I Fought the Law....And I Won!!

They said it couldn't be done. Hell, even I didn't believe it. I just finished watching last nights council meeting while I was working on some reports. Not only did city council shoot down the patio bylaw, they destroyed it, unanimously with the exception of one.

One of the councillors (a former smoker) was even irate on the issue, saying he wanted the bylaw struck down immediately, quoting directly from the letter I had sent on Sunday.

At the same time it taught me that if you never try, you will never know. You would have thought I would have already known that. But oh well, I'm a slow learner. Reverse psychology....dig it!!

Meanwhile...Back at the Ranch

Now that I have scared away half the western hemisphere, it's time to pick up the pieces and get back to business. I'm leaving for Victoria in the morning and I'm hoping a few days away will do me some good.

There is a big council meeting at city hall tonight. They are finally pulling the plug on patio smoking. I would go to the meeting, but I will have to get up around 4am so screw that. I e-mailed the mayor and all of the councillors yesterday, and actually ran into one of the councillors this morning. (The advantage of a relatively small town.)

I'm actually torn. Part of me hopes they do it. I need a good kick in the ass in another direction. But as most of you know, I don't tend to like people messing with my personal freedoms. I used a little reverse psychology in the letters, so I'm a little curious to see how it works. It will be on the tube tonight, so I'll try to catch it there.

Other than that, let's just get this month done.

Sometimes I Feel Like I'm Tied to the Whipping Post

I guess it’s been a long time, maybe I just didn’t have anything to say, but we all know that’s not true. It’s gonna fall under the old “Momma said if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” clause. I have had so much on my mind the last month and a bit that even logging on to Blogger seems like a Herculean chore. One thing for certain is that I seem to have locked horns with every single woman in my life.

I had lunch with one of them yesterday. We had been butting heads for about 5 weeks or so, and decided it was time to bury the axe. In all fairness to her, there has been something really drilling at me for the last four weeks or so and she had landed right in the crosshairs. She said to me “You know Johnny, I think you have this image in your mind of a perfect friend. An image that nobody will ever be able to match, you have taken every wrong ever done to you, reversed it, and made it an expectation of everyone else. We can’t do, nobody can do it.”

After I told her to fuck off and left, I thought about what she said as I walked through the parking lot. (I’m kidding, I didn’t leave or tell her to fuck off…..until later. I keed I keed). She’s right in some capacity. I had to move a lot in my younger years, and learned over time to serve up friendships on Chinet, because eventually I was going to be throwing them out. And it seems with every one I toss, I become more and more withdrawn.

I went away a few weeks ago, took off up the coast for a few days to bring a friends yacht back to town. Even though the weather was a little on and off, it was a great opportunity to think. Nothing puts your mind at ease like a forever sky, a deck chair, and a cooler full of Coors Light. I realized I was basically done. The Johnny Holding Company was emotionally bankrupt. My heart was closing it doors forever. I would keep a few key people around for the liquidation, everyone else was getting an invisible pink slip most likely accompanied by a hardened stare, or an unanswered call.

It’s not that I’ve had it with people, I’ve had it with the people I care about. I have got to say other than my core group, I’ve got the shittiest friends in the world. My whole inventory consists of nothing but empty promises, unanswered messages, and broken dreams. It’s quite shameful really.

But you want to know what really burns me? Hypocrites. Those that know me know I will go to the end of days to help a friend through a bad time. 24/7/365. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have gone through a scenario where a person comes to me because a person or a group is treating them in a way they don’t like. Whether it be treating them like they don’t belong, bullying, teasing, whatever. And do you know what the end result is?? Every time the person that comes to me ends up treating me like the others were treating them. (Of course if someone tried to bully or tease me, you would probably find their body in a ditch somewhere. But you know what I mean).

So today’s theme is one that seems to reoccur on this blog more often than not.

TREAT PEOPLE THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE TREATED YOU FUCKING MORONS!

Whew! Glad I got that off my chest. I apologize to my mother in advance for not having anything nice to say.