Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

You’d think at almost age 37 that I would be smart enough to follow my instincts. When I woke up this morning, feeling remarkably refreshed and centered, I had five or six topics to write about in my blog swimming around in my head. I remember thinking, “Yeah, that’s true!” “Why is that?” “If it could only be that way.”

Here it is lunch time. I sit down in front of the PowerBook to throw out my latest dialogue upon the masses and … nothing.

I think in titles. If I were to write about trains, I’d probably title it “Petticoat Junction.” If I were to write about wigs, I’d probably title it “Green Acres” (let’s see if you can follow that train of thought). I remember tossing around some damn witty titles this morning. I even amused myself to the point of giggling out loud. I remember saying to myself, “I really should write these down so I remember them later today!” Did I follow my instincts and write them down? Of course not. I pride myself on my steel trap memory. I can recite to you every license plate number that has adorned any vehicle I have owned. I can recite to you the license plates from 30 years ago of my parents, my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. What I was thinking about this morning? Not a clue. I think my steel trap is rusting.

Wait, I remember something about scents. Smells. There was to be discussion about … damn. Maybe it was just Earl and I sharing the bathroom.

That being said, I do think there is something humorous about the word “jot”. Jot. J-O-T. It’s a funny looking word to me. It’s a funny sounding word to me. You’d think that since I find something so trivial so amusing, I’d remember to do it.

I’ll have to jot myself a note to remind myself to jot notes down.

Here it is the first Monday in April and I’m once again suffering from my self titled affliction of “Bad Timing”. For innocent bystanders, I’ll say it laymen’s terms.

Its once again “Daylight Saving Time”.

Golly I hate the time change every April. It just feels so unnatural to me. Now I have to travel to the Central Time Zone as much as possible to feel in sync with my body’s natural rhythm. To many, this concept doesn’t really make sense, but my body just knows when it’s the wrong time. For example, as I type this, my body is screaming 7:30! 7:30! 7:30! I look at the four clocks within eyeshot and they all scream 8:30! 8:30! 8:30!

Why do I resist this?

For the next few days I’ll go to bed when I’m not tired, wake up when I am tired, eat when I’m not hungry and well, you get the idea. All this just for a few extra minutes of daylight. I’d rather fly to Sydney, Australia and back and suffer from a serious case of jet lag instead of going through this one hour adjustment that we must endure.

Local folklore says we do this for the farmers. What a crock of bull poo. The farmers hate the time change as much as I do, as Bessy and her friends don’t like the change in schedule. Chickens get cranky and hold back on the eggs. Milk production actually goes down. I don’t blame the livestock one bit. If I could let out an indignant “moo” with any sort of meaning I probably would.

I can’t fight it. I can’t go around pretending that it’s only brunch time when it’s lunch time. I can’t get to work late. So I have to comply.

But I won’t like it.

There’s a song by Linda Eder called “I Want More”. An incredible vocalist, Ms. Eder is lyrically complaining about the man that she’s saddled up with. I first discovered “I Want More” a couple of years ago when my friend Laurie performed it at a State Fair competition. Laurie is the Executive Director of the Miss Mohawk Valley Scholarship Program that Earl and I support. When Laurie is performing a song, she doesn’t sing it. Rather, she performs it with sign language. As far as I can tell, Laurie is an incredible linguist in American Sign Language.

While the song is rather demanding on the part of the singer, there are some lyrics that include:

I want Shakespeare sonnets,
I want oohs and aahs
I want long stemmed roses,
In a Gucci vase.

I know, a guy like me applying these lyrics to my life is trés gay. I say “who cares”. It’s still a recipe for a dynamite romance and everyone should have a little romance in life. Who cares what others think? Each and every person in this world should have the honor of falling in love.

I’m very happy, or perhaps fortunate is a better word, to say that our life together is full of oohs and aahs. Earl and I are blessed in the relationship department in that we still “get it” after all these years. We know our mutual likes and dislikes. We communicate. (No one can rattle dishes like I can during some of our ‘communication’). I know it sounds like I have my head in the clouds, but perhaps its because I really do. I wake up in the morning and see the bear that’s been sleeping in my bed and say “damn, you may not be Goldilocks (with this haircut?) but you’re one lucky guy.”

Now what to do with this Gucci vase.

I’ve been wasting more time online here tonight and came across some information on recently booted American Idol contestant Mikalah Gordon. First of all, I will admit that I found her singing voice to be three flat steps shy of ‘horrid’ but she had a certain pep and sparkle that one couldn’t deny.

In a recent interview with MTV, she was quite honest in saying that the AI audition process isn’t fair, because there are some contestants that have no television exposure prior to the audience voting segments, and then there are some that have been plastered all over ever promo and episode. Those without the exposure obviously don’t have a fan base so there’s that issue going on. I give her props for stating her feelings on this.

The other thing that I find quite cool about Mikalah is that she isn’t giving up on her dream and wants to pursue a career in television, more specifically, she’s looking to get on a sitcom with hopes to play Fran Drescher’s daughter in a show currently under development. As an aside, I realize that the grammar in that previous sentence is hideous.

Yes, I slammed her a bit on the idolonfox.com community boards, but I must give credit where credit is due. Mikalah, you have a personality that shines. Reach for the stars baby and best of luck in pursuit of your dreams!

I have my iPod cranked while I type this entry, so please bear with me if I’m not coherent as I type along.

“Chains (S&M Mix)”, Tina Arena.

There’s a rule at work for when you’re on call. On call karma works like this – busy week, quiet weekend. Quiet week, busy weekend. The on call Gods rarely bless you with a completely quiet on call or conversely, damn you to a busy week and weekend.

I’ve been damned by the on call Gods.

As they say, “April showers bring May flowers”. Apparently April is in fast forward or something this year, because we are getting soaked and soaked with lots of rain. To keep it interesting, it’s very windy as well with up to 30 MPH gusts. This does not bode well for the telephone network. Rain and wind + telephone wires = no dial tone for Grandma. It’s simple math.

I tried to take a nap in between calls today but that was not meant to happen as I’ve been beeped on and off throughout the day.

“Smalltown Boy”, Bronski Beat.

Instead of trying to do anything constructive around the house, I’ve decided to do work on the recording studio and search the internet, hoping to find my long lost knowledge of dance music for the past 30 years or so. I’m coming across songs that I haven’t thought about, much less heard, in the past five years since leaving the Top 40/Dance radio gig.

Sirius 66 “The Beat” has added a new afternoon dj. His name escapes me at the moment, but one of the things I really like him is that he is openly gay. A part of me is extremely jealous. I wasn’t really hidden when I was on the air, though I didn’t mention it that much. Working in a smaller city and such it probably wouldn’t have been the best strategy for the station. Who knows, maybe I was just paranoid and it would have added to the ratings. I don’t think the company that owned the radio station really wanted us to be known as “the gay radio station”, though several of our CDs in the library were gay related and I must say the sound of the station was simply fabulous.

“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now (The Moran Anthem Mix”), Céline Dion.

One good thing about this on call week fiasco is that I get next Friday off. Earl and I are trying to decide what to do after his meetings. Do we want to go to Foxwoods Casino? Do we want to drive down to Bristol, Pa.? Do we want to go to Boston? Decisions decisions!

“Chains of Love”, Erasure.

Back to the radio thing. Maybe I should start up an internet radio station. One of the DJ’s that worked on my old station, who shall remain nameless because she turned out to be a complete nut job, started an internet radio station that was quite good. Unfortunately it didn’t last very long as she busted with the dot com bust. But at least she gets an “E” for effort. Too bad she was such a whacko. The only jock I know that enjoyed the letters from the prisoners. (My friend Dana probably knows who I’m talking about – maybe she’ll give you the name).

“What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy)”, Information Society.

One of the things that Earl and I have chatted about today is our office arrangements. Since moving into the house, we’ve shared one of the spare bedrooms as our office. The problem with that arrangement is that I am a chatty type that likes to play music clips and sing out loud and thrash around the room dancing, while he is content to do his little thing on the internet. He concentrates, I distract. When we started on the recording studio, I moved my office stuff into the other bedroom. Honestly, I didn’t like that arrangement. I felt too separated from him. You’d think having laptops we wouldn’t be holed up in the office, but old habits die hard. So I rolled my desk back into the original office today (feeling like a teacher pushing the movie projector around the elementary school for some strange reason), leaving the other room just for the recording studio. I’ve only distracted him once. Let’s see if I can behave myself.

I doubt it.

“Déjà Vu (Johnny Budz Radio Edit), The Roc Project & Tina Novak.

As I mentioned in last night’s entry, I’ve discovered a new dance song called “Come Rain, Come Shine” by Jenn Cuneta. Sirius 66 “The Beat” lists her as Jennifer Cuneta. After doing a little Googling, I’ve discovered that she used to be known as “J. Cee”, who performed for the radio station I was programming, Wow FM, at Summer Bash II. The song is available on iTunes, so I promptly downloaded it and burned it to a CD for the car. I’ve played it five or six times today already. I find it to be a truly great song and the type of tune that prompted to get into the whole dance music business in the first place.

Anyways, one of the great things about this tune is that it is a spring/summer type song. Upbeat, full of life. It perfectly compliments my commute today in that it is currently 60 degrees and sunny here in Upstate New York. I’m ready to uncover the pool and patio furniture and start celebrating the outdoors after a long winter’s nap. Trees are taking their first steps towards budding, more and more birds are headed north for a change and there’s few traces of snow left in persistent shady areas around our property. There’s a wonderous spring and summer that lies ahead this year. Good things are going to happen… for me, for us and for those around us.

I have a weekend of on-call ahead, but I’m not too upset about it because the weather is suppose to turn rainy until Monday. Rainy weather usually means more overtime or comp time when I’m on call, so perhaps I can make it a short week next week. I’m already taking Friday off, courtesy of comp time I’ve earned this week, to accompany Earl on a business trip to New Haven, Conn. This is a first for us. He’ll be in high powered meetings and I’ll be off shopping. I’m wondering if I’ll be invited to that fabled wives’ luncheon I’ve mentioned in the past, where these dainty, well kept wives straight out of Stepford are enjoying tea and crumpets, white gloves and all, while I’m eating a rueben on rye and a big gulp with my elbows on the table. I guess “huzbear” doesn’t translate to “wife” very well.

I’ve been haunting the American Idol message boards again on idolonfox.com. I take a perverse pleasure in getting all the teenyboppers wired up with my flippant comments.

For example, one of the remaining contestants is named “Anwar”. I just refer to him as “Anwart”. You’d think I had just set their hair on fire the way they go on about it. He’s not even that good of a performer, the way he sings through his nose and bats his eyes like a really bad Disney character. News for Anwart, batting eyes does not work well on the radio. I’ve tried.

Then there’s Constantine which I refer to as Constantscream. Someone posted that he reminds them of “Lnt. Dan” on Forrest Gump, I thought she typed “Lint” and commented that he does look like belly button lint. The teenage cell phone set really didn’t like that one.

It’s the one liners, little zingers, that work the best. I especially like responding with “Who the hell is Fantasia?” in her fan club. Like the American public remembers that mess of a winner from last year. Thank God I’m not in radio anymore.

One thing we all seem to agree on is that Paula Abdul is looking either very drunk or very stoned these days. Hell, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly seemed much more sober on the old “Match Game”, and they were drinking three meals a day at the time, with a beer chaser no less.

I was really excited about American Idol at the beginning of this season but I’ve kind of lost interest. The remaining contestants are mediocre at best, each deserving a “Meh” as far as I’m concerned. No one will remember who they were next year.

Speaking of radio – I heard a really, really good dance song on Sirius 66 “The Beat” today that has Wings’ “Silly Love Songs” in the background. I need to find the name and artist of that track.

I found the title: “Come Rain Come Shine” by Jenn Cuneta. Fabulous! Update: Now I know why I like the vocalist. She was “J Cee” back in 1998 and performed at Wow FM’s Summer Bash II! I’ve met her. I’ve talked with her! It’s a fabulous track and she’s fabulous!

Now back to my juvenile behavior over on idolonfox.com.

I was listening to the gay radio station on Sirius radio this afternoon on the way home from lunch and I heard them talking about the executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I’ve mentioned that I plan on riding in the Ride for Missing Children again this year, as I did back in 2003. According to this show I was listening to, the Executive Director made some somewhat homophobic remarks about gays being in the Boy Scouts and that old tired story.

It’s got me thinking about whether I want to ride in the Ride this year or make a charitable donation to a more open-minded, child-oriented charity instead. Would my contribution to the ride be welcome?

Something to think about.

Today is officially a sweet day. The birds are coming back home after vacationing in the south for the winter. The sun is out. The temperatures are in the mid 50s. The snow is disappearing quickly.

It’s days like these that make it all worthwhile. On-call doesn’t seem as bad. Worries seem to follow the snow and disappear.

Tom is getting a little picky with going outside as he gets older. When he first joined the family eight years ago, he was outside regardless of weather. Even in the deadest of winter, he’d go out, sit on the porch and survey the area to make sure everything was as he intended. Since moving to the new house last year, he doesn’t seem nearly as interested in going out in the wintertime. It’s the same routine day after day. He’ll make motions like he wants to go out. I’ll open the door. He’ll sniff the air, catch a glimpse of something and stare at it for about 10 seconds, twitch his tail three times and then he’s done. As the nicer weather grabs hold, now he’s in and out like a yo-yo. Out the back door. In the front door. Out the front door. In the back door. This afternoon I’ve finally given up and just left the back door open during my lunch hour. There’s really no bugs to worry about this time of year, and the fresh air does wonders for the house. And he can come and go as he pleases. Since I’ve started writing this entry, he’s been in and out around 15 times. A stroll around the deck, inside to eat two bites of kibble and then back outside. I think my lunch hour is disturbing his routine or something.

My only frustration with the onset of spring is that I can’t get out there and ride my bike because of on-call week. I’m hoping that everything stays nice through next week so I can get out there Monday night and do some serious training. The Ride For Missing Children is a month and a half away, and I need to get my legs in shape. By the way, if you’re interested in contributing to this worthy cause, please contact me. Any amount is most welcome.

If you get the opportunity, get out and enjoy the weather. Put some spring in your step!

With Earl out of town tonight and with me on call, I was a little bored. So I decided to fool around with our digital camera and see what I could do with a tripod and a timer. I even played “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and turned on the fan to blow around my hair. Having a shaved head and all, you probably couldn’t tell.

Here’s my “bad boy” look.