So this has not been updated in a long time…long is an understatement. Oh well, I have been too busy and frankly I found a way to vent to my closest friends regardless of the situation. Well here it is summer. summer has dawned on my fat ass and I am working now. I will be updating you later on the details of work, legally I cannot disclose too much info – douche move? Yea I know. 

Personally I can tell you that I have eradicated some of the negativity in my life, not all but I am getting there. I have no time to deal with those who feel a need to put me down. Not even emotional vampires – of which I have met many in my life, but emotional predators. Those who feel obligated to put you down – to see your reaction to test your psyche. It’s all stemming from internal issues they are struggling with but I cannot change or dwell on it. I can only move on, and don’t get me wrong losing a friend is heartbreaking but it’s a defense mechanism. Seriously, these people would taunt me and prick me with their side remarks, even after I told them to stop, they relentlessly would continue this verbal diarrhea.

A writer’s description of his first 2000 meter test on the ERG.

 

This time I pay attention to stroke rate at the beginning. First it said 48. Within two strokes I am at 26. I am not sure if that is good or not, but I do my best to maintain it. I am rowing by pulling back and up to my chest, like I’ve seen the rowers do, and not into my abdomen like in the ERG manual. I try pulling into my abdomen a few times and the stroke rate jerks up, which I didn’t figure is any good since I wasn’t going any faster.

 

With 1700m remaining I am sure of one thing. I want longer legs. I am getting a lot of power out of my legs at the beginning of the stroke, but my legs end well before the end of the stroke and my arms, which aren’t anywhere near as strong as my legs, have to take over. It suddenly occurs to me why many rowers’ waists are about six inches below their chins.

For most of the first 1000m I am at about 9:10 on the predicted time. I only have the mental capacity for three readings: meters remaining, predicted time, and stroke rate. I have to opt out of looking at the splits. The predicted time even goes down below 9 a few times.

 

Nearing the half-way point, however, I have had enough. I want to quit. I just watch those numbers creep up and up like Chinese water torture. Or like the diminishment of my quarters in Vegas. Or the pressure inside a damaged submarine: “400… 500… 600… pressure critical… abandon ship!” I see my dreams of being a successful captured prisoner, gambler, or submarine commander crumble around me.

Right at 1000m I see the numbers creep up to 10:00 for my estimated finish time. I know I’ve lost it. My legs are fine but my arms are killing me. I think about quitting but I decide to see if I have anything left. Surprisingly, I do. Good thing I didn’t have light beer.

With 900m to go, I am back to 9:40. My stroke rate had climbed to 30 briefly but is back down to 26. I am cruising. Suddenly it looks possible again. But with 600m to go I hit a wall. It is a balsa wood wall, but still a wall. I am dying. I feel my chest get tight. Sweat is dripping into my eyes and down off my chin. I have trouble breathing. It feels like my airways are constricting–am I having an asthma attack and would I know if I was? With every stroke a raspy bleating sound comes out of my throat as I feel a golf-ball sized flap of something open and close inside my chest. Perhaps it is my heart or spleen, trying to crawl out of my body to escape the violence.

John Frankenheimer says on the commentary, “It’s hard to shoot two people walking down an alley.” I want them to shoot me, literally. “You don’t want them to walk into the light,” he continues. Yeah, no kidding. And I realize he is warning me, “Mark, you don’t want to walk into the light… don’t go into the light.” At 500m the estimated time is creeping up and up and I come within a hair of quitting. I actually almost let go of the handle. I lose my posture. I’m all alone, who the hell is going to know if I quit? And to further the argument, I could pass out and die, who’s going to know if that happens? It occurs to me that I need a spotter. The only thing that keeps me going is the sudden realization that I am technically a master. I don’t feel like a master (in the classic sense of the word) and I sure as hell don’t look like one I am sure, but I qualify on paper. Later it occurs to me that I’m entering a profession past the typical age of retirement. But I get my third wind.

I wanted to break 10:00. If I was at 2000m now, I’d barely have it. I close my eyes, only to open them periodically. 495m. 350m. 288m. Like flashes of sun to the man stranded in the rowboat and sunburned, surrounded by sharks after a shipwreck. I don’t look at anything else, I don’t want to know. With my eyes closed I feel like I’m pulling my hands through my chest into space behind me. Once or twice my legs forget that we’re still going and they stop. “Why are we doing this?” they ask. “You don’t need to do this. You need to be sitting in front of a computer, editing film, drinking a Pepsi and eating Cheetos.”

150m. 109m. Who cares about the last 100m? Who cares about the last anything? Does anyone remember who came in 10th in the general election? Some libertarian or Green Party candidate, or follower of Ayn Rand. Invariably, Ralph Nader. The last potato chips in the bowl are always just greasy crumbs. The last few lines on my 1040 tax form–I leave them blank.

But I keep going. 91m. I can’t feel my butt. I can’t tell if I’m still sitting on the seat or not. For all I know the seat has shot off into the kitchen and impacted under the sink, rupturing a water main. Fire trucks could be pulling up outside. Sparks could be flying out of the ERG. Between the geyser and the fire, the firemen don’t know what to do. Low-pitched screams emerge. Parents walking their children by on the street hurry up, rush by, covering their kids with blankets.

With those measly 91m left to go, I have a choice. Do I coast, and just see what happens, or do I go all out, figuring that if I’m going to die, I’m going to die no matter what I do now. For some reason, a reason that I can’t fathom considering how much beer I have waiting for me in my refrigerator, I decide to go all out. The ability to walk, and therefore get to all that beer, may be lost after I am done but so be it. My eyes are closed but white lights and colored stars are shooting through my head.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. The meters run out and I’m gasping for air. The sweat is so thick in my eyes I can’t read the display. I stagger into the bathroom and cough up something that resembles a prop from Ghostbusters. I head back to the ERG and read the display. 9:24.0 with a stroke rate of 26. That was a sloppy piece and I’ll probably pay for it tomorrow, but I hit my goal with something to spare. I hear the fans cheering as I stand up, arms outstretched. They are chanting, “Nine-two-four, nine-two-four” with techno music playing in the background. I quiet down the unruly crowd. “Please, please, please…” I beg them, “When I break eight minutes, then you may cheer.”

This person is sitting online and I am trying my hardest not to reach out to them. I have scarred them enough. I gotta leave them alone, I am the one that will wait for what they might say, or should I reach out?

Last night I had a little freak-out and unfortuntely the victim was a friend of mine. And to let you get a sense of where I am at right now, here let me paint you a scenario. I get 5 hrs of sleep a day, I start my day at 5:30AM, busting my ass is an understatement to my morning routine, I go to class afterwards, where I tend to fall asleep in or not pay attention fully yet I sit thru the torturous monochrome lectures, I come home to attempt to do more work – which ends in me being unsuccesful, at the end of the day I arrange a list of things to be done the next day, and I manage to fall asleep at around 11. 

So ok you see here that my time is precious because I am too tired and too busy to get most things done on time. My mood has never been worse, my emotions are constantly leaning towards the worse. My motivation to see people and to be a social creature has dramatically dropped. And above all I can not find the time to be bored – to just pace around the house with nothing to do. 

Back to what I originally wanted to write about, last night my friend came over and asked why I had been ignoring them. My response was by far too open and honest and I ended up spilling to much in all the wrong ways. I told my friend that I was not playing hard to get but yet my time is very valuable and “quite frankly you are a waste of my time and energy” – exact words. So I continued with my verbal assault to beat the point to pulp. ” I feel as though we have a superficial friendship, and I don’t see you as understanding my needs, and no you are not dependable(which was met with shock)” Ooh, Ouch! Yes that was quite a burn but in my defense I despise relationships that consist of nothing by empty laughs and hollow conversations. I don’t mind to shoot the shit or make small talk with people to pass the time but I place value on the real friendships in my life. 

This is what I realized, that I cannot change this person, and I am unwilling to patiently wait till this person decides to evaluate the importance of keeping me intellectually stimulated. Snobbery aside, I love talking about things that get me to question or that entice me to learn more – whether it be about my friends or certain things or ideas. So it came down to me not willing to waste my energy entertaining someone who does not share my interest in exploring and being spontaneous. Who does not understand my quirkiness - and thus who does not allow for me to be quirky.

Yet the verbal diarrhea that I spewed(sorry for the visual) onto my friend while trying to explain this concept led to me losing a friend. My fiend could not understand why I was shutting them out of my life so carelessly and I could not understand how I could say those things out-loud and yet not believe them.

And yet while I may regret my actions, I can’t be anything but honest to myself. I should have acted more reasonably but again I am under stress, my mood is already in the gutter and my emotions are taking a life of their own. And the only thing that keeps running thru my mind is that fact that I always fuck things up. I always fuck up.

I already tried apologizing but got no response. I feel like I want to plead with this person to not take anything I said seriously but I cannot take back anything I said in a serious tone.

So ever see the movie Wedding Crashers? Ok, so imagine there was such a thing as a picture crasher. I don’t know if such a term exists but I have identified one in particular. Case in point…..

Me lookin' fly until....this guy steals it from me

Look I was making my currently-favorite-crazy-drunk-face and you can’t just come along behind me and pull your move without me aknowledging this. Ugh! There is too much fierceness for one picture. Speaking of fierceness…

Happy couple....and is that blue steel?

The picture crasher strikes again. Wow, so all I can is that there is a fierceness overload in this image. Is this guy a professional picture crasher, I mean besides looking like a tool this can be pretty handy in marketing yourself. But don’t worry I got him back, in two of his profile pictures I am obviously the star….

Yep that's me

And even better…

Ha!

Of course, picture crashing is my new talent I will be perfecting in my spare time. Who knows maybe I will be updating you soon with fresh new examples..till then I will be practicing all the douchey moves I can think of thanks to Hot Chicks With Douchebags

No I do not have resolutions. It’s not that I don’t have anything to improve upon but I don’t take it seriously. I think that when you are mentally ready to improve or change some aspect of your life, you don’t need to rely on a resolution promise. But that’s me, If you have a resolution let me know – I might rethink not having one. Maybe I’m just not creative enough with these things, who knows. 

No wait! I think I have a pseudo-resolution( because if it was a real resolution that would contradict my entire paragraph above). I plan on improving the faces I make when I drink. I know I try to do stupid faces, but if you go thru my facebook pictures, I always look like I’m an angry drunk or something – which is not true – I’m actually a happy drunk – from what I hear.

Anydrunkface, here are more pics thanks to Ben and his incredible CD-cover-graphic-skills! 

Also, some people took pictures last night other than Ben and I. Unfortunately they might take ages to put them up, but because I’m in a shitty state of mind I’ll do it now. Actually I’m in a giggly state of mind. So I’m just gonna let the pictures do the talking.

So ok from last night….

Because this is gonna be a club hit.

Because you will like our penises

Because Ardy