Forgot Shower Strainer

Right now I'm bothered (admittedly from other things too) that I failed to put a strainer in the master bathroom shower.  I had swapped out the one that was there and put that in the master bathroom sink, and I was going to toss the one that was in the master bathroom sink because it was getting all clogged up.  Somehow, I forgot to grab a new one (or an old one -- get this, My Father takes the time to unclog strainers in order to re-use them.  Yes, it saves money, and I put one of those cleaned ones in the shower, but I feel like this is a First World privilege that we should indulge in -- don't scrape shit off of a strainer, they're only two bucks apiece!), and worse than that, I put the plastic strainer that goes on top of the strainer back where it was, as if I had already put that second strainer back in.

Worst of all is I don't remember how long ago this all was.  I think, though, that it had to have been at least a month, and possibly it's been longer than that.  Lord knows how much of my hair and dead skin was able to get through that's currently clogging up the pipes.  Dammit, man, how could I forget something like that?  I had an entire process I needed to do, and I just stopped halfway through it.  What the hell was I thinking?

Help Me, Bill Shatner, I'm Not Regular!

At the college baseball Games yesterday/Saturday, I had coffee before the first Game, had a cheeseburger, fries and a beer between the first and second (aside: They screwed up my order ... I ordered a cheeseburger, I overheard someone order just a hamburger [even though a hamburger isn't on the menu and I don't ever ask for modifications from ordering food at a Game], someone was about to give me a cheeseburger but then yanked it back to swap it with a hamburger ... when I told the workers I wanted cheese, someone in the back just threw a cold slice of cheddar on top of the burger ... I saw the cheeseburger they were about to give me; that cheese was melted ... lazy bums), and a hot dog and a souvenir Wild Cherry Pepsi between the second and third.  And then, once the Games were done, I stopped by Taco Bell.

You know what this should mean, right?  Colon blow, stuff like that.  Nope.  I am not regular.  It's bothering me to no end.  Maybe the spaghetti I'm about to make will do the trick, but the trick should already have been done.

Now, about relieving yourself: Have you seen that cereal commercial with William Shatner?  The one where he calls himself "Will Shat?"  I believe this ad, which aired in the Super Bowl, is a sign of the end times:

I blame Trump.  But sheepishly I admit that I really, really want to try this to regulate my gut.  It's for Kellogg's Raisin Bran, by the way.  I rarely remember what memorable commercials advertise for.

My Needy Psychotherapist

Going to call my shrink in a bit.  I am doing so because he fucking called me just now.  I should have ignored him, but I am still nervous over what is going on in my city right now, and I can't lie that I'm not going anywhere for the time being.

There's something wrong with him.  Why is he calling me on the weekend?  He's supposed to be my psychotherapist, not a friend (and I know that sounds cold, but I can't consider him a friend ... that's really weird!)  I know he wants to help, but the strange and indecipherable texts keep coming.  And a week ago he sent me a graphic that says, "I love you."  Huh?

If he wants to hear my anxiety over what's going on right now, I'll talk for a few minutes.  But I do want to leave eventually.  Plus, I don't want to talk too much or else he'll be fucking calling me every goddamn weekend.  Don't want that.

The TV Just Up And Helped Me

So the television set in my bedroom, the one that I got for free from my friend's friends, the one that My Father put in my bedroom when My Fucking Parents decided to redo my whole goddamn room ... well, it's been a challenge.  My Father replaced my TV set (and put the one I had, the one I bought, in the den that he would use once in a blue moon) probably because this one I got was bigger than the one I bought.  It has become clear since I started using it, however, that the I bought, even though it's much smaller, is more technologically advanced.  Beyond its old age, there are very small, first-world issues that make me not like this TV as much as the one I got for myself.  It takes more than ten seconds for it to come on, for example.  Also, sometimes the remote control doesn't work and I have to tap it on the back a few times; these guys really took this television through its paces over the years.  Finally, it doesn't have a "recall" or "back" button in the traditional sense.

What it does have instead is a feature whereby you can see up to the last six channels you were on (or fewer; it stores in memory the channels you were watching since you turned on the television).  You hit this TV's version of a "recall" or "back" button and six squares pop up on the bottom of the television screen.  They're all blank, and for a while there it pissed me off that I couldn't toggle between two channels.  But then I hit the remote's down arrow and voila, that's where up to the last six channels appeared in those boxes.  (You hit the down arrow again and the, I guess, "third" row are all the channels you have programmed onto the TV, and you can use the left and right arrows to scroll through them.)  So I finally understood how I could flip back and forth through channels; it's certainly not as fast as just hitting one button, but if I wanted to go through three or more, I can't really think of a faster way to do that.  So, it's a compromise.

Another thing so bothersome about this TV's interface comes from those six squares.  They always appear on the bottom.  If I'm watching a game on TV, the scorebug (the graphic that shows all the pertinent information on the game you're watching, such as score, which quarter/half/period is it, how much time is left, etc.) usually is on the bottom third of the screen.  So when a channel pops up and I want to just quickly see were in the game that game is before I go back to the other game, I can't see the score; instead, I see those stupid six boxes.  Yes, I guess I could wait the five-to-ten seconds to check the scorebug, but like I said, doing that is not in my nature.

Another graphic that popped up at the bottom of the television screen is the channel graphic.  You know, whenever you flip to a channel, you will see graphics that state what it is, like "41-2," or something.  So, if I want to use the "recall" or "back" button to toggle between channels, what happens is you select that channel from one of the on-screen boxes, the channel comes on with these six blank boxes obscuring your screen for four seconds or so, then the channel graphic obscures your screen for another four seconds or so.  Highly annoying, and not very user-friendly.

But then, maybe a few weeks ago, the damndest thing happened.  The channel box, the graphic that first appears when you get onto a channel, jumped from the bottom of the TV screen to the top.  Now, the graphics don't block my view of the score for as long as it did.  I have no idea how it happened.  I played with the settings, but I'm sure I didn't select anything unless I knew I wanted it.  It looks as though this TV, even though I'm sure it predates artificial intelligence, understood intuitively how upset I was that this graphic was blocking the scorebug, so it knew to place it on the top of the screen.  Now, why it couldn't do the same thing with the three rows of six squares, I don't know.

Still, I'll take it.  I'm glad the TV "got" me.  But is it good that it has a mind of its own, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Honestly, with the way the country is right now, being spat out into space to die because AI was afraid it was going to be killed isn't the worst way to go.

So a family friend died yesterday morning.  She broke her leg a couple weeks ago.  She was in physical therapy.  Some more ailments piled up on her, but then she felt a bit better ... and then she didn't.  And now she's dead.

She lived just down the street from us.  We could see her house from ours.  Last time I saw her was when my sister and I were walking around the neighborhood for Halloween.  We stopped in her house to say hello.  She was a really nice person.

I'm still trying to process all this, but this death is really bothering me.  Mostly because of the suddenness.  My Mother was in physical therapy, and it looks as though she is going to be fine.  But this friend of the family never gets out?  That's not fucking fair, at all. ...

Caulking And Not Doing Things For Myself

The last fucking thing I need is to do house maintenance.  I was taking a faux bath to appease My Fucking Father when the entire shower assembly tore away from the wall.  It's not like I destroyed it, but it needs to be re-caulked.  Motherfucker.

I just looked up how to do it.  They say it's easy.  Bullshit.  I need to remove the old caulk, then I need to disinfect it and let it dry.  And then I have to re-caulk it and smooth it over.  And then I have to wait, sometimes (according to the videos I saw) up to two days.  And that's after I need to find all the damn tools to do this, which I probably don't have.

I'm tempted to tell My Fucking Father this, but I know he'll go ballistic.  He will also probably yell at me: "Why are you telling me to do this?  Do this yourself!  You're a grown man!"  Funny, his hypocrisy.  Back in the spring I was putting tabs on my license plates.  I remember a long time ago him telling me, "You should learn how to put the tabs on the licenses yourself!  This is your car, and you're old enough to know how!"  He abandoned me, I learned on my own, and I finally got to learning how to do it, no fucking thanks to him.  But as I was doing it and being very careful about it, not just putting the tabs on the licenses but unscrewing the frames and cleaning all the surfaces of the frame, the license and the car, My Fucking Mother pestered My Fucking Father into helping me.  I didn't ask for this shit, but while I was letting the frames and plates dry, My Fucking Father just took them into the garage.

I was doing this a bit before dinnertime.  I thought I had time because, you know, it isn't that long of a task, and I know how to do it now.  But as I was eating, My Fucking Father went back outside and screwed the licenses and frames back on my car.  And I will tell you that he did a half-ass job; the tabs should line up on top of each other, and he just slapped those stickers on.

I admit I am thinking of ways to get angry at My Fucking Parents, but My Fucking Parents do so much that it's almost an obligation to point it out.  And I will point out that My Fucking Father says I should learn how to do things only for him to do things for me.  Which is it?  Which will it be when I have to tell My Fucking Father the bathroom fixtures need re-caulking?  Is he going to make me do it, or is he going to do it himself, probably do a bad job ... and then blame me for not knowing how to do it?

Addendum To: No Home To Come Home To

And another thing: I've felt it before, but I was able to shrug it off, but now, I am scared as hell that my parents want something from me every minute I'm at home.  Why can't you help me do this?  Why don't you do this in your bedroom?  What are you gonna do about this?  It feels non-stop now since they threw all my stuff away.  Just now My Fucking Father asked me what I'm going to do with the golf clubs.  I thought he wanted me to golf, and now he wants me to get rid of the golf clubs.  I don't know what I'm going to do with the golf clubs!  And he wants me to figure it out?  It wasn't fucking hurting anything to just ... leave it.  But now I have to worry about that, like I have to worry about this thing, and that thing, and that other goddamn thing. ...

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: June 2025

I'm sorry ... this month is a dud, and I don't think hanging it up on my wall for the whole month would have changed my mind.  No offense to the ten women posing in the month.  But whether it's how they were posed or, um, something else, only three stand out to me.

In third place is Camila, hailing from Jonesboro, Ga.  Wavy, dark blonde hair that falls below her shoulders, she is wearing a blue two-piece bikini.  She does something most of the servers in this month do that is quite off-putting: She has an emotionless expression, in her case a pout, that gives no warmth or arousal.  Still, she is grasping the string in the front of her bikini top as if she is going to pull it down, and that's not nothing.

In second place is Scarlett, of Pearland, Tex.  Strawberry red hair (or maybe she dyed her hair pink), which is a huge plus in my book, that is wavy and cascades to chest height.  She is sporting a brown (taupe?) two-piece that is bordered in white.  That hair makes her look real cute, and it makes up for the strange posing where she is rotated to her side and her left arm is covering up her body.  Also, she's been told to touch something to her right (the left of the photo), but it's out of frame.  I just noticed this, and now it's bothering the hell out of me.

Finally, in first place is Tia, from Raleigh, N. C.  I'm not a fan of laying down because it invariably means the model's hand is in front of her, and this case is no different.  But she is lying in ankle-deep water in a pool, and so her straightened dark hair is wet, which I like.  Also, her dark skin sets off really well against the light blue two-piece bikini strung together with pink-and-blue string.

So, congratulations to Tia and the others I have singled out.  I have already touched myself to you three, but I think I will give it another guy pretty soon.

First Time Working The Yard This Year

Just spent almost two hours working the yard.  Thought it would be just mowing, but before he left Father showed me this week puller, so I started off pulling the dandelions out of the front and back yards.  So I spent a lot of time outside, more than I thought.  I eschewed putting on sunscreen because I am going to snuggle into bed soon, but maybe I should've put some one.

Oh, and I'm tired.  Also, I'm kind of smelly.  It's hot out, but I'm glad the air is dry and not humid.  That would be a killer.  And, I think I missed a line of grass in the backyard.  That bothers me, but not enough to take out the lawnmower and take care of it.  I'll just see this weird line of grass longer than the rest of the yard before I mow back there again.

I think I need a nap.

My Final Blog Post Of 2024 Is Another Reminder Of Why My Fucking Mother Has Ruined My Life

I was going to neatly tie up 2024 into a bow (well, as well as I can), but My Fucking Mother fucking had to send this shit off the rails with her goddamn anxieties again.

She bugs the fuck out of me while they're here, but it appears as though she bothers me even more when she's in Vegas.  I think that's due to expectations: Since they are so far away from me, I presume that we would talk less.  And I think we do; for example, even though I thought we would talk Christmas Day, we didn't, probably because we talked Christmas Eve.  And that's A-OK with me.

But when she texts me saying she needs help ... goddamn, the thing she needs help with is such a huge energy drain.  It literally takes hours to deal with her issue.  And it's an issue only she believes is an issue.  But I have to help her because that bitch acts so fucking helpless.

She texted me at work yesterday/Monday afternoon: "Need help!"  I get home and call her.  She tells me these real estate forms need to be filled out.  The government wants them, and she's scared as hell that, like, the FBI will arrest her if we don't do it before the end of the year ... even though the stuff she said told her that actually said she had a couple more weeks.  These forms are in English, of course, so she immediately ran to me, only to switch up her tone and just fuckin' saddle me with all this bullshit I need to deal with with an urgency only she has.  So fucking typical of her and her goddamn "issues."

These forms the government wants filled out I didn't even know existed until today.  And I had to waste two motherfucking hours with My Fucking Mother to do them online.  Worse than that, I screwed up one of the forms, and I'm not sure the website on which I did these forms took up the corrected information.  So I think I have to follow up today, some time after work, to see if some AI chatbot can let me know if the "government" has the correct information.  And who knows how long I'll have to fucking waste on that.  It's New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake.  I'm supposed to mark the death of the old year and say hello to the new one.  I don't want to spend it dealing with goddamn forms.

---

This year was bad because I lost my uncle.  I feel bad because I hadn't contacted him much before he died.  I think the last communication I had with him was wishing him a (Western) New Year via text.  He was gone within two months.  He didn't want anyone to talk to him in his decrepit state.  I don't care; I wanted to at least say goodbye to him and tell him I love him.  And I'll be honest (if I haven't stated this here in WAF already): I'm mad at him for not talking to me before he went.

Come to think of it, 2024 brought more signs my body is breaking down.  I saw someone for my knees after work yesterday/Monday.  She said it's probably arthritis, which everyone my age is going through.  Use exercises to get manage it.  I think I heard that before when my physical therapist told me to exercise my back.  I was given a referral for physical therapy for my knees, and there's a chance it's the same person who I met with five years ago.  I don't think the guy likes me, though, so I don't think I'll take up the referral.

Gaining weight, too.  I know I should eat better, but I'm still holding onto the delusion that I can eat what I want and not get too fat.  That's not happening, but I'm not changing my diet.  Oh, and I'm still dealing with trying to do my desk job with bifocals on.  Had a lot of trouble seeing with my eyeglasses in 2024.  My eyes got so strained looking at my computer screen that it began to hurt.  I even take them off and see my screen through blurry eyes.  It beats getting a headache.

Everything else, I guess, is the same, including dealing with My Fucking Mother.  Every fake emergency she makes me deal with reminds me that I got my anxious state of mind from her.  She has grafted every part of her insecurities onto me, and I cannot and will not forgive her for that.

Happy New Year!!!

Hell, I'll just say it: I kind of resent my sister being here.  I feel as though she's horning in on my space, and that she's staying for only a little while before I have to readjust to her (and my brother-in-law) leaving is only aggravating me even more.  But it's the car that bothers me.  I finally realized something obvious: When I was out in Hawai'i, I never asked to use their car to just drive around.  But while they're here, they're driving my car, and they're driving it everywhere, and they will be driving it so much I am really, really bothered and scared that, at worst, they'll get into an accident and, at best, they'll be tacking on miles and bringing big repairs that much closer to today ... and that will be crap I will have to clean up.

Come to think of it, I gave her use of my car for some, if not most, of the days the last time she visited here, which wasn't too long ago (a year ago?  Two years?), by herself, while the parents had started wintering in Las Vegas.  Does she now feel, for lack of a better word, entitled to the use of my car whenever she's in town?  That cannot be the way this works, and I feel bad if that is the impression I gave her.  But she is coming off as if she can just waltz in to the house and use my car willy-nilly.  I really don't mind if those two tool around the metro area -- within reason.  But going outstate every day while they're here?  Hell no, but that is impression I am getting from her, and I don't know if I need to set her straight.

Anyway, I need to get up in several hours to pick them up at the airport.  Hope the car stays in one piece.

Me And My Bright Ideas

So I had my screening for work this morning.  And I don't know if other companies do this -- I guess they do, otherwise our company is an outlier, and I can't imagine us being that -- but we get discounts for meeting certain metrics.  I think I've talked about this before, but those metrics both expanded and tightened up last year.  There are five of them, and meeting three of them gives you the full and maximum discount.  Filling out an attestation that you won't smoke is one.  Basically making sure you're not fat is another, and I think I meet that requirement through both my BMI calculation and the fact that my waist is less than 40 inches around.

What bothers me (again) are reaching the other three, which I think are high blood pressure, cholesterol, and A1C.  I think I got all but the HBP last year, but this is this year, and while I may have met these other three, I was scared that I wouldn't this year.  I noticed that weight affects all three of these metrics.  I also know that when I had to prepare for my colonoscopy screening a little more than a year ago at this time, the prep, which was to overload myself on Miralax to push all my waste out in the form of liquid, made me lose weight like nobody's business.  I weighed myself the day before my colonoscopy; I was at 162 pounds, and I don't remember the last time I was that light.

Yeah, you know where this is going, right?  Once I decided I wanted to do my screening while my parents were away on safari, I had this notion that I would blow out my colon again by prepping as if I were having another colonoscopy.  Wait, wait, wait -- OK, I didn't use that much Miralax.  It actually is funny, if you think about it, that nurses are telling you that it's OK to use Miralax in a way not recommended by Miralax.  I couldn't go that far.  Instead, I would follow instructions, namely to add a capful of Miralax to four-to-eight ounces of some drink, both Saturday and yesterday/Sunday.  I did my screening on a Monday because I wanted all weekend to do this and run to the bathroom if need be.  And if it all worked out, I would evacuate my bowels (though not to the extent of the violent liquid shits that came out of my asshole before my colonoscopy) and be able to go to the screening at a weight tiny enough that my cholesterol, my A1C, and maybe even my high blood pressure would look sterling ... without worrying I'd shit my pants on the way there.

Have to say, didn't happen.  My plan was to have some Miralax some time Saturday evening after I got home from working out.  But I came into work and left in the early evening, so I decided not to work out and instead go to Caffetto to work on my receipts.  I had some Miralax once I came home, then again Sunday evening.  I feel kind of bloated in my stomach, which I think Miralax says is normal.  But I haven't pooped at all since taking it.  I think the instructions say that it might take between one and seven days of using a capful daily for your bowels to loosen, but I no longer need to use it because the screening was this morning.  And to be honest -- and ironically, and TMI -- I was crapping like no one's business on Saturday.  I had a bloody Mary to drink while watching the U. S. women's Olympic soccer team take gold during the day on Saturday, then I stopped by Chipotle before heading into work, and that triggered a big bowel movement.  The red velvet cake and hot chocolate I had at Caffetto triggered another one.  I kind of thought I should have just kept doing what I was doing and I would be losing the weight I wanted to lose.  Instead, I took the Miralax and I got the opposite of what I wanted.

For the record, my blood pressure was too high this morning, so I hope my cholesterol and/or A1C is within limits.  But yeah, my plan didn't work.

To Hell With The Quiet Ones

First of all, a side note: I fell asleep because I felt my body get tired a bit past 6 in the evening, and I woke up totally refreshed around 2:30.  Wow.  I can't get my head around being able to get in a full night's sleep between dinner and the middle of the night.  But I just did that.  First full sleep I've had in weeks, too.

---

Yeah, yesterday was shit.  I think I would've been faster if I hadn't had to remember all the stuff I learned when I started.  By the time I finished up with everything, I accrued an extra 15-20 minutes in overtime, and I want to see if my boss is gonna be pissed about it.

I was wrong in something I said in my last blog post.  This person who bugs me in The Main Department didn't say anything when I screwed up.  Now, come to think about it, she is not one who pipes up when she sees something wrong.  She never has, so I don't know why I ever thought she would.

What she did instead, and what she usually does, is nothing.  My work procedure, at least as I knew it, was to go through my work and then pass it off to her, which is what I needed to do on this day because I was filling in for someone and she happened to be sitting adjacent to me.  For a good 15-20 minutes she didn't pick up this folder I passed along to her at all.  I didn't get it.  When this person was out of earshot, I spoke with another co-worker, one who is a bit more friendly.  She told me that we don't do this procedure anymore; instead of passing it down, we just do everything.  That would've been something I would've liked to have known.

That girl is weird, though.  If she is not finishing up these folders, she does not need to write anything down on this log that tells everyone we finished that folder.  And yet, after lunch, I look on the log and she put her initials on a folder I learned not to give to her.  Moreover, in this department we have a dedicated lunch time, and as everybody left, she kept typing away.  I get to freelance at my other positions, but not this one.  And I will venture to guess that she doesn't get to do what I think she did.  Also, near the end of our day, when it was obvious we were late, she just swooped in and did everything that still needed to be done.  That is something she's supposed to do because it was getting late.  Still, it bugs.  My excuse is that I got bogged down with a bunch of really, really bad folders.  I still was getting acclimated to the work she does every day, certainly.  But I can't help but think that she is cutting corners, and I have to think that she is annoyed with how slow I was.

OK, I am really going out on a limb here accusing her of things just based on my perception of her, but I don't care.  She's a blank space.  She rarely talks to anyone, she doesn't engage in chit-chat, and we know very, very little about her.  (Well, one story.  We had a team-building exercise last week, so to speak, where our boss was giving out candy for our work.  Most of the candy this year, compared to past years, were not of the chocolate kind.  I saw it, was disappointed, but grabbed the Starbursts and Skittles and all the non-chocolate candy that was available.  [I still have them if anybody wants them.]  Apparently, upon seeing the dearth of chocolate candy, this person shouts to the team that she doesn't want the candy, and then after being told by my boss she has to choose, complains while grabbing a bag.  If what I imagine that scene is what actually happened, what in the actual fuck?)

But that's the problem I have with her.  She is too quiet.  Normally, that's fine.  Hell, I'm usually quiet at work.  But when the only time you show any personality is when you petulantly let everyone know you don't like the free candy you're given, and you spend the rest of your time ignoring work I give you and staying after to do the work you want to do your way ... I don't care if I come off as a hypocrite, you're fucking weird.  There's nothing to you because you don't let anyone know what else is there to you.  Someone being this quite and all to yourself is a detriment to the work environment, almost as much as being too loud and too invasive.  And since I am getting shifted back to The Main Department more and more, I don't know if I can work like this, and with her.

Chafing (For Lack Of A Better Word) Continues

So my boss wasn't even at work yesterday/Thursday, but my supervisor came in and told me she was monitoring my hours so that I wouldn't go over 40 hours this week.  Goddammit, this is chapping my hide.  Work in The Fourth Department has been relatively light all week.  (All year, actually.  I've been comparing the workload I've been receiving recently to the paperwork I got this time last year, and there's been a slight downtick -- as if we've gotten less and less work.  I wonder ...)  And I still have someone looking over my shoulder assuring I'm not getting overtime.

Like I continue to say, if there is work there, I have to do it.  Conversely, fine, if there isn't work, then I'll cut out early, that's fine.  I thought I was going to do that yesterday/Thursday, but something came in last-minute, and so I stayed an extra half-hour.  I have already stayed an extra half-hour already this week so, even though I thought I could whack my time so that I would just about be even going into today/Friday, I am now over by about an hour.  Which means that, if they're going to be supercilious time misers about it, I'm leaving an hour early today/Friday.  That totally ruins my plans of going to a speakeasy to celebrate myself for getting through another whole week in The Fourth Department.  That place opens at 5, and I don't know what to do with myself if I could theoretically get home by 3 instead.  Besides, what happens if work keeps me past 40 hours?

This shit really is bothering me.  If they're checking my time down to the minute, even though my work in that department is (and should be) dictated by the work that's coming in ... I'm really, really not liking how I'm being micromanaged.  I really don't.

I'm Ghosting My Uncle

So about a month ago, on a Saturday, I heard the doorbell ring.  I assume it's one of those, like, garbage company or roofing company people trying to sell us something, so like what we and many other people usually do when their privacy is invaded, I ignored the person, assuming he'll eventually go away.

He didn't.  And, he is a she.  And that she is my aunt.  After ringing, she knocked vigorously.  At this point I figure either it's a family member or this guy needed to bug out harshly, so I answered the door.  My aunt thrusted a bag of food in my hand, then barged into the house.  She's kind of a bitch when she wants to be; she invited herself in, then looked around and saw all my crap on the stairs and on the landing, and instead of immediately going into what she wanted to talk to me about, she took a beat and said, "Huh."  Not a fan of how I leave things around the house?  That ain't none of her goddamn business, is it?  Oy, she is very judgemental and sometimes gives no fucks about who knows it.  When my uncle died -- have I blog posted about this before? -- she forced my cousin (my uncle's son) to kneel at the coffin in obedience.  She forcefully grabbed the arm of my other cousin (my uncle's daughter), but she buckled because she said she had surgery on it and wasn't supposed to move.

Anyway, there was a reason she dropped by, and it's something I alluded to in a previous blog post and wanted to circle back to it in a bit more detail: Apparently, my uncle isn't doing so well.  He has been in deteriorating health for some time, and he was in the hospital for a spell around the holidays, and as she tells it, he is up and down health-wise since coming home.  And then she asks me not to talk to him.  Why?  She says that if I ask him the generic, "Hey, how are things going?" he is going to lie to me.  I should say that my aunt dropped by a week before the Lunar New Year.  You are supposed to, on that day, contact everyone you know, especially family, and say "Happy New Year!" to them.  I should have asked her what I should do in the wake of such an occasion, but it didn't occur to me then.

I acceded to her wishes and did not call her husband/my uncle.  In fact, I haven't contacted him at all.  And I don't know why in the fuck I haven't done so.  I did tell her that if my uncle takes a turn for the worse, all bets are off; she needs to tell me, and I have to tell my uncle's brother, my father, and if that prompts them to come home from where they were (Asia a month ago, Las Vegas now), well, so be it.  I want to think that her not dropping by means that my uncle is in a holding pattern.  Still, I haven't spoken to him, and it bothers me.  I mean, what if I "disobey" my aunt and, say, text my uncle?  Sure, he might lie to me, but I think the important thing is that I at least reached out to him, so so what?  I know the truth, and again, if the worst-case scenario happens, we will all know about it.

So why in the hell did my aunt tell me not to speak to my uncle?  I don't know how, but I wonder if this is some secret power move my aunt is pulling on me so that, if my uncle (Buddha forbid) passes away, she can somehow blame me or make me look bad to my folks, like I wasn't there for my uncle in his time of need.  She might be devious enough to tell my parents I made the house dirty while they were gone.  Fuckin' Christ, she fucking barged through the door like she owns the house.

I don't want to run afoul of my aunt because she can really fuck things up in my life, but I am essentially giving my uncle the silent treatment.  If he is in ill health, I think it makes sense for me to talk to him.  The more I think about it, the more I hate myself for following what my aunt says.  I should go to talk to him, and damn the consequences.  And I should do that ... before he dies.

So my boss e-mailed me yesterday/Thursday saying, and I think I've got this right, "Since you had overtime Monday and Tuesday, let's have you leave early today (meaning yesterday/Thursday) and tomorrow (meaning today/Friday)."  Wait ... what the fuck is this "let's" thing?  I don't think this is a good fucking idea!

That e-mail blindsided me.  But maybe I should not have been blindsided by it.  My boss continues to harp on me about OT, all the way through to the performance review I had last month.  But it seemed at the time as if he finally understood the energy and time I have to devote to do the job right and get all the forms I'm asking information for processed once I get answers to my questions.  Also, and he was a bit candid about this during my performance review, but he is under pressure from his boss or bosses to make sure I don't accrue overtime.

With that being said, I hate being told the day of work that I am supposed to leave early that day.  Beyond the surprise, though, I don't like that, basically, I am being told how much money I can make.  Maybe I shouldn't be shocked.  He has told me to leave early when the work that day is light.  But I don't remember being told I have been cut early that way.  And that bothers me.

Maybe my rationale has nothing to do with what happened yesterday/Thursday, but I have gotten used to racking up OT.  When I started this job, I was only working 40 hours a week.  That was fine because I didn't know any better.  But then I got walloped by The Fourth Department, and after a lot of hemming and hawing, I realized I had to stay late to do the job properly.  That's overtime, and I have been cranking out hour after hour of OT and receiving remuneration for it.  If that remuneration stops, it feels like someone is just arbitrarily taking back the money I was making for my hard-earned work.

Potentially losing money I, frankly, have come to expect, has been weighing on my mind so much that ... you know, I'm tired, and I want to go to bed, and I think I am going to just let that last half-line alone. ...

Addendum To: Do I Or Do I Not Want To Get Cut Early?

Well, I blog posted my thoughts about 24 hours ago, but then what happened at work yesterday/Thursday happens.  When I left work Wednesday, my boss told me the last two days this week will be so light that we will be cut early.  Were we cut early yesterday/Thursday?  Fuck to the no.  The lab did other stuff, so in the morning he decided we would be keying that stuff once we got done with our stuff.  (Turns out there was more of our stuff that we needed to do, and because the goddamn scanner is shit and I had to literally shove the forms in them every five fuckin' minutes, we basically had a full day.  The other people in The Main Department did that other stuff for the last, oh, 20 minutes of their workday.)  See, I was led to believe I would have a short day, so I began to plan my afternoon after leaving work, but then I was told that I would not be leaving early after all, and so I feel misled.

Near the end of the day, my boss came over and said I could leave early.  It was only 15 minutes or so, but, as he has been telling me more and more often as I finish out my day in The Main Department, if I built up overtime because of working in The Fourth Department early in the week, I could thus leave early later in the week.  Well, maybe I shouldn't say, "I could thus leave early"; it's more like, "my boss is telling me to leave."  He's on me doing only 40 hours again, and while he might not be directly haranguing me about it, I think he is doing the next best thing, which is just telling me to go when the opportunity to go arises.

He in fact told me as I was leaving yesterday/Thursday that his intent is to have me leave early enough today/Friday so that I work only 40 hours.  Well, he expected to cut us all yesterday/Thursday and that shit didn't happen, so we'll see if he can come through with his promise this time around.  (I have already planned on exercising at the community center straight from work if I leave early enough.)  But even though he was straight with me late in my day, I'm still bothered by his manipulation into making sure I don't get overtime.  The work is the work.  We need to stick around until the work gets done.  We are still short-staffed; in fact, another person was let go a week ago, and I don't think that departure was either planned or, from my former co-worker's point-of-view, wanted.  Regardless, my boss is damned to prevent me from getting any OT.  And I'll be honest: I have gotten a good quaff of OT this year, and I want some more goddamn OT.  So yeah, what he said yesterday got my goat a little.

And yes, I am upset at him for wanting to cut me early when, in the morning, I got upset with him for not cutting me early.  My grievance swings in one direction and then swings in the other.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Sure!

Did I Really Need This Day Off?

I woke up at noon, went to Lindey's, realized I didn't have my wallet with me, went home, came back to Lindey's and ate, decided not to go to Diamonds to work on my receipts, then opted to go back home and nap.  So in that sense, yes, I needed the day off.

What I mean is that I may have blown the math when it comes to paid time off at work.  We are able to carry over up to 40 hours past every calendar year (besides the COVID years, but we don't need to get into that).  Any more than 40 you just lose.  So there is usually a scramble for everyone who are diligent company people to find days in December to take off while still having a credible workface to take care of the work each day.

I thought I did the match right back in early November, whereby I had, like, three days (technically less than 24 hours, but right now I am not in the mood for taking half-days off) I needed to take off.  One of them actually was the last Monday in November, which turned out to be a day where I did work Monday Night Football after all.  I then had an appointment with the local utility to change my smart meter, but that person could only come Thursday the 14th, or yesterday, so I decided to take that day off and, because it sucks to have one day off mid-week only to come back the next day, I decided to take Friday, or today, off as well.

Now even with these back-to-back days off, I thought that I had cleared just enough to get below 40 hours.  But as I was checking to make sure that I didn't somehow still have more than 40, I saw that I was, in fact, below 32.  In other words, I could have opted to work, say, today/Friday instead of taking it off and I would still carry less than 40 hours into 2024.  It's obviously too late, but that bothers me.  My OCD is making me feel as if I have taken too much time off.  Moreover, I hate that either I blew the math or that I was somehow misled by the HR software into taking off more time than I needed to.

Now, again, if I knew this before today, would I have taken today off, especially considering that I slept a full eight hours overnight, something I rarely do?  Well ... (shrug)

Still Haunted By The Ticking, Still Yearning For The Silence

The electrostatic cells are still tick-tick-ticking.  I was woken up yesterday/Friday morning with it (before falling asleep), and then I heard it this/Saturday morning, and this time it kept me up.  I went through and wiped all the ... um, ionizing wires and plates (?) as fastidiously as I could one one of the plates.  And the clicking I heard the past two mornings appears to sound different than it/they did when I first heard them -- it wasn't as loud, but it have been more frequent.  Maybe it worked, and now I have to wipe/clean the other cell.  Or, maybe I'm just deluding myself.

I told my parents about this.  They said that after cleaning the sound doesn't stop, call my uncle over.  I love him and I would love the help and I would love the help to be free, but I have no idea how my uncle would be able to fix this.  I am close to calling in a person -- not only am I bothered by that sound, but whenever the furnace stops, I heard a dripping reverberating through the ductwork, and I wonder if that means there's a leak or something -- but I'm scared that he'll come over, check things out, do something real quick, say something to the effect of, "Yeah, the dripping sound you hear is normal," then charge me $200.

Rather than get screwed, I'd sooner live with the sounds.  I no longer am afraid that the snapping noise from the cells is an indication that there's a gas leak or the pilot light's about to go out.  (I actually was able to locate the pilot light; it's there and it seems fine.)  And the dripping has been going on for years; I'm only freaked out about it now because no one lives here now.  But like the clicking that goes away once the temperature reaches the setting on the thermostat, the dripping sound goes away ... uh, a while after the heat shuts off, too.  The silence so relieves me of my anxiety that I actually seek it.  I am turning down the temperature on the thermostat so I don't have to hear either sound.  I think I crave it so much that I will risk freezing the house to keep the silence.

So maybe I should try washing the other cell to see if I can eliminate that noise, then take the dripping noise under advisement.

Finally Gave Up At Work

Maybe it was the forms that came in Wednesday night that did me in.  There have been a lot of changes going on with the company, and that has rejiggered when I can expect the work to come in from the lab.  Wednesday night, for some odd reason, new work came in at the end of the workday.  Now, it wasn't really the end of my workday, since I once again was saddled with so much stuff to do.  But that new stuff was the final straw.  I couldn't get to that stuff if I wanted to leave at a not-insane hour.  In fact, I was told that new work wasn't going to come in that late into the afternoon.

So, partly to vent and partly to cover my ass, I forwarded the new work to both my supervisor and my boss.  I basically said to them, "What the hell is this?  I can't do this shit this late in the day, are you kidding me?"  And I don't know if they agreed with me, or even thought through my argument.  The cynic in me believes that both of them just noted when I sent that e-mail, which was an hour after I should have left for the day.  And that goes back to my boss' incessant haranguing (though not recently, to be fair) about me racking up overtime in The Fourth Department.

That may have been behind my supervisor telling me when I got in to work yesterday/Thursday morning that she was going to look over my shoulder and ask me questions about how I lay out my day.  This was the "meddling" I feared and hated when my boss started asking me questions about why am I racking up so much OT.  But this week has been a damn bear, with all this work coming in at all part of the day, plus these calls I have to field and work from previous days that had also piled up.  All these changes (which may be the result of the volume of work coming into the building but also may stem from personnel shortage issues) have made this week more of a torture chamber to fight through than any week before.  I did my self-imposed maximum of ten hours Monday and Wednesday.  And the ripple effects of needing to stay late to get work done on Monday, which meant that I had to come back on Tuesday to clean up that stuff, which pushes me tackling the new stuff to later on Tuesday and maybe even Wednesday ... you get what I mean ... all of that made me afraid that this is The New Normal.  And I am such a prideful, or pig-headed, man that I continued to say, "That's fine!  I can do it all by myself -- so long as you leave me alone and pay me for all the work I have to do!"

Till now.  The surge in workload has become a pain in the ass.  And the shifting down of an hour meant that, if I have to stay my self-imposed maximum of ten hours, I need to stay till 7:30.  I did that Monday and I missed the First Half of Monday Night Football.  I did that yesterday/Wednesday, went to Taco Bell to grab dinner, and was lucky to come home in time to see all of the season premiere of The Amazing Race.  I'm not exercising after work as I did, and could do, if I were working The Main Department (which, truth be told, I haven't worked in weeks, if not months).  And I'm tired as hell.  Is this The New Normal?  As much as I need the damn money, I don't know if I can take OT, at least this much OT, anymore.  And besides, my boss's bosses are telling him to tell me to stop staying late.  I hate dictates from on high, but it looks as though they've finally decided to put an end to accruing this much overtime and fattening up my paychecks.

My supervisor remains an angel in my times of strife.  I fully believe she empathizes with me and understands the stress and anxiety of The Fourth Department, especially when you're getting hit from all directions at once.  But she has gotten orders from my boss to get me out of work in eight hours, so, after asking me questions about what I do when and verifying that I'm not slacking off or anything, she's going to step in and do the new work for me early in the afternoon.  If I weren't so frazzled as I am, I would consider this a threat to my ego.  Frankly, though, right now I feel kind of relieved.  The workload of new forms yesterday/Thursday was in no way ridiculous.  I could have handled it all by myself.  But like the other days all week, I had old stuff to resolve and a bunch of phone calls I needed to handle.  I wasn't going to get to the new stuff until well into the afternoon.  It was so bad yesterday that, truthfully, I don't think I could have gotten to all the new forms by ten hours.  But thankfully, my supervisor did the bulk of it.

With that being said, I did nine hours.  It's not ten, like it was Monday or Wednesday, but it ain't eight, which I presume is my boss' goal.  There was a trickle of new stuff that came in late in the afternoon, after my supervisor left, and I believe I had to do them, so I have a ready-made excuse for staying over.  Combine that with all the other correspondence I needed to tie up and the usual end-of-day work to make sure there were no loose ends, and it was 6:30.  I don't know if my boss is going to be OK with that.  What I do know is that the old me would have gone ballistic that somebody was budding in to my territory, but right now, as I type this, I realize that I surrendered and volunteered for more help.  And I am not worrying about my pride or my manhood or even my wallet that I'll do it again.