J.P.

With it being Thanksgiving and all, I thought I would mention a few things that I’m thankful for. My mother often goes into long, emotional speeches as to what she’s thankful for at Thanksgiving, often accompanied by tears in the gravy and sobbing in the sweet potatoes. It does wonders to aid the digestion.

Anyways, back to what I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful for a loving family. My partner Earl, our cat Tom and the wonderful, supportive family from all sides that surrounds us with love.

I’m thankful for having such a good “gig”. I work with good people, for a good company and the future holds promise. I’ve had the opportunity to leave and have decided to stay the course. I’m thankful to have the opportunity.

I’m thankful for having the means to live as we do. I’m thankful for the food on our table, the bytes at our fingertips and the opportunities we have.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

Monday tried to start me off on a sour note this morning. But I wasn’t about to give in. Nevermind that I had maybe three hours of sleep. Forget the fact that I was returning to work after a three day weekend. Nothing was going to dampen my spirit and my zest for life.

If that’s not enough to make you spit up.

I went out this morning to start the car before brushing my teeth, like I always do. I crept out in the cold, put the key in the ignition and turned.

Nothing.

So I turned the key again.

Still nothing.

Bugger.

Did it turn the tide of my merriment? I’m happy to say that it did not. Although it was very apparent that someone left his satellite radio receiver turned on since Thursday night (that ‘someone’ would be me), I wasn’t about to kick the car and have a hissy fit.

I jumped in the Jeep and rode off to work. It’s nice to have that luxury.

And at work I proceeded to share my good mood with everyone and anyone in ear shot. I spread positive vibes around like it was a virus.

The Monday blahs took their best shot at me. Such a shame they lost.

The neighbors put up their Christmas lights already. They have three trees full of white lights, a wreath the size of Chicago and a blow up Santa Claus that is taller than their house. I also have a suspicion that the wife dresses up like an elf and dances around, but that could just be my four glasses of wine talking.

At any rate, I hate them.

As I type this blog entry, it is Sunday, November 21, 2004. Last time I checked, we haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving yet. When I look in the refrigerator, I see the naked bird waiting for his moment of glory. Why are the neighbors putting up Christmas lights?

Because they’re following the Christmas trend. They’re caught up in the commercial crap of it all.

Rush, rush, rush, buy a thousand and one pieces of foreign manufactured junk, wrap it in gaily colored paper and shove it in the recipients face and croak out a “Merry Christmas”. Of course, one doesn’t really have the time to look to see if the “giftee” enjoyed the gift or not because we’re on our way to spread more fun and frivolity.

What happened to the days of actually talking about what we’re thankful for at Thanksgiving dinner, rather than the current trend of discussing what crap Wal*Mart (“Always White Trash, Always”) has marked down for their 3:00-3:05 a.m. sale the next day? I’ve been to Thanksgiving dinners where people discussed the glee of stomping on a senior citizen’s foot to make her let go of the last Betty Belchie doll so they could make off with the great bargain instead. I guess they were thankful for pain.

Instead of thinking about Christmas this and Christmas that, let’s take a moment to remember Thanksgiving and tell each other what we’re thankful for. Sit down with your family, tell them how much you love and how thankful you are for their existence. Be thankful for the harvest, be thankful for the company, be thankful for the lessons you’re learning in life. There’s plenty of time to put up Christmas lights. There’s plenty of time to listen to tinny, low-fidelity versions of Jingle Bells on mall intercom speakers. There’s plenty of time to fight for parking spaces.

And while I’m on a little bit of a rant, take a moment to put some thought into your holiday gift giving this year. Put some meaning into your gifts. Make something. Create a masterpiece. Don’t just give someone a present, give someone a warm, fuzzy feeling.

You can blame my friend Dana for this rant. I read her blog entry and it got me a little bit fired up. Dana and I always thought alike on these things.

As an avid seller and buyer on ebay, I often leave positive feedback for other members of the ebay community. Always striving to be different, I try to differentiate my feedback from others, a practice which parallels my life I suppose. My feedback is usually sci-fi or Star Trek related. A typical comment from me would be “Warp speed shipping. Item as pledged. An excellent member of the ebay universe. Live long and prosper.”

I know, I’m a major dweeb.

Well last night I caught up on my recent ebay transactions and found that I had someone had left a comment for me regarding my recent purchase.

“Warp Speed PAYMENT, Uhura Quality COMMUNICATION, Peace and Long Life”

Absolutely made my day! I have Uhura Quality Communication! Uhura Rocks!

Live Long and Prosper.

Ever since my sister’s illness in September, I’ve felt an increase in the urge to contribute to mankind. My cousin and I had several conversations in the hospital waiting room during that scary time. Her daughter had passed away at Christmas last year and she was trying to find meaning in her life after this devastating loss. I was just plain scared for my sister and thought that I was being way too selfish. Instead of coasting through life thinking about myself I need to give something back to society.

I’ve found a charitable effort that fits a quirk of myself wonderfully. It’s called “Beards For A Cause”. It’s a simple effort – I don’t shave for a year, I get contributions based on how long I actually go without shaving, and the money goes to National Cancer Society. There are many men joining in on this effort.

I’m always messing around with my facial hair style and now I have a valid reason to do it (vanity not withstanding). But more importantly, this is a cause that hits close to home as my paternal grandmother died of cancer, my paternal grandfather has had a couple of run-ins with the disease and my godmother has beat breast cancer. This is very important to me and something that I look forward to doing my part in. There are too many people in the world suffering from cancer.

I’ve also gone ahead and signed up for The Ride For Missing Children, the 100+ mile bike ride in May to benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I did the ride in 2003 and loved every minute of it. In 2004 I was too busy finding myself, working and just being plain weird so I didn’t participate. This past weekend I received an invitation in the mail to join the ride in 2005 and I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I’m really looking forward to it.

If you would like to contribute to either of these efforts, please drop me a line or IM me on AIM. My info is in the sidebar.

I was talking with one of my co-workers this morning about the virtues of the McDonalds McRib Sandwich. You see, Earl recently brought home a couple of them, as the fine (ahem) citizens of Ohio currently have the opportunity to buy McRibs at the local stores, but we in Upstate N.Y. do not have the same privilege. So he brought home some of that boneless, sticky BBQ goodness between two sugar laden rolls.

They were delicious.

And yes, I’m still a vegetarian. I make allowances for McRibs, Cheddar Melts and Chick-Fil-A. Call me weak.

Anyways, back to the co-worker. I was explaining that I am a fast food restaurant connisseur. I enjoy comparing value meals to combo meals. I like to super size (don’t we all!). I like to hold the pickle and hold the lettuce, or at least entertain the thought of doing so because after all, I can have it my way.

There’s this indy movie floating about that features this guy eating nothing but McDonalds food for 30 days and the ill effects it had on him. It’s called “SuperSize Me”. I have not seen the movie “SuperSize Me” yet, though I really want to see it. I want to see if he is a little weakling that really needed a few pounds or if he is a stud muffin that grew to Daddy Bear proportions. Perhaps the DVD will be in my stocking this year, along with a Chick-Fil-A calendar. Another reason that I’m eager to see SuperSize Me is because of the guy’s mustache, but that’s a whole different blog entry. (For those of you keeping score, I’m growing a beard in anticipation of uncharted mustache territory of cowboy proportions. I’m very excited about the prospect, having apparently just completed puberty at age 36 and having new parts of my face grow hair. It does make one pause and say “what the fuck?”)

Anyways, back to the burger bomb. There are some things that I just can’t figure out. Back in my single days, I lived on fast food and junk food. I was a night time radio disc-jockey on Top 40 radio. I lived on free food from Arbys for lunch and free food from McDonalds for supper. On the weekend I got fancy and ate free food from Pizza Hut during my Saturday night mix shows. Then I’d DJ at the local bar Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights drinking nothing but Pepsi (actually RC Cola, it was a cheap bar) and Beer. Maybe a rum and coke or two. If the turntables started making me dizzy, I’d leave out the rum.

With all these “wonderful” eating habits of days gone by, I found myself 10 pounds lighter than I am today. These days, I so much look at Little Debbie with a little lust in my eyes and I gain five pounds. I cycle the roads of Upstate N.Y. in the summer and I cycle the roads of my basement in the winter. I lift weights and think of Tobey Maguire being all agile and athletic in Spiderman. “I can do that too”. Yeah, right. Maybe it’s because I’m eating rabbit food. Maybe I need more burger bombs in my life.

On the “SuperSize Me” website, there is a frequent visitor (his name is Woody, which I find mildly interesting) to the message boards who claims he lost a bunch of weight eating nothing but McDonalds food. And I completely believe him.

The stuff rotted out his insides.

As I mentioned before, I consider myself to have a discerning taste among the fast food set. I am frightened to attest to the knowledge that Wendy is really hot and juicy. I drive to Oklahoma (‘rampant lesbians’ not withstanding) just to park at a Sonic. I go to New Hampshire to eat Chick-Fil-A waffle fries. I love yelling into the clown’s mouth at Jack in the Box! Why can’t my body just go with the flow and let me enjoy my little niche as restaurant critic?

Whatever the reason, I’ll have fries with that.

Earlier this week I received a wonderful package in the mail, and it wasn’t even the kind thats usually wrapped in plain brown paper. No, no. This is much more exciting.

I bought the DVD “The Very Best of The Human League”.

Oh my God. I love the Human League. I’ve loved The Human League since 1981 when Love Action (I Believe In Love) came out, BEFORE everyone’s favorite 80s anthem “Don’t You Want Me”.

The Human League were cool in that they used all electronic instruments. All synthesizers. No drums, no guitars, just keyboards and vocals. That was way cool.

Since I was in the middle of puberty when I discovered The Human League, I found myself attracted to Phil Oakey when his hair wasn’t all lopsided and he was wearing tight jeans. Interestingly, I also found both Suzanne (the blonde) and Joanne (the brunette) attractive as well, though I must admit that I leaned more towards Suzanne while secretly wishing for Phil.

As big of a Human League fan that I am, I had only seen the video to “Don’t You Want Me.” We didn’t have cable, let alone MTV when I was growing up. The only way we could catch videos was if we watched them at my Grandma’s in Syracuse or if we watched “Friday Night Videos” on NBC at 12:30 a.m. on Friday. I guess that was MTV for the hicks or something.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the videos and found Phil yummier than ever. I’ve watched the entire DVD four or five times this week. One of the things that I enjoy about the Human League is that Phil’s vocals are more in the baritone range that I sing in, rather than the tenor stylings so common in pop music. There’s an instrumental track called “Hard Times” on the Fascination! EP (and on the flip side of Love Action) that shows how low Phil can sing, and I can get right down there with him. (That really invokes some images in one’s mind if you use your imagination, doesn’t it?!?)

The other thing that I really enjoy about the group is that they just do there own thing. They’re fiercely devoted to their art. They bang around on keyboards until they find something that sounds really good, then they add vocals to it. And the product is way cool.

The Human League still tours from time to time. Earl and I saw them during the 80s Rewind Tour with Culture Club and Howard Jones back in 1998. I worked in radio at the time, had met the likes of Phil Collins, Dave Matthews and Britney Spears, but The Human League wouldn’t let me backstage to meet them. I was miffed! No, pissed is a better word. But I’ve since forgiven them. Looking back, I couldn’t have been scorned too much, since I continued to play “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” in heavy gold rotation on the station I was programming.

It’s good to take a stroll down memory lane once in a while. It’s good to feel a little fascination.

This morning I woke up still groggy from the seemingly eternal dreams I had last night. The dreams were far too complex to try to write down, but it boiled down to people holding up signs that said “Self Employed” on them. As a result of this, when I awoke I began thinking that my new job was part of the wrong path, that I wasn’t “getting it”, that I was invaluable to the company, on and on. The demons of self-doubt and lack of confidence were showing their ugly faces again.

The company I work for does a lot of interfacing, for lack of a better word, with a big telecommunications corporation. I’m not going to mention their name here, but let’s just say that it rhymes with Horizon. Because of the complexities of the telecommunications industry and the sheer size of their company, everyone has a job to do, and only that job to do. There are countless departments, department heads, worker bees and decision makers. Working with them can be a cranky experience. I’ve never had a warm, fuzzy feeling after a discussion with anyone in their organization.

So I’m at work armed with the vestiges of my dreams and the little demons showing their faces when I find out that I have to take a job to a Horizon supervisor. A woman notorious for being marginally to outright rude depending on the situation. Imagine my surprise when she actually offered to help me and even interjected a few suggestions to make the job go smoother.

After that, two other representatives called me on other jobs that had been in holding pattern hell, and both of them were equally nice.

Either I have stepped into the Twilight Zone or someone is telling me that last night’s dreams were just that. “Toughen up cupcake, you’re doing a good job, don’t let the little things get you down.”

———–

That being said, I’m terribly worried about my mother. Her little dog, Mandi, had to be put to sleep on Monday as her body was full of cancer, in an alarmingly short amount of time. My mother is understandably taken it very hard. I’m one of those crazy animal lovers that place more value on our “pets” than on human beings sometimes, so I can sympathize with what she’s feeling.

And to top all the fun, Earl is out of town this week, which I’m not dealing with as well as I usually do. I look forward to talking with him tonight.

A typical Upstate N.Y. November made itself known today. It snowed. That’s right, we got a nice dusting of snow today, along with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s to go along with it. There’s enough snow to nicely cover the grass, but it’s not the type to stick around for a long time. We’re suppose to get more snow tonight and tomorrow, then temps will be in the forties the rest of the week.

When I looked out my office window earlier today and saw the first glimpse of the snow flakes, I felt a surge of anticipation for the holiday season. It was definitely a welcomed feeling. I haven’t really felt the holiday spirit over the past couple of years. I don’t know if it was because of stress, crankiness, a lack of enthusiasm or a combination of all of the above, but this year feels like it’s going to be different to me. I feel like I’m going to be experiencing the holidays in a different sort of way this year.

We’re having our first of three Thanksgiving dinners this coming Sunday. The preparations have already begun with the thorough cleaning of the house. There’s still groceries to be bought, dishes to be washed and a meal to be cooked, but I can feel the excitement of it all already.

It snowed today for the first time this season. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

Well I finally got my dentist appointment and went and had my top two wisdom teeth pulled out today. I’m officially fresh out of wisdom, as all of my wisdom teeth are now gone.

It wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The shots of novacaine (or reasonable fascimile thereof) were the worst part. When I was in on Monday, the dentist alluded to major oral surgery with curved roots and general mayhem going on in the back of my mouth. But the oral surgeon said that I had a pair of the easiest teeth to pull that he’s seen in quite a while. I think he was just flirting with me. “Hey sexy, easy teeth.”

Apparently, since my bottom wisdom teeth were pulled a decade or two ago, the top teeth had room to move and so they were all there just ready for a pair of pliers. A yank and another yank and a odd feeling in my sinus cavities and whoops, there they go! I was morbidly interested in seeing the teeth but I wasn’t fortunate to experience that. I was curious as to what the outside of my wisdom teeth looked like, because I could never see them when they were in my mouth, being slammed up against the inside of my cheek and all. It’s going to be kind of groovy, because now I won’t be biting my cheek as much.

Ironically, the side of my mouth that wasn’t infected is hurting more than the side that was. I wonder why that is. It’s not a bad pain, just sort of like a bruise or something. And it’s been over four hours and there’s absolutely no sign of swelling. Which is a very good thing, because I was concerned about that, being as vain as I am.

So tomorrow I head back to work to enjoy a Friday with my co-workers, armed with a Thermos of fake-chicken soup. I’m glad to be beyond this milepost.