Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog: #46 - Funny Signatures, That’s Not Toothpaste, Bad Road Work, etc.

 

1. December arrived and boy did the weather follow suit. I went out to shoot the sunset on December 1^st and was definitely under-dressed. The fall has been at least somewhat warmer than usual. I took that for granted and went out dressed like it was 55 degrees and not 35 degrees. The temperature, a howling wind, and the sun setting at 4:10pm made me immediately long for spring. Oh well, at least starting December 14^th the sunset times will start getting later. Before you know it the sun will be setting after 5pm again, well February 4^th.

2. I have begun digitizing my old Las Vegas journal to share on my blog and on Patreon. Granted these will be somewhat redacted and I’ll tell you why. In this journal there is a lot of great insight into me, full-on in my quarter-life crisis, going through a cross-country move. The problem is not sharing some deep thoughts, it is the sheer amount of girls I was interested in that I name-dropped. I was a bit surprised. I think I was really looking for whoever was going to come along and fill that void. That being said, I don’t think naming names is going to do any good. Not that they’d all be reading my blog, but I highly doubt any of them would read my thoughts from nearly 25 years ago and suddenly say ‘I never knew!’ and we live happily ever after.

First part now up on this blog.

3. Something a bit interesting to me. I noticed now that it’s December that when I turn my heat on I like it at around 64-65 degrees. I run hot so I don’t need it sweltering to be comfortable. The interesting part? In the middle of summer, I like my air conditioner to be set at 68-69 degrees. So my heat is set to a lower temperature than my A/C is. I don’t know, I thought those numbers would be flip-flopped. Actually, it would make more sense for the temperature to be equal all year round no matter the heat or A/C.

4. I feel at times like my life is an echo chamber of my own thoughts. What I mean is that as I continue on a journey of trying to become totally self-employed I sometimes find myself trapped by my own mind’s limitations. I want to use my writing and creativity skills to do something meaningful and fulfilling but it’s hard to see outside of my own little box I’ve been in for years. It can feel like the Seinfeld episode where George gets an audiobook and the narrator sounds just like him. Sometimes you need advice from a voice that’s not your own.

5. For the first time in quite a while I visited a spot called Scargo Tower in the neighboring town of Dennis. It’s a beautiful stone tower with one of the best views on Cape Cod. I shot a video of me going up the stairs to the top at sunset which was great. I was shocked when I drove up to it that there were no other people there. My excitement was short-lived as while I was shooting the video a van full of people showed up. Then after they left a young couple showed up. I decided to leave the tower to them because I was young once. I just found it funny that as soon as I thought about how great it was that nobody was there all of these people showed up. I should have just kept my mind blank.

6. A random patient at my work made me think of one of my favorite memories of my Nana. Long, loooong ago she would get Christmas cards from her trash man. It was nice, and also a way to remind customers to tip the people who take their stinky trash away for them. Anyway, the trash man signed his card and I believe his name was Doug Carp or something close. I can’t remember for sure but someone in the family remarked that his signature made it look like his name was ‘Dog Crap.’ That alone was too hilarious, but the best part was my Nana’s reaction. She laughed in only the way she could until tears were literally streaming down her face. Those were some of my favorite memories of life, someone making my Nana laugh until she cried. I miss those days.

Maybe just print your name next time?

7. On one of the mornings when I have to get up before 5 to get ready for work I nearly had a unique experience. When going to brush my teeth in my drowsy state the first thing I reached for to put on my toothbrush wasn’t the toothpaste. No, I grabbed my deodorant. I even popped the cap off of it so I was close to having a different sort of fresh mouth. However, nothing will top the time as a 5-6-year-old kid when my sister and I brushed our teeth with Preparation-H, the hemorrhoid cream. Yes, that happened. Hey, give us a break, the old tubes of Preparation-H look just like toothpaste to little kids.

8. One part laughing, one part shaking my head in sad amazement. There is a road in my town that was a part of drainage repairs over the last several months. It’s right in front of where I go to the gym. After all of the repairs were done the time came to repaint the double yellow lines that go down the middle of the road. I said ‘middle.’ In a stunning act of stupidity whoever was painting the lines had them running two-thirds over to one side. This means that you can fit a car and a half on one side of the road while on the other side, any vehicle that isn’t a Smart car is hanging over into the other lane. I have no clue how these people couldn’t figure out how to paint lines down the middle of the road but don’t worry I’m sure they are getting paid a lot to be that dumb.

9. I am a huge fan of retro commercials. The ones I grew up with from the 70s through the 90s are great. I even like ones slightly older. However, I find more recent commercials to be annoying or just plain stupid. One that I constantly hear on my Spotify app is both. Garden of Life probiotics might be the worst one yet. Talking about loving to poop is one thing, and this product helping you to poop is fine. I think it’s the way the woman in the ad gushes about just having pooped to some other woman like she’s 3 years old that just annoys me. It sounds like what a toddler would say to a parent with the child then hoping to get a toy or at least a cookie for pooping on the potty. So dumb.

10. I have found that feeling lost and feeling dehydrated are very similar. By the time you realize that you are either it is way too late and it will take a lot more work to get back to normal than it should. It’s just that you solve one easily by drinking lots of water. The other? I am still trying to figure out how to solve that one. 

Initial Impressions 2.0 #4: No DMs, Abandoned Shopping Carts, LED Headlights, etc

#4: No DMs

1. I rarely, if ever, accept invitations from people on LinkedIn. I have found out over the past few years that any ‘invite’ you accept is really an invite for them to blast your messages with services you don’t want and didn’t ask for. Just this week I felt bad and added 2 people and within 5 minutes I had messages about optimizing my YouTube channel. I should have known better.

2. Has anyone else noticed people leaving their shopping carts somewhere in the supermarket and then walking far away to grab something and bring it back to their cart? Do they think there’s a force field so that you can only bring your cart to certain areas? I have seen this too many times to count in the last year, it’s really weird.

Hey wait, don't forget your cart!

3. A weird occurrence that happens to me a lot is that I seem to choose the same places on Cape Cod to photograph at the same time of year. This is typically by accident where I’ll see photos of the same place I had just gone in my Facebook memories the same day or the following day. I guess I am a creature of habit without even trying.

I end up at this spot in Centerville, MA nearly every February

4. Getting tens of thousands of views on my blog monthly should be a great achievement. Too bad it’s 99% bots. How do I know this? Because even though my overall view count goes up the view count on any specific posts does not. There should be articles that have tons of views corresponding to all of the general views, right? Yay, thanks bots for making me feel almost successful.

5. Spring can’t come soon enough, the winter blues have taken hold. It’s only partly the weather though. It’s feeling like I’m working twice as hard to get half as far in my content/podcast career, it’s feeling far more isolated since Covid happened, and in the pursuit of my career, it’s growing tired of looking for the ‘right’ person, and the weather, okay it is the weather too.

6. Another business in the same building as my job apparently found a package meant for my boss in their warehouse this week. When was it delivered to the building? November 2022. Pretty much everything was a loss. I don’t know who gets a package anywhere and doesn’t check to make sure it’s theirs, some pretty stupid people there.

Sorry we misplaced your delivery for 15 months.

7. I am now of the age where getting a fancy new electric toothbrush is considered very exciting. I don’t need a luxury car, a super expensive smartphone, or anything like that. A chance to remove 100% more plaque is even better.

8. Since I am back in race training for the first time in nearly 7 years I am starting to have dreams of me running races. Unfortunately, most of the dreams involve me somehow getting lost on the running route. I am hoping this is not a sign of things to come. I don’t need a search party trying to find me like an old person who wandered away from the retirement home.

Race day premonitions?

9. LED headlights are the worst invention ever for vehicles. They literally blind anyone coming in the opposite direction. There has to be a happy medium where headlights are brighter and better but not so much that they put other drivers at risk for their lives.

10. After having a pretty blah day I was walking around Market Basket when I spotted a little girl of maybe 2 staring at me and smiling. I smiled and said hi but she got shy and her parents laughed. That moment instantly made my day 100% better. Thank you to them.

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In My Heart, In My Soul, In My Feelings

 “BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO LEAVES A MARK, NOT A SCAR.”(UNKNOWN)

    If you had told me the day I met her that she would still have a huge place in my heart and soul in 2022 I would have smiled and said ‘that’s a good thing.’ If you had then said that I would not have seen her face or heard her voice, in 16 years I would have wondered how both were possible.

    How can someone be a part of your life for 2 years yet leave an aura that still wraps snugly around your soul for so long after they have left your life?

    I guess timing and circumstances helped, but only in a small way. I had battled a pretty bad period of depression over the previous 18 months before she entered my world like a blazing supernova. When someone shows up and has the power to shake the chain of depression from around your heart you will forever be indebted to them. She took someone that was wounded and broken and made them feel like a complete human again.

    I think I knew she was going to end up being a major part of my life’s story from the start. I immediately began chronicling our relationship in a journal. I am so grateful to my younger self for giving me access to that period anytime I see fit. I have memories as vivid today as they were when they first happened. Maybe this is a reason why the moments are clear, her face pristine, and her voice soothing so long after all left my world.

    By our third date, I was out of my head in love with this girl. I kept having to pinch myself that she was real. She was everything I had ever wanted, and unlike anyone, I had ever met. We came from 2 different worlds, and different backgrounds, but we clicked. She had a gentle way of speaking that hid a fire that made me feel more alive than I can remember before or since.

    I am glad that I never took a moment with her for granted. Those moments were fleeting. There have been plenty of times over the years when I wondered aloud why I was given all I could want but only for a brief time. Maybe it was so that I knew that real love actually does exist. Maybe it was to give me someone to compare every single person I’ve met since.

    In the end, it was the distance that smothered our flame. She was merely passing through my world. Quite literally. Her real home was far away and she had just been in my area for the summer. I wanted to marry her. I wanted to move 2,000 miles to bridge the gap. I guess knowing that I was willing to go to those lengths for someone means something.

    So again I ask how can someone leave such a huge impact on me in such a short time. And why is she still such an important figure in my life even today?

    Yes, I believe that she was every bit of the once-in-a-lifetime type of person that I remember. However, I do believe that timing played a part. Maybe if I wasn’t so broken and beaten when we met I wouldn’t have had so high to climb. Or maybe she was the one beacon of light that I would use to sail my life toward forever after.

    I think another major factor is that once we parted ways she vanished. I was so busy soaking in every second of time with her that I have almost nothing physical to remind me of her. There are no photos of us. Only a couple of photos she took of me, or pictures I took with her standing beside me. The one big gift she got me I have lost. It’s what makes those journal entries mean even more.

    She has no social media presence and doesn’t have the same phone number, or the same address, so there was no way for me to find her. The mystery makes me go back to our relationship. I romanticize those good times and they grow more important the older I get and the more jaded about love I become.

    I have never gotten any sort of closure. I have never gotten the chance to tell her how important she was and how grateful I will always be to her for coming into my life when she did. But then I wonder if not getting closure keeps that flame burning. Not knowing anything about her presently is a curse but perhaps a blessing too.

    For me, there is always that far-off hope of a magical comeback. A last-second shot that wins the game. She might just be the Holly to my Michael for fans of The Office. She is the one who got away but the only one that I constantly keep looking for. There’s that small sliver of a chance that she and I are just taking the scenic route back to each other.

    I want the way she made me feel, even if I can never see her again. She remains the only person I’ve met that I would consider completely uprooting my life for. There are plenty of times I think that I’d give almost anything for one more day. But what would we be? Would we instantly be those kids in our 20s that didn’t expect each other but loved like nobody else existed? Would we be something better? Older and wiser and ready. Or would it be an unmitigated disaster where we have nothing to hold on to and those great memories get tainted?

    I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know. Maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. But I’ll always leave a light on for her. And who knows? Maybe someday she will come knocking.