Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Dorky Hat Season.

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

I hate wearing hats, but here’s the evidence that it’s officially “Dorky Hat Season”.

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.

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.

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.

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.