If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had a dentist appointment a little after 10, and if it were easily possible for me to do such a thing, I probably would have been inclined to just sleep all day and straight through to tomorrow morning.
Honestly, I would have really wanted to sleep straight through to Monday morning (or at least Sunday night), but that would have been really stretching it.
Today just seemed like a waste, and I wasn’t really inclined to be awake for it.
Not that I’m in any rush to have to start my work week, but if I thought I could sleep straight through to morning I’d be willing to go to bed right now.
I’m not sure why I’ve been so averse to being awake today. It’s actually a very nice day, and given that it’s my last day before work, I should be inclined to take advantage of it.
And I have; I walked over six miles today.
But the whole time I was thinking that I’d rather be sleeping…
For not wanting to do anything but sleep, though, I did accomplish a fair amount.
Aside from the walking, as mentioned I went to the dentist and got another crown put in.
I’m done at the dentist until after I’ve seen the oral surgeon who’s going to pull my teeth. I have a “consultation” on the 25th, so I don’t know when the actual pulling will be done yet. After that I have to wait four weeks to allow my gums to heal, then make an appointment with the dentist to get my partial made. So it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get that done before I head home for Jourdan’s graduation.
After the dentist I went to the store and picked up a few groceries. Then I came home, and in between walks, did the laundry and ate my early dinner.
And the whole time I was thinking about how much I’d rather be in bed sleeping.
I don’t know what the deal was, other than some kind of post-birthday blahs, or the fact that Thursday always feels like a waste. Given my early bedtime it’s such a short day, so no matter how much I accomplish in the time I have it always feels like there was so little time that I shouldn’t have even bothered doing anything.
Now it’s nearly over and I’m almost to the point that I can just finally call it a day.
I did a little more work on that picture I mentioned, but nothing substantial. I just wasn’t in the mood to mess with it.
I had set aside time (using my day planner) to either work on the picture or write, but once I got tired of drawing I didn’t switch over to writing, passing the time instead by engaging in my usual patented brand of nothing in particular.
And that was my day, a rather standard coda to a fairly typical and predictable week.
I hope you have a better weekend than I’m likely to, and I’ll see you all back here again on Monday.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
For Anyone Who Was Curious...
In an earlier post I mentioned that Playboy will feature an actress from the latest "Star Wars" movie in a pictorial next month, but that they were being deliberately vague about her identity in the hopes that people would assume it will be Natalie Portman.
As I suspected (or rather, knew, but simply needed confirmation) it is not Natalie Portman. Go here to see who it really is....
As I suspected (or rather, knew, but simply needed confirmation) it is not Natalie Portman. Go here to see who it really is....
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Table For One
So I decided to go over to the Italian place across the street.
The hostess, a young, pretty girl who was going for the vaguely non-conformist look with her dark, blocky, attention-getting Elvis Costello glasses and pseudo-hippie belly-baring shirt greeted me and looked to either side of me in hopes of getting a good look at the rest of my party.
She seemed nonplussed by the fact that I was “my party” and suggested that I might want to sit at the bar.
Even though I knew I’d be inconveniencing any normal diners who would actually be arriving with more than one person, I declined her offer to whisk me out of sight and took an entire booth for myself.
The wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed.
She made a friendly and flirtatious comment about how I was “flying solo,” and I mentioned to her that it was my birthday. She extended her wishes for a happy birthday and expressed disbelief when I told her how old I was, saying that I “look so young.”
She continued to flirt with me throughout dinner, and at the end, along with the complementary piece of birthday cake, she slipped me her number.
And if you believe that anything I wrote after “The wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed” actually happened, you obviously haven’t been paying attention.
So to get back to reality, while the wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed, I was served by a tall, skeletally-thin young man by the name of Jonathan.
I didn’t bother mentioning that it was my birthday to him.
Under ordinary circumstances I almost never eat veal, but when Jonathan read the specials to me I opted for the Veal Osso Bucco.
Yes, I know, it’s horrible to eat those poor little calves, but somehow the idea of devouring the young appealed to me today.
While I was waiting for my food, and was, as I suspected I would be, sticking out like a sore thumb in the crowd of couples and families, the non-conformist hostess seated a woman in the booth in front of me.
Thanks to how she was seated, the woman in the other booth and I were facing each other.
She wasn’t especially attractive, and she appeared to be even older than I am, but even though I had no interest in approaching her it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only person in the place by myself.
Of course, I was mistaken in that assumption, as she was actually waiting for someone, and from my vantage point I got to see how her face totally lit up when he arrived.
I can’t remember the last time I made a woman’s face light up (not by arriving, at any rate).
Anyway, after polishing off the rather large meal, I was surprised to see just how much it cost.
After the tip, the Veal and a Sprite came to over $30.
That was kind of a waste. While the food was good, it wasn’t worth the amount I spent on it, and given how awkward and uncomfortable being there made me feel, it’s clear that I shouldn’t have bothered going out.
When I got my mail today I did so knowing that as of this morning my mother still hadn’t mailed my card, so I wasn’t really expecting to have any sort of birthday-specific mail.
I was surprised to see that my friend Eric had remembered and had sent me a present.
I’m not up on coin collecting, so I don’t really understand the significance of the 1922 silver dollar he sent me, but it was nice of him to think of me.
After dinner I went for a little bit of a walk. I had gone over to the restaurant a little early, forgoing watching “The Simpsons,” as I wanted to avoid the dinner crowd and be sure to be home in time for “Smallville.”
Shortly after I got home my sister Kim called. We talked for about a half an hour, but her throat started to bother her (she’s got strep), so that was the end of that, and that’s probably the last acknowledgment of my birthday that I’ll get from friends and family (I also got an e-card from “Zalfiro” earlier today).
Talking to Kim cut into my viewing of “Smallville” a little, but I was easily able to get up to speed on what I missed.
Now I’ve got that “Revelations” show on, though I’m not actually watching, and next it’ll be “Law & Order,” followed by “The Daily Show” and “Blind Date,” and that will bring this pointless birthday to a close.
I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll finish the picture I mentioned earlier. I started it last night because it was at least vaguely birthday-themed, and it looked easy. Once I started on it, though, I realized that it was more complicated than I thought.
If I finish it at all it probably won’t be until next week, but we’ll see, I guess.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
The hostess, a young, pretty girl who was going for the vaguely non-conformist look with her dark, blocky, attention-getting Elvis Costello glasses and pseudo-hippie belly-baring shirt greeted me and looked to either side of me in hopes of getting a good look at the rest of my party.
She seemed nonplussed by the fact that I was “my party” and suggested that I might want to sit at the bar.
Even though I knew I’d be inconveniencing any normal diners who would actually be arriving with more than one person, I declined her offer to whisk me out of sight and took an entire booth for myself.
The wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed.
She made a friendly and flirtatious comment about how I was “flying solo,” and I mentioned to her that it was my birthday. She extended her wishes for a happy birthday and expressed disbelief when I told her how old I was, saying that I “look so young.”
She continued to flirt with me throughout dinner, and at the end, along with the complementary piece of birthday cake, she slipped me her number.
And if you believe that anything I wrote after “The wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed” actually happened, you obviously haven’t been paying attention.
So to get back to reality, while the wait staff consisted primarily of cute young female servers, one of whom was very cute indeed, I was served by a tall, skeletally-thin young man by the name of Jonathan.
I didn’t bother mentioning that it was my birthday to him.
Under ordinary circumstances I almost never eat veal, but when Jonathan read the specials to me I opted for the Veal Osso Bucco.
Yes, I know, it’s horrible to eat those poor little calves, but somehow the idea of devouring the young appealed to me today.
While I was waiting for my food, and was, as I suspected I would be, sticking out like a sore thumb in the crowd of couples and families, the non-conformist hostess seated a woman in the booth in front of me.
Thanks to how she was seated, the woman in the other booth and I were facing each other.
She wasn’t especially attractive, and she appeared to be even older than I am, but even though I had no interest in approaching her it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only person in the place by myself.
Of course, I was mistaken in that assumption, as she was actually waiting for someone, and from my vantage point I got to see how her face totally lit up when he arrived.
I can’t remember the last time I made a woman’s face light up (not by arriving, at any rate).
Anyway, after polishing off the rather large meal, I was surprised to see just how much it cost.
After the tip, the Veal and a Sprite came to over $30.
That was kind of a waste. While the food was good, it wasn’t worth the amount I spent on it, and given how awkward and uncomfortable being there made me feel, it’s clear that I shouldn’t have bothered going out.
When I got my mail today I did so knowing that as of this morning my mother still hadn’t mailed my card, so I wasn’t really expecting to have any sort of birthday-specific mail.
I was surprised to see that my friend Eric had remembered and had sent me a present.
I’m not up on coin collecting, so I don’t really understand the significance of the 1922 silver dollar he sent me, but it was nice of him to think of me.
After dinner I went for a little bit of a walk. I had gone over to the restaurant a little early, forgoing watching “The Simpsons,” as I wanted to avoid the dinner crowd and be sure to be home in time for “Smallville.”
Shortly after I got home my sister Kim called. We talked for about a half an hour, but her throat started to bother her (she’s got strep), so that was the end of that, and that’s probably the last acknowledgment of my birthday that I’ll get from friends and family (I also got an e-card from “Zalfiro” earlier today).
Talking to Kim cut into my viewing of “Smallville” a little, but I was easily able to get up to speed on what I missed.
Now I’ve got that “Revelations” show on, though I’m not actually watching, and next it’ll be “Law & Order,” followed by “The Daily Show” and “Blind Date,” and that will bring this pointless birthday to a close.
I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll finish the picture I mentioned earlier. I started it last night because it was at least vaguely birthday-themed, and it looked easy. Once I started on it, though, I realized that it was more complicated than I thought.
If I finish it at all it probably won’t be until next week, but we’ll see, I guess.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
Sixteen Candles...Times Two (Plus One)
What a pointless age. 33? What is that? There’s no significance to it. It’s not like 30, or 35, or even, God forbid, 40.
It’s 33.
It’s pointless.
I hate pointless age birthdays even more than regular birthdays, though honestly, pretty much every age has been pointless since 21.
As you can see, so far my birthday hasn’t been an especially joyous one, though that should hardly come as any surprise to anyone.
I figured on spending the day looking back, taking stock, and evaluating my life, as birthdays do tend to be a convenient time to do that sort of thing…but hen I said, “Screw it.”
What would be the point, really? Basically I’d just look back, think about a handful of happy memories, dwell on a thousand bad ones, and ultimately become convinced that my life has largely been a pointless waste of time and feel sort of depressed.
This might not be so bad…if it served as some sort of impetus for making changes in my life to make it less of a pointless waste of time in the future.
However, I’ve been doing this sort of thing on my birthday for at least ten years, and so far that hasn’t happened. I look back, feel bad, resolve to change things and make them better, then go to bed at the end of the day and wake up the next day remaining substantially the same person I was before, with my resolve to change things fading like an unremembered dream.
So this year I decided to skip as much of that as possible.
That means that I’ll probably still feel bad about myself, but I won’t make any resolutions to change, and I’ll spend as little time thinking about the past as possible.
After all, the present is depressing enough without having to dredge up the past…
Okay, so I’m mostly kidding about the depression, but while I’m not exactly sitting here applying blade to wrist while swallowing a bunch of pills, the fact remains that I’m in my thirties, single, having a pointless birthday that brings me that much closer to forty, as is pretty typical, at least wihin the last ten years, I’m spending it alone, and I realize that pretty much all of the hopes and expectations I once had for life have gone largely unfulfilled.
These things don’t exactly spell “party” for me.
And even if they did...well, “party” really isn’t in my vocabulary anymore. Even after having adapted to a life of sobriety, I remain unconvinced that it’s possible to go out and have a really wild and reckless night of alcohol-free abandon.
How can you really say you had fun if you can actually remember it the next day?
Last year I held a birthday party for myself. I did it largely to forestall anyone at work trying to take me out for my birthday. Throwing my own party allowed me to appease whatever urge they might have to do something for me while at the same time maintaining a certain degree of control over the proceedings.
I think we all had a very nice time. There was plenty of food, I got some cool gifts, and basically it was a nice, quiet way to acknowledge the passing of another year with a small group of friends.
So yeah, it was nice.
But honestly, how well do you think the memory of a quiet, sedate, mature 32nd birthday stacks up against the blurry memories of a 27th birthday when I probably came extremely close to dying of alcohol poisoning?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that I want to go back to, or even anywhere near that life again, I’m just…well, I’m not sure that I know what “I’m just.”
The point is that on my birthday there’s very little I could do to celebrate it, even if I were of a mind to do so, which I really am not, as there is so little I could do to celebrate it even if I were, which I really am not because...well, you get the idea.
When I talked to them earlier today my parents had both suggested “treating myself” to dinner.
…
As uncomfortable as I feel going out into the world, where the fact that I’m flying solo makes me stick out like a sore thumb, I can’t help but think that it’d be even worse on my birthday.
So it really wouldn’t be much of a treat.
Still, I do have to eat, and don’t feel like cooking, so I may actually head over to the too-bright Italian place across the street. I haven’t decided on that one yet, especially since I will be going out on Monday night as part of a birthday celebration.
As for doing anything else to celebrate…with alcoholic binges removed from the list of possibilities, there really aren’t a lot of options. I could go out and buy myself something, but that would involve taking money out of my savings, and honestly, what I’m trying to do as a “birthday present” for myself is bulk up my savings as much as possible.
To be honest, I had actually made use of my planner and my newly-acquired time management skills to plan the day. Despite the fact that the phone calls I got and made this morning didn’t entirely follow the schedule I’d set up for them, I was actually on schedule for a while, and am back on it now (4 – 5 was set aside for writing a Threshold entry), I didn’t stick to it much after I got back from my walk (from 12 – 1).
In fact, I threw it entirely out the window by taking a nap.
Yeah, that’s right. I celebrated my 33rd birthday by taking a nap.
Who says I don’t know how to party anymore?
During the block of mid-day in which I was sleeping I was supposed to be writing, writing something other than and independent of Threshold.
What would that be? I don’t know; the point was just to begin devoting time to writing.
Why? Well, I’m hoping that if I keep telling myself the same thing over and over again I might actually start to believe that it really is my dream to be a writer. It would be much easier to convince myself of that if I were actually doing some writing with all of the time available to me.
So that’s more or less the plan I’ve been trying to lay out.
Admittedly, it didn’t work out too well today, but hey, it’s my birthday. If I can’t change my mind and decide to take a nap today, when can I?
In any case, we’re nearing the end of the hour I set aside for this entry, so if I’m going to get back on schedule, I’d better wrap things up.
In closing, there are only two things that I take comfort in about being 33: Kathleen will be going through the same thing in eleven days, and my brother Brad will be taking another step towards 50 in two days.
I may or may not be back with more later, as tonight is my big TV night (new episodes of “Smallville,” finally), and if I am, I should actually have a new picture for everyone’s viewing pleasure (assuming I find time to finish it, as drawing it wasn’t written into the day’s plan…).
It’s 33.
It’s pointless.
I hate pointless age birthdays even more than regular birthdays, though honestly, pretty much every age has been pointless since 21.
As you can see, so far my birthday hasn’t been an especially joyous one, though that should hardly come as any surprise to anyone.
I figured on spending the day looking back, taking stock, and evaluating my life, as birthdays do tend to be a convenient time to do that sort of thing…but hen I said, “Screw it.”
What would be the point, really? Basically I’d just look back, think about a handful of happy memories, dwell on a thousand bad ones, and ultimately become convinced that my life has largely been a pointless waste of time and feel sort of depressed.
This might not be so bad…if it served as some sort of impetus for making changes in my life to make it less of a pointless waste of time in the future.
However, I’ve been doing this sort of thing on my birthday for at least ten years, and so far that hasn’t happened. I look back, feel bad, resolve to change things and make them better, then go to bed at the end of the day and wake up the next day remaining substantially the same person I was before, with my resolve to change things fading like an unremembered dream.
So this year I decided to skip as much of that as possible.
That means that I’ll probably still feel bad about myself, but I won’t make any resolutions to change, and I’ll spend as little time thinking about the past as possible.
After all, the present is depressing enough without having to dredge up the past…
Okay, so I’m mostly kidding about the depression, but while I’m not exactly sitting here applying blade to wrist while swallowing a bunch of pills, the fact remains that I’m in my thirties, single, having a pointless birthday that brings me that much closer to forty, as is pretty typical, at least wihin the last ten years, I’m spending it alone, and I realize that pretty much all of the hopes and expectations I once had for life have gone largely unfulfilled.
These things don’t exactly spell “party” for me.
And even if they did...well, “party” really isn’t in my vocabulary anymore. Even after having adapted to a life of sobriety, I remain unconvinced that it’s possible to go out and have a really wild and reckless night of alcohol-free abandon.
How can you really say you had fun if you can actually remember it the next day?
Last year I held a birthday party for myself. I did it largely to forestall anyone at work trying to take me out for my birthday. Throwing my own party allowed me to appease whatever urge they might have to do something for me while at the same time maintaining a certain degree of control over the proceedings.
I think we all had a very nice time. There was plenty of food, I got some cool gifts, and basically it was a nice, quiet way to acknowledge the passing of another year with a small group of friends.
So yeah, it was nice.
But honestly, how well do you think the memory of a quiet, sedate, mature 32nd birthday stacks up against the blurry memories of a 27th birthday when I probably came extremely close to dying of alcohol poisoning?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that I want to go back to, or even anywhere near that life again, I’m just…well, I’m not sure that I know what “I’m just.”
The point is that on my birthday there’s very little I could do to celebrate it, even if I were of a mind to do so, which I really am not, as there is so little I could do to celebrate it even if I were, which I really am not because...well, you get the idea.
When I talked to them earlier today my parents had both suggested “treating myself” to dinner.
…
As uncomfortable as I feel going out into the world, where the fact that I’m flying solo makes me stick out like a sore thumb, I can’t help but think that it’d be even worse on my birthday.
So it really wouldn’t be much of a treat.
Still, I do have to eat, and don’t feel like cooking, so I may actually head over to the too-bright Italian place across the street. I haven’t decided on that one yet, especially since I will be going out on Monday night as part of a birthday celebration.
As for doing anything else to celebrate…with alcoholic binges removed from the list of possibilities, there really aren’t a lot of options. I could go out and buy myself something, but that would involve taking money out of my savings, and honestly, what I’m trying to do as a “birthday present” for myself is bulk up my savings as much as possible.
To be honest, I had actually made use of my planner and my newly-acquired time management skills to plan the day. Despite the fact that the phone calls I got and made this morning didn’t entirely follow the schedule I’d set up for them, I was actually on schedule for a while, and am back on it now (4 – 5 was set aside for writing a Threshold entry), I didn’t stick to it much after I got back from my walk (from 12 – 1).
In fact, I threw it entirely out the window by taking a nap.
Yeah, that’s right. I celebrated my 33rd birthday by taking a nap.
Who says I don’t know how to party anymore?
During the block of mid-day in which I was sleeping I was supposed to be writing, writing something other than and independent of Threshold.
What would that be? I don’t know; the point was just to begin devoting time to writing.
Why? Well, I’m hoping that if I keep telling myself the same thing over and over again I might actually start to believe that it really is my dream to be a writer. It would be much easier to convince myself of that if I were actually doing some writing with all of the time available to me.
So that’s more or less the plan I’ve been trying to lay out.
Admittedly, it didn’t work out too well today, but hey, it’s my birthday. If I can’t change my mind and decide to take a nap today, when can I?
In any case, we’re nearing the end of the hour I set aside for this entry, so if I’m going to get back on schedule, I’d better wrap things up.
In closing, there are only two things that I take comfort in about being 33: Kathleen will be going through the same thing in eleven days, and my brother Brad will be taking another step towards 50 in two days.
I may or may not be back with more later, as tonight is my big TV night (new episodes of “Smallville,” finally), and if I am, I should actually have a new picture for everyone’s viewing pleasure (assuming I find time to finish it, as drawing it wasn’t written into the day’s plan…).
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Is Time On My Side? Probably Not.
This morning I had set my alarm for about 7:45, as I had to be at HQ for my training class at 9:00.
My experience last week taught me that I should get on the road pretty early, given the fact that traffic seems to have increased exponentially in the past couple of weeks.
I woke up on my own at around 7:30, but opted not to get up, once again enjoying the cool morning breeze.
I drifted back to sleep, though, so when 7:45 rolled around and my alarm went off it made me feel tired, even though I had been more or less awake a few mintues earlier.
I made it to the class with surprisingly little time to spare, considering that I left 40 minutes before it started and that HQ is only a few miles down the road.
Brian and Kathleen were, not surprisingly, a few minutes late, even though they left at around the same time I did, which is really amazingly early for them.
The actual class was pretty good; much better than last week’s yawnfest.
The really cool thing was that as part of the class we each got a pretty sweet day planner that would cost $60 if purchased separately. I’ve been meaning to get one, so this really saved me a lot of trouble (and money).
Whether or not I’ll make use of the planner to actually work the program as intended is up in the air, but I think I’m going to at least give it a shot.
The whole reason I took the class wasn’t because I don’t have enough time, obviously, but because I have too much. I wanted to learn some methods to more effectively use all of the time I do have.
This class at least gave me some ideas, so we’ll see what happens.
Before our first break in the morning the instructor told us what time we’d be breaking for lunch, so during the break I e-mailed “Tucson” to tell her when I’d be free for her to bring me my container and cake pan bottom. I also invited her to join Kathleen, Brian, and I for lunch.
As we made our way to the cafeteria for lunch, our path crossed with hers (or rather, met head-on), and she decided to join us. Brian and Kathleen were walking a bit ahead, and Tucson and I walked side-by-side. Mostly she talked about how good the cheesecake had been, and I tried, in vain, to develop a personality.
Once we got to the cafeteria and sat down, I mostly sat in stupid silence while the other three talked about mutual acquaintances (they had all worked together back in Arizona) that I either didn’t know at all or whose names I only vaguely recognized.
After she finished eating she headed off for a meeting, thanked me again for the cheesecake, and that was that.
Once we finished our lunch break I brought the container and cake pan bottom out to my car, and then we went back to class and rounded out the afternoon.
And that was pretty much my day.
As one of the exercises in making a plan (and making use of the planner), I made plans for my birthday tomorrow.
I first had to list tasks I wanted to accomplish, then assign them a priority.
My number one priority for the day? Hate the world.
I think I’ll be able to accomplish that one pretty easily.
Beyond that? Well, while I didn’t put it into the plan, I figure on being miserable and cranky and looking back on the last 33 years and shaking my head in dismay at all of the wasted time.
I had thought about going to see Sin City again as something of a birthday present, but I think I’m just going to wait for it to come out on DVD to see it again.
I’m really not as distressed or depressed about my birthday as I might make myself seem. Honestly, it’s just another day, though that fact in and of itself is sort of depressing, I suppose.
Still, in the class today one of the exercises involved introducing yourself to someone else in the class. The twist, though, was to introduce yourself as you were ten years ago.
It was annoying to look back on the past. In many ways, I’m much, much better off, but in other ways…well, it was a bit distressing to see that there are many aspects of my life that haven’t improved since I was a married, relatively recent college graduate.
Don’t worry; I have no intention of listing off the ways that my life is better/worse, I’m just mentioning that, at a time when I’m naturally inclined to look back and take stock of my life it was sort of annoying to be required to do it.
Worse, we then had to go the other way, and introduce ourselves the way we’d like to see ourselves ten years in the future.
I tried to imagine a hopeful, positive future for myself, but that can be kind of tricky to do when you really can’t think of anything you might actually want for the future. I went the standard “successful author” route, but I can’t honestly say that I really want that. Ten years ago I thought I wanted that, but do I still, and if I do, how likely is it that in twenty years I’ll manage to accomplish what I haven’t managed in ten?
On the topic of my writing, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday taking a look at my novel blog (http://www.15000years.blogspot.com/, for those of you who aren’t aware of it).
Was I admiring my handiwork? Not exactly; it was more like cringing at my handiwork.
I know it’s supposed to be a rough draft, but didn’t I edit the damn thing at all? There were so many typos, wrong and missing words, and oddly-constructed sentences that didn’t make any sense that I couldn’t help but wonder how I missed them all in the multiple read-throughs I made before posting each chapter.
Maybe it’s no wonder that in more than ten years I haven’t been able to get published…
Still, typos and so forth notwithstanding, it isn’t really a bad story. It just needs a lot of work to flesh it out a little more and tie it all together a little more neatly.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. I may or may not be back tonight, but I did put in a block of time for posting an entry tomorrow in my planner, so, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be back sometime…
My experience last week taught me that I should get on the road pretty early, given the fact that traffic seems to have increased exponentially in the past couple of weeks.
I woke up on my own at around 7:30, but opted not to get up, once again enjoying the cool morning breeze.
I drifted back to sleep, though, so when 7:45 rolled around and my alarm went off it made me feel tired, even though I had been more or less awake a few mintues earlier.
I made it to the class with surprisingly little time to spare, considering that I left 40 minutes before it started and that HQ is only a few miles down the road.
Brian and Kathleen were, not surprisingly, a few minutes late, even though they left at around the same time I did, which is really amazingly early for them.
The actual class was pretty good; much better than last week’s yawnfest.
The really cool thing was that as part of the class we each got a pretty sweet day planner that would cost $60 if purchased separately. I’ve been meaning to get one, so this really saved me a lot of trouble (and money).
Whether or not I’ll make use of the planner to actually work the program as intended is up in the air, but I think I’m going to at least give it a shot.
The whole reason I took the class wasn’t because I don’t have enough time, obviously, but because I have too much. I wanted to learn some methods to more effectively use all of the time I do have.
This class at least gave me some ideas, so we’ll see what happens.
Before our first break in the morning the instructor told us what time we’d be breaking for lunch, so during the break I e-mailed “Tucson” to tell her when I’d be free for her to bring me my container and cake pan bottom. I also invited her to join Kathleen, Brian, and I for lunch.
As we made our way to the cafeteria for lunch, our path crossed with hers (or rather, met head-on), and she decided to join us. Brian and Kathleen were walking a bit ahead, and Tucson and I walked side-by-side. Mostly she talked about how good the cheesecake had been, and I tried, in vain, to develop a personality.
Once we got to the cafeteria and sat down, I mostly sat in stupid silence while the other three talked about mutual acquaintances (they had all worked together back in Arizona) that I either didn’t know at all or whose names I only vaguely recognized.
After she finished eating she headed off for a meeting, thanked me again for the cheesecake, and that was that.
Once we finished our lunch break I brought the container and cake pan bottom out to my car, and then we went back to class and rounded out the afternoon.
And that was pretty much my day.
As one of the exercises in making a plan (and making use of the planner), I made plans for my birthday tomorrow.
I first had to list tasks I wanted to accomplish, then assign them a priority.
My number one priority for the day? Hate the world.
I think I’ll be able to accomplish that one pretty easily.
Beyond that? Well, while I didn’t put it into the plan, I figure on being miserable and cranky and looking back on the last 33 years and shaking my head in dismay at all of the wasted time.
I had thought about going to see Sin City again as something of a birthday present, but I think I’m just going to wait for it to come out on DVD to see it again.
I’m really not as distressed or depressed about my birthday as I might make myself seem. Honestly, it’s just another day, though that fact in and of itself is sort of depressing, I suppose.
Still, in the class today one of the exercises involved introducing yourself to someone else in the class. The twist, though, was to introduce yourself as you were ten years ago.
It was annoying to look back on the past. In many ways, I’m much, much better off, but in other ways…well, it was a bit distressing to see that there are many aspects of my life that haven’t improved since I was a married, relatively recent college graduate.
Don’t worry; I have no intention of listing off the ways that my life is better/worse, I’m just mentioning that, at a time when I’m naturally inclined to look back and take stock of my life it was sort of annoying to be required to do it.
Worse, we then had to go the other way, and introduce ourselves the way we’d like to see ourselves ten years in the future.
I tried to imagine a hopeful, positive future for myself, but that can be kind of tricky to do when you really can’t think of anything you might actually want for the future. I went the standard “successful author” route, but I can’t honestly say that I really want that. Ten years ago I thought I wanted that, but do I still, and if I do, how likely is it that in twenty years I’ll manage to accomplish what I haven’t managed in ten?
On the topic of my writing, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday taking a look at my novel blog (http://www.15000years.blogspot.com/, for those of you who aren’t aware of it).
Was I admiring my handiwork? Not exactly; it was more like cringing at my handiwork.
I know it’s supposed to be a rough draft, but didn’t I edit the damn thing at all? There were so many typos, wrong and missing words, and oddly-constructed sentences that didn’t make any sense that I couldn’t help but wonder how I missed them all in the multiple read-throughs I made before posting each chapter.
Maybe it’s no wonder that in more than ten years I haven’t been able to get published…
Still, typos and so forth notwithstanding, it isn’t really a bad story. It just needs a lot of work to flesh it out a little more and tie it all together a little more neatly.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. I may or may not be back tonight, but I did put in a block of time for posting an entry tomorrow in my planner, so, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be back sometime…
Monday, April 11, 2005
Irresistible Goat-Herders, Jumping To The Wrong Conclusion, And This Is The End
Last night, as I always do on Sundays, I watched “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”
This particular episode was “ripped from the headlines” about the effects of dioxin poisoning.
A beautiful young woman married to a domineering older man ends up sick in the hospital and overnight her beautiful face is ravaged by the effects of the poisoning. Due to the massive amounts of dioxin she was exposed to, the woman doesn’t survive.
In the course of the investigation, with her husband, a dentist, as the prime suspect, they determine that the woman had been engaging in a “virtual affair,” and they further determine that the “British man” she had been cybering with was, in fact, an American woman.
More than that, though, the woman was actually a friend of hers, a friend who, eleven years earlier, had lost her beautiful sister…to a previously misdiagnosed case of dioxin poisoning.
Further, at the time of her death, the sister had been engaged to a certain young dentist.
So it turns out that years earlier, after discovering that his fiancée had been cheating on him, the dentist poisoned her with dioxin.
Then, years later, the sister of his dead fiancée had become friends with his current wife and, discovering that she too was less than faithful, did him the favor of taking her out in the same fashion he had taken out her sister.
Why? Because she was in love with him.
This really bothered me because not only was this woman so in love with the guy that she would kill his wife for him, she was willing to ignore the fact that he had killed her sister, and meanwhile I can’t even get a woman to return my calls.
Okay, granted, I don’t want some chick to be so pathologically devoted to me that she’ll kill people to be with me, but, you know, a little bit of devotion might be nice.
At a minimum it’d be nice to have someone who would be willing to at least maim people just to be with me.
What made the whole thing even more maddening, though, was that the dentist the woman was so obsessed with was played by frickin’ Balki.
If that retarded goat-herder has chicks killing for him, I’m definitely doing something wrong…
Tomorrow I’m going to a “Time Management” class. It’s the last training class I’ll be attending for a while, largely because Kathleen will be leaving and will no longer be encouraging me to sign up for classes with her.
Getting Horny Nerds’ Hopes Up Dept.
With the final “Star Wars” movie coming out next month, everyone and his brother is hoping to grab a share of the inevitable profits associated with this historic (in relative terms, at least) event.
Playboy magazine is no exception, having a special section devoted to Lucas’ life’s work in its upcoming issue.
In the “Next Month” section of the current issue they hype an article about the movie and mention that one of the female stars of the movie will be appearing nude in a pictorial. They won’t say who it is, and in the accompanying small photo of a slender, nude woman they took great pains to crop out any overly revealing features of her face, exhorting readers to “guess” who it is.
The obvious guess, given that there are no other female “stars” in the movie, is Natalie Portman, and it’s obvious that Playboy wants people to make that guess.
However, I think that it’s highly unlikely that she would pose for Playboy (even though she did, supposedly, appear fully-nude in a deleted scene in the movie “Closer”), and I think that it’s even more unlikely that Playboy would not publicize such a coup for all it’s worth.
Besides that, the nude body featured in the preview doesn’t really match up with the topless photos taken of Natalie Portman on a beach a few years ago, so I just don’t think it’s her.
I’m hard-pressed to figure out who else it could be, though, as there really are no other female stars in the movie, and I suspect that it’s just going to be some random extra who appears onscreen for a half a second behind Jar Jar or something.
After all, throughout the years Playboy has demonstrated the fact that they have extremely broad definitions of words like “star” and “celebrity.” Pick up one of their “Celebrities and Supermodels” newsstand specials, for example, and you’ll find that most of the “celebrities” are just your average Playmate, whose name is largely unknown outside of Playboy’s regular readership.
On Sunday Brian passed a link to this site along to me. It’s a very entertaining site about the end of the world. Very good stuff.
Speaking of the end, I think that’s going to do it for today.
I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about my class tomorrow, along with various observations on the last day of my 32nd year…
This particular episode was “ripped from the headlines” about the effects of dioxin poisoning.
A beautiful young woman married to a domineering older man ends up sick in the hospital and overnight her beautiful face is ravaged by the effects of the poisoning. Due to the massive amounts of dioxin she was exposed to, the woman doesn’t survive.
In the course of the investigation, with her husband, a dentist, as the prime suspect, they determine that the woman had been engaging in a “virtual affair,” and they further determine that the “British man” she had been cybering with was, in fact, an American woman.
More than that, though, the woman was actually a friend of hers, a friend who, eleven years earlier, had lost her beautiful sister…to a previously misdiagnosed case of dioxin poisoning.
Further, at the time of her death, the sister had been engaged to a certain young dentist.
So it turns out that years earlier, after discovering that his fiancée had been cheating on him, the dentist poisoned her with dioxin.
Then, years later, the sister of his dead fiancée had become friends with his current wife and, discovering that she too was less than faithful, did him the favor of taking her out in the same fashion he had taken out her sister.
Why? Because she was in love with him.
This really bothered me because not only was this woman so in love with the guy that she would kill his wife for him, she was willing to ignore the fact that he had killed her sister, and meanwhile I can’t even get a woman to return my calls.
Okay, granted, I don’t want some chick to be so pathologically devoted to me that she’ll kill people to be with me, but, you know, a little bit of devotion might be nice.
At a minimum it’d be nice to have someone who would be willing to at least maim people just to be with me.
What made the whole thing even more maddening, though, was that the dentist the woman was so obsessed with was played by frickin’ Balki.
If that retarded goat-herder has chicks killing for him, I’m definitely doing something wrong…
Tomorrow I’m going to a “Time Management” class. It’s the last training class I’ll be attending for a while, largely because Kathleen will be leaving and will no longer be encouraging me to sign up for classes with her.
Getting Horny Nerds’ Hopes Up Dept.
With the final “Star Wars” movie coming out next month, everyone and his brother is hoping to grab a share of the inevitable profits associated with this historic (in relative terms, at least) event.
Playboy magazine is no exception, having a special section devoted to Lucas’ life’s work in its upcoming issue.
In the “Next Month” section of the current issue they hype an article about the movie and mention that one of the female stars of the movie will be appearing nude in a pictorial. They won’t say who it is, and in the accompanying small photo of a slender, nude woman they took great pains to crop out any overly revealing features of her face, exhorting readers to “guess” who it is.
The obvious guess, given that there are no other female “stars” in the movie, is Natalie Portman, and it’s obvious that Playboy wants people to make that guess.
However, I think that it’s highly unlikely that she would pose for Playboy (even though she did, supposedly, appear fully-nude in a deleted scene in the movie “Closer”), and I think that it’s even more unlikely that Playboy would not publicize such a coup for all it’s worth.
Besides that, the nude body featured in the preview doesn’t really match up with the topless photos taken of Natalie Portman on a beach a few years ago, so I just don’t think it’s her.
I’m hard-pressed to figure out who else it could be, though, as there really are no other female stars in the movie, and I suspect that it’s just going to be some random extra who appears onscreen for a half a second behind Jar Jar or something.
After all, throughout the years Playboy has demonstrated the fact that they have extremely broad definitions of words like “star” and “celebrity.” Pick up one of their “Celebrities and Supermodels” newsstand specials, for example, and you’ll find that most of the “celebrities” are just your average Playmate, whose name is largely unknown outside of Playboy’s regular readership.
On Sunday Brian passed a link to this site along to me. It’s a very entertaining site about the end of the world. Very good stuff.
Speaking of the end, I think that’s going to do it for today.
I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about my class tomorrow, along with various observations on the last day of my 32nd year…
Swearing At Sarah, Who Knocks Will NOT Be Let In, And When Do These Brats Go To School?
When my alarm went off Friday morning and the beautiful voice of Sarah McLachlan began to issue forth to gently rouse me from my slumber, I found myself first swearing at her, then apologizing, because I love her and it wasn’t her fault that I had to get up.
Okay, so I didn’t actually apologize, but I definitely did swear.
Once I finally managed to roll out of bed, though, I quickly fell into the familiar routine, throwing my contacts in, brushing my teeth, grabbing my gym and lunch bags, and heading out the door.
Upon arriving I headed straight for the fitness center. Like most doors where I work, the door for the fitness center requires badge access. So I held my badge up to the reader, heard it beep, saw the light flash from red to green, but didn’t hear the telltale “click” of the door.
I tried it again: beep, green, no click.
Knowing that it wouldn’t work, I tried opening the door anyway.
When that failed, I tried badging in once more with no luck.
I swore a little more, then headed upstairs to the security office.
After getting the attention of the nice old man working there I explained my predicament and that there must be something wrong with the door.
For some reason he dismissed the fact that there was probably something wrong with the door immediately, refusing to even consider it as a possibility and determining that there must be something wrong with my badge.
There are two main entrances to the building. One is right by the security office, and the other is on the opposite side. I had entered the building, as I pretty much always do, on the opposite side, as that parking lot is closer to where I work.
That means that I had to first badge in at the gate to the parking lot.
I then had to badge into the main door that brings you into the lobby. I then had to badge through a turnstile, then another door before finally reaching the fitness center.
Further, to reach the security office after failing to badge into the fitness center I would have to badge through yet another turnstile.
So in that entire process the only point of failure was the fitness center door. To me this does not suggest a problem with my badge.
Even if I had come in on the security office side I would have had to badge in through two doors, the turnstile, and another door to reach the fitness center, and then back through the turnstile to return to the security office.
I politely pointed this out, and the nice old man suggested that maybe my access to the fitness center had somehow been accidentally taken away.
Admittedly, there are several restricted areas in the building, many of which I don’t have access to (though most of which I do), but given that the fitness center is a “general access” area for all employees, it seemed incredibly unlikely that my access to it would be revoked.
Still, he called in one of his roving security people to come up and let me into the fitness center.
As we walked down toward the fitness center the roving guard, a woman, reiterated the nice old man’s suggestions and threw out the idea that I might want to talk to my manager about making sure I have all of the access I need.
I didn’t say anything, but remained convinced that the problem was with the door, not my badge.
After making our way down the stairs we came to the door that opens to the hallway that leads to the fitness center.
This door requires badge access as well. She tapped her badge against the reader.
Beep, green, no click.
I considered saying, “Maybe there’s something wrong with your badge,” but instead said, “Now you know how I feel.”
We took an alternate route, and as we neared the fitness center, unsurprisingly, the voice of the old man came out of the roving guard’s radio saying, “Apparently that fitness center door has been acting up, so tell him it’s not his badge.”
This was made even more abundantly clear than it already had been when neither of the two badges she had could cause the fitness center door to open.
Of course, vindication wasn’t really worth all that much considering that I was now at work more than an hour early with absolutely nothing to do with that time other than take a long, long shower.
Through a combination of taking a very long shower and just taking my time with getting dressed I managed to wrap things up only a couple of minutes earlier than I would have if I had worked out, which is still a few minutes before I actually have to be at work.
For the sheer hell of it, and because I’m perverse that way, as I exited the locker room I tried my badge on the fitness center door again.
Beep, green, click.
Dammit.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to work out that morning anyway, but still, I had gotten up early and arrived there with that intention, so it was frustrating.
Later in the morning Brian, Chris, and I had gone upstairs to the cafeteria to get breakfast. When we were heading back down we overheard a guy from facilities talking to someone on his radio about how the door at the bottom of the stairs and to the fitness center were acting up. As I had related my misadventures to everyone earlier, I said, rather loudly, “You sure it isn’t just people’s badges?”
On Saturday and Sunday I was able to get in without a problem and managed to get my workouts, even though I didn’t really want them.
Especially on Sunday. I was mad the whole time I was in there working out, and spent most of the time on each machine swearing as well as sweating.
But the point is that I still managed to make myself do it, I guess.
This morning I was woken up by my alarm at 4:15 am because I didn’t actually turn it off yesterday morning. There’s a button that you can hit on the clock that will shut the alarm off and reset it so that it will go off again in 24 hours. Friday and Saturday morning I hit that one, so that it will wake me in the morning, but on Suday I usually hit the other button to just turn it off completely rather than resetting it.
This is the second time I’ve done that to myself. It’s pretty irritating, as I find myself thinking that I need to get up to go to work and it takes me a while to wake up enough to realize what’s happened.
I fell back to sleep quickly enough, though.
I woke on my own a little before 9 and was lying there enjoying the feeling of the cool morning air and thinking that I should get up, but failing to think of a reason why.
The decision was made for me, though, by my phone ringing.
It was my mother.
She and my dad are back in Michigan now. I know my mom is glad to be home, but I imagine my dad wishes they were still in Tucson.
As I suspected she would, in the midst of packing up and making the drive home my mom forgot that my birthday is in two days, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be getting anything from her in time.
Ah well.
On that subject, though, I did get an ice cream cake at work yesterday, so thanks again to Scott and Stacy for that.
Next week Kathleen and I are being taken out to dinner for our respective birthdays, which are in very close proximity.
As Kathleen likes to point out, though, mine does occur eleven days before hers, and because we were born the same year that makes me marginally older than she is.
She’s also quick to point out that of the two of us I’m the only one with gray hair, though I like to point out that I’m not the one suffering from night sweats and hot flashes, and that gravity is going to wreak a lot less havoc on my body than it will on hers…
I actually got some sort of gourmet hard candy in the mail from the management of my apartment complex as a birthday present last week. Some kind of lemon drops.
Last year I think they sent me Werther’s Originals, and the year before they sent me this weird gourmet chocolate.
On Saturday I’d gotten a voice mail from my eye doctor’s office telling me that my sunglasses had arrived, so this morning after I got off the phone with my mother I headed there to pick them up.
From there I went to Wal-Mart and returned the burned-out mixer I’d bought for the purposes of making the cheesecake for “Tucson,” who loved the cheesecake, by the way, and will be returning my container to me tomorrow when I’m at headquarters for yet another training session.
I didn’t bother hanging around at Wal-Mart, though, as today all of the inmates had been set free from kiddie prison, as the Virginia public school system seemed to be having one of its frequent “we don’t feel like teaching your snot-nosed brats” days.
I went for a walk earlier this afternoon and I went past a school sign that stated that today was a “Student Holiday.”
I continue to be amazed at how little time kids actually spend in school around here. I never remember having anywhere near this much time off when I was a kid, lo, those many, many years ago…
Anyway, I’m thinking I might go for another walk, and there are a few things I should do, so I guess that’s it for now. I’ll undoubtedly be back with more later.
Okay, so I didn’t actually apologize, but I definitely did swear.
Once I finally managed to roll out of bed, though, I quickly fell into the familiar routine, throwing my contacts in, brushing my teeth, grabbing my gym and lunch bags, and heading out the door.
Upon arriving I headed straight for the fitness center. Like most doors where I work, the door for the fitness center requires badge access. So I held my badge up to the reader, heard it beep, saw the light flash from red to green, but didn’t hear the telltale “click” of the door.
I tried it again: beep, green, no click.
Knowing that it wouldn’t work, I tried opening the door anyway.
When that failed, I tried badging in once more with no luck.
I swore a little more, then headed upstairs to the security office.
After getting the attention of the nice old man working there I explained my predicament and that there must be something wrong with the door.
For some reason he dismissed the fact that there was probably something wrong with the door immediately, refusing to even consider it as a possibility and determining that there must be something wrong with my badge.
There are two main entrances to the building. One is right by the security office, and the other is on the opposite side. I had entered the building, as I pretty much always do, on the opposite side, as that parking lot is closer to where I work.
That means that I had to first badge in at the gate to the parking lot.
I then had to badge into the main door that brings you into the lobby. I then had to badge through a turnstile, then another door before finally reaching the fitness center.
Further, to reach the security office after failing to badge into the fitness center I would have to badge through yet another turnstile.
So in that entire process the only point of failure was the fitness center door. To me this does not suggest a problem with my badge.
Even if I had come in on the security office side I would have had to badge in through two doors, the turnstile, and another door to reach the fitness center, and then back through the turnstile to return to the security office.
I politely pointed this out, and the nice old man suggested that maybe my access to the fitness center had somehow been accidentally taken away.
Admittedly, there are several restricted areas in the building, many of which I don’t have access to (though most of which I do), but given that the fitness center is a “general access” area for all employees, it seemed incredibly unlikely that my access to it would be revoked.
Still, he called in one of his roving security people to come up and let me into the fitness center.
As we walked down toward the fitness center the roving guard, a woman, reiterated the nice old man’s suggestions and threw out the idea that I might want to talk to my manager about making sure I have all of the access I need.
I didn’t say anything, but remained convinced that the problem was with the door, not my badge.
After making our way down the stairs we came to the door that opens to the hallway that leads to the fitness center.
This door requires badge access as well. She tapped her badge against the reader.
Beep, green, no click.
I considered saying, “Maybe there’s something wrong with your badge,” but instead said, “Now you know how I feel.”
We took an alternate route, and as we neared the fitness center, unsurprisingly, the voice of the old man came out of the roving guard’s radio saying, “Apparently that fitness center door has been acting up, so tell him it’s not his badge.”
This was made even more abundantly clear than it already had been when neither of the two badges she had could cause the fitness center door to open.
Of course, vindication wasn’t really worth all that much considering that I was now at work more than an hour early with absolutely nothing to do with that time other than take a long, long shower.
Through a combination of taking a very long shower and just taking my time with getting dressed I managed to wrap things up only a couple of minutes earlier than I would have if I had worked out, which is still a few minutes before I actually have to be at work.
For the sheer hell of it, and because I’m perverse that way, as I exited the locker room I tried my badge on the fitness center door again.
Beep, green, click.
Dammit.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to work out that morning anyway, but still, I had gotten up early and arrived there with that intention, so it was frustrating.
Later in the morning Brian, Chris, and I had gone upstairs to the cafeteria to get breakfast. When we were heading back down we overheard a guy from facilities talking to someone on his radio about how the door at the bottom of the stairs and to the fitness center were acting up. As I had related my misadventures to everyone earlier, I said, rather loudly, “You sure it isn’t just people’s badges?”
On Saturday and Sunday I was able to get in without a problem and managed to get my workouts, even though I didn’t really want them.
Especially on Sunday. I was mad the whole time I was in there working out, and spent most of the time on each machine swearing as well as sweating.
But the point is that I still managed to make myself do it, I guess.
This morning I was woken up by my alarm at 4:15 am because I didn’t actually turn it off yesterday morning. There’s a button that you can hit on the clock that will shut the alarm off and reset it so that it will go off again in 24 hours. Friday and Saturday morning I hit that one, so that it will wake me in the morning, but on Suday I usually hit the other button to just turn it off completely rather than resetting it.
This is the second time I’ve done that to myself. It’s pretty irritating, as I find myself thinking that I need to get up to go to work and it takes me a while to wake up enough to realize what’s happened.
I fell back to sleep quickly enough, though.
I woke on my own a little before 9 and was lying there enjoying the feeling of the cool morning air and thinking that I should get up, but failing to think of a reason why.
The decision was made for me, though, by my phone ringing.
It was my mother.
She and my dad are back in Michigan now. I know my mom is glad to be home, but I imagine my dad wishes they were still in Tucson.
As I suspected she would, in the midst of packing up and making the drive home my mom forgot that my birthday is in two days, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be getting anything from her in time.
Ah well.
On that subject, though, I did get an ice cream cake at work yesterday, so thanks again to Scott and Stacy for that.
Next week Kathleen and I are being taken out to dinner for our respective birthdays, which are in very close proximity.
As Kathleen likes to point out, though, mine does occur eleven days before hers, and because we were born the same year that makes me marginally older than she is.
She’s also quick to point out that of the two of us I’m the only one with gray hair, though I like to point out that I’m not the one suffering from night sweats and hot flashes, and that gravity is going to wreak a lot less havoc on my body than it will on hers…
I actually got some sort of gourmet hard candy in the mail from the management of my apartment complex as a birthday present last week. Some kind of lemon drops.
Last year I think they sent me Werther’s Originals, and the year before they sent me this weird gourmet chocolate.
On Saturday I’d gotten a voice mail from my eye doctor’s office telling me that my sunglasses had arrived, so this morning after I got off the phone with my mother I headed there to pick them up.
From there I went to Wal-Mart and returned the burned-out mixer I’d bought for the purposes of making the cheesecake for “Tucson,” who loved the cheesecake, by the way, and will be returning my container to me tomorrow when I’m at headquarters for yet another training session.
I didn’t bother hanging around at Wal-Mart, though, as today all of the inmates had been set free from kiddie prison, as the Virginia public school system seemed to be having one of its frequent “we don’t feel like teaching your snot-nosed brats” days.
I went for a walk earlier this afternoon and I went past a school sign that stated that today was a “Student Holiday.”
I continue to be amazed at how little time kids actually spend in school around here. I never remember having anywhere near this much time off when I was a kid, lo, those many, many years ago…
Anyway, I’m thinking I might go for another walk, and there are a few things I should do, so I guess that’s it for now. I’ll undoubtedly be back with more later.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
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