Who are you?

gimmesometruth27 said:

I'm Rodney, Rod for short. 42, st louis, misery. progressive, liberal, whatever you want to call it. i've been politically active my entire adult life. as you can tell by my post count, most of them from 1998 on have been on amt.

i have been playing guitar since 1993. Mr stone gossard, randy rhoads, and kurt cobain were the guys that inspired me to pick up the guitar. i have been in bands for 23 years. one of them tried to "go for it" in the late 90s. we didn't make it past regional success and fame due to fucking nu metal and fucking rap rock coming out and killing the hopes of punk based rock bands like mine. the choice was keep doing what we were doing and fail, or sell out and get a fucking rapper and dj and change our style. we were actually told that by labels that we had contacted. we decided to call it a day and move on with our lives. i currently play covers once a month and write when i can. i am also in an original band now that gets together when we can.

i am the oldest of two kids. my sister is going to be 40 in september. i have one nephew, age 18, who is playing college baseball. god i am so absolutely proud of him. his dad was absent, so i helped to raise him the best i could. my sister was on a couple of national championship softball teams in high school and she played a couple of years in college until she got pregnant. i played a year of division one baseball until a shoulder injury ended that career. that injury directly led to my career path though, so i guess it is a blessing in some ways. the guy ahead of me at catcher was only a year ahead of me. i was going to have to beat him out or sit the bench behind him for a few years until it was my time. i saw the writing on the wall. working that hard and riding the bench were two things i had no interest in, so i quit after that first year and entered the sports medicine and athletic training curriculum. my nephew is a better athlete than i ever was, so hopefully he will get to use all of his eligibility. hopefully i have helped to teach him well.

i am the oldest of my cousins on both sides of the family. there is a lot of pressure in that. there was a lot of pressure to be the golden one. the one who is successful. the one that goes to grad school because nobody else in the family had not done so. the one that does not fuck up. the one that does not besmirch the family name. the one that gets the trophy wife and has the awesome kids who in turn go on to be successful.

that last sentence did not happen. turns out, my life has not really gone as planned in many ways.

i am an athletic trainer and orthopaedic technologist that is essentially the right hand of an orthopaedic surgeon. he is a rising star in the world of pediatric orthopaedics and hip preservation surgery. i helped him start his practice in 2014 and his practice has exploded. i used to love every minute of it when we were not so fucking busy. now our clinics average 55 patients per day and our surgery time is always booked. half of the time we are overbooked and need to use 2 operating rooms in a day to handle the volume. it takes about 5 months for some surgeries to get done. it is good for him, but bad for support staff like myself. i am about 4 years older than he is. i work 55-60 hours per week. it is the definition of a thankless job. this has made me a bitter person. i literally wake up, go to work, come home late. eat dinner, and go to bed and do it all over again. the stress at times is overbearing. the work is never ever done and i am rarely ever caught up. i can never work ahead.  that is the main reason i am not on here anymore. i don't have the time or energy for it. i don't have the time or energy to do anything. i don't date, i don't play guitar like i should and i can't ever get to the gym. at this point i hate more about the job than i love about it, and that tells me it is time to do something different with my life. i don't even have the energy to come home and look for jobs. that takes time, and time is what i don't have. i want to transition to surgical sales, but the guy i work for is such a young hotshot that nobody around here wants to hire me away from him because they are afraid doing so would hurt their business. at this time i am open to moving for the sake of a job. until then i reside here in the fuckbarrel.

i've never married or had kids. i am really bummed out about that because i like kids and always thought i would have been a pretty kick ass dad. i was nearly married twice. turns out i just have a knack for spending too much time with the wrong people. giving people and relationships chance after chance after chance only to have it fail in a super cataclysmic fashion. either that, or i have the gift of bad timing, because timing is everything and if timing is bad, there is no hope for a lasting relationship. i have wasted a lot of years with the wrong people and sometimes i wish i could have those years back. at this point, i don't even have the desire to start over again and invest what little time i have into getting to know someone and have it fail and end up back as square one. ya know? i have come to realize that intimacy is strange to me. when i have it with someone, everything feels normal. i don't have to question it or worry about it or think about it. when i don't have it, the entire concept seems strange to me. its like "why do i feel like i have to feel intimately connected to someone?" i may not be connected to someone, but i feel like i need to be, and that causes me stress. too much information? maybe, but who cares?

i do know that i love music. i have an extensive record collection and even though i am older i am still discovering new music. like most of us, i am a hoarder of vinyl. i have a great guitar collection. i was hoping that if i ever have a kid that one day they would end up with a kick ass collection of vintage gear.  i would like to play more shows than i do, but at this age it is hard to find other musicians that want it as bad as i do. 

i do know that i am a loyal person. i love my family and close friends dearly. if i love you, i'd stop a bullet for you and you aren't getting rid of me easily. i sometimes expect the same from certain people and they always fall short of expectation, and that always hurts. i have learned to stop expecting anything from anybody. 

jesus reading this i sound pathetic, lol. catharsis is good at times i guess. 

as long as i am being honest, i might as well say i am going to wrigley, and for the first time in my life i am not looking forward to seeing pearl jam. i have seen them over 40 times, and this whole wrigley thing to me feels like "been there, done that", because i attended the other three shows. honestly i have gotten in to other bands that tour extensively and actually put out albums. i don't know if this is a form of a midlife crisis, but i am not finding joy in the things that used to give me a lot of joy. maybe because my ex will be at wrigley. i introduced her to a lot of PJ people that i have known for years. since we split i have been unfriended one by one by all of those people, so it is going to be weird attending preparties and shit knowing those people will be there and they are not going to want to see me. a few years ago i would not have given a fuck. but the older i get, i realize deep down that i'd like it if people liked me. i make it difficult a lot of the time, but i guess that is who i am.

i have enjoyed reading this thread. all of you are wonderful people. it is comforting to know that people that i sometimes disagree with are actually people with their own story. a lot of the time that gets lost when the person typing is behind a 1 cm by 1 cm avatar that i can't even make out what the image is supposed to be. cheers to all of you good folks and i look forward to reading more of who you are.

Rod

tweedyfanjen said:

I'm Jen. Have lived in the South my entire life yet do not prescribe to most of the ideals other than be nice to your mama. I've worked at the same job for 25 years and have taken care of myself for longer than that. Don't want a husband, don't need a husband.  I love going to live shows, traveling, watching sports (Go Cocks!), reading and being a dog mom to Maggie. I love my crazy family including my soon to be 101 year old grandma. I wish everyone could know her. And I wish this didn't read like a dating profile.

hedonist said:

tweedyfanjen said:

I'm Jen. Have lived in the South my entire life yet do not prescribe to most of the ideals other than be nice to your mama. I've worked at the same job for 25 years and have taken care of myself for longer than that. Don't want a husband, don't need a husband.  I love going to live shows, traveling, watching sports (Go Cocks!), reading and being a dog mom to Maggie. I love my crazy family including my soon to be 101 year old grandma. I wish everyone could know her. And I wish this didn't read like a dating profile.

I love this.

(and to your last part - it doesn't)

hedonist said:

.......aaaand, now I've got the shrinkage scene in my head.

"I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."

PJ_Soul said:

I'm Allison, born on 4/20 in the Year of the Dragon in Vancouver, Canada. I go by Alli because that is what all my friends and family have always called me - at some point I embraced it and even officially go by Alli at work. When someone calls me Allison I think I feel the same as a Chris feels when someone calls him Christopher. It's kind of unfortunate though... Allison is much prettier IMO.

I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky person, among other things. I laugh and smile a lot - I generally feel fairly joyous on a day to day basis. I'm not really bothered by negativity and conflict, mainly because they are two of the many things that keep life intriguing. Although bigotry and injustice gets under my skin pretty bad.

I am interested in, well, just about everything. I'm really never bored. I am curious about and entertained by most things going on around me, from the completely hum-drum routine shit to the spectacularly amazing stuff and everything in between. I find things interesting, and I find thinking about things interesting. I think the only thing that really bores me are other people who are disinterested in or oblivious to the world around them, and people who are bad conversationalists simply because they can't think of anything to say or think, and then they resort to mindless small talk (if that).

I can play the piano. I'm not talented - average at best - but I started when I was about 7 years old and got up to grade 9 in the Royal Conservatory, so can certainly play a song or two, talent or no talent.

I'm from a semi-dysfunctional family, but it could be worse. While my sister is a fucking sociopath (with lovely kids and a pretty good hubby who deserves better than her), my parents are both pretty great (except when it comes to them dealing with each other), so I feel relatively lucky. Especially when it comes to my mom. She is 1) hilarious and weird and wise, and 2) the person who knows me best in this world, and will likely be the only person who has or ever will understand me at that level.

I've always been a party animal and a night owl, and even though I'm now in my early 40s, that part of me hasn't left. It's just becoming harder to find other people to party with. When I'm just getting going at 10 or 11pm, most people I know are yawning and ready for bed. It's probably not fair, but I feel really disappointed in their lack of stamina and exuberance and their ridiculous need to go to bed while there is still something to do, lol.

I never wanted children, so I don't have any. This world doesn't need more people in it, and I feel no urge to live on through my offspring or whatever that drive to have kids is even when it makes no financial or lifestyle sense.  Given how things are going, I'm very glad that I've not subjected kids to this fucked up world. Besides, I find playing with children very tedious and not at all fun. I do it if I have to, like so that the kids don't think I hate them, lol, and the kids think it's all fun and wonderful, but I'm totally faking it for their sake (not that I hate them - I like them... I just hate playing with them!).

My true loves are music, New York City, and just the world and people around me and what's happening, every minute. Also, brie with real french baguette.

I am a particular fan of the whole apocalyptic/dystopian future genre, both with books and movies/TV. I'm not even really discriminating about it, lol. Even terrible movies with that theme are good as far as I'm concerned. I also very much appreciate the macabre when it comes to books and media, and am a horror movie junkie. Which is strange, because I'm not a grim or dark or macabre person personality wise, although I can have a pretty dark sense of humour (and FTR, everything gets a pass in comedy - nothing offends me in that context, and it is NEVER "too soon" if it's a joke ).

I have a degree with a double major in English Lit and Communications, and I have a professional certificate in editing. I work at a university and I really love it. Public sector, the bottom line isn't the prize... perfect for a wannabe socialist, lol.

And here is my 16 year old cat, Sid. I rescued her when she was only about 3 weeks old. She is perfect. Except that she maybe loves me TOO much. She has an unhealthy obsession with me, lol.



One of my flaws is that I can't easily stop once I've started, like with this post. I talk too fucking much sometimes.

And here is me with one of my best friends, Dan, way up in the rafters at a Canucks game... btw, the Canucks are heartbreaking.

PJ_Soul said:

Lol, yes Brian, you can call me Allison.

gimmesometruth27 said:

I'm Rodney, Rod for short. 42, st louis, misery. progressive, liberal, whatever you want to call it. i've been politically active my entire adult life. as you can tell by my post count, most of them from 1998 on have been on amt.

...................

i've never married or had kids. i am really bummed out about that because i like kids and always thought i would have been a pretty kick ass dad. i was nearly married twice. turns out i just have a knack for spending too much time with the wrong people. giving people and relationships chance after chance after chance only to have it fail in a super cataclysmic fashion. either that, or i have the gift of bad timing, because timing is everything and if timing is bad, there is no hope for a lasting relationship. i have wasted a lot of years with the wrong people and sometimes i wish i could have those years back. at this point, i don't even have the desire to start over again and invest what little time i have into getting to know someone and have it fail and end up back as square one. ya know? i have come to realize that intimacy is strange to me. when i have it with someone, everything feels normal. i don't have to question it or worry about it or think about it. when i don't have it, the entire concept seems strange to me. its like "why do i feel like i have to feel intimately connected to someone?" i may not be connected to someone, but i feel like i need to be, and that causes me stress. too much information? maybe, but who cares?

i do know that i love music. i have an extensive record collection and even though i am older i am still discovering new music. like most of us, i am a hoarder of vinyl. i have a great guitar collection. i was hoping that if i ever have a kid that one day they would end up with a kick ass collection of vintage gear.  i would like to play more shows than i do, but at this age it is hard to find other musicians that want it as bad as i do. 

i do know that i am a loyal person. i love my family and close friends dearly. if i love you, i'd stop a bullet for you and you aren't getting rid of me easily. i sometimes expect the same from certain people and they always fall short of expectation, and that always hurts. i have learned to stop expecting anything from anybody. 

jesus reading this i sound pathetic, lol. catharsis is good at times i guess. 

as long as i am being honest, i might as well say i am going to wrigley, and for the first time in my life i am not looking forward to seeing pearl jam. i have seen them over 40 times, and this whole wrigley thing to me feels like "been there, done that", because i attended the other three shows. honestly i have gotten in to other bands that tour extensively and actually put out albums. i don't know if this is a form of a midlife crisis, but i am not finding joy in the things that used to give me a lot of joy. maybe because my ex will be at wrigley. i introduced her to a lot of PJ people that i have known for years. since we split i have been unfriended one by one by all of those people, so it is going to be weird attending preparties and shit knowing those people will be there and they are not going to want to see me. a few years ago i would not have given a fuck. but the older i get, i realize deep down that i'd like it if people liked me. i make it difficult a lot of the time, but i guess that is who i am.

i have enjoyed reading this thread. all of you are wonderful people. it is comforting to know that people that i sometimes disagree with are actually people with their own story. a lot of the time that gets lost when the person typing is behind a 1 cm by 1 cm avatar that i can't even make out what the image is supposed to be. cheers to all of you good folks and i look forward to reading more of who you are.

Rod