Been drinking some bourbon, started out with Buffalo Trace but switched to Wild Turkey because I need to get rid of it. both bourbon which is my drink of choice. I’m the one that turned Adam on to bourbon, he liked scotch almost exclusively until I kept at him about bourbon. 🙂 Even kinda drunk I’m cheap, because I started drinking the wild turkey because I was like, “Hmmm… I’m probably drunk enough that that’d be good, and I need to get rid of it.” Buffalo Trace is good by itself, Wild Turkey is almost good, but not really, so I don’t usually end up drinking it. Last few years I’ve kinda taken to just taking the bottles and drinking from them directly, and oddly enough kinda like the taste better straight from the bottle vs. a glass. Don’t know if it’s the way it flows over your tongue or if it’s just some made up manly shit or psychosomatic or what. Anyway, I’m the kind of drunk right now that I sorta felt like waking Erin up to tell her I loved her and we need to not let anything get between that, I of course knew better but that’s the impulse I had. I was just crying a little thinking about Adam but kind of in a good way, I miss the shit out of him, every day multiple times at a minimum but even though I’m kinda fucked up about marriage because of his shit with his ex and even though I’m going through what I have been since his death and have been kinda weird about relationships with friends and Erin, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I loved that guy, he was my brother… Not like a brother, he was my brother… and I’m glad I was able to say both to him. I know he knew but I would have regretted not having it be said, but luckily there was a text exchange a couple months before he died where we both said as much, and I’m so fucking thankful for that… I’m thankful for the time I was able to know him, he was an amazing man. I feel like we were both better people having known each other, truly. I kinda felt like I wanted to be Adam when I grew up. I say that because in some ways he was more of an adult than I was, having kids an all. It was kinda like we both thought each other were idiots (but somehow not in a bad way, like only in shit that didn’t actually matter) but also looked up to each other and wanted to emulate the other in some major ways.
I think some of this was spurred on by watching a tv show I’m really enjoying named Mad Dogs. No idea wtf the title has to do with anything but it’s a British show about 4 college friends that are meeting back up in there 40s and crazy shit happens. I can say with confidence that Adam would have liked the show. Thinking that made me think of him bitter sweetly, and spawned thoughts of the above.
I’ve been listening to music I haven’t in a while, that I used to listen to quite a bit when talking to Adam and when working on projects we’d been doing together, like albums from 2000-2004. Not sure what prompted it but I’ve been doing it the last week, an album or band pops in my head that is from that era and I’ll listen to it and think bitter sweet thoughts of what we were up to and him in general. Sweet being the predominant feeling, with bitter being and undertone. I said something earlier in the week about how something reminded me of Adam and it made me smile but was bitter sweet overall and Erin said that’s probably the feeling I’m going to end up with after all is settled and I hope that’s the case. I think she’s right, but also really fucking hope she’s right at the same time, not sure if that makes sense.
Work’s been ok, sometimes it’s feeling kinda pointless and trivial, I’ve been getting there later than I probably should but I’ve been getting there, which is better than the alternative. My boss isn’t very good at being a test lead and even worse at being a manager, but I’m trying to make the best of it and show her how to lead and show her I can be trusted with things.
Tried working on my car last weekend which was kind of disappointing since I couldn’t get the bolts off my lower control arm but the place I’ve been going for my oil changes said they’d do it for $100 if I supplied the part which is a pretty decent deal. They were part of a local chain but got sold out and are now going the part of Meineke, which I don’t particularly like. I’d rather support a local place and often times the local places giver more of a fuck than national chains and have better deals/are more willing to work with you. It’s kinda like any place that doesn’t have grown adults working there and mostly has “young kids” is not a place i want to shop or do business (like home depot and lowes has a much higher average of douche bag kids than the local chain of hardware/home improvment store named McLendon’s and I MUCH prefer McLendon’s. same shit goes for large chain garages/oil change places vs “real” places)
Just put on an album I haven’t listened to since driving to Adam’s wake/funeral, both wakes… The Streets first album… It’s good, so I’m hoping it’s not ruined by the memory association. So far it’s not ruined.
I guess I don’t have much else to say. I guess I’ll say that some days are still rough. It kinda feels like my emotions are much closer to the surface, like I used to be a negative 8 or something and like it took positive numbers for me to have hurt feelings or be angry or sad and now I’m like very between a negative three to a negative 1 or maybe a zero. on some days, so stuff between Erin and I have sometimes (most days honestly) been kinda strained at one point during the day. I’ll say something that is more gruff/direct than I would have normally and it hurts her feelings and then I feel bad and it kinda spirals for there, or she’ll say something about me needing to clean up something or put something away and it’ll make me anxious and grumpy and shit will spiral from there. We’re both trying to work on it. She’s dealing with her new job not being real great (basically not enough training and having different people expect different hings and basically scold her for doing what others told her to do, which is kinda a trigger for her). She stopped grouping me dealing with Adam in the same breath as saying she’s dealing with a new job, that was slightly hard to take, I don’t think she actually was but it kinda felt like when she would say that, that she was grouping her job situation being in the same league as me dealing with Adam’s death. I had to hold my tongue because in that moment I wouldn’t have dealt with it well. Luckily she seems to have started not grouping them directly, somehow it feels like she’s putting what I’m dealing with a tier or two above what she is dealing with, which makes it ok… and typing that it slightly feels like I’m a dick but it’s being honest, and you can’t tell me in earnest that’s not the case…
feel like there was something else that had been simmering that I wanted to post about that I can’t remember in this moment… trying to think of what else I wanted to say, I started thinking about how bad I’ve felt and how honestly, if it was not know Adam or feel worse than I’ve felt, I’d honestly pick feeling worse than I feel now… I don’t have words for how much I valued him and his friendship… Started kinda crying again…
I said above we both had major things that we admired and wanted to emulate in the other, I know he always looked up to my say what’s on my mind attitude and actually said after his ex pulled what she pulled he’d been able to adopt that, I was proud he came out of his shell and was honestly more outgoing than I am. He was able to strike up random conversations and outwardly show confidence more than I feel like I’m able to. I don’t know, there’s some song that as a lyric of something along the lines of two swords sharping each other. I kinda feel that way about him and I, I think he saw things in me that he wanted to be and I saw things in him that I wanted to be and even the things that I think he was emulating in me, I felt I wanted to emulate in him. Not sure if that makes sense or not, like I think he was always worried about what people might think and restrained himself, after his divorce and what went down he had a “who gives a fuck” attitude, like there’s no reason to be awkward about things, just let the cards fall were they may and fuck it. That’s kind of the attitude I’ve had all my life and something he’s admired in me and wished he could emulate and was finally able to but I think he ended up actually taking it farther than I’m able to, so him emulating something in me ended up as something I wished to emulate that was in him… He was able to strike up conversations with anyone and was able to sit in a bar and get random people talking to him and shat up the bar tender and whatnot. I’m not that guy, at least not currently and haven’t been in the past… but him being able to made me feel like it was possible and I feel like he was able to partially because of the example I was able to give him…
two swords sharpening the other is the best way I can describe it… that and I fucking loved that guy… fuck.. tearing again… But like I said I wouldn’t trade it for anything and I don’t feel like he’d have traded it for anything either… I want him back so bad but the time I got with him was utterly worth it, I’m scared because of it, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything… litterally anything… as I typed that, I was like, “Not for a million dollars?” I ask myself, and I thought, “nah, we’d have figured out a way to somehow trick that person into giving me a million and sharing it.” and smiled big…. I’m tearing but smiling… it’s the weirdest feeling…
I guess I’m done. I’m slightly proud of the level of post I feel I was able to type while at this drunkness, but we’ll see if I feel the same way reading it tomorrow, if I read it tomorrow, heh. I went to take a piss before typing this paragraph, and was reminded that Adam most of the time at home sat down to take a piss because he found it easier. I always liked that about him, he always evaluated things for himself using only his own logic. Just that I knew that is an example of the level of connection we had or whatever but also, was an example of who he was. It was a “girly”/”pussy” thing to do to sit and piss, like no self respecting man would do that according to the bullshit culture, and he was like, “*shrug* whatever man, it doesn’t matter at all.” and I’m glad he was able to be the Adam I knew to more people for the last hand full of years of his life… I miss having someone I could saying 100% anything I’m thinking at any time about anything but I feel very grateful I had that person for what feels like a long time and what feels like some of the most formative years of my life… I just had to change a have to had in the last sentence and that made me tear up but I still feel like whatever I’ve gone through because of how close I was to him was more than worth it…
The last thought I have before closing this is I hope I’m always in contact with his brothers families. They meant a lot to him and I didn’t know them before his funeral but they instantly meant the world to me as well… I saw much of Adam in Brian for example, and I want to keep him and his family in my life even though I didn’t know them at all before he died… Honestly, I knew he existed and I shook hands with him (I think) or at least met, the Monday before the Wednesday he died, but seeing Adam in him and knowing how important he was to Adam it feels like I’m loosing Adam just a little bit more if I loose contact with them and right now that feels terrible and I hope I have a lifelong connection with them…
I really need to figure out an easy-ish way to have his dad send me a copy of the video of the funeral… it was amazing.. Brian did such a good job with it… I need to get a copy of it before to long passes. I sorta feel like I’m pretending he’s still around but he’s like unavailable. Like he’s camping or something and out of cell phone range but will soon be back… Like it feels like I’m a mixture of knowing that’s not the case and sorta subliminally pretending that’s the case to make it more palatable, occasionally staring the monster in the face but only for as long as I can stand (short time) and then retreating back to the subliminal feeling like he’s still here but unavailable. And not figuring out a way to get the funeral video is a symptom of that, I feel.
oh, I thought of one last thing I wanted to say or mark in indelible ink before I forgot. I heard a while ago (few years?) that some people that have had people important to them die they had a voicemail message of that person that they kept saving for years because it was the last thing they had of there voice. Adam and I didn’t really talk on the phone much and I think the only message I left with him was after he was gone asking him to call me back but anyway, having heard that, I haven’t been able to bring myself to delete any messages from Erin since Adam died. I haven’t gone through and forced my shit to keep the messages but I always push 9 for save instead of 7 for delete, regardless of how much the message will be useless in the future. I realized recently I’m terrified of losing her, in any method. I also have a guy I’ve known for just a few months that I feel I’m pretty close with, he went back to his folks house a half dozen hours away, like 5 or 6, him making the drive it occurred to me how much it’d be torn up if he somehow crashed or whatever and died or even if he moved away from the area to go to school or whatever, that’d really suck and slightly feel like I’ve latched onto him a little to much but not sure what to do with that…
just capped the wild turkey and thought, “time to try and drink a bunch of water. I wish I had some active charcoal to combat a hangover like Adam used to do…” He looked into what the hang over cures were that they sold in little packs for like $10 a piece and it was basically active charcoal and vitamins, so he bought active charcoal and took a multivitamin and it was WAY cheaper than buying those hang over cures…
just remembered something else I wanted to blog about when I did next. I am not a huge fan of scotch in general, taste a bit to much like I’m drinking bark to me. haha, after typing that I think I found that more amusing than I should have. Anyway, like I said earlier in this post bourbon is my drink. Adam used to love sherry cask whiskey, he liked a lot of whiskey, the only way I can gauge what he liked the most was what he ended up buying th most and that was probably Glenmorangie sherry cask scotch and was always on the look out for sherry cask whiskey in general. I am not a huge fan of scotch, so I never bought any and he didn’t have any when ever I was there so I hadn’t tried it. A hand full of weeks ago I bought some Glenmorangie sherry cask that I knew he liked in honor of him and some bushmills sherry cask Irish whiskey I told him existed but not sure if he actually tried. I know the scotch he gave me to try when I was there was good and he always liked the bourbon I showed him so I should have trusted his opinion, Glenmorangie sherry cask is fucking good, from the first sip I smiled thinking, “I should have trusted his opinion, shit’s good” and I’m smiling now thinking about it and him. I’m not sure if he ever found or tried the Bushmills but it’s good too, not quite as smooth as Glenmorangie but it’s cheaper and still real good.
I think this is like the 5th or 6th like, “oh ya, one more thing” type paragraph but anyway, I’ve got a bottle of W.L. Weller bourbon, not fancy, it’s like $15.99 at the liquor store near his house that he liked but it’s good… I realized that as I was stacking my liquor on the shelf I left a hole so I could see it where I sit on the couch when watching TV, sometimes I’d look at it and sometimes it’d feel like it was staring at me, semi-oppressively but never in a fully opressive manner, it was always a little joyful. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. I’m kinda retarded about stuff like that, it’s about 2/3 full and I’m not going to drink it on normal days, don’t know if I’ll take a shot every year on the anniversary of his death or just never drink it or what I’m going to do with it but since I noticed, a few days after being home from his funeral I’ve made sure not to put anything in front of it. I glance over from time to time and think and may just keep it as it is, with the price sticker on the top and 2/3 full until I’m gone… I haven’t decided yet…
I think that’s the last “one more thing” since it’s fucking 3:45am, heh. I’m bad about that kinda, Adam actually made a program he could set that would shut down his computer after a certain amount of minutes or at a certain time so it was out of his control and I couldn’t keep him online talking and up later than he should have been or had decided to be… I guess I had one more thing in me after all… 🙂