My Dad once threatened to have our whole yard (about 2.5 acres) poured in concrete and painted green. I always gave it a laugh and moved on, but now that I’m responisble for mowing that same yard, I’m begining to think my old man was on to something!

In Alabama, we’ve had a very wet spring and early summer. That makes grass grow, but more importantly that makes it impossible to mow because it’s wet all the time. So the cycle begins… the grass is tall because its wet and I can’t mow… because it’s wet, the grass is growing taller and thicker.

Add to the mix that my lawnmower has a bad habit of leaving a nice streak of grass right down the middle of each round I make, essentially meaning that I have to mow twice. Otherwise my grass looks like it was cut by a mentally challenged 3rd grader on Red Bull and snickers.

Took me 3.5 hours to mow THE FRONT YARD on saturday. No trimming. No back yard. Just. the. front.

Today I finished up, and already I need to mow the front again.

Will it ever give up?

Not until I pave the yard and paint it green.

Not that it was that hard today, because for some reason I have just been in a BAD mood, but people can really make you have a bad day.

Why do people feel like they have the right to just randomly say things to you that they A) don’t know what they are talking about B) Don’t understand the situation or C) Have no relationship that gives them the right to get in your face?

We attended a football game at my alma mater tonight, and when our team had pretty well sealed the loss, we decided to leave early. It’s chilly, we have a 19 month old kid and because of the concrete bleechers my butt was numb.

Having a numb butt would even make Joel Osteen grumpy, and really.. who’s ever seen him when he wasn’t cheesing for the cameras?

Anyway, the only way out of the stands was to go BESIDE the band section. I get almost to the top and a lady starts making smart remarks to me about needing to show some respect etc, etc because I was “breaking rank” (she was saying I was going through the band section) I explained that after 6 years of marching band and 20 years of my family being in band, I pretty well knew the rules and I didn’t break them. Even if I did, I figure in 2 decades, I’ve probably earned a gimme.

I know that this kind of crap shouldn’t get to me. It’s just an ignorant redneck with an inflated sense of self-importance. It just sucks because I hated high school so badly to begin with, and if you take away the one thing I enjoyed about it (going to football games), why should I continue to show up?

The answer is: I shouldn’t, and I won’t. I’m closing that chapter of my life. In a few years maybe I’ll re-evaluate that position. For now, I realize exactly how wise I was to leave that place in my rear-view mirror 10 years ago and not look back.

Unless you A) Make minimum wage or B) Your boss comes by today to tell you about your new $.70/hour raise, I would like to wish you happy pay cut day!

This is the day that our wonderful government decided that all of us mean, selfish people who don’t make minimum wage just keep sticking it to these poor underpaid people and decided to take money from us. Don’t get me wrong, this is just one of the many ways our fine representatives have helped us out.

I’ll explain this principle again, and I am certain it won’t be the last time: When you increase the price it costs to make and sell goods, the prices you pay go up. Businesses will NOT take a loss because the minimum wage goes up. They pass that cost increase right on through on every cheeseburger, sack of potatoes or shirt you buy. This means I have less purchasing power for the dollar I make, and the people on minimum wage who we purport to help are back in the same situation within 6 months because they have to buy the same goods at the same prices as everyone else.

So, happy pay-cut day! I hope everyone enjoys it!

Ok, one of the bad things about stress:

When I’m stressed, I get this sickening worried feeling that I should be doing something or I have forgotten something important. The problem is, I can never put my finger on the problem.

I’m a stress magnet. People who are stressed walk by me, and I get stressed.

How does one go about fixing that?

I’m terrified. I hate this feeling.

I’m normally a confident person, and this vulnerable feeling sucks. I’m sort of cautiously confident, usually. I’m not even sure if that’s possible, but I think that’s the best description.

I don’t like being at the mercy of others. I don’t like to depend on the whim of someone else, and largely being employed is just that: at the mercy of someone else to make it work. I didn’t like having lab partners in school because they almost never held up their end of the deal. I think that carries over to my professional life. I tend to overwork myself because I don’t really trust anyone else to get it done. Ultimately, as long as I don’t sign my own paycheck, I’ve got that lab partner who might or might not show up with their half of the solar system.

I’m rambling, and I should go read and get some sleep, but I don’t know if I can sleep with this uneasy feeling.

I have trust issues. This much is clear.