June 2005

Lunch Exercise.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

My ass has been dragging this morning. Last night’s sleep was disrupted by my school clock collection spazzing out and ringing the bells non-stop until I figured out what they were and what was happening. This all happened at 12:38 a.m. Not a good way to get a good night’s sleep.

I thought about going home and chilling out during lunch, but then I figured that I’ve done too much of that. I’ve been silently wondering if I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or something for the past couple of months because it just feels like I can’t get enough sleep.

But I was wrong. It’s because I’m a slug.

So instead of curling up next to Tom for a noon-time nap, I decided to take a walk in our fine city and see some areas I haven’t been to in a long time.

I think I walked just shy of three miles in 50 minutes. The warm sun felt wonderful, I was armed with some fabulous tunes on my iPod and the energy on the streets was high.

I feel like a million bucks right now. Much better than feeling groggy from an afternoon nap.

Part of my job duties is delivering pagers to local medical professionals. Apparently they are so busy they don’t have time to send one of their office assistants to our office to exchange their pager after they’ve flushed it down the toilet, so they call it in, I provision a new pager for them and bring it to their office with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. And a contract in my hand.

Today I had to deliver a pager to a doctor (the third pager in 60 days, by the way, he needs to stop reading his beeper in the crapper) in a home health care facility. Being a beautiful sunny day, the staff had wheeled a couple dozen of the residents outside to enjoy the fresh air. It appeared to be a wonderful attempt to lift their spirits, but some of them looked scared out of their wits. Others looked bored. Many seemed to be enjoying themselves.

It must be hard to live in that type of situation. I worked for ARC (while not the same, it is a similar situation) for a number of years back in my 20s and it’s not an easy job. Whenever I think of these facilities, I think of my friend Pat.

I met Pat back in 1987. She was a close friend of my first boyfriend and lived next door to us in Jamestown. She was always included in our little adventures, including driving to Florida in a ’82 Dodge Omni. Patrice, as we liked to call her, has an interesting past. She is an extremely intelligent woman and a gifted piano player. She is also manic-depressive. While in college in the early ’60s, Pat was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. Her parents, with nowhere to turn, installed her into various state institutions, where she was given all sorts of drugs and lived in hideous living conditions. Years went by, I’m not sure of the history of this part, but she ended up living on her own, in her little apartment, working for the local hospital in the billing department.

I haven’t spoken with Pat in about a year. I really should give her a call. Anyways, the reason that I think of her when I’m in these health care facilities, is not because she once lived in a state institution. But rather because she spends her free time going to these types of facilities to entertain the residents by playing the piano and bringing friends along to sing and to entertain the folks. I find this a little amazing because at one time, the world turned on Pat. It dehumanized her to a point. It took away her confidence. It shut her away. Now that she’s part of the world once again, she is taking the time to give back to the community.

The world needs more people like my friend Patrice.

Pat has written a book of essays about her experiences through her life dealing with her mental illness. It’s called Blooming Is Tricky Business and is required reading for a graduate course in on the psychology of disability at the University of Texas. One of these essays can be found here. Her book was featured on Amazon and is published through Waldenbooks.

I’m back on schedule today, stopping home for lunch and writing in my blog using my PowerBook. Everything seems to be back on focus; it’s funny to think that using the Mac Mini instead of the PowerBook or dining out instead of eating at home would throw me so far off kilter.

I guess I’m a fragile being of sorts. Either that or it’s that I’m just plain weird.

I feel like it’s Christmas Eve of sorts, with the Bewitched movie coming out tomorrow night. Earl and I are naturally going to see it on opening night. I’m still trying to figure out which would be the ideal theatre. We don’t want too many people with cell phones. The seats have to be comfortable. The sound ideal.

So many variables to consider.

I always find it amazing how much crap goes through my brain. Especially when I’m cycling. I get into this whole “athletic zone” and think about a myriad of subjects, all of them unimportant.

On my ten mile jaunt this evening, I decided that I need to change my nickname. This line of thought came about because I was asked what “J.P.” stood for*. Most people know me as “J.P.” Its the name I tend to use except with doctors and dentists and such and that’s only because they don’t know better. I do a lot of talking on the phone at work, especially with a really big telecommunications company that rhymes with “Horizon” and when I say my name they always mangle it. “J.B.”? “J.Z.”? “Chippy?” “J.T.”?

So I’ve decided that from now on they can call me Jiffy. Like Jiffy Pop. I’ve always been a big fan of popcorn. I like Jiffy Pop, especially over a campfire (which you’re not suppose to do). And as I think about it, Jiffy Pop is probably better than “Jiffy Lube”. Jiffy Lube sounds kind of kinky. If I were to do porn movies, then I could be Jiffy Lube, but at the family reunion this weekend it would be kind of odd to have Earl introduce me to long lost relatives as Jiffy Lube. People would blush. Including me.

I once toyed with the name “J. Bear”. But I don’t really feel the name adequately describes me. I’m not a big fan of labels, anyway. Besides, I think it would subconsciously give me permission to gain weight. And we all know how I feel about that.

So the next time I’m asked what “J.P.” stands for, I’m going to tell them Jiffy Pop. “Oh.”, they’ll say with an odd look on their face. Then they’ll try to normalize the conversation… “How’s your day going?”

“Just Peachy.”

I met an online buddy face to face (for an appreciable amount of time) for the first time today. I mentioned Mike a couple of months ago. We’ve been chatting back and forth on e-mail, and since he had the day off we decided to get together for lunch. It was good fun. We talked old department stores, roads, cycling and rollerblading, beards, the fact that we’re exactly a month apart in age and that he grew up just around the corner from my aunt and uncle’s house and we’d probably seen each other as kids. It was cool and it’s nice to have a new friend. Earl and I will probably get together again with him soon, if I didn’t spook him today or anything.