August 2012

When I got up this morning I saw a waving motion standing in the corner of the room. All I could see was a hand going “wave, wave, wave” in my direction. It was a gentle, yet effective way for my husband to say “good morning” to me. Saying anything to me at six in the morning can be a dicey proposition, so it’s best to proceed cautiously.

The waves of “good morning” were also appropriate because my husband was standing behind the mound of clothes that have accumulated around the clothes hamper in the Master Suite. Long gone are the days when clothes would actually fit in the hamper, so we have resorted to piling clothes up around the hamper. Earl has been living out of the dryer for the past few days when getting ready for work; said clothes have been in the dryer since the beginning of the month.

We are a little behind on laundry.

I always have high hopes of ending a weekend with all of the laundry neatly folded and put away and the hampers empty, but this didn’t happen last weekend because of my idea to wash all the bedding on our bed. Most would think that might be two or three loads of laundry, tops, but in reality, we like a LOT of blankets on the bed. We like to be pinned right down tight by a sheet, four blankets, the ripped up remains of a comforter from 1996, another blanket and then our fancy looking comforter on top of it all. Sometimes Tom helps out by laying across the bed and adding an extra 10 or so pounds. It’s all quite comfortable though admittedly it can be rather stifling when it’s 90 degrees outside and there’s only a fan blowing hot air around.

Washing all of the bedding turned out to be a bigger chore than I wanted it to be because I had to beg and plead the washing machine to actually spin again. If there is a chance that not everything is in complete alignment when it’s time to ramp up to 1,100 RPM, the expensive piece of electronic infused plastic will refuse to do anything than toss the contents of the drum around a few times and run it’s pump. It’ll do this for hours on end. I miss the days when the washing machine would just walk across the floor, reach the end of it’s cords and hoses and bang against the wall until someone intervened. We should have never put brains in a washing machine. It’s too smart for its own good.

Since it took ten hours to wash six loads of blankets on Sunday, we didn’t get a chance to finish the rest of our clothes and when you’re a power couple like we are (we like to talk big so that people think we have a big ego), there’s just no time to wash clothes after a long day’s work. We are too busy wining, whining and dining. Power couples seriously need a houseboy.

So today I washed some laundry before starting my day at the office and then I just folded a couple of loads for the frivolity of the first half of my lunch hour. We are going to go into the weekend with empty hampers, at least until Jamie gets back from his camping trip and then we’ll try to wrap up everything on Sunday night so we can wine, whine and dine again on Monday.

In the meantime, I am hoping and praying that the washer is in a good mood.

I can be an emotionally responsive person. I usually don’t realize how emotionally responsive I can seem because it comes naturally to me. I don’t know that I fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, but when my mood is in a certain space and the circumstances are in a certain place, I can get loud. I usually try to restrict this sort of behavior to my alone time but my family occasionally gets to see the best of it. It’s not something I’m proud of.

I never used to swear. I don’t remember my father swearing that much; I think my mom would occasionally swear around us kids. I didn’t really pick up the habit until I worked at the radio station where you needed to drop a few f-bombs to get anyone’s attention. Screaming and yelling and swearing was the normal course of action for speaking at any sort of meeting while I was working there, so I adopted the tendency as a matter of survival. When you work at a place where people throw knives (wish I was making that up), you sometimes need get rowdy. Again, not something that I’m proud of.

As I was going through my work email this morning, I found myself yelling out loud in my office. “What the F^!K did you think, numb nuts?” Now I don’t know if this person has numb nuts. Since the email in question was from a woman, I kind of hope that she doesn’t have nuts, period, but that’s her business. To each their own. I started firing off a snappy email when I decided to just close my eyes, count to 10 and then reassess the situation.

It really wasn’t worth raising my blood pressure over. You see, after I counted to 10, I realized that the world was still spinning and that nothing had changed, other than my blood pressure subsiding a bit. This prompted me to send out a simple tweet this morning:

I should probably stop calling other drivers “flea-bitten whores.”

Now I wasn’t driving at the time and actually the thought was completely random (that happens a lot with me), but it is something that I am going to remember via a sticky on the dashboard of my Jeep.

Since counting to 10 worked so well for me this morning (and my day has been just fine since), I decided to see if there was a way to remind myself that I should just take a deep breath. Of course, there’s an app for that.

Introducing CalmDown. Now when I get a bit riled up, I have the little ying-yang symbol in my menu bar to click on and remind me to calm down just a little bit. Yeah, it costs a buck but sometimes you have to invest in yourself. If this will help me lower my blood pressure and be a little more rational about things, then it’s worth it.

Now, if I could just stop the fucking swearing. Jumpin’ Mice.

One of the things that amazes me about getting older is how much time seems to be speeding up. I feel like I have kind of lost track of time a bit; it seems impossible to me that Earl and I have been together for over 16 years. It’s funny to think that I graduated from high school over 25 years ago. Heck, I can’t believe that I’ve been in my current job for 2 1/2 years already. I still feel like one of the new guys.

I guess there’s a part of me that wonders what it’s going to be like when I grow up. I still feel very much a kid at heart. The other day I watched an episode of “Maude” and Walter, Maude’s husband, mentioned that he was 48 years old. What? That’s only four years older than I am today and I don’t think I look or act like I’m only four years from looking or acting that worn out (no offense to Bill Macy).

Where on earth is the time going?

I ponder this because I am working from home today and I realize that it is nearly three in the afternoon and I feel like I just started my day. I then realize that I feel like I’ve just started my life and here I am at 44. Hell, I could be at my halfway point already.

I feel like I’m just getting through the warm ups.

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‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Update: ‘Stache On is ahead right now with some nice contributions to the Ali Forney Center. If you wish to contribute, please see this blog post and/or click ‘Stache On to vote for me to keep my mustache or ‘Stache Off for me to shave it off.

‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Update: ‘Stache On is ahead right now with some nice contributions to the Ali Forney Center. If you wish to contribute, please see this blog post and/or click ‘Stache On to vote for me to keep my mustache or ‘Stache Off for me to shave it off.
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So as I write this, I have been on a conference call for work for 5 1/2 hours. We are waiting for people in Ft. Wayne, Indiana to get where they need to be so we can figure out why the light is going up the glass tubes otherwise known as fiber optics. Surprisingly, I’m not cranky about this.

The reason I’m not cranky is because I am on-call this weekend and I have just accepted the fact that it’s going to be a weekend of uncertainty and not knowing what I’m doing. I have very little in the way of plans. I kind of like this idea of coasting through a couple of days. Even though I’m on call, I’m hoping that I will find time to relax. I just want to chill.

I’m still feeling the effects of my cold but I’m did much better today. It seems like it was one of the 24 hour bugs. The one dose of cold medicine did the trick, apparently, because I haven’t taken anything further. Perhaps that’s why I’m so mellow.

So it’s been a very hot summer thus far. This big mustache of mine has been creeping in my mouth, sticking out all over the place yet garnering a few stares in everyday life (which I enjoy). As I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I contemplated trimming it back or shaving it off completely. It’s been a while since I’ve changed up my look a little bit.

With trimmers in my hand, something in the back of my head told me that I had to do something special. After all, this mustache has been described as “epic”. “It’s huge!” “It looks like he has a small country sitting under his nose!”

I couldn’t bring the trimmers to my face. If it’s going to go, it’s going to go in style.

So I have decided to keep the mustache for the next three weeks and let the masses decide it’s fate. If this “epic” mustache is going to go, it’s going to go in an epic way.

So here’s the deal. I have started the “‘Stache On-‘Stache Off” campaign to raise money for the Ali Forney Center, which provides housing for Homeless LGBT Youth. I’m lucky, I have a loving family and have had the support of my relatives for as long as I can remember. Others are not so lucky and find themselves on the street with nowhere to go. This happens way too often and if there’s something I can do to help, even if it’s this little thing with this mustache I have, I’m going to do it.

So, this is what I need you to do. If you want the mustache to stay, donate to this campaign:
‘STACHE ON-‘Stache Off.

If you want the mustache to GO, donate to this campaign:
‘Stache On-‘STACHE OFF.

The bucket with the most amount of money at 2359 ET on 24 Aug 12 will determine the fate of this mustache. If it stays, it hangs around through the end of the year. If it goes, though I hate being clean shaven, I will shave it off completely and then probably grow a little mustache of more reasonable proportion after a few weeks. And of course, all proceeds go to the Ali Forney Center.

Please help me help those that need a safe, secure way to find their path in life.

Thank you.