I woke up this morning and found everything in place.  It's really hot this summer and I couldn't believe the way my legs stuck together under the blankets.... Air conditioning is great but for some reason I always pull my giant comforter over myself.... I like comfort. even when I sweat behind the knees.  I had a dream about an ex... (which one? not telling!) she was moving into an apartment and we were kissing by the bathtub as I tried to help her repair stuff... that was friggen phenomenal... I sometimes wish I had situations like that in my real life... dreams are great 

This is what my living room looks like right now.  I had the chance to meet some friends out for coffee but decided to blow it off and spend Sunday by myself.  I could live here forever... but for some reason I get the idea there is change in my near future...

I keep having these thoughts.  Thoughts of security... ropes, my neck and limits put on things in spite of my hard head... "patience grasshopper" is what I usually say to myself...and it never helps.  I suppose this blog thing is good for me.  I can open up like a cheap suitcase and what?  someone from Columbus could see me at a mall 5 years from now and say to themself "thats the guy with bad grammar"

 How does Casey spend his Sunday... Today I practiced on the ol' jackhammer... my left handed bass guitar.

After my fingers got sore (which doesn't take long) I started in on the beer... a Sunday tradition in caseyland.  I drank 6... and then talked to my daughter on the phone... She called me to tell me about the tv show she was watching but since I was in no condition to control the conversation it got out of hand... That's one crazy girl.  So now I'm alone after the phone call... very alone...  and then Casey gets another brilliantly stupid idea. My camera, a new beer and way too much time to think about nothing.....

So without further adue, may I present: Fun with Barbie...

Well.. first off.... Abigail isn't going to see this blog so stop with that now...   I really only drink this beer at home... no hangovers... but at the bars I won't even think about that Nascar/detergent label in my hand.... Amstel is my elitist brew... Oh, and then of course I had to do this...

So I'm now ready to put the camera away and make dinner....No way..... This pic is from when I was 9 years old.... not too different... for some reason I never change.  deteriorate, yes... change, no... 

 

 I can actually remember when that picture was taken... my mother was dating this guy in the 70's... His name was Ron Pataki... He was the movie critic for an old paper here in Columbus "The Citizen Journal".  There is no way anyone will remember this... but he was quite the local star.  A few years ago my mother saw him begging for change near the freeway with a sign saying he was a vet...the only war that guy fought was with a bottle.  he's probably dead by now.... poor bastard...

Greener pastures... My last picture of the sparkled one.... (she has wings you know... and they light up!!)

To the person that is reading this and would never communicate with me.... I especially hope you enjoy this.... Goodnight to all

for now

Casey

 

 

This might sound strange to many... but on Monday night my beloved laptop of many years finally fell into a sleep I couldn't bring her out of....  I think I got teary eyed when I finally hung up the phone with tech support and realized that she would no longer recognize any operating system or had a hard drive left inside.  Just a cold piece of plastic sitting there...Nothing. 

I had a beer and then went to bed.    

I woke up before my alarm the next morning like most days to check my email from overseas folks and then it hit me.  gone.  

My laptop had keys missing, a scratched screen and nervous cigarette ashes all over her.  Between the keys were crumbs from Abigails chips and my late night snacks...and the touch pad was worn away almost completely.  This was wear that happend for a reason.  We went through alot together.  I had just separated from my wife at the time and moved into this little shoebox apartment near downtown.  It was christmas that year and my mother asked me to stop by a few days early.  She had bought it for me because she knew I was down at the time and she wanted to give me something to keep my mind off things.  a hobby...  I hadn't used a computer for anything but work...ever.  So this was a new frontier.  I learned how to burn CD's, work with pictures, write stuff and, most importantly, stay busy at night.  My daughter loved it when she came over on the weekends.  Abigail and I would make goofy movies and fake newscasts with the webcam.  She also sent her first email with it... an email to dad.  I helped her invite me to join her at pollypockets.com when she was playing a game there.  Every time I go to clean up my email I can never bring myself to erase that one.  

  After the divorce was final, I figured out the whole messenger thingy on Yahoo... My cousin showed me how to do it, and little did I know but half my family around the world were already communicating that way.  I put up a profile on Yahoo and started getting messages from all kinds of crazy people.... I would leave my computer on all night and hear a bunch of *bling* bling* from people sending instant messages.  It kept me sane at the time.  That little laptop got me all the way to Greece where I loved and lost again....

I am not going to discard of my laptop.  I will just find a cabinet for her in the kitchen somewhere and hold on to that part of my life...also because I know i'm the only one in the world that will ever care about any of this... again, I know it's crazy but it's just the way my mind works. 

I went yesterday to a computer store and bought a desktop PC.... I've always had a laptop so it is strange... But now that I have it all set up it feels substantial and grounding...  Here is my new friend.  Welcome.

 

Where will you take me????

About a year and a half ago, I met a girl from Greece.  Pictures and email adresses were exchanged and the next thing you know, we are talking every night on an internet messenger.  After sending each other care packages of goofy gifts and perfume soaked underclothing we started talking more seriously.   Things happend quickly (as always in my case) and 4 months later I was buying my airline tickets.  This was not only my first time overseas, but also my first time on a plane!!!   I didn't think twice.   Her name was Vanina.     

I spent money on everything I thought I would need, bought 2 boxes of candy buckeyes as a gift for her family and purchased an enormous bottle of jeagermiester (they didn't have it there at the time).  I also happened to have these stupid Jerry Springer "too hot for tv" tapes that I made the mistake of showing her on cam.  She demanded I bring Jerry.   Mom came by and picked me up for the airport... I made the flight on time, got searched as onlookers gazed into my bag to see Jerry, then boarded as my mind was searching for comfort.  It was a good flight.  I arrived in Athens Greece to find her at the airport.  We were both so nervous that we were shaking uncontrollably for our first embrace.   The following are just a few pictures from that trip.....

 

This is the view of Athens Greece from atop the great Acropolis.  It was hell getting up there but worth every step... one of the great wonders of the world.  Athens has no really tall buildings... there are earthquakes there constantly.  it's an amazing example of a sprawling overgrown town... More middle eastern than european....People don't realize that Greece is next to Turkey.  It is also about the distance from Ohio to Kansas from Iraq.  There are so many different people there...the gateway from the Middle East into Europe

 

Ahhh. the street where I stayed.  on the right hand side you can barely see a blue awning... That was the store I visited daily... an entire family sat in there and looked at me strangely as I emptied their cooler of the single beers they had.  Greece is not a beer drinking country by any means.  You'd be more likely to see them at the bar having coffee or coca cola while watching the football game.  They think all Americans are alcoholics with no self control. (and they might be right) The area where I stayed is called Omonia.  There is the largest population of Albanian immigrants there.... The Albanians make up about 10-20% of the population and  commit roughly 90% of the crime there... so it was not a good neighborhood after dark.  Lots of pick pockets and shifty eyes.  It was weird to see blonde haired and blue eyed people as the profiled ones...   

 

At the foot of the one of the surrounding nstructures near the Parthenon.... a true wonder... the lower blocks behind me are from at least 700 BC and even before recorded time.

 

On our way up to Acropolis...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll add captions for these tomorrow at some point..... good stories

Here is another picture I found that is about a year older... so i'll put it first. The year was 1986. 

I had JUST turned 17 and had an internship from High School at Columbus Alternative H.S.   I got to go to the Ohio State University student radio station WOSR and do a 3 hour radio show every Wednesday.  The show was called "Casey & the Heat"... the "Heat" being a girl named Heather I had a huge crush on in H.S.  We played everything from hardcore to reggae to dance stuff... I remember once making an announcement on air that asked for a moment of silence as the members of Depeche Mode had been found dead and mutilated as a result of some satanic cult sacrifice they stumbled onto by mistake... Plenty of complaints on that one.  Those were good days... I still had a roof over my head and can still remember vividly waiting for the bus in the rain outside of the building after the show ended.

BTW, the poster behind me was a promo for Pussy Galore.  My, how technology and hairstyles have changed... haha

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I was cleaning up my place after comfest and started looking through old pictures... I found this one from 1987.

 

I was 17 years old....

 

The girl that took this picture was named Michelle... she was a catholic high school girl that loved the bad boys... me.  I had run away from home at this point and was screaming in a hardcore band... crashing any and everywhere.  Michelle lost interest in me when she met this little guy named Mike.  Mike had a band called Social Distortion.  They moved west.  Some time years later she came back to Columbus broken hearted and down on her luck.  When I was back from college for the summer, I ran into her.  We went to the doo dah parade together and kissed on my couch.  I passed out and she stole a 12 pack of beer and a watermelon out of my fridge.... I never saw her again.  about a month later she was in a horrible car accident and had her head removed from her body under the bridge on Neil avenue that now takes you to the Arena district.    true story. 

 

If you say the same thing over and over again most people will run... but someone will listen. 

I woke up thinking about it this morning. Some people are reckless and I enjoy it from a distance. it used to be me.  I was on my way home from work yesterday and stopped at UDF where I saw a guy in the back at the beer coolers.  He had the door open and was pretending to search for just the right poison.  his other hand was tearing at the cardboard from a twelve pack and pulling cans out to put in his bookbag.  a bag made for books.  hell, I just got some clear eyes drops and a pack of Newport 100's and had to pay for them.  I got in my car and left.  As I rounded the corner of High and Buttles for the last leg of my journey (steve perry) home, the people at the coffee table cafe did the same thing as always.  It's like fucking groundhogs day.  my music is loud, I turn the corner and they all stare into my car mouthing stupid shite while I drive by... There should be a law restricting fake accent flaming gay kids from sitting outside of coffee shops.   The older I get, the more annoying the whole young discovery of queerdome in the neighborhood is to me.

I went out last night and I can honestly say that times are thin.  I just got that feeling where the drinks aren't as tasty,  people are cold and I should be doing something productive. 

Today is Abigail Day!!!!   i miss that girl so much.  Talking on the phone every other night and having her over one night out of a week is not enough... I posted the following on a forum where some  woman was complaining about having kids and the dating yesterday:

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I'm a non-custodial dad that has my 7 year old daughter on the weekends. I date on a regular basis and was hesitant about letting anyone meet her but not any longer. During the past year or so, I've let a couple of the girls meet her (I introduced them as daddys friends) and she really didn't care. It's the girls that got really nervous. She now understands that I am dating or at least what dating is. She even goes so far as to point out girls and say "are you gonna pick that one dad?" when we are in public... kinda embarrassing and I think she does it on purpose..haha.

When I tell a someone that I have a daughter and explain my situation to them it's usually over cocktail and the reaction after a few drinks is "Ooooh I just can't wait to meet her!!!" and they go on and on... but once we set up a time for them to meet her and the day comes I've heard every excuse in the world on my voicemail to back out of it. You would think they were calling in sick from work for god's sake!! This is usually a good indicator that I probably need to move on... a good "flake meter" if you will.

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Well... If you didn't have enough of it, now you do

for now

Casey

I didn't go out tonight.

Instead, I cleaned my place while listening to the TV (my roomate) in the backround.  As I collected my shoes to put away, I started to think...and my camera was in reach...   So just in case you have nothing less important to do.... Here are my shoes!!!

 

Let's start with these... the shoes I wear almost every day to work.  They are nice enough to go with my dress pants but still give the "roll up the sleeves" attitude that would lead my "higher ups" to believe that I am function over form.  "Regional Manager" still looks funny on my business cards.  I also wear these at night with dark jeans. 

 

 

First of all, I hate white tennis shoes.  I bought these because I decided about 2 months ago that I would change my life and walk around Goodale park every morning before work.  This has happend twice.  I also went to Target and got some sweatpants.  It seems I only like to sleep when I'm supposed to get up and going.  On Saturdays I usually wake up at 5am and can't go back to sleep.

 

 

The shoes my mother bought me in 96 when I graduated from college to go with the suit she also got for her only son.   They look like they should have golf cleets in them.  I wore these to so many job interviews then... and when the world fell apart for me shortly after, they sat proudly in the mound of clothes in the back of my car while I slept in the drivers seat with my transistor radio playing AM talk radio all night.   I sat and cleaned them the other day...I'll always keep them.

 

 

My daughters slippers from years ago...  too small for her now.  I was married to a woman... her "stepmom" back then.  When she was 3 I got them because one day she put her foot under the bed and suprised the cat that was sleeping  there... Some hissing scratching and a shreeek from Abigail and she never wanted to walk barefoot around the cats again.  I was married then and it doesn't seem possible somehow... and for the life of me I can't remember Tara's voice... Things change. 

 

 

My newest purchase...Steve Madden shoes that I cant wear.  These fucking shoes are so nice I cant bare to let the sidewalk have their way with em'. Pic #2 is because even the soles are incredible.  It's nice to be able to get things now... It wasn't always that way. 

 

 

These are my favorite shoes.  I went for margaritas at EL Vaquero one Saturday afternoon not too long ago with a date.  We ended up getting sloshed and spent around $500 in credit card abuse combined.  I got these at easton after pissing on the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile that was parked outside of DSW.  There are pics in her cell phone of that fiasco that I never got my hands on since we never continued into the sunset with the Sid & Nancy day we had together.  I recently wore these to Little Brothers for a show and people loved em.  

 

 

The Cole Haan sandals I paid far too much for a few years back.  I will be wearing these to COMFEST this year for sure... I remember getting into a water spitting fight with Abigail last year at the fest and feeling the squishy water toes in these last year on the way home...

 

 

There really is no conclusion to this blog....I just hope you enjoyed the last minute or so you spent viewing my shoes...

 

Casey

I was bored and there was laughing and music coming from every other house in the neighborhood, so I decided to walk up the street to investigate my surroundings.  I walked by a house on Buttles avenue with a ton of people on the porch and stopped to talk to a younger girl that was trying to light a cigarette at the sidewalk.  She was nice but had an uncontrollable case of the "sniffs" and was not handling expensive drugs well.  She asked me "Have you seen Josh?" (who the hell is Josh?)  I then lit her cig and, not knowing anyone, proceeded past the porch people into the party with my new line: "I'm supposed to meet josh, anyone see him?"  

The kitchen was festival diaster with half empty bottles of various cheap liquors, chips and dips.  I found my happy cup amongst the less fortunate cups with cigarettes floating in them.  I thought about stealing something then leaving but didn't.  I think that a 35 year old getting beat up or arrested for trying to heist a CD or half bottle of hooch from a party would be ridiculous, funny and sad.  A girl was looking over shoulders at me with a smile.   

A drunken political debate was alive in the livingroom as I look around at the once beautiful woodwork of the house.  I was thinking to myself that I could live here and fix it as  "Hollaback Girl" died in the backround.  It was enough to make me drink with a renewed vigor.  I have to find the bathroom.

At the top of the stairs, outside of the bathroom, was an older man with grey hair tied back.  He had a blue t-shirt on that fit his fat belly like a condom.  the shirt said Marmon Valley Farm.  His barely opened eyes fixed on me and he asked:

"Whats your name maaan" and I replied "Casey"

He then said "No whats your real name maaaan"...again I replied "well...it's Casey"

He looked at me seriously and seemed to sober for a moment "Noooo What's your REAL name maaaan"

Well, the hell if i'm going to be the only person outside of THIS bathroom that doesn't know my own name...so I replied "Josh" 

His eyes widened..."That's my name too!!!"

I turned in silent amusement to walk back downstairs as the bathroom door opened to hear Josh asking if the bathroom people had seen Melissa. 

poor melissa.   poor josh.   poor me........

I left the party, came home and cooked a frozen pizza. I like the cheap ones when you doctor them up. 

 

 

It's just after midnight and I have my daughter sleeping over... The TV is on and she is fast asleep.  I went out to look at her twice...my girl.   

Sometimes I wonder if I should move out to the suburbs.  Part of me wishes to be in some sort of witness protection program.  I could just walk out of my front door in the morning and get the paper like in the movies. and be like anyone.  But there I am needing to be in the center of everything.  I'm not sure how I feel about my life right now.  Sometimes I want a relationship again, but when I meet someone I just want to be left alone.  I've banished (or blessed) so many women that just want a guy to help or fix. 

Ok...Never thought I'd log back into this thing... I'm not a 20 something any longer but I figure I may as well put something in writing somewhere that will eventually disolve. I went to Athens, Ohio last night. I graduated from college there in 96. It was the most empty experience of my life.... warm smiles were replaced with something different. I just walked in and out of bars and talked to random people I had no intrest in. It can be said that going "home" is impossible but it would be an understatement in this case. Uggg!!! So now it's Sunday and I'm hungover and sitting in my apartment listening to Billie Holiday. The Sun is coming into the window in a way that shines on the TV so I cant watch that to empty my mind...just tells me I need to clean the dust off the damned thing. It shouldn't be a good day, but for some reason it feels good...