This Is Why I Am Only Intimate With Strippers

Blow-ups with my parents are few nowadays, thank Buddha.  All-out fights between them and me?  Can't remember the last time we had one.  But I do get annoyed from time to time.  Just take last night.

I was awakened by my now-typical post-dinner nap by them after they took their now-typical post-dinner walk around the block.  After putting on my clothes, I went out to see Father at the dining room table and Mother standing up next to the kitchen counter.  I was still groggy because they interrupted my sleep, which was obvious.

And then Mother said, "Why are you taking a nap?  How are you going to bed tonight if you are taking a nap now?"  And I know she has asked something akin to that before, but I had no answer.  And because of that, in my mind, my only comeback I could think of was, "Shut up."  Instead, I think I stammered out a "Don't you mind," or something like that.

I thought Father said through my bedroom door that he needed help picking something up, like a heavy bag of rice.  No; there was a document and a UPS package laid out.  It's something that has to do with their investments, I think.  They wanted to know if it was filled out correctly, which I think it was.  Then, they needed to find a UPS dropbox.  I don't know -- why would I ever need to use them? -- so I needed to use their cellphone to look up the nearest UPS dropbox from home.  And I was still freakin' damn tired -- I hate getting woken up -- but I went on the UPS website and it brought up a bunch of locations that didn't seem to be very close.  The closest one had an address of 111th St., and we live nowhere near a 111th St.

Right then, Mother said, "Why aren't you using Google Maps?" and I was just about trying of her crap, so I snapped at her, "If you know so much about finding a dropbox, why don't you look it up yourself?"  But I did, and even though I didn't feel as though I could trust those results either, I think the closest one is just below 694.  Mother thanked me in a sarcastic way, and I went to back into my room to try and fall asleep again and fail to do so.

I have taken to heart the adage that in relationships, you ultimately revert back to what you know.  What I know, or remember, are drag-out (and only very occasional knock-down) fights between my parents.  I knew that is what I would probably do if I ever deign to have a girlfriend.  But I realized I am broken in a different way after reflecting on my reactions to what Mother said.  Her comments are triggers, things that have pissed me off for as long as I can remember her saying stuff like that, and I have been rubbed raw, to the bone, as I feel I have had to deal with it all my life.  In particular, I hate hectoring questions from her about stuff I don't know, and also her telling me I'm doing something wrong and I should be doing it another way instead.  If I ever get into a relationship, and she asks me a question about something I don't know or tells me I'm doing something wrong and I should be doing something else instead ... well, I think I probably will snap at her.  And, if I'm being completely honest with myself, I could do worse.

It's what I know and what I've learned.  And I think I've known that in the back of my mind because I have never had an intimate partner.  Well, not an emotionally intimate partner.  I can line up physically intimate partners if I want to spend the cash.  And I have.  And once they're done jacking me off, I usually leave, because I don't ever want to get into a situation where I am abusive.  Or violent.

Why Did I Look?

What I usually do during the Timberwolves' recent run is do my damndest not to check the score until I absolutely have to.  That means I usually don't get on my phone so I absolutely avoid Twitter/X and Yahoo! Sports and Apple News.  It's been a very effective way to get off my cellphone.  I don't know if the rash of naps I've taken in the evening coincides with my "rule."

I try my best to avoid the score when I turn on the radio on my way to work.  I wait until I hear the montage by Brandon Mileskie, the producer of The Common Man Progrum on KFAN at high noon the next day.  It feels like an easy way to ease into knowing the score, especially if it's bad.

For Game 1 of The Western Conference Finals, however, I did something different -- stupidly.  First thing yesterday/Wednesday morning I looked at The Athletic.  I did so because I thought I had just heard good news.  I didn't hear the score, and I didn't hear something like, "The Timberwolves won!"  But I heard enough good news that I thought they had won, so I went on the app anticipating good news.  And unfortunately there wasn't any; they lost, 108-105.

And yes, this brings up how I heard good news when I just woke up.  I guess I imagined this good news, or I was still on a high of the Wolves going into Denver and defeating the Nuggets in Game 7 of the previous series, or maybe both.  And I admit that the score on The Athletic application had to load up, and in the half-second it was I realized what was going on and so the pessimistic side of me kicked in and I told myself, "Welp, hope the news is good."  And it wasn't.

Man, why did I look?

I Am A Hypocritical Gift Giver

Just bought my niece her presents at Amazon.  They should arrive at her/my brother's place in a week.

I bought her some of the gifts she wanted (which her mother/my maybe-still sister-in-law texted to me).  That's the best way for me to buy gifts for Christmas: I ask someone what he or she wants, and I give it to him or her.  It's better than me trying to figure out something that person would like, because I never know what he or she likes, and so the gift will be worthless to him or her.  I have bad memories of giving gifts to people, and they cannot hide their reaction of, "Ooooooh, great ... yeah, thanks for this," and my heart immediately sinks.

Possibly an in-between case that happened at work.  Our departments put out calls for a Secret Santa last week.  My supervisor handed over this piece of paper to which our Secret Santa will either get inspiration from or directly buy a gift; we will hand them out just before Christmas.  As the deadline was approaching I finally got around to reading this cheat sheet for my giver as well as the general guidelines.  The cheat sheet wasn't direct: It had vague themes such as, "My favorite scent is," and "If there was one thing I've been obsessed over all year, it's," etc.  The guidelines gave the parameters of the gift giving: Nothing over 30 bucks ... and no gift cards.

Dammit.  Our department didn't do a Secret Santa last year.  Instead, my supervisor just put up little stockings for each of us and encouraged all of us to drop small presents into them before Christmas.  I thought this was a great idea, so I bought a bunch of $20 gift cards from Target and wedged them in (the stockings were smaller than the width of the gift cards).  Maybe it was overkill, but I thought it was a great pick-me-up for the holidays (even though I was not there because I was doing my family vacation over the holidays in Hawai'i).

I decided not to do the Secret Santa.  Partially it was because I didn't know if I wanted to spend the time looking for a gift for someone who was not family.  Partially it was because I was looking at the cheat sheet and felt overwhelmed.  I don't know if I want my Secret Santa to know this stuff about me, I thought to myself.  But honestly, I think my decision not to do it comes from my feeling that I did not want to be confined to getting gifts for which I had no input.  I think I am of the mind that if you know what you want, why don't you get it yourself?

And obviously that mindset is ... well, dick-ish for this time of year, but also hypocritical.  For one, I need my niece to tell me what she wants me to give her.  Isn't my hypothetical recipient just doing the same thing?  And for another, I feel like a damn heel for not doing the Secret Santa while lustfully tossing money around for my co-workers last year.  Gift cards are an easy gift to give, maybe too easy.  But I felt good doing it because it was my idea, and my gift to you -- even though I gave you no say in what I am going to give you.  Isn't gift giving supposed to be for the person receiving the gift, not the one giving it?  That should be the case.  And if so, why in the fuckety-fuck do I have a problem giving someone a present he or she wants?

I feel absolutely awful now for not participating in the Secret Santa at work.  Moreover, I feel bad for giving out all those Target gift cards last holiday season and then not participating in the Secret Santa at work this holiday season.  My co-workers know about what I did last year and decided not to do this year, and my co-workers will probably think that I am at the very least strange and at the very worst a freakin' Grinch.  And they, I'm afraid, wouldn't be wrong.

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.

I Am Afraid I Am Getting Mask Fatigue

I continue to wear surgical masks at work.  You never know, and besides, if there is ever a place to keep wearing a mask, it's in an indoor setting where you're relatively close to people for 8 1/2 hours a day, right?

Well, sometimes the masks I get are bad.  I've come to the conclusion that the boxes the masks come in have varying degrees of quality.  Sometimes the masks are relatively small for my face, so when I stretch the loops to take it off (to drink, to blow my nose, etc.), they snap loose.  If one does, it's almost certain that the next mask I get, which likely will come from the same box as the first one, will also be too small and also will snap.  And they do.  I have gone through half a dozen one morning.

And I am going through a similarly bad run as of late.  I believe I had to get a new mask twice on Monday and twice one day last week.  Yesterday/Wednesday was going to be different; it was going to be a day where the mask lasts the whole day (it usually does).  But about an hour before I was done with work, I unhooked myself to finish off my coffee and snap! there went the loop of the mask.

And to be quite honest, my initial thought was: "Well, I'm only going to be here for an hour longer.  I can go without it."  But then common sense (as well as a pull to toward the routine) kicked in and I grabbed another mask.  (It seemed larger than the one I had been wearing all day, for the record, so I'm guessing it came from a different box, a better one.)  But that thought wasn't uncharacteristic of me as of late.  I am getting mask fatigue.

I have resumed how I lived my life before the pandemic began: I go out to eat a lot and attend movies and concerts when I want (well, my previous blog posts about passing the Fleet Foxes show notwithstanding).  I usually wear a mask, and quite often an N95 mask I have hoarded (and sometimes, at least for this hazy summer of smoke, a ventilated N95) over a surgical one, either one I have in my car or, if I'm going somewhere straight from work, the one I have been wearing at work.  But I've been slipping.  I have slipped my masks off indoors when eating or drinking something, and now, when I sit down to eat, I keep it off until I put it back on.

Lately I have stopped putting a mask on if I'm dashing into, say, a gas station to pay for gas.  I have let my guard down for longer periods as of late, too; I watched Bullitt Monday night (and have I told you how much of a badass motherfucker Steve McQueen is?) and I kept my mask off after I got done eating my popcorn and drinking my Coke.  Moveover, the past couple weeks I have become acutely aware that I am one of the vanishing few walking around with a mask on when I have been at, say, Target or the Mall Of America (I really felt awkward when I was at the latter Independence Day/Tuesday).  I hate that I have allowed to creep into my head the thought: "Do other people think I look stupid still wearing a mask?"

I don't know if COVID-19 has reached an endemic phase.  Maybe it's still a problem but The Media isn't covering it, so it's easy to dismiss now as a dark chapter in humanity's history that's finally behind us.  But like I said, you never know if some chump coughing up a storm next to me while pushing past me on the concourse at Allianz Field (I know I'm going to lose my temper there again on Saturday) is spewing the 'Rona.  Or the flu; that can still circulate during the summer.  And heck, mask-wearing might come back into vogue in the winter months, when more people are cooped up indoors and the coronavirus won't be automatically vitiated by the outdoor air.  But yes, I am catching myself slipping from mask-wearing.  Some of it is risk I'm willing to accept.  But I think some of it is me finally getting tired of a killer that might not be tired of me.

Strange Food

So Mother spent most of yesterday/Tuesday making something.  I got out of work early enough (thank you, Juneteenth!) to justify eating dinner at home, and I was exiled into eating at the kitchen counter.

Turns out she was making ... man, I don't know what you call it, but it's, I think, steamed rice along with a bunch of other Chinese foods I don't understand and probably don't like all wrapped in a, uh, green leaf.  I know this food is quite familiar with a bunch of people I know, but I have no idea what it's called.  And I'm not much of a fan of it, either.

I see one sitting out on the table right now.  Father probably is going to pack it up for me to eat at work.  Probably will ... after I punch out, I'll need to sit down, heat it up, unwrap the sticky, gangly thing, and use a fork to dig out bite after bland bite.  So yeah, I'm not a fan of the taste nor of the work I need to put into eating it, and yes, I'm being a bit of a jerk because Mother has to put a lot of work into making it.  (I saw these leaf wraps in a pool of water in the laundry room Monday night.  "Hmmm, what are those for?" I remember asking myself.  I didn't put two and two together.)

That's all I got.

Forget Work -- What Am I Gonna Eat?

I've noticed that I do this, or at least have done this for a long time, but I haven't, like, noticed noticed this until a couple months ago.

I start thinking about planning my workweek Sunday night.  But after I try and remember where I'm working -- "Oh, yeah, I have to go here Tuesday, then I'm filling in for him on Friday" -- my thoughts quickly run to what I'm doing after work.  Specifically, though, I'm thinking about what I will eat after work.  There are leftovers my parents left for me, and sometimes I feel like splurging with a night out, and then I fill in the other nights with fast food.  I spend an inordinate amount of time and brainpower figuring out which days I'll eat in and which days I'll eat out and, for the latter, where.  And honestly, I kind of get excited thinking about it.

For example, this week I think is a normal one for me -- no coming in at 9 or 3:30 or anything like that.  That means there isn't a compulsion to make a night of it (and frankly, I just saw my credit card statements, and I think I should cool it a bit on the nights out).  Meanwhile, I have about three meals' worth of fried rice and vegetables still in the refrigerator.  I'll get burned out if I eat them on consecutive days, and I ate the first such meal yesterday/Sunday afternoon, plus ******a is coming over to rub me down tonight, so I figure today I'll eat at, like, Arby's or Kentucky Fried Chicken or Burger King.  I'll then eat leftovers tomorrow/Tuesday and then alternate between buying food and eating at home the rest of the week.  I'll knock out those leftovers by Saturday afternoon or evening, hopefully before they go bad, which I don't think will happen because they'll be in the fridge for, what, only two weeks?

And then once those leftovers are done ... well, I'll just have to buy food.  Will I just eat out all the time then, or will I, like, buy groceries in stuff?  Well, I'll think about that when I have to ... at which point I'll probably get off on thinking about it.

Oh, I Am So Not At My Best Now

My fucking God, I so hate myself so goddamn much right now.

Saturday I forgot a souvenir cup.  Yesterday/Sunday I forgot to use Seafoam on an empty tank of my parents' minivan.  And last/Monday night -- I'm such a stupid fucker -- I washed my delicates with my regulars.  Yeah-yeah, maybe some of you don't give a shit.  But I do.

Moreover, I spent a few minutes in the evening separating all my dirty clothes on whether they need to be washed warm or cold, dried medium or low, or treated delicately or not.  What I usually do is put my delicate wash cold/dry low pile right next to my wash cold/dry low in separate piles.  I want to know that they pretty much are the same, but some of them are delicates and some are not.  OK, that might not make any sense.  I sorted them out on the hallway right outside my bedroom, and so I don't have much space.  That usually doesn't confuse me.  Usually, I know that if I decide to wash my wash cold/dry low clothes, like I did last/Monday night, I would pick up that pile and just that pile.  But last/Monday night ... fuck, maybe I was thinking about other things?  It appears as though I picked up both piles and regarded them as just one big pile.  And I even looked at the pieces of delicates -- which, to be honest, were just two pieces of long underwear -- and thought to myself, "Huh, do I want to wash these?" as I was putting them into the washing machine, and I didn't even think to stop myself.  It was only when I ran upstairs and seeing no piles where I thought I would see one small pile that I realized I combined the two and washed those delicates like they were regular clothes.  You know, like a dumbass.

I don't think that I've ruined the delicates after I washed them regular.  To make up for it, I dried them delicately, whatever that means.  Besides, when Father washes my clothes, he throws all the colored clothes together, delicate or not, so I'm sure all my thermals have been washed regularly before, and they all seem to be holding up given their age.  So why should I freak out if I washed them incorrectly this one time?  Well, besides me intending not to launder them only to completely chuck that out the window not an hour after I separated them ... and knowing that this is the third straight day when I completely lost my bearings which turned into a blown opportunity ... eh, not much, I guess.

I'm going to develop Alzheimer's when I'm old, I fuckin' know it.

---

Well, not to use this as an excuse, but I have what I consider to be a tough two days at work.  This/Tuesday morning I will be opening packages, and goddamn, lifting bags and possibly putting my hands in piss for two hours will not be good for my heart.  And then tomorrow/Wednesday afternoon I am scanning, and I never feel as though I am scanning fast enough, at least fast enough for some people (cough, cough).  Oh, maybe it's just all my head, like that Florence Pugh main character in Fighting With My Family where she has a bad rehearsal and is screaming at a bunch of women who she thinks is talking shit about her, only to find out after she confronts them that one of those women is just talking about the child she left at home.  Yeah, maybe I'm paranoid.  Or, I hope I'm paranoid.  Fuck it, I just want to make it through these next two days without having either a panic or heart attack.

Was I That Late???

OK, so I watched No Time To Die last week.  It was my second time watching it.

It wasn't because I thought it was so good I had to see it again, although it's a really good movie.  (The ending in particular is nothing like anything in the Bond canon, and it is a really-needed shake-up.)  It's just that ... well, OK. ...

The first time I saw it was after a day where I was filling in at The Fourth Department.  Work was a bear, but I was able to get out, although I stayed after, in time to catch the screening of the Bond film.  I parked my car just at the screening time for the movie, but there are always previews and such at the beginning, so I figured I had time to use the bathroom and get popcorn and pop.  I did all those things in ten minutes, then I went to the screen showing NTTD.  In fact, this place has TV screens for signs, and the one right next to the door had the right movie and the right time.  I thought the door being open was a bit much, but maybe they were told to do it as a COVID-related circulation protocol.

I enter the theater screen and see that the film has already started.  Shit.  I am a completist when it comes to watching movies; if I miss the beginning, in all likelihood, I will pay a ticket to watch it again at a later date to make sure I see the whole thing.  I think I last did this for Moonlight, and I also did it for All About My Mother.  (With that being said, I have left in the middle of a movie to go to the bathroom, and I do not see a film again if I miss a minute or two under those circumstances.  Does that make me a hypocrite?)  Anyway, the first scene I saw was an action scene: Bond (Daniel Craig) and what I later understood is a new and very green operative named Paloma (Ana de Armas, who I believe got this part through Craig, her co-star on Knives Out, and who, by the way, rowrrrrrrrrrrrr) kicking ass in what I believe is Cuba.  I sat and enjoyed the rest of the flick, and as it went on I thought to myself, "OK, so I missed the title sequence and the Billie Eilish theme song ... but how about the beginnings of the plot?  I feel like I've missed a few things."

It took me a few weeks before I could catch No Time To Die a second time, and I made a point to look at my watch to see 1) how much time did the screening show previews before the movie actually started compared to the announced time and 2) how much of the film did I miss.  Got there on time, thank goodness -- well, not before the trailers, but those don't count.  And this time (I saw this at a different theater) it was about a half-hour after the announced time when NTTD began.

Turns out I missed a lot.  I did read the plot on its Wikipedia page, and there was scene after scene which helped me understand what I missed from the first time I saw it: The flashback that starts the flick; Bond and Madeleine Swan enjoying a romantic vacation; the assassins that find Bond; Bond saying goodbye to Swan; the capture of a scientist; Bond enjoying the bachelor life in Jamaica; Bond being asked by Felix Leiter to help him capture this scientist; the new 007 flirting and then confronting Bond; Bond saying yes to Leiter; then that action sequence in Cuba, which actually is a party for Spectre hosted by Spectre ringleader Blofeld, who is imprisoned back in London, and doubles as a trap for Bond but backfires because this "nanobot mist" intended for Bond kills all the members of Spectre instead.  Then the ass-kicking ensues.

Phew, that was a lot!  And once I saw a line and a scene that I remembered from the first time I saw No Time To Die, I picked up my watch.  It was 52 minutes after the film began.  Fifty-two.  You mean to tell me that I was 52 minutes late to the movie???  That ... that can't be.  Maybe I walked into the wrong theater and, like, the theater I should have gone in was the next one over, and that this TV sign was for that door and not the one I went through.  Or, and I can rest my head at night over this theory, someone at the theater lied to me.  Maybe I was given the wrong theater, or maybe the movie started earlier than it should have.  But goddammit, 52 minutes late isn't an innocent mistake.  Someone dropped the damn ball, and it wasn't me.

Nevertheless, I'll say this: Not only did being able to watch the movie from the start fill in details I didn't get by diving into the middle of the flick the first time, I literally was able to understand some of the lines I didn't comprehend the first time.  Also, going through the plot a second time, even the scenes I saw the first time, helped me with what was going on in the story.  It's a convoluted one, and I don't think all the pieces fit.  But I understood the motivation, how relationships between characters began and changed and, specifically, the idea behind this nanobot weapon.  I wonder if I should re-watch every movie I see in the theater -- assuming I get to the movie to see it from the beginning.

Car-ma

After work and eating at Jimmy John's, I wanted to blow off some steam by walking around the Sculpture Garden in the dark.

I was wrapping up my walk.  Going up the sidewalk to where I parked my car on the street, a car came, stopped, and began to back up in front of the front-most car in order to park.  This car came in hot, and then this dipshit driver began to back up faster than he should have.  He was swerving his steering wheel back and forth, but he wasn't slowing down.  Well, he did slow down after he hit the car behind him.  And he hit it hard.  And he hit it, oh, six feet away from where I just stopped and stood, looking at what the fuck he just did.

The asshole driver got out.  I looked at him for a semi-second.  He then went to the back to see the damage he did.  I glanced at the driver's license.  I saw that the car he hit, like his car, was kind of shitty.  I thought, for a semi-second, that I should call out the idiot for what he did.  But then, finally, I just walked away.  What could I do?  Scream at the guy?  Take a photo of the guy's license plate?  It's the pussy way of thinking, but what if he had a gun?

Walking up to my car, there was another person who had stepped out.  I believe she heard the accident if she didn't see it.  I guess I looked at her because I needed to know that someone else was witness to this bizarre incident.  The guy, by the way, didn't drive off.  I don't know what he was doing, but he was still there when I drove off.

And when I drove off, I thought to myself, "I'm gonna get it.  Because I didn't make that guy pay for hitting that car, my car is gonna get hit."

Well, fast forward to this afternoon.  I stopped by a park to get one more good, autumn walk in; this apparently is going to be The Last Good Weekend Of The Year because the snow and cold is coming in later this workweek.

Going back to my car, I noticed a couple black spots in the front of my car, just above the license plate.  Was it just dirt?  Nope.  Course not.  It was the body of my car.  The silver paint was scraped off because some motherfucker backed into my car.  I could see scrape marks around it.

Now, did it happen as a result of me not doing anything about the accident I saw?  That could have happened before Friday.  But ... I like to think I am an observant person, and I don't think I saw that any scrape marks before then.  And, I went downtown and parked on the street after walking at the Sculpture Garden.

Karma did come back to bite me, didn't it?

Goddammit.  But what the hell was I supposed to do?  Call the cops?

And Work Went Back To Sucking

I may have a more nuanced assessment of how The Fourth Department went for me on Monday, or a week from now.  But the good vibes early in the week curdled into a sudden mass of suck yesterday.

Things felt really good yesterday morning.  Like I said, what I thought was key to managing The Fourth Department was the amount of workload I had to deal with.  Amazingly, it was not as much as it had been my previous sub stints.  And it wasn't in the morning.  There are stages of work I group the papers I have to work on into, and there is an order I need to do them.  My benchmark in how my day is going to go depends on how early or late I get to each stage.  The big one for me is the new work I have coming in.  Those are important because no one knows about the problems with these yet.  But it's been dictated to me that forms that are already in the system need to be dealt with first because these involve samples whose results people have been waiting on, and the longer the results aren't known, the antsier our clients get.

Anyway, the old stuff I got out of the way early, earlier than the previous three days.  That meant I started on the new stuff way earlier than I had even compared to the rest of the week.  Once I crossed that benchmark those previous days, I felt like I had a leg up, so yesterday I felt even moreso.  I actually thought I could get out on time.

Boy, was I wrong.

I don't know what happened, exactly.  The new stuff wasn't voluminous.  In fact, the number of forms I had to deal with were smaller than in previous days.  Now, a co-worker has to give me some work once it gets so many days old, so those forms folded into my work, but still, it wasn't enough for me to think that I have to stay late.  It's just that ... well, at some point in the afternoon, going up to scan in a form for the umpteenth time, I thought to myself, "Geez, there are more of these than I thought."  When I got done with all that stuff, the new stuff and the stuff given to me by my co-worker, I had an hour before I was supposed to leave.  And the replies from all the people giving me the answers I need were waiting for me in my inbox.  And I needed to take my break.

Getting answers is something I have been told I need to stay late for.  No worries; one of the things that has slowed down for me in this position is processing the replies for the numbers I need.  That doesn't overwhelm me anymore.  Unfortunately, it felt as though that a lot of people replied to me last night.  Guess that's a product of finishing up work before the weekend.  Again, I wasn't bent out of shape about about that because I at least knew what to do.  But, and I'll be damned, I had, like, three or four questions that were all, "Hey, can you do this?" and I have no idea what the hell that person wanted.  So I had to stop what I was doing and figure out what the hell to do with this problem.  And for these curveballs, I had to bother my supervisor, who was out working overtime in a different part of the building and company.  I'm not sure how much of a time suck dealing with these weird issues were yesterday, but it took me over the edge stress-wise.

By the time I got done with everything, including the end-of-day stuff, I clocked out of work 75 minutes after my shift.  That is as late as I have ever stayed after work working The Fourth Department.  That is incredibly frustrating after staying late only 20 minutes the previous two days and only ten minutes Tuesday, and that was only because my supervisor chatted with me about a problem I was willing to leave until the following morning.  One of the eventual outcomes of understanding how this job works is getting to leave when you're supposed to.  Seventy-five minutes is bleeping insane, and it feels as if everything I worked on and tried to improve upon completely unraveled yesterday.  I hate it.  I absolutely hate it.  Oh, and I couldn't get myself tested for COVID because I got out of work too late.

I bought minibar-sized bottles of whiskey and bourbon.  I bought them as a treat for myself for this particular job; if it was a long, bad day, I would come home and, to reward myself, take a swig from both bottles before going to bed.

I actually didn't need either bottle Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because I thought things went relatively well.  That wasn't the case on Friday.  I took a nip from both, and then I went to bed early.  Because I needed and deserved it.

---

Two other things I noticed/had happened to me during my time in The Fourth Department this week that I don't like.

First, back to the end-of-day stuff.  I need to do that to check that I have crossed my t's and dotted my i's.  There is a series of things I need to do in our software that eventually leads to the testing of urine and blood samples.  It's a lot of documentation that lets the relevant people know that these samples are here or there, if you know what I mean.  Well, in checking, I saw that I didn't one step at least, oh, half a dozen times.  It involves attaching e-mails to a piece of software we all use to let people know these samples are being tested.  That's not as bad as stopping samples from being tested, but my greater concern is how many times I failed to do this.  This is a step that I understand has to be done, but I just flat-out forgot to do them so many times yesterday.  I forgot a few times each of the previous three days, too.  I'm scared that this is going to continue to happen because of the blizzard of tasks I need to do in this job.

Second, and more worrying, is the run-ins with rude people I will eventually have to deal with.  I was concerned that at some point I would get a call from either someone with the company or a client who wasn't going to be, uh, mannerly.  That happened, or appeared to happen, with this bitch of a nurse who called me about a report of who she only had a social security number.  I rarely use SSNs because we are told not to unless that's the only information upon which we can search.  Well, that happened.

Also, this was the first time I ever got an inquiry about results from someone on the outside.  By law and by policy, I am to never release results.  I can tell them when the report is released, but not the details of it.  And so I was thinking of what to say to her when I finally got around to bringing up the report, and she then said she'll call me back and hung up.    Not a fan of hemming and hawing?

Goddamn, if that woman ever deigns to call me again. ...

Oh Yeah -- It's Been More Than One Week Since Brushing My Teeth

Got my teeth cleaned today.  First time since, I believe, last Sunday, the last time I had also showered until this past Sunday.

Now why wouldn't I do such a fundamental, rudimentary chore?  I never grew up brushing my teeth on a regular basis.  Just didn't.  And as for this past week, well, I've been working day and evening, plus on three mornings I woke up early to get in some overtime, and you know, with those hours, I can't spend two minutes brushing my teeth, you know?

This break in brushings dawned on me last night while I was going to bed.  I thought maybe I should brush my teeth to make myself look good for the dentist who'll be taking care of me in the morning.  But then I thought, well, if she or he is going to do all the work anyway ... why should I clean my teeth at all?  And so I didn't, and while I got admonished by her, there were no cavities that have erupted in the two years since I got my teeth checked.  Two years of no maintenance and a week-plus with no brushing, and I have no new cavities?  Score!

I Am Not A Morning Person. Not By A Long Shot.

Due to a combination of staffing shortages and an influx of work (though I suspect it's mostly the former), we have had overtime available for the past several weeks.  I have taken advantage of it.  Not because of the overtime pay, which has, I think, a semi-sized loophole (I might blog post about that later), but because my supervisors asked me very, very nicely.  Well, also because most of the others do not come in early and/or stay late, and as we've been warned, if the work builds up to a certain point, OT becomes mandatory.

We can work an extra two hours to make a ten-hour workday during our scheduled week.  (Sometimes less is offered on weekends.)  Since I still have the test scoring job, I cannot stay late.  Therefore, I come in early.  And Christ, as much as I appreciate the extra pay and want to show I want to help out, damn, it's hard to wake up early.

I usually get to work at 7, so when OT is offered (and it's usually Wednesdays and Thursdays; that's just when the bulk of the forms we mainly are asked to work on during OT come), I can get there around 5.  Way back when, when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I could come in at 5.  I'm not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed anymore.  And to be honest, this change in my inability to get up early and maximize my OT time has come in the past couple months, during this current spurt of overtime availability.

Just for curiosity's sake, I have looked back at the receipts of mornings when I come in early.  When I do OT like this, I have "treated" myself by going to the gas station and getting that instant-frap crap from that machine they probably never clean, as well as a hot burrito that's cooked up behind the cash register (although if I were there early enough, there wouldn't be any hot burritos), and maybe a lemonade to help me during the day and Cokes as a reward for slogging through a ten-hour day.  The times stamped on the receipts are a reflection of when I got up, and also when I get to work and punch in:

• 5/12: 4:37 a.m.
• 5/13: 4:32 a.m.
• 5/19: 5:01 a.m.
• 5/20: 5:06 a.m.
• 6/16: 5:06 a.m.
• 6/30: 5:13 a.m.
• 7/14: 5:26 a.m.
• 7/15: 5:28 a.m.

Now, I have to caution that there may be some days where I am filling in for a specific position that has a call time of 6:30 a.m., and thus I could get there as early as 4:30.  I don't remember how early I could have come in on which days.  Still, even with not knowing whether I can start work as early as 4:30 or 5, you can obviously see a slow yet inexorable slide towards lateness.  It seems apparent that, considering the circumstances in my life now, it is getting harder and harder for me to wake up as soon as I can to get to work.  The problem is, besides being tuckered out after my night job, I can't explain why.  You can see clearly that a couple months ago -- when I think I had a test scoring project to do in the evenings -- I could get up just fine.  In fact, assuming I give myself an hour to get up and get out, I was actually able to wake up at 3:30 in the morning.  If I had my way, I would go to sleep at 3:30 in the morning.  But as you saw in mid-May, getting to work (after eating in the car and putting up all the shades) at a quarter to 5 was not a problem.

It is now.  And I don't know why.  By that I mean I don't remember ever going to bed early the nights before the above dates.  I pretty much followed my routine of going to sleep around, oh, 1 or so.  I do not believe I, for example, went to bed as soon as 9:30 rolled around and I was done with work.  I don't remember going to bed before midnight.  Assuming I kept staying up as usual, I then, well, can't quite see how me staying up has caught up with me, you know?  No, it's not ideal for getting rest.  But as long as I catch up on my sleep on the weekends, I would be able to tolerate getting only, what, three hours a sleep in the middle of my workweek, right?  And yet last week, when I was doing the same thing I do around this time of night (blog posting and hanging on the Internet), I thought to myself, "Oh shit, I am going to get only three hours of sleep.  Fuck me."  I didn't have that thought in June or May.  But I was going to bed at the same time all three months.  So now I have a newfound fear of staying up too late?

And ... oh shit, I am going to get only three hours of sleep now.  My workday today is supposed to begin at 6:30, which means I can get to work as early as 4:30, which means I should set my alarm clock to 3:30, which means I will get in fewer than three hours of sleep -- which probably means that I'm going to sleep in.  I promised my supervisor I'd come in early for overtime, but I'm deathly afraid I'll be so bleepin' tired I'll get to work at, like, 5:55, and if I'm coming in only a half-hour early, I might as well have refused overtime and get as much rest as I can.  Know what I mean?

What I know is I ain't no morning person.  And I think I should go to bed now.

Sometimes I Don't Get Myself

There were a bunch of ... oh, how should I say this -- secondary forms ... that came in late Friday.  I had a feeling that my boss was going to declare overtime, and sure enough, he did -- for the next day, Saturday.  Seeing as I do not work Saturdays and that soccer was going on and that I was seeing my friend, I decided not to come in.  It's rare that I don't, but I do have a life, and I wanted to live that.

Then, yesterday afternoon my boss texts me and another person who doesn't work Saturdays that overtime has been approved for Sundays.  Again, I can't do it because I wanted to watch soccer.

I work Monday/today, obviously.  The people I'm with aren't the company people type.  I have seen overtime offered before.  And, for example, when I come in early in the morning (we're sometimes allowed to stay after our normal leave time, but lately I have come in early because of my test scoring job in the evening) there may be, oh, two other people who decided to come in early.  And we have, I want to say, 15 people in my Main Department?  So considering the huge amount of secondary forms that came in on Friday, I imagine that a lot of it would still need to be done even after the weekend's over.

So that led me to the conclusion/possibility that overtime would be approved for Monday/today as well.  However, the text my boss sent me did not say OT has been given for Monday.  But then, I thought, maybe I should check my company e-mail to see if there is any other message that was left for me.  And I did, and there there was -- sort-of; my boss, about four minutes after he texted this other person and I, said that OT was approved for Sunday ... and Monday.

My initial thought was, "Well, since I am working Monday anyway, now I'll go in early!"  But then ... well, why didn't my boss text me that I could have OT Monday?  Maybe he didn't mean for me to come in early on Monday.  However, he e-mailed me that it was acceptable that day ... so, why wouldn't I be able to come in?  And ... well, that's where I'm at.  If I came in at 5 this morning instead of 7, I don't think he would mind.  And if he did mind, if he didn't mean for me to come in for overtime this morning, well, he'd tell me to, like, leave early on Wednesday or something.

But you know what?  I'm not coming in early this morning.  Why?  Because I'd rather sleep in!  And so why in the hell did I even bother looking at my work e-mail?  I logged in to see if I could come in early.  I can come in early ... but now I won't come in early?  If I'm not going to come in early, even after going out of my way to see if I could, why even care to look?

Yeah, sometimes I don't get myself.

MacGyver Does It Again!

When I exchange rolls of toilet paper, I do, well, what anyone usually does: Throw out the paper roll and put the new roll onto the dispenser.  I always use the butt end of the paper roll to tamp down the toilet paper in the wastebasket -- I toss toilet paper in the trash and I don't throw it in the toilet because I'm afraid it'll clog up the septic tank and I know everybody says that toilet paper dissolves in water but still -- before I toss it in.

I think I thought this once before, but I did the replacement thing either yesterday or Thursday, so I can still see the paper roll in the trash, and I thought, "Wait ... that's paper.  That's recyclable.  Why don't I toss that in the recycling bin?  Why don't I fish it out of the trash and throw it in the bin (well, it's a bag we have on the floor next to the kitchen counter, but you know what I mean)?"  And even though I could still see it, it's not as if it's lying on top of the trash like the éclair George Constanza ate.  Plus I spent five minutes using a couple of antibacterial wipes to clean the bathtub drain of the hair and spit that's been clogging my showers; I threw those two wipes in the trash, at least one partially covered up the roll, and the, uh, wetness from the wipe and the hair and the spit and the water seeped into and onto the paper roll.

But I was able to get it out nonetheless without getting my hands dirty.  I used the tweezers to pinch it like that claw game, brought it out to the kitchen, and dropped it into the recycling bag.  Yes, I'm a smart man.

Another Day Off?! And Other Holiday Musings

That's the great thing about long holidays where Monday is the extra day off.  Usually I am sort-of sad that the weekend is over, and you face the oblivion of the week.  But all day today I knew that as the sun went down on Sunday, I had another day off!  I don't have to face that Debby Downer feeling of, "Ugh, back to the grind" till tomorrow!

You don't really get that feeling of a short week when your holiday falls on a Friday.  Of course it's still a long weekend.  But when Friday's the day off, you still have the slog of going in on Monday and starting the workweek like you start every other workweek.  When you don't have to go in until Tuesday, there's that "staying out late on a school night" feeling, as if you're stealing time.  That's a different feeling, and right now, it feels better than taking Friday off.  Then again, I may be saying that as someone who until recently made up for working Sundays by regularly taking off Friday afternoons, so that feeling, while great, is very familiar.

---

Don't know if I've talked about this before on Wailing And Failing, and I hope I haven't.  When it comes to the holidays, by which I mean the big ones, the heavy lifting is over.  You get New Year's Day off to start off the year, but you get a series of minor ones, most of which you don't get off (Valentine's, President's, St. Patrick's, Easter), until right not, Memorial Weekend.  If you're not lucky enough to have paid time off, that's five straight months off without mandatory holidays.

Here on out, though, the Big Holidays are coming with increased regularity.  It's the summer, which puts many in the holiday mood, plus you've got Independence Day coming in about six weeks.  There are two months after that, but that includes August, The Only Month Without Any Holiday, so time kind of stops existing, plus there's the Minnesota State Fair, which should be back and back to normal this year, thank Buddha.  Then there's Labor Day and, while there is a three-month stretch between that and Thanksgiving, Halloween seems, in my mind, getting bigger and more anticipated through October, so that makes things lighter.  (Football season also makes time pass quickly, too.)  Finally, December, or really the sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is one whole holiday season, and people kind of half-heartedly work throughout that four-week period anyway.  And then there's that weird but OK week between Christmas and New Year's where time really doesn't exist; in fact, anything you do during that week doesn't seem to "count," if that makes sense, and if it doesn't, no matter.

So cheer up!  The longest part of the year is over!  And be happy that we have one more weekend day!

Killed A Bug Sunday

Not intentionally.  At work.  I was taking one final leak before leaving for the day, and I saw this insect hobbling around on the floor.  It looked like it had only wing as it was veering back and forth, and it seemed to have stumbled into the caulk groove inbetween the tiles.

I noticed it, then proceeded to sit down to pee.  But then I got up.  Work now offers bottles full of disinfectant so our bums don't have to pick up the germs of other bums.  I was sort of in a rush to leave, but even though the pandemic seems to be receding in our rearview mirror, I thought it'd make sense to spray down the toilet seat and handle.  That bottle was on the other side of the bathroom, next to the sink, so I had to walk with my pants down in order to get it.

I took two steps and then I stopped.  "Wait," I thought to myself, "... did I ... just ... ?"  I got the bottle, duck-walked back and stooped down to where I thought it was ... and it was still there ... but in much, much worse shape.  It was now writhing in one spot, rolling back and forth because I crushed whatever little forward mobility it still had.

It was in my twenties when I started to realize that being dead oftentimes is better than being alive but in such a handicapped state that it's not worth it to live.  And if you caught me on a different day, I would have said a little prayer for it, peed, washed my hands and left it to die.  But this time around I went back to the other side of the bathroom, ripped off a piece of towel, pinched the little bugger up and disposed of it in the trash.  Maybe it was better not to allow its misery to be prolonged.  Or, maybe I didn't "do the merciful thing" for the insect but for me.  Or, maybe I should have just not stepped on the insect in the first damn place.

Yeah, I know I have probably inadvertently stepped on ants in my life.  But I'd like to think I can avoid killing insects I had just observed ten seconds before.  And yeah, I probably won't even remember committing murder on one of God's creatures by the end of the week.  But it's been two days and I still haven't let it go.

Called Out For Being Late But Not Tardy ... Or Tardy But Not Late

This is so fucking stupid ... last week, out of the blue, I get an e-mail from my boss scrutinizing when exactly I punch in to work.  You're allowed leeway, like five minutes from when you're supposed to start (although I also was once told ten, but whatever).  Swiping in after that grace period raises a red flag with bosses.  You allowed only so much before you're called in for, uh, "remediation."  If you're really bad and do it frequently enough, that's grounds for getting fired.  But it rolls over every 365 days, so if you've been really bad for, like, a week, after a year it's off your record.  Besides, they have made exceptions for tardiness when there's been, like, a huge snowstorm that makes it difficult for people to get to work.

This bullshit e-mail is different.  My boss noted that I have not been "late" or "tardy" (I don't know which word is the one I'm supposed to use, but the two are not interchangeable), but for the past month he noted the number of "late/tardy" punches, and he deemed it unacceptable, even though I technically have not run afoul of company policy when it comes to getting to work on time.  He said some fuckin' BS about "not being an ideal worker for the company" or some such.  And then he said, and this is the thing that galls me, is that he is going to be tracking how many times I am late but not tardy (or tardy but not late) for ... well, from now on, fuck if I know, and he'll track by how many minutes I am late.  You fuckin' kidding me?!?!?!  I cannot help but think of that as nothing but a threat.

That leads to self-demeaning acts of stupidity and oppression like yesterday.  I wanted to try and be "a good boy" and get to work on time.  And yet, I still wanted to buy coffee and a bite to eat, and then eat that bite to eat in my car, before punching in.  I got up and got out of the house early to ensure that I could do this all.  But goddamn me for not building in enough time (and, maybe, for ordering oatmeal) and then thinking I could do all this before 10 a.m.  It got down to the brass tacks whereby I ate the rest, tried to gather up my bag, my gloves, and my mocha, and then march through the front door.  I looked down at my watch just after I closed the door to my car and saw it was 10 on the dot.  I didn't feel like running to the door; that would be demeaning, and besides, I didn't know if I wanted to jump through these hoops for my boss, especially since he usually doesn't come in on Sundays.  And yet, when I punched in, it was 10:01, and all I could think of was GODDAMN HIM, HE'S GOING TO FUCKING CALL ME OUT ON THIS!!!  I AM ONLY ONE MINUTE LATE, FOR FUCKING GOD'S SAKE!!!

There is a part of me that thinks he's only doing this because he has to.  The words he used in that e-mail were boilerplate, as if he was following a template of an e-mail he has to send out to prove to his bosses he is keeping his employees in line by making sure they swipe in when the company wants us to.  And I still think ... well, want to think that he's a good guy.  But I harken back to my co-worker getting pissed off over an e-mail my boss sent to her.  And I'll just reveal it now: She told our supervisor, probably venting but there is always a patina of intention when someone says this, that he wanted to rip my boss' head off.  I'm not there -- yet.  Let's just fucking see if I actually want to get to work on time, and if I don't, what the fuck is going to happen to me.  And in the meantime it might behoove me to polish my resume, reach back out to my temp agencies, and think about going back to school again.

One Year Ago. ...

I just looked back at the blog posts hours into and just after Thursday, March 12, 2020, the day when, at least to me, the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world -- or, in other words, the day when Shit Got Real.  Since sports constitute an overwhelming part of my life, the Janus point, the event when things changed irrevocably, was the Class 4A Girls' Basketball Semifinal between Stillwater and Hopkins, the latter of which featured Paige Bueckers, the top player in high school last year, the reason I went to watch the Game, and now leading Connecticut as a freshman into the NCAA Women's Tournament.

I don't know if I blog posted about my thoughts during the Game before, but even if I have, I'll do it again.  I still remember the sense of foreboding that came on the early days of the pandemic.  It seemed as though things on the surface were normal, but that only made me and probably others think that things definitely were not normal, and that this invisible monster was cackling at our ignorance and indifference to thrive and ravage humanity.  Everybody was in a panic, even though to this day I don't know how many people will admit they didn't know what they were doing then.  As a result, sporting events were changing conditions on the fly -- going from barring fans except family to barring everyone except essential team members to, eventually, cancelling Games.  For example, before the Semifinals I watched (and I think this was announced in the late morning or early afternoon), the Minnesota State High School League said that the following days' Games would be played behind closed doors.  The next/Friday morning, the MSHSL announced they were cancelling the tournament altogether.

So why did I go to the Game?  The re-calculating of risk was coming at break-neck speed, for everyone involved in sports.  The evening before, Rudy Gobert of The Bastard New Orleans Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus and so the whole NBA season would be postponed.  To many people, that was the day Everything Changed.  And if I recall correctly, that/Wednesday afternoon it was revealed that Tom Hanks came down with COVID-19; for many non-sports people, that was the day Everything Changed.  However, I and the MSHSL probably were intent on staging the Games, at least the Games that were going on for that day.  While experts said the risks of catching this virus, especially in its ominous, mysterious early days, could cause rampant death, it still appeared to be a menace in the distance, whereas this relatively important basketball tournament was happening now.  And I told my folks that I had to stay at work for overtime.  In other words, we all had plans.  And even in the face of a pandemic, we didn't want to change them.  Well, the MSHSL and other sports leagues were going to change what they could change relatively easily, most notably preventing down large crowds.  But the show must go on.  And until the MSHSL reconsidered, I went ahead with my plans, too ... even though I had a feeling even back then that would be the last sporting event I would attend in person in 2020.

While watching not necessarily the Hopkins-Stillwater Game so much as Bueckers herself, I had to admit that more than half the time I was thinking to myself, "Should I even be here?"  The crowd at Williams Arena wasn't big.  There was no one in the upper deck.  Just more than the upper half of the lower deck was empty, too.  There was room to spread around, but probably because we didn't entertain the concept of "social distancing" seriously (although I don't know if we entertained COVID-19 seriously a year ago), all the fans who were there sat together, filling up the closest several rows all around The Barn's court.  Because why not?  You're at a Game with friends, you want to sit together.  I, going to the Game without friends, sat by myself, sorta; I hung back a couple rows from the rest.  I thought I established a bubble no one would penetrate, but then during the Game a couple high school dicks sat within six feet of me for no reason.  I think I shot them a couple looks; they didn't leave until the first Semifinal was over.

I didn't feel sick after that night.  I have signed up to give a blood sample to the National Institute of Health for an antibody sample, twice, and I tested negative both times.  I dodged a bullet, even though it was possible no one in the arena had the virus.  But after having the fun I insisted on having that evening, it was my turn to hold my end of the bargain I made by myself, and I accepted the world shutting down after Thursday, March 12, 2020.

Crazy year, huh?

Stopping And Smelling The Roses

I didn't even know if I was going to leave the house today because there was a forecast of freezing ice that was going to make the roads slippery and treacherous.  But the roads were fine, perfect even (well, as perfect as land with snow and ice already on it can be), so I went out mainly to get tested but also to check on my storage unit (where I then decided I might as well pay for my unit for the next year) and get gasoline for my car.  (I also ate Taco Bell.)

I wish I didn't have stuff to do and instead just note the weather.  Because today, it was perfect -- well, not entirely, but this afternoon had many elements I love in a day.  It was mostly cloudy and not too cold.  It actually was above freezing during much of the afternoon.  Sure, I wish there were no snow and ice on the ground so I don't slip and fall.  And it could be 20 (or 30, or even 10) degrees warmer.  But it should be cooler today, and it could be much cooler today, and it's not.  And so, after I left my storage unit, even though I told Mother I would be home by 3, I decided I was going to go to a park.  I need to get a walk in, and this afternoon had very good conditions in which to walk.  Alas, I couldn't find the nearest park to my storage unit, and I figured I shouldn't waste too much time finding another one.

But I thought of something once I got home, however.  I first wanted to take a picture of both ends of my street, as well as my house.  Just a late-January snapshot of the place I call home, and it was beautiful.  But then I thought, "Hey, maybe my sister's best friend's mother is on her stoop, also enjoying the deceptively beautiful day like I am!"  Actually, there was little-to-no chance she would do that; she's old and she's in a chair, so it wouldn't be wise nor safe for her to be outside for too long.  But thinking that she might be there was enough for me to get my "exercise" in, so I walked down a couple houses, looked to see that no one was outside, and I walked back.  And in that, oh, 20 yards back and forth, I looked up at the gray, overcast sky, breathed in and out, felt warm (really, above freezing is not cold so long as you're dressed competently), and got in my appreciation of this winter day.  I don't know if I'll have the time, and I don't know if the weather will be as accommodating in the future (even though I did something similar just before Christmas, and the weather isn't always that conducive to exercising outdoors then, either).  But I should do more of this -- walking and appreciating.