Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

I thought I knew what I was doing after I fixed (I think) two others.  Next up was checking the arcs for a different cycle, also in the front yard.  Yesterday/Sunday afternoon I did, and I was OK with all but one, which was arcing in both directions so much that it was clearly wetting our driveway twice.

Learning what I learned before, I made sure to wait until the water got absorbed into the dirt enough to clearly twist off the head.  I oriented the arc so that its right-most would line up with the edge of the grassline bordering the driveway and no farther.  From there, I put in the key that shortens the arc to its left.  I had the cycle going on for 15 minutes, giving me plenty of time to see how far this head would go and either cut it or lengthen it so that it wouldn't sprinkle water on the driveway.

And I got it done.  It was perfect.  So, I pulled the key out of the top of the sprinkler head ... and the goddamn, motherfucking whole thing came out.  Without the sprinkler head, the water was coming out of just the open end of a pipe, so it just looked like water coming out of the ground.  I needed to stop it; fortunately, by the time I got to the garage, there was only one minute left in the cycle.  Water dribbled its way down to the street, but it stopped before it got really, really bad.

Swear to God I screwed it in.  But I have to admit that I had trouble when I didn't think I would have to worry about lining up the threads.  And for the goddamn life of me, I couldn't screw the fucking sprinkler head back in a second time.  I don't know what it was.  The threads at the bottom of the head seemed to be fine.  It's hard to look five inches deep into the grass, but I think the threads at the open end of the pipe are just fine.

There is only problem I could see, and it might be a big one.  There was dirt on and in the open end of the pipe.  I was able to scrape off enough so there was nothing blocking the threads so that I could screw in the sprinkler head -- I think; shit, I thought I did that the first fucking time, but apparently not.  The issue is that opening should be completely clean.  No dirt at all should be on or in it, because if there is, it would block the flow of water coming up through the pipe and into the sprinkler head.  I don't have a way of completely cleaning that opening, so now I have to wait until I have time (probably tomorrow/Tuesday evening, assuming it isn't raining) to turn on the cycle and see if water is flowing freely through that sprinkler head.  If it isn't ... shit, man, I could see enough pressure building that the goddamn head flies up in the air, or hits one of the cars, or dents the house, or conks some neighbor who's just walking.  If it's that bad, that sprinkler head is unusable, and since I can't turn off a sprinkler head, that whole cycle has to be shut down until, I don't know, I get the company to do what it does in order to blow out all the dirt that's in that pipe.

Motherfucking Christ, why in the fuck do we have this goddamn sprinkler system, huh?  In particular, I hate that My Fucking Father has saddled me with the responsibility of maintaining it.  It wasn't my goddamn idea to install a whole fucking system which, by the way, I have only used to only water the lawn only, like, four times so far (I've turned it on way more times to fix the arcs one some of the heads, a practice I'll continue to do until they're all correct).  He got off on something that made him feel like a tried and true homeowner, but the silly and stupid details like fixing this shit?  No, I deal with that because that bullshit is beneath him.

Let's go beyond that: Why do we have lawns?  Why do we need to constantly need to tend to grass?  What is giving a lawn a crew cut proving?  I think we do it just to keep up appearances, and as you all know, I don't give a good goddamn about keeping up appearances.  Fuckin' A, man, you should see how brown my lawns are.  And I don't care, and I don't have my parents here to make me care.

But now I have to fucking find some time to check out this sprinkler head and hope it's screwed on tight enough that it won't go flying from all the water pressure and smash one of my car windows or kill a stranger.  Oh yeah, then I have to hope that it still has the arc that I want.  This is just a frustrating pain-in-the-ass, man.  I just wanted to take the key out of it, that's all. ...

My Sprinkler Head-Fixing Issues Apparently Continue

I have become obsessed (at times) with fixing the arc of the heads of the sprinkler system Father put in years ago.  When I see the cycle, most of the heads arc so far that they wet the sidewalks, curbs and, eek, the neighbor's driveway.  And so I have looked at the instructions to see how to fix that.

In case you don't know, the system comes with a key.  I had been using the metal, hex-style end to put into one of the holes on the top of each head; I twist it one way or the other and that is supposed to shorten the left-most side of the arc.  Alas, the arc didn't change.  After carefully reading the instructions, I realized that I needed to use the other end, the plastic end that's wider and have notches on the end.

I did that ... and it's gotten worse.  Not only do the heads (and I only tried to fix two of them; there are several others I still need to get to) still water pavement, they arc even further, jutting out onto the street and well into my neighbor's driveway.  I'm scared as hell one of the sprinklers will hit my neighbor as they're walking to the car, or they'll see their car drenched in water and that'll piss them off.  Worse off, the right-most side of the arc is different, too.  You can't use that key to fix the right side.  Instead, you have to literally take out the sprinkler head and re-orient it so that its right-most extent lines up with the edge of the grass you want to water.  I was able to twist off one of them, and I thought I had put it in correctly, but now that's watering my walkway.  I think it's hitting the side of the house, too.

Add that those sprinkler heads are a bitch to take out of the ground -- you have to dig around the head, and sometimes twisting and pulling them is difficult, and by the way, I was unable to find the ones I tried to fix without turning on the cycle so that the heads pop out from the dirt and grass that seemingly was buried above them, and that's a pain in the ass -- and after a bit more failed tinkering (I did all of this on Wednesday because I came home from work early), I quit.  Maybe I'll try again Sunday.  But even though the grass is yellow and crusty, I dare not turn on the sprinklers now, now that I've made a slightly bad situation a lot worse.  I just need to fix these damn things.

Why Did I Think Cleaning The Condenser Unit Would Be Easy?

When it comes to maintaining the AC, I didn't think it would be hard.  I studied up on cleaning the condenser unit.  What I did not take into account is screwing back in the lid.  I should have, because screwing things back in is never as easy as unscrewing them.

This whole rigmarole surrounding cleaning the outdoor unit was a pain in the ass.  I had to first get the water system up and running.  I got everything set up in the backyard, but forgot that the gate valve in the basement had to be turned on, and when I did, I heard this scary as hell banging as the water started flowing.  And then I went outside and the pipe leading to the spigot (where I hooked up the hose I used to rinse the unit) was dripping water like crazy.  I thought there was a bad leak, but it stopped, so (shrug).

I then was able to unplug the condenser.  I was able to yank the, and I just learned this is what it was called yesterday on YouTube, the cartridge in the outdoor breaker, and then the cartridge in the main circuit breaker in the basement.  Unscrewing the cover to get inside the condenser was easy.  Applying the cleaner seemed fine, even though I though there would be a lot more froth.  And the hose worked in rinsing off the cleaner.  But goddammit, I kept lining up the lid, but the holes through which I had to screw the screws wouldn't line up for all five screws.  I was getting both frustrated and hot, and that's not a good combination, so I went back inside to eat the rest of my chicken wrap and cool off.  I tried again, got three screws in, then said screw it with the other two screws.  Everything works and I finally turned on the air conditioning for the first time this year.  But I have two screws extra.

My bedroom is right above the unit.  I don't think it's noisier than it would be if it had all five screws in.

Goddamn, Car Trouble Fucks Everything Up

Man, don't you hate it when you have to stop everything just because of car trouble?  OK, I am exaggerating what happened and didn't happen yesterday/Tuesday, but it's still a pain in the ass.

So I go out to sleep in my car at work for my lunch break.  My paranoid eyes always makes me think I'm seeing something that's not there, but on this day, they latched onto something unusual and, turns out, scary: A bulge/blister/bump on my passenger-side tire.  Honestly, I didn't think anything of it.  I just thought I needed to deflate the air in that overinflated tire (didn't help), and then I went inside my car to nap.  But that bubble concerned me anyway, so I had to go to my cell and Google, "is it dangerous to have a bump on the side of your tire?"  And all the entries in the search said, "Hell yes, it's fucking dangerous!"

(Aside: I seem to have more problems with tires on this car than I ever had with my old one.  Is it because it's a subcompact whose tires are naturally lower profile?  I remember getting one of my tires punctured the Friday before Labor Weekend, and now this.  By the way, that bubble is probably the result of hitting one pothole, or one too many potholes.  Goddamn potholes.)

After making a couple calls to see if I could get a tire after work, I decided that after work I needed to swap out that tire for the spare.  But dammit, my mechanic screwed those lug nuts in so tight I couldn't loosen them.  I did not believe at all that I needed to call AAA, but because I am too weak, I had to.  Luckily, even during afternoon rush hour traffic and him helping me being led astray by his Google Maps, the guy who was about to save me arrived at work after one hour.  The last time I called AAA (and I think it was when I had to stop the minivan around St. Thomas for what was a broken alternator), it was at least twice that long.  And after using WD-40 and a long-handle lug nut remover to get as much torque working, he got the bad tire off.  Roadside assistants are angels, they truly are.

Also angels are, I now realize, the only car mechanic in the neighborhood that's open evenings.  Why aren't there more car shops that are open evenings, or weekends for that matter?  Cars don't break down at night or on weekends?  Anyway, the place I babied my car to was the only one around the area open at 7 at night.  And even though they couldn't get the same exact tire for me that evening, they can do so this morning.  Also, they did what I asked them to: Check the other tires to make sure they're fine, and to check the air pressure on the spare (even though I asked the roadside assistant to check and to pump it up.  I always forget to check the air in the spare).

So I talked about having plans ruined.  Specifically, I wanted to eat at either Culver's or Potbelly, two places where I can get free dessert for my birthday.  I then wanted to go home, look through the mail, call Mother about the mail if need be, then maybe nap before I caught the 8 o'clock showing of Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come.  But after I got everything arranged for the (hopefully) quick tire swap this morning, I got my car back, spare tire still affixed, and I still had time to make the movie.  I didn't feel completely safe that I could drive to the theater to watch when I could, and maybe should, drive back home.  But a mixture of relief that people were able to help me and defiance that I didn't want my car trouble to stop me from the fun I planned on having compelled me to get to the movie.  And I made it in time.  And the film was ... um, bloody and profane, but OK, just like the first one.

One problem after I left the shop and before I went into the theater.  I locked the door with the key fob, but I didn't see the light flicker on indicating everything got locked.  I then noticed that the hood was slightly open.  Now I noticed when I was at the shop, looking through the window into the bay where the mechanics were looking at my car, that the hood was opened up, presumably for the guys to go through their customary check of everything in my car even though I was just there to get a tire replaced.  I didn't think anything else of it, though, because I assumed they would slam the hood shut.  But they didn't.  I didn't drive really fast; you're not supposed to on a spare, plus I used side streets to get from the mechanic to the theater.  But I realized that I drove several miles with the hood open.  The hood of my old car flew open while I was driving to the gym a baker's dozen years ago, and that was the scariest fucking thing that's happened to me on the road ... well, OK, maybe top five.  My point is is that it seems very, very dangerous to drive with the hood open.  I don't think anything got ruined, and yet I feel my car is beyond repair because I drove it with the hood open.  Look, if anything did get damaged, I probably won't know till much, much later.  Fuckin' A, man -- these guys were quick, and they treated me well.  But they fucking forgot to slam my fuckin' hood shut?!

No, I probably won't bring it up.  Again, if there's damage because I drove with the hood open, how would I know?  Oh, well, you take the head-slappingly bad with the good when you're in a jam.  Hopefully they can just get me my new tire and do so quickly and easily.

When Second-Guessing Is The Right Thing To Do

When I leave for work in the morning, I frequently forget something to which I need to shut down the car, open the front door to my house, and disarm the alarm in order to retrieve what I left behind.  It's usually my cellphone, so it's a pain-in-the-ass to do my steps backwards and then do them all over again once I find my phone.

This time around, once I turned my car on I forgot something else, namely an envelope Mother asked me to stuff with tax forms that had to be delivered here and not to my parents' condo in Las Vegas.  I wondered when I would have the time to get to a post office to send it.  We've been so busy at work that swinging by the post office close to me would be fruitless because they would be closed by the time I'm free.  I thought Sunday would be the earliest I could do it; I would be able to go down to ****e's place for a little screw time, then in the afternoon I could go to the post office at MSP before going home.

Two things wrong with that.  First, and I don't remember when I checked, that post office branch isn't exactly on the way back.  I would have to deviate east for a bit, then jog back west in order to head north.  Second, I would be downtown both last/Tuesday night (for a concert) and tonight/Wednesday night (for a Golden Gopher baseball Game).  The downtown post office closes in the evening, so if I get out of work early enough, I'd be able to go to the post office, mail the envelope to My Mother, then do whatever I want downtown because I'm already there.

In anticipation of that, I was going to throw that envelope filled with Mother's tax forms in my bookbag so I would have it with me if I had the time to send it.  But, alas, I forgot.  Oftentimes I would remember once I am more than halfway to work, and for those time I just mentally shrug and say to myself I'll do it tomorrow.  But once I remembered the envelope after I started my car, I just kept thinking that the moonshot of leaving work with enough time to mail the envelope and then go to the concert was a risk worth taking.  So, I turned off my car, went back inside, disarmed the alarm and picked up the envelope.

And good thing, too.  While I had to stay late at work, it wasn't late enough where I couldn't still get to the post office, pay to ship the envelope, find another parking spot, and walk for almost a mile to the club to get to the concert, which began at the strange hour of 6.  And so I did all that, and I caught the last couple songs of the first of three acts and the entirety of the other two (with a DJ filling in the set changes while stagehands haul off musical equipment).  Plenty of time.  Now, I think about how badly I would have screwed myself if I remembered the envelope before driving off to work but said whatever.  Glad I trundled back inside, because a sizable chore for Mother has been done.

The Main Reason I Think I Hate MLS' "Flip"

Back in mid-November, Major League Soccer announced that they are going to change the schedule of the league.  Ever since its inception in 1996, they started play some time in the spring (in '96 it was April; now it begins late February or early March) and ends some time in early December.  But this Year, the 30th Year of MLS, will be the last under this calendar year format.  After playing a four-month "spring season" in the spring of 2027, MLS will align its year with pretty much every soccer league in every country on Earth, where they start late summer and end around Memorial Weekend.

Not too long ago, I heard the Commissioner for MLS say that he didn't think that would be a good idea, and I think his main reason was that so many northern cities (such as Minnesota United) would be affected by figuring out how to deal with a part of the summer-to-spring season that makes outdoor Matches well nigh impossible to stage in the winter.  Guess he changed his mind, and I guess that not sticking out like an outlier, especially when it comes to trying to bring in players through Transfer Windows that are, right now, a bit awkward, was enough of a reason to do this wholesale change.

At first blush, I hate this as a season-ticket holder.  The idea that players didn't want to join a club in MLS during the middle of our season or the middle of the season of the league they're coming from is still too abstract for me to care about.  But another plus the Commissioner claimed would make the new calendar better is that Major League Soccer would get away from having its postseason run right into the National Football League and college football.  True -- and I still don't think it's a good enough reason to do, as some people are calling it, "The Flip."  Yes, football (mostly professional but college matters too) is the most popular sport in the country.  But it's their regular season; MLS has conducted its postseason late in the fall.  I will go to lengths to see a postseason Loons Match in person (I have skipped out on Game-watching events in the past) because they are the most important Matches on the schedule, and I think diehard fans of other MLS squads have done and would do the same.

Conversely, the commish also says that putting MLS' playoffs in May is a lot less crowded.  No, it isn't.  The NBA Playoffs and The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are also played in May.  Basketball and hockey are not the behemoth that American football is.  But you cannot convince me that soccer has a chance to stick out and rise above the din at a time those two leagues also have their postseasons.  When the Games matter most, MLS will take a backseat to both the NBA and NHL, every Year.  (And hell, to be honest with you, the NHL takes a backseat to the NBA every May, too.)  Major League Soccer is not running from a crowded part of the year; it's running to a crowded part of the year.  And I don't think it's going to work.  So on second blush, I still hate this.

Another point I considered: I thought that there would be Matches played through the winter, and we would thus have to have a few or even several of them played during the holidays.  Then MLS announced that there will be an annual two-Month Winter Break from mid-December to mid-February, and then on top of that there will be special considerations to limit the number of Games played here in December and February to one or two.

But I decided to think further.  What about this Winter Break?  It's good for the safety of players and fans, no doubt.  But what sports league do you know builds in a two-Month break in its season?  Wouldn't that feel like two separate seasons?  And what happens if, for example, MNUFC just sucks for the first part of the Year?  Would anyone want to come back and see the final part of the season if the Loons blow?  (Major League Soccer anticipates that 2/3 of the season is completed before Winter Break and the final third is completed once play resumes and into the end of April, which is supposed to be when the regular season will end.)  This has the potential to be a momentum killer.

Another point of concern comes in the fall.  I am very busy during American football season.  I work Vikings and Golden Gophers Games, and I organize Game-watching parties for my alma mater.  These conflicts have been in place since Minnesota United started MLS play in 2017, so it's nothing new.  Still, it's a pain in the ass to, for example, wait for when my alma mater announces the time of their Game in two Weeks and figure out whether I could travel from downtown Minneapolis to Midway to see my Loons, or if it's worth it to catch only the Second Half of the MNUFC Match, or if I need to sell my ticket.  Usually, one to three of my season tickets are casualties to these circumstances each year.

The announcement didn't say, but I wonder, assuming there will be at least as many Matches in a regular season as there currently are now, if there will be more Matches played in the fall.  So I have looked at the upcoming season, looked through my Franklin Quests for the past few years, and jotted down how many autumn Matches there have been from 2022 to this season, which would be ones subject to either work or play conflicts due to American football.

2026 home Games in the fall I have to worry about skipping: 5

2025: 3

2024: 3

2023: 4

2022: 1

There are tons of caveats here.  Major League Soccer has frequently shifted their seasons, and put in breaks during the middle of them, if there have been other worldwide soccer conflicts, such as the World Cup and continental tournaments, so there will be years more Matches had to be piled into the autumn.  Also, I wanted to go back all the way to 2017, but I realized that 2021 and 2020 were severely impacted by the pandemic -- I couldn't go at all in 2020, and I think I started going to Games late in the summer of 2021 -- and so it didn't make sense to go back even further.  Finally, we don't have the 2027-8 schedule out yet, of course, so we don't know if there will be a concentration of Matches in the fall.  Still, while I have no evidence this will get worse under the new calendar, I will go with my gut and believe it will be.

But I realized something further. It may not be the fall that impacts my season-ticket status the most, but the summer.  Major League Soccer says it'll conduct its postseason in May, and the league will begin its new season in mid-July.  Assuming MNUFC won't host Games for the playoffs or even make the playoffs (and I would contend that the league is rapidly creating a Haves/Have-nots hierarchy not unlike The English Premier League, and undoubtedly my Loons ain't gonna be a Have), there won't be Matches for me to go to between May and mid-July.

How many Matches have taken place in that time period?  I went back through my FQs and checked:

2026 home Games between May (the scheduled month for postseason, which the Loons obviously are not guaranteed to play, let alone play any home Matches) and mid-July (the approximate start of the new season format): 3

2025: 6

2024: 6

2023: 6

2022: 5

More caveats here.  The three Matches this season is because MLS needs to take a break for the World Cup.  Also, Minnesota United FC salespeople have been trying to emphasize they are going to fill this hole with pre-season Matches and Friendlies against clubs from other countries, which should be easier once MLS' preseason aligns with so many other leagues' preseasons.  But you can tell that it's not the same.  I actually love going to Loons Games during the late spring and early summer.  There's not much to do, the weather is heating up, and I have enjoyed many Matches with other Loons fans this time of Year.

And then I realized that this is the part of the season that I will miss, and that this is the reason why this new calendar sucks.  And there is little to no chance that there will be any attempt that will be adequate to fill this hole.  So now what?  Well, first of all, because I care about the integrity of the season, I would like to suggest a split-season not unlike what Mexico's Liga MX does.  Every Year they have, basically, two Years: An "Apertura" (opening) season that goes from July to just before the holidays, and a "Clausura" (closing) season that goes from early January to Memorial Weekend.  OK, so you have two champions a Year.  Big deal; that means there is no yawning two-Month gap in a season you're determined to say lasts ten Months.  For this to happen, Major League Soccer would have to have only a one-Month break, and Minnesota United would probably have to play a few Matches in January and February.  Would I watch them in person?  Maybe, maybe not.  But at least the season would make a whole lot more sense.

Beyond that, I don't know what to think.  Well, I said a long time ago that unless I die, move, lose my job, or determine the organization has done something that so offends my moral code, I won't be dropping my season ticket.  I didn't add some sort of force majeure clause when I declared that, but I sure as hell didn't think they'd do The Flip, either.  So I think I'll give it a year, to see how many more Matches I might have to miss in the fall, and how many times from May to mid-July I'll be bored out of my skull because there's no important MNUFC Game to go to.  If it doesn't make sense to spend money on a season ticket -- and that price keeps going up every Year -- maybe I'll be forced to downgrade my season ticket package ... or say goodbye.

Something Fun Shouldn't Be This Fucking Inconvenient

So I am doing this escape room with my brother, sister and niece tonight.  I want to look forward to it because it's, well, a fun thing to do, and I am doing something with my siblings, and I don't remember the last time I've ever done anything fun with them, let alone my niece.

Doing it tonight, however is a pain in the ass.  I work in The Fourth Position today, all by myself.  I need to get the work done because there is nobody else doing it today, and no one doing that job at all tomorrow.  For that reason, there is a chance I will be late.  I communicated my worry with my sibs.  But instead of offering a compromise, my brother just bought the goddamn tickets for tonight on his own.  I will probably have to leave stuff for one of my co-workers to do tomorrow, and that's not a good feeling to saddle someone with work to do when you had the chance to do it yourself.  I certainly wouldn't want one of them drop crap on my lap, but turnabout is fair play, and that is what I'm going to invite if I don't do all the work by myself today.

I have a Friday off coming up.  We certainly could have done the escape room then.  I can't see why we couldn't wait and do it then.  But nope, my brother said we're playing Friday.  So I have to fucking drop every goddamn thing and race to the escape room.  And I guess I shouldn't complain too much because my brother's the one buying the tickets, huh?

Moreover, my plan was to leave work early, go home, grab my sister and then go.  Going from work to home takes me in the opposite direction of the escape room, but that seemed to be the only way for all of us to play this game.  (It also necessitated me leaving work early if need be.)  This is the part that pisses me off.  While watching my alma mater's women's soccer team, I WhatsApped my sister that if I am able to get home in time, we have to immediately leave home to get to the escape room on time.  Then, she countered that she wants to go to the mall by herself.  She needs time to do that.  And, she wants to take my car.  I would then take my parents' very old van and meet her and my brother and my niece at the mall and the escape room in the evening.  Well, shit.

Being blindsided by her decision the day before fucking sucks.  I had to spend five minutes after I got home from the soccer Match taking out all the stuff I need to drive to work (sunglasses, sun visor, tire gauge to check the minivan's tires).  Also, this is the second time this week I've had to settle on the van while she gets to drive the newer car.  I sleep for lunch, and that's very hard to do in the van because the sun streams in through the windows; it gets hot and the radiation burns my skin.  It's no problem in my car because I have window shields that are fitted for my car's windows.  I obviously don't have them for the minivan, so I will probably be tired by the time we start the escape room because I haven't had my midday nap.  But worst of all is that I have to take this minivan in afternoon rush to the Mall of America.  Truthfully, I have no reason to believe it won't make it down there and back.  But it is a very old car, and I haven't driven it that far in some time, let alone driving it during afternoon rush.  There are certain aspects of this drive that will be foreign to me, and I hate needing to "learn" like this when my sister didn't have to shop by herself, and my brother didn't have to make the escape room tonight.  In other words, I think I am going to get into a car crash, or the van's engine is going to overheat, and I will fail to make it to the escape room.  It just feels like everything is getting set up this way.

Hate this.  Hate this all.  And I'm supposed to be having fun tonight, not feeling inconvenienced!

Fuck, They're Gonna Be Here Forever ...

First of all, I was wrong about what Mother has.  She doesn't have sciatica in her hip; she has a torn meniscus.  Ouch!  And second of all, the worst-case scenario is happening.  You don't magically go in, have knee surgery, and leave the same day like it's outpatient surgery.  In fact, I know that they need to be scheduled, and they need to be scheduled weeks in advance.

And goddammit, that's the case here.  My Mother is getting surgery Thanksgiving Week.  And as I feared, there is going to be a minimum of eight fucking weeks before she can fly out of here.  Moreover, there is an entire schedule of visits -- a couple before the surgery, many rehab and physical therapy sessions after it -- that have to be assembled around the surgery date.  I totally get that, but the fusillade of post-op sessions, not to mention the date of the surgery itself, means that ... goddammit, they're going to be here through January.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Everything is ruined, man, everything.  This obviously means I won't get to hang out with my wang out during the holiday season.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's -- I'm going to have to holster my pee-pee, continue to hide my porn, and worry about how they fucking feel.  (I know that at some point I'll be bursting to go to a stripper party and get turned out by a stripper.  It's just so weird to do it while My Fucking Parents are in town.)  I can't make cocktails for myself for four months.  I won't have the mental space to figure out the storage situation, which is still up in the air, and since they probably will leave in late January, it doesn't give me much time to figure out a drastic plan if my current situation is no longer tenable.  I have a lease through the end of March, and I might have to haul shit out of a 5' x 5' stall, and that will take a lot of time.

And yeah, sure, what really matters is how My Mother feels.  I need to know her schedule because, shit, I have to help out when I can.  Problem is is that with work, I don't know how much I can be of help.  I don't think I can drive her to every single rehab visit she'll have.  And this is wintertime -- what happens if there is a huge snowstorm on a day she's supposed to go in for physical therapy?  Fuckin' A, I really didn't want her to do this here in Minnesota.  I mean, I think the health system here is much better than most other places, but she needs to walk around after getting her knee fixed, and she can't do it in the snowy and icy roads of a Minnesota winter.

Worse than that is my sister.  I honestly thought that she would be the one helping Mother rehab.  She's not doing anything now, so she has the time to assist her with her exercises and taking her to physical therapy.  But, and I need to talk to her about this, now that we have a surgery date, it looks as though she is making plans to leave.  Dammit, man, I hate that all of this planning might fall on me.  I'm too much of a dick to be of any use.  And knowing My Mother will be in pain means that she will become a huge pain-in-the-ass the first week or so after surgery, where I'm told the pain will be at its worst.  I will have to deal with a bitch for the next four goddamn months, yet I don't know how to handle a bitch who is in physical pain.

The only solace I have is that My Mother is on a waitlist.  If there is a cancellation, this surgery can be moved up.  And My Mother wants this surgery done, like, yesterday.  If by some miracle this can be done next week (and I wonder if that's even possible given that there are two pre-op visits; doesn't there have to be some time between these visits and the surgery?), we all would jump at the chance.  But it probably won't happen, which means I'm fucking stuck with these two reasons I want to kill myself.

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?

My Schedule Couldn't Be Any Worse This Week

For the second time in two weeks, I am seeing a Wednesday night MNUFC Match on a day where I have to report early to work.  Because I now am expected to go into the lab an hour earlier than before, I have to get to work at 6:30, much earlier than I would than if I were in The Third or Fourth Department.  Furthermore, my days where I have to go into the lab is tied to my position as keyer, meaning there is virtually no chance I would stay beyond a shift in that position, which is around 3.  If I were in The Third or Fourth Department, not only would I be able to come into work at 8 (meaning I can get 90 more minutes of rest), I am virtually assured that the work that gets piled onto my desk would be enough to stay so that by the time I am done, it would be time to get to the Match.  (Actually, there's a greater chance that there would be so much work that I would have to leave some till the next day if I wanted to get to the Loons Match on time.)

But for the second time in three Wednesdays, I am facing a gap of 4 1/2 hours between the end of my workday and the Match for which I am a season ticket holder.  That's a hell of a long time to kill.  What could I do?  Sleep would be best, but in the middle of a broiling summer I doubt I will be able to take a good, long nap in my car.  Do I eat when I plan on eating and drinking at the Game?  I can go to the library and get on the Internet, I guess, but for 4 1/2 hours?  That would make me tired enough to go to my car and sleep.

See, two Wednesdays ago, this wasn't a problem.  The Women's EUROS was still going on, and the Copa America Feminina just started.  Once I realized I could watch women's continental soccer, I actually punched out early so that I could drive all the way down to the Black Hart, catch the Second Half of Italy-Norway, see Brazil immolate Bolivia, then still have 90 minutes to kill, so I went back to my car, changed out of my shirt to put on my MNUFC jersey, then try to nap for half an hour before concluding it was useless and just going to the stadium.  If I was tired, I don't remember.

I will not have soccer to watch Wednesday afternoon/evening.  And I do not want to have a drink at a bar for 4 1/2 hours.  This has gotten to be such a pain in the ass that I have decided I can ... no, need to get a massage in that time period.  In situations like this where I am desperate to fill time with something productive, I want to kill two birds with one stone.  I have needed a massage for a long time, and it looks as though this yawning gap Wednesday is the perfect time to do it.  I even am OK going to the one I have been to a couple times in downtown Minneapolis even though I would have to zip across the Twin Cities to do so, then cross back to get to the Match.  But apparently they have no time slots open then.  I just looked at a Reddit thread of best massage places and I saw a couple on the St. Paul side.  The first one I honed in on also appears to not have space this Wednesday (although they have time slots around that time of the day today/Tuesday and Thursday -- what's the deal with Wednesday?)

The other possibility is a massage school, one I have never heard of.  Like I said, I am so desperate to fill up my time that I think I'm going to do it ... even though there's a good chance that some dude who may not know what he's doing is going to rub me down.  Not a fan.  But hey, I need to kill off 4 1/2 hours ... massage away!

Finally Cleaning All The Clothes (Maybe)

I think that the clothes in the dryer right now, as I type this, is the sixth load of laundry I have done in the last three days.  I try to be a stickler when it comes to following the washing and drying instructions.  Not only do you need to separate whites and darks (hey, don't give President Elon any ideas!!), you then have to separate them from whether it's supposed to be washed in warm water or cold.  Then you need to know whether it can be dried at a low setting or a medium one.  And then you have to worry about those "gentle cycle" pieces of clothing; they're living in a parallel universe.  Where a quick wash in warm water would be no big deal for, say, socks, no, these tops and thermal underwear need to be handled with care.  And handle it with care, dammit, or I'll slug you!

Confession: This sixth and final (maybe not -- I just have to freshen up the towels around here) load is just pieces of clothing that has something wrong with them.  They can be donated; in fact, the place I think I should go is right across the street from where my prom date was buried.  But maybe it's overkill to wash and fold clothes that you know you are going to give away.  But, maybe you want to give those clothes you're giving away, as well as the people taking care of them after I give the clothes to him/her/them, a sense of dignity, an acknowledgement that those clothing pieces did their job, kept me warm and (maybe) stylish, and for that, I am forever thankful.  It might be a pain-in-the-ass to think this way, but it's working.

Review And Preview

Not only did yesterday/Wednesday start early because I was filling in for someone, but I had to stay late, almost by an hour.  Sure as hell didn't anticipate that, but there is a new type of form for which we have to type out every single line of information, something we don't usually do.  Also, the background to these forms is dark, so the scan comes out as almost black, which means we need to manually zoom in on the scan to see each line of info we need to type out.  It's a pain-in-the-ass, and that's why I stayed later than I would have had to.

Still, I got out early enough to move up the time for Gladiator II from 7:30 to 4:50.  Review: It was a sequel.  Wish the fight scenes were better, and there needed to be more of them.  Hey, did you know that when they began to shoot Gladiator, they didn't have a script?  They finally got one together, but they were kind of waiting around in the beginning.  I think the story and plot were great in that one.  Assuming they had a script from the start of Gladiator II, I thought it was long and plodding.  But, if you want gore, this is your movie.

Through a deal on T-Mobile Tuesdays, I ate at Popeye's, decided my blackened Chicken Tenders and Popcorn Shrimp weren't enough, and ate some Dot's Pretzels.  This was after I decided not to order a drink from Popeye's because it was getting expensive.  Hell, even without this drink I spent more than ten bucks.  I need to work on that.

Anyway, after that I talked to Mother about the mail, watered Father's plants and, around 10:30, listened to my body and went to bed.  Woke up around 5:30.  Stopped my streak on Zynga Poker, but it was worth it.

Now, with my day off, I have to wake up by 11 to take my car to the dealership because I ordered a new spare key fob.  I also asked them to check the level of oil in my car in case I overfilled it.  Like I said before, I have made myself a target to getting ripped off.  Or -- and I am now scaring myself again, I realize -- they'll warn about something that feels plausible enough to scare me for the next or two as I debate whether and when to bring my car back in for repairs.  For example, I was warned the last time I took my car in (to my local shop in July) that the brakes probably need to be replaced the next time I come in.  So, if the dealership says, "Hey, your brakes are just about gone," I'll think, "Man, are they lying to me ... or could they be telling me the truth?  I don't know what to think!  I don't know who to trust!"

And then I plan on watching Conclave at the local theater.  I want to drive the minivan to put it through its paces, but I don't know if it can hold up in the coldest weather we've had so far.  Or, maybe I should use the minivan precisely for that reason.

That's how yesterday was, and how today might be.

Great Timing Has Just Run Out

So far this season, I have noticed that my alma mater's football Games, for which I organize Game-watching events, have been almost entirely free of conflicts.  I should back up: Our main bar, the place where we see Games most often (and have been for upwards of a decade), is also the watch bar of another university, one that is closer and thus has way more people coming into watch whenever their Games are on.  Furthermore, our place hosts UFC pay-per-view events, and the place gets so packed that it usually is futile to watch one of our Games while there.

The scramble to find alternate places to watch is, to be quite honest, a pain in the ass.  For seasons prior, not only would we need to find a place that would take us in whenever there was a UFC PPV, but also when our university's Game was on The Pac-12 Network, that oft-derided channel that apparently no one in the United States got.  I had to ask for help to find places that had satellite carriers that had the P12N.  Fortunately, we finally found a place out in St. Paul that had it, so we were able to watch there one, two or, as was the case last season, four times.  They were a good place, but there is nothing like having only one restaurant to which we can all regularly go, and once our college moved into the Big Ten, the need to have a back-up bar vanished, thankfully.

Still, there are conflicts, and I need to be aware if and when I need to find a secondary place (like the one in St. Paul) if and when there is a Saturday in which there is little to no chance the people who want to watch our Game will have any space.  I swear that would happen by now.  It hasn't, not really.  The UFC PPVs are monthly, but so far there we have completely missed each other.  Meanwhile, there was one week where our Game overlapped this other alumni groups Game by, like, an hour, but their Game was a non-conference one against some low-major or second-division team, so none of their alumni cared to come and therefore we had plenty of space to watch what we wanted to watch.  Every other week so far, either our Games have been on separate time windows, one of our teams is on a bye, or, in this week's case, our Game is on Friday while theirs is on Saturday.  (Want to note that there is a UFC PPV this Saturday afternoon at 1, and both of our Game Watches are going to be able to avoid that.  Our Game is Friday night, their team has the week off!)

Sadly, that bullet-dodging ends next Saturday -- at least for me, not the group, and not for either conflict I detailed above.  Our Game is at 6:30.  The other alumni group's Game is at 2:30, and there obviously is no UFC PPV.  However, I am a Minnesota United FC season-ticketholder, and there is an MNUFC playoff Game going on at 8 for which I have automatically been charged for a ticket.  Whenever there has been a conflict between the Loons and my alma mater, I have always sided with watching with my fellow alumni and friends, and I would either sell or give away my MNUFC ticket to a friend.  However, because I have already paid for this ticket, because this is a playoff Game, and because my college football team absolutely sucks right now, I'm going to the Game.  But first, to make sure everything is all set, I am going to get there early, buy a beer so I don't look like I'm loitering, make sure there are people coming in to watch and then, around kickoff, leave for St. Paul.  I don't like doing this, but considering the sorry state of my alma mater, I don't have a whole lot of angst, to be honest.

I think I can pull this off.  What I worry about is my good luck ending because one of our Games later on in the year will finally be on at the same time as the other group's.  There is the November UFC event I am scared will cause a conflict also.  In either case, I will be in charge of telling everybody where else to go.  And by the way, there is an outside chance I will be hired to work a Minnesota Golden Gopher football Game to which I will accept.  In that case, I will pray that everything will be alright with my fellow friends, either at our main bar or, worst case scenario, another place I will have to scramble to find, organize, then hope for the best.

Why I Don't Like Big Macs

Even though I do have my favorites, I'm not picky when it comes to burgers.  So long as it's hot, I think I would enjoy one.  I have realized that when evaluating burgers, what is more important to me than the taste is the, er, "integrity" of the sandwich.  Specifically, I hate it when stuff in the burger falls out.  I want to keep all the food I bought in one place, you know?

I haven't had a Big Mac in years if not decades, but McDonald's recently came out with a limited edition Chicken Big Mac.  There's a Mickey D's on the footprint of Allianz Field that will be torn down in December, so I bought a Chicken Big Mac after last/Saturday night's Match.  And when I got it, I remembered why I haven't bought it in years if not decades.  First, it's on the big side -- not bigger than my whole mouth, but it's big.  But worse than that is all the lettuce that comes with the Chicken Big Mac.  It's shredded, so naturally some of it is underneath the sandwich when I pick it up out of the paper package.  And since I deplore wasting food, I am compelled to pick up those shreds and sprinkle them on top of the bite of the Chicken Big Mac I am about to take.  That's kind of a pain in the ass.  And more annoying beyond that is the fact that it slides too much.  A Big Mac has that third bun, and apparently its surface is smooth because when I take a bite, the middle bun and some of the lettuce above and below it squirt through the back end.  I hate that.  A sandwich's contents can't just stay put, can it?

I didn't mean this to be a food review, but if you want my opinion on whether to get the Chicken Big Mac: If you're not peeved or sliding food that ends up on your table, get it.  Otherwise, don't.

I Need This Fucking Trash Day To Be Over

So I woke up before work yesterday/Monday morning from a text from my boss that puts me in a different department for the day because someone called in.  That's fine; my job is to be a jack of all trades, so shifting jobs at the drop of a hat is part of the job description.  The problem started when I was told to sit at a desk that I wasn't expecting.  It's not mine per se, but it's the spare one I and the others who have the same job description usually use.  But I couldn't use it because my supervisor is still training in one of the people who share this same specific job as I have.

Instead, I had to sit at the desk of the person who called in "sick."  I hate taking over a person's desk, even though this is a company where that happens from time to time.  I have a desk of my own.  Not many people in the departments I work in can say that, and that is a privilege I don't take for granted.  (Actually, it's one of the few perks I get at this job that I still enjoy.)  I would be bothered if someone just fuckin' bogarted my desk just because.  It may be out of necessity, but I invaded my co-worker's space, and I was not happy all day.  And, to be honest, I hated the setup of his area.  He has no space for me to write, which I had to do constantly during the workday.  And I had all these calls I needed to make, and somehow he has his desk phone so recessed against the partition that I had to strain whenever I made a call, which was about 30 times.  That was an annoying pain-in-the-ass.

Finally, since I was in a department I hadn't worked in in a while, there were a few different protocols I had to follow.  I was told about these new procedures, or at least I believe I was told about them; I just hadn't put them into practice because I hadn't worked in this department in a long while.  One of them were these phone calls.  I would normally do my best to skip them, or at least half-ass them, but I was told that my boss and his bosses were cracking down, so I needed to do them.  So that was 30 calls (more than I have ever made in a day while working for this company), and 30 times I had to reach out to the phone, grab the receiver, make sure I don't drop the receiver so it snaps back to the console, reach out to punch the number in, wait for someone to pick up, and once I was done, put a tick mark on a Post-It (to keep track of how many calls I made, which is something I was told to do when I began training, to be fair) and reach out to put the receiver back in the cradle.  That took half of my day.  I know that in this job I could have been way more productive doing something else that making some goddamn calls.

Moreover, I was told that some quirk I just ignored during the course of my workday suddenly became important.  Sometimes we fax, and sometimes these faxes don't go through.  We are given these e-mails saying so, but I just ignored them because I was never told to care.  Well, apparently I do have to care now.  I need to go through the e-mail, identify which specific fax it was, determine if I was the one who faxed it, then figure out what to do to make that fax go through.  I needed to do that three times.  I wound up e-mailing instead of faxing twice.  Do you know how much time that took?  That is another distraction from the main task of this job, and I am embarrassed that I basically spent only half a day doing that main task, and instead building up all these forms to pass on to my co-worker, who may or may not have the time to do it herself.

Finally -- and I haven't thought about this much, even though if I were in a different mindset this would be the thing that triggers me -- my supervisor was trying out something for the printer, and we were told to look out for it while going through the course of our day.  I wanted to know who was doing it and why, and I asked my supervisor so.  And from around the corner, my boss, who I think was on his phone talking to a co-worker, I think shouted in answer to my legitimate question, "Doesn't matter!"  Uh, excuse me?  At that point I was already in a pissed-off mood, so my mood didn't change.  Did it worsen?  Believe it or not, I might have to think about it.  But let me say this: If I weren't so busy doing other things tonight, you better believe I would be pounding the online want ads again.  And I hope to get around to doing that this week.

I can't remember a day at this job where I was so looking forward to getting out.  Unfortunately I had to come back to the building because I forgot to fucking take the banana and peach Pepsi I brought.

---

About that banana: I just ate it -- with a knife so I could carve out the bruised parts.  I sliced off a piece on its side, but the banana was so heavy that it tipped over and tore off.  Thankfully I was eating this over the kitchen wastebasket.  Sadly, about 60-5% of the banana fell into it.  Most of it looked like a banana, too.  What a waste.  And I will admit that I thought for a good, oh, 15 seconds to pick it up and eat the parts that haven't touched the trash.  But I didn't, I swear.

---

Oh, and I wanted to go out and work on the things I needed to work on last/Monday night.  I wanted to go to Pryes Brewing because there were no events going on.  But when I drove across the place was packed.  I guess there was an event: It's a Monday night and it was beautiful out.  So I drove to Caffetto (which was not packed, which surprised me; I didn't plan on going there because I thought it was going to be packed) and did all I needed to do.

And then, as I reached home, the goddamn low tire pressure light came on.  Yeah, this is what I get for trying to blow off some steam by driving around town.  I rushed out to check the pressure on the tires, even though I checked them just before I left work.  The driver's-side front had way more air than the passenger's-side front, but all of them had enough air.  I went inside to grab my headlamp and tried again, just because -- same pressure levels.  And then I lost the valve cap to one of the tires.  Luckily I had a spare cap in my car.

I'll get the old valve cap (and make it my spare) as I roll down the car in the morning.  That's after I check the tires to make absolutely sure none of the tires deflate.  If so, this fucking trash day is going to become a fucking trash streak, and I don't need that shit, even though I'll text my boss to say I'm late because of my car, and that means I won't have to go into work, and that's actually fucking fine by me.

Up until recently, I noticed (and I wanted to blog post) that my car has been running real smooth.  I was going to go out on a limb and say it felt good driving it as it had been in a few years.

However, I sense a bit of shaking from my car.  Last time that happened, the mechanic told me the engine was just about empty of oil.  But I have been checking the dipstick and ... OK, first of all, the dipstick sucks.  It's not metal; the dipstick in my car has a plastic orange end.  I have seen owners of my model of complain without end on the Internet at how difficult it is to tell how much oil is left in their cars because they can't read the orange end of the dipstick.  The best I can tell is that it's not completely full, but it's nowhere near empty.  And I remember once that when I brought my old car in, I was told that the damn engine was overfilled.  Apparently I have to Goldilocks every car I own.  You know, if I have to worry about not enough oil and also too much oil, maybe a car is too finicky for a civilian to drive, no?

I think I'm just scaring myself.  Maybe the shaking is just uneven roads, or it's all in my head.  Maybe I should just stop thinking of ways the car is going to break down and just believe it won't.  God, I'm so paranoid, I'm being my own pain-in-the-ass.

Immigrants' Son Riding To The Fucking Rescue Again

I love my parents.  I love them most of all right now -- when they're half a world away, and I don't have to be near them.  They can hurt me emotionally, but it doesn't hurt as bad when I know I can just end the call and be at peace at home.  Now, when they are physically at home, I get uneasy and count the days till they begin their winter sojourn around warmer places on Earth.

Still, they can reach out and touch me, and when they do, they can ben annoying as fuck.  And they were last/Wednesday night, when Mother wanted to see if I was home.  There were a couple of photos she wanted me to snap of bills she's kept from a couple of their rental properties -- kind of a pain-in-the-ass, but understandable as to why she would want them.  But then Father chimed in and asked, as he has done all my life though not lately, to write another complaint letter.  This time it's about other rental properties they own from which they believe they haven't gotten enough income.  He asked me to write to the Better Business Bureau about it, and he has asked me to write to them before, and it's gone nowhere.  And then Mother gets back on the horn and asks me to call the property management company and ask them why they're not getting as much money as they think they should get.

This, in essence, is one of the main reasons why I hate my parents: They are permanent drama queens.  I have had to deal with and live under their anxieties and their misplaced sense of entitlement.  Moreover, they add a patina of helplessness to these demands: Since I can speak English like a native, I have always been asked to write, and in this case call, and ask for what they want on their behalf.  I've always been sent out to do their dirty work, oftentimes when they have only half an idea as to what they're mad about, sometimes when they have no proof that they're getting screwed.  But I have to do it anyway because I'm their son, while they go relax or fucking gallivant around China or somewhere.

With that being said ... I have looked over these income statements, and they may have a case.  It appears as though both rental properties in question were rented out for most of the month.  Yet, I see fees here and there, and they add up to a vast majority of the income both properties supposedly generated in income.  They're getting money, but it's a piddly amount.  Now I don't know what questions I can ask this management company, and there might not be anything I can do because my parents supposedly signed an agreement.  But I still call bullshit, and if my parents are right, this management company has reneged on any promises to get back to them when one of them has called asking why these fees have taken such a huge bite out of the revenue.

I think I need to call.  If these fees aren't mistakes, maybe they need to find a different management company, or even sell the properties.  But I'll call them Friday.  I have time then.  I need to formulate questions to ask.  Also, I don't want to call before then; I want to go out for a bit tonight/Thursday night.  If they can party, I can fucking do the same.

Thoughts On 2023

Things weren't bad, if I am being honest with myself.  Lost Grandmother's best friend back in May or June -- I should look for an obit again -- and that represents the final closing of any connection with Grandmother on Earth ... well, there is her family, so I am being melodramatic.  But everyone else I know and love are still alive.  I risk that streak in 2024, but I don't want to think about that right now.

Work is good.  I think my boss's discouragement of me having overtime may grow to be a problem, but it hasn't been more than an occasional pain-in-the-ass.  As another person gets trained in, I will be working in The Fourth Department fewer and fewer days.  I will see how I feel when that finally happens.

Family is good.  Parents and I didn't fight as much while they were here.  I still get annoyed and sometimes get into arguments with Mother, like last/Saturday night, over being diligent over bills and stuff.  But hey, as long as they're on the other side of the world, they can't touch me.  And really, as long as they're over there, I like them more.  Because they can't hurt me while they're in the house.

I continue to try and maintain relationships with my stripper girlfriends.  I don't go out to strip clubs anymore, and I realize now that the ones I have made friendships, and friend-with-benefits-ships, with, are basically the ones I've got.  Going out to new strip clubs is an expensive venture, and maybe I'm happy with who I have.  Or, maybe I will get restless and see if I want to see other women.

I love the stability 2023 gave me.  But I wonder if I am, or am going to get, restless, and not just with seeing other women.  Eating and getting fat remain an issue with me, for example.  I feel very obligated to eat everything my parents made for me in the freezer -- I still have, I think, more than half of it left -- and to drink all the alcohol I have bought.  That's a lot of pounds I'm packing.  And after tomorrow/Monday/New Year's Eve, I don't have the excuse anymore of indulging for the holidays.  I should be watching my weight regardless, but I really, really should start taking care of my body starting in 2024, specifically slimming my waistline and lowering my cholesterol and high blood pressure.  (I honestly think that I now weigh more than most of the people I know.  I was a rail all through college.  Swear I was 125 pounds when I graduated with my bachelor's.  Humbling and sad.)  You know, I should work on my temper, too.  I fall into a violent dream and my heart starts racing to the point my chest hurts.  Maybe I should do things to stop that.

That requires change, and I hate change.  But there are some things that I can do and be better at, and I wonder when, or if, I will get sick of the same old same old.  Should I go back to school and upgrade my skills so I can get a better-paying job?  Should I make a more concerted effort to find someone to spend the rest of my life with?  The more things stay the same, the more I fear things get staid.  And the world won't stay the same for me.  If things change around me, what will happen, and how will I fare?

You know, maybe this time next year I will be doing the same damn thing I've always done.  And maybe I will be fine with it knowing that, deep down in my heart, I am who I am.  But there might always be a chance that I will do something different.  Will I reject that?  Or will I embrace that?

Happy New Year, everyone.

I Think I Now Hate Data Entry

Hey, first of all (even though it's a bit late), I should add one clarifying detail to the Christmas Song Blog Post from yesterday/Monday/Christmas.  Even though Donny Hathaway was plagued with paranoid schizophrenia, he was diagnosed with that in 1971, and he wrote and released "This Christmas" in 1970.

OK.  I was going to blog post about this last week, but the damn car drama dominated my thoughts and Wailing And Failing.  I worked in The Fourth Department all week last week, and it may be the last time I will ever do that at work.  I had pulled in many weeks, and in fact (if I recall correctly) several weeks strung together (months maybe) this past year as one person who can do the job was busy supervising and the other who can do the job had to take leave.

This position is still a pain-in-the-ass many times, and I reserve the right to bitch about it here on WAF perpetually.  But yes, I have grown to love it.  For one, I like the variety of problems that crop up, even though I beg you not to tell the people at work I complain to about those problems.  It keeps me on my toes and makes the day go by, even if the work forces me to extend that day.  Also, I like the independence that goes with it.  I am the only person working in this department most times, and I have few people peering over my shoulder ever micromanaging me.  That autonomy has become very important to me.  (Have I talked about all this before here already?)

But the arrangement, at least for now, is that I do the first half of the week and the person who is back from leave do the back half.  Understandable since I can't be the only person who does this job and it's the type of job where you need to keep doing it from time to time to keep your skills sharp.  But for the back half of the week I am back in The Main Department, and while I am happy that no one is e-mailing me about a problem when I work there, I am bored to death keying all day.  Plus, I am back working in a hallway, and I hate having people walk around me while I'm at my desk.  Maybe saying I hate data entry now is harsh to say.  But The Fourth Department has such tangible benefits that I think they now outweigh most anything My Main Department can give me.  But alas, that's where I am going to be Fridays and Thursdays and every other Wednesday.  And, by the way, another person is going to be trained in The Fourth Department after the New Year, and she works the first half of the workweek, so technically she will be able to work the same days in The Fourth Department I am working now.

So I need to count my blessings that I work in The Fourth Department today/Tuesday and tomorrow/Wednesday, because I will just be banging keys Thursday and Friday, and slapping the sides of scanners that don't work and trying to stay awake at my computer (sigh).  Great.

Didn't Know Foil Was A Deadly Weapon

So back on Thanksgiving I was trying to open a bottle of wine.  Covering the cork was this really tight and strong foil that probably had some metal in it.  Now I usually have some trouble cutting this part of a bottle open, and this appeared to be the same pain in the ass.  So I used a small knife attached to the corkscrew to try and cut enough of it to pull and tear off the rest.

But this was a bigger struggle than I thought.  I had only managed to pull up on side of the bottom of the foil to the point where it sort of balled up.  And as I was holding it to figure out an easier way to open the bottle, I inadvertently dragged the tip of my right index finger across this nub of foil -- and it made a cut, a fairly deep cut, on my finger.  I said to myself, "Wow, that kind of hurts!" and then I looked at the cut on my finger that was starting to seep blood.  It wasn't gushing or anything, but I don't remember ever seeing or feeling a cut that deep, nor seeing a cut on my finger like that before.  So I ran my finger under cold water before applying a Band-Aid.

That Band-Aid fell off when I took a shower on Friday, and while it no longer was bleeding, the cut hadn't fully sealed up yet.  There was dead skin surrounding the cut, and I pulled off some of the skin before thinking better of it and putting on another Band-Aid.  This second Band-Aid is still on my finger, and I really don't want to take it off until that cut is fully healed, no dead skin or anything like that.  So I'll wait.

But I couldn't think that foil, even tough foil like that, would be strong enough to cut you.  What the hell?!  I haven't been able to help myself from spacing out to, say, using a cut-open piece of foil like how I eventually was able to open up the bottle (with the help of pliers and, by the way, it is a screw cap and not a cork) as a self-defense weapon in case someone out on the street wants to try something.  I could just take out what seems like a piece of trash and slash the bastard across the arm or the torso, or worse.  Yeah, I've got to stop letting this red mist descend upon me and make me think violent thoughts.