|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| R.I.P. xanga...
...you helped me kill a lot of time...
| | |
| Today was Monday, June 25th, 2007. Nothing happened.
Atleast nothing that anyone would wanna read about. And certainly nothing I feel like wasting my time to write about. But I'm going to waste my time writing about it anyway. And if you wanna waste your time reading it, then... well, I don't really know what that says about you.
Let's see. I went to bed somewhere in the wee hours of the morning just like I do every night. And then I slept about the same as I do every night. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give my night's rest about a 4. But I'll settle for that most days. Then I woke up when my alarm went off at 6:52. Why 6:52? Because I like the number 52, and I'm obsessive compulsive. That's why. There's no other reason really. Of course I don't really intend to get up until about 10 after 7. But this works out perfectly because when I hit the snooze button, the alarm goes off again 9 minutes later. So I am able to hit the snooze button at 6:52, and then again at 7:01. And when it goes off at 7:10, I get up just like I planned to. This, of course, happened today just like every other morning.
Then I brushed my teeth with my Sonicare toothbrush and took a shower just like every other morning. Today was Day 3 of my 4-day towel cycle. I like Day 3s the least. I don't know why really. And today Day 3 fell on a Monday. I have that to look forward to every 4th Monday you see. Unless one of my roommates decides they wanna be funny and screw everything up by doing something to my towel or washcloth to mess up my cycle. Thankfully, no one has messed with my towel in a while. But I can understand why they would want to. It's the kind of prank one can attempt at a very low risk that offers the maximum reward. Pulling a prank on an obsessive compulvise person delivers the biggest bang for your buck. With minor tweaks to my towel, you can wreak havoc on my sanity. Who wouldn't want to do that? Throw in the fact that I never get mad, so there's never retaliation. Their pure joy comes at my expense. It's that simple. And where is the justice you ask? Well there is none. Alas, life is not fair.
Work today was just like every other day, except that I didn't take a lunch. I sat at my desk and worked from the time I clocked in at 8:01am until I clocked out at 4:46pm. I never even took a bathroom break, and that's certainly never happened before. I guess that's exciting!
The highlight of my day happened on the way home. And it was truly remarkable. I haven't had McDonald's in a while, but today I was craving some good ol' fashioned chicken nuggets. Or maybe it was just the sweet and sour sauce I was after. But anyway, it's a pretty big deal when I want something. I don't usually know that I want anything. People take knowing what they want for granted, but many of you have heard me say that before. Anyway, today driving home from work, I knew that I wanted chicken nuggets. And while that was unusual, that's not the remarkable part. Usually at this particular McDonald's, there's always a really long line. But today, at 5:00 in the evening, there's no one in line at all. This provided me with further affirmation that my longing for chicken nuggets was tob. I pull up to the ordering box that magically appears from out of the ground, and I await my friendly welcome greeting. But I get nothing. 30 seconds go by. When you know you want that something special, then you also know that something special is worth waiting for. I tell myself I can do this, I'll wait this out. 1 minute gone by now. Then my human nature starts kicking in, and I decide I need to help them out a little. "Heellllllloooooo" I say. I'll make this as easy as possible for them. I'll initiate the conversation, and encourage them to proceed doing their job. About 3 minutes has passed now, there's still no one in line behind me. I turn up my radio really loud and start singing Avril Lavigne. I guess this was my way of coping with no one was listening.
Some more time passed, and then I hear a voice. There's no apology or something, it's just the normal "hi, welcome to McDonald's, how can I help you?" So I pretended too like the last 5 minutes of mind games we had just played didn't happen either, and just proceeded to order. I pull around to the first window, and this skinny little guy takes my money. And I can tell by his voice that he was the same guy who had just taken my order. We make eye contact, but he doesn't budge. He pretends like he doesn't know it was me who was just screaming "HEY HEY YOU YOU I don't like your girlfriend NO WAY NO WAY I think you need a new one... She's like so whatever, I think you could do so much better...etc..." He hands me my change, and I smile as I pull up to the next window. I look in the restaurant, and I don't see anyone. There are no workers behind the counter, no one standing there making drinks, no customers, no nobody! I sit patiently waiting again. A few minutes later, I see the same kid who had taken my order, and met me at the first window to collect my payment, cooking chicken nuggets. And then I see him throwing fries in the cooker. And when he finally has all of that finished, he calmly comes up to me at the 2nd window after 5+ minutes, asks again which type of drink I had ordered, and he makes it for me, hands it to me, and smiles saying, "have a good evening." Do I leave my waiter for the evening a tip I wonder? I decided against it. Because he lost cool points for not acknowledging my singing. I pull out of McDonald's after 20 minutes. There are still no cars in the driveway. I tried to forget about it, and just go home. But the absurdity of the situation was too much for me to ignore. What had just happened? Why was I the only customer at McDonald's from 5-5:20 in the primetime dinner rush? Why was he the only employee working from 5-5:20 during the primetime dinner rush? Why did he not acknowledge my singing? Did he suspect I had a thing for him? Was he just plain stupid? Or am I just plain crazy? I don't suppose this story will ever make sense. But it will haunt me every time I go there now. Does anyone else find this story truly remarkable? And if no one does, does that also make me plain crazy?
I've been home all evening, mostly alone, and it's been great. I've done nothing out of the ordinary. My phone has been quiet too. Only my mom and 1 friend have called me all day long. Life is quietening down day by day now. I'm trying to lose sight of the big picture again, and regain some of the detail-oriented things I used to love. The detailed things give me an opportunity to make changes. Lately, I've been fascinated with tying ties. I decided it's really hott when girls can tie a tie on a guy. Not that I've experienced that personally in 4 or more years, but I think I would like things like that. Anyway, back to my fascination with ties, I'm trying to learn all the official ways to tie them, and what the names are. I think I'm getting really good at it now. But I don't really wear them THAT much, so I don't know why it even matters. I probably just need a hobby. Hmm. Perhaps I'll think about hobbies tomorrow. | | |
| I hadn't realized how long it's been since I've written anything. I guess I don't write unless I have something to say. But I've always got something to say, don't I? Lately though, I've had less reason to talk I guess. Maybe when a person talks too much, their words start to lose their effectiveness.
I have spent the last 2 days at the hospital getting tested for all kinds of problems. Through a combination of stress/anxiety/not eating much/not sleeping much, I ended up semi-passing out at work when I got to work yesterday. I had been throwing up all morning anyway, and was half an hour late to work. I had only been there an hour when I realized something weird was going on. I was either about to throw up again, or pass out, or have a panic attack. I ran up to the roof of the building for some fresh air. And when I returned to my desk, luckily, my favorite of the 3 of those options happened. And in a matter of minutes, I was riding in my boss's SUV on the way to the hospital. A bunch of tests later, and the doctor's are confused. It appears I'm physically a very healthy person who just happens to be sick for no apparent reason. They ask for blood work to be done, but taking blood proves to be a problem. They get the needles in the veins okay, but the blood never makes it down the cord and into the tube. It makes it halfway to the tube and just stops. Apparently the blood circulation was unusually poor. So they keep repositioning the needle to poke new holes in the same vein to get blood to come out, but air pockets keep erupting, causing a mess and a lot of pain. They give up, and start trying different veins, but always with the same result. So they tell me to wait an hour and they call some blood specialist from a different hospital to come in and draw the blood. This lady shows up, and she does her job okay, drawing blood from a vein I didn't even know existed. So with needle bandages all over me, they send me home for the day while we wait for the results.
They call back this morning, and now I can name you 50 types of sicknesses/diseases I officially do not have. But that's about all they could tell me. Truthfully though, I knew they weren't going to find anything physically wrong with me. This has happened before, and they didn't find anything then either. Confused, they call me back in this morning to run more tests. They were certain I had stomach ulcers. But the preliminary tests from that came back negative. But then I was told those tests are not always accurate. I still could have stomach ulcers actually.
Then came up HIV/Aids. The doctor insisted I had all the right symptoms for aids. Our conversation went a little something like this... "Are you sexually active?" "No." ...pause... "Have you ever been sexually active?" "No." ...another awkward pause... "Are you gay?" "No." ....more silence... "Are you sure?" ...confused silence... "Yes, I'm sure." .... "well I guess you can't have Aids then can you?".... "yeah, I guess not."
I was sent home again this afternoon.
To recap, after all these tests, this is what I've learned:
I do not have stomach ulcers. Maybe.
I do not have aids. Maybe.
I have to go back to work tomorrow.
The doctors say I am healthy, and they can't find anything physically wrong with me. I'm supposed to do my best to deal with throwing up stomach acid every morning, and find ways to relieve the stressful situations in my life that I have no control over. But it's hard to relieve the stress when you can't fix the situations. I would do anything to help the family and friends who are suffering right now, but it's out of my hands. Now I wait. And that's hard for me. There's a difference between patiently waiting on something you know is going to happen, and waiting for the unknown. And it's not that I'm scared of not knowing. I'm just scared that the unknown could mean waiting for nothing, or atleast nothing to change. But I'll wait anyway, because maybe I'm waiting for something after all. But how much hope is left in me? What would I lose by just giving up? What do I even have in me to lose anymore? This world is a fallen place.
And I've said too much again. | | |
| So my house got egged some time in the past few days. And while that's a little humorous to me, it didn't compare to what happened last night. Josh Taylor was asleep on the couch, while I was comfortably sleeping in my bed about 3 hours into a sleeping pill. It was 3:05am. And then in what felt like a dream, I heard Josh Taylor talking to me. I didn't understand any of the words being spoken to me, but I knew it was the ever-soothing voice of Josh Taylor. And then a bright light appeared. Josh had opened my bedroom door and turned on the dining room lights, and this officially woke me up. I sat up, and looked around, and saw Josh standing in the doorway, and asked him, "did you just say something to me?" And he replied, "yes, there are cops at the door who want to speak with you." I paused, then asked, "cops?" He said, "yes." I paused again, then asked, "they want to speak with me?" He said, "yes." I paused a little longer this time, then asked, "right now?" He said, "yes." Another pause, then I look over at the clock, it reads 3:08. Then I say to Josh, "sweet! I don't have to get up for work for like 4 more hours!" Josh laughs. Then he says in a serious voice, "dude the cops are still outside." I say, "oh. yeah." So I get dressed, and stumble to the doorway. There are cop cars everywhere, and an officer standing on my steps. I step outside, and Josh says, "well officer, there's the owner of that car and the man you're looking for. I'm leaving." And then Josh peaces out on me.
The cop then proceeds to explain to me that someone in the neighborhood must really hate us, because the same person has called the police during the middle of the night every day for 2 months to complain about my car being parked out on the street in my own yard. He asked if we had ever been in any conflicts with the neighbors, and I told him we didn't even know any neighbors. Then the cop started freaking out on me like there was so much drama going on. He said he thought the whole thing was stupid, and he was so sick and tired of this guy calling every single night to complain, and something just had to be done about this. This night was different though because his sergeant had been called tonight instead of him, and the sergeant was furious and wanted to know why none of the peon cops had done anything about this in the 2 months that we've been getting called on. So in order to personally take care of the problem himself and show the rest of them how it's done, he brings the whole squad to my front yard at 3 in the morning, and demands to speak to the owner of my car (that would be me). The neighbor who keeps calling always calls anonymously during the middle of the night and never has any legitimate reason for complaining. The only thing he's ever said is that my car could potentially be a hazard if a school bus drove by, which is a pretty lame excuse. So the cop is worried someone might be out to get us.
My details are a little fuzzy because I was heavily under the influence of a sleeping pill. I vaguely remember moving my car and my roommate's car from the street into the driveway with the cops watching. I remember smiling a lot, and telling the officer how thankful I was for him, and how much I appreciated him protecting the good people of this fine city. He said his sergeant wanted him to write us tickets, but that he didn't want to do it. I concurred that he didn't want to do it either. They watched me move the cars, and then they left, and I went back to bed at 4 in the morning. The story seems a little more odd today than it did while it was happening. Someone in the neighborhood just has something against us I guess. But who could hate me? What have I ever done? Josh Shope stole the next door neighbor's cat back in the summer, but I'm pretty sure that's unrelated.
the end.
P.S. - Go see Mike Logen's show tomorrow night at 12th & Porter. I promise it will be worth it. And for all of you TNT attendee's, you can do both. Longenecker probably won't play until like 10 anyway. I'm going to TNT too, you'll have time to do both. Goodnight! | | |
| Why wait? Life is flying by. I can't even keep up with it anymore. I feel like a kid running down the street chasing a school bus I just missed. And the funny thing is that I don't even know why I wanna catch it. I mean, it's a school bus, there's nothing great about it. And even if I caught it, it would take me to a caged routine known as school. It's funny how similar that hypothetical story is to "real life". My life is a caged routine. I need to be honest with myself, and that's what it is now. I've settled for chasing school buses every day. It's not much of a reward, but it's something. And I guess I wanted this. I certainly had chances to not end up here. But here I am. I'm getting out though. I knew I would hate this enough to start caring again. So you won't hear me say anything about being apathetic anymore. I'm beyond caring again. But I need to get out. And I plan to. You'll see.
| | |
|
