Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Be careful what you wish for, isn’t that what they always say? When Earl and I got home from Philly this afternoon, it was 98 degrees in the front yard. That’s a whole lot of hot.

It’s one of those sticky, sultry summer nights. The air isn’t moving and the humidity is high. In a house with no air conditioning whatsoever, it makes for an interesting night of sleep.

I went for a ride through the local area to run a few errands and to strut the Acura around a bit. Every ice cream stand had a line to the road. I didn’t stop for ice cream; instead I opted for some all-natural unsweetend iced tea from the local grocery store. It had a touch of lemon-lime to it to make it interesting. I’m hoping the scale will agree with my choice in the morning.

Local citizens are getting fired up about a proposed run of power lines from our area to downstate. Everywhere you look there’s a front yard sign prominently displayed, silently voicing the concerns of area residents. I can’t figure out why the company that’s building this line is not simply adding to the existing corridor of lines that already go to the same location instead of following a set of railroad tracks right through the center of many towns. Talk about alienating the natives.

Tomorrow it’s back to work. That’s not a bad thing, after all there’s air conditioning there.

Yesterday I thought about one of my friend from my teenage years. I hadn’t thought about him or his family in a long while, as we lost touch long ago when I moved out of the area and followed a different path than he. His family lived down the street from us and we had spent many evenings just hanging out, shooting the bull and working on our bicycles, and later, our cars.

His father was the owner of a repair garage and junk yard and was incredibly talented in that he could figure out anything that was wrong with a car. In fact, I once saw him hook up a gas can and a battery to a V8 sitting on the garage floor and he got it running. The engine wasn’t in a car, it was just sitting there on the floor, running as if it didn’t know any better and incredibly loud. His son had inherited his ability and taught me a great deal about the inner workings of an engine. He fixed up an old Dodge trucker and later an early 70s Dodge Charger hotrod. He once helped my dad and I swap an engine out of my second car in high school, a 1976 Pontiac Astre (we called it the Disastre). He was a good friend and I was thinking about the times that we would drive around in his truck, thinking we were big bad asses in a really small town. We didn’t do any harm, just pumped our egos a little bit.

When I woke up this morning, I realized that in addition to the fleeting thoughts of yesterday, I had dreamed about my friend and his father and mother last night. There was nothing spectacular about the dream, it was just basically reliving a summer night such as last night, when we would sit on the porch, watch television and shoot the bull a little bit. I didn’t think much of it, I thought that the fleeting thoughts were just lingering a little longer than usual.

My friend’s father passed away on Tuesday at 91 years old. I guess he was just stopping by on his way to the other side to say that he remembered the geeky red-headed boy from down the street.

It is currently 9:50 p.m. I have worked a hard day’s work and the day’s activities are now coming to an end.

I’m fully awake for the first time today.

Sometimes I think it’s a shame that my co-workers don’t get to experience the “J.P. Experience” when I’m fully awake. While I have been accused of being full of energy at work, imagine what they would say if they saw me at full throttle, like I’m feeling right now.

I ran a few errands after work and came home to start supper before Earl got home. I sat down on the couch for a few moments to myself and promptly fell asleep for 45 minutes. It’s a good thing I hadn’t fired up the stove or anything. Who in their right mind takes a nap at 5:30 in the afternoon? I guess that would be me. Needless to say, supper never got made as I awoke when Earl got home from work and we went out to a local pizza joint. He’s winding down for the day and I just took us for a ride through the countryside and I’m still full of energy, looking for an adventure.

If it was a tad bit warmer, I’d go out for another ride, crank up The Eagles on the CD player and enjoy the summer night sky.

Life. It’s all good. Especially when I’m awake for it.

Sometimes it seems like I have an opinion about anything and everything. “My that’s a nice computer.” “I think guys in pink compromise their masculinity.” “Boy, these roads suck.” “Wow, our president looks and acts like such a dumb ass.” The list goes on and on.

Since the birth of my blog almost five years ago, I’ve become increasingly outspoken about how I feel about any given topic or scenario. While I occasionally go on and on here about whatever has irked me for at any particular moment, I’m finding that I’m becoming more vocal about how I feel about things. It’s a trait that I had kept buried within my psyche for a very long time and has only begun to surface in the past five years or so.

I think part of the reason for my big mouth is because of an old job, where the person that yelled the loudest was the person that was right. Or maybe it’s because in the early 90s a program director was hired for the radio station I worked at and he tried to throw me under the bus, claiming I didn’t play enough Rod Stewart on our Top 40 station (Rod mixes well with Nirvana, I guess) and I wasn’t going watch some nitwit destroy what I had just built the foundation for.

Part of my outspokeness comes naturally, I suppose, courtesy of my paternal grandfather. You always knew where you stood with him on any given topic and he always told you at full volume. While this can be quite obnoxious, I think it’s good to have people know where you stand on things. That’s one of the things that would drive me crazy in my single days and the dating scene; I didn’t want to dance around the issue with a prospective date; batting my eyes, stealing glances, buying each other drinks, etc., I liked keeping it simple: “Do you want to go to dinner or better yet, you wanna f*ck?”

A representative from a local politician’s office called in for internet support today and was quite rude. She didn’t like being put on hold, she didn’t like the fact that I didn’t know who she was and she wanted a tech to come over and fix her internet connection RIGHT NOW. I really wanted to tell this woman that the person she represents had lost my vote simply because of her rude attitude. But, in the effort of remaining professional, I bit my tongue, bounced my feet up and down in frustration and gave her the spit shine polish. She didn’t appreciate the fact that I had a tech out to her location in 30 minutes and that the problem was actually on her end, she called back wanting to speak to customer service for a refund on her downtime. (It would be about 67 cents, in case you’re wondering).

I still held my tongue.

But I won’t vote for her candidate in November. All because of that one phone call. Maybe sometimes a silent opinion is best.