The Autumn Equinox Is Killing Me

I love fall.  I really do.  But that might just be my mind, because my body is not adapting well, at least I don't think.

I had enough sleep over the weekend, and yet because I only slept about four hours overnight Sunday night, I felt really, really achy at work yesterday/Monday.  Also, not for nothing, my co-worker had a bad, bad case of the sniffles.  She put on a mask, thank Buddha (I have a stash, she asked for one), but it ain't no N95 or KN95, so let's see if I'm sick, too.

I had to go this place I was at Thursday because I have a deal that expires today/Tuesday.  There was a deal that was for one day only on Thursday.  Before these two times, the last time I was at any place at this chain maybe was a decade ago, and that was in the western metro at a place I think has closed down now.  Anyway, I got there and stayed for two hours while watching Monday Night Football.  The deal was a free full order of garlic bread so long as I buy some other food, and stupidly (even though it is good), I went for a personal-sized pizza.  I didn't finish either.  And when I brought it home, I fell back into my doomscrolling stupor, then went to bed just after watching the weather forecast.

I got up for good around 6 (an hour ago as I type this), but I must have been tossing and turning in bed for, oh, an hour before that, so even though I am awake, I think I've been up since 5.  My body feels better.  But last night I did what I've done often in the past month or so.  Sure, going to bed may be healthier for me, but my parents' coming back is looming, and I haven't done a damn thing.  I need to start cleaning up, but I had a chance to do that on Sunday because I stayed in all day, but I chose to do the laundry, start (but not finish) my receipts, eat and watch football.  I will bang my head against a wall the moment my parents tell me they're coming home because I had all this time to put myself in a better position and I haven't done it.  Right now I'm sorting my week as to when I will have time to start doing that, and I still feel the pull of going out and, say, watching a play or a movie.

Maybe the oncoming winter is killing me.  Or maybe it's my bad decisions.  Or maybe it's the specter of my parents coming home, like a bleepin' sword of Damocles.  Or probably, it's all of the above.

I Got More Hats!

So before I went off to my gig yesterday/Saturday, I brought two hats: One to represent the company I was working for in the afternoon, and one to represent my alma mater, whose Game I would be watching from our bar if I went there straight from the stadium.

Well, they asexually reproduced, because I came home with four.  I was given another hat from the company.  And on my way to the bar, I saw a Twins cap on a walk button stand.  It's a yacht rock-themed captain's hat, and this was for a giveaway that I believe was from a Game two Weeks ago.  So it looks like someone who went to that Game wore it yesterday/Saturday and dropped it and didn't bother to pick it up or something, so someone else picked it up and put it on the stand in case the owner wanted to retrieve it.  Instead, I stole it.  Now, it's been worn already, so I don't look forward to absorbing another man's head sweat.  But it was unclaimed, it's free, and now it's mine, as is the other three I brought home with me!

Maybe They're ... Not Coming Home?

I blog posted about not wanting to directly talk with my parents because I don't want to hear from them that they're coming home, but it's been about a week since I last spoke with them, and frankly, that is kind of weird.  I'm a chickenshit, but even this period of incommunicado was getting ridiculous.

Still, I took a baby step after my long day at work last/Thursday night.  No mail came that I needed to alert Mother about, but I looked at an e-mail on her e-mail account that she paid for the trash bill at an amount lower than what was stated on the bill I got and told her.  I was concerned that there was a reason she didn't pay the amount I thought she needed to pay, but as I've done the past week or so, I only texted her.  I thought she would call.  Well, Father called back on his cellphone, and he started off by giving me the number of a roofer who was willing to come by the house and inspect and give an estimate for replacing the roof.  He really wants me to call him, then take a day off to let his guy go all over the top of our house.  Well, if you're coming home, why can't Father do that?

Father then got Mother on his phone.  She got my text; she put in that amount on purpose after haggling with the trash service.  Nothing else she said rocked my world for the worse.  In fact, she said that they might be planning a trip.  After coming back here?  Before?  Instead??  I got the feeling, then and there, that my parents might not be coming back home after all, even though Mother said as early as August that they would.  I didn't press her on this issue because I don't want to jinx anything.  But if they're going to be away from home for upwards of a calendar year ... well, that just means the ultimate state of freedom for me, isn't it?

Ironically, though, this makes me believe that I should visit them.  They have things here they might need if they are taking a long trip out of the country.  Besides, and don't tell them this, I kind of miss them.  And I don't my hanging out with them so long as they're away from all my stuff that I've strewn around the house.  I should start making plans to fly to see them, risk of getting kidnapped by the government be damned. ...

No, I Don't Want To Know When

It's been over a week since I spoke to my parents.  And when I say that, I mean literally speak to them.  Since then I have been in contact with them, through text.  I usually do that, and only do that, when there is a letter regarding an issue with one of their properties for which Mother needs some idea of what's going on, and telling her just won't cut it.

But over the past week bills have been sent.  Usually I just get on the phone and tell Mother that, hey, this bill came in and it's for such-and-such an amount.  I also tell her about checks that have come in, but when the latest one came over a week ago ... well, I just texted her that it's here.  And she was fine with it.  Then, a couple bills came and I figured this is something Mother needs to know about, so I texted her to call me, but I didn't hear from her the rest of the evening.  OK, this is unusual.  And I didn't want to wait to call after work the next day, so I texted her the nature and amount of these two bills at work the next day, and she said she would take care of it.  Not going to lie, I am in a texting mood now, so the bills that have come in since I have only told her through text.

Yes, it's easier.  But I have to admit that the real reason I am now texting her is that I don't want to hear her tell me that they're coming home.  They should be coming home by now.  And don't get me wrong.  When I say "should," I don't mean that it's the right thing to do, or it's preferable.  I mean that they've been gone over half a year, and they say they would be coming back, so logic would dictate they would mean what they say and be back.  Now, they usually summer here in Minnesota, and they didn't do that.  Mother later said they'd return in August, and obviously that's not the case.  They have said they want to come back to look at the mail that's accumulated, or to start working on a new roof, or figuring out what to do with the minivan, or to see that the trash is now being picked up.  But they're not here -- at least not yet.

Still, I have had this creeping fear that, as time marches forward, the inevitable end of me having the whole house to myself has to come.  Surely, they would be making a decision now that it's Labor Day ... even though, and I may be pointing this out to myself in order to give myself hope, generally this is the time of the year my parents leave Minnesota.  And hey, maybe they realized they just want to stay out there, and that there is no reason to come back since everything is hunky dory, and it is hunky dory here right now.  But I feel like I'm tied to a conveyor belt with my legs spread open with a laser beam ready to zap my genitals, like that scene in Goldfinger.  If/When they tell me, I have so much shit I need to do -- pack up all my things (and I am visually overwhelmed with all the packing I'll have to do ... my goodness it's a lot), take them to storage, and clean, clean, clean.  I don't have the time to do that, I don't have the energy to do that, and I frankly don't have the will to do that.  So I don't talk to Mother nowadays because being incommunicado with her lets me leave all my stuff out where I want.  And that is a ... don't want to say a fiction, but a situation I've created in order to make me feel good about myself.  As long as she doesn't tell me they're returning, I get to live how I feel.  So I don't talk to her because that way, she can't tell me anything.

You know, this is something I would talk to my psychiatrist about.  God, I could use someone to talk to about my anxiety right now.

I Definitely Have Brain Rot

Woke up this morning to the sound of my sprinklers going.  Now, lately I've (or my body has) gotten into a pattern of going to sleep and waking early (at least when compared to when I usually go to bed).  But this/Sunday morning, man, I think I would've been able to sleep in ... if not for the damn sprinklers being my alarm clock.  I don't need an alarm clock this morning, especially since I did need one yesterday/Saturday because I was working.

The sprinklers were on because I turned on the sprinkler system yesterday/Saturday because I wanted them to water the lawns while I was off to work and not in the house.  I just forgot to shut the system off last night so it wouldn't wake me up.  And I forgot because I have brain rot.  I got home late from dinner after work last/Saturday night, and sure, I went off for some late night Taco Bell, too.  Oh, yeah, there was a lot of soccer I was watching, too.  (Hey, the Loons won -- whadathunkit!)  But I spent the vast majority of my evening doomscrolling.  Goddammit, man, my mind has atrophied not due to old age but because I'm on my fucking phone all the time, filling my brain up with short dopamine hits of what gets me off.  I think that if I wasn't so addicted to my phone, I would be way more attentive at doing things, like chores, or just remembering stuff, like turning off the water sprinkler system.  Shit, I have a bunch of things I should do now, and yet my cellphone is just waiting for me like a dealer in the alley.  And of course I'm going back to him -- definitely some time today, and possibly right after I blog post this.

I have a lot of stuff to do -- going through my stuff, the laundry, etc.  And I do want to fix the sprinklers; after I did a couple heads in one section of the front lawn last weekend (at least I think they're fixed), I want to try to fix the other heads in the front lawn.  But I wanted to do it on my own time ... well, my body's time, but my body was forced to wake up to the sound of the sprinklers out front, and I think because of that, I will be tired later on this evening when I want to go out.  May be overdramatizing, but maybe not.

Need to stop looking at screens and start looking at real life.

Waste The Day

I just wish I had the motivation right now to work on my stuff.  But other things get in the way.  Stuff like other chores.  For example, right after I got home (from a long day at work), I immediately (well, OK, I ate some nuts first) mowed the lawn, even though the weather has been so dry I was mowing over brown spots.  I thought I needed to mow if only because I hadn't done it in about a month.  I did that instead of, for example, going through my stuff.

I think I'm doing this because I think I have time.  I don't know if that's the case.  My parents may say they're coming home at a moment's notice.  It would be nice for me to have everything packed up and ready to go into storage, also at a moment's notice.  Shoot, at this point I would settle for immediately knowing which boxes I would put my stuff in, throw everything into those boxes, and then leave.  I would take that as a plan.  But I haven't gotten that far yet.  Instead, I'm mowing and eating and doomscrolling.

I work early tomorrow.  After work I want to get my hair cut because it's getting so long I have to wait an hour before it dries.  Maybe after I take a shower I can tackle my stuff.  Or, I'll take a nap.  I'll probably take a nap and waste yet another day that I could've used doing something productive.

I think I was able to fix the two sprinkler heads I wanted to work on this weekend so that they arc on my lawn and not our house or the neighbor's driveway.  (Unfortunately, there is still the possibility that wind could push the water from those sprinklers onto the driveway, like it did yesterday/Sunday afternoon.  I don't know if that can be helped.  What I needed to make sure was that those two sprinklers didn't arc beyond grass, and I think I accomplished that.)

But after getting a wood pallet from work home, I ... didn't do much of anything.  Sure, I've done some laundry, but that was yesterday/Sunday morning.  I still haven't really done anything with my stuff because I've been busy doing yardwork.  And I could, for example, work on my fantasy football draft, but now I'm too tired to do anything.

Damn, I feel like such a lazy failure.

And My Weekend Is Busy, Too

Admittedly, I am filling it up with stuff I want to do in order to push out things I think I should do.  I thought this would be the weekend I would finally figure out the right arc for some of the sprinkler heads I've been working on.  Also, even though it's been really dry, maybe I should mow the yellow lawn.  And I should get around to my clothes and dishes ... and, oh yeah, my stuff.

But then I remembered that there is a house party on Saturday.  The cover's expensive as hell, and there's only one chick I care to see there, but ******e has invited me for a while and I haven't been there yet this calendar year, so it's time I go.  But there's also Porchfest, where bands play in front of houses in the Wedge neighborhood.  And then MNUFC is playing -- it's on the road, but I figure I would go to a watch party sponsored by the club at least once this season, and I'm doing so at a restaurant I haven't ever been to but have wanted to go to for some time, so that's extra enticement.  Then, tomorrow/Sunday afternoon, the Gopher women's soccer team is hosting Georgia.  Normally the U. hosts smaller colleges from the region, so having a brand-name school from the SEC (let alone a ranked one -- Gophers will have their hands full) come to Robbie Stadium to play is a special event to go to, and so I will be going.

By the way, one of my stripper girlfriends, *****a, needed help moving things Sunday afternoon.  I thought I could reach her through Messenger, but apparently I can only contact her now through Instagram, of which I don't have a personal account.  I would love to help, but since there apparently is no way to reach her, I can't help her.  Shucky darn!

So with all of that, I figure I could fix the sprinklers either Sunday morning or, if I'm not awake in time, after I come back.  I thought I should exercise in the evening, but I'm still not sure they're open, so maybe that sprinkler-fixing and, possibly, mowing will serve as my workout.  Or maybe I won't do those things ... which means I'll be spending this weekend having fun and not doing things I need to do.  Shucky darn!

Hey, Does Anyone Want A Soccer Ticket?

So last/Tuesday night, at Allianz Field, MNUFC lost its first Leagues Cup Match to FC Juarez.  This is the first of three Group Stage Games.  The Leagues Cup is weird in that you play only three Matches, and all of them are against Liga MX, but you are in a "division" with all the other Major League Soccer clubs also playing in the Leagues Cup.  There are 16 in total, and only four from these 16 American franchises advance to the Knockout Round.

That means that with this Loss, there's almost no chance the Loons are reaching the Knockouts.  So honestly, I don't feel like going to the other two Matches.  Why?  What for?  I could be, you know, going through my stuff instead of seeing what is now a glorified exhibition.  So hey, does anyone want a soccer ticket?

Busy Week Ahead

So tonight/Tuesday night and Friday night there are MNUFC Matches.  I have my screening at work Thursday morning, which means I will work out and then fast Wednesday evening.  Saturday I work the Lynx Game and Sunday there's that big party I need to go to.  Plus I'm still waiting for my parents to tell me when they're coming home, so I have started to at least figure out how to haul away all my stuff back to the storage unit if I need to pick things up quickly.

But this leaves no time to just relax at home, and probably little time to do chores, such as washing dishes, washing clothes, and going through the aforementioned stuff.  So glad they're not coming home this week ... as far as I know.

So I'm eating spaghetti (seconds, but I think I'm in a phase where I don't like leftovers).  The only things I've accomplished are making spaghetti, fixing the sprinkler head (maybe I'll blog post about that), and doing this blog post.

I'm eating at a dinner table filled with my stuff -- letters, receipts, etc.  There's a bunch of my shit in the basement.  I have clothes I've organized into piles but haven't put away.  And even though they haven't given me a date (yet), Mother said they'd return in August, and it's August.

Maybe, just maybe, I should do something about my stuff.  Or, maybe I won't.

Back to eating my spaghetti, and to scrolling.  Hey, the Lynx won!

Golf Or Soccer?

Tonight was where my paralysis is at its worst.  I don't know what to do between two things I want to do, and the variables are either so even or so unknowable that I am completely a waste.  Since I got home (early) from World Cup viewing I took a nap and surfed the Internet.  All because I cannot decide if I want to drive all the way to Chaska to watch the Women's PGA Championship in Hazeltine, or watch the first Round of 32 World Cup Matchup between Canada and South Africa at this new Mediterranean place close by me.

One of the main things I use to determine what I should do is figuring out the chances I'll be able to do it in the future.  While the World Cup is every four Years (and I'm just watching it on TV), who knows the next time a golf major comes to town.  Using that factor, I should be going to the Women's PGA, and it's a no-brainer.

But there are a lot of things that are making me balk.  One is the weather.  It's supposed to get very humid starting today/Sunday, with dewpoints bursting through the seventies in the afternoon.  I am not a fan of humid weather, and I don't know if I can stomach sweating through my clothes for a few hours (at least).  Compare that with when I went to Sunday Singles at the Ryder Cup, which was also held at Hazeltine.  That was held in late September, and there was no heat or the humidity to contend with then.

What may be more of an annoyance, however, is that I don't necessarily find watching golf in person all that enjoyable.  I remember I went to the 3M Classic (when it was part of the Seniors Tour, not the current 3M Open for the PGA) a few times because it was at the course close by and it was free.  That was in the dog days of summer, and my goodness, it was hot.  I was able to endure, but it kept dawning on me that I'm doing a lot of walking around and a lot of sweating, and it overpowered any joy in watching great golfers play.  Also, and this may be too obvious, but golf courses are big.  You have to walk miles if you want to watch the whole thing.  And I don't know the first thing of the layout of Hazeltine.  Sure, there will be maps of the course, but I'm bad at directions.  Also, I don't know who I want to follow.  Should I just park myself at the 18th green?  What if the tournament is decided before then?  And how about the sightlines?  Will I be able to see anything besides the backs of people's heads?

Still, it's a major.  And while I won't know exactly how it'll feel tomorrow, I kept checking the forecast and it has said, for at least the past few days, that temperatures will hit 80 in the afternoon and the sky will be cloudy.  Considering the dewpoint, if the forecast called for sun, no way would I go.  I would not be able to deal with it being that humid and having the Sun beat down on me.  But overcast?  Yeah, it'll be 80 degrees and it'll feel swampy.  But I won't feel like I'm frying from the Sun's rays.  I might have a chance to at least tough it out.

There are other determinations, too.  If I'm going to watch the soccer Match, the place is so, so close.  I could drive the minivan and give my car a rest.  And speaking of my car -- I finally had the chance to check the oil in my car inbetween Games yesterday/Saturday, and the damn stick was dry.  I poured half a quart of oil and checked later, and then I saw some oil on the dipstick.  But it kind of freaked me out, and that is making me think I should give my car a break.  Finally, I really, really do need to do chores (going through my stuff and washing dishes mostly), and I won't do it if I have a 40-minute drive back from Carver County and am too pooped to do anything once I get home.

Still, it's a major.  So I am going to sleep on it and, depending on when I wake up and what the sky looks like and how hot it feels, I'll either make the drive to watch the best female golfers in the world play in my neck of the woods or I'll just puss out and watch soccer while eating shawarma ten minutes away from me.  These are the days where I want some deity to give me a sign that definitely tells me to do this or that.  Why can't I have that?

I decided that last/Monday night, I was going to spend my time after work going through my storage unit.  Glad I did; I am somewhat relieved I finally began to address my stuff.  Didn't make much of a dent; rearranged stuff from three or four bags that ripped, mostly.  But already, the pile in my first unit, which was over my head, is now only up to my neck.  Sure, that's because some of my stuff is in the secondary storage unit around the corner.  But I get a psychic lift from seeing that pile go down.  It gives me the push to get back there sooner and go through more of my stuff.

Speaking of which ... I brought a bag of my stuff home.  It's mostly papers, so at the very least I will read them.  But tentative as they may be, these are steps I finally am able to take.  Hopefully it's not too late.  Hopefully my parents won't be back for a long time. ...

Planning World Cup Viewing Where

I have gotten obsessed with arranging my free time around the World Cup the five weeks it's going on.  I shouldn't, considering that this World Cup is being (mainly) hosted by a fascist country.  Also, it's become even more obvious that FIFA is a corrupt organization that continues to get away with suckering communities into giving them money in exchange for the right to host the biggest sporting event on the planet this side of the Olympics.  No wonder, then, that the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, gave Trump a made-up-on-the-spot "peace prize" just to kiss his ass, one grifter publicly proclaiming his love to another grifter.  The business side of this soccer festival should make one's stomach turn.  However, since I am plotting how I will watch as much of it as I can proves I have overlooked this evil sausage-making and, in turn, makes me complicit.

Well, my complicit ass is still going to watch, and figure out the best way to watch while balancing things such as my checkbook, the health of my car, going to my storage unit to go through my stuff (which is really chapping my ass right now the more I think about it), and just going home and relaxing.  A part of me truly relishes how to put the pieces together, but a part of me knows this can easily overwhelm me, and another part of me knows I'm capable of just saying "fuck it" and I'll completely forget all of this.

Regardless, right now I'm planning ... but only for next week.  I am trying to do the following:

• Have one day where I go work, then directly go home.  I will watch all the Games from home and eat in, and thus I will not spend any money;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a bar or establishment boasting about televising the World Cup;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a Mexican or Latin American restaurant that has a TV and may or may not be televising the World Cup;
• I will go from work to my storage unit, where I will spend at least the majority of one soccer Game listening to it on Sirius XM while going through my stuff.  I will not spend any money and instead go straight home after the Match is over;
• Oh, and I promised ******a that I would see her at the strip club one night.

My original guiding principle on which weekdays I'd do each of the above depended on whether I could watch the Match on FOX/Channel 9.  If it wasn't on there, I figured that wasn't a day I should just go home; either I would watch at a pub or restaurant that had Fox Sports 1, or listen to it on satellite radio at my storage unit.  But then I remembered that Telemundo is over the air and is airing every single Match on free TV, albeit in Spanish.  Soccer is universal, so watching any Game from home was back on the table.

But then I saw last/Friday night's South Korea-Czechia Match, and for some dumb reason the audio and video were out of synch.  I'm hoping it's a one-time glitch, because if it's not, I won't watch Telemundo anymore ... which might actually make planning easier because it removes the possibility that I could watch any Game at home.  Fix this, Telemundo.

Another consideration I, um, considered is the quality of the sides playing.  I want to see competitive Matches, and once the final roundelay of Games comes around, the stakes are going to influence which ones I watch and thus where.  But the field for the World Cup has expanded from 36 to 48.  That means a lot of new teams -- and a bunch of teams that are not good and should get easily dispatched in the Games they play.  Also, there is a fifth round of Knockout Stage Matches now, which means 32 teams will advance out of the Group Stage.  Allowing 2/3 of the field into the "playoffs" makes the "regular season" Group Stage Games somewhat less important, even if the final Group Stage Games will determine who comes in last in each Group and thus is automatically eliminated.

The more I think about it, the more I've decided that I want to dedicate my attention to matchups that feature good XI's or countries that appear to be evenly matched.  If there's a Game that doesn't satisfy either condition, I am beginning to think it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to only tune in to it in the middle of the Match, or even, for example, bail on the Game and leave an establishment early.  It is hard to eat out at a restaurant for two hours so you can watch a whole Game.  And speaking of whole Games ... I realized that when I get out of work each day will dictate whether I go home, my unit, or out to watch.  Do I want to go out to catch the back end of a lopsided Match between two nations that have no chance of winning the World Cup?  Maybe, actually, and I'll save the days I go directly home for when I am able to watch a good Game on paper in its entirety.

You can see how I am weighing a lot of things, right?  Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking this.  But I don't want to spend money I can't afford, I want to start eating the food at home that I've bought, I don't want to tax my car, and I do want to start cleaning up my stuff.  So, considering all of that ... I still don't know.  Guess the only really important thing to me is I just want to watch some soccer.

Exercise Or My Stuff?

Today/Wednesday I have the day off.  Well, I need to go to the dentist in the morning, but I don't have anything I have to do after that.  I could finally delve into clearing out my stuff ... but, because the community center is now closed on Sundays for several weeks, tonight/Wednesday night would be a good time to work out.  It's not like I'll get home too late and be too tired to exercise, which is the excuse I always use to not work out after a workday.

Last/Tuesday night I actually got out of work early.  (I think it had to do with mechanical problems down south.  The work that was supposed to come yesterday/Tuesday will come today/Wednesday ... when I'm not there.  Heh-heh.)  I could have gone home and gone through my stuff.  But no, I wanted to celebrate instead by eating Mexican because it's Taco Tuesday.  Then I saw a movie -- The Sheep Detectives, which is a neat movie, but I was going to see Mortal Kombat II.  When I got to the theater, however, they said the movie had already started.  The cashier gave me a showtime a half-hour earlier than the one I saw.  He said I may have been looking at the wrong theater, but I checked my phone -- it said the MKII was starting at 5.  (No matter; I wanted to see it because I thought it was the sequel to the Mortal Kombat film I saw back in 1995.  Tonight I learned that there was not one but two movies between that and this film.  If I missed a flick in a series, I don't feel the need to see the later ones.)

And Monday I got home, but I was, um ... worked over by my ATF.  I wanted to just sit in bed and mentally bask in what she just did to me, so I felt no need to give myself angst by going through my stuff.  Right decision, too.

All's that to say that, once again, I have had ample opportunities to go through the stuff I say I need and want to go through, and yet I don't.  I think the excuses I give are credible.  Still, they're excuses.  And still, my stuff piles up.

I'll go work out anyway.  Got to stay in some sort of shape.

I've Given Up And Am Going Out A Lot This Week ... Again

So I've bitched often (though not in the past week like I thought) about "needing" to go out too many evenings in the week.  Man, sometimes I just want to go home from work and fucking stay there.

I was trying to reach some equilibrium with that this week, especially since it's a holiday weekend and you're supposed to just veg out.  But I had to chuck that all out the window.  First it's because of my cousin and her son.  She said that Friday might work, but that's The Official Start Of Summer, and I had plans to go to my speakeasy and ease into this Endless Summer by drinking.  Saturday could work, too, but United FC has a Match in the afternoon, I wanted to relax with pizza and a beer afterwards, and there is the possibility of the English Championship Play-Up Match that morning (I say possibility because as I type this, there is a hearing to determine whether Southampton, one of the teams playing, should be kicked out for spying on Middlesbrough, the club it beat more than a week ago to reach the Final).  Sunday and Monday are a lot freer, but I was hoping to fuck ****e one of those days and stay in the other, and I want to do both so badly that I consider seeing my cousin one of those days, as convenient that it might be, a frustrating spanner in the works.  I don't want to say I would rather not see my cousin, but ...

I'm getting over myself.  For one thing, all this soccer watching is still up in the air; Sunday, for example, is Decision Day in the EPL.  If Tottenham Hotspur is still in jeopardy of being relegated, I'm going out to watch it at a pub that morning, and in that case I probably won't have any time to myself at home this weekend.  Still, I'm looking for some solace, and I have to look to the workweek for that, too.  My plan during the workweek was to go out last/Monday night because I had a gas coupon that was going to expire, so I might as well work on my receipts and eat out.  Tonight/Tuesday night and tomorrow/Wednesday night I would stay in, finally.  Thursday I would, for the first time ever, go out to the State Fair, which now opens for Memorial Weekend.  Then Friday's the speakeasy.

That was all shot to hell when I came home from work last/Monday night.  Taped onto my screen door was a notice from the city.  They're doing something with the main sewer line tomorrow/Wednesday.  Between 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening, I am not supposed to use any water at all in the house.  Well, fuck.  I might as well not go home after work.  So, what to do?  How about go to the speakeasy then?  I don't want to "celebrate" summer two days early, but frankly, it makes a lot of sense to just do this tomorrow/Wednesday night.  Not only would I give the city time to not mess up the house's sewer system, going out (instead of staying in) tomorrow/Wednesday night frees up Friday night for me to hang with my cousin and cousin once removed.  Looking at it that way, a lot of problems get solved.

So I'm being a social butterfly again.  Yippee ... ?

(Aside: I am working the early shift at work today/Tuesday.  I should be in bed instead of blog posting this.  Anyway, if I get done with work early, well, it would theoretically allow me to go exercise at a decent hour in the evening.  Yeah, golly, I can do that.  But on that announcement by the city, I am supposed to pour water down all my drains in anticipation of this sewer line cut tomorrow/Wednesday.  It may not take up a whole lot of time, but if I'm doing that, I might as well do other chores ... like go through my stuff, finally.  Yeah, I need to get in shape, but if I really want to go home -- well, I should just do this, huh?  Might as well salvage one night to do nothing.)

Dealing With Too Much E-Mail

I tried.  OK, I kind of didn't.  I had the occasional impulse to go through my e-mails and see which ones I wanted to read and which ones I could delete.  But once that urge went, it didn't, or hasn't come back for months, if not years.

At its worst, I had 100,000 unread e-mails unread in my main inbox.  Nearly all of them are political donation e-mails, and goddammit, I totally regret ever donating to those campaigns, though I'm mad mostly because my side lost.  But the donation e-mails haven't stopped.  There was a time I could go through every single e-mail that I got each and every day.  But once those donation e-mails hit my inbox, I couldn't.  So I thought I could let it go for one day ... except one day became two, and then it became a week, then a month, and then 100,000 unread e-mails.

What finally forced my hand several months ago was that Yahoo! Mail said I was bumping up against my storage limit.  Though theoretically I would eventually have to worry about the limit with all the non-political e-mails I still have in my inbox since Day One, it's all those fucking donation e-mails that have taken up all my storage space.  So, with the proverbial gun cocked and aimed at my head, I finally had the excuse to say fuck it, I'll just delete e-mails without looking at them.

But how to do that?  Going through individual e-mails to make sure they were political ones defeats the purpose of a mass delete, so I went with deleting by keyword.  But which one?  I wasn't feeling a sense of urgency.  But I knew, deep down, that I wanted to just get under this limit as quickly as possible, so I just wanted to find one keyword, zap all the e-mails with that keyword even if some innocent and non-political ones get swept up, and be done with it.

I profess I didn't think too long and hard over the one word I decided to use -- "donate."  It seemed to be the one word in every political e-mail I had.  After all, the point of those e-mails is to ask for money.  So I searched for "donate," clicked the all e-mails box, and deleted away.  Yahoo! Mail gives you a box with a final warning.  In this case, it told me that I was going to delete, say, 100 e-mails -- and then gives me the option of deleting, like, 10,000 more e-mails that also have the word "donate" somewhere in the body.  And I'm all, OK!  And Yahoo! Mail actually had to take a few minutes, but those 10,000 e-mails were gone ... and yet there were more even more e-mails in my inbox that had the keyword "donate" but weren't deleted yet.  So I had to go through this cycle two or three more times before it apparently found and killed off all the e-mails with "donate."

Got to be honest: I'm happy.  I was never going to go through the e-mails in the way my ideal self wanted to because I simply didn't have the time nor the inclination.  This massive kill-off is untidy and inaccurate, but it quickly got me down below the limit.  And I had bumped up against that limit a couple more times not too long after this first time, but I guess I had more e-mails with "donate," so zap! they went.  Finally, I'm under, and hopefully for good (so long as I get rid of the political e-mails that will infect my inbox after I die).  I know that I will be sentimental for e-mails that I really, really wanted to keep but unfortunately had "donate" somewhere in the body of that e-mail ... that is if and when I ever realize they're gone.  But I finally dealt with too much e-mail in a way that, if I were telling the truth to myself, I really like and wanted to do.

Seizing An Opportunity, Or Throwing Money Away?

I have to admit I haven't been going through my stuff as much as I thought I would now that my parents have been gone for almost four months.  And when I say "as much," I mean almost not at all.  I hadn't even looked at the boxes I brought in from storage until Monday night, and even then I have only thrown one piece of paper away because I had a duplicate sheet of paper with the exact same information on it.

Meanwhile, the shit in my storage unit keeps piling up.  It is way over my head now.  Moreover, there are containers I've bought that are precariously on top of paper bags of my stuff that probably have shifted.  It's all too much, obviously, and beyond the fact that I need the will to go through it all and the time in which to think and to, if I want, peruse all the magazines and other reading material that make up the vast majority of my stuff, I need some space in which to move stuff around.  Can't do that now that my 5x5 is just about full.

So that is why I had been thinking, for some time, about getting another storage unit.  And I really, really want to get one for the short term, just to give me that space.  Yes, famous last words, but I'm too hemmed in to do stuff right now.  And besides, if I had two storage units, I could literally re-do my storage unit so that, once I am ready to go back down to one, I would have everything in the unit I want to keep all tidy and organized because I would have a spot in which I could reorganize everything.  As much as I would like to go through my things in my basement, it'd be much better if I could do it all in one building.  Having another storage unit there helps me do that.

I finally began looking to see if the unit place had another unit open.  They did, and the 5x10, which would have been perfect, was put up on special, like a 33% discount if you paid for half a year.  But I had till the end of the month, or Friday, to rent it.  After thinking for several days about whether I want to sink a few hundred more dollars into a storage unit I may be keeping for the long term (if I were being honest with myself), I decided, yes, this would spur me into finally getting my butt into gear and to actually go through my stuff.

Last/Tuesday night I went online to rent the 5x10 ... and the deal was gone.  The unit was there, but the only price point available was a month-to-month, and it was expensive.  However, there was just one more 5x5 available at that same 33% discount and which also expired on Friday.  It's not what I wanted; instead, I'm getting the exact same-sized unit.  But still, it doubles the amount of space in which I can store my stuff (temporarily, I say to myself).  Do I pass this by?  Do I wait and potentially allow someone else to get this?  Finally, do I say to myself I'll think it over and then completely forget about it by Friday?

The amount at which I'm getting the unit is a relative steal.  I don't know how much it would be if I need to extend use of the second unit for another half-year, but I won't have to deal with that problem until just before Halloween.  So I got it.  I don't exactly know where it is, but if it's not right across from the unit I have now, it's close.  I'm imagining spending an afternoon being productive by shuttling between units, throwing things away, reading magazines all by myself, and finally putting order to chaos.

Or will I?  I still have several boxes of things I haven't gone through downstairs, and it's been four months.  I might swing by the unit place (with the circle lock -- which, I should say, I bought on Sunday anticipating my decision to rent out this second storage unit) and start ... or I might push it off till this weekend ... or do it next weekend ... or next month ... or never, and I will have wasted hundreds of dollars because I just didn't want to expend the energy to do the thing I know, deep down, I should do.  But if I do do this, I needed to get this rental now while it's on sale.  Otherwise, if I decide I need a second storage unit later, it'll cost me even more money.  Or, I could just tell myself I could just finally get around to looking through my stuff and, you know, do what I promised myself I would do.

What I do or don't do about this situation will tell me a lot about myself, I'm afraid.

Well, ******a texted me out of the blue and said that she can finally massage.  Before she said we'd shoot for Saturday, but this afternoon she told me she could come over tonight!  No exercise for me today, but that's OK if she's going to rub me down!

Seriously, I'm not looking for anything.  The furthest I'll go is getting completely naked for her, which is how I usually am for any massage.  If she says yes, I'm totally happy.  I would expect a normal, clean massage from then on out.  If there's anything more than that ... well, that would be a complete surprise.

I'm just hoping that I don't scare her off -- either by asking if I can be completely unclothed or, more likely, by all the stuff that's strewn around the house.  I hope she doesn't hate messy.

I Need To Stop Worrying About Bad Things That Might Happen And Instead Celebrate The Good Things That Actually Happen

Had to call Mother last/Monday night because there were a lot of bills that came in.  There were also a couple letters I thought she needed to know.  One of them dealt with a credit card that is about to close if my parents don't use them soon.  She told me to put it in a bag for mail she needs to look at "When she comes back home."  And I realized that it's been three months since they left and, even though I believe them when they say they're going to stay out in Las Vegas a little longer than they usually do, eventually they are going to come back.  And that makes me sad.  Not only have I not done a damn thing in regards to going through all my stuff, but I like living here on my own, as I usually do when they're wintering.  Them coming back, whenever that is, truly feels like an invasion of privacy.  And I will rue the day when they tell me they're returning here.

But I get down like that even though I don't know when that'll be -- or, and maybe I'm thinking wishfully, if they come back.  I know I need to look at the bright side -- very bright side in the case of Michigan winning the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament later last night.  That means I have won about a grand in this big bracket pool I've competed in for the past two decades.  While I always play hoping I would win, never in my wildest dreams would I think I could beat out almost 1,300 entries to place, get this, fourth.  Sure, I would have rather won and pocketed the five-figure jackpot along with it.  But I was much, much closer to the bottom for last year's Big Dance.  Honestly, I am more proud of myself for finishing in 4th place in this than getting my degree.

That's something worth celebrating, and if I celebrate hard enough, I'll forget that one day, and maybe soon, my parents will come back home.