whining and bitching about my part-time job, today it did help me remember some nice times in my life, which is more than the chorizo that I had with dinner ever helped me do.

So today was a good day- a positive day even. But instead of beaming too much, I’m going to try to funnel these positive thoughts into tomorrow. It’s a big week ahead: my niece Tori’s thirteenth birthday, band practice with my new band (more on that soon!) and a rehearsal for my old band Glaze.

It’s been a long, cold winter and the sun is finally warming my cheeks. The snow has melted and the knolls are starting to get green. The trees are sprouting leaves on the branches that didn’t fall under the cold and white. I’m going to enjoy it all and not let the negative in. I’m going to listen to the happy and block out those negative thoughts and voices that I’ve heard in my head all winter. I’m going to stave off the crazy and invite the hope in. I’m going to seal up this drafty house and make a house out of love, a house of out hope and a house out of music.  I’ll see the hill in front of me and not worry about the energy or effort that it takes to get to the top, but instead how kick ass the view will be when I get there.

In case you are wondering, I do have to poop. Stupid chorizo.

Until later, be good.