What color are the trees in my world

SOMETIMES, you seen I have nagging worries about everything, the price of gas, what the hell is going to happen when I get old. These things never leave my mind for a moment and can some times be overwelming.

Stupid people on the other hand just go through life not worried about anything, mostly because they have no idea what is going on around them and in some cases in their own lives. So in that way I would like to not worry, and I can sometimes but I have force my self.

This is why I have always read the last page of a book or sought out the end of a movie or the resolution of a cliff hanger in a television show. I just can't take the pressure of worrying about the outcome. Speaking of such there was this silly show on in the mid seventies called Cliff Hanger that three separate stories that ran durring the hour and each week it would end with a cliff hanger. Well the show was cancelled before the last episode aired so we never found out if the chick became a vampire, but lucking for me the twenty some year mystery can finally be solved I found a website that sells the entire run of the show on dvd including the last episode that never aired in the United States. So finally one off the endless list of things that keep me up at night.

Stupid people believe that if they buy $100 worth of lotto tickets they'll have a better chance at winning than my $1 ticket. Obviously these people are to sharp in the math relm. Karen thinks I'm nuts for even "wasting" two four dollars a week on tickets but she won't be saying that when I win damn it. Of course until that unlikely event happens I'm the idiot I know. But at least I'm not spending more than four dollars that's something right?

Stupid people appear to be living beyond their means lately, which ordinarily would bother me but they're the assholes that are driving up the price of homes. I can't wait for this whole thing to fall back in on them. Just watch next time you're out in public at a department store or Best Buy or, and I can't believe this is happening but I've seen it eating fast food people are using their credit cards for everything. Which of course is because they can't afford their house and car payments on the money they make.

Now I'm all for credit but it's something you do foolishly in your twenties, maybe into your early thirties. Past that if you're still living on your credit cards then your an idiot. It took me years to pay off my debt which was larger than it should have been but not as bad as most, infact I'd still be chipping away at it if I hadn't have gotten laid off earlier this year. That gave me access to enough money to pay off all my outstanding debt with the exception of my Jeep. Again another off the list of things that kept me up at night. I can't tell you how good it feels to not owe so much money to so many undeserving people.

Stupid people just filed for bankruptsy every few years but the dipshit in the White house put an end to that recently. The new law makes it nearly impossible to erase debt even if you've got a good reason. Oh unless you're a big corporation then you can stll fuck everyone out of the money you owe them. I'm looking forward to what happens after the new law goes into effect, again the way I see people using their credit cards like it's free money is just insane.

This is what I see happening the housing market will stall and retreat some, the idiots with all the debt will now not only not be able to barrow more against their over valued huvles, they will have to pay back all the money they've already taken out since most lending institutions are not going to be too keen on hold paper on a house that isn't worth a quarter of what they've paid out. A fourclosure bonanza will insue further driving down the market closer to where it should be and there I'll be laughing my ass off at the people that end up moving back in with their parents.

maybe it's just me.

So it hit me recently that my twentith almost graduated from high school thing is next year. At least I hope it is. I passed on the ten year thing, why the hell would I want to see any of those people so soon. But you know it's been twenty years now and old wonds have healed, and I think I'm past all that and ready to move on... You're not buying any of this are you?

Alright so I'm interested in going to see how poorly everyone else has aged. I've kept in touch with so few of my fellow classmates. Not like any of them have been trying to break down my door trying to locate me either. Not like I'm that hard to find I'm alway in the top 5 when you google my handle. But apart from a modest weight gain I look the same as I did when I almost graduated back in 86, and from what I've seen from a few fellow classmates that remain local they have not aged too well. By the way I'm also counting on my new job at Edison to take care of a portion of the weight gain. But just in case how much is lipo again?

There are many differences between me and my fellow classmates. In the last twenty years I have done nothing that ages me such as marry or reproduce. Let me tell you that reproducing thing is hell especially on women. I certainly haven't taken too many things seriously in the past twenty years.

Once I realized that my career was going no where I re-evaluated that and all the grey hair that was showing up went away.

It will sure make catching up with anyone that asked easy. "So what have you been up to since high school?" Well remember what I was doing when you last saw me? Well that's pretty much what I'm doing now.

I really wasn't all that vested in high school anyway. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got out and I had a pretty good idea college was out of the question so I had a hard time aplying any effort. Plus I was really bored anyhow and since most of my friends at the time were five or more years older than me I had plenty of other things to do.

I was only 22 and 1/2 credits short to graduate with a whopping 1.56 gpa as I recall class position was 564 out of 700+ which means that many people did far shittier than I, that's scary. I did end up getting the GED and incase you are interested my lowest score on the test was a 54 in math, I'm not too sure of the scale but according to the paper work I got passing was in the 40's and the averages graduating high school senior scored 46 in each portion so I aced the shit out that test. When I took it they gave you six and half hours for the whole test I finished in three. Like I said "Damn I'm smooth."

I've often wondered what would have happened if I had the chance to go to college. But then reality kicks in and I realize there's no degree for cult deprogramming and hostage negociations my true passions. I did learn that from high school that if you're not interested in... wait let's clarify if I'm not that interested in the subject I'm just not going to do that well. Plus I lacked direction. I guess I could have gone after art but that got shot down, no body was going to pay for art center college of design. History was my other subject but there's no money in that. In case you're wondering I make more now that all three of my friends that have their PHd's. Life's funny that way. One of my friends from high school called it back then when he said the following. "I'm going to spend the next eight years of my life studying for a PHD and you're just going to stumble into a job and end up making more money than me." Damn I'm smooth. He called it, back then even I didn't believe it.

You know that's one of the main reasons I worry that some day my luck could run out. No matter how shitty life's been to me I've always gotten by and I'd really like that to continue if it's not too much trouble.

So given this time o' reflection twenty years on now. I'm doing okay. I'm starting a new job that hopefully will secure my later years. I have a roof over my head, the Jeep I've always wanted. Soon I will have my Rockford car, and I've got more dvd's that you can shake a stick at what ever the hell that means. So you know what? Yeah, damn I'm smooth.

Maybe it's just me.

Sometimes there are gaps here because I really don't pay too much attention to what I put in here after I've written it. So then I wonder if I'm repeating myself(like it matters) but then I end up feeling obligated to write something, of coarse when I really feel creative I'm not anywhere near a computer. Then of coarse there's the other thing, you know the fact that no ones really reading this anyway.

But today what came to mind was another in the long line of stories of my life that make me who I am today.

Growing up there wasn't much consistantcy in my life, which is why I think I tend to latch on to the few things that I have any long term memory of. Which explains why I was sad when the one house I spent the most of my youth growing up in burned down a couple of years ago, that of course is another story.

I have a fairly decent photographic memory, when I remember things from when I was younger I can replay them like a film in my head, funny how the bad memories are the most vivid. The one thing that was a constant for me growing up was my fathers car, more specifically one of his cars. I was born in April of 1968 and have some spotty memories beginning around six months old. If you don't believe me don't worry no body does. My father bought a 1969 GTO and I can always remember that car, even when I can't remember my own father. Strangely I have no memory of him at all before the age of seven or eight, I can remember everything else before those ages but not him. I can see his car pull up to the house but he never gets out, I can remember playing with my Volkswaggon stearing wheel in the back yard of our house off of Shoup while he worked on the car but can't see him doing it.

The car though was always there, for as long as I remember I wanted that car, by the time I was old enough to drive dad had lost interest in the car and it was pretty much just wasting away in front of the house, so when I got my license I asked for the keys and got them. By the way I had no idea how to drive a stick shift, I mean I knew the basic principles but had never tried up to that point, it apparently never crossed dad's mind either because he never thought of it either. So off I went, teaching my self how to drive stick driving from my fathers house to my mothers house.

Saddly though it was not ment to be. December 27th 1984 I was driving home from work on the Santa Susanna Pass Road when I did something that was really stupid, as I neared the bottom of the pass I decided to floor it knowing the road straightened out ahead. What I didn't know was someone was having a party just around the bend and a few of the drunker guest thought it would be a great idea to party in the middle of the street. I could embelish here and make up some great story on how I used my unparralled driving skill but still didn't have a chance, but let's face it I was 16 driving WAY beyond my limits so I paniced and slammed on the brakes. Just a tip here but slamming on the brakes at 80 mph is not the smartest thing I could have done. The car and I spun for about three hundred feet till we left the road into what was normally an empty field, but no not tonite it wasn't someone had parked a nice flat bed trailer there. I don't know how fast I was going when I hit it, but it was fast enough to bend the frame about two feet to the right and buckle the sheet metal all the way down the passenger side of the car. The seatbelt I was wearing broke, my glasses flew off and ended up in the back seat.

So now in an instant I have destroyed the one thing in my life I always wanted (I'm not counting a normal family as that was just a silly dream that could have never happened the car was a far more realistic goal), the crash wasn't the worst part, the fact that I knew most of the people I almost hit from school wasn't bad. What was bad was that I now had to call my father and tell him I just killed the car. That's a phone call that I will never and I mean NEVER forget. "Father". "Yes?" "I just wrecked the car." (long pause...................) "Where are you?" "Bottom of the Pass Road, across from Otto's." *click*. Now at this point I knew I was deadmeat.

I returned to the wreck and got chewed out by the the sherriff that showed up, and got some simpathy from the Hwy Patrol lady. Not too long later my father shows up, now you would assume that he would be worried at least somewhat about me as well as the car but no not my dad, as he got out I started to walk over to him. He walked right past me with his flash light circled the car walked back to me with his light in my eyes and said, "look what you did to my car." The hwy patrol lady looked at me and said, "Oh you're dead."

But the significance of that moment for me was at that moment I knew that any good feelings that my father had for me were now gone. I don't think I ever felt so bad in my life as I did at that moment. After all we all grow up trying to please our parents and that was never an easy task for me, and now I had done something that I could never take back. In one stupid act I had lost my car and my father.

This was just two days after I had been told I ruined Christmas by the way and just three days before I was told what a screw up I was, 1984 didn't end on a high note for me. But at least I now knew where I stood in the sceme of things, the car was more important than I was and let me tell you just how worthless it made me feel to know that.

Strangely as I grow older and less tolerent for children I think back to how old I was when my father was my age and realize I'm feeling the same thing he did and it just kills me that much more.

I grew up wishing I was dead way too much and that's no way to live, people please if you do one thing in your life make sure you really want to reproduce because I can never express the sadness I felt being unwanted.

Well there wasn't that fun and uplifting? If there's a bright side to this I somehow managed to grow up with out ending up in prison, drinking or taking drugs. I think I turned out okay.

Maybe it's just me.