See below this post for another post from today. (I don't know how else to make sure both new posts get read... sorry.)

Blegggghhh. In a sense, anyway. I went to bed last night minutes after I posted that blog entry, so it was around 12:45 am. You know when I got up today? 3:45 pm. There was one interruption -- my sister called at 5:00 am because she thought I was supposed to work this morning, and I, obviously, wasn't there. But without those 90 seconds of being awake, I slept for 15 hours straight. I'm guessing it's the sudden lack of caffeine in my diet. I cut it out completely after going two weeks straight consuming nothing BUT caffeine, and I think I crashed. I can say the first thing I realized when I woke up was, "Hey, my bladder is full."

And I sit here and I can't stop yawning. I'm unused to going 11 and 12 hours straight without naptime... I usually get up at 5:30 am, go to bed around 1:00 pm, get up around 3:30, and go back to bed around 1:00 am.

American Idol ends tomorrow, which if you weren't aware of that, go back to living under your rock.I mean, seriously... you have to have at least heard of it by now. Anyway, I didn't watch a minute of last season, and this year I haven't missed a show since the final 12 started. Go figure. At the outset, I pegged Ruben. My dad figured one of the modelesque blondes would win off the bat, but they're long since gone. I was pretty surprised that Joshua Gracin lasted as long as he did, but he certainly benefitted from the positive Marine persona. For the top 3, I noticed that Kimberley Locke relly had changed her style by the last 3. Originally, in the first few finalist shows, I thought she was kind of unattractive, to be perfectly honest, but by the latter rounds, I couldn't remember what it was that had made me think that. All the same, I wasn't a bit surprised when the two guys made the final two. Like I said, I'd originally pegged Ruben... but I've got to admit, I hope Clayton wins it. Why? Why do I need more of a reason than his name is Clayton? I sense good karma there! Of course, he did what I'd do with a name that doesn't lend itself wel to being screamed out by a throng of weepy preteen girls -- he changed it. (Try yelling out "Claytonnnnnnn...") He went with the concise Clay, which is perfectly cool in my book; for much the same reason, I go with "John" whenever I leave reservations at restaurants. Why? Try and get someone to understand "Clifton" on the first try over the telephone. "Kristen?" "Uh, no, Clifton." "Oh, Christian." "No, CLIFTON." "Oh, okay." Then they spell it with two F's without asking first. Much the same reason why I plan to change my last name to "GraywithanA" eventually, too.

What was I talking about? Oh, American Idol... so, anyway, I think Clay's your winner. Ruben is as good as he was on Day 11 -- but unfortunaterly, I think he's STILL just as good as he was on Day 1, in that I don't think he's improved himself at all. That first-day level of talent is still good enough mto be #2 in this competition, though... I just think that Clay has progressed on from second-round loser to wild-card resurrectee to, now, finalist and, I think, winner. Every week he's listened to EVERYTHING the judges have told him, and he's taken it all to heart and done his homework. Every week he comes out and performs that much better, until he finally peaked on "Mac the Knife" last week. GEEZ. Now, I've looked at a lot of people in this competition and I've said, "You know, with a little training to smooth out the rough edges, I could probably outsing him/her." But I heard that rendition, along with tonight's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," and I was blown away. He's got IT -- that deceptive IT that the real gifted people in any field have. Michael Jordan has IT. The Wachowski Brothers have IT. Tiger Woods has IT. Franklin D. Roosevelt had IT. Babe Ruth had IT. There's no real way to explain IT except to give those examples.

Anyway, enough about that... I'm glad I didn't post earlier, because I was severely under the grip of EvilMe. I had Lindsay downright worried about my sanity... but I'm all good now. It was a lot of things, but one big thing was that I'm really, really fed up with all the royal b.s. in society. I'm sick and tired of how fake people can be, how they can pretend to be your friend just long enough to get whatever information they need or use you for whatever personal gain they can, then they kick you in the nuts, crap on your shoes, and wipe their ass with your shirttail.

I wouldn't say case in point, but this is what pretty much set me off: I didn't post this in my blog yesterday, because I didn't really have a reason to, but now I think it's got its place. Yesterday afternoon, after weigh--in, Danny and I had an hour and a half to kill before our first schooling race -- we didn't start until the 7th, so we didn't need to be back until 6:20 or so. So aroundd 4:55, we dropped the trailer and I phoned in an order to Rubio's, up on 44th and Indian School. (Their fish tacos are KICK-ASS, by the way... quit being a wuss and try one.) Anyhow... so we headed north on 44th from the track. We get to Indian School and get in the left-turn lane, and just as I do, I see people start to pull OUT of the turn lane. "Uh-oh," says I -- obviously someone's stalled or something up ahead. So I manage to wind the truck out of the lane before the left-hand straight-ahead lane gets too full, and we look like we're going to catch the nxt light. "We'll go through and flip a bitch after the light," I tell Danny. Well, as we pass the light, I see it's two girls driving a Maxima that are the source of the backup. One's on a cell phone, while the other is just standing there, looking bewildered. We're past the light, now, though, and I find that there's nowhere to make a U-turn until the first side street, damn near a quarter-mile past the light. The street's too congested to make the turn, so I have to actually turn down the street and pull into a driveway to get turned around (the work truck is a ½-ton SIlverado pickup, so, like with my pickup which is only a ¼-ton, U-turns are always an adventure anyway -- I need plenty of open street to get it done). And coming back the other way, it's going to be a two-light wait to get back to Indian School. That gives me plenty of time to watch the drama unfolding across the way, which I can see most of thanks to my high-riding truck; the girl on the cell phone looks like she's not getting hold of anyone, as I see her dial 4 or 5 different numbers while we wait. The bewildered-looking one continues to look bewildered, wandering around the car generally looking helpless.

Well, I get an idea. As soon as I'm close enough, I pull into the Chevron on the northwest corner and park the truck. "Let's go see if they need a hand," I told Danny.

(Actually, what I did was park the truck and started to get out. Danny asked, "What are you doing?" "D.I.D. -- Damsels In Distress," I told him, trying to give it my best dramatic flair. "Oh," he said, and jumped out of the truck, too. As he rounded the front bumper, though, he said, "Hey, Cliff -- what's a damsel?")

(Danny's a great guy -- anyone who met him at the party will attest to that. His grasp of little-used English words, though, is, ah, lacking. For those of you who know my propensity to use a bigger word where a smaller one would do... it's been an interesting year of communication with him working for me.)

Anyhow, we get to the corner. I yelled across to the girls, but they couldn't hear me over the Autopia-like roar of engines, so Danny and I crossed Indian School so now we were only half of 44th away from them. "DO YOU NEED HE--" I started to yell, but before I finished the sentence, the cell-phone girl yelled back, "YES, PLEASE!!"

At our first opportunity, Danny and I crossed over to the median. Now, mind you, it's about 5:30 now, so rush hour is in full effect in all directions. I see the bewildered-looking one has been (and is) crying. Cell-Phone Girl says, "I don't know what happened... it just went dead and I can't restart it. I don't think it's out of gas or anything, but I can't get a hold of my boyfriend or anyone on the phone."

I say, "Well, Danny and I will push you over there to the Chevron on the next green arrow." We were lucky, because they were first in the intersection, not behind anyone.
"Wouldn't it be easier if we just made a U-turn and went into the Circle K right here?" The Circle K was on the southwest corner.
"No, I don't think so. It'll be harder to start the car going that way. We've got the arrow -- let's just go to the Chevron."
"Okay. I'll help you guys push, but I'm wearing platforms, so--"
"Don't worry -- we got it. It shouldn't be that hard; it's just a Maxima," I said, and grinned.
So the light changed -- as her friend steered, Danny and I got it going. It was, in fact, not too terribly difficult, although we almost ran her friend over because she tried to help us get it started and almsot forgot to jump in and steer it. THAT would have been an interesting headline -- GIRL RUN OVER BY STALLED CAR
Anyway, we got it all the way over and up into the Chevron. They thanked us profusely, but we didn't hang around -- hell, we had fish tacos and shrimp quesadillas to get to.

Point being, though... How many cars passed by them before we stopped to help? Two lights' worth before we went by the first time, and three more before we came back the other way... if you figure 50 cars per green just on 44th street each way, that's 500 cars. Of those 500, eliminate a chunk who had to be somewhere at a set time. I mean, there's been times where I've HAD to be somewhere at an absolute time, and I wouldn't've been able to stop just to help move a stalled car. But let's say of those 500 cars, only 100 were driven by someone who had a little time to kill. And of those 100, Danny and I were the only ones who stopped to help.

Of those 99, how many didn't notice? Maybe a few. But of the rest, how many looked, snorted, and said, "Heh, glad that's not me..."? Or "Sucks to be them..."?

See, THAT's what's wrong with society. Those two girls had no idea what to do, and though they hadn't tried to move it yet, I don't think they'd've been able to push it themselves. And it wasn't only to help two girls -- traffic heading north on 44th was getting more screwed up by the minute as people tried to pull back out into traffic to get around the car, and people tried to wait and make a left turn from the left-hand thru lane. We unsnarled traffic at the same time.

I don't know. I don't get it. And the reason I didn't run and post it on my blog yesterday is because I don't think it's that big of a deal. Do you know how many times I've stopped to help push a car, or offered my jumper cables when someonee can't get theirs started, or whatever? Maybe it's because I hope that, someday, when I'm inevitably broken down on the side of the road, I naïvely hope that somepne will stop and heelp me, too. But more and more, I'm losing that hope. Sure doesn't look like it would happen.

And THAT's why I don't want to bend to society's will in how I "should" look... because society sucks, in general. Not everyone, obviously -- I certainly feel like I've been blessed with a top-tier group of friends -- but in general, how many people out of 100 do you think would pass you with a flat tire on the side of the highway and say, "Gee, glad that's not me..."? I want to lose enough of this excess flab to where I'm not lightheaded after I climb my stairs, and like I said, I used to be winded from going DOWN the stairs, so I'm improved. But I don't want to convince myself that I have to do this whole diet thing just to look more like everyone else. "Everyone else" likes Avril Lavigne, "Friends", and sushi -- which, by the way, are all good things -- but "everyone else" only likes them because "everyone else" does. You see where I'm going with this? I wouldn't say that I like Avril Lavigne (sorry), but "Friends" can be funny at times, and there's nothing wrong with sushi. "Everyone else" buys $100 T-shirts just because they've got a logo on them, when in reality, it's probably made by the same company that made the $6 T-shirt I'm wearing under my plaid. And it's just blah, blah, blah, blah... I don't want to be like "everyone else." I want to be an Iron Chef fanatic. (Hiroyuki kicks ass!) I want to own every CD in the Rockapella collection. Hell, I work at a job that 50% of the people I meet didn't even know existed in Arizona, and 90% of the people I meet know about it but don't know anything ABOUT it. I own a tuba -- how many people own a tuba?!

And yet, at the same time, here I sit, having spent my entire day inside my apartment. It's been a nice variance from work, but at the same time, I sure didn't spend any time with anyone special, either. And I can't help but think that maybe I'm a little too far "out there." Maybe if I dialed it down a notch, it would be to my advantage. But I've been odd for a long, long time. I don't know any other way.

Then again, maybe if I didn't think about it so much, and post 2,500-word blogs (count 'em) about it, maybe it wouldn't be such a problem. Ignorance is bliss, they say.