Gruntin’, Gaspin’ And Wheezin’

Wednesday March 19th, 2014 – Gurnee, IL/Island Lake, IL

Where did my youthful exuberance go? Instead of lovin’, touchin’ and squeezin’, I’m gruntin’, gaspin’ and wheezin’. The years are catching up with me, and there’s nothing I can do but fight it tooth and nail while I still have teeth and/or nails. Old age is on the way but only if I work for it.

How did all this happen so quickly? I was too busy with crisis management to enjoy my young buck years, and now that I’m finally starting to figure things out a little there are a whole new set of challenges ahead. This life thing is no easy video game, and the levels change dramatically.

Today I got myself up early and forced myself to get some exercise by taking two grueling laps at my favorite walking track the Gurnee Mills Mall. I used to go there regularly, and I could feel the results over time. It’s a huge mall with twists, turns and offshoots that make things interesting for a walker. There are things to look at throughout the route, and it’s not just a boring treadmill.

Unfortunately, I’ve moved farther and farther away in the last few years, and now it’s a 25 mile trip one way. That sucks up way too much time to drive back and forth, not to mention gas at the cut rate price of $4 a gallon these days. If I lived closer I’d go every day, but that’s not an option.

I absolutely need to get back in a steady exercise groove though, and I have been concentrating on it since my birthday. The weather has been a little nicer than the polar vortex conditions we’re used to this winter, and that’s part of the reason I fell out of my groove. Another part is that it’s a big time commitment of time and energy to work out every day when I am on the road working.

The road life and regular exercise is about as good a fit as the Kardashians and long marriages. I do try to make time when I can, but many times I just can’t. I know that wouldn’t be an excuse if my heart pops like a zit, but in the real world that’s how it is. Pick your poison – earn a living by working at what you know how to do, or have zero income at all but stay home and stay fit.

I wish it were an easier fit, but it just isn’t. Most of my morning was shot by the time I drove to the mall, did my two full laps, went to have a healthy breakfast and then drove home to hose off in the shower. Who has that kind of time every day? Right now it isn’t me, but today I forced it.

A good walk like that usually keeps me sore for a couple of days, and I’m tender already. I feel it in my legs and can barely stand up, but it’s good soreness and I know I need to feel this pain as much as I can for the rest of my life. It takes conscious effort now, whereas in my youth it didn’t.

I used to walk all over the place and not even think about it. Now I have to plan it out before I do it, and force it into being part of my day. Is it fun? Unfortunately no, but I don’t think having a heart attack would be party time. This is part of the aging process, and I see that and accept it.

As the weather breaks, I’ll get out and walk a lot more around where I’m living. There aren’t a lot of walking paths like there were at my last place, but I won’t be here that long so hopefully it will only be a temporary hurdle. I did it up right today, but it’s only a day. It has to become habit.

Two laps through the Gurnee Mills Mall today, and I was ready to call an ambulance.

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Missing A Mrs.

Sunday January 19th, 2014 – Gurnee, IL

Today happens to be the birthday of not one but a nefarious pair of women that managed to get where few ever have and slither their way into my heart only to stomp on it like a bushel of wine grapes. I don’t know if I believe in astrology or not, but having a pair of women born on the very same day who scorched me that badly seems like more than coincidence but who can prove it?

I’m the first to painfully admit my track record is beyond horrific when it comes to women and relationships, but most of it is due to the fact I’ve had so many other problems to deal with in life I never had a chance. I knew in my head I wasn’t ready, and wanted to wait until I knew I was.

I had no idea it would take this long, but I’m finally in a place I feel comfortable opening up to a woman and really sharing my life. That’s what I always thought a marriage should be, even if I didn’t have any close to me to model. My grandparents who raised me fought worse than Packer and Bear fans, and my biological parents should never have had one much less a trio of children.

I was always afraid of not only behaving like my loutish father to my wife, but especially being mean to even one child. I’m at the age now where most people are preparing for grandchildren if they don’t already have them but I haven’t even been engaged to anyone. I’m way off the charts.

I know I could have forced the issue and gone through the motions, but that would have spelled disaster with a capital ‘D’ in the biggest font ever used. Looking at how my life has gone to date, I can’t see any of the women I’ve known staying with me through those ugly times. I’m sure I’d be divorced by now, and who knows how many kids I’d be disappointing? That wasn’t my style.

Now it’s different. I’m feeling a whole new groove starting, and I can totally picture myself in a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship with a functional woman. Someone divorced isn’t a problem at all depending on the situation, and neither are kids. I love them, and most love me.

Coming at it from this angle at this age brings a whole different set of circumstances than it did in my younger years when I had something to prove to everyone – including myself. I don’t have that need anymore, and in fact I’m pretty happy with the way I turned out. I may be a little rough around the edges in places, but there’s a good heart inside and some woman will get a good man.

I may not be Brad Pitt, but I’m not The Elephant Man either. I’m just a guy on the outside, but on the inside I’m a giant teddy bear. That’s what one of the two ice queens who are having their birthday today used to tell me, and then she dropped the bomb. Nice guys seem to get the shaft.

I do think there’s a quality woman out there for me, but where she is I don’t know. I don’t want to start joining dating services and play that game if I don’t have to. I’m asking the universe for a woman that is at least partially sane and doesn’t look like she spent thirty years on a chain gang.

A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to a woman I had the extreme hots for in the ‘80s. She didn’t even answer my note, so I’m assuming she’s not interested. One down, the rest of the females on the planet to go. No worries. It’s her loss. I’m in the best mental space I’ve ever been, and I think that should help attract the right one for me right now. I’m putting it out there, and letting it go.

I might not be Brad Pitt…

…But I’m not Herman Munster either.

I might not get her…

…But I don’t want her either. Is there a happy medium somewhere?

I’ve always liked brunettes. Hear that, universe?

But blondes are ok too.

Christmas For One

Tuesday December 24th, 2013 – Chicago, IL/Rolla, MO

Here comes the tough stretch, and I’m gritting my teeth looking to just plow through it and get ready for 2014. It’s only two more days, but these are the hardest of all. These are supposed to be the best days of the year, but for me they’re the worst torture I can imagine. It’s gas on the fire.

What would stop the pain would be a family of my own to love and that would love me back. I have been searching for that my whole life, but the older I get the farther away it seems. I got off course early in my trip, and I’m wandering in the woods trying to find life’s highway but I can’t.

I’ve always felt like the outsider, and I still do. Other people’s lives just seem to work out, but I have to struggle like hell just to survive. I know other people struggle too, but it’s a different type of fight. I never felt like anyone was in my corner other than my grandfather but he died in 1981.

Some unconditional love would be SO sweet right now, but I have no idea where to go to get it or I would have years ago. I try to help people whenever I can, because I know in my heart I will not screw those people over. I make an effort to be nice to those who I don’t have to just because that’s what I’m looking for in my own life. It’s the Golden Rule theory, but where is the return?

I have a very delicate psyche when it comes to relationships. I have a hard time putting myself out there emotionally because it hurts so much to get my heart stomped on. There’s a woman I’m totally smitten with, and she took a big steamy bowel movement all over my life and I’m hurting even more than usual. My self esteem was shaky before, but this kicks it right down the sewer.

I’ve known her for many years, and we’ve gotten along really well. Things were going so well that I thought she may finally be ‘the one’. She said she wanted to travel, and I asked her to come to Tucson with me and she said yes. Then she went back with some guy she was with before and that was it. She stopped talking, texting and calling and it was like I never existed. I am history.

All I want is a solid woman to build a great relationship with that can give me a feeling of what I always thought life should be and what I see others around me have. There’s some vibe missing that I must not have been born with, or it’s so deeply buried it’s not getting out there to attract it.

I know a lot of women that I like, but they’re either married or with someone else or they don’t want anything to do with me. Casual dating is great, but I’d really like to find one that I can build something with before I’m either dead or too old to enjoy anything. I’m not looking for a partner to eat oatmeal with at the old folks’ home. I want someone to be able to share my life adventures.

That’s not an easy match in my case. It’s like trying to find a leprechaun riding a unicorn at the end of a rainbow. I’m such an eccentric wackadoo, I’m not the average run of the mill singles ad type. I’ve had a very unusual life, and taken a rare path most never try. That makes it even harder to find someone that will be willing to be with me through thick and thin. It’s time for the thick.

If I’m going to do anything at all, it’s going to be in the next little stretch. I’ve paid dues upon dues, and the slot machine of life is full and ready to hit a jackpot. It won’t mean a thing without someone special to share it with, but right now that doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to happen.

I don’t write about this subject very often, only because people take it upon themselves to have to play matchmaker and try to ‘fix me up’. What a nightmare. They find the most beat up old war horse that happens to be single and think because I’m the ‘nice guy’ I’ll make the perfect match.

It’s a funny premise for comedy, but SO not fun to live through in person. I have had countless encounters set up by ‘friends’ that have been disasters from the first ten seconds. I can’t believe I am so low on their list they’d think I’d be interested in dating a sea hag like that. It’s a big insult.

My cousin Brett has a similar problem. We talk about it all the time. The women he dates have traditionally been psychotic nut jobs because there’s some vibe we put off from growing up how we did that attracts that into our lives. We say we don’t want it, but subconsciously we attract it.

I don’t want to go through analysis for years, because I don’t have time or money for that. All I want is to meet a woman that trips my trigger and wants to be with me. There are women that are one of those, but that’s not enough. The magic lottery winner has to have both. So where is she?

Part of the reason it’s been so difficult is that I’ve been constantly traveling for thirty years. It’s hard enough to have a ‘normal’ relationship, but put a full road schedule between it and it’s over before it starts. That’s one of the reasons I got into radio. I wanted ‘stability’. Ha! There’s a joke.

In all the radio jobs I’ve had, I would meet a nice woman and start dating for a few months. It would be going fine, but then out of the blue I’d get fired and have to move and it would be over. It’s been a lifetime of this, and I didn’t bring a solid family background to begin with. That’s the reason I’m still single, and it’s getting really lonely. I do want to find someone, but it’s SO hard.

Most women want stability, and I totally get that. Unfortunately, I’ve been anything but that as long as I’ve been alive. I’m never going to be a 9 to 5 corporate slug, and I surely don’t have the skills to be a plumber or a mechanic or anything close to that kind of gig. I live the creative life.

It would be nice to find someone in that field, but that’s probably asking for trouble. We’d both have the same strengths and weaknesses, and that would be bad. This last woman I like was not a creative type at all. She has a stable job, owns a house and is the exact opposite of my whole life.

Maybe that’s why I liked her so much, but it just felt like we clicked. I guess she wasn’t feeling it like I was, so here I sit alone for another Christmas. I make all kinds of people laugh the whole year, then they go have fun with their families on Christmas and I am alone with all my thoughts.

This morning I sat in with my old radio partner Spike Manton as he filled in on WGN radio in Chicago. Actually it was WGN.fm, but it will still fun. Wouldn’t you know it, the topic that was brought up was relationships. It was an ice pick to the heart, but I opened up and talked about the torture of trying to be an entertainer and find a mate. The crew found it funny, but I was in pain.

Then I got in my rental Nissan SUV and headed west for Tucson. I’m going to have some time to clear my head and think about what to do next. I got to Bloomington, IL and saw the stores all closing and knew those people were going to be with their families. I gassed up and kept driving. I made it to Rolla, MO and got a cheap hotel room. This is not what I envision Christmas to be.

“Dear Santa…”

Here’s another one on my list.

Ho Ho Holy Guacamole! There has to be ONE woman on this planet that likes nice guys. RIght? Where is she?