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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Back to 2001

I had a really weird Sunday. Like really really weird. I might have noticed this more because Sal and I have been watching Back to the Future lately.

Started off "normal" enough when we went out to St. Chuck for Brett's birthday. We all had a good time, ate, generally just sort of eased into Sunday.

Then Sal and I made a run to MidRivers mall because she needed some new work clothes for a business trip coming up.

I, not really wanting to hang out in The Limited all day, split off from Sal and went to fun stores.

I didn't realize how weird the day was until Sal and I split off. I was standing in the former Borders (now V-Stock) in the section where the music biography books used to be. I spent hours in this section looking for a Nirvana or Kurt Cobain book I didn't have already.

I looked out over the parking lot at MidRivers mall. I could see the Ruby Tuesdays I used to split large cakes with. I looked at the former CD Warehouse where I bought Sublime's acoustic album and Goldfinger's self titled album. I started looking around V-stock. It was this weird shadow version of what Borders used to be.

I started feeling really weird, like I just miss these places. St. Charles has progressed passed my childhood. None of my favorite places are still around. I started just feeling really heart heavy for those lazy Saturday afternoons I'd spend wandering the mall, trying to decide what to spend the $30 in my pocket on.

The mall even had Sheryl Crow and Hootie and Blowfish playing over the speakers while advertising that the 90s were the trend again and you should buy overalls and fanny packs.

I went to Slacker's in the mall. It's designed strangely like the Slacker's that used to be in Chesterfield. But gone was Babbage's, the Wizard's Wagon, even GameStop left the mall. Tilt took down all of their bowling alley carpeting and black light decorations and modernized itself. (For whatever a modern arcade looks like.)

I even was wearing cargo shorts that I'm pretty sure I bought from Kohl's in 2003, shortly before going off to college.

The day ended seeing Blink-182 at RiverPort. (Or UMB Banklywood Theater or whatever it is now.) I was standing in the lawn, not far from where I stood seeing them and Green Day at the same venue in 2002.


Tuesday, September 6, 2016

A September 2016 Update

It's been a while since I've written. That's still partially because I'm brain dead from work, partially because I traveled to Madison two weeks ago, and partially because we've been busy every weekend.

I think I'm getting to a better place than I was last time. I'm definitely still stressed out, but not as much. I've continued meditating. I don't know if I've had that breakthrough moment yet that everyone talks about where they hear the birds singing, notice how green the grass is, and become one with the universe.

But I have noticed other things. I notice when my shoulders relax, my heart slows down about 3 minutes into my daily meditation session. I've noticed myself fearing that call on Friday less, knowing there's nothing I can do about it, it's going to happen. If nothing else, I look forward to the mental break in the middle of the workday where I just sit straight and focus on breathing.

I think my mood is partially improving because we had a hint of autumn Friday and Saturday. It's my absolute favorite time of the year. There's so much cold weather in front of you. So little yard work. And Christmas is just around the corner.

The past two days have reminded us all that Missouri can be a fickle weather beast and rocketed well back into the high 90's, high humidity.

Changing the subject drastically, there's a really solid chance that two strangers will see me naked this week.

Got my first physical in roughly 7 years and my first dermatologist appointment in probably 12 years.

It's weird being in a second sort of second tweener stage. Sometimes I still feel like a young adult. I have student loan bills showing up every month, still like to go out and have some drinks on the town like some sort of Sex in the City character, and play a ton of video games.

But then sometimes you trip in Colorado and cause a ton of leg pain, notice new gray hairs in your beard, and start seeing people you know die of skin cancer.

There wasn't a good excuse for not going other than I was being lazy. A few years ago I started going to the dentist twice a year and eye doctor once a year again. Now that those feel normal, I figured I'd try to get the other visits into the normal rotation. Why the hell not? Might as well find out if something is wrong as early as I can.

Most likely the doctor is going to say I'm stressed and tell me some sort of yoga to do. It's usually his favorite answer. He's probably not wrong either. My posture has been terrible lately, I could use a good alignment.

Our house project to-do list grew exponentially while I Was in Madison for 9 weeks. I was getting tired of staring at it, so Sal and I finally did something about it.

We ripped down the wall in her office finally. It had some water damage from the very first year we lived in the house and was just sort of low on the priority list... you know, when your roof is ripped off, a lot of things start dropping on the priority list.

We sort of like the brick enough that I think we're going to grind the mortar our and redo it.

I've got one more trip to Madison this year, Blues hockey coming up, the 2nd annual Oktoberfest... just lot's of great things coming up.