Well, I did The Quad, and once I did, I went home and immediately went to bed, around 11:30.  Got up to pee once at a quarter to 4, but conked back off and promptly had a nightmare about something I can't remember now.  Was pretty much up for good at a quarter to 7, or maybe 7.  All in all, very recuperating, and the reason why I am blog posting this morning ... and why I need to leave now.

So the thing about going out most evenings is that you don't have time to rest, and at some point the sleep debt comes due.  I paid this week: I think last night was my second night over the past week where I fell asleep before midnight and woke up in the morning.  But I was, and am, glad to.  Sure, I am off schedule in Zynga Poker and there are alumni things I should have done but didn't.  But I'm refreshed and feel healthy, and I think that's a bit more important.

And more important than that, I have energy to do the things I need to do, such as finally clean the dishes that really need cleaning.  I should do that now.  Of course, I'll use up all my energy doing that and then I'll need to nap.  But, since I woke up so early in the morning, I'll have time for a nap before I need to go downtown this afternoon.  I think my timing is down!

Making My Schedule Based On Time, Money, Car Vibes, And Semen

Fitting my schedule to accommodate chores, outings, and time with my stripper girlfriends have just overwhelmed me.  I need to budget my time, I need to make sure I have enough money to do everything I want to do, I'm getting kind of freaked out over driving everywhere because of the obscene price of gasoline, and, most important of all, I need to make sure I'm able to cum on demand.

It's the stripper girlfriends where all of this comes to a head (in a manner of speaking).  I wanted to get with ****e for the longest time, and I thought last weekend was it, but she didn't answer my texts in a timely manner.  Finally, last weekend she said that this weekend was good.  After some back-and-forth, I am supposed to see her tomorrow/Sunday.  Then, ***e* blindsided me by telling me she was in town this weekend and wants to cum visit.  Not a great time, but I slotted her in for this/Saturday morning.  I don't know if my penis can perform back-to-back, but consider ***e* is only here this weekend and I already promised ****e, I kind of have to turn back the clock.

On top of all that, I've been going back-and-forth with my ATF regarding a massage.  I thought Monday would work, but when I texted her that I would be home Monday, my goddamn cellphone auto-corrected it to I would be gone Monday.  I caught it last/Friday night and said that I could be available after the weekend, and she apparently agreed.  Phew!  (By the way, if my ATF surprises me by doing something freaky, it won't matter that I shot the day before.  I know that, even in my advanced age, surprising trysts with women for the first time will have me ejaculating left and right!)

Now, beyond having fun (which seems kind of forced right now), I have things I need to do -- stuff like getting a shave, replenishing my alcohol, and seeing my junior prom date at the cemetery.  But before all that, I have stuff around the house I need to do -- stuff like getting my irrigation system up and running and, more importantly, cleaning my outdoor condenser unit.  Summer jumped me this week, and even though I partly am backing off on turning on the air conditioner because I don't want to spend money (being the primary caretaker of a house now turns you into a miser, believe me), I think it's high time I clean the outdoor condenser.  After all, my ATF should be giving me a rubdown on Monday, and I want her to be as comfortable as possible.  Running a fan won't be enough to cool her down, and besides, I want to close the windows in case she touches me to the point where I start screaming.

But I've never done it before.  I've looked through the YouTube videos, and I know I should clean out the debris that's inside it, then use a cleaner to clean the coils from the inside out, then use a hose to rinse it from the inside out.  But, they suggest I cut the power.  And even though I have turned off both the thermostat and the AC, I have no idea how to cut off power from the circuit breaker right next to the condenser unit.  I open up the cover and all I see is a metal loop.  What the hell is that?  Oh, well.  I think I am going to try and clean everything after I just turn off the AC and thermostat.

Oh, wait ... I can't hose the unit down after I clean everything because I haven't connected the water yet.  And I can't do that until I screw the nut into the, um, thingy that was pulled out in the fall in order to winterize our irrigation system.  I tried screwing it by hand, but I can't screw it in tight, so some time this/Saturday afternoon I am going to get a wrench and twist it in.  Then, I can use the water, and then I can begin cleaning the condenser because I can then rinse it.  Will I get this all done in one afternoon?  Who knows?  I might screw up, or hesitate at a step and decide screw it, I'll just turn the whole AC on.  I'm keeping my options open.

How does driving fit into this?  Shaving involves me driving in one direction, shopping for alcohol and visiting my deceased prom date means I need to drive in the other.  I do not want to drive both directions this/Saturday afternoon, especially if I need to do this thing with the condenser and irrigation system.  Since I'm seeing a friend next week, I think I'll get my shave and do everything else next weekend.  I think.  I'm keeping my options open!

Yeah, I'm busy.  And I haven't even mentioned sleep.  I want to budget one day where I can sleep in.  But I have to get up at a certain time to make sure I go out to the bank to get money today/Saturday to pay ***e*, and then I have to wake up at a certain time tomorrow/Sunday to drive over to ****e's place because she asked me to.  I won't like being woken up by an alarm up to a dozen days in a row (through next Saturday, when I'm supposed to meet this long-lost friend for which I'm getting my face shaved).

Gosh, I'm dealing with a lot of moving pieces I need to fit over the next two weeks -- and that's just for now, who knows what else is coming down the pike.  I know it's not serious in the big picture, but right now it feels serious to me.

Tingling/Numbness Now Scaring Me

Just want to put down for the record that there has been tingling and numbness I've been feeling -- mostly in my right hand and wrist and forearm, but really everywhere, for the past ... oh, seven days or so.  It's carpal tunnel, even though I feel a lot of pain on the corner of my wrist just below the pinky, if you're asking me to pinpoint one thing.

I think this is a combination of factors coming home to roost -- having my work mouse too far from my reach, all those times I've had to grip an exacto knife to cut open packages at work, my nasty habit of holding up my cellphone with one of my chargers attached to it, and lying down while looking up at my laptop, which I too hold with my hands and thus with my forearms holding it up.

Keep doing exercises all week, but it's not working out.  I still feel this general numbness that sticks around at times, and in certain gripping positions I feel a sharp pain at the corner of my wrist.  I sleep with a brace on now, and it sometimes works.  I've begun to take pills, too, but I don't know if that will work.

Honestly, as far-fetched as this sounds, I'm just hoping that it's some virus, or some blip that my body is going to take care of, and this will all be gone in a week.  But I've had this pain, although in a slightly less acute and frequent form, for months now.  This might get worse, I'm afraid.

Nightmare

This nightmare happened this morning.

I was working, or at least at, a casino.  I was gathering up matchsticks in a junk drawer and gave them to either a security guard who, if I was working there, would be my co-worker.  I then walked around the casino, but it wasn't walking, really.  It was more like floating down the hallway.  Oh, and I guess I wasn't at the part of the casino where all the slot machines and table games were.  I was, like, at the outer portion, the lobby portion (?), where you're getting into the casino proper.  Anyway, I wasn't floating free.  Something was holding me back.  I wasn't floating as fast as I wanted to.

While floating not free, I noticed this person who didn't work at the casino go into, like, a security desk.  But he was told not to, and either as or after I passed this desk, I heard a security guard shouting that this guy was not allowed inside the security desk.  That is when I felt this wave of panic, as if something bad was about to happen.

That's when I woke up.

I haven't had a nightmare in some time.  Guess I haven't slept so deeply in a long time.

So That's Why The Rear Seat Wouldn't Stay In Place!/Poor Pen/How Angry My Father Gets

I think this happened, I think, shortly after my parents left.

I have my back seats arranged, well, strangely.  The back seat on the driver's side is put all the way down.  That way I can throw a blanket on top of it so that, when I crawl into my car to sleep for lunch at work, I can just get into the passenger seat, reach over and bring it up to the front.  Also because I need to sleep at work, I lift up the bottom of the back seat on the passenger side.  That way I can completely recline the passenger-side front seat so I can rest.  It's a perfect system.

For reasons I now forget, I had to fold down the back seat on the passenger side so that it looks normal.  (I think I did this at work, even though that's immaterial to this story.)  There is a bar on the bottom of the seat that is supposed to latch to an anchor on the floor, and for the life of me I couldn't get it to latch.  Finally, I looked at the floor ... and I saw almost a dozen bits of a pen, just strewn on the floor mat.  It wasn't just snapped in two; it was obliterated.

Seeing this, I think I realized how that came to be.  During a time when my parents were still home, I wanted to lift up the rear seat on the passenger side because I wanted to put my computer bag there.  I could have just stood it up against the laid-down seat, but I guess I was going somewhere where I wasn't completely sure my car wouldn't get broken into, so my plan was to fold up the seat, lie my laptop bag flat on the floor, and put my car shades on it so no one could see it.

I distinctly remember laying the computer bag flat with one of its pouches unzipped.  It was a pouch in which I keep my pens.  I also distinctly remember thinking I should zip it up because I don't want anything to roll out of the bag, but I thought nah, it won't happen.  Well, I'm guessing that poor pen did roll out of the bag and onto the floor, and when I grabbed my laptop bag, I didn't notice it got loose.

I don't remember this part, but I have to think that at a later day, without my knowledge, My Father put that back seat down.  That pen must have gotten into the anchor, preventing him from locking the seat in.  The only way he thought he could get it to go down and stay down was through force, so he just pushed down the seat repeatedly and violently, not knowing that the reason the seat wouldn't anchor was because that pen was in the way.  So he basically broke a pen into pieces by smashing it with the bar of a car seat.

I get the frustration.  But I'm hung up on how much force, and really how much violence, you would need to destroy a pen just because a car seat wouldn't secure.  But then again, I could see My Father being so angry to the point of using brute force to get what he wants.  I've seen it.  I've been a victim of it.  Preposterous or not, seeing those pen remnants is a reminder of how vicious My Father could be.

I will zip up the pouches on my computer bag from now on.

I Want To Know When I Need To Go Into Work, That's All

Now, I preface this by saying that I'm blog posting this due to unusual circumstances, namely that my co-worker is going to be out for a while because she is hurting in a big way, though I don't specifically know why or how.  One would think that would be an acceptable reason to see one's schedule change, even though that would mean a change in time you start your shift, like my job does.

But most of the time -- and again, I'm not blaming anyone, this rises only to the level of annoyance -- I don't know what I'm doing at work, and therefore I don't know what time I need to get in, sometimes until my last day of my workweek (usually Friday), and sometimes I don't know until I get in to start my workweek (usually Monday).  Beyond knowing what time I need to get in and thus knowing what time I need to set my alarm, I would want to know what I'm doing -- whether I'm doing data entry, I'm in The Third Department, or The Fourth -- before next week starts so I can get into the right frame of mind.  Each different position requires doing different things, obviously, and I want to know what I'm expected to do each day of the week before that week begins.  Again, I understand I might not know when I want to know.  Things come up, such as my co-worker being in traction for a while.  Also, my boss is real busy.

But when things change on me, I have to alter my plans.  Let me be selfish and rant here.  I was given my work schedule for this week on Friday.  There, I was supposed to come in to work early on Friday only.  And considering we have been asked to stay beyond our shift to key almost on a regular basis since, oh, the year started, my plan was to work a bit extra yesterday/Tuesday, go to the post office downtown, mail my taxes, then celebrate by going to a fancy restaurant downtown.

My co-worker being out injured switched around my entire week.  Now, my early day was, actually, yesterday/Tuesday.  And while I had to stay a bit after to get all the data entry done, I got done before the post offices (at least the ones here) closed at 5.  That meant I didn't have to pay for parking downtown to file my taxes at the downtown post office, which closes at 8.  Yeah, that could be seen as a good thing.  But I don't like it when my plans are changed for me, even if it means I could get home earlier than I thought and wouldn't have to pay for parking, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.  I spent a substantial portion of my workday wondering if I should just go to downtown anyway, even though I would be there way earlier than I thought.  Ultimately, though, the facts that I could mail my taxes before the conventional workday was over and could do it without paying for parking convinced me I should move this dinner at the fancy restaurant, which I was looking forward to, to another day.  (I also realized that the Twins were playing at Target Field last/Tuesday night.  I don't think they're getting any crowds, even though they're playing quite well right now, but I didn't want to risk any chance of losing my temper over traffic.)

However, having my evening freed up invited another opportunity I had to spend some mental bandwidth contemplating: Working out.  I haven't been to my gym in weeks, and after bellyaching over, well, my aching belly after eating so much while watching the WNBA Draft Monday night, this might be a sign that I could, and should, work out.  But I remembered I also had a plan of finishing off the two ginger beers that have been open for weeks in a dark 'n' stormy.  Not knowing what to do, I decided to go home after eating dinner at a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant and try and sleep.  If I couldn't lose consciousness in half an hour, I'd get up and work out.  Instead, I woke up around 7:30.  I walked up and down the street for exercise instead.  And I drank my cocktail.

Still feel kind of bad I haven't gone to the community center.  But that's what happens when your work schedule changes on you.

I Make Bad Choices

So I was at this bar last/Monday night for the WNBA Draft (the Lynx will rue that they chose Miles over Fam Thiam, book it).  I wanted to stay for the whole thing, but the wings I got weren't enough for me.  So I got these "Chicken Dunkers," and when the server asked me what else I wanted to go with it, I realized I may have gotten myself way over my head, or stomach.  And lo and behold, I got this small but bountiful basket of chicken ... well, they're smaller than tenders but bigger than nuggets, put it that way.  And there were tater tots, which I chose, interspersed with those.  I finished, but barely, and now I feel fat.  Because I am fat, and I make bad choices when it comes to eating.

I was so tired after coming home I went to bed after the news.  As I was falling asleep I realized that there's a bruise on my left knee.  Have no idea where I got it from.  I didn't bang something hard at work or at the bar.  Maybe it happened spontaneously.  Maybe my body's breaking down.

I make bad choices.

Bracketology 2026

Man, I used to really love watching the Selection Show.  But then they crammed the fucking Play-In Games down our throats, and then Turner got their shit-ass hands on half the tournament, and then Chuck Barkley and Jet Smith started commentating on it even though they haven't done fuck-all about talking college hoops up till then, and then half of the tournament Games were put on cable, and then they spread out tipoff times so that there's only Game coming down to the wire at a time and if that Game is boring there's no reason to watch, and then CBS stopped whipping around to the best Game happening at that time (and this is the worst decision that was made, and it is fucking unforgivable) ... and now I don't care.  I might just plow the rest of the driveway then.  Or, I might just sleep through the show.  I don't care.

Anyway, as of press time, Bracket Matrix has aggregated the following teams into the following categories.  Teams are listed in order:

The REAL Last Teams In: UCF, Texas A&M, N. C. St., Santa Clara

Play-In Games: Missouri, Miami (OH), SMU, Texas

Actually, They're The LAST Teams Out: San Diego St., Auburn, Oklahoma, Indiana

When I Socialize, I Eat ...

... and I had a group dinner on Friday and a friend's birthday dinner last/Saturday night.  I went to two places I haven't been to, and to celebrate, I ordered a lot of food.  And I ate it.  And I am fat, and I feel fat.  

Drank a bit, too.  Starting to feel like it's a bit much.  It certainly is wrecking my sleep schedule.  I went to bed early last/Saturday night because I was tired, and yet I woke up at 8.  And I see, as I type this, that the Gold Medal Game of the Olympic men's hockey tournament is going on now.  Everybody, and I mean everybody, is watching this Game ... and to celebrate, I think that I am going to go out to watch with other Americans, too.

I don't stop.  Even though, maybe, I should.

Those Motherfuckers

Today I woke up around 11:30.  I think my body told me I only needed six hours of sleep.  But, I think I was trying to loll around my bed to get more shuteye anyway.

I couldn't.  I was woken up by a car horn being honked incessantly.  I think they say that when you hear a horn getting honked repeatedly, that means that those people are not only around, but they're about to take someone.

Those sons-of-bitches are still here, goddammit, and they might finally be reaching our street.

---

Not too long ago, my phone blew up.  Emergency text.  Some kid is missing.  But this is no Amber Alert, at least I don't think.  The missing child is a Latino boy.

I saw on the tracker website that an observer saw activity at an address close to the one given on the alert.  Poor boy made a run for it, I reckon.  I don't know how he's going to survive because this is the one cold night we'll have for at least the next couple weeks.  But if there are gods, let him run free.

Bored Me Napping, Then Shopping For Big-Ticket Items

Braced myself for another long day at work yesterday/Friday ... but it wasn't; it was actually tame, and very tame compared to Thursday ... and yet I have to brace myself for today/Saturday, because my bosses said that today/Saturday could bring in a bunch of work which I don't understand why it couldn't have come yesterday/Friday, and so I'm coming in to work as soon as I wake up.

So my plan of staying in today/Saturday has blown up, but hey, I am getting beaucoup overtime this week, so I'm not too upset.  Still, I wondered what I would do once I got home (on-time, which I did not expect) yesterday/Friday.  I thought I would be awake enough to start on the leftover pizza that I had decided I would eat, but the setting sun convinced me to take a nap first.  If I wasn't tired, I'd pop up early, and work on the pizza before the sports Games I wanted to watch would start at 7.

I crawled into bed before 6.  I woke up a couple minutes past 9.  Didn't expect to do that.  I thought I didn't have time to eat pizza and should pivot to spaghetti, which I planned to eat today/Saturday, but I am getting Pizza Hut to watch for the Super Bowl, so I went through with the pizza.

Yeah, nothing exciting.  So, in my bored state, I was reading up on the latest on how these assholes continue to plague and besiege our state.  One person believes that the announcement earlier this week that they're withdrawing troops was just a way to get people in the state and the national news media off their backs.  Then, the next step is for the remaining pricks to go hard not necessarily after non-Whites but observers that have made their loud objections to what is going on here a state-wide issue.  Intriguing, and I can see that that works, and is working now.

And then I clicked on a link recommending the best gas masks to buy.  If I have to physically commit to this struggle, I'll probably get tear-gassed, so I might as well prepare, right?  I looked through not one but two websites dedicated to the best gas masks, and me being a thoroughly-researching consumer, I think I settled upon one.  And, to make things even more tantalizing, the gas mask is on sale.  (I'm not going to link the websites that reviewed the masks or the company that sells the one that appears to be the top-rated one, just in case they're snooping around here.)  I think maybe I'm sounding too paranoid, but dammit, the thing's on sale.  I'll wait till tomorrow/Sunday; if I remember, and if it's still on sale then, I think I'll buy one.

What I did pull the trigger on is a new robe.  After seeing the two website review gas masks, I went to the website that does nothing but review consumer products (to think gas masks are a consumer product -- what a world we live in), The Wirecutter.  And bored me went down another rabbit hole, to their review of robes.  Now, I have thought about buying a robe for the past, oh, few years.  On the one hand I didn't think I needed one; either I would wrap myself in a towel and just hang out on my bed in the nude, or, if I'm alone in the house, I'd just waltz around naked.  But there is a limbo state where you are not totally dry but still want to putz around in the house without your man bits hanging out -- well, unless you want to open up your robe to thrust out your dick.  I'd reserve that occasion when I want to surprise one of my stripper girlfriends.

Anyway, the main obstacle to buying a robe, believe it or not, is price.  The ones The Wirecutter recommends are routinely in the triple digits.  One hundred dollars for a damn robe?!  I may have seen one for $90, but even that's expensive.  However, when I am bored, I am weak.  And thus I was ripe for the picking when I saw one of the recommended robes being sold for about 30% off if I use a promo code tied in with the website.  At $65 ... well, it's still expensive, but it'll be as cheap as these robes will ever get.  Also, I didn't plan on spending any money tonight, but the company said I could pay through PayPal, and my stupid brain has convinced myself into thinking that is not real money, so I bought it under the illusion that I haven't really paid anything today.

So I threw my sleep pattern off last night, I bought a robe, and tomorrow/Sunday I think I'll be buying a gas mask.  This is what bored me does.  Now, off to bed.

The Downside To Having A Neighbor Who's Looking Out For You

As I have told all of you, my sister's childhood best friend lives a couple houses down from me/us with her wife and their baby.  We text from time to time, but we have been in touch more since her mom passed in December.  I wanted to give her me and my family's sympathies, and then I wished her Happy Holidays, and then this fucking occupation from our goddamn Republican government began, and that is when I really started to text/bug her about sightings and, if need be, having each other's backs if the shit hits the fan.

She has a background in security, plus she has always been observant, so in the days when I got really scared about them patrolling our neighborhood and even our street, I felt, and feel, good that she will at the very least let me know if she sees something scary.  I have not been one to reach out and be friendly to neighbors, but if and when the time comes to band together, that is when it's beneficial, if not vital, to know who the people who live next and close to you are.

With all that said ... a man has needs, and for the first time since my parents finally skedaddled, I asked one of my stripper girlfriends, ******e, to come over and play with me.  She was late, of course, and this was when I came home from downtown watching the EPL after waking up early enough to see some soccer.  My body, with the help of the Bloody Mary I had, told me to rest while I waited for her.

I woke up to both a knock on the door and a buzz from my phone.  Naturally, I checked my phone first.  There was a text -- not from ******e, whom I asked to let me know when she was close, but from my sister's best friend.  She said she saw a car pull up to the driveway, and did I expect it.  And this is what I feared: Her doing the neighborly thing all too well.

I have, or had, kept to myself because I didn't want anybody peeping on my business, especially my illicit one.  And yes, I have known her for a long, long time, so it's possible that she has seen cars come up to my house before.  But I haven't asked her to watch over me in case people are taking me away until now.  And now I know for sure that she has been looking.

So I race down the door to open it and invite ******e in.  That's when I had to think of a reply, so I just said, "Yeah, I was expecting company," and then for some goddamn reason I went, "Don't tell anyone!"  Great, now I have given her reason to think I am doing something my parents don't know I'm doing.

Look, I don't think she'd tell my folks.  After all, my parents refused to attend her mother's funeral, even though they were home and the service was virtually down the street.  My folks made her mom egg rolls, and she loved them.  That's a connection that should be celebrated, or at least memorialized, as she was laid to rest.  But they declined to go, and Mother's knee is a bullshit excuse, even though Mother never raised it (and no, I didn't ask why they didn't want to go).

So that makes me think that there's no way my sister's best friend would just blurt out one day to them that I had a chick come over.  But, would she tell my sister?  Maybe.  And that's what scares me.  I hope she plays it cool and understand I'm an adult.  And I don't think I can now ask her not to look when a suspicious car drives up to my house; these assholes are still around.  But I don't think I am going to stop asking my stripper girlfriends to come over, either.  In fact, I think I am going to ask *****y to drop by, and then, hopefully, ****e* will have time the following week to clean my house.  Will she suspect something if she sees a pattern of cars drive up to the house?  And if so, will she tell?

It's weird to think that she might be thinking I'm having sex workers at my house, I'll tell you that much.

The Sleep Reset I Didn't Know I Needed

I didn't think I would pass out at 10 p.m., but I did.  My body told me I was real tired, so I listened to it, and I woke up around 5:30 and I feel good, even though I also feel a bit out of phase.  I back down to Day 1/10% bonus in Zynga Poker, but for a good night's sleep, I'll take it.

I really, really want to watch the EPL downtown.  I was going to do that yesterday/Saturday morning, but work called.  Also, I don't want to go to the bar on a day when a club whose supporters gather at this pub are playing.  That's most weekends when there is more than one Match going on (and on principle I don't usually don't go on a weekend when there is only one Match going on at a time), but yesterday/Saturday was one of those few times.  The next Saturday, I think I saw, was in mid-March.  However, there are three Matches going on this/Sunday morning, and none of them involve a club that meets there.  I didn't even think of going today/Sunday because they all kick off at 8.  But I'm awake now, so I can go!

But wait -- how about those damn people?  They had a goddamn checkpoint set up yesterday morning.  I don't see one now, so I hope there won't be one when I get back.

One other factor: The snow.  Only an inch fell, but it'd be just my luck if I get into a crash this morning.

And Another Snow Day!!!

This is more than ridiculous; this is fucking absurd.  Either this is one fucking monstrous snowstorm or Southerners really don't know how to deal with snow and ice, because when I woke up and checked my texts, my boss said there wasn't a shipment again this morning.  Third day in a row.  We've never had two days of no work, let alone three.  So, another snow day!!!

Not to complain too much, but you really can't enjoy a surprise day off if you have to wake up assuming you don't have the day off.  Compounding that annoyance is that today, because I was scheduled to go in and cut packages open, I had to wake up early.  Then, once I saw that someone was going to go in to work and do everything for the rest of us, I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't.  (This despite having only, at most, 90 minutes of shuteye overnight.)

Unlike yesterday, today I had planned on going out: There's a volunteer event my financial planner is putting on very close to my house.  And since he's treating everyone to dinner afterward, hell yeah, I'm going.  And since I am taking the car out today, I might as well go to the Walker today and use that offer to see the museum for free after buying a ticket to the Arrows.  I had planned on going Saturday, but the chances are now very good that I will be working that day, so I switched plans and went just today.

You know, I know I'm not enjoying these surprise days off as much as I should because one day, this will all be over and we will have to go back to work.  Something good will be taken from me, and anticipating that will happen makes me very, very sad.  But that day wasn't today.  And, to be fair, I really thought that it would be yesterday and it wasn't.  So I'm riding on free money.

The one thing I'm lacking right now is sleep.  I have to end this blog post now in order to try and get a nap in before I go to this volunteer event.

The Gas Company Has Asked Us To Ration

Never seen this before: Our gas company has asked us to turn down our thermostat to 65 degrees until Friday.  The extended polar vortex apparently has all of us cranking our thermostats up, and it's both testing the utility and causing our rates to rise spectacularly.  (I didn't notice until I re-checked my e-mail just now; the company e-mailed back on Friday asking us to lower our thermostats to 65 degrees until Monday.  Man, if they have asked us to extend this rationing, we're doing a real number on their grid.)

The amount of money I have to pay for natural gas this month is about nine times that of the month with the lowest amount.  I think it went up $60 or $80 from the previous month, which was also either a $60 or $80 increase from the previous month.  Dear God.

Like a sucker conscientious customer, I did it.  But damn, it is cold.  I have tried turning it down to 65 when I sleep, like people recommend, but it was too cold for me to sleep, so I put it back up to 68, which is my evening/doing stuff around the house temperature.  (They say that you want it colder when you turn in than when you're up and about, but do you really?)  Anyway, I'll do it.  I'll bring it down to 65.  But sometimes I use my space heater when I'm cold.  I used it just now, and I reserve the right to use it again -- till Friday and, hell, after Friday.  Which, come to think of it, will rocket my electricity bill.  Oh, well -- damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Another Snow Day!!!

Alright, now this is getting ridiculous.  I wake up at my normal weekday time expecting to come in.  I check my phone, of course ... and I see that there has been a group text created with my boss and co-workers.  I still didn't quite understand it (or maybe I just didn't believe it), but apparently the shipment was expected to be so meager again this morning that not everyone had to come in today, either.  This text chain started a quarter after 4 this morning, so obviously I was late to the party, but from what I picked up, it was determined that there was such little work that, like yesterday, one person could come in and do my job and another person's.  It looks as though one of my co-workers volunteered to do that, and, after I texted my boss and another co-worker to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing, I asked, and was granted, today off.

Woo-hoo!!!  Hell yeah!!!  But damn, how bad is the storm down there?  Given the work we get is important, I thought they would need Sunday to recover, then be back fully functioning, or at least get up off the mat, by yesterday afternoon so they could at least start getting caught up with giving us a sizable shipment (if not more than a full day's shipment) this morning so we could, you know, work.  Guess not.

So we might get two days' worth of work tomorrow morning, and tomorrow is when I have to cut open packages.  I probably (unless the mid-South needs yet another day to recuperate) will be opening so many packages that I'll get carpal tunnel syndrome.  But that's tomorrow.  I have an interesting (at least to me) dilemma right now: Whether to work out at my gym.  When I got the day off today, I thought it would be a good time to finally get out and exercise.  But then I fell asleep again from around 10 till a bit before 2 -- much needed, by the way -- and now, I don't know.  It's above zero, which is miles warmer than what it was before, but it's still pretty cold.  I just saw on the map that these motherfuckers are still here; they just took a Latina woman this morning.  Finally, if I surprisingly don't have to work, do I want to start up my car?  Do I even leave the house?  You know, I think I should take advantage of this serendipity and stay at home -- completely at home, a one-day lockdown, like the weekend.  There's a bike that Mother used as a clothesline, but started using as a bike to help heal her knee.  I should get on it and just exercise here.  Yeah, I'll do that.  And I'll go out to the gym this weekend.

Snow Day!!!

I hate surprises, but when the surprise is an unplanned day off, I love surprises.  Well, it wasn't quite unplanned.  There's that huge snowstorm just south of us (I think that's the reason we've had below-zero weather for the past four days) that is (or was) dropping inches of snow and tenths of inches of ice.  That's where we get our work from every day.  There was a very good chance that no work would come in today since the mid-South is still dealing with the cold and ice and digging out of the snow.

And, as far as I know, that is what's happening.  I woke up at my normal time, like I would be going in to work like normal, but I texted my co-worker, who works early, if there is any work.  I waited a while but, just before I headed out, I got a voicemail from my boss saying that there isn't work (or at least no work when she checked this morning), so she said I could take the day off.  And I am!

Now, for all I know, a shipment came later this morning.  But even if there was, the number of forms has to be so meager that my co-worker could take care of it by herself.  But assuming the South will rise by tomorrow, we are going to have to play catch-up.  That means longer hours, and it may be so much work that the day off I am enjoying now I will make up later this week.  But hey, until then, I am enjoying my day off here ... where I am taking naps, cleaning the humidifier, and getting scared they're going to knock on my door.

Of All The Times I Needed A Half-Day ...

Getting yesterday/Tuesday afternoon off turned out to be a godsend.  I woke up from my evening nap Monday night at around 11:45 p.m., so I didn't get a wink of sleep through the overnight.  With my body dragging, me spending the morning cutting open packages and dealing with a particularly nasty leaked bag of piss, and seeing my city still being besieged by our own federal "government," I was so looking forward to not working in the same afternoon we were all supposed to walk out.  I was even assigned to data entry, but I didn't do it; instead, I worked on figuring out this new software we are supposed to know in a couple weeks.

And I didn't make much headway into that, either.  No, I was into doing ... nothing.  Well, I take that back; I had a lot of chores I felt I had to do.  I had to:

• use my haircut coupon before it expired;
• get my photo taken for passport purposes;
• buy groceries to hunker down for this cold, cold weekend we're about to have;
• finally drag some stuff out of my storage unit
• and do something for Mother at the bank

Now, come to think of it, I was really busy, and productive.  I didn't finish all of these things before 2 p.m., which was the scheduled time we were all supposed to "walk out," but around 2:30 I shut the door with no intention of opening it unit this/Wednesday morning.  I took a shower and then, while fully naked, settled into my bed because my body was finally tired.

And I woke up around 8:30.  Wow!  Five hours of hard sleep to reset my body.  Felt really, really good, even if this continues to throw my body clock out of whack.  And my "slangriness" has completely left me.  The anxiety over these people abducting me, however and unfortunately, remains.

Hadn't gotten eight hours of sleep in some time.  But I did that this morning.

Hadn't stayed up till almost 6 in the morning in a long time.  But I did that today.

Don't think I've woken up past 2 in the afternoon in decades.  But I did that this afternoon.

There are some great things to living alone.  This is certainly one of them.

Now I have to worry about the snow that fell.  More fell than I thought it would.