I went home for the weekend and saw some old friends.  Jason had a party at his new house.  I hadn’t seen most of those people since college or a little after.  Everyone is always the same mostly, except a little heavier, a little more wrinkled, a little less willing to get piss drunk (myself included).  I talked a lot about people’s kids and their marriage.  I liked it for the most part.

I wore a Halloween costume I last wore in graduate school in 2001 I think.  Its a pimp outfit with leather pants, a white fedora, and a really tight shiny shirt.  Its ridiculous but fun.  I was still able to get into the pants, but I couldn’t button the shirt anymore…not even close.  In fact, I wonder how I ever got into it.

Jason seemed good.  Its strange that so many of my friends are divorced now.  Actually, I guess its just two of them that are…but hey, how many close friends can someone have?  Two is actually a large percentage.

The next night I went to see Josh after shopping all day with my mom.  I bought this really cool piece of furniture that I don’t really need.

I’m going to use it as a TV stand because I can’t figure out any other place to put it.

Anyway, Josh was good.  His kids are super cute.  He was really drunk by the time I got there at 7 having watched the Clemson game.  You know he’s drunk when he starts talking about how good we were at basketball.  I admit its a fun conversation, since we were pretty good…but let’s face it:  I couldn’t throw a basketball in the ocean now…and if I could I’d probably hurt my back doing it.

I used to swear up and down I’d never have the “used to be” conversation, but now that I’m older I see why people have it.  Its like a fish story…it gets better every time you tell it.  You can forget the defeats and remember the victories…embellish here and there.  No one remembers the score anyway, right?  I did dunk on someone in a game one time though.  That’s true: Wes Jackson, I remember.  (Ok, the goal was about 2 inches short of 10 feet, but that’s just a detail to forget next time I tell the story).

Anyway, its weird to go home sometimes and think about all that stuff.  Honestly it seems like it all happened to another person.  Traveling sort of cut my life in half, and the first half is pretty distant sometimes….especially 10 beers in.

I guess I’m thinking about all this today because I went home for the weekend and got a message from some folks on Facebook today that made me think about some things I haven’t thought about in years.

We’ll see just how smart the neo-cons are come election day.

History/Macro trends are on the side of the Democrats in this election.  The polls have them in the lead.  The Republicans just completely f%*ked up the last 8 years.  The Democrats would be hard pressed to lose this election, and the Republican party leadership knows that.

I am beginning to think the McCain/Palin ticket was never meant to be put to a vote.  She’s obviously in over her head.  She is not qualified to be vice president.  She governed a small town in Alaska and then has been state governor for a bit (without significant distinguishing successes).

That’s like me playing flag football on Saturdays poorly, and someone suddenly asking me to be starting quarterback for the Cowboys.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Add on top of that McCain’s age….statistically he stands a good chance of dying in office.  Then Palin is president.  Surely the Republicans can’t be serious?

I think they’re going to bring out a dark horse vice presidential candidate at the last second.  Palin will have to step away from the nomination for some reason, and they’ll put forward someone else.

The Republicans got a bounce in the polls when they nominated Palin (which is natural; its new, exciting, etc.)…and then when she was vetted the poll numbers dropped (since she is woefully unqualified).  If the neo-cons could put forward someone else, and not give voters time to vet him/her, the bounce might be enough to help McCain get elected.

How would that work logistically, you ask?  How would McCain have any credibility if he selected Palin, then unselected her?  Surely that wouldn’t work?  Well, I can think of one way:  McCain is billing himself (rightly or wrongly) as a maverick.  He is the anti-Republican Republican in a political/economic environment where being Republican isn’t that popular.

As a maverick he can say he was pressured to select Palin, and now he’s breaking free of that pressure to give America what it needs in this time of crisis.  And who will his new VP pick be?  I think the correct play would be a conservative Democrat (perhaps Joe Lieberman).  Democrats and Republicans together on the same ticket; the reform and bi-partisanship America needs.  Its not a bad idea.

Think a play like that is too bold/rash?  Perhaps, but the Republicans are very likely going to lose this election and they know it.  They’ve got little to lose by doing something different.  If Americans want to elect a Democrat…give them one…on the Republican ticket.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Just a thought.  If I can think of doing it…so can they.

I had a consulting gig for work recently and got to see some pretty amazing sports memorabilia at a certain large sports apparel company’s headquarters.  This covered the entire wall.

Bottom line:  I loved Jordan.  He made basketball look good.  He achieved a greatness we all aspire to yet never reach…it transcended sport even.  He was just fucking good….period.

See that look on his face.  It says, “Go home.  I’ve already won.”

But Jordan….no need to talk.  No pandering.  The score speaks for itself.  RESULTS.  You can believe in that.  You know its real.  He just hit that shot over Craig Ehlo.  That…just…happened.

So many people have contacted me through Facebook lately.  Its strange to relive some of that; sometimes to be forced to.  Tessa wrote me recently.  I lived with her for a bit at Ein Gedi…in 1997 I think it was.

Here is what she said:

so i have been thnking a lot lately bout ein gedi etc, it was a long time ago now!! gemm has beautifaul photos of kids, have you children yet?? life in uk, ok, but not spent much of my “adult” life here. where are you now? how do you remember those days? take care tessaxx

My response:

Tessa,
Ha!  Feeling a little nostalgic lately?

Hmm…”How do I remember those days?”

I guess I don’t really for the most part (except when you send me an email and it makes me think about it).  Those years seem disconnected from my current life, like they don’t apply.  Its almost like I disappeared for 5 years or so….on another planet.

Every once in a while I’ll see something on TV, and think “I was there once; there is a great restaurant I ate at just around the corner”, but it seems very distant.

The memories are nice, but they are also hard to live with since life will never be as new and exciting as those years were.  You are only young and conquer the world once.  I’ve come to accept that.

I live in Atlanta, GA.  I play tennis.  I like to drink fancy beers.  I am an HR Consultant.  I own a house, and hang out with my friends.  I love my mom and my sister; don’t get along so well with my dad.  I complain and get sad sometimes, but I’m very fortunate.

That’s it.  The story there doesn’t really include “and for 5 years I hit 30+ countries, learned to speak another language, sailed the Mediterranean, saw the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Petra, Machu Picchu, trekked the Himalaya, rode camels in the Sahara, blah, blah, blah, etc.”  Those things are interesting bar stories and come up sometimes, but it just doesn’t apply to most things I do.

I love those years…in a crazy way.  Its something no one can take away and it will always make me a little special.  If I had worked those years like my friends, I would have a little more money now; I might be married, but I would never have ice climbed on a glacier in Patagonia.

And yes…Gemma’s kids are cute, and no, I don’t have any kids.  I’m not married.

Thanks for the nostalgia,

Elliott

Oh well.  I think I’ll go back to my wine and Monday nights on HDNet.

……………………….To understand me, you must understand this.

The last month hasn’t been the best.  I’ve been working at least one day each weekend and 60+ hours each week; I’ve been back and forth to the West coast twice.  I have early morning calls with India and evening calls with the West coast.  I’m just tired.

I have work on my house I have to do, but I can’t get time.  I have to stain my deck, put up a light, pressure wash the side of my house, and paint my shutters.

I’ve talked about all this before; in fact…..the feeling that I go from one thing to the next, never resting….probably describes most of the US.  I should stop complaining.

Regardless, it is bad for your health.  Stress isn’t so bad, but long hours, a lack of exercise, and spotty sleep do take their toll…especially lack of exercise.  I don’t have time to play tennis; those two hours in the evening I used for exercise are now taken up by work or chores or whatever.

On another note, I went to see the Indigo Girls in concert last night.  They are really one of my favorite bands, and I’m happy to report they are simply awesome in concert….perfect.  Its amazing that so much sound can come from two guitars and two voices.  I loved it.

Hopefully in the next few weeks things will return to normal…whatever that is.

People have an amazing capacity to suspend logic while maintaining that life makes sense.

Sundays for instance.  All week everyone requires proof….receipts, contracts, documentation, follow ups, passwords, meetings, blah, blah, blah….but then on Sunday they go to Church and praise somebody that is plainly not there.  They sing songs about the justice, love, and compassion while ignoring the death, disease, war, destruction and plain bad luck that makes up most people’s lives.  I’m not saying they’re wrong on Sundays…..I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense.

Which brings me to my first point:  There is no superfood that will keep you young.   All these people are drinking 40 dollar concentrated acai juice, eating wild salmon for omega-3s, touting blueberries, and free-range beef or whatever.  It doesn’t help.  How do I know?

Japanese women are the longest lived group on the planet at slightly over 85 years.  Vilcabamba Valley in Ecuador is said to be the healthiest environment on the planet with people regularly living over 100.  Barbados (along with Japan) boasts the most Centenarians per capita.

What do these places have in common?  Honestly, other than perhaps generally healthy lifestyles and maybe a diet rich in seafood…..nothing.

The point isn’t that something isn’t making them live longer…its that Japanese women at 85 are not THAT much different than the USA at 77.

If there were some lifestyle/diet change that would make us live significantly longer, someone would’ve adopted it, and it would be so apparent that soon everyone would be doing it, and then we’d be back to the same situation:  Everyone living approximately the same life span.

In fact, there WERE lifestyle/diet changes that made people healthier and presumably live longer.  We are the descendants of those people.

In short, if you like the amazonian fruits, eat them.  But they aren’t going to make you live longer.  If they did, the jungle people eating them naturally would have abnormally long life spans.  They don’t.  They die sooner than we do.

Next point:  ESP.  It doesn’t exist.  Not in anyone.  You know why?  Easy.

It would be SO advantageous to be able to know other people’s thoughts or tell the future or any other ESP-like skill, that whoever had the skill would get so rich and bang so many women, that their descendents would soon outnumber everyone else…..then everyone would have ESP.  The fact that everyone doesn’t have ESP strongly suggests that it doesn’t exist.

So…go to church, drink Acai juice, and try to bend spoons….it can’t hurt.  You never know these days.

I started writing something, but I lost patience to finish it.  Its filed with all my other unpublished posts that will likely never get done.

It was about routine.  Adutlhood is about routine.  It consumes my life.

It was about acceptance of average, simply because at any given moment you are likely to be doing something you commonly do.  In other words, your life, by statistical inevitability, is made up of average things.

It was about fear of the future and longing for the past, even though the past was not always that great, and the future is likely going to be better.

It was probably leading toward the sobering realization that no matter what you do, there you are.  I am by nature a cynic, overly nostalgic, temperamental, and hard to please.

This post seems also to be about all those things too, but in less detail….because I’m impatient….and tired.

This weekend my tennis team is playing in the ALTA city championships.  I’ve been runner up before, but never won.  We’ll see….not that it will give me any lasting pleasure if we win.

That’s what this whole post, and the one before it that I never finished, is about.