The Day I Finally Lost It...

This particular post has a soundtrack. For the full experience, please listen to this in the background while reading. Jenny, I know you're sick of 311, but even you. ;)

311 - Unity

You know those videos online of those office workers going completely berserk and beating up coworkers or smashing their computers and printers?

Well, that was me today.

Almost.

The other day my sweet wife told me that she really wants me to find a job that comes more naturally to me. She knows better than anyone how poorly I fit into this office environment. She knows I should be outside, getting dirty and working with my hands or something along those lines.

Today, sitting at my desk I had the closest thing to a panic attack I think I've ever felt. I have never been claustrophobic but I could feel the walls of that cubicle actually closing around me.

I had to run, to escape.

Considering my lack of other gainful employment, not to mention the benefits and insurance associated with my current position, I thought it best to simply grab my iPod and keys and walk away for a while, rather than just up and quit my job.

I know it probably sounds a little crazy, but I just ran. I mean, I bolted down the stairs three at a time and as soon as I was outside I just sprinted away from the office. My legs couldn't carry me fast enough.

Within less than a minute I was frantically unlocking my car and before long I was screeching tires out of the parking lot and practically rallying that little Civic toward the closest hill I could find.

I rolled the windows down and cranked the music. I breathed deeply of the fresh air and the farther away I got from my desk, the calmer I became.

Before long I was in the Avenues, east of downtown Salt Lake. I kept climbing, looking for an open road, but instead found a large church parking lot next to a park.

I turned my iPod as loud as it would go and ripped my shirt off as fast as I could. I popped the trunk and clawed aside the tool box and tire iron to get my longboard out.

With "Unity" pumping into my ears, I set off down the first slope on the north side of the parking lot. Immediately I could feel the breeze over my skin and scalp. The grin that peeled apart my lips still hasn't left my face.

It has been a while since I hopped on the board, and my first few pumps were a little awkward and choppy, but before long the rhythm smoothed itself out and I was carving down toward the road. I jumped off the board and picked it up so I could run back up to the top of the parking lot. During my second run I could hear a faint shouting through my music. I turned and saw a man in a shirt and tie standing at the open door of the church.

"You can't do that here!!" he shouted, apparently for the second or third time.

"Sorry," I said, and put my ear bud back in before rolling down to the far side of the parking lot. I picked up my board again and this time ran across the grass to the sidewalk track around the adjacent park.

The grin on my face widened at the "CLACK-CLUNK" sound of my wheels passing over the sidewalk cracks. I crouched as the hill began to slope and the clacks and clunks closed together as my speed increased.

Ahead of me the sidewalk took a sharp turn to the left around the baseball diamond. I was already getting a speed wobble and wasn't sure I'd be able to hang onto the turn. Heelside turns are not my strength on the longboard.

I slid my lead foot forward to even out the wobble and bore down on my heels as the turn approached. I drove downward with my quads and laughed out loud as the sidewalk brushed the fingertips of my left hand. My rear wheels began to break away from the concrete and I was sure I had lost it, but before I knew it I had pulled out of the turn and stood up. I was flying.

Then, a new obstacle arose on the horizon. A woman lying on the grass reading a book. Good for her. And, an elderly man walking a dog toward me on the sidewalk. There was no way I would be able to stop in time, so I did the next best thing and leaned back so I could ease the front left wheel of my board onto the grass. I made it maybe 10 or 15 feet before friction overtook speed and that wheel sunk into the sod. They must have watered last night.

Time stopped and I was airborne. Still wearing my dress pants and work ID badge, I watched in slow motion as the ground passed beneath me. I wrapped my left arm around my waist and began rotating before connecting with the earth. Favoring my left side turned out to be a bad idea. My right shoulder has been sore lately, but I doubt sliding on it would have hurt as much as sliding on my new tattoo did.

And did I slide.

I was laughing hysterically, feeling more alive than I have since my bungee jump. Based on where my board was when I stood up, I must have flown/slid at least 30 feet. My entire left side, from my bare shoulder to the ankle of my dress pants, was stained in green. The stinging in my ribs just added to the euphoria.

I collected my board and did one more run through the church parking lot before tossing it back into the trunk and driving back to work. I could feel the sweat evaporating on my back and chest and the tingle of the grass still clung to my side.

Sitting back at my desk, the cubicle walls don't seem so small anymore. The pile of processed junk food on the team cabinet no longer made me angry. Colors seemed brighter. Water tasted fresher.

It only took about 30 minutes to reclaim my life this morning, and I'm so glad I did. Whether my reaction was a step back toward sanity or farther from it... I don't even know. The funny thing is; I don't really give a shit.

Be The Fat Girl of the Bunch

I hate to double-dip my blog day, but this is something I've had on my mind lately.

We often talk about "body image" these days. In reality, we just mean "self esteem" but since that is so directly tied to your figure in this culture, the two have unfortunately been meshed into one. Body fat percentage seems to directly correlate with self worth.

I've been trying hard this summer to get into shape. I do push-ups and pull-ups every day at work. I do dips every chance I get. I work out on the Bowflex at home and do P90-X with Jenny whenever I can muster the energy - though she is FAR more consistent than I am.

At my work, there is a steady barrage of crappy food. Every week someone brings in pastries or candy, and that is on the schedule. Aside from the Wednesday Treat Day, there are also constant pot lucks and company-wide "bonuses" like root beer floats, pizza, donuts... you name it. It is amazing that a company with the most sedentary employees would be so eager to pack them full of empty calories.

Not wanting to die of a heart attack by 40, or accidentally crush/disgust my wife with an obese and flabby figure, I almost always pass on these company treats. In fact, it has gotten to the point where my coworkers will actually make fun of me for not eating the ice cream bars they pass around. They have competitions to see who can down the most, and then tell me I'm being a "girl" because I won't have one. They laugh at me when I bring in a bunch of carrots for lunch.

The joke's on them though, because when my Wednesday rolls around and I have to bring treats, those bastards are stuck with eating fruit or nothing at all.

The other day our systems were down so the managers sent us to a movie. Before the movie started, there was some issue with the projector and one of the guys said, "have Dan go up there and knock some heads around!"

Then, when some teenage guys in front of us started to get rowdy, another one said, "maybe we can have Dan go over and beat them up!"

"Yeah, Dan, at least go scare them!"

"Scare them?" These same guys who give me crap for eating vegetables instead of twinkies treat me like some kind of mercenary. What is that?

I suppose it is "rare" for those in my office to hit the weights. Most cubicle drones succumb to the overwhelming lethargy and simply let go of themselves - chalking it all up to "the job" as if it is completely out of their control.

I'm not writing all of this because I feel like there is something exceptional about my attitude. I just think it is a strange phenomenon. It seems like we adjust our personal image for our setting. For example, while I might feel pretty good at my office just by being under 300 pounds, when I go work out on the Air Force base with Josh I feel like a weakling because I can't bench 400. Anything over about 5% body fat there is practically obese, considering the abundance of gymrats and muscleheads.

Anyway. Not exactly sure where I'm headed with this, but I guess what I'm realizing is that it is a bad idea to compare yourself to anyone if it is going to change your own body image - in a good or a bad way. Focus on your own progress and work on achieving your own personal goals. But, if the group you surround yourself with gives you the inclination to either keep pushing weights or keep slamming the nachos, the former is probably the healthier option.

Be the fatty of your group.

Let Them Build Forts

I haven't been the best dad this week. Despite my efforts to be kind and patient, I have snapped at my kids more than once. Today I will bring home ice cream, and do my best to apologize while they are in their freshly-bribed sugary haze.

It was brisk outside this morning. I had to defrost my back window and even run the heater on the way to work. Summer is winding down.

I am listening to "Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey" by the one and only Chuck Palahniuk again. In the book he talks about chewing road tar. I googled it to see if people really did that, and stumbled upon this article:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_01met.ART.West.Edition1.4601573.html

I loved this article, and it makes me realize something else about the type of dad I have been. I can't say whether it is good or bad, but I am very protective of my girls. Perhaps overly so.

It made me ask myself the question, "If they were two boys, would I be raising them differently?" and the honest answer was a resounding, "hell yes!"

I don't think that is very fair to them, but I can't help but treating them like little princesses and wanting to pad the world around them. If they were boys, I would be telling them how much chicks dig scars and trying to toughen them up.

I started thinking about the world that we live in and wondering how necessary my protection really is. I started searching around online for statistics about crime during the last 30 years, and to my great surprise, violent crime rates were at their very peak during the late 80's and early 90's - just when I was running around the neighborhood.

Granted, at the time I was living in Centerville, Utah and spent my days catching grasshoppers and tadpoles. It wasn't exactly Detroit.

But are my daughters really at any more of a risk now than I was then, or Jenny was for that matter? We may be more aware these days of local sex offenders and cyber predators, but is that sick portion of our population really any more prevalent than they were 20 years ago?

I'm sure our parents wondered the same thing. They grew up in the 50's and 60's and probably didn't know what to make of our generation of Nintendo's and Walkman's.

I want my kids to be able to roam the neighborhood and have adventures. I want them to have a close group of friends and spend long summer nights begging for an extended curfew so they can play kick the can or capture the flag.

But with those desires for their childhood experiences comes an underlying fear. I was talking to one of my coworkers the other day. He has three kids and the oldest is his 8-year-old daughter. He and his wife have set a very strict rule of no sleepovers - ever. At first, I thought that was total overkill, but then he told me why they had come to that decision.

Last year his daughter had been good friends with another girl on the other side of the block. This other girl's father was a religious and local pillar of the community. The girls would spend all afternoon at their house, jumping on the tramp and playing games. This coworker told me, "If my daughter had asked me to have a sleepover at their house, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I would have just told her to have fun."

A few months ago, that other father who was so liked and respected in their community and church was arrested and a giant stash of child pornography was found in the basement of his home. When this coworker told me about this, his face went pale.

I could tell that he felt guilty for having ever put his daughter in that situation. It was like he felt he should have possessed some sixth sense to weed out the creeps and sickos. I'm sure I would feel the same way. Unfortunately, these days it seems like more of a matter of luck than a matter of parental diligence. Nothing happened to his daughter, but anyone hearing the story probably gets the chills because you recognize how near to the viper's den she had actually been playing.

As parents, we are constantly surprised by our children. We are amazed by how quickly a two-year-old can escape from your sight and then use that split second to cut their foot or burn their hand. Things like that make us feel like massive failures.

Then again, other times you will wake up in the morning and find your five-year-old pouring a bowl of cereal for her little sister, and you can't help but want to trust them completely.

I hoped writing this would help me sort out the dilemma in my own head, but it hasn't. I guess all you can do is just be as diligent as possible. Keep track of your kids, but don't be that killjoy parent who is a pain in everyone's ass. I wish there was some easy-to-find line between neglectful and sheltering on the parenting style spectrum, but there isn't.

Maybe next year I will have them skip soccer and put them in karate instead...

"What?! You have a crush on him? Me too!!"

Watching Dave put on his glasses and do a little dance around the stage was probably the highlight of the concert. After serious disappointment last year due to a canceled show; Dave and his Matthews Band may have made us wait longer than we'd have liked to but they more than made up for it.

The show last night was incredible.

After almost 7 years together, Jenny finally fessed-up to having feelings for another man. Luckily, I was also crushing pretty hard myself. Not falling in love with Dave Matthews is like not falling in love with a puppy in a pair of sunglasses.

In all seriousness, the level of musicality brought to table by each member of the band is astonishing. And yet, despite all of the individual talent, they manage to mesh perfectly without any one showboater trying to put himself above the music. Seeing them play live is something everyone should do at least once. I mean it. Even if you aren't a big fan of their music on the radio or not much of a concert person. You will still enjoy it.

I also wanted to toss in a couple of videos. The first one is just to give you an idea of the energy the band brings to live shows. Plus it is a "fun" song they only play live - as far as I know. It is an "adults only" theme, so heads up there! Oh, and be sure you are paying attention to the little dance at about 3:45 minutes in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUGhuzsLN_E&feature=related

The second one is such a beautiful example of the voice and lyrical genius that took Dave from waiting tables and acting part time to forming one of the most influential bands of our generation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl38_ypN0yM

And to think I paid them to do this to me...

So, the other day some friends of ours invited us to come swim and hot tub with them. You know how swim shorts tend to billow in a hot tub? Well, they started giving me a hard time about my tan line and fish white thighs. I spend most of the summer shirtless, but rarely have an opportunity to sunbathe the way they do on those beaches in the south of France.

To avoid future taunting, I thought I would spend the $10 for a session in one of those nicer tanning beds. You know, the ones that supposedly don't have the "burning" rays?

Always trying to get the most bang for my buck, I said "sure!" when the lady asked me if I wanted to go the full 20 minutes.

Well, it worked. I no longer have a pasty white section in the middle of my body where my shorts usually are. The lines are still there, but now instead of going from brown to bright white, they go from brown to lobster red.

Why, oh why do I do these things that I do?