You want to know what it is like to be a sailor? Let me tell you.
My cousin married a guy who became a good friend of mine. I have always thought of him as a friend rather than a cousin-in-law, or whatever the hell relationship he technically is. The football games we have been thrown out of would make quite a fun blog in itself and he was the best man at my wedding.
I don’t get to see him that often but it just so worked out that he was going to be in Tampa this weekend for business and had Sunday free. As my ship was scheduled to tie up at 11am and I get off work at noon we made plans to get together.
Well, the fog rolled in and we can’t go in until it clears. By the time we tie up I will not be able to leave the ship because I will soon be going back on watch. You see, the window of time was perfect before but it is now totally screwed up. And to make things worse, we anchored just outside of cell phone range so I can’t even call him to let him know I can’t make it.
My first Chief Mate gave me the best advice ever. He said not to make plans until you are at the bottom of the gangway. Someday I will listen.
And that is what it is like to be a sailor.
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Today the Buccaneers are honoring the ten year anniversary of their 2002 Super Bowl team. That Super Bowl was played in February 2003. In February 2003 I was separated from my wife and awaiting the beginning of divorce proceedings. I was working for close to minimum wage as a telemarketer because I didn’t know what to do with my life and frankly nobody wanted to hire me. I was a year removed from what I thought was going to be a long and promising career and now I was broke and back with my parents. I had a little depression and addiction problem and life just kind of sucked.
I am a football fan. I am a Buccaneers fan. One of my earliest childhood memories was getting a Buccaneers football helmet for Christmas. The Bucs became a franchise when I was three so I have been a fan for as long as I can remember. For a long time the Bucs were not only the worst team in all of football, but the worst team in all of sports. When asked about the execution of his offense, Coach John McKay replied, “I’m in favor of it.” They were that bad.
Then they got good but they couldn’t quite get over the hump. Until the 2002 season. The 2002 Bucs had arguably the best defense in history and they crushed the Raiders in the Super Bowl. When defensive player of the year Derek Brooks clinched the game with an interception return for a touchdown, I cried like a little girl. I needed that Super Bowl so bad.
I have a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat writing this.
You either get it or you don’t.
Go Bucs!! Fire the cannons!!
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Speaking of intelligent pretty ladies, my friend Michelle came through with the correct answer for last week’s Walt Whitman trivia. Momma came through as well but Michelle was first. I love having smart sexy ladies in my life.
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For blog music tonight we are going with Rise Against as that is a common workout band for me.
“We crawl on our knees for you!! Under a sky no longer blue!! We sweat all day long for you!! We sow seeds that see us through, ‘cause sometimes dreams just don’t come true!!”
Ok…download the song if you want. That is an excerpt from Re-education off the Appeal to Reason album. This isn’t music that has deep meaning to me. It just makes me angry and anger is what I need when I workout.
Because I hate it.
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One of the funniest things about match.com to me is how it gives you a potential match and shows what you have in common. I have never had more than one thing in common with anybody. When I answered the six thousand questions this ridiculous website asks I claimed that I workout 2-3 times per week.
It was true at the time I answered the question and is still true now. I am going through one of my phases when I am tired of being fat and flabby. It will last between two weeks or until taco day (whichever is the shorter period of time) and then I will go back to being a fatso for a while.
Anyway, I get these matches and it will say, “Like you she enjoys working out 2-3 times a week.” Let me make something perfectly clear. The only thing I enjoy about working out is looking at the posters of porn stars in thongs that are hanging in the ship’s gym. Other than that, I bad word hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate how I feel leading up to it. I hate how I feel while I am doing it. I hate how I feel after it.
Why do I do it? Because like every fat guy I am convinced that all my problems will go away as soon as I achieve six-pack abs and bulging biceps.
But that doesn’t mean I like it.
With six-pack abs, ladies that just want to be friends suddenly want to spend their free time making sweet love to you under a shady tree in the park. With bulging biceps you wake up and discover that you have an extra ten grand in your bank account and don’t live with your parents. When your clothes are not tight women want to rub your naked body with their oiled up breasts.
At least I think so. I wouldn’t know. I’m a chubby.
My cousin set me up with this gal one time. She was attractive and seemed nice. She was also into running – as in running marathons. I don’t have a problem with people running marathons. Good for them. But unless you paved a 26-1/2 mile road with chicken wings there is little to no chance that I am traversing that path. I will, however, be waiting for you at the finish line to congratulate you on a race well run. Unless you happen to cross at the exact time I stepped across to the pizza place for a slice of New York’s finest pie. But I will bring you a slice when I finish.
The gal and I met for lunch (this was our first date) and about halfway through the meal she asks if I would be interested in running a half-marathon with her in November (some six weeks away.) I didn’t even know how to respond. Shocked, I looked behind me to see if there was a skinny dude in running shorts behind me that she was talking to.
Nope. Seems like she was talking to me.
One – I will never run a marathon, a half-marathon or anything with the word “marathon” in it.
Two – If I was going to run any distance more than a mile it would require much more than six weeks of training. In fact, I would most likely just have to die and be reincarnated as a man who could run a marathon. I just don’t think I could ever work my way up to it. But we would never know because see #1 – I wouldn’t even try.
Three – To me, asking a chubby guy on the first date if he will run a half-marathon with you is pretty much saying, “Just so you know, this isn’t going to work out if you don’t get your fat ass in shape.”
If that lady is reading this – no offense. You were a swell gal and quite pretty. Hope you found a nice looking long distance running man to make you happy.
So I am working out. One of the things I do is the Pushup Challenge. I have written about this before. This is an app that you can get for your phone and it is designed to get you to 100 perfect pushups in 6 weeks.
Well, I did it for a bit and then I stopped and now I have started again. I finished the third week and clicked the button to schedule my next workout. Instead of saying “Week 4, Day 1” like I expected, it said, “Next Workout – Exhaustion Test.”
Exhaustion Test?!?!?!?!
Sounds worse than a half-marathon.
I worried about it for two days. You see, you skip a day between workouts so I had plenty of time to stress. I wanted to whine to somebody but I have nobody to whine to. You know what would happen in a perfect world?
Russell whines to a pretty lady friend – “My stupid phone wants me to do a bad word exhaustion test for my pushup challenge and I don’t wanna do it 😦 “
Pretty lady friend – “Russell, you are so perfect just the way you are. Why are you even doing those bad word pushups?”
Russell – “I want to look hot so pretty ladies like you will love me!”
Pretty lady friend – “I love you just how you are! You are so funny and witty and have great hair! I have a better idea. Let’s test your exhaustion level by making sweet love all night long. Then I will rest my head on your sexy belly and we can watch a Sponge Bob marathon while eating fried chicken in bed.”
Russell – “You’re the best pretty lady friend ever!!! I’m on my way!!!”
You know what the chances are of that conversation happening? Let’s just say I’ll complete my first marathon before I hear those words. That leaves me whining to myself, facing the exhaustion test on my own and fighting the never ending fight against fat.
I did the exhaustion test. I had to do as many perfect pushups as I could. Keep in mind these have to be perfect pushups. I pushed up until I collapsed on the deck. Then my phone told me to enter the number I had done. I did and it told me I had performed well enough to advance to the next workout!!!!
I was so excited!!!! It meant that the first three weeks of hell had paid off!! Then I realized that all I had won was three more weeks of misery.
Bad word!!
I have five months to get myself looking super-sexy. Let’s say I want to get to a 10 on the sexiness scale. Right now I am standing naked in front of the mirror and I am going to give myself a very generous 2. That means I have 8 points to go. If I can increase 2 points every month I can use month 5 just to get used to my new sexiness and kind of round things out.
Wish me luck.
See you next time guys and gals. The good news is that I already think you all are sexy as hell.
Russell Yale
PiratePooh 