Picking My Brain

On Friday, June 17, my brother officially graduated high school! He attended Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing, NJ. We had great weather for the ceremony and we are so proud of him.

My dad, my gradmother, Jeremy, my mom

Jeremy

So now he’s off to college. He’s starting out at Atlantic Cape Community College, and will transfer to a four-year school after two years. He wants to major in Criminal Justice and become a crime scene investigator.

Another field trip into Philly on Saturday - though no pictures this time.

Last night I made plans to go out clubbing with Liesle and my long-time friend Steve and Lauren. Our plans were to meet at Woody’s, a gay club in center city, and go hopping from there.

As always, the trip into the city was half the fun. As I made my way north on I-95, I passed a car engulfed in flames. I hope anybody in the car was ok, but it was definately a surprise to come around the corner and see that.

I made it into the city just fine and managed to find my friends around 12:30. Woody’s is a really fun place - two floors, raised dance floor upstairs, and multiple bars throughout. We danced some, but mostly drank until closing around 2. We then walked across the street to Pure is even better. It’s an after-hours club with fabulous dancing and atmosphere. We danced almost the entire time we were there. They have this great room upstairs called The Box that was full of dancers. I was almost sorry to leave at 3:30. I would have loved to stay until closing.

I was probably a little too drunk to be driving home, but I made it home in one piece and out of sight of the cops. I had asked Ben to drive me in and pick me up - but he refused. He actually got pretty mad that I asked him that. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t, and got mad and just left. The situation kinda stewed between us all Sunday, also leading to several other arguments during Sunday. He was acting like he was mad that I went out at all. I couldn’t beleive that he was mad over me going out with my friends. When I finally approached the topic, I asked him, “You really aren’t mad that I went out last night, are you?” He explained that he wasn’t mad that I went out, just that I had asked him to sit up all night waiting for me to call him to come get me. I guess that really wasn’t fair. He was also upset because we were going to go out for breakfast on Sunday morning, but we ended up not because I slept until 1 p.m. I told him that he should have gotten me up sooner, I didn’t need to sleep so late. But I had to work overnight that night, so that’s why he let me sleep.

So, that’s my latest adventure. I had lots of fun, I can’t wait to go out again.

Ben’s sister Meagan is studying international law and as part of her classes is spending the summer in Egypt. She’s keeping a blog about her experiences there, which I keep up on. Her most recent post was abou thow the men of Egypt have a certain view of American women and how she’s been harassed by a few of them. She said that there are men there who honestly beleive you could go up to any woman on the street in New York City, offer her money, and she would have sex with you.

Her entry reminded me a conversation Russel Crowe (of all people!) had the other night on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

RC: “I read somewhere that only 14% of Americans have a passport. That sounded outrageous to me, you guys should travel more.”

JS: ” Do you know what the world thinks of us?!”

RC: “You know what - the only advertisement you’ve got is for you as individuals to go around the world and show that you’re not that thing that you’re purported to be.”

I thought that was a pretty profound statement - and so true. Now if only I could afford to travel around the world….

Anyways, to read all about Meg’s adventures (and sometimes her misadventures!) visit lifefaraway.blogspot.com (You also can link to it quickly from My Sites on the right).

Switching shifts every other day at Wawa has finally taken it’s toll: insomnia! I was switched to the night shift, 11 p.m. to 7 p.m. for a few days. Sunday I worked 11-6,which actually counted for Saturday, so then on Sunday I had to work 3-11. When I got home at 7 a.m. yesterday morning, I couldn’t sleep! So I got like three hours sleep before working for 8 hours. When I got home last night, I figured I would sleep late this morning before I go to work at 3 this afternoon. Wrong! I woke up at 5 a.m., starting thinking about all the things that needed to be done around the apartment, and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I’m tired, but not sleepy - and getting cranky.

So my days and nights are all mixed up at the moment - which is confusing, but Liesle called me while I was groggy the other morning with some news.

She and Chris have pretty much been breaking up for about the last six months or so…or I guess I should say Liesle has been breaking up with Chris in her head for the past six months. I support her and feel that it’s time for the relationship with Chris to end. It’s not that I don’t like him - he’s a great guy. He’s just really immature, and simply isn’t going the same place in life Liesle is. He’s not trying to better himself or achieve more for himself - which is fine - but it just doesn’t fit with what Liesle wants for her future. She’s finishing college, working two jobs, and has hopes for a career, a house and a family. Chris wants a family, but really can’t provide for a family, much less owning a house.

The problem arises in the fact that I really don’t think Chris has realized that the end of his relationship with Liesle is nigh. After his constantly complaining about having no money and not being able to afford the $550 per month rent, he and Lielse are letting go of their apartment. Their lease is up, and their rent is getting raised anyway. So Lielse is moving into her sister’s apartment and Chris (at 27 years old, don’t forget) is moving back home with his parents.

Liesle has pretty much decided that when they move out, the relationship is also over. I don’t think she’s really told Chris this. They’ve been on a bumpy road for a while now, but whenever she tries to talk to him about it, he just blows her off. Liesle also isn’t strong with Chris and doesn’t push the issue - so I don’t think there’s much communication there anymore.

So recently, Liesle has been entering back into the dating scene. She’s been meeting people online, telling them she’s single and flirting like she is. This slightly bothered me - it was like she was stringing Chris along until she found somehthing better; trying to keep the best of both worlds. She almost got caught when one of her internet guys called her at one in the morning while she and Chris were sleeping (which, of course, she told Chris was me after he was pissed that he got woken up…thanks Liesle!). But of course, she got up and had a converstation with the guy, about 10 feet away from her boyfriend of 4+ years.

Now, however, it’s gone much beyond internet flirting. She met a guy while substituting recently, and they seemed to have hit it off. She was out with one of her other friends one night last week, and he called to see what she was doing. When she left her friend, she ended up going over to his house, where she ended up sleeping with him.

To me - Liesle has now fallen into the category of cheater. I think it’s really wrong of her to go have sex with this new guy, then go home and back into bed beside Chris. Plus - add on the fact that I think Chris thinks everything is fine with their relationship - no matter how bad the realationship with Chris is at this point, I don’t think what she did was right at all.

What I did get out of the short conversation we had while I was mostly alseep was that Chris is not satisfying her needs anymore, and that it “felt good” to have sex with someone else. She asked me if Ben meet all of my needs, to which I told her yes ( I wouldn’t be marrying him if he didn’t). I guess she was trying to justify what she did, but I shot down her reasoning.

This was the first time she was with this guy outside of the teaching setting, and she’s already slept with him. I think it was almost six months or more before she first slept with Chris.

I think what she’s doing is wrong, and needs to call it quits with Chris now - or at least clue him in that it’s looming. I also think that she needs to go home and be Chris’ girlfriend until they break it up.

Being asleep at the time, I haven’t had this conversation with Liesle yet, but I have a call in to her for her to call me back. I’m going to plan a night where we can sit down and discuss.

Ultimately - I realize it’s Liesle’s life and she can do what she wants. And I won’t interfere. I won’t tell Chris about what’ she’s been doing. I”m just trying to show her another perspective of her actions. She is now a cheater, and it could affect her realtionship with this new guy (if there is one) or if any future boyfriends find out - there could be trust issues. If she can’t tell Chris now that it’s over, how will she tell the next guy that it’s over?

I do also recognize that this may never happen again in Liesle’s life - she is not necessarily a “player” now (or whatever the female term is). But I don’t think I can sit by and not say anything about this. It’s really been bothering me since we talked last - probably because what she did is just totally opposite of anything I would do.

So hopefully I’ll get to talk to her soon - and hopefully it’ll go well!

I got this foward the other day and got a real laugh out of it. So I decided to share it!
*****************************************************************************************************************
Recently, when I went to McDonald’s I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. “We don’t have half dozen nuggets,” said the teenager at the counter. “You don’t?” I replied. “We only have six, nine, or twelve,” was the reply. “So I can’t order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?” “That’s right.” So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those “dividers” that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn’t get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the “divider”, looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me, “Do you know how much this is?” I said to her “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think I’ll buy that today.” She said “OK,” and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM “thingy.”

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. “Do you need some help?” I asked. She replied, “I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can’t get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?” “Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?” I asked. “No, just this remote thingy,” she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, “Why don’t you drive over there and check about the batteries. It’s a long walk.”

Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, “I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do?” “Just use copier machine paper,” the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five “blank” copies.

I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in “Twister.” I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the “cruise control” and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: “I’ve got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?”

Police in Radnor, Pa., interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy
machine. The message “He’s lying” was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn’t telling the truth. Believing the “lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.

A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and should be fine, the mother says, “I just gave him some ant killer.” Dispatcher:”Rush him in to emergency!”

*****************************************************************************************************************
If these stories are true (and I’ve met people eerily similar to these) how do they survive in today’s society? Is there a “Lower IQ Town” just like a “Chinatown?” I mean, everyone makes silly mistakes sometimes, me included. But wow.