My second thought was, “Wait. Just who wins these things??”

Nearly every product out there has these marketing schemes, from cars to candy bars. Win a thousand dollars a week for life if you buy Coke. Win a new Mustang if you buy a carrot. Eat at Joe’s and win a free liposuction. As far as marketing potential goes, I get it.

But who the hell wins all these contests? I’ve never once seen any follow up on it. Have you ever looked in the paper to see “Local man wins twenty million and an Asian bride for opening Pepsi can”? Have you ever actually known anyone who has won one of these contests? I haven’t.

“Hey, that’s a cool Rolex.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. I got it out of a box of Cheerios.”

That’s never once happened to me. Not even a little bit. What does this mean? Does it mean these contests are all scams? Is anyone keeping track? What if they’re all LYING to us — a strange thought for a greedy marketing department, I know — and we just keep buying all this shit because we think we might actually win something?

Think about it. Have you ever bought one product over another because of the allure of a million dollars, or maybe even just a pair of movie tickets? I mean, all things being equal – price, taste, convenience, whatever – if you were indifferent to it all,  wouldn’t you pick the product with the promotion? I would think so. Human nature seems to suggest so.

If they aren’t lying and they are actually awarding all these fabulous prizes, where are the winners? Do they have to go into hiding? Do they have to sign confidentiality clauses stating they will never speak of their winnings? If so, wouldn’t their friends, neighbors and family get suspicious? Wouldn’t they be all like, “Hey, where did you get the money for that giant mansion and Rolls Royce in your driveway? You work at Sonic Burger.” ?? Wouldn’t it get out somehow?

And that doesn’t make sense anyway because why would a marketing company DO that? They wouldn’t. They would want to get every inch of mileage out of the promotion before having to pay for another one. They would not shut up about it before, during, or after.

“We’re Twix! We’re made of chocolate and caramel! We awarded a 15 year old girl a new Ford Taurus twenty years ago!”

Seriously. They would exploit that shit.

So, I’m asking you? Who the hell ever wins $10,000 and a trip to Vegas from a candy bar?

Run errands.
Tons of errands.
Buy groceries.
Make dinner.
Help with homework.
Taxi to a friend’s house for Jake.
Taxi to the drugstore for school supplies for Kaileb.
Back to the grocery store.
Taxi to the doctor for myself.
Courthouse (whole other long story).
Video Store.
Verizon Store.
Clean house.
Pace the floors.
Organize house.
Pace.
Clean entire file cabinet one paper at a time.
Still pacing.

Here’s the problem, see.

When you’re alone with yourself all you can think about is yourself. You learn a lot about the person you are. Just beware, you may not like that person. I’m just sayin’, it happens almost all the time.

So when you spend that much time alone with only yourself for company you find that there’s all the time in the world for questioning yourself. You’ve a captive audience in yourself. Ask me anything, I’m not going anywhere. Or so the brain tells the heart.

Then the heart starts nagging the brain. The heart figures, “Hey, here’s this idle brain just sittin’ here doin’ nothin’ and brother, I gots me some troubles. I’m gonna unload all these burdens on the brain. He ain’t got nothin’ goin’ on.” — I’m not entirely sure why the heart sounds like an ignorant redneck, but I don’t necessarily care, either.

So the heart unloads and the brain, having no escape such as the ringing of the phone or an incoming fax or email or unhappy employee to distract it, must listen. And hear. And comprehend. And become very, very afraid.

You have all the time in the world to question your parenting and general worth as a human being. You’re inundated with regrets and wistful longing. You find yourself on your hands and knees in the closet going through your children’s report cards from elementary school. You find yourself cleaning and organizing and dusting every nook and cranny. You find yourself clutching a photo album and alternately laughing out loud then crying. You find yourself despising the passage of time, that immortal thief. You find yourself heartsick and headstrong. You make promises and demands of yourself to be better, be more. You cower in the face of your failures and make solemn vows to make it all up somehow.

And what lesson did I learn from all of this, you might ask? What have I come away with as a result of such deep, serious introspection? Well, it’s simple.

I have to work. I have to. It’s not about income or changing the world or even setting a good example for my children. No. It’s about one thing and one thing only: I can’t stand to be alone with myself.

I want to know why I’m never consulted about these decisions! I think people should know they are being deceived! They drive around, satisfied in the knowledge that the whole city got together and voted on their most favorite taco stand and it turns out I was never even asked!

And furthermore, what if I’m not the ONLY one they missed? What if it turns out that they missed a whole city block and those people are all driving around going, “Wait a minute, I don’t recall anyone asking ME what I would vote for in the contest for Seattle’s best plumber! What’s going on here!?” But then they’re embarrassed and they don’t want to seem like they’re out of the loop, so they pretend. They  go along. They’re like, “Oh yeah. That place. I voted so hard for that place! That place has the BEST coffee ever! That’s like, the ONLY place I ever go.”

They just overcompensate because they’re embarrassed about not being asked and they want to be included and “in the know” so they fake it.

It’s a conspiracy! It’s a sham.

We should all write our congressmen.

Anyway, that’s not important. The important thing is that the Nationals is over and I can have a couple months of relative sanity before it all begins again. And it will begin again. And again. And again….and so on and so forth until the day I die because, oh my god, the economy is so bad, y’all! We ain’t never going to get to retire.

Yeah. M@ is asleep and I’m feeling a little lonely and manic and chatty. So you have to just suck it up and deal with it. You’re my sounding board.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So nearly three weeks out of town really sucks. I don’t recommend it.

I keep worrying that maybe this isn’t how things are meant to be. I think work is so soul crushing. Maybe it’s just my work, but it seems like that’s just not enough. I get this overwhelming feeling sometimes that we’re supposed to be out creating and experiencing and running barefoot through flowery meadows or some such shit.

But flower running doesn’t really pay the bills, thus, we work. I totally don’t know if that comma usage was correct back there. But I get all tangled up in it because commas stress me out. So I vow just to not go back. It’s better that way. Let it lie. Or lay. That’s another one that always does me in.

Anyway, I’m saying “anyway” too much.

Uhm, what else? That’s all. Just that every once in a while I wish it were different.

I was going through my drafts this morning. Some of them are epic posts that should be in book, not blog format. Some of them are just titles! What was that all about? I open WordPress, plug in a title and that’s as far as I can get? WordPress has a built in draft save feature which saves your post after a minute or two and then every couple minutes after that. It’s a nifty little feature because if your computer crashes you haven’t lost everything. But what that means is, I opened those posts, plugged the title in and then sat there for two or three minutes and typed….nothing. Just an empty box. Then I closed WordPress and went on my way.

That’s depressing. I should be better. I wish I was more like Anji. She keeps up her site and the comments and does a fine job of it too. I should learn from example!

I won’t say I’ll get better or even that I’ll try. Sure as I do I’ll only stay away even longer. Instead, I’ll just let it be okay that I’m rarely here and maybe, by my twisted logic, that will make me post more. Who knows? It could work.

Wouldn’t it rock if, just once, some E! “Special” Correspondent was out on the red carpet and they’re all like,

“And who are you wearing?”

and the celebrity would be all like,

“Wal Mart. Kathie Lee Collection.”

and then,

“The necklace is from Target though.”

I would pay good money to see that. (Does Kathie Lee even have a collection? Is it at Wal Mart? Or K mart? I thought I remembered hearing that at some point.) (Not that it matters. I’m just curious.)

The problem is that I think I may have outgrown this. But I’m not sure. It could be that I’m just going through a phase. It could be that I will find the interest in it again. It could be that I just need an extended break.  Or, it could be that I actually have outgrown it. Perhaps the magic of self delusion has been the only thing keeping it going for so long. Maybe I’m just too lazy to give it up. Not doing anything about it, just letting it sit here unattended, that’s easier than thinking about it. Making a decision. Doing something.

I don’t know. I think about not renewing the site and it kills me. I don’t want to think about someone else getting my domain name. I don’t want to watch all those years of posts and pictures and comments to just disappear as if they were never even here. I don’t want to think about all the work — all those hours and hours spent tweaking the look just so. All that time adding features I want and removing stuff that didn’t fit. The phases. The fads. I don’t want to think about it all going away forever. It’s like losing a friend. That’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve never done this for the page views or the comments. Those are nice, of course. But if I’m honest about it, I would have to admit that comments and and page views also made me a little nervous. I liked getting comments from my friends, the people I know and love. But that was it. I would frankly freak out when someone new came here and commented. It felt like pressure then. Like I had to perform. Like work.  Be witty. Be interesting. Say something worth saying.

Thing is, I don’t want to say something other people think is worth saying. I want to say what’s in my head. I want to say what I feel like saying. And sometimes those things just aren’t witty. Or interesting. They’re just things in my head and they are looking for a place to come out. This was it. This was that place.  So when strangers stopped by I would censor myself and rein it in, afraid of their judgment. Who wants to write under those circumstances?

So I was okay without the crowds. I just don’t know if I’m okay with it all disappearing for good though. I don’t know if I can do that. I think I’ll percolate on it for a while. I’ll just leave it alone. For now. We’ll see where we go from here.

Maybe he’s on to something?

That was then. This is now: