Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine HELP! I think i am going SANE!

I know longer do the crazy things i used to do before.
Nobody left to run with anymore.


Sorry, couldn't resist. But the subject matter is true.

Even though i am Mr. Responsible, every once in a while i got to got a lil' crazy and have some spaced out fun (no, this did not involve drugs or alcohol, thats for pikers. If you can do the crazy things while straight...well, then you have accomplished something to my way of thinking). But not lately.

And the thing is, it started even before i met my wife, so she isn't the cause.

Used to be, for no reason and with many bills and only a few dollars in my pocket, i would say to hell with it and take off for the beach, or wind up in the upstate just because!

And i haven't been scuba diving in so long i have probably lost my water lungs.

So...

Help....i need truly imaginative ways to get nuts, on a budget, dang it. See, responsibility creeping in...


AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!

Dude, no one can suggest to you a way to go nuts; you have to do it spontaneously. Hang out with some friends, suck back some pixie stix (or whatever version of sugar you prefer) and then go do soemthing crazy.

I agree, though, being high on life is the best thing!

Of course, you could always do something crazy with your wife, but that would require a bit more planning, probably. At least a trip to the pharmacy. *innocently encouraging marital happiness*

Maybe you just have to accept sanity as a by-product of survival, rickshaw. Somebody recently called me "the ever-reliable Nancy" and I swear, it ruined my week because it was so true. And so dull....

I did read some advice for this, allegedly from a psychiatrist: go out in the evening with only $10 in your pocket and vow to stay out until midnight. You should be guaranteed to either get into trouble and/or have some fun. Of course, I think this only works in a city - around here, you'd probably just twind up talking to a porcupine for 4 hours and go home with your $10 still in your pocket.

Something else else I do when things seem to be flattening out the groovy bumps is randomly insert words into conversations - I do that at work quite a lot, like saying 'Pistachio ice cream' in the middle of quoting legislation to my assistant .... or try to sing opera - at the bus stop etc

God I'm dull too aint I....

HELP!!!!!!!!

Thank god, i thought i was the only one with rampant dullness disease.

Survival does bring about a certain amount of wisdom from experience, it flattens out the hills and valleys, but those are the spice of life. And while i have never been happier now that i am married, the spontenaity (sp?) was starting to ebb before i even met her. And that is a side of me she hasn't seen.

I guess more than anything i would like to get a little of my zest back. Work and stress are turning me old before my time. At 37, i am not yet ready for the rocking chair.

Well, I'm now 42, still married to a great gal, and have a kid. And I'm dull as dishwater. I haven't truly gone out and gotten nuts in years now.

Heck, I've taken up the occasional round of golf.

GOLF!

I used to use golf clubs to go fishing and snake killin' with. Now I use them the proper way...

I'm so depressed.

I have not done something "with the guys" in so long...I basically have no friends left. Variety of reasons for this...but depressing as hell. Especially right now as I have the prospect of loosing my unemployment and everything else thereafter hanging over my head.

God I sound depressing...

You've always got us, Dev. Was in the same situation all last year. I've even actively looked for a golfing buddy as new and bad as myself. No such luck.

But hang in there buddy, you're loved here.

I realized the other day that I'm not sure how to go out and have premeditated "fun." But that has nothing to do with age; I've always been rather shy, and I just don't like doing things that people do to go "nuts" (hang out at bars/clubs, etc.).

On the other hand, I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday hanging out with artist friends and then eating dinner with them afterwards. I think as we grow older, our understanding of what it means to connect with others changes, and our needs change, as well. "Going nuts" does not fulfill those needs like it used to.

Oh sure, thats true. But still, every once in a while you have to connect with that bit of youth that does the crazy things, that has this wild drive to get out and do something, even if its something stupid. Its why people skydive at 80 years old.

I'm in the "every so often have a crazy night out" phase right now (after transitioning from the every weekend is a crazy night out phase). Today and yesterday I'm at a conference at Foxwoods the big super-casino in CT for a work conference. Last night I did a littl gambling with some drinks (I'm a whiskey man) and a cigar. It was a little wild and a great way to blow off som steam but compared to even three years ago it was pretty tame! I even wen back up to my room to go to bed at midnight to get up today for the rest of the conference.

I'm *not* proud of this responsible behavior

Holy crap, Cobie!

What's next? Choosing the Ford Taurus as your rental car because of its front and side crash rating?

I've been boring, sober and quiet my whole life. It's only on this board that I get to pretend otherwise.

Thats pretty much me, except every once in a month of blue moons. But you gotta let the wild hair out every once in a while or you get a little...strange.

Cool thread, rickshaw. I think many of us can relate. Now, about your dilemma. -

I'd suggest a mohawk. True, it may not be all that imaginative, but it's pretty inexpensive, and nothing says "I might be a little nuts" like a full-on mohawk.

There's like three people in the world using them the proper way. The rest are just fooling themselves.

Fo me, going nuts means attending sports events for the kids at school.

Sometimes...I get a bit worked up. Never been tossed yet though.

Otherwise, I'm happy to chill. Done enough in my life, not sure what else I want to do.

I need ambition. Maybe this world tilting off it's axis, rotation slowing up thing will give me something to do.

Strangeness and I are in counseling together, learning to make the relationship work by not having unrealistic expectations of one another.

I miss my strange. It and I are old friends that need to get out of town every once in a while and raise hell.

I spend so much of my time being Mr. Responsible its...disturbing. I used to have a really wicked sense of humor, now I'm reduced to making bad puns about cheesy porn movie titles. That was always the least of my stunningly prodigious wicked and evil ways.

It isn't even a midlife crisis. I'm told I had that at 23. I just need something to get the blood pumping, feel the heart pounding in a mad, easy, delicious sortta way. But the country and I have become so strapped down and hogtied that is isn't funny.

There was nothing like opening up the car and clickin' the speedometer over at 160 on a dark black night. Or tickin' off some guy that was three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier and seeing who would be the last man standing. You do that now and the cops aren't likely to stand around and wait for it to be over, they're more likely to wade into the middle of it and take away all the fun.

Big secret is, no matter how much I tease my wife about being the wild child of the two of us, some of the things I've done would make a merchant sailor blush and a preacher kick me outta the congregation. My dad ran shine when he was a kid. He has no idea of some of the things I did as a youth.

My fun was always the possibility of persnal injury and great risk. I kinda miss those highs. Can't think of a drug that would be half as fun as the adrenaline rush I used to get. Heck, I spun out the first night I had my drivers license. It was freakin' awesome.

Its even worse now. I had the opportunity to have some really nasty fun on the golf course with the foursome in line back behind me. We have gators down here. Bigguns'. This one was a might perterbed at something and wanted to have a little bash at someone-thing. I actually went back and warned the foursome rather than picking a nice shady spot and watching the fun.

My son is almost five now, and HE tells me I'm boring.

I think it has to do with the middle ages. Not really a crisis, but instead a depression. When you are young and hot blooded, you look for excitement. Then you get older, work, family, life in general no longer allow for mistakes. Responsibility crushes people. Then you get old, and suddenly, your kids are old enough to look out for themselves, you have no real debt if you are lucky, you have a nice income because the house is paid off and the car is a nice used late model.

So, you're back to looking to put some excitement back in your day rather than think about which old friend died, which medications you have to take...

For the last month I have spent long hours on the phone with a certain long distance provider, getting royally pissed off, listening to my dad, my wife, and mother get pissed off...all because some idiot moved the customer service department to mexico. Big language gap. They can't get it right. Same for getting a copy of a car title from California. Simple really, you'd think. We paid the expidite fee, a week later, no title. Called again, they lost track, will send us a new copy. Refunded our money and didn't send it expidited. Still waiting, shuffling cars around for my wife to drive because effin' geico is giving us the run around, didn't get us a rental, etc...

You have all this in the back of your mind as you are trying to work, take care of your wife, parents, son... you get broken down and cannot afford to take the risk of lettin' loose.

Sorry, folks. I'm just saddened that I can't break out of the rut because of the mountain on one side, and the mile deep chasm on the other.

Geico probably doesn't have time for customer service. After all, they've got to get the next cute-but-overplayed-until-it-gets-annoying commercial on the airwaves.

I feel your pain, Rick, though, when I was younger, I was not so hot blooded. I KNEW the world was tough, that responsibility could drive one nuts, and that the institutions/insurance companies/governments/friends we come to rely on will let us down or won't always have our best interests at heart. I'm less cynical now than I was then.

I've come to realize that no one has it easy, and there is no time in anyone's life when you're not worried that you're going to make it--whether making it means paying the bills, getting a job (or getting a better job), surviving an illness, becoming less lonely, or making major life decisions without fear of failure. I struggle financially, but I'd rather be where I am now than where my students are. At least I've accomplished what they are trying to do. I have some success behind me and the confidence that comes with experience.

I'm sorry I can't offer any answers or advice. Well, maybe one piece of advice, courtesy of Dr. Sidney Freedman on "M*A*S*H.": Pull down your pants and slide on the ice! Be willing to laugh at life and all of its absurdities.