The Air Quality Double Bind

This is, without a doubt, the worst air Minnesota has ever seen.  And the air quality isn't going to get better for a while.

I keep forgetting this because it happens only every summer, but for the past, oh, five-to-ten summers, wildfires from Canada and the western United States has been blown this way, creating haze and, in extreme cases, conditions where sensitive groups will have trouble breathing.  But this past week or so, dammit, it's been something else.  There's a hell of a lot of smoke, and little wind from the south to push it all away.  So for the past several days we have had a thick blanket of haze that has gotten to the point where I notice it affecting me.

It got really scary Thursday night.  After work, I decided I wanted to watch the NBA Draft at Hooters Mall Of America, then swing by Burnsville to see if ****e is still living there.  Driving back (the garage door was open, but the lights inside weren't on, which to me meant a guy was there), under a blood orange sunset but a lattice of dust in the air, I started to hyperventilate -- just a bit, but my heart was racing.  To me, even though the temperature dipped, it was still hot and humid enough for me to turn on the air conditioning in the car, and that brought in the outside air which my lungs apparently didn't agree with.  So I turned off the AC and recirculated the air, and I suddenly felt better, but warmer.  Warm enough whereby I needed to cool off, so I went back to outside air and turned on the AC again, and I cooled down but started to breath in the dirty air.  I don't think I'm being a hypochondriac, but a few cycles of this while driving up from the south, and I started to get scared that I literally wasn't going to make it home before passing out behind the wheel.

I made it, but alarmingly, Father decided to not only not turn on the AC (even though we have air filters!), he opened up the windows, too -- you know, to let the air in.  Jesus fucking Christ, what is he doing?  And so I'm in a double bind in my room similar to one in my car: I have kept my bedroom window closed to keep out the polluted air, but I slept in just my underwear because I'm too hot, and I have decided that's better than opening up my window to cool off with air that might choke me to death.

I'm writing this now in the afternoon with the window still closed, and I'm still bleepin' hot.  Meanwhile my parents have all the windows open, for God's sake, probably because my brother and niece are here.  Good thing I bought some masks last night at Home Depot.  There was ample supply of them, too, which I find odd.

Anyway, the Air Quality Warning which had been in place from Wednesday till Friday afternoon (which itself was on the heels of an Excessive Heat Warning) was extended Friday afternoon till Tuesday.  At its worst, on Thursday, the air looked as bad as Beijing.  It was better yesterday, and it's better today, but that doesn't mean it's good.  And it'll stay bad for the next few days.  And, in the long term, these wildfires are going to be a part of every Minnesotan summer -- probably, due to climate change, forever.  I hope I live through this, because this is a particular kind of weather problem: How do you get away from the air you need to live?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Suni Lee (NEW!!!!).  Yeah, it's the Olympics, and I never talk about the Olympics here, but I must confess: Yesterday, as I was getting ready to work, the push notification from the Wall Street Journal (and I don't remember giving the newspaper that permission, but oh well) dropped onto my cellphone screen with the breaking news that One Of Us, Sunisa Lee out of St. Paul, won the gold medal in the women's gymnastics all-around final.  I thought all was lost once Simone Biles decided to drop out of the competition.  But looky here: A Minnesotan, of all people, steps up and delivers an unexpected gold medal.

Local pundits have been quick to anoint Lee as The Greatest Minnesota Sports Story Ever ... and frankly, she might be it.  I mean, with the exception of the Lynx and a few Golden Gopher teams since 2000, there haven't been any local champions.  Jessie Diggins?  That was an unexpected gold, even though she was considered to be a factor, and she was the first American to ever win in cross-country.  Also, did you see her finishing kick?  But, as provincial as we want to be, no one cares about cross-country.  Caleb Truax?  He was a champion in boxing, holding the IBF Super Middleweight belt for a year.  But it is boxing, a niche sport these days, and it was a year.  On the other hand, women's gymnastics is one of the most popular sports in the Summer Games, and the individual all-around is one of its marquee events.  Fans know who won gold in that.  And this year, it's Suni Lee ... outta St. Paul.  That's a hell of a thing.

And so, even though I have never met her, when I saw the push notification, I actually pumped my fist and said quietly to myself, "Alright!"  And honestly, my day was a bit brighter because of that news.  Not gonna lie.

Congratulations to Sunisa Lee!  Too bad you're headed to Auburn to compete instead of the U., but still, you're One Of Us!

#0: United FC (Last Week: -1).  So they still would play on the road in the playoffs if it started now, so by no means are they safe in the postseason race.  But this Week the Loons scored in the late stages of both of their Matches -- Saturday at home to beat Portland, Wednesday at LAFC to tie -- to prove that they are a damn good team that can strike whenever they need to.  And so, even though the XI dropped Points, I still am going to get them over negative numbers this Week.  That and, well, Suni Lee has dragged the survey upward.

I'm looking all over YouTube for videos of just those two Goals, and I don't think there are highlights of them.  Just take my word that you should see them.  Versus the Timbers (which I could have gone but didn't because 1] I wanted to see Ohtani and Anaheim instead and 2] I was afraid there would be some ugly fallout from fans of both sides over Franco Fragapane allegedly racially slurring Diego Chara), in the 85th Minute, Bebelo Reynoso uncorked a pass from just past the halfway line to Robin Lod who, off the half-volley, tucked it into the corner for the eventual Game-winner.  And out in South Central, Jan Gregus crossed to Hasani Dotson who, out of nowhere, blitzed a howitzer into the low corner in the 95th Minute to salvage a Draw and a Point.

Soccer is a transitory Game.  Players you become fans of rarely stay awhile.  For example, Jan Gregus, who was a stalwart Defensive Midfielder, has become a part-timer this Year and, in all likelihood, is on his way out.  (By the way, Ramon Abila is probably already on his way out; after scoring one Goal [I think] with his cup of coffee here, the team looks is asking to call off the loan.)  But this organization has shown the ability to find good players and, more importantly, keep finding good players to replace the formerly good players that once had.  Oh, also?  Reynoso is worth all the Designated Player money MNUFC is paying him.

The play Vancouver Saturday, but not in Vancouver.  The three Canadian teams in Major League Soccer have just been allowed to play their home Matches in their actual homes up north, but for the Whitecaps, they're going to take it slow and play the Loons in their home away from home, Rio Tinto Stadium in Salt Lake City.

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2).  Ah, so this all this bullshit happened:

• Supposed ace Jose Berrios, who on the 19th was finally allowed to pitch out the string at the end of the back end of a Doubleheader because it was only seven Innings and Manager Rocco Baldelli had already used his relievers in the first Game, and did not prove he was All That because he was responsible for the three Runs the White Sox got in the bottom of that Inning to win, 5-3, Berrios was the Starting Pitcher for Saturday's tilt vs. Anaheim and took that Loss also.  I will say, however, that Berrios actually pitched well: Going seven strong and walking nobody.  Unlike his previous outing, his trouble came at the beginning of the Game, not the end: The two Runs that scored while he was on the mound in the First Inning was enough for the Angels, and while he allowed a couple Hits, he was undone by an Error off a botched Double Play relay throw from Jorge Polanco, so neither Run was Earned.
• The Twinks had the lead in Monday's and Tuesday's home contests against Detroit going into the top of the Ninth and, as usual, the relievers shit the bed, allowing the Tigers to tie both Games via the Home Run.  Alex Colome (what a disaster his signing was) was responsible Monday, but Minnesota eventually won in extras; I think Hansel Robles was responsible Tuesday, and this time the Tigers eked out the win, their first at Target Field over the Twinks in, like, eight Games here.
• The Tigers, who are just as shit as the Twinks this season, won the series by defeating Minnesota Wednesday afternoon, 17-14.  This despite them hitting seven Home Runs, including four in the Eighth Inning.  They are just the fifth in Major League Baseball history to hit seven HRs and lose ... and they may be the first team ever to hit that many homers and lose to a team that did not hit a Home Run at all.  But the Tigers led 10-0 after four, helped mightily by eight Runs scored in the fourth.  J. A. Happ -- goddamn, what a calamitous signing.

There are many things that went wrong with this franchise this Year.  But it's the free agent signings all underachieving, to a man, that is both breathtaking and inexcusable.  Meanwhile, we wait through bated breath through this afternoon at 3 p.m. our time, the end of the MLB Trade Deadline.  Who stays?  Who goes?  Who gives a flying rat's ass?

This screening Week starts the maximum road trip.  They're in St. Louis over the weekend, play a two-fer in Cincinnati starting on Tuesday, then have four in Houston beginning on Thursday.

You Fuckin' Disappoint Me, St. Louis

Yesterday I saw video of your County Council voting 5-2 to ban a mask mandate for St. Louis County.  What disappointed me more than your decision was who I saw in that video: A bunch of rabid, angry (and, by the way, White) people, all of them obviously anti-maskers (and thus anti-vaxxers, MAGAts, pro-insurrectionists and, of course, Republican Trump cocksuckers), one of whom carried a sign that says "Wearing A Mask DOES NOT WORK!" (that is a lie; science has proven that it does).  And once the gavel came down sealing the council's decision, they all rose up and cheered as if they just overthrew the government.

I know that there are many anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, anti-intelligence assholes in every community in the country, including mine.  But seeing such a large, loud and lusty contingent of anti-science pricks applauding turning away from good sense and community spirit bothers the hell out of me.  And it breaks my heart that this happened in St. Louis, a city I have visited almost a dozen times because I love it (especially the strip clubs), but right now is bordering some of the counties hardest-hit by the Delta Variant of COVID-19.  It is maskholes like those fucking people in that video that are forcing all of us to wear masks indoors again -- which prompts you people to come out and bitch about "MY RIGHTS!!!"  Well, it's my right to feel safe from coronavirus-breathing motherfuckers like you.  And even if I have been vaccinated, the acceleration of spread of the disease makes me afraid that it's found enough Republican hosts to mutate into a new variant that'll beat the vaccine that's in my body.

I had planned on going to you, St. Louis, in the fall.  It's been a while since I've been to my favorite titty bar down there, and I still need to see if *****n is still working there.  But -- well, this ain't your fault, but first Southwest changed my itinerary from nonstop to one-stop flights there and back, and for a city so close to me, I don't think I should be taking a stopped flight to you.  But that bad omen was just followed up by that shitshow of a county council meeting featuring The World's Ugliest Peanut Gallery.  Frankly, I don't want to go to a place that insults and virtually gives scientists and people who want to take care of you the middle finger.

So, assuming I have time and assuming I remember, tomorrow I'm going to cancel my flight to you, Loo, and head somewhere else, somewhere else where they understand how dangerous the spread of this virus is and will listen to experts trying to end this pandemic.  And, hopefully, won't have a gaggle of id-driven pricks clapping like dumb fuckin' seals when the shitgibbons elected to positions of power point their community directly at the Sun and put their feet down on the accelerator because FREEEEEDUMMMMMMMMB!!!!!!!

All For Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing

It was a big mistake to go to Taco Bell after work last night.  The half-hour wait at drive-thru was stupid long in and of itself, although I was lucky to pick up my mobile order before the place closed at 1.  But it was eating it that was the problem.  A quesarito (something that TB says only is available to order online) and the two flatbread tacos in the midnight hour?

I did not plan on going to TB after work.  But I did.  Why?  Well, on Monday, I left for work early to get to Chick-Fil-A.  I wanted something to eat at work the next night, which was Tuesday night, which was last night, and so I decided to just go there.  I got the chicken wrap.  The cashier asked if I wanted avocado lime ranch dressing.  First I said no.  Then I said yes.  Big mistake.

Not because it wasn't tasty.  It was great.  But after putting the dressing it on each bite of both halves of the wrap, I still had a bunch of dressing left.  Well, I couldn't let this beautiful mint green dressing go to waste, so I went way past my break to order Taco Bell, the only fast food place open past midnight whose food I could use with avocado lime ranch.  And just to make sure I used it all, I bought three things.

I'm feeling the aftereffects of them now.  Man, my BMI is through the roof right now.

Yes, I Have Second Shift Anxiety

I have to confess something I have felt.  Even though I like second shift on the whole, I realize that I still have anxiety.

I've felt this way ever since the first time I filled in.  Now, let me say that there are tremendous advantages to second shift that I will always treasure -- having the whole department to myself (after a certain time), not having supervisors there to potentially critique my work, not having people within my vicinity (let alone my personal space), and in fact not having people around me, period.  I won't trade those perks for anything else.  And that this is second shift may be the only reason I wouldn't jump at this position if it ever were offered on a full-time basis.

But it has since dawned on me that I still feel stressed during second shift.  I can relax and I do stop and look at the Internet from time to time.  But I know that as the only person there, I am the only person who can keep the work moving.  That's a not insignificant weight on my shoulders.  I also remember that I will catch crap for all of the mistakes I make during second shift.  Now, that still happens first shift, and at least with second shift I will be corrected for those mistakes either the next night, the next day (if I revert back to first shift), or through e-mail, and that's a whole lot better than to be told right there and then.  But that fear still stays with me, and it leads me to do good work ... or at least as much work as possible, such as this past evening, where I had forms that I needed to scan into our software, and that made me 15 minutes late leaving, and I don't know if overtime is being allowed this week.

So, again, I am not saying woe is me over my evenings at work.  But I finally have to come clean and admit that it ain't all wine and roses then, and it might be because I'm putting pressure on myself.

Addendum To: The Women Who Have Ghosted Me, All At The Same Time -- Ranked!

You know, I thought that when I published this blog post I forgot someone, and indeed I did.  So I'll just slide her inbetween **y and ******a:

3 1/2) ****e*.  She is a stripper, but I see her mostly clothed ... because she is the one who cleans the house when my parents are away.  She also cut my hair last year twice during the pandemic, and for old times' sake, I wanted her to cut my hair again.  We talked about earlier in the year, I think, but a couple months ago I texted her again and ... no answer.  Got my hair cut at Great Clips instead.  You know, with the pandemic easing up, I had fantasies that she would invite me over to her place to cut my hair, and she would shoo away her kids for the afternoon, and then I'd tell her that I would like to shower and get all the hair out of my head before leaving, and she'd let me use her shower, and then I would walk out to her master bedroom drying my hair, totally naked, while she's on the phone telling her kids to stay away for, like, another 90 minutes ... while she strokes my dick ... and then. ...  Well, she may have laid her hand on my cock once, but otherwise she's never touched me.  But a guy can dream, right?

Oh Yeah -- It's Been More Than One Week Since Brushing My Teeth

Got my teeth cleaned today.  First time since, I believe, last Sunday, the last time I had also showered until this past Sunday.

Now why wouldn't I do such a fundamental, rudimentary chore?  I never grew up brushing my teeth on a regular basis.  Just didn't.  And as for this past week, well, I've been working day and evening, plus on three mornings I woke up early to get in some overtime, and you know, with those hours, I can't spend two minutes brushing my teeth, you know?

This break in brushings dawned on me last night while I was going to bed.  I thought maybe I should brush my teeth to make myself look good for the dentist who'll be taking care of me in the morning.  But then I thought, well, if she or he is going to do all the work anyway ... why should I clean my teeth at all?  And so I didn't, and while I got admonished by her, there were no cavities that have erupted in the two years since I got my teeth checked.  Two years of no maintenance and a week-plus with no brushing, and I have no new cavities?  Score!

A Week Between Showers. Wow.

Want to note that after this, I am going to take a shower.  And I haven't taken a shower since last Sunday.  A week.

Man, a week without showering.  I wonder if people could tell.  I wonder if people could smell me.  It was hot all week, after all.

They say you don't have to shower daily.  I think I'm taking this to the extreme, though.  But I remember that I had taken a week between showers many times before.  Not lately.  Not in a long time, in fact.  Don't exactly remember when or how long ago.  Had to be my temp days.  Probably when work was not steady and I was depressed and figured why do I need to shower if I'm not going anywhere.

I also wonder if my parents have noticed.  They haven't spoken up if they have.  Maybe that's an indication it's been a long time since I've taken weekly showers.  If I had done such a thing more recently, I figure they would have spoken up.

OK, shower time.

Not My Idea, But Apparently It's My Responsibility

So this morning, for some reason, the power cut out to the house.  And then it turned on immediately, only for it to shut down immediately after that for, like, ten seconds, and then it's been on since.  I think it affected the whole neighborhood, but I don't know that for certain.

Unfortunately that happened in the middle of my parents' sprinkler system routine.  It stopped apparently right when one of the sprinklers was watering my parents' garden.  And try as he might, not only was Father not able to turn the sprinklers back on, he couldn't even get the water to turn back on, either.  That latter thing is strange.

So, Mother called me out, and for the next hour or so Father and I was running outside to see if the hose was working and down the garage to look over the instructions in case they had troubleshooting tips as to what to do when an electrical short happens.  (There isn't.)  I had no idea what to do.  And this illuminates a sore spot I have with my parents: It was their idea to buy this elaborate sprinkler system for the front and back yards, yet they no very little about how it works, and so they think it's my responsibility to operate it and fix it when it malfunctions.  As someone who had no say in this and had no idea they were even thinking about setting this up, I think their mentality is BS.

Father got the water to flow again.  Either that or the water just started flowing, or something.  I'm thinking that everything is back to normal because the time on the sprinkler command system didn't reset and the routines were all still programmed in there, but we really won't know until 1 (which is about a half-hour after I type this), which is when the next routine is supposed to kick in.  I won't be here, though, because I need to exercise and I don't care to stick around to see it work.

The Women Who Have Ghosted Me, All At The Same Time -- Ranked!

I am puzzled and, frankly, scared that all the women I have spoken to on at least a semi-regular basis, and thus who I rely on, have not communicated at all to me, despite repeated texts and voicemails.  And this is weird.  I have not been mass-ghosted like this, well, ever.  If I were a more paranoid person, I would think this would be coordinated.  Is this coordinated?

I will rank the women who are doing this to me now, in increasing order of how concerned I am.  And when I say "concerned," I consider the nature of my relationship to them and how surprising it is that they're not talking to me.

4) **y.  We have only had one one-on-one tryst.  She gave me a handjob then.  We have also met at parties whereby we have had privates, and in one was the only time she sucked my dick.  She seems great.  But she's also a single mom who has other things she needs to do, so we don't talk that much.  When I reached out to her, I was desperate for some sexual activity, and she tried to arrange a babysitter.  I said OK ... and that's the last I heard from her.  Again, we're not that close, so no big whoop, but still disappointing.

3) ******a, the one who massages me.  She has been flighty with her communicating, and her deep paranoia about everything (she still maintains someone is "watching" her) makes calling and texting a challenge.  But I'm still spooked by her inncommunicado now.  She seemed down the last time I spoke with her because her car got totaled.  But it has been a ghostly silence ever since.  Knowing that she's inconsistent with getting back to me, I went over to her apartment, but even though it looks like she still lives there (she said she might be moving soon), there was no sign that she was willing to chit-chat with a guy whose ass she rubs and whose dick she sees on a regular basis.  Is she lying in her bed, blinds closed, blanket over her head, going through depression?

2) ****e, and this one really worries me.  She hasn't been responsive all of the time, but she has most of the time, and besides, I have not not been able to speak with her for over a month, and that is unprecedented.  More importantly, she is the only woman I am able to fuck on a regular basis, and if she's not talking to me, I don't know who I can stick my dick into.  She was going through an episode the last time I saw her, and I wonder if that has anything to do with her non-communication right now.  I have half a mind to drive all the way down there to see if she's OK.  And I'm afraid of what I might find if she's not.

1) OK, this person isn't someone who I do hanky-panky stuff with, so don't get it twisted, you sickos.  This is the secretary for my psychologist.  She is the one through who I set up sessions with my therapist.  I last spoke to her last week about potentially setting something up for Wednesday.  I have not heard back from her.  This is very uncharacteristic from her; not only has she not done this before, this is, you know, her job, and I thought she'd get back to me promptly.  I have not spoken with my doctor in a couple months because I've been busy working two jobs, but my schedule clears up in a couple weeks, and I want to see if I can even see him at his office.  Are they mad that I haven't spoken to them in so long?  Have I been dropped as a patient because I haven't talked to him in a while?  This is the strangest ghosting of the four, by far.

But Am I Doing My Job, Really?

So, after some further consideration and some, uh, "encouragement" from my supervisor, I finally decided to kick things up a notch and score papers faster.  I still am nowhere near 100 essays a night, but I was close, and I think my production, even this late, will be noticed in a positive way with the higher-ups.

But I will be honest: I do not like how fast I am scoring.  Yes, I am usually the slowest test scorer in this project.  But like I said, I owe the students writing these essays some time to look, really look, and make sure I do all I can to understand what he or she is saying.  I have not done that much this week, and it's because I made the decision to not be considerate of these kids and instead go faster just so the people who will recommend me for future projects in future years will be happy (maybe; once again, I have fallen short of the goal).

And I don't like it.  People might say I'm doing my job now.  I argue that I was doing my job when I was taking my time and being more deliberate.  But hey, I'm a slave to the dollar.  They want fast, they'll get ... uh, faster.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: United FC (Re-Entry!).  Ultimately I did not go to Sunday afternoon's Match versus the Seattle Sounders for two reasons.  The main reason was that I did not think the Loons were going to beat the Sounders.  I still remember the season-opening 4-0 trouncing in Seattle, and that team leads MLS.  The ancillary reason was that it was hot as balls outside that day, and baking in the sun for two reasons did not seem like happy fun time to me.

I now regret it.  First of all, I saw a friend post on Facebook a shot from inside Allianz; he went to the Game, and I didn't.  And second, well, MNUFC sprung the upset on a Goal by Robin Lod, set up with passes by Bebelo Reynoso and, before him, Nico Hansen.  What's more impressive that I did not notice until last evening?  It's the first loss Seattle has suffered this Year.  They had nine Wins and five Draws up until Sunday afternoon.

Dirtying up a marquee franchise in the league would alone be good enough to rise above negative numbers.  But I'm keeping the Loons at -1.  Why?  Well, they're not terrible.  But as of press time, Minnesota holds onto the seventh and final spot in the Western Conference playoffs.  They've been playing impressive ball lately, and yet they're still in the rat race to avoid getting on the wrong side of the cut line.  It seems as though when United FC claim a victory and climb in the standings, the squads Minnesota is competing against win at the same time, keeping all of them in an existential rat race.  They have good recent form; now they have to just apply that for, I don't know, the rest of the regular season.

Two Games this week.  Tomorrow/Saturday night would have been the perfect time to take in a soccer Match.  Unfortunately, the opponent are the Portland Timbers, and Diego Chara remains upset that Franco Frangapane said what Chara claims is a racist epithet toward him the last time these two teams played.  There could be some bad blood on the pitch.  Moreover, because American soccer is doing its damnedest to be as progressive as possible, I can see many, many fans chant and heckle all parties responsible for the way the investigation into this allegation happened in secret and ended with barely a whisper, and they'll use the television and the attention of a captive audience to foment even more criticism.  I would not be completely shocked if the Loons become a social pariah because of a supposed racist mindset from one of their own.  I will even predict that Portland comes here and wins, and wins handily.

Oh, also, on Wednesday, the XI go out to take on LAFC.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  A 2-6 screening Week, kicking off with a three-Game sweep in Detroit at the hands of the lowly Tigers.  They salvaged a split of a four-Game set against the White Sox at Comiskey, sure, but really, the club that remains lowly is the Twinks.

The big news, however, happened just before last/Thursday night's series starter at home vs. The Los Angels Of Anaheim Angels of Los Angels Angels of Anaheim Angels Of ... -- big news, but not totally surprising.  The teardown of the Twinks has begun in earnest, with de facto leader and fan favorite, the ageless Nelson Cruz, sent to Tampa (along with a Double-A Pitcher) for two almost-ready hurlers.  The fire sale is understandable, but to a point.  If the front office believes this horrid Year is only a blip (and I don't know if they do feel this way), why not keep all the pieces you think can contribute next Year?

Still, I'm going to miss the guy.  He provided power on the field, maturity off it, and just an overall sense of security.  You always felt as though Cruz would be able to hit the ball when you need him to, even if it turns out he doesn't.  Still, Cruz said after he learned of the news that he wouldn't mind coming back to Minnesota once his Year is over because his contract is over at the end of the season.  That would be nice.  I believe it was Dan Hayes of The Athletic who called Cruz The Best Free Agent Signing In The History Of The Minnesota Twins.  He was only here 2 1/2 seasons, but I think Hayes is right.

Oh, there's still a season going on ... OK, ah, the homestand lasts for the Week; after the Angels depart at the tail end of the weekend, the Tigers come into town for three beginning on Monday.

Hazy Shade Of Summer

This summer has been indubitably hot.  We already have had more days in the nineties than on average, and we're in the middle of a stretch of nineties right now.  Humidity hasn't been consistently bad, just intermittently bad, and that's bad enough.  And it's going to get worse this weekend -- just when I decide to brave going to a Twins Game, of course.

But the new wrinkle for the past week or so has been the haze in the sky.  Well, I should say that this haze has settled in on the area in the past week, but hearing that our polluted air is being caused by wildfires in the western United States and western Canada has happened every summer for the past, oh, several years.  This has become part of our normal weather in the summer.  We must expect we'll have haze coming from the west this time of year for, well, the rest of our lives, I'm afraid.

My laptop updates itself now, I guess.  A couple of weeks or so ago I saw on my bottom toolbar the temperature and the current weather condition.  Did I ask for it, or did the Operating System just update by itself?  Anyway, some time in the past week I noticed that they also, from time to time, gave an Air Quality Index (AQI).  Hmmm, that's interesting, and useful.  Two days ago I saw the AQI crawl past 150.  I Googled the scale and, uh, you don't want to be breathing in air with an AQI of 150.

I have gotten paranoid about this haze.  We are in the middle of an air quality watch or warning right now until the morning.  The other night, I started to hold my breath, thinking that the air I was breathing in (I don't remember if the window was open or closed) had particles of soot embedded in them.  And then I felt my heart beat faster and harder.  I either was depriving my heart of oxygen or I was scaring the beejeezus out of myself.  But I had the closest thing to panic attacks a couple times in the past week, and they came when I was thinking about what's in the air.

God, I need this annual occurrence to end, now.

I Am Not A Morning Person. Not By A Long Shot.

Due to a combination of staffing shortages and an influx of work (though I suspect it's mostly the former), we have had overtime available for the past several weeks.  I have taken advantage of it.  Not because of the overtime pay, which has, I think, a semi-sized loophole (I might blog post about that later), but because my supervisors asked me very, very nicely.  Well, also because most of the others do not come in early and/or stay late, and as we've been warned, if the work builds up to a certain point, OT becomes mandatory.

We can work an extra two hours to make a ten-hour workday during our scheduled week.  (Sometimes less is offered on weekends.)  Since I still have the test scoring job, I cannot stay late.  Therefore, I come in early.  And Christ, as much as I appreciate the extra pay and want to show I want to help out, damn, it's hard to wake up early.

I usually get to work at 7, so when OT is offered (and it's usually Wednesdays and Thursdays; that's just when the bulk of the forms we mainly are asked to work on during OT come), I can get there around 5.  Way back when, when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I could come in at 5.  I'm not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed anymore.  And to be honest, this change in my inability to get up early and maximize my OT time has come in the past couple months, during this current spurt of overtime availability.

Just for curiosity's sake, I have looked back at the receipts of mornings when I come in early.  When I do OT like this, I have "treated" myself by going to the gas station and getting that instant-frap crap from that machine they probably never clean, as well as a hot burrito that's cooked up behind the cash register (although if I were there early enough, there wouldn't be any hot burritos), and maybe a lemonade to help me during the day and Cokes as a reward for slogging through a ten-hour day.  The times stamped on the receipts are a reflection of when I got up, and also when I get to work and punch in:

• 5/12: 4:37 a.m.
• 5/13: 4:32 a.m.
• 5/19: 5:01 a.m.
• 5/20: 5:06 a.m.
• 6/16: 5:06 a.m.
• 6/30: 5:13 a.m.
• 7/14: 5:26 a.m.
• 7/15: 5:28 a.m.

Now, I have to caution that there may be some days where I am filling in for a specific position that has a call time of 6:30 a.m., and thus I could get there as early as 4:30.  I don't remember how early I could have come in on which days.  Still, even with not knowing whether I can start work as early as 4:30 or 5, you can obviously see a slow yet inexorable slide towards lateness.  It seems apparent that, considering the circumstances in my life now, it is getting harder and harder for me to wake up as soon as I can to get to work.  The problem is, besides being tuckered out after my night job, I can't explain why.  You can see clearly that a couple months ago -- when I think I had a test scoring project to do in the evenings -- I could get up just fine.  In fact, assuming I give myself an hour to get up and get out, I was actually able to wake up at 3:30 in the morning.  If I had my way, I would go to sleep at 3:30 in the morning.  But as you saw in mid-May, getting to work (after eating in the car and putting up all the shades) at a quarter to 5 was not a problem.

It is now.  And I don't know why.  By that I mean I don't remember ever going to bed early the nights before the above dates.  I pretty much followed my routine of going to sleep around, oh, 1 or so.  I do not believe I, for example, went to bed as soon as 9:30 rolled around and I was done with work.  I don't remember going to bed before midnight.  Assuming I kept staying up as usual, I then, well, can't quite see how me staying up has caught up with me, you know?  No, it's not ideal for getting rest.  But as long as I catch up on my sleep on the weekends, I would be able to tolerate getting only, what, three hours a sleep in the middle of my workweek, right?  And yet last week, when I was doing the same thing I do around this time of night (blog posting and hanging on the Internet), I thought to myself, "Oh shit, I am going to get only three hours of sleep.  Fuck me."  I didn't have that thought in June or May.  But I was going to bed at the same time all three months.  So now I have a newfound fear of staying up too late?

And ... oh shit, I am going to get only three hours of sleep now.  My workday today is supposed to begin at 6:30, which means I can get to work as early as 4:30, which means I should set my alarm clock to 3:30, which means I will get in fewer than three hours of sleep -- which probably means that I'm going to sleep in.  I promised my supervisor I'd come in early for overtime, but I'm deathly afraid I'll be so bleepin' tired I'll get to work at, like, 5:55, and if I'm coming in only a half-hour early, I might as well have refused overtime and get as much rest as I can.  Know what I mean?

What I know is I ain't no morning person.  And I think I should go to bed now.

Have To Face The Truth -- I'm Fucking Fat Now

It hit me when I was looking over pictures taken of me and my friend and her graduation party over the weekend.  Our arms around each other, throwing up the "V" and all.  But I could not help but look at my gut.  It was fucking huge.  And my medium-sized t-shirt, able to drape itself on my stomach, nevertheless was snug enough to emphasize the size and shape of my fat gut.  I have seen myself with that thing in front of me, so what I am feeling right now might just be recency bias, but I'll say it: I don't think I have ever been this fat in my life.

Everything's caught up with me.  The pandemic, whereby I haven't worked out properly in a gym (until Friday) in 16-7 months.  My addiction to added sugar and all the goddamn pop I buy and drink, especially these last several months.  My parents being home and doing the fucking smothering thing of making food for me and then making me eat that food, for dinner during the week and, unless I go out and escape their clutches, lunch too.  (Never mind -- lunch during the week too, with a damn banana and Mother's creation I have to eat every fucking day even though I can manage without it.  Seriously, when are they going to fucking leave?)  It's all adding up.

My wellness screening to keep my health insurance premiums as low as possible is next month.  I also remember that in the past few physicals, my good cholesterol has been a bit on the low side and my bad cholesterol has been a bit on the high side.  It's not terrible, but it's not in the optimal range, and after my diet and exercise regimen (or lack thereof), I know it could not have improved.

But shit, man, I have one month to change course.  Look myself in the mirror, tell myself I'm going to get healthier.  Work out more, eat less, eat better (Henry Rollins said that in a speech I heard him give once).  Get the HDL up and the LDL down, and maybe that fucking gut will disappear.  I can do it.  For my body's sake, and my wallet's sake, I have to.

But ... let me first eat these Dot's new Baked Cheese Curls with roasted garlic hummus while working on this very blog post first -- washed down with Pepsi, of course.  And I'll have that late-night snack just before I go to bed.  (But I'm not going to drink the whole Pepsi, oh-no.  Just a few swigs -- who do you think I am, a pig?)  And wait: I have to work second shift next week.  Well, that means that I have to buy subs to eat for dinner, and I need pop to go with that, too!  So, I'll start doing better, uh, two weeks from now.  That's good enough -- right?

Expenses Without Receipt

So, something happened, but I'll wait till the end of this to talk about it.  For right now, let's just start.  Starting from Sunday, July 18:

• We subsequently take it back to Friday, July 16, where I spent a day finally getting around to exercising and then blowing what calories I burned by eating a damn good Jucy Lucy and fries at the Boomin' BBQ food truck (they're open Fridays through Sundays, and you should go) by making a pit stop at Starbucks.  I had a strawberry acai drink because I needed to sort my receipts real quick.  It was good to finally do two things I've been meaning to do.  Hey, who needs sex anyway, right?  With tip: $5.23.
• Go back to Sunday the 11th, where I went to Part Wolf (formerly the Nomad) to watch the Final of the European Championships.  (Beyond the racial abuse those three Black English players suffered for missing Penalty Kicks, may I reiterate that Penalty Kicks are a shitty way to decide a title Match, let alone any soccer Game.)  I was able to put down two drinks; maybe my tolerance is going up?  Part Wolf was supposed to have a deal where a specific Fair State tap was only $4.  I ordered that.  The bartender looked at the closest Fair State tap and went, "This one?" and I said, "Sure," and when she rang it up it was not $4.  As I said before, I need to watch soccer Games at this pub, so I didn't argue.  For the second half I got an Urban Forage dry cider.  With tips I spent a total of: $17.
• Before this day I finally looked through my change, which I seldom do these days because I don't use currency all that often nowadays.  I noticed that of the many quarters I had jangling in my back pocket, most of them had the same tails side -- and it was new, namely the latest edition of their ... er, series of whatever it's supposed to be.  And that's when I finally took the cleanest of these new quarters (two of them) and a dime from this year (just about mint, although I think I saw a scratch on its heads side) and put them into storage: 60 cents.
• Monday, July 5: The great thing about having a holiday when in The Real World it isn't a holiday is that you get a weekday where you can catch up on things.  My hair was getting quite unruly, so I thought my day off would be a good time to finally get my hair cut at Great Clips.  I got a receipt, so this EWR is tip only: $4.
• That evening, even though I had work tomorrow, I went out.  (I was filling in second shift, so even though it wouldn't have been a big deal regardless, it really wasn't that night.)  I went out to Part Wolf to catch the Brazil-Peru Copa America Semifinal.  I was casting about for hours trying to find the right place to watch the Match.  And I'm glad they were open, and I'm glad they changed the channel to the Game.  I just wished they'd turn the sound on for it, which ended with Brazil prevailing, 1-0.  But I was the only customer there the whole Match, so I couldn't act as if I ran the place.  Besides, the music that was playing instead was really good.  I had to Shazam a couple songs.  Anyway, I bought an Urban Forage as well as a Coke as well as a mango White Claw because that shitty White Claw was on special for Mondays and that was honored by the bartender.  Unfortunately, when I made a placeholder amount in the draft for this blog post, I typed in the number 7.  Those three things, plus tip, could not be just seven bucks.  I don't remember what the individual drinks priced out to, so I am taking a guess that the Urban Forage, which I had Sunday for the EURO, was, with tip, nine bucks, and if that's the case (and who knows), the whole shebang set me back: $16.
• Oh, and parking to get to Part Wolf cost: $4.
• OK, so to this "something happened."  Going back through my blog posts here on WAF in order to reconcile my monthly expense list, I came across another EWR draft.  And there was one EWR that I totally forgot about.  It's for Friday, June 4, so I'm glad I caught it because I am reconciling June right now.  Problem is, I have already published this EWR with one EWR that happened after the EWR that I missed.  That's never happened before.  And that shouldn't have happened, and I don't feel good about it.  So, I'll just put it here: On Friday, June 4, I went to my shoe shiner.  With tip: $20.

Alright, that embarrassment is over.  Good through July 18.

More Back To Normal

Friday, without having no one to fuck or get a handjob or massage from, I kind of was at a loss as to what to do.  I decided that I was going to try a Jucy Lucy from a food truck in Nordeast called Boomin' BBQ (and, by the way -- sensational burger), but what else?  That's when I came to the conclusion that it was about time to finally put on my gym clothes, go to the community center, and exercise.  I am way out of shape, and a weekday afternoon is the perfect time to sort out what to do with the membership that I bought just before the pandemic put a hold on it and everything else.

Wasn't weird, for the most part.  I got extended another two months, and, well, sure, I guess that sounds fair.  It helped to work out in the middle of the day when no one else was around.  When I came back mid-workout from sanitizing my hands, however, I saw an elderly couple come up.  I was afraid they were going to use the fitness room as well.  And even though there are no occupancy restrictions there now (it opened up several months ago, but you had to reserve an hour online that was yours and yours alone), if they came into the room with me ... well, I don't know if I would have stayed.  But those two were just using the walking track, and so I had the run of the place all to myself for two hours.  I doubt I made a dent in my body health, but it was good to finally move it around, you know?

And now, as I type this, I am doing another thing that I used to do a lot but hadn't since the pandemic began: Go to a coffeehouse!  I'm doing this from Diamonds before going to Sociable and Target.  I didn't get a coffee, either (I got a mixed berry smoothie instead), but I obviously brought my computer with me to work on this and hang out and, oh, reconcile my receipts.  You know, just like old times ... but I'm wearing my mask because I'm done drinking my smoothie.

Baby steps, right?  And assuming I don't get sick with COVID-19 after doing these things, I'll just plan on exercising and going to coffeeshops more often!

I Can't Go Any Faster

I am now getting the feeling that the slow pace at which I grade papers has finally been noticed.  And by "getting the feeling," I mean my supervisor on Wednesday asked me online why I've been so slow.  I told him it was a combination of me wanting to go over training papers again to get my mind straight (even though I had two days to do that) and long and early hours at work (which is true).  Man, if they ever find out I'm whole hog just listening and/or watching sports, I'd be one screwed shrew.

I don't know if I am the only one who brought about this move, but the leaders of this test scoring project did something uncharacteristic (at least as far as I know them) on Friday.  We have a chatroom, what I think Slack looks like (I have never used Slack), and our supervisor dropped a message at the beginning of our shift, something he has done maybe three times in the past three months of the project.  He gave us a goal to meet.  "Let's do 100 papers tonight!" he said.

On Thursday, I did something I had done when I did test scoring projects in-person, and it's something I should have done at the outset of this project.  I took a Post-It note and ticked every paper I scored for that shift.  I started doing it many years ago when, well, we scorers on the project were warned by that project's boss to pick up the pace, and that tracking your output for that day would be the smart thing to do.  It is smart.  And after my boss "noticed my work" on Wednesday, I remembered that, so on Thursday, I started tracking myself.

And do you know how much faster I went?  By, uh, ten essays.  That's it.  And on Friday, once my supervisor's edict came down, I tried to go even faster, and I squeezed out five essays more than the night before.  It was well short of 100.

Yeah, I'm slow.  But I will defend myself.  We are reminded by the company (well, companies -- I should try and get in touch with the other one to see what they're up to) that behind every paper we grade is a student.  Regardless of how we score, we need to recognize the humanity behind the writing.  And so I imagine a kid, looking down at a paper, being presented then and there with a question that he or she needs to answer in the time allotted -- and, by the way, this project involves grading responses from children for whom English is a second language.  And you should see these papers.  Not all, but many of these papers are at the least well-thought-out.  You can tell that because, of course, those answers are long.  But a kid had to spend some time, and thus some thought, on writing out such a long answer.

No, sometimes those answers don't fulfill the requirements of a good score no matter what she or he writes.  And, there is a sameness to the papers that make me space out, and space out frequently.  But I have a lot of difficulty thinking of the time and thought and care a student puts into writing an essay, only to then take five seconds to speed-read it just to see if he or she used phrases that were complex enough or a sufficient number of words in order to receive a good-enough score.  If the child put some thought in writing it, I have the obligation to take at least some time in reading it -- in full.  And what I say next might get me in more trouble, but so be it: For ever essay I read -- not just in this scoring project but in past ones as well -- I read it again.  We have specific, objective things we need to look for, thus I look it over a second time to make sure I'm not missing something.  But I am regarding the paper a level of respect it deserves for being right in front of me, and by extension, I owe the kid who created that paper some consideration and deliberation.

Again, I try to be as commensurate as possible.  There are students who either can't or don't write long answers.  Those are easy and quick to grade, and so I don't waste my time on those.  But as boilerplate as these answers tend to be, there are ideas in them, and there is a structure to those ideas, and so I think they (the children and their responses) are entitled to some time evaluating those creations before I score it and move on to the next one.

Maybe this will cost me involvement in future projects.  But, I've been told I've been slow before, and I still keep getting jobs.  Now, it might be different this time because this in an online project as opposed to an in-person one.  But, bottom line is, I can't go any faster.  I gotta be me, man.  I gotta be me.

Closed And Closed

Had yesterday off.  Wanted to make yesterday my monthly fuck of ****e, but she is not returning texts right now.  I then pivoted to *****a, but she didn't come back from her vacation till the evening.

So, when the alarm woke me up at 10 (I went to sleep around 1:40, and I'm sure I would have slept later than 10 if not for the alarm clock ... which means that I needed sleep bad, and I got it), I had the whole day to myself.  I decided going into yesterday that I was going to eat at Boomin' BBQ, a food truck parked next to a craft brewery store and that I was finally going to tackle the receipts in my pants.  But I decided it was finally time to exercise.  And since I was going to be up in Brooklyn Park, I was going to both get tested for COVID-19 and see if ******a is still around and, maybe, give me a massage.

It's been months since I got tested for the virus.  I was fully vaccinated as of mid-May, so why would I need to?  Well, all this talk about fully-vaccinated folks getting infected and sick has freaked me the hell out.  (I'll be honest: I really thought the vaccine was going to stop infection.  Getting sick from COVID-19 after vaccination, even if the symptoms are manageable enough where you just stay in bed, seems like a raw deal to me.)  It may not alter my behavior, but what if I do have COVID?  I may not feel it, but if I do have a positive, it'll make me at least think twice about going out in public.  Besides, I kind of, well, missed getting a test.

So I went up to the abandoned market that serves as the testing site.  But when I got there, the place was padded up.  I thought I saw on the news that many other sites were closing up, but not this one.  Maybe this was an abrupt change?  But I just checked the state COVID-19 website.  They have shortened their hours.  They now open, all seven days, at 11 in the morning.  I got there about a half-hour before then.

Seeing as now they in all likelihood are open kind of blows up the tie-in theme to this blog post, but I'll push forward with it anyway.

My next destination was ******a's place, which was five minutes away.  She had been going through some things the last time I saw her, but I was hoping she would either text me back or return my calls since our last conversation.  Instead, she's been a ghost.  And I wonder if she is ghosting me.

So, I drove to her apartment complex.  Well, more like drove past.  I wasn't going to knock on her door.  I was just going to see if I caught her somehow out of her apartment.  She does chores sometimes.  Sometimes, she's sunning herself -- she's a sun worshipper.  But when I drove past, I didn't not see her.  All I saw was her outside windows completely shuddered, and with a combination of cloth curtains and papers pushed up against the windows mish-mash style.  I couldn't help but notice all the other exterior windows; they all had vertical blinds.  ******a doesn't.  It's a sign of someone who, well, either doesn't see the use in spending money on blinds or is hurting in some way.  In fact, I wonder if she has just walled herself in from the outside world, and isn't coming out until ... well, I don't know what will finally get her outside.  Honestly, I'm kind of scared as to what her current mental state is.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Lynx (Last Week: -1).  The Lynx tore through the screening Week with a vengeance, soundly beating the Aces last Friday (I think Minnesota has Las Vegas' number, at least when it comes to women's professional basketball) and then destroying the Sparks in Los Angeles Sunday.  And the Lynx beat both teams on the road.  They reach the Olympic Break with the fourth-best record in the WNBA and a seven-Game winning streak.  This squad has done enough to capture the top spot in the WMNSS and to be elevated above negative numbers.

Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier are the two local representatives for Team USA women's basketball team.  Good luck at the Olympics, although I think women's basketball remains the most one-sided sport in the Summer Games.  I'm expecting the USA to capture the gold medal running away, and I think players on that team feel that same way.

This team is now dark for about the next Month.

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2).  They finished the first half of the 2021 season by winning the last three Games of, and thus sweeping, the four-Game series against Detroit over the weekend at Target Field.  But I think Twinks fans have been wizened up to the fact that this ballclub has demonstrated mini-spurts like this already this Year vs. shitty teams and it has not ushered in a turnaround.

Nope, a fire sale remains the most likely next chapter.  And yet there was late word late last/Thursday night that the Twins have offered to Byron Buxton a long-term deal that would pay a total of $70 million.  That projected deal actually is a Rorschach test for Twins fans: Is it a steal for the organization, or is it money you're throwing into an underwater fire?  At first blush it looks as though the front office is walking that fine line between giving Buck enough money to make him feel appreciated while also hedging against his long, proven injury history which, by the way, extends to now because he is still fucking hurt.  It's weird to think of it this way, but if accepted, this offer may never be met with commensurate value.  Buxton could spend two-thirds of every Year on this contract in the IL, thus making this a bad deal.  Or, Buck can stay healthy and give an MVP-level performance throughout the season and every season thereafter, thus making this deal a good one.  I am of the belief that Buxton has a pattern of injuries, so I would sooner trade him.  And Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (who broke this story) believes that if Buxton rejects this deal, Twins brass will then make a concerted effort to trade him -- if not by this Year's Trade Deadline, which is on the 30th, then during the off-season.

Anyway, The Second Half Of The Season begins with the hometown nine on the road -- four Games apiece at the Tigers and then the White Sox, both series taking place only over three Days because the first Day for both series will be Doubleheaders because these guys are making up Rainouts.  They come back home Thursday to start a four-Game set (spread out over four Days) versus The Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of ...

#-2: Wild (Re-Entry!).  And with one announcement, half-sorta-expected, half-totally not, one era of Minnesota professional hockey comes to an abrupt end.

On Tuesday, Wild General Manager Bill Guerin announced that the organization was buying out the final four Years of the contracts of both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.  Back on the 4th of July of 2012, both Free Agents signed with the Wild for matching contracts of 13 Years and $98 million apiece.  The announcement was made with a grand, freewheeling press conference at the Xcel Energy Center with both blue-chippers (at least at the time) present.  The announcement of their departures, held Tuesday afternoon, was at least held in-person, but obviously with neither Parise or Suter present.

There was some talk that Parise would be on the move this offseason by hook or by crook.  His play has declined to where it is nowhere near the level of someone being paid an average of over $7 million a Year.  He has been injured off-and-on the past few seasons.  And the final dagger of Parise's stay in Minnesota may have ended with that Game against Las Vegas where he was supposed to end his shift but stayed on because he wanted help Marcus Foligno get a Hat Trick, but then got caught flat-footed on a rush by the Golden Knights (who played with an extra skater) and whose stick deflected a Vegas shot towards the Wild's net for the tying Goal.  Las Vegas would eventually win in Overtime.  Head Coach Dean Evason made him put out a statement explaining why he extended his own shift, and then he scratched Parise for the next contest, only the second time in his career he was a healthy scratch ... up to that point.  He was a healthy scratch for much of the rest of the regular season, and only an injury to Marcus Johansson allowed Parise to even suit up for the playoff series vs. the GKs -- where, to his credit, his toughness and veteran savvy was a contributor to reviving the team and pushing the series to the full seven Games.

Suter has been more puzzling.  As he aged, he filtered down in playing time, but by all accounts he was still a solid second Defenseman pairing.  He too might not have been justifying the money he made this Year, or even the past couple.  But there was no indication from Wild brass that he was going to be shown the door four Years before his contract was up.  Word is Suter was absolutely blindsided by the buyout.  According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, Guerin had to call Suter twice; when he finally got Suter the second time to break the news, Suter hung up on him.

So is this another step in the evolution of, according to Guerin, changing the culture in the locker room?  There has been talk that since Parise and Suter were given such big and long contracts, and then were hailed as conquering heroes in St. Paul, they ran the place.  (I don't know how much of a package deal those two were, but any talk that the inmates were running the asylum pointed way more in Parise's direction than Suter's.)  If those two carried themselves with the self-absorption and even arrogance they were sometimes portrayed, well, I can see why Guerin decided to pull the trigger on this.

But let's try to process all the ramifications of these buyouts.  First, by doing this, the franchise still has to eat dead money as part of its salary cap.  Buyouts allow teams to stretch the remaining contract for several Years.  For the Wild, that comes to about $4.7 million next Year, $12.7 million the next, then $14.7 million the following four Years before ebbing to about $1.6 million for four final Years.

The two pressing issues for this squad now (well, besides the Expansion Draft, and now that they bought out both Parise and Suter, there's little-to-no worry that they'll lose Matt Dumba to the Seattle Kraken) is signing Kirill Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala to long-term contracts.  Plus, they still need to find a Center, and fill out their roster with other players.

Now, imagine a graph of the savings these buyouts give the team, it starts out low for next Year, then balloons to an atmospheric level for the next five before crashing down after that.  The Wild don't have much room to tuck in both contracts under the cap as it is.  But the way it looks right now is Guerin has one Year to find the pieces to build this team and, let's face it, make a run for the Stanley Cup before the ghosts of Parise and Suter's contracts really haunt this organization with a combined eight-figure handcuff for the 2022 through 2025 seasons.  These financial hijinks are acceptable for a team that is starting a rebuild.  They're acceptable for an outfit that's in win-now mode.  But for a team that's at least one and more like two players away, I'm afraid they have put themselves in a precarious spot where they can go all-in with a half-filled, still-budding squad that might need to be blown up for the 2022-3 season.

Not to say that they weren't in a shitty spot before Tuesday.  You had two high-priced, over-the-hill vets experiencing the downside of contracts that mainly people had foreseen would be ridiculously over-valued at this point.  But while they weren't $7.5 mill apiece, they were not the worst skaters on the ice most Games.  They still have contributions to make; Parise earned much of his keep in the playoffs, and Suter still can pull down 15-20 Minutes a night.  And this isn't the NFL where you can restructure contracts; otherwise, Guerin and the two players' agents would be down for that two Years ago.

So, the contracts are the contracts.  Why not, you know, honor the contracts to their bitter ends?  Or, put in a different way, would buying out the both of them, thus giving this club the salary cap space to find players that supposedly would put the team in a better place, be better than living under the previous financial situation where you just kept both?  I'm not sure the answer is yes.  It might be better to keep both players on -- at almost a $15 million hit to the cap until 2024, when their contracts are done -- and hope that they can become role players on the ice and at least good presences in the locker room.  And if they choose to be cancers instead, they just stick around for four more Years.

But let's take a step back and start from the beginning.  How in the hell did the Wild get themselves in such a predicament?  Owner Craig Leipold had a big hand in courting both to Minnesota.  It appears as though both teammates wanted long, lucrative contracts that would mirror each other.  For such high-priced moves, contracts have to have the blessing of the Owner.  So why in the fuckety-fuck did Leipold consent to a combined $196 million over thirteen Years for two guys who many people knew would peter out like this?  Shouldn't Leipold shoulder some of the blame for acceding to the pie-in-the-sky demands of two players in their prime because of the payback that's coming to his team now?  I don't care if you have prime Wayne Gretzky to negotiate with; never, ever give out a contract that long, and you sure as fuck don't give out two.  (Note also that even though Guerin probably is the one who originated the idea of buying out Suter and Parise, a move that large had to have the personal go-ahead by the Owner -- the same guy who okayed their contracts back in 2012.)

The only reason I could still see Leipold's agreeing to two long, onerous contracts was the state of the Wild in 2012.  After reviving pro hockey in the state, the streak of sellouts came to an end.  They were missing the playoff more than they were in it.  Such feelings may have been spurred by the theft of our beloved Minnesota North Stars, but this organization was freefalling into indifference and invisibility.  Leipold, who had recently bought the club from Jac Sperling, needed to jumpstart some interest from the community.  And this "power play" was just the ticket to, uh, sell tickets.

But I harken back to that introductory news conference nine Years ago.  A reporter asked Leipold (I think; I can't find the transcript) that if Parise and Suter does not win this state a Stanley Cup, or even just getting to the Finals, would he consider that to be a disappointment.  And I think Leipold replied that because of these two moves, he thought one, maybe two Stanley Cup Finals victories was a standard he thought he had every right to expect from the team from now on.  Now, the ancillary marketing shot in the arm was the precise thing the Wild needed to curry interest from the Twin Cities fan base.  But, if you take Leipold's words from that presser and apply it to the nine seasons Ryan Suter and Zach Parise had with the team as a whole, their stay in a Wild sweater, unfortunately and brutally but truthfully, was a severe disappointment.  Fuck the Stanley Cup; the Wild never got out of the Second Round in any of the Years those two were in St. Paul.  Leipold the rich family he married into had a right to be worried over the future of this club.  He also has the right to change course and decide that these two saviors have now become the Minnesota Wild's two anchors.  'Cause he is the Owner.

I'm afraid these buyouts commence a lose-lose-lose scenario.  One thing I do know is that history sometimes rhymes like a bitch: The two most popular players on the Wild team for the past decade came to the State Of Hockey together, and now they've been thrown out of the State Of Hockey together.

Christ, I Just Melt Down Around Her

My supervisor out in The Main Department and I are getting along as well as can.  We usually stay away from each other unless we need to ask one another things, and then it seems to be all good.  Can't say we'll ever be buddy-buddy -- and I have to admit I get a bit envious when she talks in a friendlier and more relaxed way with my other co-workers -- but if this is as good as we can get along, I think I can manage, at least for a while.

Still, I still to just melt down around her.  I lose my shizzle, and I still don't know why.  Case in point: Yesterday, I see a form I have never seen before.  I go to her because, well, that's what you do.  I tell her I am in this, uh ... let's just say one part of the data entry, uh, part of the form.  And so I get her out of her chair to have her look at the image of this form on my computer, which is about, oh, ten yards away form her desk.  And it turns out I am not where I thought I was when it came to dealing with this form.  My supervisor pointed out which, uh, stage we were seeing this form because it said so in the upper-left hand corner, which is something I should have seen and have used as a guide to where I am when entering data for forms ever since I started here.

She has her bitchy qualities, and we might be oil and water frequently.  But (and I think I have said this before) this is not the first time I have not said either the most accurate or smartest thing to her while at work.  Can I blame this on waking up at 4 and getting to work at 5:30 in the morning?  Or am I subconsciously intimidated by her to the point I don't make sense and have lost all my bearings of where I am?  She probably thinks I'm stupid, and as much as I resent her if she does, I keep giving her ammo.

Stop Bothering Me, Mother

I think she's done this since I became an adult, because I sure as hell don't remember her ever caring a shit about me when I was a kid.  But My Mother has this knack where, if I'm just doing anything within her line of vision, she'll just pipe up and ask, "What are you doing?" or a variation of that.  Some of you may think she's being maternal, and thus think it's heartwarming.  I may believe that, uh, 5-10% of the time.  I just find it annoying as hell, and yesterday she did it twice.

First time was in the morning as I was bolting out the door to work.  Father packed in a bun for Monday's lunch that I didn't get around to eating.  I thought about eating it just before going to bed, but I wasn't hungry, so even though it wasn't my plan, I put that bun in the fridge with the intention of taking with me for the next day, which was yesterday.

Well, I opened up the refrigerator and didn't see any bun.  And I was just casting my eyes back and forth in the vain hopes of spotting the Speedway bag in which I put the bun.  Mother, who woke up early and was eating breakfast and watching TV at the dinner table, suddenly pipes up: "What are you looking for?"

That's usually my cue to end my search.  I closed the fridge door and lunged for the lunch bag that had that day's banana and bun -- "I was looking for something."

"What?"

"Uh ... something.  A bun.  The bun that Father gave me.  I didn't eat it yesterday."

"The what??"

"THE BUN!  FATHER GAVE ME A BUN TO EAT AT WORK AND I DIDN'T EAT IT!"

"Oh."

No, I'm not going to regret being annoyed at her.  It was a useless conversation, and ultimately, the question of where this bun was would not have affected her life either way.  But she thought it was her business.  Jfc.

She did it again last night.  I bought a liquid soap dispenser, but I couldn't twist the pump up so it would dispense; it would just spin and spin and spin.  (Aside: I have had trouble with bad pumps this year, both with liquid soap and with hand sanitizer.  Don't know why.)  I finally remembered my plan to go down to the basement where Father usually keeps his tools, even though he doesn't organize them (they're usually strewn about the pool table), grab a couple pliers, and wrench the damn thing open.

So I do that.  And it's not going well, because the only pliers I can find either aren't big enough or they're to rusty top open the jaw all the way.  In the meantime, Mother was in her office, finishing up on her computer; I was in there helping just before then (and after I got done with my shift with the test scoring place) with filing an online complaint over yet another thing she ordered that didn't get delivered.  She steps out while I'm in the laundry room looking for other pliers (don't ask) when she goes, "What's going on?"

I think my subconscious remembered what we talked about in the morning: "Nothing, Mom."

"What?  Are you looking for something?"

"Don't worry about it, please!"

"What is it?  I can help you."

"Fine.  I'm looking for pliers, OK?  I need pliers."

This time, there was a twist.  Mother says, "Oh!  They're upstairs!"  And we go upstairs to the big chest of drawers, one of which she opens and has this pile of tools, some of which were pliers.  And one of them was the perfect one for me to use to twist and pop open the pump dispenser.

This chest of drawers is right next to the dining room.  Why in the hell would you store pliers next to the dining room?  But, to her credit, Mother knew.  And so she reminded me, in a certain way, she's there to help: "That's why I ask what's going on.  I knew where the thing you wanted was."

I, however, cannot help but anticipate and gird for the payback.  She's a notorious tattletale.  Mother already scurried downstairs to tell My Father how I treated her and what she helped me with, and today for dinner Father will give me a fucking shitty lecture about how I should treat Mother better and how can you find a wife with that attitude.  And then I'll snap back and My Father and yell at My Mother for ratting me out, and for bothering me with shitty fucking questions that have nothing to do with her.

People Who Should Be Fired: That Either Stupid Or Trifling Bitch At Sonic

After the EURO Final Sunday I wanted to eat before going home.  I drove to Sonic because I liked the drive-thru aspect of it that day, but I don't have the app and therefore I couldn't get points for my visit.  I brought up Dairy Queen's app, but their deals didn't appeal to me.  So I stayed.

Big mistake.

This was a cash day, because when I went to Part Wolf for the soccer Match I was afraid the new owners kept their policy of charging extra for purchases with a credit card from the old owners, when the place was called the Nomad.  No matter; I needed to use cash anyway.  So I got a double cheeseburger and a dessert, and it was, like, $11 something.  I had an extra dollar and I really could have used a ten, so I gave the carhop $21 and change, expecting ten bucks back.

She later comes out with my food ... and nine bucks back.  Now I already got upcharged at Part Wolf; the Fair State I bought should have been four bucks but it was much larger than that.  I need my soccer pubs, however, and so I crammed my misgivings down because I need to keep going to this place.  But Sonic?  There isn't another one close by, but dammit, I was owed another buck.

So I hit the red button and called her back.  And I don't want to get into it because the conversation was stupid.  But she kept insisting that she gave back the extra dollar I gave her in order to get back a single $10 in change.  DO.  NOT.  GASLIGHT ME.

But you should have seen this girl's (and I mean girl's) attitude.  She basically threw a temper tantrum, with all those tsks and, "I keep telling you I gave back your dollar!"  This wasn't a worker trying to resolve a dispute with a customer; this was a brat getting into a fight with her sibling over who gets to use the family desktop.  And I don't want to be a Karen when it comes to complaining about customer service that falls well below what it should be but ... SHIT MAN, SHE RIPPED ME OFF AND NOW SHE'S SAYING SHE DIDN'T AND SHE'S YELLING AT ME!  WHAT THE HELL ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

If I were less tired and, frankly, more sober I might have let this go as well.  But I was tired and was not that sober, so I decided to be a brat about this too to stand up for myself.  Finally, the carhop said, "Am I not going to argue this with you!" and she said it in a way where she was trying to assert control of the conversation when, I think deep down, she started believing that she didn't give the dollar back.  My fucking God.  She reached into her billfold, handed me my rightful tenth buck in change.  I grumble an "Eh," and got the hell out of there.  I have no idea what she could have pulled if I stayed there and ate.  She could have asked one of her goon co-workers to beat my ass.  So I got the fuck outta there with the quickness.  I ate those things at the parking lot of the Target.  Glamorous, huh?  Well, at least it was safer.

It's more likely than not that she flat-out forgot I gave her $21+ and then insisted she gave me the correct change because she thought she did.  The possibility that she sized me up as some pushover from whom she could graft an extra buck for her measly pocketbook pisses me off to no end.  Regardless, I got my correct change.  Unfortunately, I can't go back to that Sonic, like, ever again.  Well, at least not until she's fired.  Fuckin' A. ...

Not At My Best Yesterday (Actually A Week Ago), Part Two

OK, I'll be honest: I had two other entries under this title, but I forgot one of the ways I was not at my best.  I have occasionally said "I'll blog post this later," and I never get around to talking about it ever again, and I should get better at it, but I think I'll continue to make this promise I can't keep.

But I think I remember the other entry, and it has to do with soccer, whose two big international tournaments (the Copa America and the EURO) just got done.  I have had a ridiculously shitty time either looking at or listening to Goals as they go in.  Now, that always happens, especially if the Match gets boring and I start to thumb through my cellphone.  But it got really ridiculous this Year, especially when I was listening to Games on satellite radio, especially at work.

I think, around the time I was prompted to do this Part One, Part Two thing, it was the afternoon of the France-Switzerland Eighthfinal.  All I did was drop my headphones to go to the bathroom because I was about to leave for the day.  I come back ... and not only did Karim Benzema score for France, but he scored twice for France, two Minutes after the first Goal.  Yeah, I have the ability to rewind and hear the Goals as they happened, but it's nowhere near as good as hearing them live -- well, as live as they can be through the computer; I have noticed that when I hear sports on SiriusXM, the action is between 15 Seconds and 14 Minutes late.  But still.

In that Match, Switzerland actually scored first, but I was on my break at the time.  That I could handle; this, back-to-back scores, in a summer where I missed more than my fair share of Goals, broke me.  I had planned on using my data to listen to the rest of the Game on my way home, but I got so pissed off at my bad luck that I decided not to.  So of course there were three more freakin' Goals before I could turn on my actual satellite radio at home (which is not late in transmitting the Game at all and in fact is sometimes Seconds faster than the broadcast on terrestrial radio) -- the French notching a third, then the Swiss scoring not once but twice to tie.  At least I was able to listen to the bitter end of the Match, with Kylian Mbappe getting his Penalty Kick blocked for the Swiss victory, on my phone as I had just finished up with my dinner.

Again, you can't predict when a team scores in soccer.  It's out of my hands, sure.  I still didn't feel I was at my best then.

A Zooma-Zooma-Zoom-Zoom

I really wanted to unplug this weekend.  But ... well, going out to see both the Copa America and EURO Finals last night and today, respectively, I wouldn't call that unplugging either.  But my main source of anxiety comes tonight, when I have not one but two Zooms I've been invited to join in on.

Have I blog posted about this before?  There have been two groups who meet on occasion, and yet they have often, sinisterly, been scheduled at the same Sunday and, even more devilish, at the same goddamn time on Sunday.  There is my ... uh, smart people group, which had met monthly until attendance dropped and it has been infrequent until a new person has taken over.  But there is this ... uh, alumni club resistance group which is pushing back on what the university is doing.  That was meeting, like, biweekly and then triweekly, and then it didn't meet at all, and now we're trying to meet monthly.

I'll be honest: I was at first enthused to Zoom, and then I became less interested, and now I'd rather not.  It feels like work, going to both.  With the alumni club thing, what we have tried to fix is meeting a lot of, well, resistance and I saw my will to fight sapped.  As for the smart peoples group -- well, I'm not someone who can carry a conversation, and with so few people, I feel as though if I show up I'll have to talk and talk and talk, and I really dread doing that the more and more I feel like I have to do it.

The EURO Final is a perfect excuse to just say screw it, I'm going out tonight and I'm not coming back.  But there have been recent revelations in both groups.  For the college stuff, there appears to be growing consternation from the alumni base about the lack of participation for an upcoming event next month -- genuine, organic frustration about this from people unprompted by any one us in this group.  We were afraid this would happen because of the university's new structure, and we are going to pounce on these grassroots grumblings tonight.  Meanwhile, the new person leading the smart peoples group hosted her first Zoom last month and seems severely dismayed by the lack of turnout.  (I was going to hop on, just for a little bit, near the end of the planned meeting.  It's a tactic I frequently employ for this group to make sure I am never the center of conversation.  When I hopped on last month, the meeting had already ended.)  I feel as though she's going to give it one more shot, and if it doesn't go the way she wants it to go, she's going to not only quit these Zooms, but quit her position, too.  I don't want that.

Shoot, I don't want any of this.  I don't know what I'm going to do.

---

Oh, speaking of Zooms ... I'm also dreading (and scheduling for) next weekend.  I planned my ex-alumni chapter's Zoom for Saturday, and sometimes, I forget that I did.  I know that at least one person is going to show up, but when I posted on Facebook about the event, and then saw a couple days later that a friend from the club who I haven't talked to in a while is going to appear, for some reason I got all scared.  Don't know why.  But I did this last month, and two people showed up, and it lasted for less than an hour, and I said at the time it went well, but I don't remember feeling that way at all now.  So I'm hating what's happening Saturday, and I don't think I can stay out of the house for this one.

Seriously, Though, Where My Whores At?

Yeah, now strippers are ghosting me left and right.  I'm most concerned about ****e, who, after I texted her and, just last night, leaving her a voicemail for the first time ever, has gone radio silent.  That "anxiety attack" she said she when I last tried to get a session in with her may be a prelude to something worse.  Or, she might have gotten a new number.  Or, she may be seeing family in Morocco.  Or, she doesn't want to suck and fuck me anymore.

******a is also in the wind.  Last time I saw her for a massage, she was starting to think about moving.  That thought may have been exacerbated when, according to her, she got into a car accident either at or close to her apartment.  I had a past weekend where we could have set up a session, but she was too busy trying to find new wheels.  She still may be too busy, so I do want to give her space, but I am getting anxious to the point where a VM would be nice, at least to know she's OK.

And the hijinks with *****a is getting a bit absurd.  If she's not protesting or marching, she's going on vacation or helping her friend with wedding plans.  She's leaving very soon for a vacation (I swear she had one two weeks ago), but she would be back next weekend ... which is when I think I'll be busy.

Seriously, I'm in need of some serious sexual healing right now.  I feel more and more like the pandemic is behind me (even if not so much for anti-vaxxers) and I'm down to fuck, you know what I mean?  And so of course this is the precise time my stripper girlfriends desert me.  A man has needs!

One saving grace: I received yet another invitation for a stripper party from a woman who I had once called on WAF (can't find the blog post) the dumbest stripper I've ever come across.  (Don't tell her I said that.)  I have not been to her parties in over a year, including the pandemic.  And yet she still invites me over ... not like I could go to her parties then, nor this next one because I'll be working then.  But in times like these, when I've been rejected for God knows what, having blind, automated invites from someone who could have been more on the ball and dropped me from her list after many rebuffs to her parties makes me feel as if she values me.  Plus, it helps that this party, which is at the end of the month, is a lot closer to me than the usual site for her parties.  If it's next month and the party is going to be where at this closer city again, I will definitely go!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  OK, this is more like it.  The team sweeps the quick two-Game series in Phoenix by drubbing the Mercury by 31 three days after squeaking by them by six.  They then come home and outdistance Dallas Wednesday, 85-79.  The Lynx have won five in a row, and they have floated up to third in the Western Conference and fourth overall in the WNBA.  The chemistry many of us expected the squad to find earlier in the season seems to have come now; better late than never.  And Sylvia Fowles seems revitalized after an injury-marred 2020.

I should keep the Lynx in Positive Numbers.  But last Week I inflated the survey because I couldn't decide if the Lynx or the Loons should take the top spot.  This screening Week there is a clear #1, but I'm going to make up for last Week by depressing the survey.  And I can nitpick; they are four Games behind the top team in the league, the Seattle, and Minnesota has been a clear cut below the Storm in the two showdowns they've had.

They're in Vegas tonight/Friday night, then visit Los Angeles (worst in the West) Sunday.  And then -- I didn't see this until now, although I guess I should have realized it -- they take more than a month off for the Olympics.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  A 3-4 screening Week -- not execrable, but nowhere near a vital sign that could even hint at the beginning of a miracle.  They began the final series before the All-Star Break last/Thursday night at Target Field versus Detroit, where the Tigers had an early 2-0 lead before, apparently (I was doing my test scoring job and decided to sneak-watch the Game 2 of the NBA Finals instead), there was a wild and wacky end that wound up with Minnesota winning, 5-3.

More illustrative, however, of this massive disappointment of a season are the previous two series, the weekend road one at Kansas City and the trio at home vs. the Chicago White Sox.  One opponent (the Royals) is spiraling; the other (the Pale Hose) has some weaknesses but is by far the class of the A. L. Central.  (Note I heard listening to Common on the Fan yesterday/Thursday afternoon: Four of the six worst records in the American League are in the Central.)  And the Twinks lost two-of-three against both of them.  White Sux fans are particularly loving their road victory; guess Josh Donaldson has run out of things to say.

I have never been less of an All-Star fan than I am nowadays.  It's an exhibition where the only thing you can get is hurt.  Why even bother playing?  I'm glad I have something to do that evening, and the other three nights where apparently the whole American sports scene shuts down.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: 0).  You remember when last week when I was pissing and moaning about not being able to sell Saturday's ticket to the Match against San Jose, then felt guilty once I did sell it?  Well, I think I am glad I didn't go.  Facing an Earthquakes club whose number MNUFC have gotten with regularity (the Manager insists his players play man-marking, which I guess is the equivalent of man-to-man in basketball; does this mean that soccer players essentially play zone Defense in a Game?), they gave up the first Goal on a really bad backpass to the Goalkeeper; got a rebound Goal from, of all, people, Last Vestige Of The Loons' Prior Selves, Brent Kallmann; got a rebound Goal off a saved Penalty Kick; then coughed up the lead with apparently another stupid play that wound up with a San Jose equalizer.  The Match ended at 2-all, and by all accounts (I only saw parts of this Match because I focused on all the others on my TV at the time, most significantly the Argentina-Ecuador Copa America Quarterfinal) it felt like a Loss because Minnesota United should have won going away.

Nevertheless they extended their unbeaten streak to seven with that Draw ... and then it was broken on Wednesday, at Colorado, 2-0, by the same squad that last beat the Loons, the Rapids.  (That last loss was also in Commerce City, Colo.)  I chose not to listen to the Game (Saturday night Matches are going to be on Channel 23 this season it looks like, but not midweek ones) because I was sneak-watching Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals while working, and by all accounts, that was the shittiest performance our XI has trotted out all Year.  And looking at the box score -- yep, giving up the eventual Game-winning Goal just before Halftime, shipping an insurance Goal nine Minutes from time and Ramon Abila getting red-carded five Minutes later adds up to a gloomy night.  And therefore they get kicked down toward the Western Conference playoff line.

International break?  They're off until the 18th, when they host conference-leading Seattle.

You Know What? I Don't Think She Likes Me, Therefore I Don't Like Her

OK, so in my blog post here I had a short essay about my co-worker who, after I asked her how many folders she had gone through for an hour that was not trackable because the pens were somehow screwed up, went "I did lots of folders!"  Well, that annoyance has become a full-on frustration.

Now I will say that I don't know for sure she doesn't like me, but I can sense body language and I am an expert on passive-aggression, so I know microaggression when I see it.  Yesterday, I bring over the clipboard because this co-worker was the one who has to do the hourly check.  I sit down, she gets up, takes the clipboard from where we usually put it, and does the check.  "You don't like that I give you the clipboard?" I asked, to which she replied, in a tone that I'm not going to say is unfriendly, nor would I say is genuine, "Oh, I just like it over there."

I'm gonna say it: What the hell is she talking about?

And this is where my spidey-sense continued to look in her direction for the way she was giving vibes that I was creeping her out.  (I realize I may be talking like an incel.  I'm not an incel.  I just know I'm right.)  From that point on, I have to be honest, she irked the ever-lovin' shit out of me.  When she started on the job she was quiet and kept to herself and did her job.  I thought that was cool.  But now that she's settled into a groove, apparently the real her has come out.  She checks her phone a lot.  She doesn't say anything to anybody -- well, maybe the guy in our department who started along with her.  (Are they boyfriend-girlfriend?  Brother-sister?  Fuck if I know, and it's been a year!)  Once break or lunch time begins, she gets up, buries her head in her phone, and walks out, not caring about anybody who might be coming her way down our narrow hallways.  People who do nothing but talk at work are annoying as fuck, don't get me wrong.  But the quietest ones can be absolute dicks too.  Quiet people are often not helpful, they're insular to the point of being self-centered, and they are indifferent to the work and the work environment.  Add to it that I think she doesn't like me, and now she's making toxic my work environment.

No, I don't have absolute proof.  But I see a pattern of circumstantial evidence that I don't think she likes me, and in order to defend myself, that means I don't like her.  Great -- another fucking person whose personality bugs the shit outta me.

And Now, The Downside To Working Second Shift

I go back to my regular hours today/Wednesday.  Well, actually no -- I have to work a half-hour earlier because I'm filling in in a different skill.  (I've noticed I have had to come to work early on several Wednesdays.  Could this be a pattern?)  So I get off of work at midnight (actually a quarter after -- I had to reassemble a fan attached high up on a wall that I knocked off with a ladder, stupid story, won't tell it) and have to wake up at 5:30.  I got home at 12:30.  I should be asleep now, but I'm not.

Man, less than four hours of sleep.  Wouldn't my boss step in and not allow me to do this?