What's up on another cloudy rainy overly dreary day in Chicago? Well, it seems we traded a few weeks/months of awesome winter for stable temps in the 50s-60s and nothing but damn rain. I mean, this summer is going to be all up in the 80s and 90s and I'll just moan about that. If you live in or have lived in Chicago, you know. Haha, ok so I was going to post last night, but the chemo completely wiped me out, and the nurse was super new so she really didn't know how things worked. Once you get treatments for a few months, you pay attention to how things are set up and any deviation raises concerns. Hospitals are notoriously run on scripts. Programmers would love it....it's all IF THEN kind of situations right? IF IV is hooked up, THEN proceed to next step. IF Chemo drip has started, THEN start (insert fluid name) drip. Well the girl was new, she forgot some things, other nurses helped out, I didn't mind and didn't want the girl to take anything personally so I just kept my trap shut and took it. Without the any other fluids, the Chemo seemed a little stronger. But whatever, good. Lets kick the shit out of this thing right?
Got home and drank a bunch of water, stocked up on Aminos and watched Harry Potter 7 or whatever it's called. Hawks came on and promptly passed out. Oops. Yeah, I'm such a hardcore fan haha! I was going to post, but I was just wiped out. I forgot to finish off my water, that's how tired I was!
Woke up this morning and immediately checked the weather. Why? Because this motorcycle has taken everything about a 4 wheeled vehicle and turned it into shit. There is NOTHING like rippin that throttle open and just flying with the wind in your face! Some of those idiots are weaving in and out and really get into the whole "I want to meet death!" thing, but I'm ok with hangin back and occasionally passing vehicles. If I've got open road, I've got a habit of giving a nice downshift and throttle twist to play catch up....I hope mom doesn't read this haha! I digress.....again.
I saw that we'd probably see rain in the next 3 or 4 hours so I didn't have much time to mess around. I dragged my sloppy groggy ass out of bed and half awake I somehow found my shaker cup, added a little pre and more water than usual and got the bike going. Oooo, Juicy doesn't wanna start. With a moan I pulled the choke and she purred to life. I let her suck on the extra fuel until she was warm. I grabbed my UnderArmor hoodie and my lil do-rag and off i went. I instantly thought, "it's cold. Whelp, maybe this is what missouri will be like?". The hoodie did almost nothing to keep the wind from wrapping it's icy fingers around me. Oooo, that was so cold. Finally got to the gym and lifted. I typically burn out quickly, so I went down in weight and increased reps, hopefully working up to something crazy later. 2.5 hrs later, body racked in exhaustion I walked out to my bike. The first few minutes of trying to hold it up while she warmed up was daunting. I thought I was in trouble. But if you never test yourself, how will you know your limits? After conquering the parking lot, my body seemed recovered enough to handle the beast with the phat ass. So riding home wasn't too bad!
Once home I was in the shower when I had a sudden and unwated flashback. This one time I was in youth group. We did a trip every year for the highschool kids and you'd meet kids from other churches etc and it was wonderful. Our pastor is the absolute greatest man I've met, next to my dad of course haha. Well, rebel that I was, I was hanging out with kids from another church group. I didn't realize how late it was and just kept hanging out. We were all in one dudes room, girls and guys, no biggie. OH, except the door was locked. All of a sudden there was a bunch of pounding on the door and some crazy yelling, the dude's like, get under the bed! So we all did, under 2 beds. You might think being the lunch meat of this sandwich with the girls being the bread, would be awesome. False. I was scared out of my mind, the dude who entered saw the other kid with his leg sticking out of the other bed, grabbed it and yanked him out. He whacked him a bunch, yelled at him and kept asking why the door was locked. Some real crazy shit. As I thought back to this memory I thought of how much of a pussy I was for not getting out there and trying to stop anything. Why did I cower in fear under the other bed, thinking the whole time "if he grabs the girls, do i get out? Do i go for his knees? Throat? Eyes?" I was maybe 13, scrawny and not exactly an imposing opponenet for this train wreck that was currently delivering Gods wrath on this kid for locking his door. Well, he took his beatin and the church "leader" left. I got out from under the bed, there was no mark on this kid? Who the fuck was that? Shit. I better get out of here ASAP. I heard my pastors soft compassionate voice in the hall. Oh man. He must be looking for me. So I thought....what would a ninja do? The windows were nailed shut, and so rusted there was no way I was about to drop 30 ft out of that hole anyhow. Could I sneak out? Screw it, I opened the door and called out to my pastor, knowing I'd screwed up. He was like "thank God!" Aparently they dispatched a damn search party, scouring the 3 or 4 floors of this dorm converted into a housing complex for church kids. He didn't yell, as I thought he would. He didn't ground me, that would come later. He just made sure I was ok, didn't place blame or anything and I went to my assigned room. I couldn't tell you the name of the kid that caught the whoopin or the girls or the beast that inflicted some terrifying shit unto that kid. So when it came to say our good byes to the other kids I went down to visit and the dude that caught it was packing. We chatted for a bit, and the crazy dude walked in and closed the door. OH. SHIT. My turn.......or not? Did this guy look worried? Scared? Nervous? WTF? He then tried to explain/justify his actions. It went something like this
"Were you in here the other day when everyone found you?"
"Yes sir."
"Did you see anything."
(uhhhh, yes, please pummel me until my memory gets fixed)
"No sir, just heard some stuff."
"I only did those things because he's one of mine. You understand?"
"Oh. No sir."
"I wouldn't have done anything to you, you don't have to fear me."
"OK sir. I have to finish my bags sir. Can I leave?"
"Yes, I just want to make sure we're clear is all."
"My mouths shut sir."
And I left. I took pride in the fact that I don't snitch, no rat here, and I've got lots of amazing friends that wouldn't either. This dude knew he messed up and I could've told people. Would anyone have listened? When I got home I caught it good for being disrespectful to the church leaders by staying out and all of that. Oops. Lesson learned.
My mind keeps coming back to this situation, I do my best to stand up for those that fear standing up for themselves, and do well. But I seemed to have dropped the ball on this one. It's one of those moments of deep regret I've got. If I see anyone in trouble, I vow to help them. I'll gladly take a whoopin, whatever if it helps out someone else. Maybe that's what's in my head here, just trying to help out and I didn't when I was capable of doing so. Having the courage to stand up for you believe in, with no regard for your own health is the most rewarding thing someone can do. So do it. If you make it a point to help just one person a day or even to just say hello to 15 strangers in one day, that's a pretty good impact you'll leave. Then maybe later, like in a week or 2 you can start having meaningful conversations with people you've been saying hello to! Just don't regret not helping someone later, cause it sucks and you'll have to hit a heavy bag for an hour to work it out of your system! Alright, kick ass and take names, I'm gonna go wrench on Juicy for a bit to make her better at everything ;)
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