Swimming is so damn boring. I guess that's why they call it swimming and not skiing or mountain biking or porno. It does afford you a lot of time to think. That is when you're not thinking about how damn boring swimming is. Anyway, Project Johnny is now in full swing. I've had a great week getting the body moving again. Slow rides, even slower swims, with the diet squarely in check (did I mention that I haven't had a Diet Pepsi in five weeks?) I've got cool thoughts running through my head again. There may be even a glimmer of a smile in there now and again.

So back before I was fully entrenched in Project Johnny, I was first and foremost on a downward spiral to hell. I was drinking and eating and chewing my way to happiness, but that road, as we all know, is like pitching coal on a dead end line. But you do get to see how the other half live.

On Saturday night, I found myself downtown with my brother and a crew our buddies and we threw some back at Eliot's. At the witching hour, they made their way to the local Denny's like a bunch of acne'd up teenagers while I made my way over to Menar's with my divorced friend. Menar's is a bar in the center of the Golden Ghetto (also known as Danville) and it's the haps for those working on finding love in all the wrong places. They had a funk band playing and they were good (please note: author is extremely white and wouldn't know a good funk band from a bad one but he was eighteen sheets to the wind). I got myself my nineteenth beer and made my way over to the corner to watch them play while my cohort plied his wares with the ladies. So I'm movin' and groovin' and singing with the band "we've got the funk" while I squarely point at myself with my outstretched hand while simultaneously pointing at the band as if to suggest that they're with me, when this girl sidles up next to me and asks me point plank if I'm married. Subtle, no doubt, I counter with "yes...happily" and then I hit her with the trifecta and show her my wedding ring. She mumbled something, but I had already turned back to the band and continued gyrating my white ass along with the music. To my shock and horror, she was undeterred and started dancing near me (wifeage: please note that at no time did she dance with me). So the lights come on and my buddy comes walking up with some chick who turns out to be the wingwoman of the girl that was dancing near me. At that point I was knee deep in danger as the full court press was on. Every one knows that you need to attack the full court press so I asked them for a ride home. My buddy laughed and I burped or maybe hiccuped. Luckily, they were sober enough to drive us (I think) and they got us most of the way home before they threw us out. Turns out there was a cop/sobriety check point right before my street on the boulevard so they bailed down a side street and let us out.

The next morning the wifeage was not happy to learn that I had gotten a ride home from a 47 year old divorced mother of three. "But I did come home," I replied. It was at this point that something blunt hit me atop the head and I crawled back to my room to sleep off the bad decisions that I made throughout the month of May. Anyway, thought you'd like to know.

Johnny GoFast