Guess Who's Back. Back Again. Benny's Back. Tell a Friend.

yay! once again it's time to spill my guts to the world! bare my soul for all to see! and somehow find solace and comfort in doing so! whoo hoo!
well, jiminie fricken cricket, where do i begin? perhaps a little blogging will help assuage this headache. i can't seem to drink alcohol anymore without getting a headache, but this was for a good cause. i just got back from my friend anne's wedding, out in the boondocks of eastern new york. Schoharie County, NY, to be exact, and this is for sure the first time that county has ever been mentioned on the internet, or perhaps even in print (just kidding, anne--i'm a country boy myself!) it was a great time. i caught up with a bunch of old Cornell/Alpha Zeta friends. it's too bad it takes a wedding for us to get back together again, but i guess that's what happens as we get beyond our college years. it was great catching up with my AZ people, swapping frat stories, singing along to old songs from college, and having a funky-ass time in general. did i mention the ex was there, too? yeah. with the new guy. that's what happens when you and your ex have so many mutual friends. it's one of those situations where things are cool but just a little odd and perhaps a bit uncomfortable. especially when you're the one that's going stag. overall, though, i can't ask for a better post-relationship friendship with an ex than the one we have. it's just one of those things that screws your shit up a bit, you mope like a dope for a while, and then...hopefully you end up like us. we chatted, we danced. i winced inside on occasion, and laffed at the same time. what else can you do, you know?
and i finally got to see my twin brother who i was separated from at birth. or at least that's what it looked like. anne's now-husband chris and i share a striking resemblance. from what people had been telling me beforehand, it was a near-perfect match, although after finally meeting, neither one of us saw it quite that way. but it was the running gag of the evening, and of course, there were many pictures taken of us together so people can marvel for years over the world's first human clones.
and surely there were pictures of me doing the locomotion, which, if you know me, you know that is one of the songs that will be banned from my own wedding someday. and wouldn't you know, my buddy jonny dragged me out and stuck me at the head of the frigging line. godDAMN, now i'm doing the locomotion. jeezus. i made 'em work for it tho, by zig-zagging and dragging the line all around that damn fire hall, grabbing & downing random champagne glasses as i went. alas, it was only sparkling cider, but it was still a hit with the crowd. it was then that i realized that it's not me that's screwed up, it's the people i'm surrounded by in my day-to-day life. when i'm with these friends, i am the comedian. the goof. the one who sits there all quiet and then comes out with the craziest, funniest shit you ever heard. i'm cool. these guys & girls "get" me (well, most of 'em anyway), and i "get" them, and it's these people that instill confidence and make a guy feel good. it's those times that make you look back at your life and make you realize, hey, i'm not as boring and hapless as i think i am. i've accomplished things. i have a lot to offer. i've got stories. i've kicked ass. i've loved. i've lost. i've won. some girls think i'm hot. some don't. sometimes i screw the pooch. sometimes i'm high on the hog. i have highs. i have lows. i've done good, done bad. i've got goals. and i will meet them. i RULE.
on the rainy, lonely drive home, it really hit me that i've been stuck in a dung-filled rut, brimming with rotten-skulled, numb nut, mouth breathing, chucklehead coworkers that just don't understand me. now, i'm not saying i'm better than them. hell, i've been the numb nut before. but...sometimes you just don't fit in. i'm the square peg, and i feel like the stupid kid in school jammed me into the round hole. i come across as the prickish asshole because i can't be myself around these people. what do you do when you can't be yourself? how can you do your job when your upper managment tells you what they want but expect something else? how can you be an authority figure to 50+ employees when the other managers are softies? i'm in this city only for the job, and it doesn't fit me, so what am i doing here?

i guess that's what the company is thinking, because for a while now, i've felt like the 5th wheel. i've been slowy fading in power here. i'm supposed to be the #2 guy in the shop, but this place has such divergent philosophies on things that my goals and the company's goals have drifted apart. the good that i do goes unnoticed. the bad is magnified and embellished by the innerworkings of my simpleton upper management, who micro-manage us with their video cameras and phone calls. and that is apparently why i have been scheduled a committee meeting this coming week, where i will probably be facing a demotion or a transfer, niether of which i can or would accept. and that would leave me with an apartment i cannot afford, bills i cannot pay, and a city i have no use for.

or maybe they are gonna promote me to supervisor. you just never know with these committee meetings. (har-dee har har.)