I just awoke from a full night’s sleep. That’s right, a full night’s sleep. I slept the entire night through, without interruption and I slept nearly eight hours. I have not accomplished this feat in many months and I have not had a full night’s sleep on a Sunday night in many years.
I feel amazing. This is going to be a good week.
So the other night Earl approached me with a slightly panicked look in his eyes. This is rather unusual for him because he’s the grounded, calm one of the bunch (thank god) so I knew something was a little off.
“I can’t turn off the television.”
This was instantly troubling to me because our television is less than two years old and it cost a lot of money. It’s a 47-inch, high def, super high Hz with built in Yahoo widgets (who the hell uses Yahoo on their television) and quite frankly, it shouldn’t be having an issue at it’s young age. It’s not like we use it not stop or anything.
The batteries in the remote had gone dead from Earl holding down the fast forward button while trying to stomach an episode of American Idol. Thank god we don’t have to pay for videotape anymore.
Since the batteries in the remote were dead, pressing the “power” button on the remote accomplished nothing. This would normally be the way we turn off the television, so we were left to ponder as to how to turn the television off without the availability of a remote control. We did something we rarely do: we walked up to the television and touched it.
Now back in the day this would be something that we would do on a semi-hourly basis; to change the channel, you had to walk up to the television and turn a knob. To change the volume you had to do the same. I got really good at giving the dial a good hearty spin to get from channel 3 to channel 9 without having to stop at 4-8, though it did result in a broken knob. Don’t tell anyone because I never did.
As we approached the television, a quick assessment indicated that there were no buttons on the front or top of the television. I shimmied around the side and saw nothing. There was a brief moment of hope when I spotted something that looked like a knob or button but it turned out to be the one screw that holds the whole mess together. The blue light continued to pulse. A friendly message bounced around on the screen telling us that there was “no signal detected.” I considered pulling the power plug but that would involve two people hauling this massive piece of entertainment equipment out of the entertainment center. I did have a brief consideration of just turning the power off to the house but that would have disrupted too many things.
Thankfully, Earl found AAA batteries in the surround sound receiver remote. We put them in the television remote, said a little prayer and pressed the button.
The bouncing message disappeared and the blue light went off.
Crisis averted.
Now we have to get up to change the volume of the surround sound until we find more batteries. The horror.
It’s one of those days where I need to take a nap during my lunch hour, so I am about to do that. It would be more fun if it was raining and I could enjoy the pitter pat of raindrops on the Jeep roof, but I have an app for that now. What would be really cool would be a thunderstorm with lots of thunder and lightning and wind and tornado sirens. But then again, that’s kind of odd as I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep with the sirens going off.
I was a pretty young kid when I first noticed the ringing in my ears. It’s a constant sound that I hear and I’ve heard it since I was pretty young (pre-bunk beds, which means since I was in first grade or so). My left ear rings louder than my right, but luckily both ears ring at the same pitch. I would go crazy if the ringing was at two different notes. It’s really high pitched and it’s not a note that I can identify. Sometimes it feels like it’s coming from the middle of my head but aimed at my left ear.
I have noticed that over the past couple of months the ringing has gotten a little louder and a little more noticeable, especially when I’m trying to fall asleep at night. I have to sleep with a fan on to provide white noise to mask the sound of the ringing in my ears or else it feels like the ringing is becoming overpowering as I start to drift off and then I get a little worked up about it. It’s loud enough where it can be distracting in overly quiet situations. Perhaps that’s why Earl has commented on more than one occasion that I have a tendency to fill in blank pauses during a conversation with my own brand of chatter. Perhaps that’s why I say “um” or “em” a lot between words.
I suppose that years of wearing headphones while I was on the radio and listening to music really loud as a club DJ (so I could seamlessly align the beats of dissimilar records) has taken it’s toll on my hearing. I’m saying “say again?” more than I used to. I know some folks find that annoying. I find it annoying. I try not to say it. I read lips more than I used to. I guess it’s part of the aging process.
A few years ago I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist to find out if there was anything that could be done about the ringing in my ears. He told me that there was little that he could do because that kind of thing is usually damage that can not be reversed. He offered to peel back my face and scrape around my sinuses if I wanted to. Apparently he had heard me make a sniffly noise that I didn’t notice. I declined the offer. That just sounded too weird.
I’m hoping that science will perfect that bionic hearing I’ve wanted since I was a kid before my natural hearing ability is completely interrupted by the constant whine in my ears. I’m not expecting a lot, just the ability to hear someone say my name from a half-mile away. The “doo doo doo doo” sound is completely optional.
It’s a well known fact that I stop by the Dunkin’ Donuts closest to the workplace on a daily basis to pick up a large, unsweetened iced tea with lemon. The fine staff behind the counter are always pleasant and usually have my iced tea ready and waiting when I walk into the store. I like being served in this manner.
For the month of April, like every other Dunkin’ Donuts I have been to in the past year, they have charged $0.99 plus tax for this large unsweetened iced tea with lemon. There isn’t really much involved with making unsweetened iced tea; pour some hot water over tea bags, chill it to a non-hot temperature, add a lemon wedge and voila, it’s done.
Now that it is May, this particular Dunkin’ Donuts jacked the price back up to $2.69. The total for just an unsweetened iced tea with lemon today was $2.86 (including New York State Sales and Use Tax, otherwise known as legislated rape).
This does not make Daddy happy.
Now I like the folks that work at this Dunkin’ Donuts, so I didn’t get cranky about it, but when presented with the total for my large unsweetened iced tea with lemon ($2.86), I simply said, “every other Dunkin’ Donuts still charges $0.99 plus tax.” The pleasant girl responded with, “we know, but none of us know why we don’t.”
It’s because the franchise owner is a greedy bastard. I don’t care if my cup says “Men In Black 3!” on the side with matching straw, I don’t care if my tea was selected by scantily clad virgins that were dancing in the moonlight and then brewed with ambrosiac water that had been boiled by a volcano. The fact of the matter is, it’s tea leaves, add water, stir and voila.
Now, the McDonalds across the street offers any sized unsweetened iced tea with lemon for $0.99. The problem is, it’s handed out in a styrofoam cup (the gift that gives for generations) and let’s face it, you can’t trust anything that is claimed to be suitable consumption when it’s coming from a McDonalds. So I won’t do that.
I think I’m going to start bringing my own iced tea again and I’m going to skip my daily DD visit for a while. I’ll still go to every other Dunkin’ Donuts like I always do, but I’m crossing this one off the list.
So I haven’t written anything in the blog for nearly a week. Aside from the video entry I did last week, I haven’t really thought about my blog, but I guess I did think about it more than I did Facebook, which I haven’t really thought about at all. I still think about Google+ and Twitter, both of which I enjoy, but I haven’t felt overly motivated to write the past couple of days. Some would interpret this to mean that there is something bothering me but the truth is quite the contrary; I am enjoying my life to the fullest and sometimes that means that you can’t sit down and write a blog entry. I guess some chapters of my life are just meant for the autobiography that I’ll write in my 50s and don’t really afford themselves to a sneak peak as to the contents of that stunning piece of literary work that won’t be out for at least a decade.
I’m pretty good at much my job*. I can say that with confidence because during my last annual review I noticed that I scored well on all the important parts and my numbers were all headed in a positive direction. That’s a good thing. It’s better to have high numbers on the review instead of high blood pressure numbers because that just leads to a fast track to the big cubicle in the sky. I’m not much of a cubicle person so we are trying to avoid that.
Because I’m good at my job and people like the work that I do (I build applications that make you go “woo!”), I tend to get a plethora of suggestions on how to make my applications even better. “Can we make this turn red when there’s an issue. Can you require that field to be filled in and pop up a warning when they do it wrong.” I get that sort of thing and since I’m the architect that builds to the needs of the occupant, I do my best to accommodate. It’s kind of what makes the career side of me tick.
The problem with all of this is that I have a hard time admitting that I’m going to need help on a project. I’m a bit of a control freak (surprise!) and while I love being part of a team that comes up with the direction of the project, I like being the one that builds the code. I have a vision, I usually have an idea of how that vision is going to be executed, and I like to be the one that executes it. For all of my career I’ve usually been the lone programmer or system administrator for a group, so it’s kind of weird for me to think that I might have to write code with someone else that has the same or comparable skill set as me. After all, loner tendencies + control freak = me. It’s simple math.
At nearly 44 years old I am trying to find a way to share my toys a little bit and to allow others to play in the sandbox with me. If I don’t do this, I’ll make myself insane, have some sort of fit and then go off and find another opportunity. In reality I don’t want to work for another company. I like what I do, I just need to find a way to be realistic of what I can handle and to let others help me out. I want to be the guy that’s really awesome at his job because he had it all under control and he bit off exactly what he could chew without spitting it out all over the audience. I don’t want to be the guy that they think is awesome because he’s spending 80 hours a week working. That’s not who I am. I want to be fueled by passion, not control freakiness.
I guess I need to make a concerted effort to manage these projects better. Something to ponder.
I do know that the cookie I just had made me feel a little bit better. Nom nom nom.
* Thank god I’m not a professional proofreader.
Rarely am I asked as to why I have grown this big mustache. Once in a while I’ll get a comment on it and it’s usually a positive comment, but it’s rare that someone asks why I have grown it to begin with. When I had a previous version of this mustache I had a very touching conversation with a woman who admired it at the mall. On the few occasions that I have been asked about this version I’ve had a variety of sarcastic responses:
“My house boy missed a spot.”
“The barbershop was plunged into darkness due to a power outage and the barber couldn’t see what he was doing.”
“What mustache?”
“I like milk.”
I don’t know why I feel the need to be sarcastic. I should probably stop thinking along those lines. The actual answer to the question is actually a two part answer, “I like mustaches, a lot” and “because I can.”
Now I have no desire to grow a lavish mustache that involves much maintenance and is the size of a tennis racket that is held in place by some wishful thinking and a masculine version of Aqua-Net. That’s not my thing, really, because that approach is a little too primpy for my tastes. I admire the guys that have the patience and the staff that can help with the upkeep, though. Yes, I’m just letting it grow for now but I’m not looking to put something on my face that requires a huge amount of care and maintenance. As long as I abide by the house rule of “I still want to kiss lips”, all is well. Actually, the ‘stache is a favorite of my husband’s and he hopes that I continue to maintain it for a long while. I know I will barring any scissor related catastrophes.
In all honesty, my mustache was inspired by a similar style seen on two men I have crossed paths with over the years. The first was the Airborne Express delivery man that visited the radio station on a daily basis. His ‘stache was wider than mine and if digital cameras were as prevalent as they are today, I could share a picture of him right here, but that was then and this is now. I don’t know what happened to him with the demise of Airborne Express but I like to think that his mustache lives on. The second was an at-the-time recently divorced man I met at Hillside Campgrounds (the gay campgrounds that Earl and I occasionally go to) who could really rock a good ‘stache and he was a friendly sort of person. Now I have a picture of Dan and his mustache but I haven’t talked to him in a few years and I don’t want to share his picture without permission so I won’t do that.
Now that I think about it, I’ve met Homer’s friend Patrick in person and he had a really good mustache, but his is more of the traditional waxed variety, which I find enjoyable but then we get into the maintenance thing and at 5:30 in the morning I’m afraid I’d end up with wax in the wrong places on my body. Nevertheless, Patrick’s mustache is award winning and I’m sure Homer’s probably could be but I haven’t met him in person yet so I can’t say for sure. Close inspection is important.
I think I’m rambling.
Some think that my mustache is a result of that guy that used to be on all the game shows and Doritos commercials in the 70s, but I just like Doritos, his mustache didn’t really do a lot for me. As I recall, his name was Avery Shreiber.
I think I’m still rambling.
Now I have completely lost my train of thought as to where this blog entry was headed. I know that the entry was inspired by the fact that I had a quizzical look flung in my direction by a new counter person at Dunkin’ Donuts (as evidenced by my tea not be prepared and ready upon my arrival) and I could just tell that she wanted to say something but she didn’t. I just smile in a friendly manner in those instances. The lady at Starbucks over the weekend yelled a compliment at me over the din of a blender and I did an Elvis-like “Thank you, thank you very much.” I don’t know why I sounded like Elvis because I don’t recall him ever having a mustache.
I remember it like it was just a few days ago. It was third period of a typical freshman day back when I was in high school. I was sitting in Room 208, ready for English class. I was feeling particularly good because I had read the assigned short story the night before. I adored reading back then, just as I do today, but I despised being told what to read. For me, part of the joy of reading is discovering on my own as to what I want to read. Being told to read something with empty promises of literary escape just rubs me the wrong way. But I felt pretty good because I had read the short story that was assigned to us and I was ready for the quiz that I was sure Miss Whalen was about to pop.
Miss Whalen entered the room carrying all of her necessary teaching equipment, she was one of the few teachers that didn’t have her own room because the school wasn’t big enough for the temporary population explosion going on in our tiny village. This was her usual way of entering the room, book bags and gear in tow; what was unusual on this day was that she was pushing a cart with a TV and one of those newfangled VCRs. We were going to watch a movie.
So much for the pop quiz.
Now when I completed my assignment and read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the night before, I kind of envisioned it taking place in some sort of nebulous time that wasn’t the present. They were talking about lotteries and crops and stonings and the like, so I figured it must have taken place in some medieval time. People didn’t act that way anymore. Why would a community want to stone people to death in the 20th century? Stoning a person to death was something that happened in the Middle Ages.
Miss Whalen made a few remarks and then started up the VCR. I was immediately surprised by the setting as soon as I saw the pickup truck: it was taking place in a small farming community that could have been any community not far from the little town I went to school in. While the film felt ‘old’ (it was made in 1969 and the year was 1982), it still felt far more contemporary than the scenes I had played in my head the night before as I was doing my assignment. The clothes were familiar. The vehicles were familiar. The attitudes were familiar.
As the short film progressed, almost word for word with what I had read the night before, I realized that something was wrong with those people on the screen. Why didn’t they think about what they were doing? They were just blindly following a tradition that no one really understood anymore other than the saying “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. These people paid no attention to the fact that they were about to stone a woman to death. And she was such a nice woman. She wasn’t some medieval woman who wore big dresses that I envisioned in my head thing night before. The woman they were about to stone could have been the mother of any of my classmates.
My young heart cried out as the first stone hit Tessie Hutchinson as she cried out “it’s not fair.” Terrified for Tessie and terrified that I would be teased for the remainder of the day, I hid the tears that were welling up in my eyes. I shoved the lump in my throat back down where it belonged. I wasn’t going to gasp out loud and I wasn’t going to cry for this fictional character. No one would see me do that. But something struck a chord within my soul that day in Room 208. Luckily, the film wasn’t horribly graphic but the audio was another matter. Her cries freaked me out and rattled me immensely. Watching that film was a life changer for me.
Heavy stuff for a naive high school freshman.
Last night as we left the movie theatre, having just thoroughly enjoyed “The Hunger Games”, my thoughts drifted back to “The Lottery” and Tessie Hutchinson. I did a quick search on the Internet when I got home and found it available on YouTube. I watched it again from beginning to end. No fast forward. No skipping. No rewinding. Beginning to end, just like the day in Room 208. I cringed and teared up and honestly, I’m not afraid to admit that I had to go upstairs and cuddle with my husband for a few moments. It’s been 30 years since I last saw that movie but it hit home just as hard, if not harder than it did back in high school. The folks in the story were doing what tradition told them to do, without even thinking about the ramifications. They did something just because “that’s the way it’s done”. The old man that keeps grumbling about new thought and the young people in neighboring towns ending the tradition of the Lottery even though we don’t really know why they’re doing the Lottery, other than the brief mention about “Lottery in June, corn heavy soon”, how different is that from the talk about “traditional marriage” today? How many people blindly follow tradition without providing any thought to what they’re doing? I have little against folks that follow the teachings of the Bible, as long as they’re using their brains when they’re studying the words that they’re following. Today, how many elders cast stones and then hand more stones to their youngsters so they’ll blindly cast stones as well? How many teenagers brutally attack their classmates that are different simply because they’ve seen their parents act the same way? How many people today follow tradition simply because they’re following tradition? How whacked out is that?
Olive Dunbar plays Tessie Hutchinson in the 1969 version of the movie and she does it well. The changes in her expression with each realization as the lottery progresses hits me hard. Like I said, she could easily be the mom of any of my contemporaries. She goes from a housewife who is late to the ritual because she didn’t want to leave dirty dishes in the sink to a woman who is forced to realize her own mortality in minutes, all in the name of tradition. The cinematography is subtle. Most would find it bland, boring and amateurish. I find it moving. It steps out of the way and makes the viewer think.
Just as the assigned reading did back in 1982.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!