Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

So since I got out of work on time (and I don't know the last time that happened when I was tasked to do The Fourth Department), I figured this was an opportunity to go back to working on the fucking sprinkler head.

The first time I turned on the cycle it was worse than Sunday.  Not only did the shitty head pop out from the pipe, one of the other heads didn't pop up and water.  I presumed that this sprinkler system relies on pressure, so that when this shitty head popped out of its socket, there wasn't enough pressure for this other one to rise up and do its thing.  But this shitty head popped out on Sunday, and that other head worked just fine.

Anyway, after putting a wood pallet into my second storage unit, I came back and took another shot.  I made damn sure the sprinkler head was screwed into the pipe opening.  I pulled it up to make sure it was secure.  I turned on the system ... and I'll be goddamned, the head was just floating in its hole because it popped out of the goddamn pipe opening again.  (By the way, the sprinkler head that wasn't working earlier in the evening popped up and watered like it was supposed to, so there's that.)

I'm beside myself right now.  Swear to fucking God that thing was screwed in tight.  So I'm working on another theory, though I might be doing so just because any alternative would drive me up a wall.  Maybe, when I yanked the whole fuckin' thing off of the pipe, I broke the sprinkler head.  I took a close look and it, well, looks like the thing isn't retracting completely.  And for all I know, the threads (either on the bottom of the sprinkler head or on the pipe opening) were stripped, either through me or through years of wear and tear.

So what I'm going to do (possibly tomorrow since I work and presumably get home early) is take the old and busted sprinkler head and replace it with the old and busted sprinkler head I replaced in the backyard.  Yes, it's not working, and yes, it's just been laying around the past several weeks.  But what I'm worried about right now is if the issue with that sprinkler head is the sprinkler head or the opening it's supposed to be secured to.  If it's the head, I can just buy another one, and many of my problems would be solved.  But if the fucking thing pops out again ... well, I might need to call in the lawn maintenance company.  There is a bunch of dirt in the opening, and try as I might, I couldn't completely clear out the pipe.  It's possible that dirt is creating such a build-up of pressure that it's going to turn any sprinkler head that's screwed onto it into a projectile missile.  And so if it needs to be cleaned out, that'll require equipment, expertise, and patience I don't have.

God, I just hope a new sprinkler head will do the trick.  Fuckin' Christ, man, if I had just waited for the cycle to end, I think I could've kept the old sprinkler head and the cycle would have been perfect because there would be no water splashing onto the driveway or street.  Fuck!

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. ...

I Don't Believe Her

So my cousin, who I haven't seen in at least a quarter-century and whose son is going to medical school here, wanted to know when I was free, right?  I asked if I could get back to her in the middle of the week so I could figure things out.  Well, the soccer results being what they were, I texted her on Wednesday -- like she asked me to -- and I told her that besides Saturday and Sunday morning, I was totally free for the weekend.

Then, nothing.  Well, I hadn't heard from her until yesterday/Friday.  Since I moved up my speakeasy visit from last/Friday night to Wednesday, last/Friday night was free for me, and that's when the both of them would get into town, so I figured that if last/Friday night was the only time the two of them could see me, I should text again.  She got back to me ... and she said sorry, they're busy, they can't see me this time around.  Maybe closer to the beginning of school, when they come back, but not now.

Sorry, I don't buy it.  At all.  She reached out to me, out of the blue.  She then called me, enthusiastically, asking when we could meet.  All I asked for was a few days and then I would get back to her, which I did.  And then my cousin just says, basically, whoops, can't see you?  I don't understand the about face at all.

Sure, I'll be dark and conspiratorial.  Maybe she decided that me asking, oh so gently, for some space and time was a rejection to her.  She took that as a sign that I didn't want to see her at all, which is not true at all.  My only other theory is that Father talked/got to her.  He had some dumb fucking thoughts in his head that when I said I needed to get back to her later, I really meant that I didn't want to be bothered, and so he told her to lie and say that she and her son realized they were busy.  I can't think of what else it could be, because I don't believe her when she texted me that they're busy.

Honestly, this hurts.  She wanted to see me and now she doesn't?  I blocked out some time and moved around some things so I could spend an afternoon or evening or day with them.  She basically said to forget it.  Don't understand.

I can't do anything except wait until my cousin and cousin once removed supposedly come back late in the summer to see if they really want to see me.  If they do, and we meet up, great.  If not ... why in the hell did she even ask for my phone number?

Oh, by the way, because my Friday night was free, I went back to my original plan of greeting The Beginning Of Summer by going to my speakeasy.  Yes, it was the second time in three nights.  I can't quit the place, and after this emotional whiplash, I needed a couple drinks.

Feeling Sorry For Myself

Now that the reality of them coming home and ruining the life I have here in my house is settling in, I just spent the past several hours feeling sorry for myself.  Well, I decided I needed to see my ATF, ******a, at My Favorite Stripclub (and let's face it, it's the only stripclub I go to nowadays) before my folks return.  I could have started cleaning up around here, and I just did clean the dishes.  But I have just more than 72 hours before they come home -- what can I really do to tidy up the place?  Nothing.  So I don't do anything, or at least nothing much.

This is where my procrastination over bringing out My Stuff is a good thing.  I should've taken some things out of storage so I could go through them.  But work has been such a bear, and I've been going to soccer Matches every Saturday (at least it seems like), that I never got around to it.  And now that they're coming back, I don't have to frantically put everything back together and haul all that crap to my storage unit.  That is one big thing I don't have to worry about.

And everything else, in my opinion, is out of my control.  I was blindsided, so what can I do?  That's how I justify not dusting or wiping.  I might clean the toilets -- might.  Everything else, hey, I don't have time for.  Maybe if I had three more months like I thought I did!!

Just had a thought: I've been working so many long hours, including while my boss was away, that, assuming he came back to check my timesheets, he may see this as an opportunity to finally ... well, let's say confront me about my hours.

I've come to the conclusion that I have to stay to complete the work.  Measures supposedly were taken to lighten the workload, but with one important but small (when it comes to the workload) difference, it hasn't changed at all.  The main issue, to me, remains that there isn't a second person helping out day after day to take stuff off my plate.  Without that, everything falls on me to do.  That's why I stay late and accrue overtime.  If I don't and leave early, all the stuff I left will be waiting for me the next day, and you can add that to all the other stuff that comes in that next day.  The work accumulates, and if there's only one person doing it, well, that person is doing it.  So, if I don't stay late and do it all that day, I'll have to stay even later and do it all the next day.

I hope my boss understands that, but because my co-workers are apparently superhuman beings who get all their stuff done on time, I am becoming more and more confident he is going to come down on me -- either set new rules, set an ultimatum about ... something, or just yell at me like he has before.  And all because I'm just doing my job to the best of my ability, huh.

Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

Work Sucks Right Now, In So Many Ways

Before I rant and feel sorry for myself, I want to say that I am grateful for the overtime I'm getting.  The money is worth the grief.

Well, at least I say that now.  While I was working yesterday/Friday, it sure as fuck didn't feel that way.  The Third Department is utter fucking chaos now.  It didn't help that all the work that got stuck down South Wednesday finally reached us.  The work that came for me ... I don't know if I have ever left so much work for my co-worker, who is doing The Third Department today/Saturday.  I apologized to her before I left work.  I stayed an extra two hours, like I usually do.  I could've stayed till nine o'clock and not gotten everything done.  Seriously.

There are so many things to keep apprised up in that particular position that I am constantly bombarded with things that crop up which I need to immediately address.  Toward the end of my day (which, because it ran so long, became my night), I saw something that essentially became a "STAT" thing that I had to drop everything to do, and I know I let out a "Fuck!" that I meant as a whisper but was probably loud enough for everybody in the room to hear.  It was that frustrating a day.

It didn't help that I screwed up, which I did right before I saw this "STAT" thing I just had to do.  I basically signed off on, like, a dozen reports that I should not have signed off on.  And so I had to go through each report and fix my mistake.  I had a shit ton to do already, and I didn't need to make it harder on myself by fucking up like I did.  But I realized that I made this mistake because I was not doing these reports every day, and that makes me susceptible to forgetting a process of, say, doing a report.  I see now how hard it is to step into work someone else started.  I can't just apply my training at any point in a particular process.  If I didn't start it, I am likely to screw it up.  And in a job where I hop from position to position, that will mess me up, man.

Aside, and I need to make this vague because, frankly, this may blow up into a shitshow: I may have made a mistake, but I sure as fuck don't like her tone.  There were so many other ways to tell me via e-mail to stop.  And by the way, the mistake started with the person not writing down the date.  What condescending bullshit.  And if she decides to take it up with my supervisor or boss, man, I could be in deep trouble.

With all my venting here, I'm going back to work today/Saturday to help out.  They're still behind, so much so that they might bring in people for Monday.  But goddammit, I'd rather this have happened last weekend, or next weekend.  'Cause this weekend was the only Saturday over at least the next month where I could watch EPL downtown, something I haven't done yet this season.  The combination of Matches kicking off at 9 this/Saturday morning doesn't involve any team that would take over the pub I want to go to, and I can't say that for any day until at least April.  But then this opportunity of working ten hours again has to come up this fucking Saturday.  I could decide to work a full day, but I have decided not to.  One, I really was looking forward to watching soccer, and work like this won't change my mind.  Also, I have pulled ten hours several days over the past few weeks, and I was so stressed after leaving work last/Friday night that I am trying to take time for myself.  I'll watch soccer, then go into work for an abbreviated day.  And if that means passing up some money, so be it.  I'm making plenty this time period.

With all that said, this incident from this e-mail may blow up.  There is a non-zero change that I won't have a job by the time today/Saturday ends.  Just a head's-up.

I Shouldn't Have To Pay This Way

This might be a misleading title, but at my most dramatic, I feel this way.

It was another ten-hour day at work where I left so much work that I felt like I accomplished nothing.  The big thing I was looking forward to was picking up Popeye's before heading home.  As I left the drive-thru and got back on the road that would lead me to my house, a car was picking up steam behind me.  I was going to head into the left turn lane and drive slowly but directly home.  But that damn car was also taking a left, so I abruptly moved back on to the main road.

And then ... well, when you're tired and distracted, your mind kind of wanders, you know?  My next plan was to take this cloverleaf exit, but by the time I was aware of my surroundings, I was driving past it.  Instead of recklessly jerking my car to the right, I would go to my tertiary plan and take the next side street home.  Unfortunately, me being in Minnesota, this left turn took me right over a vicious goddamn pothole I did not see coming.  And then on the street just before the street that gets me to my house, I ran over another one.

I think my car's OK.  After eating my Popeye's (and spacing out, natch), I planned on checking out the underside of my car before getting gas for it, but I just drove to the gas station and back.  I forgot to look and make sure there is nothing underneath my car because, again, I spaced out.  But I hate, completely hate driving over potholes.  I always feel as though my small car will break apart, or more realistically (I guess) my shocks will get worn and/or broken.

And all of that could have been avoided if I had just taken that first left, or paid attention to the cloverleaf right.  But is driving over two potholes "punishment" for spacing out?  I feel that way, but I don't think that's right, know what I mean?  I shouldn't have to pay for my inattention by damaging my car.  But it feels as though that, if there are gods above, they're making me pay for not being more aware of my surroundings.  No grace for a spacing-out scoundrel like me, huh?

Got Fired From An Experiment

If I have been rejected for research studies before, I haven't been "fired" like this.  This particular research study comes from a group affiliated with the University of Minnesota for whom I had been a guinea pig for another of their experiments previously.  Moreover, I have struck a rapport with these guys.  They invited me to their office and brought me in for a discussion group.  I'm not saying we were going to have beers together or anything, but as far as research studies go, we had a, well, guess you would say a "relationship."  And it was neat.

But then came last/Wednesday night.  The head researcher, someone I have never met, is a gruff personality, which I chalk up to him being, I believe with evidence, to be a native of China by his accent and directness.  From my previous interactions with him, we were never buddy-buddy, but he never led me to think that I would be rejected for the experiment he is spearheading as I went through screening after screening, progressing like nothing was wrong.  But there was, apparently.  I was at home waiting for last/Wednesday night to conduct another phone screening that could last an hour.  I was kind of surprised when the head researcher called me; an obligatory screening is something one of his subordinates would usually do.  Turns out he wasn't doing a screening either; he told me that, based on the answers I gave on the online surveys I had to do before this screening, I was ineligible.  What I thought would take at least 30 minutes took only five.  He said goodbye; I think I beat him to hanging up the call.

I don't know what the fuck I did.  The research study had to do with pain, and boy, I have a lot of it right now.  Eventually, I would be enrolled -- and get paid to -- take part in classes that deal with rehabilitating the places where I hurt.  These classes would take a few months, and the surveys from those classes would last into the summer.  I have done these intermediate-term experiments before, and I enjoy them ... and the money that goes along with it.  But there would be no money beyond the $20 the head researcher paid me for the privilege of telling me over the phone, "Nope."

Have to look on the bright side.  It frees up time I would have had to devote to these classes.  And for last night, I could get to what I wanted to do after the call -- go out to my storage unit, bin my garbage at a gas station trash can, and eat at Taco Bell -- earlier than I planned.  But shit, man, I could've used the money, not gonna lie.

Running In Place Financially

So I went to the ATM yesterday/Saturday afternoon to get money for the first time in a long time.  And I saw the balance; it's still below five figures, which to me has become the threshold by which I feel I "have money."  Now, I do have money below five figures, obviously, but I noticed when I fell below that mark.  I think that was at least a few months ago, and I have not gotten above that mark since.

And this is where I take mental stock on all the things I spend my money on.  I think I have cut back on entertainment options, in particular messing around with strippers.  I do eat out, but I have cut back on that, too.  I think what has changed, or at least I thought would change, was all the food I would get in the morning before heading into work.  That adds up, and now that The Fourth Department has slowed down to the point where it now seems easy (and I never thought I would ever say that), I don't have the excuse/crutch of needing a mocha from McDonald's or Caribou whenever I'm back there.  Now, I don't think I can quit cold turkey.  But I think I have averaged three days a week, and I think I can cut it to two.  And I might go down to one if my checking account doesn't grow.

I may be over-emphasizing it in order to pity myself, but I do have those occasional big charges that come at me out of the blue.  There are necessary things, like car maintenance.  And then there are things such as travelling to Las Vegas to see my alma mater.  They come up on occasion, and if you have budgeted yourself up to some level of discipline, a big charge like that would ruin everything.

Speaking of which ... the reason I went to the ATM yesterday/Saturday afternoon was because my parents are now gone and I have the whole house to myself, so I invited ******e and her new friend *****a to savage me and yank on my cock.  It was worth spending the money.  And so I won't go online and look at my account for a while.

You Know, They Might All Be Ignoring Me

So ever since I completed those assessments and got an offer via voicemail and text, I have heard nothing from this temp agency.  Not a thing.  I've tried calling them, but here's the thing: I get a receptionist, they put me on hold, I am on hold for a couple or few minutes, then I get returned to the receptionist, who says, "Oh, she must be in a meeting.  Do you want to leave a voicemail?"  I say yes, I do leave said VM ... and that's it.

I have reached out this temp agency, I think, four times since my last communique from them, and I can only repeat this cycle.  I don't know what the deal is.  Why are they freezing me out?  I probably didn't do well on the Excel assessment, but I didn't do well the last time I took it (which was at least six years ago), and that didn't stop them from reaching out to me for gigs.  Are my demands (that I find a full-time job right off the bat and that it pays significantly more than I'm getting paid now) so, uh, demanding that they see no use in talking to me?  Am I too old?  Do they think I'm not taking this seriously?

I stopped using this agency only because I was looking for a full-time job.  I didn't leave on bad terms, unlike that other temp agency that I, for some dumb reason, reached out to, and I won't do that again (probably).  So why won't they return my calls?  I need a safety net if I continue to get crap from my boss, and I think I will because I'll be in The Fourth Department the back half of this week.  I don't get it. ...

I Did Something Yesterday That Still Terrifies Me

Goddamn my temper.

So I was driving to work yesterday/Monday.  Since I had my timing chain replaced, I've slowed down while driving -- for the most part.  But there was this van that got behind me, then changed to the lane to my left, then merged right in front of me.  Like, "Why are you gettin' that motherfucking close to me, you fucking asshole?!" close.  And I felt violated and attacked and as if my manhood was taken from me, and so I needed to take my manhood back.  So I went to the lane to our left, floored the gas pedal, and cranked my car back onto our lane and right in front of him.

But I didn't.  I did all of those things, but by the time I thought I was showing him up, he (and it had to be a he) moved one lane further to the right, and he was slowing down because he was getting onto the off ramp.  When I saw that I kind of dusted him but he was not in a position to see that I did, I stepped on the brake.  Hard.

I have had bouts of road rage like this before.  Rode my car hard many, many times -- accelerated to close to 100, then cut off the son-of-a-bitch who cut me off and slammed on the brake.  Afterwards, I always felt as though I may not have "succeeded" in showing who's boss, but I felt true to myself in taking back what was taken from me.  But not this time.  I'm not disappointed in myself.  But I am still shaking -- not exactly over what happened to me, but over what I did in response.  Yes, I've done this before.  And yet I can't believe I did this, or allowed myself to do this.

I'm getting older.  My uncle dying probably is weighing on me more than I am conscious of.  But I feel this sense of shame now because of what I put my car through.  It's getting older, and it's not as if I can afford to buy another one off the lot.  And I know that you hurt the car when you suddenly accelerate and suddenly brake.  And oh, by the way, I have new tires on it.  There's a breaking-in period of about 1,000 miles where you should go easy on them, and I sure as hell didn't yesterday morning.  Now, if my car is ruined after this one rush of blood to the head, then this model needs to be recalled for being a piece of shit.  But I can't let this happen again.  And I certainly can't allow this hard driving because of my road rage contribute to a pattern that will ultimately kill my car.

I am under no illusion that I will do what I have pledged to do in this blog post.  This prick (and by the way, the car that almost sideswiped me was a minivan from, I think, a company called Royal Transportation [there was a decal on this fucking vehicle], which I believe is a public assistance transportation company for those who cannot drive themselves, so I believe the driver was someone who was hastily trained in driving) could be riding my ass again this morning.  I am not absolving this piece of shit for what he did to me; I have never had someone merge in front of me so closely.  But that van's gone and I still have my car which I totally abused because this red mist descended in front of my eyes again.  People suck at driving, but I have to walk the line because getting revenge means I destroy the vessel that gives me mobility in this world.

Still have this aching suspicion that I've hurt this car past some irreversible point just because of what happened, though.  In the meantime, I think I will try and drive slowly -- and, Lord willing, let things go while I'm driving.  Just don't know if I will.

I Didn't Get The Job. FUCK

So I e-mailed -- a second time -- those people who are hiring for the game, and one of them finally got back to me yesterday/Monday afternoon ... "Sorry, we already filled the position with someone else."  My worst fears are now realized.

One-and-a-half days.  It took me 1 1/2 days to get back to them.  They couldn't wait?  Really?  Or, is this a case where they didn't see my response of acceptance when I got back to them the next night -- nor my follow-up e-mail the following Monday (so a week ago) asking if they got my previous e-mail from before that weekend.  That's what I suspect.  Or, they did ask another person in the 1 1/2 days I didn't see that they e-mailed me, and that's when some other dude swooped in and took the job.  I need to unsubscribe to all those fucking campaign donation lists, goddammit.

Whatever, man ... I'm pissed.  And hurt.  And dejected.  I don't care that I'm being dramatic when I say I was really banking on the money I was going to make that week -- for working the game and for using paid time off from my day job.  The bills are still piling up, and I could really use some double-dipping.  But no, that's not happening.  And I feel a real, bitter need to tighten my belt as a result.

And yet I cannot project that bitterness on my reply e-mail to them.  So I think I split the difference: I told them I got back to them the day after while stating it was my fault I didn't get back to them sooner (classic passive-aggressiveness), but accepted their offer to circle back to me in case they do need people after all (keeping my options open), plus I also accepted their offer to help out in case their caravan comes back later in the season (acknowledging that I have read what they wrote).  It's the best I can do for missing out on money I need.  Jesus fucking Christ, I wanted that job.

This Is What Happens When I Eat By Myself

Work yesterday/Monday was a grind.  I feel as though I was in the wrong frame of mind going in to work after four days off.  The load of work was not an unprecedented amount, although it was as high as it has gotten.  I just felt as though it was a lot.  And I got out of there at ten hours not quite completing everything I want to do before I leave for the day.

Still, since my parents are home and they're willing to cook something for me, I went straight home for dinner.  What did I get?  Mashed potatoes and shrimp.  It was great.  Really, it was.  So great that I ate 20 shrimp -- and they weren't small.  They were plump.  And deep-fried.  Haven't had shrimp in a long time.  Haven't seen my parents break out a ketchup bottle for dinner in a long, long time.  But I sat at the dining room table, by myself, scrolling through my phone, gobbling up first the potatoes and then having a first serving (by which I mean I sprayed an amount of ketchup on my plate) of shrimp, and then deciding to have a second serving of shrimp.

Big mistake, that second serving; me eating my feelings quickly ended, and my bloated feeling of getting fat kind of rose up from my stomach and slapped in the head and screamed at me, "What the hell are you doing??!!  You're eating too much!!"  And I am, and even as I type this now -- after finishing up a bowl of melons Father cut for me for work after the shrimp, and then putting jelly into the peanut butter sandwich he made for me for work which I actually ate around midnight -- I certainly am feeling the aftereffects of my, uh, bingeing in my stomach.

I am quietly freaking out now because my health screening for my health insurance is coming up.  OK, it's in five weeks.  But I'm still freaking out about it.  They have increased the number of benchmarks you need to get the discount I have gotten on my insurance ever since I started working for my company.  Up to this year you had to just sign a statement saying you don't smoke and fall below a Body Mass Index threshold.  Now, there are three more markers -- one of them is high blood pressure and I don't remember the two others -- and you have to reach three of the five.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get the high blood pressure one, and I'm scared as hell that stuffing my face like this is going to cause me to overshoot the other two factors.  And I think it's best to start as soon as possible limiting how much I eat and what to eat, but dammit, I've got my parents at home and they're worried sick that I'm not eating, and I'm worried sick that if I don't eat at home I will displease them.  It would be me if they decide to leave the day after I do this panel.  One final week's worth of dinners at home, one final week of proving I am their son, and I am going to sacrifice potentially an extra $240 to do it.

(Well, there are diversionary options if I don't hit three of the five that still get me that insurance break.  You have to sign up through some fitness coach thing on the work health insurance, but I don't want to do that.  And to be honest, I could be stuffing my face if my parents weren't here, so there's that.)

But this is what happens (sometimes) when I eat by myself.  I can't eat just one shrimp.  I have to eat 20.  And I have to feel it for the next 24 hours ... or five weeks.

Safe Space No More

So I went to this basement bar for the second Thursday in a row last night.  I planned on doing it after having a wonderful time there last Thursday; the drinks were great, the customer service excellent, and it was a great way to unwind after working The Fourth Department -- even though, as far as I can recall, last Thursday wasn't so bad and yesterday was quite possibly the easiest day ever back in that position because there was not an avalanche of work that was stressing me out late in the afternoon.  I started going to these secret bars because I needed to unplug for a bad day at work.  I didn't have that bad day yesterday, but I wanted to go back to this bar that I was set on going as soon as I left there last week.  Hell, when I came in and saw the same bartender who served me my drinks last week, I told him that I wanted to be back in my safe space.  Also, I wanted to go back because this will be the last Thursday I'll be back in The Fourth Department for a while now.  Because my co-worker left, chances are I will be filling in that position Mondays through Wednesdays (though sometimes just through Tuesdays), and this place is open only Thursdays through Saturdays.

I also had a great time last night.  Got a different bartender, but she made fantastic drinks.  They now serve food, and after getting one of the three plates last week, I actually got the other two this time around.  Add all that up and, frankly, I may have been a little punchy.  But hey, I was in my safe space.

They have great music there.  So much so that, when my ears perk up on a really interesting song, I Shazam it.  Well, there was this one that I had to know about, so I got up off my chair and stuck the butt of my phone at the nearest speaker.  This song was so damn obscure, Shazam couldn't identify it.  This speaker was close to a couple sitting at a table.  The man of the couple tried to peg the song through Shazam, but he too was unsuccessful.

The cool part about this bar is that these songs are played on turntables.  And right next to this speaker I sidled up against are the two turntables the bartenders play the music from.  They put the album covers right behind both turntables.  I swear -- I swear -- on a previous visit I was told by a bartender that I could pick up an album cover and look at it.  So that's what my drunk ass did.  I looked at it and put it back -- and by the way, I ate finger food before all this and I didn't wipe my hands, I confess -- and I turn around and almost run into one of the bartenders.  Now, I say that the customer service here has been excellent.  It has.  But I have to say that this bartender, the first time I met her, she fucked up my order.  She gave me a spirit different from the one I asked for, and so she made me two drinks that were similar to each other, and she charged me for both.  That's OK.  But ever since, whenever I've seen or spoken to her, she's given off nonplussed vibes.  So I apologize for grabbing the album sleeve and she said it was OK ... "just ask first."  And you know that means she didn't want me touching their records.

It could be me, but I kind of felt a chill from the bartenders after that.  I was going to leave soon after anyway, but at that point it felt like I overstayed my welcome, so I skedaddled -- well, after drinking a couple cups of water to cool down my tongue after eating the serrano peppers that came with that finger food.  It's going to be a while before I have an occasion to go back there, and maybe it's best that I cool it for a while.  But I don't know if I can be as 100% happy as I had been after that, uh, encounter.  And all because I got a little handsy with an album cover and she didn't like it?  Maybe I push things too far ... but I swear I was told I could pick 'em up and look at 'em!

Things Fall Apart -- Again

So Monday night Father is trying to repair this leak from our old copper pipe in the basement.  He bought some pipe repair kit contraption, the instructions to which he couldn't understand because they were in English.  He asked for my help, but I couldn't understand the instructions because I couldn't understand them.  I remember when there was a pinhole leak in the same copper piping some years back when my parents weren't here, and ... frankly, I don't remember how I dealt with it before Father came home from Las Vegas to fix it.  I don't remember if I tried fixing it myself, but if I did, I failed.  At any rate, I came home from work yesterday/Tuesday and he didn't seem to be working on the pipes, so I guess it worked, or something.

Later last/Tuesday night I tried to open and clothes my blinds, but instead of opening and closing, one side of the blinds moved up and down.  Often you see the bottom of blinds be crooked.  Nope -- for mine in my bedroom, the top of my blinds are.  And I finally saw tonight that a string holding up one section of the top of the blinds snapped.  I don't know what to do besides keeping the blinds closed so that no one sees.  I don't want Father to fix it because that means going into my bedroom, where he eventually will tell me to clean my damn room again, pffft.

Oh, and I lost my set of keys, the one that has the key that opens the desk drawer to my porn and the one to my storage unit.  I have another set, but I want to find my first set.  I hope they'll turn up; they sort of seem to do that.  But I looked through the pants that I wore and they're not there.  Did they fall in the car?  Did they make it to the washing machine?  Hell if I know.

Yeah, things are falling apart now.

They're Gone. They're All Gone. Again.

This would have been a great time to get one of my stripper girlfriends over for a massage or even a great handjob.  It did happen on Wednesday, with ******e, but that was a fucking ordeal.  Even though she lives a couple miles away and said she had her own transportation, I had to pick her up, we had to change our initial time, I had to wait for her while she was on the phone, and then she wanted Burger King on the way back, to which I said no, which made me feel guilty even though our arrangement was just for a fucking handjob.  She was great, but now I find her kind of needy.  I wish someone of a more mature temperament lived that close to me.

And since she did me on Wednesday, it'd be way too soon to have her come over again.  I tried contacting my coterie of babes to keep me company this Independent Weekend, to no avail.  Seriously, they've all gone AWOL for some reason or another:

• The big one is ******a, who's not returning my texts.  I want to talk about her in a future blog post.
• I did swing back to *****a, who hasn't jerked me off in a while, but she's vacationing -- again.
• Still no sign of ****e.  I texted her again this week.  She hasn't texted me back in months.  Hope to God I didn't impregnate her or anything, and she's moved because of it.
• ***e* lives in Wisconsin and yet comes over to Minnesota so damn often it's like she lives here.  I think I saw her two weeks ago, so I don't think I need to see her again so soon.
• Basically that's all I've got.  Maybe there's a party or two I could have gone to this holiday, but there was none.  There was one on Tuesday afternoon, but I worked then, so pffft.

So, nothing for me this weekend, dammit.

Plus (apropos of nothing) I just weighed myself and I'm back up to 170 pounds.  I just slept and I'm still up to 170?  Fuck me.

False Alarm?

God, I have so many things I could talk about now.  But I'll address the one thing that's giving me the most anxiety right now, and that's my goddamn car.

So after I panicked like shit over the smart key indicator light last night, I made an appointment online with the dealership to bring it in Wednesday.  However ... I was going to try and use the other key fob when I drove my car this morning.  There was nothing to indicate that this indicator light is dependent on the fob; if anything, the start engine button, and the entire contraption behind it, appears to be the problem.  I just tried it anyway because I couldn't think of anything else to do in order to diagnose the problem.  I immediately default to feeling helpless when it comes to cars breaking down.

Well, wouldn't you know it?  I use the other fob, I push the button, and there was no light.  It didn't come on when I drove home from work, either.  Does this mean this is a fluke?

So, before I used my parents' minivan to drive to the gym, I took the old fob (the one with which I got the scary indicator light from last night) and started the car with it on the driveway.  It started, and the smart key indicator light went out along with all the other dashboard lights immediately after I turned the engine on.

Great.  The only explanation I can come up with this is that I was driving my car everywhere Sunday night.  I took it to the airport, drove back, stopped off at Target, came home, went to my storage unit, went back home, and I turned on my car to go to work to get a couple hours of overtime in precisely when Mother called and said their flight was postponed till the morning.  That is when that indicator light came on, so maybe it's a signal that things got so hot in there that the connections behind the on/off button started to wear or fritz ... or something?

At this point I kind of want the light to go on and stay on, because then I can go to the dealership and point to that light and say, "See?  Fix this!"  But in the morning I am going to take my old fob and use it to at least start the car.  If the light goes on, well, I am taking tomorrow off work and getting to the bottom of this.  But if it doesn't, and if my car runs just fine, at the very least that means that the button has cooled off to the point where the light won't come on.  I would then have to cancel the appointment for tomorrow because I cannot reproduce the problem and I therefore would be telling them to look for something they can't see.  Like I said, I kind of wish that the light just shows up again as proof that there's something wrong with it.

And mark my words, as soon as I cancel with the dealership (and tell my boss that it turns out I don't have to take tomorrow off after all), that fuckin' smart key indicator light will go on and stay on.  Such is my shitty life.

Hey, I Tried My Best

Two things concerning work/jobs last night that has me disconcerted, for now.

You know what?  I'll start with work.  I was filling in second shift.  There was a ton of stuff when I got there, and I didn't get through much by the time I left.  Don't want to get into details, but the forms that we generally get were updated.  By law, all the information for the samples we receive need to be filled out on these new forms when the samples are sent in on such and such a date.  Whenever that date was, all samples received after that date that came with the old forms have to have a special process done to them, all of it centering around asking for proof that the people collecting the sample knew they were using old forms and explaining why they did.  If this proof isn't issued, we don't test the sample.

There is, to be frank and crude, a shit ton of these old forms.  One of the things that need to be done with them is to scan them into our records.  That is what I did for the majority of my shift that ended.  And that probably makes me look bad when my supervisor comes in in the morning.  I'm guessing that this task is going to push a lot of work to the back burner.  But at least on a visceral level, I left folders upon folders upon folders all over the room.  It is largely a standard, if not a hard and fast rule, that you at least are able to get through the work that was there when you started your shift.  That did not happen last night, not at all.  I was too busy scanning all these forms -- a large and herculean task that I decided needed to be done before most other things ... even though it is not clear to me it is such a priority that I had to drop everything in order to take care of this task first.

Oh, and by the way, I didn't get through all the old forms that were left for me.  I got through some, but not all.  Oh, and I stayed an extra half-hour even though I wasn't asked to.  There were these, uh, other things I really, really wanted to complete before I left, and by the time I got done and shut everything down and cleaned everything up, it was 12:30.  So it is possible that my supe is coming in tomorrow and is seeing literally dozens of folders that I did not get around to, including these special folders containing all these old forms, and she's going to get pissed and wonder why in the hell didn't I work, even though I stayed an extra 30 minutes that, if you want to look at it through conspiratorial eyes, makes me look as if I racked up overtime without doing the commensurate work.  Shit, man, I did work, hard and steadily, but it's just so goddamn much!  Now, could I have worked, uh, harder and faster?  Sure, according to her standards.  But I'm not going to blow out my heart just so I could prove to her, or to anyone else, that I am working hard.  I have panic attacks at work as is, Christ. ...

---

What I don't get, and what I somewhat am scared of more, is this letter I got from the company for which I scored tests.  It was a warning letter.  It said that there were concerns about the speed at which I scored tests.  Now I remember coming on here and worrying that my poky speed at the time -- affected by the distractions around my bedroom as I worked from home -- would raise the attention of the powers that be over there, and it actually did -- sort of.  What I got from the letter was that the massive fluctuation in answer reading led to a wide fluctuation in scores ... and that the faster I got, the worse my scoring accuracy became.

So-so-so ... uh, is she saying that the faster I worked, the more inaccurate I got?  I was worried all this time about working too slowly, and it now seems as if my decision to work faster has backfired on me.  I don't get why they're so upset, especially when I was told repeatedly by the supervisors during the project that we could all be going faster.  And speaking of that, no one I worked for at the test scoring project raised any concerns in the way I scored these essays.  In fact, I was told during the project that I should hew the distribution of my scores closer to the project average, which I did over time.  And since I started working faster to boot, that means the scores I gave were actually more inaccurate?  I don't believe it, but I would like someone to explain it to me if that were the case.

The last sentence in that letter was ominous.  Paraphrasing: "We cannot employ you any longer if your scores continue to be this inaccurate."  First of all, I'm not being inaccurate!  And second of all, does she really think she could just send this without thinking it has to be elaborated upon?  This warning was a total fucking blindside, and I think I should call her to make sure this wasn't some big misunderstanding.  Because if we Work From Home again next year, I will have no clue if what I'm doing, and the speed at which I'm doing it, are truly satisfactory to them.

Two jobs, tons of real and perceived complaints.  But hey, what can I do?  I tried my best -- right?

I Hate Fantasy Football

In one of my fantasy football leagues I lost playing against Lamar Jackson, and in my other fantasy football league I lost playing with Lamar Jackson.

I hate fantasy football.