Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

I was talking with one of my co-workers this morning about the virtues of the McDonalds McRib Sandwich. You see, Earl recently brought home a couple of them, as the fine (ahem) citizens of Ohio currently have the opportunity to buy McRibs at the local stores, but we in Upstate N.Y. do not have the same privilege. So he brought home some of that boneless, sticky BBQ goodness between two sugar laden rolls.

They were delicious.

And yes, I’m still a vegetarian. I make allowances for McRibs, Cheddar Melts and Chick-Fil-A. Call me weak.

Anyways, back to the co-worker. I was explaining that I am a fast food restaurant connisseur. I enjoy comparing value meals to combo meals. I like to super size (don’t we all!). I like to hold the pickle and hold the lettuce, or at least entertain the thought of doing so because after all, I can have it my way.

There’s this indy movie floating about that features this guy eating nothing but McDonalds food for 30 days and the ill effects it had on him. It’s called “SuperSize Me”. I have not seen the movie “SuperSize Me” yet, though I really want to see it. I want to see if he is a little weakling that really needed a few pounds or if he is a stud muffin that grew to Daddy Bear proportions. Perhaps the DVD will be in my stocking this year, along with a Chick-Fil-A calendar. Another reason that I’m eager to see SuperSize Me is because of the guy’s mustache, but that’s a whole different blog entry. (For those of you keeping score, I’m growing a beard in anticipation of uncharted mustache territory of cowboy proportions. I’m very excited about the prospect, having apparently just completed puberty at age 36 and having new parts of my face grow hair. It does make one pause and say “what the fuck?”)

Anyways, back to the burger bomb. There are some things that I just can’t figure out. Back in my single days, I lived on fast food and junk food. I was a night time radio disc-jockey on Top 40 radio. I lived on free food from Arbys for lunch and free food from McDonalds for supper. On the weekend I got fancy and ate free food from Pizza Hut during my Saturday night mix shows. Then I’d DJ at the local bar Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights drinking nothing but Pepsi (actually RC Cola, it was a cheap bar) and Beer. Maybe a rum and coke or two. If the turntables started making me dizzy, I’d leave out the rum.

With all these “wonderful” eating habits of days gone by, I found myself 10 pounds lighter than I am today. These days, I so much look at Little Debbie with a little lust in my eyes and I gain five pounds. I cycle the roads of Upstate N.Y. in the summer and I cycle the roads of my basement in the winter. I lift weights and think of Tobey Maguire being all agile and athletic in Spiderman. “I can do that too”. Yeah, right. Maybe it’s because I’m eating rabbit food. Maybe I need more burger bombs in my life.

On the “SuperSize Me” website, there is a frequent visitor (his name is Woody, which I find mildly interesting) to the message boards who claims he lost a bunch of weight eating nothing but McDonalds food. And I completely believe him.

The stuff rotted out his insides.

As I mentioned before, I consider myself to have a discerning taste among the fast food set. I am frightened to attest to the knowledge that Wendy is really hot and juicy. I drive to Oklahoma (‘rampant lesbians’ not withstanding) just to park at a Sonic. I go to New Hampshire to eat Chick-Fil-A waffle fries. I love yelling into the clown’s mouth at Jack in the Box! Why can’t my body just go with the flow and let me enjoy my little niche as restaurant critic?

Whatever the reason, I’ll have fries with that.

Earlier this week I received a wonderful package in the mail, and it wasn’t even the kind thats usually wrapped in plain brown paper. No, no. This is much more exciting.

I bought the DVD “The Very Best of The Human League”.

Oh my God. I love the Human League. I’ve loved The Human League since 1981 when Love Action (I Believe In Love) came out, BEFORE everyone’s favorite 80s anthem “Don’t You Want Me”.

The Human League were cool in that they used all electronic instruments. All synthesizers. No drums, no guitars, just keyboards and vocals. That was way cool.

Since I was in the middle of puberty when I discovered The Human League, I found myself attracted to Phil Oakey when his hair wasn’t all lopsided and he was wearing tight jeans. Interestingly, I also found both Suzanne (the blonde) and Joanne (the brunette) attractive as well, though I must admit that I leaned more towards Suzanne while secretly wishing for Phil.

As big of a Human League fan that I am, I had only seen the video to “Don’t You Want Me.” We didn’t have cable, let alone MTV when I was growing up. The only way we could catch videos was if we watched them at my Grandma’s in Syracuse or if we watched “Friday Night Videos” on NBC at 12:30 a.m. on Friday. I guess that was MTV for the hicks or something.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the videos and found Phil yummier than ever. I’ve watched the entire DVD four or five times this week. One of the things that I enjoy about the Human League is that Phil’s vocals are more in the baritone range that I sing in, rather than the tenor stylings so common in pop music. There’s an instrumental track called “Hard Times” on the Fascination! EP (and on the flip side of Love Action) that shows how low Phil can sing, and I can get right down there with him. (That really invokes some images in one’s mind if you use your imagination, doesn’t it?!?)

The other thing that I really enjoy about the group is that they just do there own thing. They’re fiercely devoted to their art. They bang around on keyboards until they find something that sounds really good, then they add vocals to it. And the product is way cool.

The Human League still tours from time to time. Earl and I saw them during the 80s Rewind Tour with Culture Club and Howard Jones back in 1998. I worked in radio at the time, had met the likes of Phil Collins, Dave Matthews and Britney Spears, but The Human League wouldn’t let me backstage to meet them. I was miffed! No, pissed is a better word. But I’ve since forgiven them. Looking back, I couldn’t have been scorned too much, since I continued to play “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” in heavy gold rotation on the station I was programming.

It’s good to take a stroll down memory lane once in a while. It’s good to feel a little fascination.

This morning I woke up still groggy from the seemingly eternal dreams I had last night. The dreams were far too complex to try to write down, but it boiled down to people holding up signs that said “Self Employed” on them. As a result of this, when I awoke I began thinking that my new job was part of the wrong path, that I wasn’t “getting it”, that I was invaluable to the company, on and on. The demons of self-doubt and lack of confidence were showing their ugly faces again.

The company I work for does a lot of interfacing, for lack of a better word, with a big telecommunications corporation. I’m not going to mention their name here, but let’s just say that it rhymes with Horizon. Because of the complexities of the telecommunications industry and the sheer size of their company, everyone has a job to do, and only that job to do. There are countless departments, department heads, worker bees and decision makers. Working with them can be a cranky experience. I’ve never had a warm, fuzzy feeling after a discussion with anyone in their organization.

So I’m at work armed with the vestiges of my dreams and the little demons showing their faces when I find out that I have to take a job to a Horizon supervisor. A woman notorious for being marginally to outright rude depending on the situation. Imagine my surprise when she actually offered to help me and even interjected a few suggestions to make the job go smoother.

After that, two other representatives called me on other jobs that had been in holding pattern hell, and both of them were equally nice.

Either I have stepped into the Twilight Zone or someone is telling me that last night’s dreams were just that. “Toughen up cupcake, you’re doing a good job, don’t let the little things get you down.”

———–

That being said, I’m terribly worried about my mother. Her little dog, Mandi, had to be put to sleep on Monday as her body was full of cancer, in an alarmingly short amount of time. My mother is understandably taken it very hard. I’m one of those crazy animal lovers that place more value on our “pets” than on human beings sometimes, so I can sympathize with what she’s feeling.

And to top all the fun, Earl is out of town this week, which I’m not dealing with as well as I usually do. I look forward to talking with him tonight.

A typical Upstate N.Y. November made itself known today. It snowed. That’s right, we got a nice dusting of snow today, along with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s to go along with it. There’s enough snow to nicely cover the grass, but it’s not the type to stick around for a long time. We’re suppose to get more snow tonight and tomorrow, then temps will be in the forties the rest of the week.

When I looked out my office window earlier today and saw the first glimpse of the snow flakes, I felt a surge of anticipation for the holiday season. It was definitely a welcomed feeling. I haven’t really felt the holiday spirit over the past couple of years. I don’t know if it was because of stress, crankiness, a lack of enthusiasm or a combination of all of the above, but this year feels like it’s going to be different to me. I feel like I’m going to be experiencing the holidays in a different sort of way this year.

We’re having our first of three Thanksgiving dinners this coming Sunday. The preparations have already begun with the thorough cleaning of the house. There’s still groceries to be bought, dishes to be washed and a meal to be cooked, but I can feel the excitement of it all already.

It snowed today for the first time this season. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

Well I finally got my dentist appointment and went and had my top two wisdom teeth pulled out today. I’m officially fresh out of wisdom, as all of my wisdom teeth are now gone.

It wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The shots of novacaine (or reasonable fascimile thereof) were the worst part. When I was in on Monday, the dentist alluded to major oral surgery with curved roots and general mayhem going on in the back of my mouth. But the oral surgeon said that I had a pair of the easiest teeth to pull that he’s seen in quite a while. I think he was just flirting with me. “Hey sexy, easy teeth.”

Apparently, since my bottom wisdom teeth were pulled a decade or two ago, the top teeth had room to move and so they were all there just ready for a pair of pliers. A yank and another yank and a odd feeling in my sinus cavities and whoops, there they go! I was morbidly interested in seeing the teeth but I wasn’t fortunate to experience that. I was curious as to what the outside of my wisdom teeth looked like, because I could never see them when they were in my mouth, being slammed up against the inside of my cheek and all. It’s going to be kind of groovy, because now I won’t be biting my cheek as much.

Ironically, the side of my mouth that wasn’t infected is hurting more than the side that was. I wonder why that is. It’s not a bad pain, just sort of like a bruise or something. And it’s been over four hours and there’s absolutely no sign of swelling. Which is a very good thing, because I was concerned about that, being as vain as I am.

So tomorrow I head back to work to enjoy a Friday with my co-workers, armed with a Thermos of fake-chicken soup. I’m glad to be beyond this milepost.

The more I think about the outcome of yesterday?s election, the more fired up I become about the whole cause. I definitely feel the need to become more involved. I see a curve in my life path. This could be interesting.

The more I think through my anger and disappointment about the outcome of yesterday’s election, the more I get fired up. So I’ve started a political blog called Fired Up! You’ll see a link to it from the main page as well as right from this page.

I’ve decided to keep my political views separate, at least for the most part, from this blog because I try to comment on the lighter side of life here and the fight for the White House in 2008 is definitely not going to fit into the lighter side of things. We have three years and 364 days to get our ducks in a row, so to speak and I’m going to start tonight.

I’ve never imagined myself as a person to be that politically minded. Years ago it was “yeah, yeah, he’s cute, he seems to make sense, I’ll vote for him.” This is the first election that I really paid attention to the issues and made a well educated decision when I entered the voting booth. Apparently, that’s not good enough. I need to make my feelings known, my beliefs heard and I need to influence people around me. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a dreadful bore at all the parties I go to or that I’m going to be one of those militant fools that refuses to talk to the cashier because she’s stupid enough to be working at a company as dreadful as Wal*Mart. No, no, that’s petty shit. By the way, it’s unfortunate that the girl behind the register at Wal*Mart (“Always White Trash, Always”) has to work that job at slave wages in addition to busing tables at the local diner just so she can afford formula, food and medicine for her toddler and her newborn.

So I hope you’ll take the time to read Fired Up!, but I’m not going to force you to. And please continue to join me as I observe that Life is such a sweet insanity.

It appears the Baby Bush has squeaked through the election and will continue his reign of terror as president. I am very disappointed, to say the least. But on the bright side, at least we’re now half way through this nightmare. And after all, it’s all downhill from here.

Earl and I continue to watch the CNN coverage of the election. Prior to the top of each hour, they cut to the “Crossfire” crew to amuse us with their babble. It’s mildly amusing and I don’t mind watching it. But what’s driving me crazy are these camera whores standing behind the panelists with Bush-Cheney signs. I would still call them camera whores if they were holding Kerry-Edwards signs. They’re damn annoying and should find something more constructive to do.

I think I’m getting a little cranky.

As Earl and I watch the election results chug along on CNN, I can not help but feel anger towards Florida, just like I did during the 2000 election.

This bunch of bumbling, inept and idiotic fools in charge of voting in Florida should be ashamed of themselves. They knew the spotlight would be on them again. They knew that they would have a large number of absentee ballots. And once again, they’re running around with absolutely no clue as to how to accomplish anything. CNN just showed a shot of the absentee voting center in Miami-Dade County and everyone was sitting around with their thumbs up their butt. They’ve given themselves until 12:00 p.m. on Thursday. Well bravo for you, you bunch of hicks.

Florida is screwing up the election once again. Sadly, with governor Jeb Bush and his harem of ugly women, I’m not surprised.

After all the discussion and debate, Earl and I naturally exercised our right to vote this evening. It was a heartwarming experience on many counts.

First of all, it is refreshing to use the tried and true mechanical voting machines that are so common here in New York State. You simply flip the lever over the candidates name and then you move the handle to let yourself out of the booth. No hanging chads. No computers with questionable and secret programming. No rebooting. It’s refreshingly simple and accurate. Other states should follow suit and dump these ridiculous touchscreen voting machines and go for the mechanical systems. In this case, screw technology.

Secondly, Earl’s change of address was not registered properly (apparently anyone that sent their change of address to Albany didn’t get registered properly, at least in this area), and the election officials in the Town of Marcy went out of their way to make sure that he was able to vote. They followed the rules to the letter, without question and without complaint.

And lastly, I was astounded at the number of new voters, young and old, that I observed in the fifteen minutes we were at the polling place. It was nice to see so many citizens caring about government for a change.

While Earl and I are really hoping for a Kerry win, we’re proud that we had the right to vote, regardless of the outcome.