I don't even know why I come here. I don't get much from it anymore.

I still dream about her every damn night. It seems like I'm a split second away from losing it every day all day. My dreams aren't good ones. Like last night. I had a beautiful girl offering nothing but a good time, and she comes over, jealous and trying to hide it. She looked thin, sickly, and I knew it yet I couldn't resist her. It was just a dream, yet it's message is only too obvious.

I hate being alone. And what's worse is now that I am a Sergeant it only gets more lonely, more hard. One of the Staff Sergeants in my platoon told me that, he was right. Death is all around me, seems like my life revolves around it. Last night I got drunk and instant messaged her this long explanation about how I'm just a machine and I am just living to die, and how she made me feel alive. I can barely hold back now. When I'm not drinking, soldiering, or crying I am wondering how and when I will die. I have begged a god I don't believe in to come and take me away so I can be at peace for once. I'm not making an outcry, I just need someone to tell this shit to, and I don't have anyone.

Don't normally do news years resolution but posting these for 4704 as an aid/incentive to do my best:

  • Develop Self-Command/Become Financially Independent.
  • Get in best Shape of life/Advance Overall Health Regime Significantly/Deeply/Verifiably.
  • Become much less isolated socially/Stop depressive-unproductive slumps.
  • Become more fluent in Mandarin than Hochdeutsch.
  • Don't login to e2 before Dec 29th/Queue any write-ups in own instance.
8/5: Logged in to change link which had an IP to be released soon to normal domain address.

Go There

2005 in review.

- I contacted my biological half sister. While no horror stories exist, the best way to phrase the differences is I own a sheltie, she owns a pit bull

- Added Welbutrin to the happy pill concoction. I'm still not OK. But I'm inching closer.

- I briefly ran a website regarding volunteer info in Houston for folks that wanted to help Katrina refugees. This is the most meaningful thing I've ever put on the web.

- I am still not ready to go back to school full time.

- Working in Lafayette is bad for my self esteem.

- Working tech support is even worse for my self esteem.

- The creature total is three cats and Java the Sheltie. In theory, this will not grow again.

- mcc and I launched grumpybumpers, which has brought us a great deal of enjoyment and even a little extra income--a rare enough thing for cafepress stores.

- I learned more about domestic rabbits than I ever expected to. Including the fact that shaving an Angora is amazingly time consuming.

- mcc finally graduated.

- Snow MUST be optional for the rest of my life.

- After oh so many years, we finally got married. I'm now Mrs. Wuukiee MCC.

- Against what my mother hoped, being married in a Methodist church did not cure me of my sinful Pagan ways. I'm still as witchy as ever.

- The Hotel Icon in Houston is nothing short of spectacular.

- I never have to deal with Indiana again. We live in California now.

- I very much miss my lovely lady. She's the only thing about Indiana I will genuinely miss.

- I have still not forgiven nor forgotten some folks whose acquaintence I made in Indiana. I'm not sure I ever will.

- I've spoken more, and more pleasantly, with my mother in the week since the wedding than I have in the past 5-10 years.

- So far San Francisco is everything I'd hoped it would be, and more. I've never been so in love with a place.

- outside, it's stopped raining

Screw New Year's. I wanna talk about soup.

Last night, in a drunken stupor, I decided to cook some ramen noodles. After I had finished cooking them I was sitting on the floor bowl in hand, and I realized that it is not the noodles that make a good soup good, it's the broth. You could have the best fucking noodles available to man, but if your broth is shit no will eat them. It's all about the broth.

I learned this morning that former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett is wanted for committing a robbery outside a south side nightclub.

For Buckeye fans, and I am one, Maurice Clarett's memory is bittersweet. One one hand his brilliant running was critical to OSU's 2002 National Championship. But he also defamed the school on his way to leaving early to try for the NFL and then failing there after attempting to sue his way in.

Fans don't really begrudge a player who wants to go pro a bit early. But we expect a player to comport himself with a certain dignity. OSU has had its problems, but Clarett left a wake of angry allegations made against the school, none of which were substantiated. He accepted blame for nothing, ascribed blame to others for everything. In short, he acted like a punk, and frankly I doubt if Ohio State fans felt any disappointment at all when he failed in his attempts to make the NFL.

But I cannot help but feel badly after this last episode. Clarett was an inner-city black kid. Many blacks see America as impossibly racist. That really isn't true. A lot of progress has been made since the sixties but no one should think that racism has gone away. Instead it has gone underground. I have seen this at work. You have guys who will joke around with black co-workers but behind their back will espouse the most virulent racism. At least in the old days a black guy knew who hated him. Today it might be the guy who just slapped his back.

And the times have also changed. Clarett is from Youngstown, and like many other parts of Ohio, Youngstown is losing jobs and population. The factory jobs that paid a living wage are going away. The economy is shrinking and as it does connections matter more and more while opportunities disappear.

For many young blacks sports is seen as the way to the top. If America is not totally accepting of black professionals, we do accept black athletes and entertainers, particularly if they're funny and self-effacing. Sort of like O.J. Simpson, who used to be popular among even marginally bigoted whites because he seemed so much like a regular guy. In sports race doesn't matter, production matters. Athletics is much closer to a pure meritocracy than many other parts of American life, and her many blacks feel like they not only can compete as equals, but have the advantage. Success in professional athletics moves kids right out of the ghetto and into the upper class, and allows them to walk with society's best and brightest.

But it's also a bit of a pipe dream. The NFL and NBA hire only a small fraction of the athletes leaving colleges every year. Most of these kids well leave school and get a job. Many have not done the coursework required to get a degree. Many have done the coursework for an irrelevant degree, one with little or no value in the marketplace. Their main goal was to stay eligible and play the sport they love.

Make no mistake, College athletics demands everything of an athlete. Between practice, film study, weightlifting, etc it's all they can do to keep even with their classwork. A side job for spending money is straight out. They are way more than full time employees. And the colleges do make money from their efforts. Some of that is obvious like ticket sales and the rewards that come from a bowl game or the appearance in the NCAA tournament. But the biggest reason for college athletics is that it keeps the school's name out there, and gives the alumni a reason to remember their alma mater and those Saturdays they sat in the cheering section flirting with their future wife. Those rekindled memories are what colleges count on when they call up and ask for money. That money is critical to funding the academic operations of any university.

If a kid comes to play at a place like OSU, their college career will be under some kind of microscope, as athletes are always visible in top-flight programs. But they'll have a chance to play with and meet the best. If their eligibility gets used up before the degree arrives OSU will keep them on scholarship while they finish up their degree. If they graduate and keep their nose clean the alumni and boosters who could not help them during their college career will help them get started in life after it. You may not earn the fabulous wealth of a superstar but an upper middle class life is all but guaranteed. I've lived an upper middle class life, it's a good one by any standard. It's worth sacrificing for and lots of other college students sacrifice hard for it without any real guarantees of anything at the other end of the tunnel.

Maurice Clarett could have had all that. He was talented, but talented kids draw sychophants who hope to ride their talent into access and opportunity. They get surrounded by yes-men and unless their head is screwed on straight the temptation to slack is always there. Clarett fell into this temptation. If he had stayed in, he would have had a better shot at the NFL. But even if he hadn't made the pros, he'd have had a better place at life.

Now all that is gone. The promise of his youth has given way to the folly of young men. Instead of nice house in Clintonville Clarett may be spending his twenties wearing prison stripes. Whatever he may have said in the past, this is not what anyone wanted. I cannot help wondering what he feels right now as he runs from the police, and thinks of what might have been.

Maurice Clarett was always an angry young man. Today the only person he has to be angry at is himself.

I wanted to see, or at least tape, the Tournament of Roses Parade. Instead, I went to church, and hung out with my mother. Only so much a goddess can do...

Tr_ue dating service won't take me, because I was convicted of "domestic violence" (which consisted of kissing my partner when he threatened violence). For this I still have to stand 9 months parole... For drinking in excess I only can say that I feel it's passed a peak that I've reached several times before.

I used to smoke pot. Every day, to certain instructive states of mind. I used to take (Note, I do not say "do". "Do" is what you do to certain bodily parts with your mouth.) cocaine. I used to smoke it, in fact, turning me from a "cocaine abuser" into a "crack cocaine user", the difference, apparently, between Mick Jagger and G. G. Allin. Then, I decided I needed antidepressants. Large mistake. Make Scientologist jokes if you must, but after a few months, I felt as if I was simply being tamed, by virtue of having to take drugs doled out by the State. I got off them, as I did the first two "addictions", though this was much more painful. It also made me want to drink a lot, and to do so in a manner that was destructive. I was also boastful, and contemptuous of State-supported drug users...and there's where the Meyer Brothers stepped in.

Long story short, they tried to humble me. Short story long, my Dickensian story has reached other ears. Internally, I'm now in the position of having to de-alcolize myself, to "bouvez moins mais meilleur" on my own. And find a job. And deal with my family, and find a family of my own. And this is what I want this year.

Happy New Year!

This year will be the best!

I have made many statements about finishing the business and getting on with life. 2006 will be about execution.

I believe everything that has led up to now has been about preparation.

Who else has the chance to make a diffrence to others - while doing that, a difference to ourselves.

"What can I do differently to move it forward?" is the question I shall ask myself.

I also made a statement to change my habit into getting up earlier to do my thinking, to plan out what I need to do for the day/week/month. 6am for starters would be a good time. I know some people wake up earlier than that. 5am? I still need sleep. I'm cranky without it.

These past few days in the holidays has been eye-opening. The one BIG thing I've learned is to respect other people's truths as they have a journey to go through as well. Once my own truths have been realized, others will inevitably follow.

The Code of Honour I prepared for myself must be taken to heart and executed at all times. People are counting on it. I'm counting on it.

Life will be great this year, overcome little challenges, and most of all, CREATE great success.

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