...I Gotta Wear Shades

Personal

Today I took my niece and nephew out for coffee, which pretty much made my whole day. They give me faith in our future, they're amazing. They've both been through a lot, and I hope that karma or whatever pays them back for their positive attitudes and willingness to forgive the people that harm them. They're sure a hell of a lot more emotionally mature than I was -- am.

Fitness

Had a great day fitness wise. Had to cram a few quick meals in there to get my six, but I did it. The going out to coffee thing is part of another promise I've made to myself for this cycle on BFL, basically that I wasn't going to let it take away my life. The first time I really did this, about a year ago, I sequestered myself from the world, I was so afraid to mess up my schedule or cheat. I didn't take any chances. I actually did really well under that philosophy, but it wasn't very fulfilling. I decided that this time, that I would plan, and prepare, and find a way to do things that make me feel like I still have a life.

I had to hit the gym after my god-awful night A&P class, which means that I didn't get home until almost midnight, but I am proud that I could modify my schedule, and still stick to the program.

More Personal

Today I had a conversation with another friend of mine, and she was telling me about some issue she had. We were going back and forth talking about it, until I realized that we were arguing. She started off just venting about issues totally unrelated to me, and somehow I found a way to turn it into an argument. I realized that this is part of a larger personality flaw of mine, that I always need to "prove a point." It's one of the things that made me impossible to live with, and it's something that I definitely need to change.

Irreconcilable Similarities

I wasn't sure how personal I was going to get on this, and wasn't sure I wanted to even tell this story on here. But then I realized that this entire blog was originally started by documenting my trip through "Batterer's treatment." So how much more personal could I get?

I am so glad that I recently made the commitment to participate in, and ultimately finish the Body for Life program, because before when things bothered me, I would let them translate into some sort of unhealthy self-abuse: i.e. drinking, smoking or overeating. The old me, would have been dealing with today with at best, a bunch of beers and a big bag of chips.

The problems began when I had some family drama this morning that moved into a weirdly intense and combative conversation with my sister-in-law. Ultimately all that bickering resulted in nothing but stress for everyone involved. I should learn to pick my battles better.

After that I went to the gym, the place that is supposed to take care of stress. But as soon as I walked in the door I ran into my (soon to be) ex-wife's boyfriend. He obviously recognized me, and I recognized him from the weird night a few weeks ago when I came out of the bathroom at a restaurant and almost bumped into them walking in hand-in-hand. We didn't say anything, I just looked at her, and she looked at me, and we both turned around and walked our separate ways. That was painful. I would like to think that I am in a good place with it, but I really don't like running into that dude at my gym. That is supposed to be my sanctuary, and it feels violated.

I found myself struggling not to think about that night, and about him being there. It threw my whole workout off. But I got it done. I have to focus on not hating him by reminding myself that he didn't take anything away from me. I try to remember what I have, and not what I've lost. Still it hurts, and all I wanted to do was quit lifting and go smoke a cigarette.

So tonight, I wanted a healthy distraction. It just so happens that a few of my friends from the fire station are going out as The Oregon Suits. This is a group that one of the guys here started a long time ago that involves everyone getting dressed up in some haggard suit out of the back of their closet, or at Goodwill in my case. Then we gather together and go out on the town to do something that looks ridiculous for a bunch of guys in suits to do, or as the motto says "Hitting the town with class." Tonight we bowl.

It's totally cheesy and dorky, but it sounds like exactly what I need

The Border From the Gray to Now

They say the best revenge is living well. So I recently decided that I want revenge, and at the same time I wanted to continue the steep upward trend that my life has been on for about the last year or so.

There has been big gray border between my old life and the new one that I am enjoying today. I have been taking steps to finally solidify that border-line. I have a lot going on, a job that I love, a full school schedule this summer, and the paramedic program to look forward to in the Fall. There are also a lot of other things that I realized were becoming distractions, and keeping me from progressing the way I should.

Big buildup there for me to just say that I am doing the Body for Life program again. I realized with all the finality I am applying to my old life, what better way to start my new one than with discipline, focus, and a rockin' body?

Here are my Before pics...brace yourself

I have to tell you, I was shocked. I think it was only a couple of days ago, I was commenting on how good a shape I've stayed in. That's pretty embarrassing now that I can see myself.

So today is day one, my 12 weeks is up on September 28th and one of my goals is to blog here every day of it. I won't focus my future entries entirely on my fitness, but I do plan to write something here everyday.

Out with the old, well some of it anyway

So, my new obsession has been my facebook. Which I am not going to link because I like that I still have some separation between my new life and the old one documented here.

The new life includes a job working as an EMT/Firefighter in a tiny town not too far from where I go to school. It comes with a lot of everyday nonsense and drama like any other job, but at some point almost every day I am amazed that this really is my job. I can't believe I wasted so much time doing anything else.

Today I had my first patient die on me. The people that know me won't be surprised that it didn't really affect me emotionally, other than being proud of the work I did to try and save him.
I have another young EMT friend who had to deal with her first death not that long ago, and it really threw her, she is struggling to get over it. I try to be sympathetic to her when she tells me about it, but all I am thinking is, "You are not cut out for this job. People die. Get used to it." I know that sounds harsh, but at least I am honest.

Old Life
I still think about my program at Bridges every day. Part of me really misses it. Even though I left feeling angry and betrayed. It's mostly during the times when I catch myself dwelling on my wife and family and all that I've lost. I try not to think about it so much, and try instead to focus on everything I have in front of me.
...like Paramedic school. I got in. The future is indeed very bright.

Shark-bite Suit

Personal Update
I am officially an EMT now. Everyone keeps saying "wow that was fast," but I sure don't feel like that true. It's been tough, but I guess I'm not done. I just applied to get into Paramedic school, and it is very competitive. I think there are only twenty slots and from what I hear they usually get at least forty applicants. I am just hoping to get to the interview portion and play the War Hero card, and hope that skates me on through.
Until I hear back from the Paramedic committee, I am working on getting hired on a fire department, so I can start learning how to be a firefighter.

Obligatory Rant
So I have been meaning to write this for awhile now, pardon the fact that it's no longer current. Awhile back I was watching the news in the morning and one of the news ladies came on and started talking about the Academy Awards that had taken place a night or two before. She kept going on and on about how great it was, and how many amazing people were there, and then at the end she said something about the next awards show, and how great that was going to be.
I sat there staring at the screen thinking about the absurdity of this. How many occasions do these people need to get together and congratulate themselves on having the easiest fucking job in the world? What other job does that? None.
The thing that really gets me is what a huge deal people make about performances by stars like Tom Hanks, or Brad Pitt, or whoever; where it's like "Oh my god Tom Hanks you were so brilliant when you pretended to be that guy who actually did something brilliant."
Very rarely do any of these big names write the story they are acting out, or perform any of the stunts. Recently I saw an interview with Marky Mark (sans Funky Bunch) after he had played the lead role in the (simply awful) movie Max Payne. When he was asked about the parallels between the movie and the video game it was based on Marky said that he'd never bothered to play the game so he had no idea. Unfortunately for Marky Mark the video game was much much better than that movie. But I find it a little offensive that he played this role and didn't bother to do any research at all into the origins of his character.
What's more is often these actors are getting paid millions of dollars to pretend to be people who actually did these amazing things, often for little or no money at all. In Jarhead, Jake Gyllenhaal got paid probably a hundred times what a typical marine gets paid, and I'm sure he got to go back to his air conditioned trailer every night and sleep on his king sized bed knowing that his life was never in any real danger.
So I'm just saying if the world was fair, Brad Pitt would make $30K a year. I realize that there are good actors and bad actors out there, and I will admit that I think Brad Pitt is a good actor. I just don't think that this totally intagible "skill" should make him so ridiculously wealthy he can afford to start a collection of children, one from each continent.

Training
I have been doing pretty good on my training lately. I'm still about fifteen pounds heavier than I'd like to be come summertime, so I gotta sharpen up even more. I have been pretty proud of myself for staying responsible when it comes to my eating and training.
I recently started doing MMA again with some of the guys from the EMT program. So far it has only been once a week, but we are looking to increase our gym time. So far I am loving it.

Poise and the Well

Back in Bridges
Since my required time officially ended, I switched groups at Bridges so that I could sort of start fresh with a new group of guys. It's weird now I'm the veteran. Almost all the other guys in my new group are relative newbies. Often that fact is very obvious.
A couple weeks ago I had a fight with my wife, where we ended up texting back and forth with each other. We just went back and forth for like a hundred messages, and finally at the end when we'd exhausted ourselves we both pretty much came to the conclusion that it wasn't getting any better. I told her that I would take the dialogue between us to Todd and see what he had to say about it. Boy if I had known what would come of that, I probably would have just told her everything was my fault and forgot about the whole idea. So Todd really liked that I brought it to him. I guess I was pretty confident that I was doing most everything right, or else I wouldn't have been so eager to share my drama with an outsider.
So I gave Todd my transcript from the text war. As we came into group the next week Todd had packets for all of us. I instantly recognized my packet as a copy of my typed transcript. Todd told us that we were going to go over it and see what we could learn. I totally got behind the idea, still foolishly thinking that somehow I was going to be vindicated in all of this and finally reveal myself to be the misunderstood hero of this whole story. I should know by now that it doesn't work that way.
The whole packet is about ten pages long, and we ended up spending a hour and a half on the first page, which is basically five text messages from me, and five from her. An hour and a half! Todd tore down every single sentance, word by word. It seemed to me that he was really looking for any glimmer of dark intent on my part, any subtle insult, any hint of control. God help me, he found it. Over and over again. In less than five sentances I found myself having to fess up to the whole class. Todd would ask "what did you mean by that?" and I would have to own it "Uh, I guess I really meant 'kiss my ass.'" Shit, I really thought I was the good guy again.
Anyways, as hard as that was, I had to go back the next week and endure another hour and a half of the same thing. It was a little better this time, because I went in without any dilusion that I was going to walk away unscathed. The best part about the next class was that other guys in the group were really participating, all along I was really worried that I was boring a whole class of guys with my frivilous drama, but these guys were really identifying with it. Sometimes though they showed their enthusiasm for the idea by jumping on Todd's "You're an asshole" bandwagon, but hey, I can't fault them too much for that.
After our class got out, I had to walk through the guys waiting for class to start all holding their own copies of my traitorous transcript. As I was passing through the guantlet Todd made some crack about me not starting anymore text wars, and one of the dudes waiting stopped me. "You're the guy that did this?" I wasn't sure how he felt about me at that point so I was hesistant to jump on that grenade, "Yeah, it's me and my wife," I finally let-on. "Wow dude, this is really good stuff. I already learned a lot, I guess we all do this stuff sometimes don't we?" he said. "Yeah, I guess we do. I'm glad you liked it dude. It makes me feel better knowing that somebody else is getting something out of this too," I told him.
I left that night with a lot of good ideas about how I should approach people, especially my wife. I learned that I forget to ask questions and make a lot of statements, and then assume I know the answer to the questions I didn't bother to ask. I also learned that sometimes when I have to stand up and take Todd's beatings, that maybe somebody else is learning the same things I am. And that makes me feel like this whole thing wasn't a big pointless waste of time, maybe it's helping me become a better person and that maybe Todd isn't just being a dick to us because he can. Still though, what a dick.

Random Drivel
quotes:
Me; "Is that a rape whistle on your keychain?"
My friend Brett; "Yeah. I like to blow it. When I'm raping people."

In class the other day:
girl; "EMT is a naked sport"

Body for Life
Wow I have no excuse for my eating behavior over the christmas break. I have been eating terribly. And I think I worked out twice, and one of those times I just played basketball. The whole time I was thinking that I could just be like all the resolutioners at the gym and jump right on it when I got back from break. So I didn't do that, but at school this week Brian and I have pledged to start next week. So one way or another I'm getting my act together next week. Count on it.

Bridges Coming to a Close

School has been dominating my life for the most part. In fact it should be dominating my life right now, but I am being a slacker.

So my required time in Bridges has been met, unfortunately to get signed out of the program I had to finish my workbook. So I've been frantically trying to get it done for the last two weeks. I did about two hundred pages in those two weeks. At some point I felt like I was really getting a self-overdose. I really put a lot of work into finishing that book, but sometimes I felt like I was putting in overtime beating the dead horse of my life.
As part of finishing the book I had to watch a couple of movies. The last two that I had to watch were This Boy's Life and Were Warriors Once. I wouldn't recommend either one of these for a first date, and they were by far from feel-good flicks. Were Warriors Once was hard core, I was really blown away by the story, and the harshness of the violence. This Boy's Life on the other hand just made me feel crappy. The step-dad character in it (played by De Niro) starts out as Mr.Niceguy, and after awhile he gets a little snarkier, and then reveals himself to be this full on control-freak asshole. It sucks to admit but some of the things he did when his true colors were starting to show through, I had done myself.

Anyways, I missed my first class, and I guess I missed a good one. The Crazy Russian, who's new nickname is "Drago," got his turn in the dreaded Todd-Chair. I was really disspointed that I missed that, because when I first started the class Drago was one of the characters I really zeroed in on. Ever since my second class where the discussion was winding down and Todd asked Drago if he had anything to add, and he replied by casually pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and began to read us a poem he'd written. I don't remember what was in that poem but I remember thinking "What the hell? Do I have to write a poem too?" until I looked around and realized that everyone else in the class, Todd included was as perplexed as I was.
After that day though, Drago became less and less involved in the groups. Usually whenever he was pressed he would deflect by giving some sort of ambigous religious answer. Todd might ask him, "So what considerations should you give to your children's friends when they're in your household?" and Drago would say "Well, I just love God, and I love people." And that would be it, and I would be sitting there thinking, what happened to the crazy accusational poem reciting Russian dude that I used to know?
So I wasn't in the group when Todd focused on Drago and brought out the dry erase marker he uses to evicerate people more thoroughly than any lightsaber could. I guess it didn't take long for Drago to break down into sobs. I really feel like I missed out, because I have been wanting to hear his story almost since I began the program at Bridges.

On another note, Ogre has been looking crazier and crazier every time I see him, which due to our unfortunate proximity in living areas happens more often than just when I show up to Bridges. In the same class that I missed, they also had to point out to Ogre that just generally being an inconsiderate dick, is actually a form of absuse. Ogre lives with his grandma, and from what I understand he was upset because she was constantly asking him to stop doing things like: blasting his music all night long, using words like "goddamn" and "fuck" frequently in front of her guests, and (this is classic) hocking loogies into her sinks. Mind you, he was upset because she has been "nagging" him about these things all the time. I guess it took some time, and quite a few reiterations and examples for Ogre to see that maybe he should just stop pulling all these dickhead moves. This guy is a real piece of work, when he doesn't show up to class I'm always a little dissapointed.

Just because I met the required time in Bridges, I don't think I am going to stop going. I think the progam has been really good for me, and while I still have a few things to take care of before I am officially a graduate, I think Todd is going to let me continue in the program voluntarily. I can't believe I am even considering that, especially when I think back to those first few weeks when I was so angry about having to do this program. Eh, life.