somebody's watching - part 3

as i lay in bed...almost not sleeping....i made a deal with myself.

"ok...if sharon wakes up before i leave the house for work, i'll tell her what happened.  but wait!  i'm going to tell her there's a crazy psycho that's watching every online move i make AND has my phone number and then walk out the door?  like, HEY, DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR IF THE STALKER KNOCKS....I'M GOING TO WORK, SEE YA!  yeah, i doubt that would be smart.  no.  i don't want to worry her.  i'll just keep it to myself until i get home at the end of the day and then i'll tell her....right?  ok.  plan!"

scary how my brain works, huh?

so, that's what i did.  i'm always the first one up in the morning, so i got up.  showered and went to work.  everyone was sleeping soundly in the bliss of a world that doesn't include crazy people.  i was glad for them.  frightened for myself, but glad for them. 

as i drove into the office, i called my best friend vince....who is a therapist....for real a therapist.  he deals with crazy people all the time, right?  he'll know what to do.  :-)

after telling vince the whole story he began to laugh....really?  yes!  like, only the way your best friend can laugh at you when you are in the middle of some life altering trama (ok, that's a little extreme, but you get the idea) and yet, still you don't punch them in the face.  i asked him...."so, you really think this is funny?"  he said, "actually, no.  it's not.  everything that you just described to me is textbook delusional behavior.  this women...vicki, believes that she has a relationship with you and that you have been communicating with her.  she has created a world for herself and you are a major part of it.  you don't know what a person in that state is capable of, so if i were you, i would cut any possible ties this women has to you.  any possible online access at all."  he asked me if i had told sharon.  i told him that i didn't want to scare her, and he said that i needed to tell her right away. 

that's when i really got scared.  what if she had money and knew enough of where i lived that she could hop on a plane and come out here.  it sounds crazy....but only because it's me.  not because it's never happened.  right at that moment my phone rang.  it was sharon. 

she was calling to say good morning or something sweet like that.  she certainly wasn't expecting to hear the tale that i began telling her.  i didn't open with "hey, babe...guess what, i've got a stalker".  i just started at the beginning.  i was just getting to the part of the story where the crazy psycho said for the first time that her name was vicki when sharon interrupted me.  "vicki....that's so strange.  i get random voice mail messages every now and again from some lady named vicki in ohio too!"

........WHAT? 

sharon went on...."yeah, i just always figured it was a wrong number or something" 

i started to feel my heart sink into my chest.  HOW DID THIS PSYCHO GET MY WIFE'S PHONE NUMBER???  this may be more serious than i thought.  psycho lady was calling sharon too!

i finished my story and sharon was remarkably calm.  she said that everything would be fine.  just do what vince said and don't worry.  i love her.  i was so grateful that she was level headed in that moment, because honestly, i was on my way to the gun store right after i bought our new doberman pinscher puppy.  so, that day i went through all of my social media removing vicki....it was a lot more labor intensive than i expected.  youtube, facebook, twitter, my blog, google+, instagram....it's amazing how much access i had given a stranger, to my family.  scary actually.  i have been a lot more careful since then.

in the days following, i monitored the psycho's blog and facebook page to see if she was writing anything else about me, and with the exception of one final kiss off blog post to me, i am happy to report that there hasn't been any other contact made.  vicki seems to have taken her imaginary ball to play elsewhere, never to be heard from again (i hope)....and for that, i am thankful.   i'm grateful that nothing serious happened, and that i was given a pretty painless wake up call to be a little more careful on the intrawebs.  you never know who's watching....

cold

have you ever sat out in the cold? I mean...really cold (at least for me) without the aid of a blanket or a fire pit? I did. tonight actually. it was really cold. I found out that I could almost imagine the cold away and pretend that I was somewhere warm if I focused really hard. almost. and then I started to imagine if sitting in the cold was more than an experiment for the sake of a stupid blog post. what if I had no choice but to be out in the cold? what if I was out in the cold and there was nothing that I could do about it? would I eventually get good enough at imagining the warm that I didn't feel the cold anymore? or would I finally lose my tropical mind power as my brain was overcome by hypothermia? it's interesting....you should try it sometime. or maybe not.

remodel

i love change.  i know that's not true of everyone.  but i love it....especially when it comes to decoration.  i've said many times that if i could snap my fingers and change paint color in my house i would do it every six months.  i used to love rearranging my bedroom when i was a kid just for the first moment the next morning when you wake up and everything is different. 

as an adult i have learned to value consistency, which isn't always in opposition with change, but could be viewed that way.  i do appreciate when life is predictable in some ways.  but beneath it all, i believe that change is still the spice of life. 

recently i've been a part of 2 different remodel projects.  both at work places.  it's interesting how people respond when their surroundings get torn apart and then rebuilt in a new way.  some get excited.  others stress of the cost or the inconvenience of it all.  some get angry because maybe they were involved in building what is now being taken down and tossed into the dumpster.  the responses may be diverse...but everyone seems to have an opinion. 

what do you think?  what side of the line do you fall on?  protecting what's been done for so long instead of creating something new?  or moving so often that you don't ever allow roots to grow deep?  do you think there is a right or wrong approach?

food for thought...let me know yours!

watch your text mister!

i can hear my 11th grade english teacher now...."watch your tone mr. sossaman!"

so often it's not what you say but how you say it.  right?  which leads me to my point.  in our world today, the verbal conversation is quickly becoming obsolete.  so in the land of text and email...how do you possibly convey or determine tone when you are communicating with the written word alone?  have you every misunderstood an email?  assigned incorrect motive to someones actions based on a mis-read of a text?  i certainly have.

so, here's my solution....if the conversation requires more than one line from me and one response from the recipent...then it's best to just make an old fashioned phone call.  or better yet (brace yourself) actually speak in person!!!!

i think we could all use a little more face to face interaction, don't you?  after all, it's the original social media.  so go on...try it!

Swells and Storms - Mike Gibbons

I wanted to share this with you....my buddy mike gibbons just posted this new video of a song he wrote.  i'm honored to say that i know this guy.  he's super talented and you should go buy this song on itunes.  and then you should go buy the rest of his records.  i'll put the pertinent details below.  enjoy!  go mike!

mikegibbons.net
'swells & storms' itunes link
mike gibbons itunes link

Greensleeves/What Child Is This by Kevin Max and Stu G

It's never too early to celebrate Christmas-SINGLE