It happened in a psychiatrist’s office.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked. “Why are you even at _____?” and she named the place where I work.

I should stop here to add that I don’t know this woman, and have never been in her office. You see, I’m a fat guy; A fat guy who’s currently in the process of getting approval for bariatric surgery and one of those steps is to meet with a psychiatrist. I didn’t know anything about this woman other than what I've learned from sitting in her office:

• The waiting room had an unused feel to it. The shelves were dusted, and the magazines arranged neatly, but you got the impression the room was rarely used. Maybe it was the way the children’s toys in the corner were put away a little too nicely. Plus, it hadn’t been vacuumed recently, further adding to the forgotten vibe of the room.

• She had been a panelist on the Oprah Winfrey Show back in the mid-nineties. There was an autographed 8X10 glossy framed beside a signed form letter from Oprah thanking her for being part of the show.

• She was a force of nature. As I was sitting in the room, first filling out the initial paperwork and then beginning on the first of my three assigned personality tests, she came in through the door. Her voice was a cannon that blasted the stuffy air out of the room and hid the thin simper of her assistant’s soft rock radio. Wiping at her nose with a wad of tissues, she called me “Steve” and welcomed me to her office. “Come on back, come on back! You’ll finish those up after we talk.” Then to her assistant: “Sonya, he’ll finish up after, OK?” as if she hadn’t heard the booming instructions when they were shot at me.

We went back into one of the offices where between sniffles she explained that she didn’t see many patients these days and mostly worked with litigators serving as an expert witness. “I do maybe one or two of these bariatric cases per month lately” she explained. “I like to do them, of course. I’m just really busy.”

The conversation was fast and easy. I had never been to a psychiatrist before, but went into it with the thought that I would be completely open and as forthcoming as possible. We chatted about general addiction, my past, my daughter, and the back and forth came naturally. I felt like we were both enjoying the discussion. She was quick-witted and personable, sharing antidotes from her own past here and there when appropriate.

Interruped briefly for a nose blowing break, talk turned to work. She knows some people who have worked at the company I work, so was familiar somewhat with the environment. I explained that while not passionate about the work I do, I enjoy doing a good job and see myself as a constant that people can depend on. I could tell she didn’t like the answer.

“Look, it’s really none of my business. I don’t even know you and I’m not your therapist. Still though…Can I ask you a question? Why are you even at _____?”

She knew the answer before I did, but she waited for me to say it.

“Because I don’t know what I really want.”

We chatted some more about going back to school or changing careers before the rest of the answer came to me: “I think there’s something missing in me. There are people that I know who are creative and successful, not necessarily money-wise, but successful with what they do. They all seem to have this drive inside that pushes them to do what they love. I don’t seem to have that.”

This wasn’t groundbreaking. It was no epiphany. It was something I had considered previously before pushing the thought away. This was the first time I had really said it aloud though. It all boiled down to “I don’t know what to do” or, worse: “I don’t want to do anything”.

My newfound one-time-only therapist didn’t settle down on that topic though, and so we touched on childhood and moving around and she drew parallels between my father and I which while maybe not flattering, were again not groundbreaking material.  It was a really great conversation. At the end of the day, there are only a few people who don’t enjoy talking about themselves to someone who declares it all fascinating material.

We stood, shook hands, and as we stepped back out into the waiting area where I would have to finish my personality tests, she declared me a delight to her assistant who said “Oh, that’s wonderful!” before discussing the rest of her schedule. I sat back down in the chair I had left 55 minutes before, and started on my tests with something bothering me just slightly about the experience. It wasn’t until I was walking to the car that I realized what it was.

It’s a cliché now, a man sitting in a chair at a gentleman’s club getting a lap dance on a Tuesday afternoon, thinking that the girl rubbing against him has really come to like him over time. In the face of all that skin, it’s easy for some to forget that she’s working and that when you ask for one more dance she’s thinking how she’s one step closer to paying rent on time. I knew guys like this, especially in high school. They’d come back from the clubs they’d managed to get in with Polaroids of them paired with Destiny or Chablis, smiles wide on their faces. They’d talk about how she even stuck around for a few minutes after the dance was over and really seemed interested when they described the car they were going to buy next month. (“She told me to go back and I can give her a ride in it!”)

I realized, putting my key into my compact car (so normal it’s nearly invisible), that in my way, I was very similar to these guys. Here I was enjoying a talk with a bright woman who was being paid (well, I might add) to be interested. Whether or not she was actually pretending wasn’t the point. She was good enough at her job that I forgot she was making rent money while I was busy being engaging.

Don’t misread me; I’m not so cynical that I’m directly comparing the two professions. I’m just saying that when money is exchanged, intentions are clouded. Just because she gets you hard doesn’t mean she’s in love, and just because she helps you find insight doesn’t mean she finds you interesting. It’s a job.

Driving home, I decided it didn’t matter. I wasn’t less engaging if she made $250 out of the deal. I’m a charming motherfucker.

I also decided on that drive that I would write about my time with my single-use therapist who had her fifteen minutes of fame with Oprah.

See? I do want to do something.

Bike Gang Bitches

I have this program on my blog that notes when someone visits it. It also tells me where the person is from, and how long they were on my site. It's always been cool to me when someone stumbles across my little page and decides it's interesting enough to check out, even if for just a few minutes. Let's be honest, most of the shit here isn't interesting in the least if you don't know me…and even that's a stretch. Most of it's a bit boring.

So, you can imagine how cool I think it is that I now have a regular West Coast reader. Whoever you are, Mr/Mrs California, it's nice to have you along. You can stand proud with my Ohio, Indiana (thanks to Facebook), random Canadian, and steady Minnesota readers.

The other funny thing is that this service I use also tells me if the person came from a search engine, and if they did, what they searched to find me. In addition to band names that I've used (Dead Confederate, Miniature Tigers, etc) and the thing I wrote about the recent death of Lux Interior, the biggest referral to my site has been Google searches for, and I quote, "Bike Gang Bitches".

At what point in your life do you ever sit down and say, "I need more information about Bike Gang Bitches. Where should I look?" I did my own Google search for Bike Gang Bitches, and while I won't go into detail, I will say that I'll never be the same. I can only imagine people's disappointment when they come to my site expecting to be blown away by the massive volume of Bike Gang Bitches material, only to find a blog about me listening to records and washing my dogs.

After seeing some of the other sites out there, I'm disappointed with myself.

So, if you're reading this, and you're not ashamed to be known, drop me a comment to let me know you're around. I'll try to accommodate any reading preference you might have, even if that means including more info on angry half naked women on motorcycles. It'll be tough on me, but I'm here to serve.

Playing Hooky

So, Jen and I get up early on Thursday to go get a bit of her cancerous neck removed. We get to the office, and after some discussion, they let us know that they're not going to remove it that morning, rather schedule us out for another month. We were bummed...it was going to be nice to just have it all taken care of and be able to put it out of our thoughts for a bit. Jen apologized for having me take off work and waste our time, and I decided the day wouldn't be a waste at all.

We went and did some shopping. We picked up the new Ben Folds and a pair of running pants for her at Target, and then went in to the jewelry store where we bought our wedding rings to get mine re sized. I haven't worn my ring in the past couple of months because it was falling off my finger, and since I've kind of leveled out weight-wise I figured it would be good to appear married to the general public once again.

The salesman at the store was pretty funny. He had taken my plain gold wedding band into custody and was writing up the work order for me while joking about getting Jen a bigger diamond for her ring. He kept pulling out full carat loose diamonds and teasing me for not upgrading her ring. I told him that I had been thinking about becoming the kind of guy who wears pinkie rings, and he busted out a nice square ring with about a million little diamonds in it. For two grand, I could look fly.

"Well, if you're done messing around and are ready for some serious bling, let's go get you a watch." the salesguy said. He led me over to a watch case and pulled out a gold Rolex. When he strapped it to my wrist I swear I wouldn't be able to hold my hand up. That thing must have weighed eight pounds. Jen thought it was funny to see me wearing a Rolex since I don't wear anything but my wedding ring. Funny, that is, until she saw the $30,000 price tag on it. Once she saw that, she was ready to have me give it back.

Once we were done screwing around there we went over to the Japanese steakhouse that we go to every once in awhile for lunch. It was funny being there on a work day, getting drunk on over sized bottles of Sapporo and glasses of plum wine. Everyone else around us seemed to be on a schedule while we sat around and drank and ate spicy tuna roll.

From there we just bummed around. We made a stop at a tattoo shop where I went through their books of fonts, wanting to pick something out for my arms. Finding nothing, I settled on a stop at Best Buy (Iron Man and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit Blu-ray this week) and went home to watch a comic book character blow shit up.

I really hope that the next time we go to have doctor hack into her face we have another day like that one. Beats working any day.

Burning Time

There are a lot of excuses I could come up with: My lifestyle has changed with my recent weight loss, and as a result we are much busier people. My interests are evolving. I'm busier with new volunteer opportunities and working around the house. All of this is true, of course, and is all bullshit at the same time. The fact is that I am busier exercising, working around the house, walking dogs, etc., but what is really eating up my time is the new Playstation.

Now, my interests have expanded to killing Templar Knights, saving the universe from cartoon enemies, and rising quickly through the ranks of the Russian Mob. I keep telling myself this is a phase I'm in because it's all new and that I'll settle down and get back to work soon, and while I believe that to be true, I spent an alarming amount of time in my den playing video games this weekend.

Still, we managed to sit outside and read, go hiking, work out, play with the dogs, go shopping, grill out several times and cleaned the house. It was a great weekend.

This week though, I am going to finally sit down to edit "Bridge" one last time and then it's time to shop it around some. I've been waiting on Jen to do editing (she is a master of fixing my grammatical errors) but she's been too busy to get through it with the red pen, so I'll have to do what I can on my own. I think I've found a couple of outlets that might be willing to work with a story like this, and that's no easy feat, and I'm getting anxious to get it out there. Plus, I'm sick of just kicking ideas around in my head about the possibility of a longer story (dare I say "book"?) and it's time to get that rolling. I'm just going to have to put the beautifully ergonomic wireless controller down for a few days and find some balance again.

Hope my four readers are doing well. Stay on the bike and off the pipe (especially you, Cox).

Weekend Update with Pat Robertson's Lust Puppet

Playing a bit of catch up today. The Mrs. and I traveled northward to visit some friends, do some "work", and partake of a pubcrawl through Historic Northeast Minneapolis.


It all started Thursday night with some dog walking for the good folks at CHA for a couple hours. From there we rushed home to pack, which we kind of did. Because we didn't finish, my lovely wife had me up at 3:00 AM to finish packing and get over to the airport in time to hop a 6:00ish flight to Minneapolis.

Spent the day at the office, then puttered around the city picking up groceries that we needed that don't travel well (stupid diet), and then finally setting up shop at to work from home for the rest of the afternoon. We sat out on the patio as it was a beautiful 70 something degrees and I got fried to a crisp. I had to go all the way to MN to get my first sunburn of the year. Yea.

The next day was the Crawl, and it went pretty much as you would expect it to. People came, drank, crawled, fell in and out of love, and peed on the sides of bars. Success. At the center of the party, one man stood strong. Like an experienced captain leading us into battle, he understood that we might not all make it through the night, but worked tirelessly to make sure none were thirsty and all had name tags. Some would say his early vigor was his own undoing, but not me. I was proud to be associated with the man. Here is a grainy cell phone shot of our leader enjoying what I like to think of as a rare moment of solace:

The best thing that happened, actually occurred while we were killing time on Sunday while waiting for our flight. We were talking about video games and televisions when Jen spoke up:

"You mean if you get a Playstation 3 you would be able to play games, and it has that Blueray thingie built in so you can shut up about two things at once?"

"That is correct, oh dearest love of my life. Your understanding of the situation is only exceeded by your beauty."

"Then just get it. Geez."

I already had yesterday off from work Monday, so at 8:15 am I was standing at the back of Target paying for a new Playstation 3 and a copy of Grand Theft Auto. I got home, did laundry, cleaned the house a bit and logged over eight hours on the most amazingly beautiful game ever created. This may well be the last time you hear from me as I will be squirrelled away in my den, forehead pressed to the screen, furiously rising through the ranks of the Russian mob.

I'll miss you.

Strange Days Have Found Us

Busy busy. For the most part, it's all boring day to day stuff. We go to work to make money to buy books and movies that we don't have time to watch lately because we're too busy exercising or running around. Seriously, I have a copy of "There Will Be Blood" that I bought the day it came out that I still haven't seen.

I haven't finished a book in weeks, and the pile of stuff I have to be read is starting to overflow. Recently I picked up a handful of Jack Ketchum's paperbacks (haven't read anything yet, but appears to be pretty intense horror), some healthy grilling cookbooks, and "The Raw Shark Texts" by Steven Hall. Imaginary monsters feeding on your memories? Yes, please.

I think by far the most interesting thing in our little lives came in the form of a threat posted by a sophomore high school student against the school my wife works at. Tuesday was her birthday, and I had flowers and balloons delivered to her, but found it odd by mid-afternoon when she hadn't called to say that she had received them. I called under the guise of wanting to talk about something else and I get:

"Hey. Got the flowers. They're nice. Gotta run. Love you, bye." She didn't take a breath nor did she give me a chance to say anything. Click. She hung up.

Thirty minutes later I call home to check messages and hear the Superintendent's automated message saying that students had been sent home, all evening activities had been cancelled and the following day's classes were cancelled as well due to a threat made against the school. Immediately you think it's some fucking knucklehead calling in a bomb threat or otherwise being douche, but part of you wonders. I immediately thought of the grainy black and white surveillance video from Columbine I saw, and wished she'd call to tell me what's going on.

So, it turns out (per another automated call received from the school tonight) that the kid had made the "threat" in an online forum, saying he needed grenades, but had guns already. He posted that he thought he could kill 60 people before he was taken out and that this was set to go down Thursday. The FBI tracked his IP address back to Columbus, and had a heart to heart with the boy to see exactly what the deal was.

He was just a kid being stupid. There were no guns. There was no real threat.

When things like this happen though, my imagination always gets carried away. I spend some time at the school to proctor ACT and SAT tests for extra cash, and to be honest, the place can be a bit creepy. I think maybe it's high schools in general that can be creepy when you aren't used to them. I pictured kids running down the institutional-green hallways, and the front office where my wife works under siege. I know Jen did too.

We tried not to get too carried away with the whole ordeal, but when she called me from the office to catch me up on what was going on, I could hear that she was upset. To have a place you consider yours, a safe place, be threatened and suddenly not be a place of comfort is unsettling. Even knowing the kid was just a bored punk online won't set things back to the way they were right away. This will probably be with her for a while, and I hate that for her. Hopefully it won't be too long before it's at least at the back of her mind though.

Enough of that.

This weekend I get to partake in the first adult beverage I've had in almost four months. I will be with some professional drinkers, so I will have to take my time and really pace myself, but I can't wait. More than anything it'll just be good to get away from here for a few days and hang with some good folks. Somewhere along the way I'm going to finish the fifth (sixth?) draft of a short story that I did about a man and his dog. Aw. Sounds wholesome, huh? It's not.