Ponderings and Musings

I did something I haven’t done in a long while today. I left work at noon today and went home sick. I never get sick. I don’t like getting sick. I refuse to be sick. So I will admit that I had the “sniffles”, but I most certainly was not sick. I used sniffle time.

I figured in order for me to get rid of the sniffles, I had to have some down time and let my body heal and do it’s thing. So that’s what I did. I came home, had a bowl of soup, watched a couple episodes of “Green Acres” and then slept for four hours until Earl came home from work. I feel much better this evening, though I am still a little sweaty. I’m currently medication free, so I’m hoping that I have this thing licked. I’m drinking a lot of orange juice and herbal tea to give my body the support it needs to fight these sniffles off naturally.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow. I’m hoping that I can sleep through the night tonight so that I’m well rested and ready to take on the day.

I remark from time to time that I refuse to be sick. I don’t have time for the sniffles, I don’t need the chills and I’m not hot for a fever. I just refuse to be sick and that’s that.

Apparently Mother Nature has another thought on the subject.

I’m a little congested today. It might be a side effect from the whacky work hours I had last week. It could be because I partied two nights in a row at the only bar in town (the last time that happened, Monica Lewinsky had a clean dress.) Whatever the reason, I have a little bit of a sniffly thing going on but I’m not letting it get the best of me. I lubed up my mustache with Vicks Vapo-rub last night. I’m drinking my herbal teas. I’m eating chicken-flavored soup (it’s a vegetarian chicken soup bowl). I’m drinking lots of orange juice. I plan on going to bed early tonight. I’m going to have this thing kicked by tomorrow morning so I can get back on course of not being sick.

Surprisingly, I’m not in a horrid mood for it being Monday and having the sniffles. I haven’t growled (at least in a non-affectionate way) nor have I barked at anyone. Perhaps having a cheery disposition is aiding in my little recovery here.

My ass has been dragging all day long today. Last night I wound up my latest bout with on-call, and this involved a customer “cut” (telecommunications jargon for bringing a new customer onto our phone network) at midnight last night. The cut took until just before 3:00 a.m., I was in bed at 3:15 a.m., having wedged myself between a surprisingly silently sleeping Earl and a cat with surly claws.

I was to be to work at 9 a.m. today, but I opted to take some comp time and go to work at 10:30 instead. I was relieved to awake at 8:30 a.m., having slept straight through since going to bed without being interrupted by additional on-call pages, but that still only amounted to a little over five hours of sleep.

So I yawned my way through work today. Our team leader suggested I take Friday off with comp time, as I had accumulated quite a bit of it, but no, I was going to tough it out and take the overtime instead. After all, Apple did come out with new products this week.

After work Earl and I met up with my mother and sister for dinner in Syracuse. While we were on our way, I started falling asleep in the passenger seat of the car (Earl had wisely chosen to drive), and it was then that I decided that I need to take tomorrow as a comp day after all.

Hello three day weekend!

So now we’re back from supper. It’s a little after 10:00 p.m. Fueled by five hours sleep, you think I’d be exhausted by now. But no, I’m wide awake. I’m ready to take on the world. I’m ready to make another movie.

All of this energy just reinforces what I’ve known forever; I was not meant to live as a “morning person” or even a person that works the traditional 9 to 5 shift. No, I’m meant to be a second shift kind of guy. But that’s not going to happen in the forseeable future. I dread the sounds of alarm clocks. Maybe I should get one of those natural light, nudge you awake type of alarm clocks that play a few bird noises, simulate a breathtaking sunrise and arouse with a pleasant aromatherapy type gas.

I blame part of this schedule unsynchronization on the time of year. This is when the air feels full of wonder and mystery. Darkness blankets the day earlier and lingers longer. The winds are crisp and cool, yet I find them comforting. I thrive in the magic of the wind this time of year.

I can’t wait for daylight saving time to end. I’ll feel more in sync then.

Today is an early workday for me, meaning I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. Not a terribly difficult venture, unless you’re a definite “night person” (I am) and you worked on call the night before (I did).

I think I’m going to eat my lunch at my desk today. Then I’ll go home at lunchtime, get naked (I’ve slept in the nude since I was 11, much to the chagrin of my mother when I was a kid) and take a 1/2 hour nap. I don’t know which will be the biggest recharge, the nap or the naked, but nevertheless I’m looking forward to it.

Today is Columbus Day here in the United States. Today is the day that we honor Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Americas. At least, I think that’s what today is all about.

Truth be known, today is one of those weird holidays. Official businesses like the post office, banks, government offices, etc. are closed for the day. Schools are closed. However, many businesses are open and conducting business as usual. Which is sometimes difficult because of the “pick and choose” nature of this holiday. Banks are closed, but the stock market is open. The restaurant down the street from the office is closed, because the state office building is closed, but the rest of the businesses are open and there’s no place for the workers to eat. (Thank goodness for a homemade turkey sandwich!)

What’s kind of odd is that Columbus Day is actually October 12, but today is only October 10. So it’s actually another “relocated” holiday. I think that’s rude. How would you like to be George Washington and have your birthday relocated to February 18 (from February 22) because you were careless enough to not but up properly against a weekend. Same with Memorial Day. And how come Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday? Who came up with that rule? I heard a woman talking in the supermarket commenting that Halloween should be moved to May so that the kids don’t have to go out in the cold in their costumes. I’m sure the spirits would love that.

All I know is that I’m working today while bankers are fanning themselves with their money. Tomorrow we’ll have twice as much junk mail to throw away because our mailbox will be empty tonight. What am I going to do? I’m kiss the ground out front, thank Christopher Columbus for his discovery and then move along.

Earl is in Buffalo for the weekend. He gets to hang out with the bears while I’m at home holding down the fort and doing my professional duty.

I’m on call.

What’s a boy to do on a Friday night all alone at home? I’ve watched television. I’ve caught up the laundry. I had Doritos for supper. I’ve contemplated shaving my beard off. I’ve watched more television. I’ve played with the cat. I’ve messed around with the video camera and iMovie.

I think tomorrow I’ll rearrange the garage and vacuum the house from top to bottom.

I live such a breathtaking existence.

The week just flies by when you’re taking a couple of vacation days and touring around. But it was back to work this morning and I had a hell of a time getting myself out of bed and motivated. Work chugged along, nothing remarkable but nothing bad. It could be worse.

I think I’m still in “days off mode”.

There’s still little in the way of groceries in the house.

There’s a ton of e-mail to answer.

The washer and dryer are full of clothes.

I’m going to bed.

Well I finally got to the doctor’s to find out what was going on with my sinuses. During the night the bridge of my nose had swollen up more, giving me a rugged look that looked somewhat flattering but not at all natural. Enough was enough.

He thumped my chest, pumped my glands and stuck a light up my nose. Yep, it was a sinus infection alright, but it didn’t go beyond that, my chest, etc. sounded clear. Yay! Being allergic to penicillin AND the sulfa drugs, he gave me an antibiotic called the “Z-Pak” which you take for just five days, apparently giving whatever shouldn’t be in your body a one-two punch. I also received a prescription of Allegra-D. I took both at lunch time and surprisingly the Allegra-D doesn’t make me mean. I’ll have to save a couple of these puppies for later.

Having used my lunch hour to go to the doctor, I settled back my desk to eat a turkey sandwich I had brought along. My friend Shirley offered a bowl of her homemade chicken soup to go along with the sandwich since I wasn’t feeling well and the soup should really hit the spot. It did as intended, along with a chocolate chip cookie from the batch my friend Mike had brought yesterday when he had heard I wasn’t feeling well. It’s nice to have thoughtful friends.

So now I feel tons better already and am looking forward to seeing my old nose again.

My blog friend Terry has been getting in on this blog tag thingee that’s been going around on the internet. Here’s how it works:

The Official Interview Games Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying, “interview me”.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each persons will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I volunteered with an “interview me!” in his comments section today, simply because it looked like fun AND I’ve been working on coming out of my shell a little more this year and this seemed to be a wonderful vehicle on my journey of enlightenment.

Here’s my five questions from Terry.
1. We have been talking for ages now… but how did you first find my blog?
I wish I could remember how I found your blog, but for the life of me I don’t remember how I stumbled upon it. I think it had something to do with googling gay PowerBook users. I liked your style, I liked your blog and I found you very cute, so I stuck around.

2. How old were you when you lost your virginity?
Ah, it seems like yesterday. Actually, it was my second semester of college in March 1987. I was 18 years old at the time.

3. Top, Bottom or Versatile?
O.k. now I’m blushing. I guess “mostly top” would mean “versatile”.

4. You are being shipped to a deserted island for 3 months and you are only allowed to bring one CD. No iPod, no mix-tape, no mix-CD. One original CD. What CD would that be?
“While The Eagle Sleeps” by Alice Gomez, Madalyn Blanchett & Marilyn Rife. It’s Native American Flute Music that I often use to meditate and relax to.

5. When was the last time you said “thank you”?
Just a short while ago I thanked Earl for bringing home some Vicks Vaporub to help combat the congestion in my sinuses. I make a point of saying thank you to all that are deserving, people need to be more polite and I like to try to set a good example.

Anyone want to play?

When I’m up late for work and can’t sleep for whatever reason, I sometimes reminisce about my younger days working the second shift. I’d start work at 3, right in sync with my own circadian rhythm and would get home around 11:00, ready to settle in front of the television (armed with a bowl of popcorn) for a couple hours before calling it a night. This was before the internet, when I’d have to dial into the local BBS (bulletin board system) or GEnie with my ancient computer at 1200 baud and $2.95 an hour to chat with other guys – and they were all geeks. And there were no pictures, only characters literally crawling across the screen.

Not an efficient way of meeting people.

So I’d tune the television to the good cable station “11 Alive” out of New York, later known as WPIX (now the WB11). I’d catch the end of “The Odd Couple” (always a fun show) and then watch one of the original 39 episodes of “The Honeymooners”, followed by an original “Star Trek”.

Ah, the good old days. I think there was a boyfriend somewhere in that mix. I wonder what happened to him? Anyways, it’s fun to look back just 15-20 years ago upon television viewing habits and the fact that we weren’t assaulted with prescription drug commercials. “Can’t sleep? You need Lunesta.” I say drink a martini, count the fsckin’ sheep and hit the hay the good ol’ fashioned way.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t watched The Honeymooners in *years*. Like since 1990 or so! I don’t think Earl and I have ever sat down and watched an episode together. I don’t even know if we get WB11 here on DirecTV. Hmmm.

Back then I would tell others that cared that Audrey Meadows was the second Alice Kramden and that Pert Kelton was actually the first. I was obnoxious like that, spouting off facts that no one cared about. No one of my age believed me. “Pert Kelton. Pert Kelton? Who the hell is Pert Kelton?”. But there’d be someone older than me milling around at work that would show a faint familiarity with the name and would chime in to my defense. It’s not like there’s a bunch of actresses out there named Pert. Come to think of it, I think she’s the only one I’ve ever heard of. Who would name their daughter Pert? Wasn’t that a shampoo back in the mullet era?

I think I need to pick up a few DVDs of The Honeymooners. I have one favorite quote from the series:
Guest Star: “Mrs. Kramden, your husband is certainly a treasure.” (walks off the set)
Alice: “Yes, and if he keeps this up he’ll be a buried treasure.” (mocking the wife) Priceless!

Jackie Gleason and Pert Kelton in one of the original skits.

The familiar cast from “The Honeymooners”.