By Drizz © 2010
A sense of entitlement. For some after a hard day on Wall Street or along the glass enclosed offices of a Fortune 500 company it’s having a three-car garage filled with names like Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, and Bentley or a closet full of Zegna, Ralph Lauren, and Armani. Those are materialistic things that sedate the beast of needing more. Others are happy that the oft broken down 1998 Ford Probe didn’t leak too much oil and was able deposit them into the deep cubical mazes of lower middle management never to see the executive washroom because they refuse to play the office politics game and jerk-off the guy in the corner office after every half-wit Powerpoint presentation about fiscal responsibility.
A person’s sense of entitlement extends however beyond the toys lying in a bank account or taking up sixty inches of wall space to be shown in HD. Those without disabilities may feel entitled to be able to see clearly, use all limbs without pain or in most cases, hear a spoken word without having the origin of the sound repeat it. With a “normal” middle-income life that most Americans live grinding out work for the man and making enough scratch to satisfy the needs and wants, there’s hardly time to take a step back and enjoy this existence.
Thanks to a group of friends that started as nothing more than online counterparts with a similar enjoyment for cards and gambling, that enlightenment happened to me. Started with this motley crew of doctors, lawyers, computer programmers, and spreadsheet jockeys giving me keys to the door to a new life, all I had to do walk through. The first step was the hardest, stuck in a mire of depression and self-loathing; there were several fight-or-flight moments to allow the suck to pull me nine feet underground leaving behind a wife, children, and everyone who gave a shit about the lanky half-deaf kid moping in a corner. A Vegas bender that would result in a free wheelchair ride with a blood alcohol content that nearly matched his age from the New York New York casino’s security staff up to a room with a wife who had left her husband’s soul for dead after a head injury stripped him of his remaining dignity and freedom several years ago.
Once a person has zero sense of entitlement, as I did lying faced down on that hotel bed with $600 in Imperial Palace checks in my pocket that somehow did not get poached by some meth-addled hooker thanks to the above mentioned friends, he/she can start to build their life anew. Learning to laugh again, learning to sit down behind a computer monitor to bang out a few words for others to read, learning to live. Each day now opens a new opportunity, and those details of gaining the ability to drive a car seizure less, to hear semi-normally, to love my spouse and receive the same amount back over the past four years, are better left for daily diary entries.
Drizz is a writer from Minnesota.
Showing posts with label Drizz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drizz. Show all posts
May 02, 2010
May 02, 2009
The Regret
By David "Drizz" Aydt © 2009
Many people sport a scar.
That scar could be four inch gash on their face from that bad car accident when your buddy had the great idea that shooting Irish car bombs until two a.m. with the townies at the local VFW, well after the softball team took off for their awaiting families, and ended with turning your 1999 Honda Prelude into the letter U on I-494 with a trooper shaking his perfectly starched hat at your stupidity.
Holding a firecracker long enough to qualify for a Darwin Award. Caught mounting the high school junior next door neighbor listening to Blink 182 when the wife came home early from the gym working off her mid-section to get back into bikini shape after producing your second offspring, and she applied a Ginsu to your back while trying to go a second round with the young three-sport academic star on her back.
Other scars are not seen on the skin. In my life, the proclamation of having one and only one regret rings true, and the reminder of that scar burns with every trip to the office. My scar is buried under six feet of solid Nordic dirt and ice, among the mass headstones there’s a grave marked with her name that has not been seen by these eyes.
Coward.
Not getting the balls to take a simple right on 85th Ave. into the small plot of land for the dead to let 17 years of regret spill out onto her grave.
Survivor questions have pelted me since the day a letter from her mother arrived at the ASU campus with a Denver Post clipping with her face down on the pavement as a result of an attempt to recreate a Hawaiian cliffdiver’s form off a five story parking ramp.
Often there’s a dream of falling with her in slow-motion, questions of why are you here in the Mile High city, why did you do it, and were you coming to see me. The dream resulting in waking up on the couch right before kissing asphalt while Verne Lundquist is calmly describing Mickelson’s miraculous sand save on the 17th and his subsequent two foot putt for par to stay tied with Tiger Woods. Those questions are ones that without the help of Haley Joel Osment, or $1.99/hour on the psychic network, I’ll have to live without knowing their answers.
Survivor’s remorse?
Possibly.
Most of that college freshman year, after receiving her death notice, was spent with an asshole 21 year old freshman from New York who enjoyed fucking his flavor of the week, or jamming horrible grunge lyrics into my skull with me in the room trying to decide nightly if doing a similar dive off the yuppie priced dorm room would be my way to release the pain of hating myself for breathing. Daily walks to class, and spending two hours solving for x passed the time and eventually woke me up to landed me with better company in the form of a speckled pothead from Philly who enjoyed dishing out his deep supply to Greek lettered ladies in exchange for cash, blow, or conversation. It made the time pass, made living flow, made for a way to escape inside of a one-hitter instead of looking for ways to give-up or listening to the NYC dickhead’s 2am bad karaoke version of “Jeremy”.
It took many years of self-hatred to realize she died for reasons unrelated to myself. No more daily queries like “should I have called when she broke it off for the fourth and final time?”. Easier now then to speculate as an 18 year old who’s head and body hasn’t lived life. Selfishness ruled, as getting laid and smashed daily seemed more important than securing a piece of paper which would assure you and your wife will enjoy financial freedom in Sun City, Arizona in those later years while your kids enjoy learning the history of Jamestown while doing tequila shooters off the school’s cheerleaders perfectly flat abs.
Still, sitting 17 years later, older, wiser, having life experiences of deaths to loved one and potential offspring, I still laminate on my first love (or lust?) while incased in a new family I would gladly die for. When will her ghost leave? Am I stuck to relive memories of pretending to go to the homecoming game in our sophomore year to get a first feel of sticking two fingers inside a girl while receiving my first ten-second blowjob? The sexually awkward next day in the hallways between class, and subsequent dinner-and-movie dates leading to our first break-up a few months later when someone else caught her eye are just a few memories that fade as I sit next to my seed playing with his new special edition transformers.
Letting go these in these fatherhood days of fun fruit, kindergarten, and level two swimming classes is easier, the dream doesn’t come around as much, but there’s still no closure. Finally taking that turn into the cemetery may not appease my 17 year old self wrapped with insecurity and acne as to why the brush off before prom, but looking down at her last name etched in stone as a father of two could finally give the present me the chance to at last say good-bye.
David "Drizz" Aydt is a writer from Minnesota.
Many people sport a scar.
That scar could be four inch gash on their face from that bad car accident when your buddy had the great idea that shooting Irish car bombs until two a.m. with the townies at the local VFW, well after the softball team took off for their awaiting families, and ended with turning your 1999 Honda Prelude into the letter U on I-494 with a trooper shaking his perfectly starched hat at your stupidity.
Holding a firecracker long enough to qualify for a Darwin Award. Caught mounting the high school junior next door neighbor listening to Blink 182 when the wife came home early from the gym working off her mid-section to get back into bikini shape after producing your second offspring, and she applied a Ginsu to your back while trying to go a second round with the young three-sport academic star on her back.
Other scars are not seen on the skin. In my life, the proclamation of having one and only one regret rings true, and the reminder of that scar burns with every trip to the office. My scar is buried under six feet of solid Nordic dirt and ice, among the mass headstones there’s a grave marked with her name that has not been seen by these eyes.
Coward.
Not getting the balls to take a simple right on 85th Ave. into the small plot of land for the dead to let 17 years of regret spill out onto her grave.
Survivor questions have pelted me since the day a letter from her mother arrived at the ASU campus with a Denver Post clipping with her face down on the pavement as a result of an attempt to recreate a Hawaiian cliffdiver’s form off a five story parking ramp.
Often there’s a dream of falling with her in slow-motion, questions of why are you here in the Mile High city, why did you do it, and were you coming to see me. The dream resulting in waking up on the couch right before kissing asphalt while Verne Lundquist is calmly describing Mickelson’s miraculous sand save on the 17th and his subsequent two foot putt for par to stay tied with Tiger Woods. Those questions are ones that without the help of Haley Joel Osment, or $1.99/hour on the psychic network, I’ll have to live without knowing their answers.
Survivor’s remorse?
Possibly.
Most of that college freshman year, after receiving her death notice, was spent with an asshole 21 year old freshman from New York who enjoyed fucking his flavor of the week, or jamming horrible grunge lyrics into my skull with me in the room trying to decide nightly if doing a similar dive off the yuppie priced dorm room would be my way to release the pain of hating myself for breathing. Daily walks to class, and spending two hours solving for x passed the time and eventually woke me up to landed me with better company in the form of a speckled pothead from Philly who enjoyed dishing out his deep supply to Greek lettered ladies in exchange for cash, blow, or conversation. It made the time pass, made living flow, made for a way to escape inside of a one-hitter instead of looking for ways to give-up or listening to the NYC dickhead’s 2am bad karaoke version of “Jeremy”.
It took many years of self-hatred to realize she died for reasons unrelated to myself. No more daily queries like “should I have called when she broke it off for the fourth and final time?”. Easier now then to speculate as an 18 year old who’s head and body hasn’t lived life. Selfishness ruled, as getting laid and smashed daily seemed more important than securing a piece of paper which would assure you and your wife will enjoy financial freedom in Sun City, Arizona in those later years while your kids enjoy learning the history of Jamestown while doing tequila shooters off the school’s cheerleaders perfectly flat abs.
Still, sitting 17 years later, older, wiser, having life experiences of deaths to loved one and potential offspring, I still laminate on my first love (or lust?) while incased in a new family I would gladly die for. When will her ghost leave? Am I stuck to relive memories of pretending to go to the homecoming game in our sophomore year to get a first feel of sticking two fingers inside a girl while receiving my first ten-second blowjob? The sexually awkward next day in the hallways between class, and subsequent dinner-and-movie dates leading to our first break-up a few months later when someone else caught her eye are just a few memories that fade as I sit next to my seed playing with his new special edition transformers.
Letting go these in these fatherhood days of fun fruit, kindergarten, and level two swimming classes is easier, the dream doesn’t come around as much, but there’s still no closure. Finally taking that turn into the cemetery may not appease my 17 year old self wrapped with insecurity and acne as to why the brush off before prom, but looking down at her last name etched in stone as a father of two could finally give the present me the chance to at last say good-bye.
David "Drizz" Aydt is a writer from Minnesota.
June 05, 2008
Drafting Richard Petty
Drafting Richard Petty
By Drizz © 2008...blink if you can hear me
...can you feel this?
...ok, turn him over please and stabilize his head
I still remember my first full-out seizure occurring at work, typing an email to my sister about having my mom's famous breaded pork chops and twice baked potatoes as a family dinner with my wife of six months. Suddenly, a tingle came over me, and then my fingers wouldn't respond to my command of typing my doctor's name as I had yet another appointment at the U of M to try to figure out what was wrong with me after my accident three months ago. Finally dropping into a catatonic state for six hours in which I couldn't move nor would my limb respond to any of the usual reflex tests.
I thought due to the daily seizures had subsidizing in frequency and intensity, and the ability to make my own bagel, egg, cheese, and bacon sandwiches without fear of putting a nice hole through my hand would signal some road toward normalcy again. But, being carried out on a stretcher by two burly paramedics in the dead of winter while passing the office that yesterday I answered several "where do you see yourself in five years?" "what are you strength?" "can you really fire that third bullet on the river with Queen high?" type questions, brought a lot of things into perspective.
No longer was I the hot-shot up-and-coming worker drone being polished for promotion once I got that elusive parchment from an educational facility proclaiming I took enough credits of Advanced Jump Services in Volleyball 202 and Accounting for Bada-Bing.
No longer would I come to work and see people coming to my desk asking for advice on handling a difficult guest on the phone, how the database's reports were not working, or to give a short presentation on the department's quality assurance findings. They were more likely to look over me with puppy dog eyes of pity.
My job became simply a struggle to show up. Imagine having the balance of Michael Spinks after a minute in the ring with Tyson, the light sensitivity of the sun shining directly into your corneas, and the speech of someone who had too many Cap'n Cokes on his birthday. Imagine starting every day with these heavy chains pinning you to Davy Jones' Locker, and having zero motivation to try to swim to the surface because those depths didn't provide any sunlight to reach.
Eventually through physical and occupational therapy, I was able to slowly enjoy things like playing volleyball with an ankle weight to balance myself, softball with sunglasses and a visor on so I didn't suffer a migraine while performing a throw-hop from right field to throw out that speedy little leadoff hitter trying to stretch an extra base, or use a pen again with the assistance of a dove-shaped writing device. Several of my friends who met me for the first time at the Plaza in Vegas a couple of years ago may remember me wearing a visor and sunglasses, I wore that at all times for nearly four years not just to peel two cards back and ponder a three bet.
Today I'm 95% normal if I ever was normal which I'm sure many friends and family members would turn and have a chuckle at my expense. I don't walk with a weight on my ankle, or use a writing device to scribble my professional athlete-esqe signature on a check.
No, today I try to brush the late bit of hindrances that the accident has caused over the years.
Today is a day I've been looking forward to for nearly seven years. You see, people tend to frown upon allowing drivers of motor vehicles who's bodies spaz out at the sight of flashing lights or blackout for periods of time without warning. Per my neurologist's suggestion that the state remove my driving privileges unless I was in a gutted 87' Monte Carlo at the Sherburne County fair using my trunk to bust someone's radiator to win the demolition derby heat.
The ability to drive is taken for granted by most, much like flicking on the internet to troll for busty college cheerleader porn, if you can't do it, you feel strangely flaccid. I can't repay all the people who have had to go out of their way for the past seven years to shuttle me to a softball game or family poker night get-together. Starting today if I pass my exam, which hopefully will not include milking the prostate, I may regain my ability to pick up a friend or two to check-raise some douchebags at the poker tables at Canterbury just because I can.
Drizz is a writer from Minnesota.
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