A Room With a View

Let there be fanfare and great rejoicing….I am submitting a blog.

Reasons for not blogging recently:

1) Working a temporary part-time job in the evening Monday-Friday (and some OT this past Saturday).  This ends this week.  And I’m tired.

2) Facebook takes most of my time.  Status updates are like a mini-blog. 

I also saw Star Trek this weekend.  I realized that Kirk’s “Captain’s Log” may have inspired blogging.  It at least inspired me to devote some more time on this.

So I haven’t blogged in a while.  I’ve been too busy updating my status on Facebook.  The perfect mini-blog.

I also haven’t done much to edit or continue my novel.  Hmm.

And the worst of all…I can’t find my journal.  It’s missing.  I can’t find it anywhere…and I don’t even remember the last time I had it.

Arrgh!

Check out this blog by some friends of mine: http://botmafamily.blogspot.com/

Also, if you’re the praying kind, lift them up as they deal with the health of their son and overall strength to get through day to day.

So I know that I haven’t updated my blog lately.

What a surprise when  I opened by email this morning and tons of emails popped in reporting comments on my blog.  I don’t know if it’s some strange way of spamming.  The responses don’t necessarily seem to relate my posts.  Interesting.  Any ideas as to what’s going on?  Anyone else experience the same thing?

My favorite though is: 

• Small guy,nice blog,great job,hope i will see your work soon

Small guy?  Hmmm.  Sketchy.

I live in Arizona.  And although I’ve never been a big Cardinals fan.  I have been of late.  Last week’s game against Carolina was awesome to watch.  Looking forward to this Sunday and the possibility and the dream of defeating the Eagles.

However, I seem to be having a Philadelphia Eagles week.  All totally by accident or out of my control. 

Last night I finally sat down to watch Invincible which is about the Eagles.

Today, my company held it’s annual meeting to recap last year’s performance and look ahead to what’s coming.  We’re based out of Philadelphia.  So, the head guy hinted throughout the presentation that he supported a certain team.  Reading between the lines–that’s the Eagles.

Then, I headed out to lunch to hit a place I’d discovered with a friend of mine a month or so ago.  If you bring your receipt back, you get $2 off.  It’s been hanging in my cube just begging for me to go.  Since I was out at the meeting (held at an off-site location) anyway, why not take advantage and swing by.  The place philly cheesesteaks and is decorated heavily with Ealges memorabilia. 

Forehead smack.

Sigh.

I hope I haven’t jinxed anything.

I’m not sure if any of you realize just how much I dislike talking on the phone.

Possibly, since I had few friends growing up and most phones calls at the Posthumus residence were for the other three members of the family, I was traumatized beyond belief.  But there’s probably another reason.

I once took a summer job taking surveys by phone.  Yes, I was one of those.  Hated it.  First job I ever lied about being sick.  Really.

As a teacher, I did everything I could to avoid having to call a parent.  I wanted to throw up.

I have tons of cell phone minutes, but I had to bump up my text messaging to unlimited because paying for it each month would be more than my car payment.

So it’s funny that now most of my day is sitting with a headset on my head waiting for a little beep in my ear and account information appearing on my screen.  When I’m not taking inbound calls, I have to make outcalls to people who can’t fill out a form correctly (which is a lot of people).  When I started with the company as a contractor, I only had to make the outbound calls.  It’s only been this year that I’ve been tethered to my desk with the headset.  And some Mondays that’s for 10.5 hours.  I dread those days.

But I realized today as I was handling calls that I’m actually pretty good.  I’m polite.  I’m helpful.  And I only do fraudulent transactions on accounts owned by mean people (just kidding). 

There was a point today today when I stopped and realized I at least was not dreading my next call.  I was confident. 

Look at me, I’m growing. 

But don’t call me to congratulate me.  Thanks 

I’m home sick today.

I felt something coming on this weekend.  At first, I thought it was just a hang over from the beer I drank while watching the Cardinals game Saturday.  But I didn’t feel right all day Monday at work.  D even asked, “Are you sick?” “Yes,” I said, “I’ve been coughing and sneezing.”  “And your eyes are puffy.”  Gee, thanks.

And by last night, I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to be going to work today.  I could barely get to sleep because my reflex was to keep swallowing even with my throat sore and raw.  I finally fell asleep with the ninth lozenge in my mouth.

Today has been lounging around.  Some breakfast and tea.  More lozenges.  Facebook.  Pogo.com.  And now blogging.  It kind of reminds me of a snow day.  As close as one can get to that in Arizona.

This cute guy named Adam asked me today over a homemade breakfast, “So have you been doing any more writing lately?”
    
“A little.”

I really made myself proud this year in my attempt at a Nanowrimo 50,000 word in a month badge of honor by reaching over 20,000 words.  I was on a roll, that’s for sure.  And not only was I producing WORDS, but I was enjoying what I was writing.

And then came the crash of 2008.  Not the crash that made my daily life working for a mutual fund company tortue, but the virus/hard drive meltdown.  I couldn’t even think about the book when I thought the bulk of it was lost.  I had some pages printed out that I had done manual edits.  Luckily, I also had emailed a friend a copy not too long before.  I think I’ve already blogged about this, but end result has been: new computer, flash drive, and almost 100% salvage of my work.

But I’ve only sat down once to do more writing.  And I didn’t produce much.

I’m not giving up, though. 

To be honest, I’m distracted a lot when I am on my computer by 1) Facebook 2) Pogo.com 3) iTunes.  I also spend all day looking at dual monitors at work.  That’s a lot of face to screen interaction-and to rush home to subject myself to more isn’t always at the top of my list.  Then there have been Christmas parties, a friend in town from Holland, episodes of Top Chef, and a nap or two that have taken a bit of my time–not to mention that I just unclogged my bathroom sink.  I live a busy life. 

So…will keep writing.  I will finish.  I will publish.  And certainly, I will keep you updated.

Not too long ago someone laughed when I was telling stories about Blonde Voyage and Halloween–that every event I go to has to have a theme.  That’s almost true.  It has to have a theme or a drink special.

Last night was kind of a combination of both.

Blake invited people to what he called the Santa Crawl.  Wear a Santa hat and hitch a ride in a chauffeured bus and do a bar crawl from bar to bar all evening.  Oh, what fun it is to ride….

Many of my close friends were invited, but could not join the festivities because we work late on Friday.  And then there were some like me who needed to get to bed at a decent hour because of work/plans Saturday.  So we decided to meet up with the Santas at a place called Bar1.  I had never been there before; good excuse to check it out.

Adam went with me.  Dutch Dorothy (Raymond, see also Blonde Voyage party) was just getting there when we pulled up. John and Donny were there. Shane, Walter, and Michael rounded out the crew.

The Santas were smashed.  Third bar…9:00PM. 

Made the rounds to say hi…and who should be part of the group?  Il Bastardo himself (Jose).  His Santa hat had a flashing light on the end instead of a fuzzy ball.  How festive.  I had wondered if he would be there.  Jose and Blake knew each other from MN but became friends when I dated Jose and also invited Blake to two-step. 

We haven’t spoken or acknowledged each other’s exisitence in months.  I haven’t even been going to Charlie’s as much, so I never see him.  So it was very weird and awkward when Jose approaches and is all, “So good to see you! Haven’t seen you in a long time!”  As if we were close buddies that had been too busy to keep in touch lately.  Instead, I’m the guy who tells people they can pee on his car.  Jose looks at Adam, “And this is your other half!”

I should have said, “My BETTER half.”

He was absolutely giddy–and I was weirded out like you wouldn’t believe.  After an awkward side hug I put some distance between us. 

I made some comment to Adam that Jose was acting really weird–I’ve never seen anything like that.  Adam goes, “Ooooh, THAT’S Jose.” 

The Santa’s move on.  The rest of stayed and had a jolly good time. 

When I first bought my townhouse back in 2000, it kind of seemed ridiculous to have three toilets all to myself. Each bedroom has it’s own and there’s a 1/2 bath on the first floor.  I had to remind myself to go use the spare bedroom toilet every now and then otherwise I would find that water evaporated out of the bowl.

One by one though, they started having problems.  I attempted to be handy and fix the master bathroom.  It was frustrating.  I cried.  I swore.  And when I was done, it dribbled some water from under the tank.

My last roommate–who was a plumber’s assistant–promised to fix the spare bedroom one when things went awry.  He never did.

And I was left with one the downstairs one being fully functional.  When it came time to replace parts inside, I attempted to do it myself.  When I was finishing, I put pressure on that tube thing and snapped it off.  I cried.  I swore.

Thankfully, Adam came along and first fixed the downstairs one.  Then yesterday spent all day fixing the other two.  No crying.  No swearing. 

Whoo-hoo!  Now back to deciding which one to use.