Author: John Bollwitt

Around the age of six, at least what memory can serve me, I had this thing on my left index finger. It was a little, red bump that just bothered me. I can’t explain why it did. Additionally, I can’t really say why I took a pair of fingernail clippers to it. I figured, cut it off and it will go away. It’s just a small, red piece of skin right? Months later, that tiny bump became infected and very painful. Four shots of novocaine and minor surgry, the scare is still visible.

Around the age of nineteen, I was helping my ex-girlfriend’s dad out with his paintball business. To catch the paint dripping off of the shooting gallery he had set up, he used a huge piece of sheet metal, bent like a cookie sheet to save the pavement from turning green. Tearing down the event, he and I carried this coated, half-witted idea, only to have the slippery contraption fall away from my grip, slicing the skin between my thumb and index finger on my left hand, all the way down to the tendons. I can still count the five stitches, and she lost her Goonies shirt to my blood loss.

A few years later, I got out of the same ex’s car, sleep deprived and all-day-starved on a late summer day, not paying attention to where my hand was at as I closed the door. My first reaction upon feeling my left index finger wedged between the door and the frame was to pull away, only to have a few, warm drops of blood splatter onto my face. They pulled what fingernail was left out of the cuticle and sewed the rest up in the emergency room, leaving a piece of severed bone from my fingertip to the healing miracle known as the human body.

Yesterday, three hundred pounds of pressure from a single power supply to our new FM transmitter added to this list of trauma that my left hand has seen. It lasted nearly five seconds, but at this point, it’s the three cuts on the tops of my knuckles that sting more than my grossly swollen index finger. Three x-rays later, things should be alright after a matter of days. My sense of my estranged pain tolerance makes things like typing not too bad, but that’s about all I can do with it.

Somewhere, some one is trying to tell me that I should never consider being a musician. It took me a long while to get up to the point where I could play my bass after the last finger incident. I think this is just another sign that I live a curse of many faces.

Here we are. Another day, life goes on. I went out and did my civic duty, but it wasn’t easy. By the time I was able to actually cast my ballot, I was so upset that I needed a milkshake. I understand that laws are laws, but when you change those laws it confuses me. I get mixed up by the lessons that have been instilled to me since the reality of voting become an abrupt reality, ripping me from the innocence and complacence of childhood. Some one changed things on me, and I was not very happy about it.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if everyone else was just like North Dakota.

Who needs a milkshake?

This is the time of year I’m pretty sure that I hate the most. We’re stuck in the middle of warmth and bitter cold. Days often consist of clouds and rain, but the rain is not your standard rain that comes to mind when you hear that word. It seems that when the sky becomes overcast, everything just becomes wet. There is no escaping it. Winds start to whip up, and everything just feels miserable. Puddles don’t want to go away, mud is everywhere, and all signs of life have left the trees.

In a short amount of time, all of this will give away to snow. It’s hard to explain, but the whiteness brings a different sense of beauty to the land. Obviously, many people get annoyed at the back breaking labor of dealing with such a climate. No matter who you are, there is a moment that when you look outside during a snowfall, you cannot help feel that child inside in you jump.

It’ll be warm again soon. In the meantime, you just have to make the best of what you have to deal with.

I’m not sure why it is, but there are Fridays that come along at the worst time. Most people love to see it on the horizon, present company included. What I don’t enjoy about them is doing two live remotes on said days. One in the morning, then another in the evening. With all that has been going on in terms of projects at the station, I am at or near capacity for the amount of work I can muster out of myself everyday that goes by. More so, on days like today, I am absolutely spent.

My DVD player has always been a problem for me. Finding the time to actually sit down and watch movies has been a chore. As my dumb luck would have it, the one day that I would really like to watch something, it won’t play the disc. Never buy anything by Samsung. I have only heard bad things about their products, and my DVD player is no exception. For a moment, I went into research mode to find something better to buy. I then remembered that a couch or a car would be a much better thing to own instead.

I’m still waiting for these weeks to slow down. I just do not see it happening anytime in the near future. It was so nice being able to come home last night, take a shower, and melt into the chair as the Red Sox swept the series. I was so happy that it finally happened, but I had a horrible time staying awake. It has reached the point where I even question running in the mornings because there is a good chance that I am going to be on my feet all day long. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I could be laying on the floor under a console or crawling around the floor with the cables like a toddler playing with legos. Work really is playtime for me, but this madness is just never ending.

I don’t drink coffee. I did this morning though. Why did I do that? Why are my hands shaking? I think I’m already going through withdrawal.

Lindsey drew this great picture of me. It’s pretty awesome. Thanks, girl.

Oh what a wonderful day it is when you finally wake up without a mild headache and slight dizziness. I actually had the focus to go running for the first time in about five days, side ache and all. A curious thing on my run was that I noticed the extreme lack of political signs in yards that used to have signs before. At least I thought I remembered such things. Some places just have what used to hold a sign sitting in a yard, no signs to be found otherwise.

What really struck me was one, huge sign in particular that I ran by. It was a “Firefighters For Kerry” sign. Big, bright, and yellow, it’s really easy to miss. This reason is due to it’s placement. I saw it hiding behind a row of bushes that were right next to the sidewalk. I literally had to strain over the tops of them to just see what it said.

There’s another sign downtown that is spray painted on a bed sheet, stuck onto the front of a house. It reads, “your vote does not count.” A strange twist on the normal political what not going on around here. Sadly, I missed Ashton Kutcher’s march around campus in support of Kerry today.

I miss all the fun.

That bump on my head from the other morning is still a bit plaguing. I think it’s safe to say that I might have suffered a slight concussion, but I’m not too sure. The more I move around, the more it kind of acts up. Vision gets a little blurry. Tiny headaches here and there. It was such a stupid thing to do, but that’s why they call them accidents.

It was Josie’s birthday today, so I made the appearance that a good uncle should. I guess I shouldn’t say that with complete confidence. Ben’s birthday was nearly a month ago, almost to the day, and I finally got his present to him today. The kids knows how busy I have been, but that’s no excuse. I just can be so forgetful, especially keeping track of four nephews, two nieces, and everything else, whatever that might be.

Craziness.

I hate waking up before the alarm goes off. More so, waking up with less than three hours to go. I set my alarm to the FM so I’m aware that things are working on that side of operations. However, this is leading to a certain distaste of classical music. I have nothing against it, but it’s the thing that rips me out of the comfort of sleep. I’m developing this association of unhappiness with that situation into my enjoyment of all good things musical. This morning didn’t help.

The natural thing to do when you wake up in the middle of the night is to hit the bathroom and go back to bed. You’ve probably done it millions of times and not given it much thought. It’s just what you do. With dawn a few hours away, I went through the routine.

Being so busy this week, I was so tired last night. I knew that I had a few more precious hours when all I caught was the clock saying it was somewhere around four in the morning. At that point, I collapsed back into bed. When I fell, I hit the wall with the back of my head. Curling onto my side, I knew that I was tired enough that I could probably fall asleep before the pain set in. It worked…

…until the alarm went off.

Coming home late from the station, it’s hard to just hop into bed. The last bit of time that I spend at the station I actually do a chunk of nothing, gearing down to make the venture home. When I get home, I have to unwind once again. I fuss with my laptop, play my bass, watch TV(as long as I can stand it), and read some of my book. This is what you do when you’re single. You find things to pass the time. Thing is, I’ve been doing this since I was a little kid. One part comes from the need of being self entertained, being the youngest and in the midst of a busy family in some difficult economic times. At the same time, you never said you were bored in my family. That would put you in the midst of some task, inside or outside the house.

All the food this week is catching up to me. I feel like crap tonight. Today, pizza and oatmeal raisin cookies, and those are my favorite kind of cookies. Ugh…

AND!… Soulwax came out with another album in August! It totally slipped by me. I also have it now. It is good, and I am happy.

You know, I have a great boss. In fact, he’s so great, he nominated me to help out with the fund drive by any amount that I could. Of course, I don’t mind lending a helping hand. After all, I love the station and everything that we do there. However, it would have be great if he would have told me in the first place rather than getting the schedule and finding out that I had to work last Saturday morning and this past Monday morning. Let’s not forget, this is radio. We strive to be there as you wake up, no matter what time before dawn that might be.

There has been a little down time in the recent days. At this point, I’m mainly on pickup duty for a few of the meals we are having donated for the week’s event. Of course, that’s all going to change. The digital AM transmitter arrives tomorrow on top of another ISDN link up in the morning. My life is just a ball of perpetual motion.

That reminds me… Baseball. My heart still sings a sad tune for the Cubs, but these playoffs have been phenomenal. I’m also going to invoke a philosophy commonly applied to the current presidential election; Anyone but the Yankees.