Last night I joined some buddies from work for a couple of beers at the uptown. Me and my old assistant started gambling on pool. We were both raised with pool table in our homes so we both pretty good and evenly matched. Unfortunately he won the best of three and I now owe him a lunch. We the hung out with a bunch of married women that were playing pool at the table next to ours and watched the Intern or whatever that Donald Trump show is called. It’s terrible. What a waist of air time. These girls were all into it though. Afterwards I went to the January replacement bar and some old drunk guy at the end of the bar but me PBR’s cause I was able to bullshit with him about baseball. I had no idea what I was talking about but he bought it all (my bullshit and the beer). Now I know how you ladies feel.

Tonight I have to decide if I’m gong to go up to Boulder to see Hemophiliac or see Father Jones for the last time. I’m thinking I might go up to the show cause I got to eat lunch with Father Jones today and his moving away is inevitable no matter how many last times I get to see him. Depending on when the show is over I might be able to fly back down to Denver and see him. We’ll see.

Friday I worked a little late into the evening and spent a quiet evening at home. I watched How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days. It was cute, laughable, fodder to wind down my week. I can appreciate an occasional fun chick flick despite how generally contrived and predictable it is.

I was up (relatively) early on Saturday and headed up into the mountains for a day of skiing. I met up with A.P. and his wife and the two kids. We all ate an early lunch together and then went out to the carpet lift to play with the kids and tech them how to ski. The boy pooped out before he even got his skis on but the girls were gung hoe and couldn’t get enough. It was great getting a four year old and a six year old interested in the sport. Both and A.P. agreed the whole secret to getting the youngsters started is just making sure they stay warm and are having fun. Most of the skills and athlectics come later. At first you just have make sure they want to come back. Afterward me and A.P. went to take some turns on our own. We got about four additional hours skiing the ‘S’ lift at Copper Mountain. Traditionally, one of our favorite areas. It snowed most of the afternoon and this made for some good skiing but it also made traffic a bear. It took me two hours to get up to the mountain in the morning and three hours to get back. It was a long day. When I got back into town I went out and grabbed a couple beers. I ended up staying out later than I expected, drunk dialing Jami for old times sake, and waking up on my couch at six in the morning.

I spent most of Sunday running errands, grocery shopping, watching TV, and reading. I was a pleasant weekend for a change.

This has been one of my more action packed and fun weekends in a while.

On Saturday I woke real late having not got in bed till 4:00 am that morning and then tossing and turning till 5:00, or at least that was the last time I looked at the clock. At around two I called Jami and then my brother. He and a bunch of friends were going to a concert that night. This was good news as I was fearful of spending St. Valentine’s night by myself. At around 4:00 pm I headed out and bought a couple tickets to the Moe./Galactic show at the Fillmore. I then went over to my brother’s to party it up for a while before the show. There was about ten or so of us, or so, that ended up heading to the show. We only caught about half of moe.’s set, which didn’t bother me cause I’ve seen them a bunch of times already. And actually they really didn’t play anything that surprising or amazing. Galactic was sweet though. They are such a fun funky band and I was boogying down almost the entire night.

I spent the majority of Sunday recovering from the night before. I spent the afternoon laying on the couch, getting pizza and sodas for everyone at my brothers and walking Michelle’s dog around. The evening was spent the same way, minus the sodas, pizza, and dog.

I had Monday off due to president’s day so me and Lama and his girl headed up to Winter Park for another day of skiing. The snow was good but not spectacular. Lamma is a great skier and T did a wonderful job keeping up on her snowboard. She did exceptionally well considering we didn’t ski anything but the bumps all day. This made for a challenging day but was tons of fun. They’re a great couple to hang around with and we all had a blast.

On Friday I went over to Uncle Squiggley’s. It was a going away party for the Jones family. They’re moving to Atlanta. Mother Jones leaves today with the baby, Father Jones leaves at the beginning of March. I don’t think they’ll be coming back for anything more than visits. Mother Jones has tons of friends and family in the Atlanta area and Father Jones has a brother and other friends out there. I’ve known father Jones for around 15 years now (give or take a year or two) and he has always been a dear, dear friend to me. The point is I’ll miss him terribly. He was the first person I called when Sabrina dumped my ass. We have been roommates and confidantes. The two of us have shared more funny and tragic moments than either of us would ever be able to recall. He has brought me to the emergency room on more than one occasion. I’ve saved him from hypothermia. Maybe someday a few of these crazy, wonderful, weird memories will make it here. Chances are they won’t. The point is I’ll miss him terribly. A lot of people showed up to Squiggley’s to say goodbye. A handful of us stayed up till the wee hours shooting the shit and sharing stories and memories. It never really got weepy and sentimental, which is surprising considering the hour and amount of alcohol consumed by the others. However, Father Jones will be staying the night sometime in the next couple of weeks so we can have a whole evening to reminisce, we are both prepared for it to be enjoyable and terrible. So I guess the point is: I’ll miss him terribly.

Well it turns out I didn’t miss out on the Sushi last night. I met my brother and a bunch of friends and some new people, who seemed to ignore me most of the night (thought I admitedly was not “on” at all and really didn’t have much interest. But it seems today, for some reason, I feel some sort of self pity and strange guilt about it all this morning) at the hippy bar. Everyone who went out to dinner brought there left overs into the bar for me. I was so hungry that I just scarfed it down and didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy it. Plus I was feeling sort of self conscious about eating such decadent food in that bar. Some girl offered to take us all to Cervante’s Ballroom to see a band called The Motet. They were just OK. A six piece instrumental funk band. I danced quite a bit which was unusual for me, but it wasn’t really worth the $12 cover. Much of the night I spent talking to some cool strangers upstairs and dancing in this little covered area where this guy was painting a large portrait of the band. Afterward we all came back to my brothers and hung out for a while, it seemed wierd and I was easily annoyed for some reason when we got back. For the most part it was a pretty enjoyable evening though. I think I’ll spend the rest of the day hanging around at my brothers and then maybe watching the second lord of the rings movie so I can go see the third one at the theatre.
Read the rest of this entry »

I guess it’s only been a few days since I’ve written but it seems like forever. I’ve been swamped at work but my deadline just passed 20 minutes ago. I pretty much got everything done on time. On Tuesday I took a three-hour beer lunch with Sabrina. Her birthday was on Monday. She’s been skipping work all week and called once more today to see if we could do it again. Unfortunately, I had already eaten a couple of bowls of chili somebody brought into my office and had a deadline looming at the end of the day. It was good to see her again though. It had been a few months and I think we both forgot how similar we are and how well we get along. I disclosed some of what’s been happing with me lately although I must admit it recently hasn’t been much. After lunch Jami called and I spent an hour of work just chattin it up with her. It seemed like a long time since I’ve talked to Jami too so it was a nice afternoon. Unfortunately all my gabbing meant I stayed at the office till about 9:00 PM.

Last night I went over to my dad’s new house, which he just recently bought with his fiancé, with my brother and Pandy. The new place is huge. And nice in a very suburban sort of way. Definitely not my style, but fits him to a tee. It’s also kinda far away. Well, it’s farther away than his old house. We had a big dinner over there, decorated the christmas tree, and hung up lights. His fiancé is getting more used us and beginning to come out of her shell a little bit. We were cracking jokes all night about hanging my blue balls on the christmas tree, how the angel stays on top, and fiberoptics. I think this loosened her up a bit. Anyway, it was a great time. It’s been kind of nice cause I’ve been so busy recently that the holiday season has been flying by without me getting a chance to reflect on how depressing it can all be.

This is my busy time of the year for work. And it’s really busy. Blech. Almost through though. Over this past weekend I headed up the Rod’s cabin just outside of Fairplay. I left on Saturday morning. It’s a long drive and a windy town but it’s worth it for a relaxing weekend. There were 11 of my friends up there lazing around for the weekend. We were all slippers and sweatpants and comfy sweaters. I started out my afternoon in the mountains with a quick nap, really, the only way to start off a lazy weekend. I the laid around and read my book, watched TV, and then interspersed that fun with playful bouts involving my friends one-year-old and one-and-a-half-year old daughters who are a complete joy now that they have developed some personality. A baby is just a baby until the personality kicks in - then the fun begins.

Later in the evening we all gathered around the dining table and ate a enormous spaghetti dinner, drank wine, had tons of laughs, drank beer (somehow, over the two nights, the twelve of us were able to drink an entire keg. Yeah, we got problems), took pictures, and played mexican train and uno attack, which Father Jones somehow turned into pornography. Of course, Father Jones can turn a BBC special about Mother Theresa into pornography easier than he can undo a bra clasp, so this uno incident came as no surprise to anyone.

Later in the evening I took the telescope out to the front porch. Being hidden away in the mountains, with little light pollution, the cabin provides some great star gazing. Because I have been the biggest fan of Jack Horkheimer (keep looking up) since I was a teenager, I knew how to locate Saturn and that it would be at it’s best right now. I had never seen Saturn and it’s rings in the flesh so I was pretty awestruck and excited when I saw it through the telescope. And I felt kinda proud that it was something that I could do on my own. I actually started to shake a bit and ran in to tell everyone they gotta come see this. Only about half the people got up to see it, but those that did were just as excited as I was and we couldn’t stop talking about the planets and Stephen Hawkins wheelchair for a while afterward.

At some point in the evening I crashed out. I guess I feel asleep before the beer was gone, and before the Indian leg wresting and basement basketball tournament ever got started. I’m glad though, cause the kiddies were rise and shiney at 7:30. Ouch. I don’t even get up that early on workdays. I lazed around and catnapped and watched football and ate leftovers for about six hours before finally peeling myself off the couch and heading back into the city. Thanks for the stay Rod and Ting, I had a blast.

As I have been expecting for sometime, I have confirmed that I have fallen out of the loop with my friends. Last night Father Jones called me up telling me that he had a hall pass from his wife and I should join him for beers. I wasn’t much in the mood but it’s rare that I actually get invited to come out and meet for drinks with my friends (particularly those who have a wife and kids) so I took him up on the offer. I met Father Jones and Squiggley at The Lazy Dog. It was there that I learned that Mr. Jones is definitely moving to Atlanta in March, that Squiggley has been out of work for almost two weeks, and that Mrs. Freedom lost her job too (she was actually a the bar by chance, having a going away party with coworkers). And I swear I was the last to find out that Dan had a bun in the oven and another friend had two. So, I realized that I really do have to start keeping in touch more often. Some of it’s my fault (probably more than I’d care to admit) and it kind of sucks. Have I become way too independent? I’ll have to examine this. Fortunately this weekend I’ll get a chance to see all these people and bitch at them about not keeping me informed.

Also, I’ve recently discovered that there is shit that I write here that can cause problems in my real life relationships. It’s a sucky realization, but is probably something that every person who does this sort of thing (writes down there personal shit that is) runs across at some point. I definitely have a better understanding of how having a blog can complicate my life.

They took care of me this weekend.

The Lebers and I went out for drinks. We sat at the bar the entire time. No pool, no dancing, no pinball, no shuffleboard. Mostly just good conversation. Not exciting but fun, and more than that, I needed it. I split myself among white russians and gin & tonics glad that my stomach has an iron constitution. We stayed till 12:00 then I trolled the local haunt, talked to a too drunk girl about Steven King being sick. Wouldn’t be cool if he died in some super-scary (but painless) way, like eaten from the inside out by anesthetizing worms with fangs. And then went home.

The next day I went to go see the Lebers new house. It’s beautiful. Huge. Hip. And has a hottub. I’m jealous. They soothed my green monster with bowls of cheese dip, all the bloody mary’s and beer I wanted and a large screen TV playing local football and hockey all day. Later Mr. Leber made turkey soup for everyone. I seriously can’t remember the last time one of my friends (excluding family) have invited me over to their home for dinner without it being some sort of party or occasion. That hurts to think about, some I’m greatful for days like these. Tho, I can’t think of the last time I’ve done it for one of my friends either.

I’ve mostly just been trying to keep myself busy. Working late, running a few errands, working on this site. Blah, blah, blah. I just don’t want to go back to my apartment every night with nothing to do. I don’t want to drink cause it makes me sad. I should clean but I hate it. I returned my costume the other night. They said that Jami, Soph and myself were the only ones in our group who didn’t have an issue (ie. bad behavior, too drunk, lost costume) at the holloween party. We probably won’t be invited back there again next year. I’m glad. I must be gettin old. I specifically asked about Jami cause apparently she was yelling at a cop during some point in the evening. I’ve been staying up till at least 12:00 every night reading over the past week. I’ve almost fallen asleep with the light on a couple of times. I’m doing great at work but need to do better. I’ve got plans to go into the mountains this weekend. I discovered 10 new channels on my cable last night, including the commedy channel, the travel channel, court tv, and another spanish speaking one. I can’t remember what the other ones were. I’ve finished all the leftovers from last weeks indulgances.

After I got off of work yesterday I went over to Govorners Park. I’m not a huge fan of this place cause it seems to have such a yuppyish afterwork type crowd (so…what kind of car do you drive?) but I don’t mind it, it can be fun sometimes and the beers are huge. I met a few friends there and watched the cubbies lose. I had a few drinks and and a plate full of cocnut shrimp (mmmm come here my little shrimpy and let me eat you) with coleslaw that was turbo good (you know who you are) but damn expensive. Fortunately my beer was pretty much paid for cause Leber was trying to get his wife to stop drinking and so he gave me her beer everytime she ordered a 2-for-1. That worked out great. Of course it sucked when I had to wake up early this morning for a meeting out by the airport. Mel offered me the key to her condo up in Grandby for when Jami is out here. Her and Leber were really intent (=drunk) on me taking her up there while shes in town which was really nice of them. We’ll see if we have the time or inclanation when she gets here.

Some of girls at the bar told me it’s nearly impossible to find a man that is worth keeping around. I wasn’t surpised to hear this.

Yesterday I got all excited because my landlord called me at work to tell me I had a FedEx package that had been sitting in her office for the last week. All day I was dreaming about what might have been in it and who may have sent it to me. When I opened it up, it turned out that is was just a letter from Fidelity Investments telling me I better put money into my leveraged brokerage account or they were going to liquidate some of my securities. That was a bit of a let down.

Last night I went to sleep kind of early. Which is surprising because pretty much all day I didn’t leave the apartment let alone the couch. I watched some TV and parts of a couple of movies on TV. I cleaned up a little bit. I watched all of The Good Girl, in which Jennifer Aniston gives a surprisingly good performance. Actually, come to think of it, it’s the only time I’ve seen her act. I took a couple of naps throughout the afternoon and never even bothered showering. I slept in on Sunday morning.

I finished off Saturday late in the evening (early in the morning) with a soft crash into my pillow after skipping my usual cigarette on the way home. It was 3:30 in the morning. The bartender at one of my local haunts allowed me and three other people to stay afterhours cause for some dumb reason we weren’t through partying yet. The bartender locked the doors at 2:00 after kicking everyone else out of the bar. As he was kicking everyone out, I turned to the girls next to me and asked if they thought we’d be staying after they closed. They simply shrugged their shoulders. They had arrived about an hour after I did and made a direct, no-fucking-around, declaration that they were intent on getting full-on drunk while there. I was well into my bourbon and coke having arrived about an hour before they did. I went there alone only expecting only a nightcapper. This is because I had just gotten done watching the improv group, Impulse Theatre, down in LoDo. We went there for Kaths birthday. It was really funny and definitely worth my $15. I would certainly recommend it to anyone up for a lighthearted evening. Because I met my friends at the bar above the theatre for drinks before the show I went and ate dinner on my own in advance.

Before that I had been spending the evening at the 15th street tavern. A place I’ve begun to like more and more. I was there with my brother and a handful of his friends just trying to keep ourselves busy before they left for a party and I went to the comedy thing. Previously we had occupied our time walking around 16th street and hanging out at my brothers house. I arrived at my brothers after having visited Beech just before lunch. I interrupted Beech’s housecleaning and we talked about moving and house buying. It happens that he lives two houses down from a guy that was supposed to give me baseball tickets for that afternoon, unfortunately the tickets were for the previous week. Trying to get those tickets was one of the first things I had done on Saturday after watching a little bit if TV in the morning.

Friday night I umpired one of our league’s kickball games. I was a lot of fun even though I really had no idea what I was doing. Or maybe that was the reason it was fun. Before that we played our game. We lost again, we haven’t won a game yet. I think we might be having too much fun.

It was a nice long weekend. It started off on Friday by heading into the Rocky Mountains to stay at my friends place where we played Nintendo (or something), drank beer, ate pizza, played uno, drank more beer, and joked around with each other till late in the evening.

I skipped out on work on Friday, which made for a much longer weekend. We had to wake up early in order to make it to golf in time. We played Pole Creek which was an absolutely beautiful course. It’s weird how much golf I’ve played this summer, I think it has more to do with the number of weddings I’ve attended and less to do with me turning into some sort of yuppie. It was a pretty hilly course, and we soon learned that if you put the cart into neutral going down hills, a lot of speed could be gained. This resulted in one 360 and another near-rollover on a wet cart path. I also made an ass out of myself by walking into a cart on my way to the woods to pee. After golf we went to the top of Winter Park Resort for Leber’s wedding rehearsal. After the rehearsal it was down to the Gasthaus Eichler were I consumed a lot of Rindsrolladen and wine. Leber got me the coolest day pack that is super-comfortable and has tons of pockets for everything. It was nice that he personalized all of our groomsman gifts. We finished off the night with a bunch of beer and a few games of Mexican Train before turning in.

I slept in on Saturday and got my rest for the wedding day. In the morning I sat around and watched TV and Katy fixed us sandwiches. At around 1:00 I rolled on down to the bar to meet Leber for a beer and to calm his nerves. One of the better obligatory jobs of the best man.

The wedding was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We got real lucky with the weather as it rained all day before the wedding and off and on for the remainder of the night. The wedding was short and sweet, the way I like it. I didn’t lose or forget the rings. The vows were nice too. The minister was different. She cussed a lot (not during the ceremony) and drank a lot of wine. My dad drove her down the mountain and said she stole some wine and cussed the whole way down.

My toast went great. I was really fretting about it before but it turned out really good. A lot of people were crying by the end of it but it was really funny too. I had two professional writers come up to me and say it was the best that they ever heard. And the DJ said he’s sees hundreds of them a year and mine was probably in the top three he heard. I was getting compliments on my toast all night long. Nobody complimented me on how good I looked.

The night commenced with a ton of drinking and general debauchery. You know its a good night when somebody else finds your shoes at the hot tub the next morning and the last guy you talked to at the bar was unable to make words with the goblygook that was coming out of his mouth.

On Sunday I came home and spent most of the day driving or laying on the couch.

Monday I went to the Taste Of Colorado fair for lunch and to walk around and look at booths and stuff. I then spent most of my evening cleaning my house and tidying up. Overall it was a great weekend.

Late last night I went outside to have a cigarette. Around the corner from the entrance of my apartment building there are a couple of benches that sit underneith a large tree that provides protection from the sun, rain and stars. I sat on one of these benches and stared into the street. From out of nowhere (in fact thinking back upon it, it seems he just sort of appeared) comes a skinny, older, man with a gap in his two front teeth, a startched white oxford, shiny black shoes, and a nice hat. He asked me if I would sell him acouple of ciggs. Of course I abliged. He sat down on the other bench. We both lit our smokes off the same match and he pulled the filter out of his. He told me about his brother and sister, his mom with alzhiemers, his relationship with god, the fist time he got laid, his job and how he got it, who he appreciates and why. He told me his name was Greg but all his fellas call him Magic. I told him my name.
Read the rest of this entry »

I need to get a move on. It starts tonight. I’m really gonna get shit done. No really.

On Friday I went out to a local bar because I had some tokens for free beer and I was just gonna sit at the bar for an hour and write my toast for Lebers wedding. I got a bit written then started talking to this guy who sat down next to me. He got sacked that day and was looking to get drunk and yell at whoever would listen. He was a pretty funny guy though and was entertaining for a while. We played foosball untill he got so drunk I wasn’t able to understand him any longer. I then sat at the bar for an hour while this girl used me to keep other guys from hitting her. I’m as sexually threatening as your grandma. I also got a late night phone call that made my head swim in warm fuzzys and knotted my sheets with reeling.

I woke up early on Saturday and went over to A.P.’s. We fixed early morning bloody mary’s and waited for some other friends to show up. I never ate dinner on Friday so I never really sobered up. We then went and played in the BDA tournament. I played all right. Much better than last time. I really think a good buzz and a scramble does wonders for my game. After the tournament we sat around and drank beer for a while. I took a quick nap when i got home and then went to my local bar and drank red bull and vodkas and chatted up whoever happened to sit down next to me.

I slept in on Sunday and laid on the couch, a complete puddle of goo from the last two days. A little sunburnt and really thirsty. Then I went of to pick up my brother and his girl and we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and picked up a couple gifts for my mom. We gave her a yoga carrying case and a bath kit. I didn’t think that either of the presents were all that great but she got real excited about them. I think she’ll like the earrings best. We had shish kabobs that turned out delish. We also watched About Scmidt which I don’t think I liked but kinda did in a weird way, every character was somehow acutely pathetic and only semi-likable. I need to watch it again and pay more attention to it. Happy 56th Mother Figure.