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Entry for 08/07/05 @ 09:26:13 pm
Back in the basement... with another entry in the journal of Walter the Frankenstein monster.
To start out with, let me say that I hate Windows. I have XP Home Edition, I use the firewall, and I have McAfee. They keep screwing up my ability to connect to my FTP server to update this damn page. Yes... I am totally aware of alternatives, but I am not sure how Unix would work with my laptop and some other stuff I have. So, until have the time to totally back this whole computer up and play with it, I am stuck.
Enough of my PC bitching.
A friend of mine went out of town last week for some training. While he was away, one of the other guys there talked him into going to a strip club. The girl that was dancing there ended up also being from Chicago. Small world, huh? That's what she thought too. So, he asks the question that we all seem to want to know of women in that trade, why did she start stripping?
Just for future reference, conversation with strippers is a double edged sword. He asked another girl what her tattoo said and proceeded to get a tongue-lashing about how everybody asks her the same damned question, that she was getting it covered up, that the guy the name belonged too was a total bastard, and so on.
I say, it's her own fault. Everybody knows that it is almost never a good idea to get someone's name tattooed on you. Even if you are married. You never get a tattoo of a name that might someday not be in the picture. Bad, bad, bad.
Anyway, back to the first stripper. Like I said, she was from the Chicago area, like my friend. My friend asked how she started there and got yet another sob-story. In this case, it was nowhere near a virulent at the first.
The girl had moved out west with her boyfriend. For three years they had lived together and he pretty much supported her. The boyfriend left her for some local weather-girl and she was stuck out west, no friends, no family, no job, and needing a place to live. So she got as a stripper to pay the bills. Why stripping in particular? She figured that one day, the ex-boyfriend in question would come in, she her there, having guys fall all over her and raking in cash to boot. However, in the two years since she had started working there, he had not so much as poked his head in the door, let alone given her the opportunity to really gloat at his loss.
I feel bad for this one. I really do.
It got me thinking of how often we do things to show-up those who shafted us. How many of us sit and dwell on what we will do or say at our high school reunions? How many of us want to make something of ourselves and throw it in the face of that jock that kicked our ass in lunch or the popular, yet brainy chick that wouldn't go out with us because she was too afraid of what her popular friends said about us? Even if these scenarios don't apply to you exactly, there has to have been some time that you wanted to throw the shit back at the jerk that gave it to you.
In the same vein, maybe you screwed someone else over. Maybe there was someone that you fell in love with that you were an utter jerk to and you feel terrible about it. You might not have realized what a miserable, monkey-headed trail of snail phlegm you were at the time, but, dammit, you realize it now. And, since you have no contact with that person, the only way you can make it up is to do better. You can try to be a better person in hopes that you will correct your karma, make the world a better place. And maybe, just maybe, if you bump into that person, you will be able to act a little nicer. You will be able to show that man or woman that you were young, immature, and stupid when you did whatever it was you feel so bad about. Maybe they will forgive you. Maybe they will understand. Maybe they will have forgotten entirely because whatever it was you have been mooning over for twenty or thirty years was so damn insignificant to them that it never had much impact.
That's this blog in a nutshell.
Some nights, I go to bed, sick to my stomach. For taking Walter and Chauncey to the sanctuary to begin with. Sick with myself for not writing, calling, or visiting more. Sick for not being a better friend to someone that I was solely responsible for even existing.
I am a total shit-head. ( Yes, you are all free to agree. Loudly, if it so pleases you. )
Hoping against all hope, maybe Walter is still out there. Maybe that Big Foot sighting in Canada really was him. Maybe he'll write to me and I might be able to tell him that I'm sorry for being such a bastard. Maybe Walter will wander into a library somewhere, do a search for his name on the Internet and find this site.
Redemption, baby. Isn't it always about redemption? Quite often, I think so.
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