Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Adjusting back to a regular schedule is always a little difficult for me, especially on Mondays like today, when it’s a little gloomy outside and I’m working the 7 a.m. shift. But this morning I circumvented my morning crankiness by doing something a little different.

I took a 15 minute nap.

Ten minutes after getting out of bed.

I did quite a bit of web work last night until 11:30 or so before deciding I should get to sleep. I’m wired for nighttime and last night was no exception. I could have easily stayed up another three or four hours but I would have been nothing short of a mess today at work, so I decided I better get some sleep so I can at least feign productivity.

I really don’t like going to sleep when I’m not tired.

Nevertheless, I slept straight through the night, save for an incoherent discussion with Earl regarding the current time (this was around 3:30) and jolted away when the alarm rang at 5:30. When Tom hears that alarm ring, it becomes a no holds barred free-for-all, because as far as he’s concerned, I can hold it just a little longer and I don’t need to put any clothes on, he wants his kibble NOW. He barks more orders than an Army drill sergeant. So I went and blindly poured some cat food into his bowl, checked my e-mail and then decided I’d take a nap on the futon until 6:00.

I felt wonderful afterwards and the contentedness has carried with me throughout the day.

I think I’m going to start each sluggish day with a power nap. I highly recommend it.

One of my favorite television shows of all time is “Bewitched”. I’ve seen every episode of the classic series at least 20 times and can tell the difference between a complete episode, an early syndicated version, an 80s syndicated version or a TV Land edited version just by the flow of the scenes and the presence of key scripted lines. (Syndicated copies have lines and sometimes complete scenes edited out to make room for more commercials.)

As a Bewitched fanatic, I’ve done a lot of reading and collecting over the years of various Bewitched memorabilia. I hope to have the opportunity to visit the famous Stephens house on a Hollywood backlot in Burbank someday. I wish I had the opportunity to shake hands with Elizabeth Montgomery and the other players to thank them for their contribution to mainstream America.

It’s a fun show to watch.

While I’ve always been enchanted with the beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery, over the years I’ve come to appreciate the work ethic displayed by and later documented about the mysterious Agnes Moorehead. A character actor if there ever was one, Ms. Moorehead found no role too tough to tackle and she always put every ounce of her ability into the task, even if it was just a small part on “Love American Style”.

Her take on her craft was simple. “I love the illusion”, she would say with a big flamboyant wave of her arms. She believed that one should always work; be it good or bad, do it to the best of your ability and learn something from it and be a better person because of it.

I like to think that I’ve learned that myself over the years.

Tonight I watched a couple of episodes of Bewitched from the third season, “It’s Wishcraft” and “The Crone of Cawdor”, both stand-out episodes from a particularly strong time for the series. (Even at it’s worst, “Bewitched”, and most comedies of it’s time, far surpassed anything we see on television today). I couldn’t help but notice that Ms. Moorehead was always attentive and always playing Endora, even if she was in the background of a particular scene, far from the focus of the camera. She took her job seriously, she played it to the max and she did it well.

I think that’s a nice approach to have about work come tomorrow morning.

Rest in peace Elizabeth, Dick, Dick and Agnes. We miss you.

The productivity continued today, but thankfully nothing in the house exploded, leaked or gave off an odd odor. Today’s fun was limited to catching up on laundry, doing some needed household shopping and basically getting things around the house in order.

We did get to the gym yesterday after taking the past couple of days off. I relied on the iPod instead of the television for distraction from the workout – for some reason I was totally inspired by Dolly Parton’s version of “Peace Train.” I had to rememeber not to sing out loud.

For lunch today I had a small helping of pasta rigatoni. As I’m catching up on my daily blog reading and absent-mindedly eating my lunch, I suddenly realized that I was scraping the plastic bowl with my fork and toying with the idea of setting the fork down and licking the bowl.

Oh my goodness lunch was tasty today.

Earl and I are meeting my sister for supper tonight. I hope I remember not to lick the plates.

Sometimes it’s the little things that makes the day go much better than originally anticipated. This week has been an early week for me at work- getting up at 5:30 to be to work by 7:00; I’m just not wired to do that. So it’s a struggle. And sometimes some surliness crawls into the struggle to make it much more interesting for those around me.

I had a trouble call from our main office come in. The person calling in the trouble was rather short with me and that sort of pisses me off because I like to think that we’re all in the same team, regardless of rank or serial number in the company. I bit my tongue and refrained from being overly snarky but it did dampen my spirits a bit.

We’ve had an equipment vendor in all week providing training for inside and outside technicians on a rotating class schedule. I appreciate the fact that we do get this sort of training because I love hanging achievement certificates on my cubicle half wall and I feel like I’m exercising my mental muscles a little bit. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to meet up with the outside techs, as usually they are just a voice on a tin-can at the other end of the string.

One of the techs came in to my cubicle to say hello and just shoot the bull a little bit, and she made a point of telling me that she’s happy when she gets me on trouble calls because I can always be counted on. That statement right there did wonders for my mood, my ego and negated any bad vibes I had this morning from the other trouble call that came in.

This warm, bright April day just got a little brighter.

So I had just finished a pretty good workout at the gym tonight when I decided that I would take a shower in the locker room. The showers are configured with stalls instead of the old pole-style showers and there was another guy taking a shower in the stall closest to the door so I went down to the second to the last shower from the back. I did my usual thing of hanging my towel outside the stall.

I was busy enjoying my shower when I turned around and realized that the man that was in the other shower stall had finished and was padding in his bare feet out of the shower area and headed back to his locker. He then turned around, and came over and DRIED HIS FACE AND HAIR ON MY TOWEL.

He looked at me smiling when he did it.

Now there’s no towel service at our gym. Each person brings their own towel. I also bring a basic white towel because I like a basic white towel when I’m doing my thing in public.

But he DRIED HIS FACE AND HAIR ON MY TOWEL.

Since he was grinning, my first instinct was “Oh my God I’m going to have a gay moment at the gym.”

I then got myself under control (thinking of dead grandparents usually keeps the equipment in check in the locker room) and realized that I never have a clue if someone is making a move on me so I just looked at him and went about my business. He then left the shower area and went about his business.

Apparently his hair was dry.

Later Sunsets.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

I just took this picture. I was trying for something a little artsy, sunset reflecting off of one of the clocks in my school clock collection.

By the way, this is my favorite clock in the collection. It is from my elementary school.

Here it is just past 7:30 and the sun is just thinking about setting.

There’s a glorious spring and summer season that lies ahead. It does wonders to brighten one’s mood, does it not?