The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 413): Out of Touch / Out of Time

I woke up after a dream in which I was at a party and someone told me that a girl couldn’t make it because she had swallowed a handful of pills the night before. I remember telling her mother that the only difference between her and me is that I don’t blame myself for what’s wrong with the world. It was a strange reminder that there’s still a one man army somewhere in my subconscious who really, really doesn’t give a fuck.

I didn’t even know that part little evil guy was still in there because the rest of me is really happy. Aside from the contractor issues, I’m so content these days that it’s almost frightening. When you have nothing to do, no plans, and are content with what you have, life can become incredibly pointless.

Even working at a good job means putting up with a fair amount of insanity to earn a dollar, and we all spend money to compensate for that insanity. Whether it’s new clothes, video games, or music, we spend to give ourselves a little reward for a hard week, and to convince ourselves that the insanity has benefits. We all do it, and it’s very normal, but what happens when you remove the insanity?

When you no longer have that insanity to compensate for, the need to spend dries up. Although there is less money coming in, there is less going out. When you can live on less, work can become something that joins you with your passions, rather than something you do to satisfy someone else’s desire and direction. With nothing to drag you away from what gives you meaning for half of your waking hours, you are free to, well, just sort of be. And that state can be be almost as overwhelming as sitting down to really try to grasp the concepts in a Stephen Hawking book.

Like the universe, freedom can be either just an abstract concept, or an incredibly big, incredibly scary reality. If you are free to call all the shots, then there’s no one to blame for your failure, there’s no one to blame for minutes you squander, and there’s no one to blame for everything that you do or do not become. If you are happy and are free to work on whatever you want, what do you have to look forward to? If happiness is the goal, and you’re there, how do you measure success and failure? Are they irrelevant? In the long run, it’s all irrelevant. No matter what you do, time will continue to pass and the world will move on. What you achieve and what you become will ultimately only matter to you.

Whether someone is telling you what to do all day or not, the fact is that the point of your life can only be decided by you. You are in control. Every choice you make can be an instrument to move you closer to the point of your life, or it can be as pointless as a vote in an American presidential election. At the end of the road, the only person that you’re going to be responsible to is you. If the path you choose really doesn’t matter, there will never be a point to it all unless you create one for yourself.

At times, it almost seems easier to slip back into the unconsciousness of a job just to abdicate the responsibility of creating your own point. You spend the days fixing things and finishing projects just to feel like you’ve accomplished something, but if you look at it all critically, have you really accomplished that will matter in ten years? What about in five? Does what you spend a third of your life on have benefit to you beyond the pay that it generates?

A lot of people wait until they retire to start following your dreams, and maybe that’s your plan, too. Maybe you stay healthy enough that you’ll be able to chase down your dreams. And maybe a lifetime of distracting yourself with someone else’s work won’t rob you of the energy to start something that is outside of the carrot / stick mentality that you’ve spent your entire life working within. Or maybe you end up like a lot of retirees, who end up going back to work because they don’t know how to do anything else. Even if it all works out perfectly for you, which I hope it does, will you even have the time at that point to cram in a life’s worth of dreams?

We’ve become very accustomed to selling our time for cash, but even a mountain of money won’t be enough to clog the hourglass and give us more time when we really need it. Time is not money as we are trained to believe. Time is the only thing that you really have, and even with good genes, you have surprisingly little of it.

With all these thoughts swirling in my head, I tried to look up remixing while #1GF! was in the shower, but found myself distracted to really get into it. In the afternoon, the two of us went to the Raynham Flea Market and an antique store to see if we could find anything for the house. I had forgotten how badly people at the flea market smell, and how incredibly strange antique dealers are. Despite a few hours of looking, the only thing that I found amusing was a sign that read:

Dried Fruit +
Nut Sacks: $1

I laughed about the $1 nut sacks on and off for a good couple of hours, but I wasn’t about to ask anyone for a nut sack, especially at a flea market. You just never know what you’re going to get.

We went home early and ended up watching Southland Tales, which was a steaming pile of crap, but washed out the bad taste with some great Chinese food. We’ve somehow gotten in the habit of eating earlier than retirees, so after dinner, #1GF! took me out for a walk. The walk ended at Fascination, the ski ball/bingo hall, which has also become a regular thing lately. I had crappy luck, but #1GF! seemed to be teetering on the edge of lucky all night.

She was close in a number of games, but in one, she watched her ball drop through the last hole when the winning buzzer went off, causing her to throw up her hands up like she won. She quickly retracted them after realizing that someone else at the other end of the hall had beaten her to the win. She eventually won for real, and threw her hands up without retraction. Even though it’s only a $5 payout, I do the same thing. It’s a reflex you can’t help. The Asian lady next to #1GF! kept grabbing her arm in all the excitement both times that #1GF! got close to winning. It was really funny.

Monday (Day 414): Writing

For the first time in two weeks, I finally got in touch with the contractor. I’m not going to say much more than that I’m pretty tired of the whole process. I’m actually torn whenever people are going to work on the house because there’s no telling whether the work will be a step forwards or backwards. I checked my stats and wrote for the rest of the day, before making a roasted red pepper pesto that #1GF! seemed to like. By the time the day was done, I felt like I was out of time, which is something that I haven’t felt in a while.

Tuesday (Day 415): Ignoring A Migraine

I started the day off with a migraine that would end up requiring three Cokes and four Excedrin to get to a manageable level. I felt like I had a lot to do, so I didn’t want to let it slow me down. I managed to get the rap industry standard beard posted, and even got out to do the food shopping. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you’ve ever had a migraine, sunlight can literally make you want to throw up. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel like being a pussy that day, so I kept right on going like there was someone to impress.

When I got home, I downloaded some more free VSTs and worked on another remix, which ate the rest of the day.

Wednesday (Day 416): I’m Not DJ

I was on the PC at 7:30AM like I had something important to do, but ended up checking my stats and working on yet another mix. In the middle of having the shit frustrated out of me by some elements that I couldn’t get mixed together right, I remembered that there was no reason that I had to work on mixes. I’m not a DJ. I’m not a rapper. I’m an unemployed dork with way too much time on his hands. I put away the mix and wrote until #1GF! got home. Then, we watched Rescue Me because it’s fun to see people on film who are more screwed up than you are.

Thursday (Day 417): Making Me Paranoid

I spent the entire day mixing Black Sabbath’s Paranoid” with “Making Me Nervous” by Brad Sucks. I have no idea why. Brad seemed to like it, and added it to Brad Sucks remix page, which was sort of cool.

Friday (Day 418): More Remixing

After I got up, I realized that if I dropped the guitars from “Paranoid” one full step, the mix worked better. I re-did the track and rebuilt the video, despite having already posted it the day before.

I haven’t found a good way to separate vocals from music, but found a few different methods that ate more time than they were worth. I eventually gave up and went looking for a capella tracks that bands give away for free. One surprising place that I found a number of free a capellas was the Beastie Boys remix page. I tried remixing those for a while before looking for some vocals that #1GF! might like. I eventually found a track from Trifonic and started work on it. I still have no idea why I feel compelled to do this, but I continued on long after I found myself saying “No more!” to no one in particular.

Saturday (Day 419): Sand BLASTER Umbrella With Pile Driver Action

#1GF! and I spent the day at the beach because that’s what you do when nice out and you live in a beach town. I got to use my WalMart sand blaster umbrella with pile driver action, which made the trip worthwhile. I pounded it into the grass to test it out before we left, then into the sand when we got to the beach. I actually got chastised by #1GF! for pounding it too far into the sand, but I was just so excited to not have to pound the thing in with a rock or risk coring myself like an apple by leaning on it. Having an umbrella at the beach makes it about 100 times more tolerable for people who scorch, and a pile driver umbrella is pure awesomeness.

I called a whole bunch of people to say hello, and rousted my sister out of bed because if a family member calls you in the early morning, someone might’ve been hit by a truck. Muah ha ha. There was no truck. Just an annoying brother who will smother your mother. I left messages for a few other friends, and told one that I saw his Two Boys One Cup video on the interweb, and found it tasteful, yet unappealing. He’ll never call me back. #1GF! laughed, but suggested that I try to get more human contact during the week.

When I finally talked to a human, I found out that a friend of mine got sent to Korea for two weeks for his job. I used to be a top authority in Virus protection in my old company, and they wouldn’t even send me to New Jersey. And he goes to Korea and eats larvae soup. Where’s my larvae soup, bitches? No golf, no ties, no soup for me. Welcome to corporate America. Not that I’m jealous or anything. I got to go to the supermarket this week, and walked through the Asian food aisle and the Mexican section. Yea, you can’t stop this.

#1GF! and I went to dinner at a local restaurant at around 4:30, and then off to Fascination to play some ski ball bingo. I’ve mentioned Fascination before, but the when you play, you get two balls to roll into a 25 hole grid. If you light all the lights, you win. One lady thought she won when she lit a row, and everyone including the announcer thought that was pretty funny. Then, a lady went behind one of the machines to take some more balls to increase her chances of winning and got her ass kicked out. Soon after, two other ladies got in an argument and asked each other to step outside to settle it. No one stepped outside, but these ladies do NOT fuck around when playing this game. I missed all that stuff and had to be told about it because I was spending all my attention to see if Fascination was a game of skill or chance. If it is a game of skill, it’s a skill I lack because I played so badly that I somehow bounced one of my balls into #1GF!’s machine. We ended up losing $20 between us in about an hour despite #1GF! winning once.

Games at Fascination last under three minutes a piece, and they had at least 30 people in there paying $.50 a game. If they play 20 games an hour with 25 people, they’re making $250 /hour minus $100 in payouts. Even if you subtract out whatever you pay the people to take the money, they’ve still got to be making over $100 / hour for the house. This is the math that I do out loud on every single walk home from the place. #1GF! reminded me that I give the same speech every time we leave there, so I took out my cell phone and played the Hood Internet’s Mixtape Volume I through the tiny speakers and randomly danced when I thought no one was looking. That should teach her to stop me from doing math. Yea. Math or dancing. Up to you.

When we got home, we watched Fool’s Gold, which seems to have been made as an excuse for Matthew McConaughey to run around without a shirt for a couple of hours. By the time that crap fest was over, we expected it to be bed time, but it was only about 8:30, which isn’t really a bed time for people who don’t eat strained food. Maybe we should’ve gone to play Bingo or something, but we spent a couple of hours watching TV and trying to figure out what my next step should be on the road to riches, but I forgot to write it all down.

What I Learned

• There’s still a little one man army in my subconscious that doesn’t really give a fuck. I thought that part of me was long gone, but dreams never lie.
• I will still laugh at childish things like “Nut Sacks: $1″.
• The Beastie Boys let you download free a capellas for remixing.
• Pile driver umbrellas rule.
• A lot more about remixing tracks
• I suck at Fascination.

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Posted in Leisure