It�s raining like cats and dogs and thundering and lightning and muggy and I�m tired yet awake and I�m drinking espresso before going to sleep, go figure�Had a discussion the other night about the two different schools of people, the Rolling Stones people, and the Beatles people. I�m more of a Rolling Stones type guy I guess, I�m no Beatles �pussy��just kidding. I am quite enjoying the Beatles right now as I choke to death here because I�m now up to�. A whole lot of cigarettes a day. Too many.

I feel insulted, well actually, let me rephrase that, we feel insulted. Us boys, yeah, us boys feel depressed right now. I make too many stupid choices. I make choices that would otherwise be reserved for your average man. I pride myself on not being the �average� man. Unfortunately, it�s evident now that this is what most girls seem to want. Just some average guy. Someone with no personality, someone to pay attention to them, and someone to treat them like shit. Someone who is going to insult their intelligence, someone who�s going to make them feel good. Real good like a �real man� should. Maybe I�m jumping to conclusions now, maybe I�m full of shit. Maybe I should look in the mirror from time to time. Well, I have looked in the mirror, and I know what the fuck I want right now, as I always have. Regardless of how I go about it, I know inside I�m doing the right thing. I can�t really fathom why things work out like they do. They have a funny way of working out. Things are so obvious, things are so average and predictable. A waste of my time nonetheless. You think you are going about things correctly, by being honest. You think you are going about things correctly by being yourself. You get slapped in the face though. You get the Pinto, sorry, no Jaguar for you sensitive boy. �I want a man� I�m sorry, but this is a load of complete shit. It�s all crap. I know one thing that is as true as the sky is blue in Montana, the best girls I know are the ones that have a lot of guy friends. The ones in the cliques are always just�who knows the word I�m looking for. I don�t really mean to group people together and stereotype, but I don�t know years of �experience� has proven correct, call me a pig, whatever, I know most guys would agree. I don�t really feel that bitter at this point, as I am perfectly happy the way things are going in my �romantic life� or what have you. I just don�t get it I guess. I don�t really get people most of the time, but I don�t get it even more, why people send smoke signals when they aren�t even stranded. Why tell me to build a bridge when there�s no river to cross? What is the actual point of all of it? Attention obviously. I know how it is, who doesn�t want attention. I love it myself�if I didn�t I would not be hitting �add entry� after writing this. But why fuck with people? Why start emotions in people, why get involved if you know what the fuck it is you�re doing? I don�t cause malice with people. I talk my share of shit, and judge people when I really have no right to, but fuck, I never cause malice or play games anymore. Fuck that, I never played games�at least with anyone whom didn�t deserve it. Fuck I can play plenty of fun head games with people. I like it if it�s justified. I�m a Scorpio, that�s what we do according to those books and planets and crystals and crap. I just don�t get why I bother ever trusting anyone really. It�s so hard after so many times of dealing with children and dodge ball at recess. I can�t believe I fall for this shit though. So the worst is when this happens to friends. Friends get involved with people you know are going to fuck them over. This happens to every guy, your friend goes out with a girl friend of yours, you know the guy is an asshole, you�ve seen the things he does amongst the �boys�, you warn the girl, but they still fall for it. It�s happened so many times in the past few years that I�m beginning to think that the things between our legs really are the only thing attractive to the opposite sex on both sexes that is. I don�t want to see friends get fucked over but, it�s hard to tell people what to do, especially when you do the same thing from time to time. I get involved with the wrong people, or get crushes on people I know I really shouldn�t, and low and behold I get fucked over at the end�or at the beginning rather. So with that said I know of a recent situation with a friend, and all I�ve heard now is bad things about the boy. What the hell should I do? Well, at this point, I do nothing. I don�t do anything anymore. I sit back with my smile and wait to say things afterwards. It�s not my place to say anymore, as people generally don�t seem to take advice well when it�s those situations. They tend to do the opposite. I wonder what it�s like to be treated like shit? Just like when you�re little and your parents tell you not to smoke or do this or that, the first thing you want to do it smoke cigarettes and listen to heavy metal records (well, my dad was actually all about letting us listen to music of any kind. I can�t imagine ever letting my kid listen to Kiss before he was 18 years old though. Listening to it now, it�s funny to hear the lyrics). So with all of these situations I feel like I have no comment, I can�t do anything else but continue being myself and knowing I�m better than a lot of guys out there, I know I am, and I�m sure someone will appreciate that at some point. Fuck the rest of em I say. I�ll be over here holding the door�when you get here I�ll make sure to let it shut though. I don�t have the patience I don�t have the skills to play the game anymore, and I don�t really feel like I need to ever prove anything. I can�t say that enough. I feel like I�m so far away from people I thought I knew a week ago even that I can�t remember voices, faces any of that shit. I get d�j� vu from time to time, and remember certain features, but at this point, I am removed. Twice. Three times. Poof.

High Fidelity comes out on DVD and video tomorrow I think. It got me thinking yesterday about the part when Rob calls all his girlfriends of past to try and figure out what went wrong or whatever. I did a similar thing recently. Last year I saw my ex-girlfriend Denise at a concert with her sister. I didn�t say anything to her I saw her at a distance and never made eye contact with her, but felt that she did see me. We went out in high school and were each others �first�, we went out for over a year, until she graduated. She met some older guy with a car and then cheated on me, and left me. About a year later I ran into her, she was still dating the guy, and we went out and fucked the next night. We did this for well over a year while she was with this guy. I didn�t really give a shit, I was 18 years old or so, I was fucking this guys girlfriend that fucked me over with her. There were a few odd times when she would cry because she was confused. It was my second heartbreak, so I guess I was a young bitter guy. She broke up with him, and stopped seeing me. She got another boyfriend and we started up again. This went on for a few years, about 5 of her boyfriends. What a scumbag I was in retrospect. Either way, I was young, and can�t imagine what it would be like to do that again. So I saw her at this show last summer (99), I called her a couple of days later to say �hello� We planned on hanging out, it never happened though. She never got back in touch with me. I assume she figured I was calling her to get laid or something, I honestly was not thinking of that though, it�s been well over 10 years now. The next relationship was Kerry. My third time I got �fucked over� She was fucking 5 of my friends or something like that. I remained �in touch� with her for a while, but called her a couple of months. I don�t know why, I just wanted to see how she was doing I guess. We never got together, and I think I saw her twin sister at Pizzeria Uno on Sunday where I had a delicious lunch with Annu, Shawn, Steve, and Tracey, and an unnecessary dessert. This happened a couple more times with these types of relationships. Until Tara, we went out for a while/were best friends. She got married a couple of weeks ago, which was a strange thing. She was on the level that I liked though. We were both pretty up front about everything, no bullshit, no games, if shit wasn�t working out, or someone was uncomfortable, or whatever we fought, argued, did whatever, we didn�t play fucking head games though. Rocky Raccoon, good song btw�not as good as Ob La Di, Ob La Da, but a good song nonetheless. We were obviously not made for each other, if so I wouldn�t be writing this whole thing surely! I can�t find that anymore though. Well, actually I take that back completely, I think I have found that. In the past few days I have felt good about things. I feel up front, and I feel like I�m not being put in the middle of some scheming. This is always good.

I was glared at by a lawyer tonight, for taking the sole granola bar, stating out loud �I�m the hippie here� to his button down shirt and tie. We are in the beginning of contract negotiations right now at work. Tonight we sat at the bargaining table for three hours in a room with us (Labor-me, the woman from our union office, two other women from the union in the company) , and them (Management-My manager, his superior manager, as well as the human resources woman, the company�s lawyer, and his assistant Ali {who�s pretty damn cute in a �young attractive lawyer girl� kind of way}). A big white room with a big table, and some snacks and soda. Pretzels, chips, etc. I took the sole granola bar, and the lawyer looked at me in a joking glare. He said �tomorrow there�ll be two of those� I looked at him and took the second granola bar out of the �single package� and ate it selfishly�Tomorrow night we do the same thing. There is some fucked up things happening, and I feel it�s going to take a long ass time to bargain the thing. Today at work they asked 14 of us union people if we would like to be promoted to a Supervisor position, since we were already sort of doing that. It would eliminate 14 Union jobs though. Most of the people felt uncomfortable and put on the spot, especially me, as this is one of their proposals for the contract, to get rid of these jobs and give the former positions salary, and power to hire and fire and that kind of thing. I am negotiating the contract for our union, so it would be kind of hypocritical of me, but some of us were looking at it as more fair to the employees we would be supervising. As it is now, a lot of these people are reviewed twice a year by managers that don�t interact with them on a day to day basis. This would give people a more fair assessment of their performance. The other thing, probably the main thing for all of us, all politics and beliefs aside is money. Put more money in front of someone, they�re bound to go for it. I�m not sure what to do. As it stands now, the union will not let it happen, so as long as that happens, I won�t be going anywhere. I do see a difference of opinions on behalf of me and the union at some point though. Selfish guy, that�s me. Fuck, I want to pay that car off soon. I�d like to move, I�d like more money who wouldn�t?

Fuck it�s late again, I�m talking about work, when I have to go back there in hours from now..,

Me and Paul and John and George and Ringo are out for the night�

before & after