Ponderings and Musings

Jones The Owl.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

While we were visiting Rick and Helen today, getting ready for our trip to Atlantic City, our nephew Jones decided to entertain his Uncle J.P. by doing animal impersonations.

“But Jones, you are an animal”, I said to him, feeling the need to point out the obvious.

“But Uncle J.P., actually we are all animals”, he responded.

Since he felt so wise (and I agreed with him after thinking about it), he decided to do an impersonation of an owl.

One of my biggest pet peeves is being pigeon holed. I don’t like to be perceived as predictable. When I move on from this life, I want to be remembered as spontaneous. “I wanna be impulse. Reckless.” (When’s the last time someone quoted a Wilson Phillips song in a blog?) “That J.P., he was zany. Zany, I say.”

As I’m sitting here eating lunch, I’m realizing that I’ve adopted a routine that may border on mundane. I come home, lunch pail in tow and lay out my lunch. I pet the cat on the top of the head and then let him out the back door. I then eat my lunch and surf the same pages, every day, in the same order. I have a handful of blogs that I read, and I always read them in order, regardless of who has posted the latest entry. I check a few usenet discussions and then I read a few message boards about various, often entertainment, interests. Then I write in my blog. As I letting Tom out before settling down to eat, I realized he was waiting by the door because he knew what was to happen next.

I think this routine is a product of the time of year. I imagine once the weather breaks and really means it this time that I’ll walk or sit on the back deck or run around the house with my hands in the air going “Let the sunshine, let the sunshine, let the sunshine in!” I don’t think the neighbors would mind, they often do the same thing. Except crazy cat lady. She just calls neighborhood cats by banging an iron skillet on a cow bell. She’s whacky like that.

Long ago I was told by an ex-fling that I was very predictable and I worked in a three-week cycle. I had my high points, I had my low points and you could set a calendar by the schedule. “J.P.’s giddy, time to pay the electric bill!” Unpredictably, I hung up the phone while he was telling me what my problem was and predictably I dumped him in a curt, yet colorfully worded e-mail. Mind you, back in 1989, dumping people over e-mail was rare so maybe that wasn’t so predictable after all.

I think I’m going to do something very spontaneous this weekend. On purpose. I don’t know what it’ll be, I don’t know when it’ll be. I have a five day weekend ahead, this is the perfect opportunity to be zany.

I have to think about the details.

I was going through some of the stuff in the “wreck room” closet this evening looking for the documentation for the video camera when I came across a box of old photos. I hadn’t seen these in quite a few years, I thought I’d drag them out and share them.

Up first, my publicity shot from 1997. This is from when I worked at the radio station as a Program Director. It’s important to have a snazzy publicity shot in case your peers shower you with acolades in a trade magazine. I can’t even type that sentence without gagging.

And the second little gem I found was from July 1994 when I worked at a station called Hot 107. We all got together and hung out with the Fly 92 crew in neighboring (and much bigger) Albany at their summer jam. Here I am with Sherman Hemsley, Brian Cody and Matt Hubbell from Fly 92 and my co-worker from Hot 107, Becky Myers. I don’t know who the woman in shocking pink is, she just sort of jumped in the picture. Must be she wanted to be in a trade magazine too.

I wonder if being pictured with George Jefferson made me Weezy for a day.

I am desperately trying to be in a good mood this morning as I get ready for work. I am not an early riser. I don’t even pretend to be. But occasionally I have to bite the bullet and get up before the sun rises so I can work the early shift at work.

I can be very cranky in the morning, but that’s a habit that I’m trying to break. So far, so good.

As I look out towards the east, I can see the beginnings of a beautiful sunrise. There’s no sign of red, so the sailors needn’t take warning today. The sky has a few puffs of clouds scattered amongst the deep, dark blue giving way to brilliant sun.

As I look at the weather forecast, I notice that it’s going to be near 50 for the next couple of days. That news just perked me up a little bit. My crankiness is now officially gone. It’s going to be a lovely day.

I read this morning that 26.9 inches of snow fell on Central Park in New York yesterday. Personally, I find it kind of neat that downstate got to experience a typical Upstate N.Y. winter storm. New Yorkers are tough and they’ll handle it just fine, but I’m sure they’re probably a little shocked from the amount of snow that fell. It’s the most snow that’s fallen since the late 19th century. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times that we’ve had that sort of snow up here.

It’s funny to think that New York is in the same state that we live in. (By the way, I refuse to refer to New York, N.Y. as “New York City”, it’s not the “City of New York City”, it’s the “City of New York”, unlike Oklahoma City which is the “City of Oklahoma City”.) It’s so different down there. They speak differently, the pace of life is much faster, politically the regions favor opposite ends of the scale and what is taken for granted down there (taxicabs and knishes, for example) are very scarce up here. I’ve often wondered why New York and Long Island aren’t in their own state. I’m not trying to kick them out of the Empire State or anything (they’d take most of the population with them!) but let’s face it, there’s not much in common between a person in Maspeth (Queens) and Cheektowaga, N.Y. (outside of Buffalo). Well, they do have some things in common; high taxes, decaying roads and a state government strangling itself with red tape.

When we visit people in other parts of the country and they find out we live in New York (the state), we often are asked about the twin towers being hit (“Did you see it?” “Yes, on television just like you, we live four hours away”) and sometimes we are asked if we’ve been mugged recently. (I’ve been chased by a cow on several occasions, if that counts for anything.)

I sometimes wonder if the same situation exists in Illinois, with Chicago at one end of the spectrum and Carbondale, Ill. at the other. Do they have the same differences though they live in the same state?

So here it is Sunday night and time to gear up for the work week that looms ahead. Earl is off to his weekly poker game and I just finished watching six consecutive episodes of “Isis”. (Thank goodness for videotape.)

As I sit here thinking back on the weekend, I have to wonder what I’ve really done to make the time pass so quickly. I’ve spent a lot of time working on my little video projects in an effort to better learn the software and to improve my videography skills. We often discuss at work that it helps to have some sort of hobby to engage yourself when you’re on call. It’s kind of hard to get out and about when the pager could go off at any moment, so doing something at home that you enjoy, that isn’t work related, makes the on-call time more bearable. I still complain about it though. It’s just my way I guess.

Earl and I have stuck to our healthy eating plans this weekend and we both feel much better for it. I started actively searching out better foods around January 10th, and I’m proud to say that I’ve already lost 14 pounds because of it. I’m really looking forward to hitting the roads and trails by cycling this spring and the nice weather can’t get here soon enough.

So it’s time to tackle another work week. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and Earl and I are doing a little celebrating at the local casino Tuesday night. Next weekend we’re taking a few extra days off and visiting his family in Pennsylvania.

Sigh. Who knew extra spinach in my diet could make me feel so centered?

I’ve encountered a couple of dumb things today.

1. Cheney accidentally shoots hunting companion. This particular link goes to Reuters.

2. “I need to return this computer. The cupholder is jammed.” Some old hag of a woman at the local “Barbie’s Dream House” Best Buy. (I call it Barbie’s Dream House Best Buy because all the local “big box” stores are mini-versions of the same store found in other cities. The only thing we have full sized are the four Wal*Mart Supercenters within 25 miles of here.) What I found incredibly dumb is that the Best Buy “tech” didn’t ask her what “cupholder” she was referring to! He just said “uh-huh”.

For the first time ever, I think, I am sitting in our front “parlor” while typing and surfing on my PowerBook. I love this room of our house. It’s a shame that it’s the least used room in the house because it has the most comfortable furniture in it. It also has the piano, which I play at least once a day, but I never just relax in the room. It’s a welcome change of pace.

So Earl is upstairs with iTunes cranked, I’m chatting with my blog friend Terry on iChat and just enjoying a quiet Saturday night.

It’s night like this where I start to get all philosophical. “Am I happy where I am in life right now?” “Do I know what I’m doing?” “Do I know where I’m going?” I’m happy to say that I can answer with an unquestionable ‘yes’ to all those questions and more. I’m eating healthier. I’m taking steps to make myself more valuable career-wise. I’m feeling better about the way I look. I’m feeling more confident. I’m working on coming out of my shell a little further.

The best is yet to come.

Let’s make the afternoon better. I just found a CD for the ride back to the office. “80’s Dance Party”. Selected tracks include:

• “Back To Life”, Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler
• “Head To Toe”, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
• “Tell It To My Heart”, Taylor Dayne. As an aside, I NEED this video, very hot men in it.
• “I Can’t Wait”, Nu Shooz.
• “Don’t Disturb This Groove”, The System.

Now that’s the way to kick off a Friday afternoon.

I should be full of joy because today is Friday but instead of I’m finding that I’m a little short on patience today. I really don’t know what made my mood head in this direction today, but I’m finding that I’m failing at attempts to set this crankiness aside and to just get on with it.

Now that I think about it, I know what’s put me in this mood. In my job I work closely with a montrosity of a phone company whose name rhymes with horizon. Once part of Ma Bell, they’ve inherited, spindled, folded and mutilated any records that may have been coherent back in the good old days. They have directory listings for a 212 phone number with the address “New York, MA” as the city. They frequently change the “business rules”, the industry agreed upon guidelines that all telephone communications are suppose to operate under, without warning or notice. They revel in their tunnel vision, if you don’t put “install a jack” when requesting new service, they’ll leave the bare wires hanging in some old woman’s basement, it’s up the old lady to do the rest. In short, they live up to the slogan in that old Laugh In with Ernastine the operator, “We’re the phone company, we don’t have to care.”

Today’s project involves getting phone service to a brand new house, in a brand new McMansion development on a newly built street. In 80 characters or less, I have to describe where this house is and give them as much information as possible. (In the telecommunications industry, spelling out complete words is a sign of weakness, and no they don’t accept l33t sp3@k.) I gave VZ (the favored abbreviation for this company) the name of the three closest cross streets. I got back “NEED NEAR TN ON SAME” which translates to they need someone else’s phone number on the same street as the location I am referencing.

When I explained, as briefly as possible (“ONLY HSE ON ST”) that it’s the first house on a brand new street and requested a NEW ADDR, I apparently pissed someone off because they dared use an exclamation point, using up a precious byte. “NEED NEAR TN ON SAME!”

So now we are at a crossroads. I’m not budging and the overpaid union slacker on the other end isn’t budging either. But at the very least, writing about the tale has improved my mood ten-fold and made me realize just how ridiculous it is to waste time and energy on “VZ”. I’ve got better things to do.

Happy Friday.