By Myself.

It’s that most wonderful time of the year at work. It’s the time when everyone is feverishly working hard to use up their vacation time before the end of year. We have this crazy little “use it or lose it” rule when it comes to our benefit time. I don’t really feel the crunch to do as many of my co-workers do because I happily use vacation time throughout the year. I think it’s one of my shining skills when it comes to my employment. I might even list it first on my resume.

What completely boggles my mind is that some of my co-workers don’t like taking time off from work. When our supervisor is telling us what time we need to use before December 31, they sigh and roll their eyes and say things like “I guess I can take the next three Fridays off.” What? Are you mad? Why the hell wouldn’t you want to take the next three Fridays off. Heck, go crazy and throw in a few Thursday too! I’m considering putting an entry in the dusty suggestion box in the break room: “Employees are free to share their vacation time with other co-workers. It can be used as a bargaining trip for favors such as taking the calls of the more cranky customers or putting the trash cans out in the hall.”

Since it’s mad rush time, everyone that sits near my quarter of a cubicle is off this afternoon. I’m all by myself at our end of the room.

It’s the perfect time to get started on my holiday shopping.

Now It Feels Like December.

The snow is coming down like crazy as I type this. As I made my way home from school in the Jeep, I trudged through three or four inches of snow on our unplowed roadway. I had to make a quick stop at the gas station to fill up the tank and I noticed that there were several people in and out of the parking lot as I was pumping gas; they were all picking up gallons of milk.

Predictable. I did forgive the hottie that was fueling up at the set of pumps next to mine. Our eyes met, he smiled, I smiled. It was a gay thing. But he still ran in and bought a gallon of milk. The cap color indicated it was whole milk. Perhaps my gaydar is off – what gay man drinks whole milk?

The National Weather Service is predicting possibly a foot of snow or more in selected locales in our region, courtesy of that big snow-maker we call Lake Ontario. I often wonder if my fellow citizens forget that we live on the edge of the Lake Ontario snowbelt and that heavy snow at this time of the year is not uncommon. As I said before, they may be lactose intolerant and on the Atkins diet, but by God they need to stock up on milk and bread!

I’m hoping the snow tapers off and doesn’t bury us tonight. I’m not plowing the driveway before leaving for work tomorrow, regardless of how much snow we get, and with Earl out of town, I won’t have to worry about getting him on his way tomorrow morning. If it does snow a lot, I’ll just shoot out of the garage like the Batmobile. Perhaps our cat Tom can dress up as Robin and sit in the passenger seat.

Motivation.

I’m really trying to get motivated about Christmas shopping but I haven’t started yet. Earl and I have shopped a couple of times for the family gifts on our list, but I haven’t started buying Earl’s gifts yet. There are so many things that I want to get him but I’ve been told to keep it reasonable.

I was going to do some shopping online last night, but ended up working on my road website and going to bed early.

I thought the snowfall would kick me into holiday shopping mode, but it hasn’t happened. I’ll probably get it all done this weekend though. I really need to, if I think about it, so that I have everything here in time to get wrapped and such.

Maybe Santa himself will kick in and help me out.

Bachelor Night.

Earl is out of town on business until Friday night. I think he purposely schedules his business trips to coincide with my on-call weeks so I won’t go traveling after work or something. It’s his way of keeping his eye on me, I suppose. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I kicked off the night be picking up some Chinese food. I tried to talk myself out of it during my last hour of work by surfing the internet for the caloric stats on my favorite dish, General Tso’s chicken with pork fried rice, but the research information on this dish fit my criteria: the calorie count was less than four digits.

So I’m enjoying my combination platter number 19 and catching up on my blogs and other sites I keep an eye on. I feel like this holiday season has been especially busy but I have nothing to prove for it. Oh well, I still have 19 days to find the perfect gifts.

Since Earl is out of town for two nights in a row this week, I’ve already planned my special meal for tomorrow night and that would be a bowl of popcorn. Now I’m not referring to this insta-radarange crap in a bag but rather real popcorn, popped in oil and prepared perfectly in our West Bend drip-a-fat classic popcorn popper. Outside of the movie theatre, that’s the only real way to make popcorn. As a connoisseur of this delicacy, I can assure you that popcorn prepared by pushing buttons and flapping a bag is like whipping through a burger bomb drive thru for prime rib.

Other than my planned meal excursions, I have no other plans for the next two nights. Perhaps I’ll do some Christmas shopping online. Watch my credit card for burn marks.

Chains Of Love.

I was chatting with my friend Sean in Albany via e-mail this morning and the subject of one of our mutual friends, a fine woman named Pat, came up. Sean was commenting that while he keeps in touch with Pat, he and Jeffrey haven’t been out to visit her in quite a while. Earl and I are guilty of the same exact scenario, which reminds me, I need to write a letter to her.

Anyway, Sean made the remark that during their last visit, his lover Jeffrey found some of Pat’s pictures decorating her apartment to be rather amusing. It all boils down to algebra.

J.P. + Tom D (eeks, that just makes me kvetch to see that since I’m not referring to our cat) = 1987
Tom D – J.P. = 1989
J.P. + Derek = Reboundish fling + “what the fuck was I thinking”
J.P. – Derek = Tom D + Derek * (nickname of “Durweed”)
J.P. = Not Amused
Tom D – Derek = end of J.P.’s glaring
If Tom E + Sean != “yes” then Tom D + Sean = 1990 * (J.P.’s washer + dryer)
Tom D – Sean = Tom E + Tom D
Tom D – Tom E = loss of interest on all spectators involved

Apparently Pat has some of this progression of boyfriend swap documented in photos posted about her apartment, with a picture of Tom and Sean and then Tom and Tom and most likely a picture of Tom and myself and then a photo Earl and I. I hope she has them in the right order. Nothing says “reminder of your foolish years” like photos posted in glorious technicolor.

I’m just happy it all got sorted out and Sean and Jeffrey got together in Albany and Earl and I got together back when we did and everything makes sense now, because the math just makes my head swim.

By the way, Pat has written two books, “Blooming Is Tricky Business” and “The Present Is A Gift”. Both are a collection of her short stories from her time in a mental institution and the recovery since. I find her writing to be very optimistic and inspiring.

Back On The Page.

Earl and I have fallen back in love with the series “Heroes”. This week’s episode is starting to tie some points back together while keeping the storyline interesting and thought provoking. I really enjoy Claire Bennett, the cheerleader and Hiro, the man that can bend time and space. Of course I’ve mentioned that I enjoy Greg Grunberg as well, not only is his super power awesome (ability to read minds), he’s quite woofy as well.

If you haven’t caught the series yet, download it on iTunes so you’ll be ready when it returns in January.

By the way, am I the only person that remembers that once upon a time there were no reruns until summer? What’s all this with taking breaks in the middle of the season? It’s just not fair.

Dorky Hat Season.

I’m very excited by the winter like weather that has arrived. Imagine this, winter like weather on December 4th! The nerve of Mother Nature. We have a total of two inches of snow on the ground. Naturally, motorists are disregarding all traffic laws and citizens are flocking to the grocery store to pick up milk and bread, despite their history of lactose intolerance and the Atkins diet.

While I find all this needless mayhem amusing, I’m rather excited because it’s Dorky Hat Season. Around this time every year, those of us that choose to be bald find the need to adorn our freshly shaven scalps with a wool hat. I’ve never been able to wear a winter hat well. When I was very young I secretly wanted one of those hats with a long tail and a ball on the end but that wasn’t very farm boy like. I was usually given a hat by my grandmother who with all her love and care knitted or crocheted something out of yarn found at the bargain bin at Switz’s, a virtually sea of craftiness that would be today’s “Michael’s” or “AC Moore” to shame. Even though I appreciated the love and care that went into the creation of these hats, I never felt confident wearing them. Despite the red, white and blue yarn I didn’t feel patriotic nor did I feel comfortable in the orange and green hat that matched our shag carpeting.

A couple of years ago I decided to brave winter’s worst without a hat while we were in Times Square. Earl and I made a spectacle of ourselves as he chipped the ice off my skin. At least it matched the icicles hanging off my mustache. I did learn a lesson from that experience though: thaw before chipping.

It’s fun to see what folks are wearing on their heads to fend off Mother Nature’s chill. Why it was just this morning that I saw a hat on a woman that would have made Little House on the Prairie’s Mrs. Olsen very proud. There were many feathers on this red and purple hat. I even waved to the peacock that was looking back at me. He didn’t look happy as he sat up there, trying to look dignified.

I haven’t chosen my hat for this winter season. The temperature needs to drop a few more degrees for me to sucumb to the need for cranial adornment. I’ll be sure to post a picture when I’m ready for show and tell.

Now I’m Ready.




12042006

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

This morning we awoke to a couple of inches of snow. Forecasters are calling for a little more, maybe three to six inches by the end of the day.

Now it’s beginning to look like Christmas. Since snowy holidays are all I’ve ever known, I don’t know how our southern friends get into the holiday spirit when it’s all green outside.

Saratoga Springs.




Olde Bryan Inn.

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

Earl and I decided to the bulk of our Christmas shopping yesterday in the upper Hudson Valley. I am not a fan of Christmas shopping by any means and for the past several years I have thanked the Universe for the popularity of the internet, where one can sit in the comfort of their own home and point and click their way to happiness.

I’ve had the “New York Counties” project going for a couple of years, where Earl takes a picture of me standing next to a county sign for all 62 counties in New York State. We have less than five counties left in the project, so we drove up to Warren County to take a photo along Interstate 87. Warren County is home to Glens Falls at the foothills of the Adirondacks, so we made their one mall, Aviation Mall, a Christmas destination.

Aviation Mall is your typical mall in that it has a Target and a JC Penney and a smattering of stores in between. Since it’s not in a terribly congested area of the state, the experience was not as irritating as I feared it would be. We picked up a bunch of gifts, knocking off half the entries in the list when we decided to continue our little journey.

We headed to Saratoga Springs where Earl took me to this wonderful restaurant called The Old Bryan Inn. If you’re in Saratoga Springs, you must stop here as it’s in it’s original building from 1773 and has a wonderful “George Washington Slept Here” feeling to it. The food was delicious and the beer flowed well, though I kept myself in check.

After Saratoga Springs we decided to go see “Shortbus” in Albany. It was a last minute decision but I’m really glad we went to see it. I really enjoyed the movie and I told Earl that we must see more independent movies in 2007 instead of heading to the megaplex to see what the latest blockbuster is going to be. The beautiful thing about the entire experience is that the audience was there because they really wanted to see the movie instead of using the venue just to kill time and talk on their cell phone. In addition, I really liked cinematography, the story and of course the unbashed approach to sexuality in the film. I actually shed a tear or two during the movie and I don’t think I’ve done that in a movie theatre before.

We then stopped for a drink on the way home, though that was really a waste of time, as the bar we stopped at in Albany made us feel rather obsolete. As usual, Earl and I were the only full bearded males in the bar. A couple of twinks seemed rather intimidated and quite frankly I was ready to head home after one drink.

Today it’s been all about the laundry, relaxation and my college paperwork. I’m on call again starting tomorrow, it should be interesting.