#chrisism

Gotta Love the Interwebs

galby68, , , , , , 9 Comments

As is my Saturday morning norm, I woke up and spent the morning reading leisurely in bed while caffeinating. Leisurely might be overselling it, since I do fall quite behind during the week, but I always welcome the opportunity to start my catch up with proChristinating on the actual backlog and starting off with one of Geoff’s latest entries since they are easy on the still sleep-addled brain and also reliably produce a chuckle.

If you clicked that link, you’ll know that today’s post from Geoff – it’s pronounced Ghee Off, presumably because one (or both, who knows?) of his parents was a title holder in his hometown’s Butter Clarifying Championship – really ignited the most used part of my brain: the section that speaks acronym.

Don’t you want to go back and read it now? Like I would steer you wrong. Well, sure…if it was solely for my own amusement, otherwise: never!

Case in point, one of my favorite acronyms regularly puts my co-workers into fits.

E.S.B.

I use it several times a week, sometimes daily.

My appreciation and usage of that acronym comes honestly, from a friend trying to make me feel dumb. Aren’t those just the most cherished memories? Well, I mean, when they fail gloriously. Because there’s nothing so memorable as someone who is not smart trying to make someone else feel dumb.

Geez, this story has to be about 15 years old now, as I was about three ESBs into my happy hour when it occurred and I’ve been off ESBs and exclusively onto IPAs as far as beer goes – for the past decade.

Dumb Ass Friend Talking: You’re always talking about how ESBs are the best beer.

Me: Truth.

DAFT: Do you even know the story behind your beer? Like what the name even means?!?

Me: Sure, it says it right on the label under the big letters, you stupid fuck. Extra Special Bitter, and I 100% am what I drink, so how about you get the next round and try to be a little less of a clown the rest of the night?

Somehow, we’ve lost touch over time. But he was a Shittatle person, so I really don’t care. As if my hostility during the conversation wasn’t evidence enough. In retrospect, I suspect he was trying to tease me about being from Portland – the Seattle/Portland rivalry is real – and riffing on the inaugural Portlandia skit about Portlanders ordering the chicken in a restaurant. This tactic failed for two reasons – three, I just thought of a third:

1) He asked two questions and I only addressed the second. He should have stopped at the one.

B) I hadn’t yet seen the episode he was riffing on. Nor would I until I ended up eating in the restaurant that episode was filmed in and someone brought it up.

3) He was dumb.

Yeah, that was the third thing I thought of. But it’s important! You see, while Portlanders are busy being recognized for being the best at things like food culture, having and retaining an awful NBA franchise, not turning down federal funding for creating a world-class light rail system, and producing world famous bands who fame is not enhanced by its front person’s passing themselves away…Seattle is none of those things and they are compensating their asses off.

That’s not their fault, entirely. Well, not the dwindling Seattle natives, anyway. With such an influx of mostly tech bros from all over the planet comes a lot of insecurity. Because those tech jobs have high pay, which Stupid Americans consider a validation of self. And tech bros need validation. Heck, anyone with a high paying job that is the result of years of focus on a specific subject needs validation because they very likely know very little about other things – like social skills – and no one knows anything about what they do because it takes years of focused study on a single subject in order to know anything about it.

A big salary can make you feel secure, but it doesn’t make you happy.

Yeah…what it isn’t is a recipe for happiness? A big salary and a field of study that isolates you from society’s general pop. All you are is still not happy, but with fewer friends and more money.

That’s Seattle to me in a nut shell.

The obvious Plan B there for my friend was to find happiness through eroding others’ happiness until their misery falls below his own.

And that’s where we were – except, having grown up in Portland, my existence default was set to happy, so this dumbass didn’t stand a chance. Bless his heart.

Ironically, Geoff lives in Seattle and is someone I’d have loved knowing when I was living there – especially because he isn’t one of those Seattle people who embellishes the part of town he lives in – another validation tool Seattle folks love. He doesn’t talk about his “part of town” at all, you see. This sets him apart from the other type who say they live in, say…West Seattle, which is a swanky Seattle suburb. When pressed about where in West Seattle someone lives when it comes up – y’know via enthusiastic statements like “Oh, I love X restaurant! It must be nice to be able to walk there and not deal with parking!” or “Yes! Where there’s actual beach!” – these people crumble and retreat to vague statements like “Well, I live on the South end of West Seattle…”

White Center. You live in White Center, you fuckin’ poseur.

Look what song just came on

This song literally includes the words

No postcode envy…clearly she has encountered these Southwest Seattlites.

Nah, Geoff’s not like that. He lives in Phinney Ridge. He’s never said so, but I’m sure of it. If not, he’s got to be at least Phinney Ridge-adjacent…

But that’s a long way from the acronyms I started off with. Specifically, the consternation my use of E.S.B. produces in my co-workers.

Since most of my regular contacts at work work in HR – don’t let me get started on HR…- declaring I need an E.S.B. at 9:30 AM can raise an eyebrow. And that’s why I respect these HR peeps, they also know the root meaning behind that Extra Special Bitter acronym.

When they suggest maybe I go to a “meeting” instead, I clarify that E.S.B. means Emotional Support Bagel.

At least at 9:30 in the goddamn morning.

Closer to noon, bagel makes way for burrito.

And, sure, burrito is replaced by beer toward the end of the day. I’m not some basic problematic person – my crutches have…depth? Nuances?

So, yeah. That is why it’s 10:30 on Saturday morning and still I’m not caught up on my reading from the past week: acronyms.

Geoff’s post contained several amusing incarnations of the acronym S.C.A.M. and I’m obviously a fan of an acronym having multiple meanings. But the whole thing had this kind of homemade vibe going for it. That reminded me of a workplace memo about Special High Intensity Training that I kept a copy of in my desk drawer for years back when I managed people.

I know, highly inappropriate for the workplace given that acronym.

But I feel like I needed to go find it once I mentioned it in the comments of Geoff’s post. And gourd bless it, the internet did not disappoint!

Since this all happened pre-cell phone and certainly pre-meme, finding it and re-posting it basically qualifies as a public service. Seriously, do you think a Millennial, Gen Y or whatever the current generation is called – is it Zoomers? – know the pleasure that a covertly circulated hard copy of faux memo produced in the workplace? They for sure don’t know what a mimeograph is and some of the documents I found online were clearly from that era of document reproduction.

And I’m a big believer in humor as a sign of both one’s intelligence and overall personality. Plus, we all need some safe inappropriateness in our lives to help in fostering our development as humans. Bonus if it includes self-deprecating humor. Seems like the side effect of Political Correctness was to produce a bunch of people who take themselves too seriously and self-diagnose mental illness to avoid being accountable for being a boor.

So, there you have it. Courtesy of this B.I.G.S.H.I.T…my first post in months.

What? I’ve been busy.

But I like that it’s both a tribute to the good, old days and the things we consider modern conveniences today – while still sticking it to the Stupid Americans who think dumb is a personality trait. If I really wanted to show off, I guess I could put that 40 year old memo through an AI filter and see how far it could take the S.H.I.T. acronym, but I gotta get my day back on track before look up and it’s Monday.

Gotta Love the Interwebs

Busted Up & Busy

galby68, , , , , , 18 Comments

Welcome back to me…to my own blog…once again!

I feel like I need my own Yoda. Someone who will hear me say weak assed things like “I’m going to try and write more consistently” and remind me

Luckily, I verbally hedge my bets with that approach, so…no broken promises!

As alluded to in the title, I’ve been busy. Work keeps me pretty occupied. My workdays are a frenzied pace from start to finish, leaving me pretty wiped out at the end of them.

I still try – there’s that hedging again! – to get out and do some delivery driving a couple evenings a week. It’s only a couple hours per night, a couple nights a week, but it seems like an eternity when you hate doing it. The reward is getting worse, too, which makes it harder. I finished a two-hour block last night – after the Silver Fox hyped me up when I was ready to pull the plug and bail – and my average rate was $25/hr. That’s down from around $30/hr, which is a hefty percentage.

My parting thought as I bellied up afterward was “Might as well pay me in pesos”. But where two hours’ earnings might not matter, 10 or 12 hours over the course of a month is an extra car payment, so that’s not nothing. Especially as I scramble to make my goal of paying Angela (my car) off by the end of November.

So, I needed the hype. Especially since I wouldn’t have left my home at all yesterday without it.

Nonetheless, it leaves me too burnt out to write much.

I did get a break from the hard work last month when my family met up in Sunriver for our yearly vacation. Sunriver is right outside of Bend, Oregon, so there’s always plenty to do.

Mostly, this time I just ate. Mind you, I swore I was going to spend time writing each day. I’ll save you a scroll through my blog post library: that didn’t happen.

Why would it, in the High Desert outdoor playground that is Bend, Oregon? Well, that’s where the busted up part of this post’s title comes in: I fell down.

Again.

And it was bad.

The best I could piece together was that I slipped on a cat hair tumbleweed as I walked into my apartment. Cat hair + laminate flooring = a suboptimal traction situation.

I’d been down to the local watering hole for a couple beers – two, literally. I just wasn’t feeling it, so I hoofed the 10 or so blocks to Safeway for a six-pack and snack to nosh on at home while I watched a movie before bed.

The movie – or the snackage, for that matter – never happened. As soon as I set foot in my place, it was lights out for Xtopher.

I wish I could say it was something more glamorous or exciting, a mugging, defending a stranger from danger or even a dalliance gone bad…but it was just my natural clumsiness. My friends tried to nudge me toward a more exciting, albeit alternate, truth – the aforementioned mugging, DB even suggested I’d been roofied after hearing my story – but I could not oblige.

I was actually too harsh when I said “natural clumsiness”…knowing physics and geometry, ok, remembering what I do of my high school and college courses on the subjects, what I was doing and how I ended up adds up to cat like reflexes.

You see, if I was walking in the door and slipped on something, my feet would have gone out from under me, leaving my fallen body laying head first into my unit. Certainly the final resting spots of what had been my bag of groceries supports this. Me, on the other hand ended up facing the door, which could have happened – if I had ended up on my back. But I didn’t, I wasn’t just facing the front door, I was also facing the floor.

That’s where those cat like reflexes come in. Not only had I fallen backward instead of forward, I’d also flipped midair to land on my face.

Fairly literally, by the way.

I can’t tell you the exact order – likely due to being mildly concussed by the whole ordeal – but I know I hit my chin hard enough to break my front tooth and open a cut on the bottom of my chin. I remember pushing myself up once after being unconscious long enough for blood to pool around me. That I know because when I did push up, one of my hands went out from under me and I went back down on my face.

I think that’s where I got the four splits across my forehead. Well, not so much across (because that would blend with my age based creases that I do not call wrinkles) as perpendicular to my eyebrows. However, it could have been where I split the cartilage in my ear open. Remembering two falls and having wounds on three planes of my skull further suggests a concussion.

Since I’m a typically stupid guy, though, I didn’t go to the ER for almost 24 hours, so likely is as close to a diagnosis as I could get on that concussion.

Likely concussion, broken tooth and six gashes on my head…and bruised ribs, probably from the initial impact, that’s my damage.

All because I was too bored at the bar to stick around and decided to come home.

At least my ribs were only bruised.

Until the following Sunday, that is. I’d started feeling well enough to venture out of the house and met my parents for breakfast. Afterward I was tired – from getting up early on a Sunday, eating a heavy breakfast and the actual work of walking my injured ass over to the restaurant – so I layed down on the couch to rest. About 30 minutes of blissful dozing later, I sneezed…probably a tickle from cat hair drifting through the air. That’s what I’m going with.

Ah- Pop-Pop-Choo!

That was some pain. I couldn’t take a full breath. Hell, I couldn’t get up off my back!

After another 90 minutes of shallow breathing my way through the absolute WTF worst pain I can remember, I decided I needed to go back to the ER. The pain from getting off my back almost made me forget the pain of the prior hour and a half. It for sure eclipsed it.

Back at the ER, broken.

I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that. They were somehow surprised I hadn’t recalled them telling me how to sneeze until my ribs healed on my earlier visit. Um, hello? Concussion?

I was actually surprised to hear I hadn’t broken my sternum, just a rib on either side of it. I still think I did…while they were being surprised that I’d broken my ribs sneezing, I was being surprised that them hearing my history of micro-fractures hadn’t mitigated their surprise and prompted a referral for a little nuclear medicine to double-check my sternum. Not that it was worth pursuing, anyway…there’s nothing they can do for broken ribs, so why bother?

So that’s how I ended up spending a week in Sunriver and spending most of my time eating versus biking, hiking or paddling around the high desert.

I think I was three weeks post-fall and two weeks post-sneeze when I got back home. I returned from vacation feeling about as healed as I was feeling before the sneeze.

Progress!

That’s just the condition you want to be in when you move homes, right? But sure enough, I stopped on the way home from the high desert to pick up keys to my new place.

While it is just a short distance away, right across the park from my old place…it was a long time coming. I’d started thinking I wanted to move at the end of last year. I started looking with a mind to move at the end of my current lease: the end of March. Knowing where I wanted to be, my current building, made it seem easier to accomplish but ended up taking nearly a year!

It’s silly, living in a world with people who can own a condo and let it sit empty for two years because they thought the damage a prior tenant did to the floors made it un-leasable. One of the other residents is a realtor who knows both the owner of that unit and me and tried to put us together. The guy took my contact info and just…nothing.

Another unit had an active listing and never replied to my inquiry. It’s still empty, but the listing is gone now.

There was a third unit whose owner I spoke with in January. She wanted to list it February 1st but needed to find a property manager first. In two weeks. I didn’t want to move until April 1 to avoid paying double-rent, but offered to rent her place March 1 if I could rent from her – I loathe property managers. She passed. I get her dis-ease being a first time landlord…but I know eight residents, two of whom are Board members. Someone finally moved into the unit on September 1st.

Idiots. Am I not stupid enough to be rich…is that what’s stopping me from wealth?

The last weird obstacle to my move wasn’t really an obstacle at all, so we’ll call her an honorable mention. It’s the Silver Fox’s neighbor – or would be, if she lived in her condo. She doesn’t, though. She lives in the West Hills, where she moved…closer to 10 years ago than five. And her unit has sat empty for every damn one of those years. Assuming she doesn’t have a mortgage, she’s still paying $10000-15000 a year on HOAs and taxes. That’s cumulatively $100,000! I don’t want to live next door to my best friend, so I never pushed it. Not that it would have mattered if I did. I refer to that kind of wealth as “fuck you money” because they do not take instruction from anyone else.

But I made it! Persistence paid off, even though the reward was moving with broken ribs. When I told my landlord I was leaving, it was because of the crazy neighbor quotient in the old building. Crazy neighbors in four of 18 units is too high, even if it only worked out to an average of three crazy people in the building at any given time.

Little did I know that the cause of the broken ribs should have been the reason I moved in April: a broken HVAC. I told my landlord about it in March and he made an unsuccessful bid to have it repaired. I was heating my place with an inverted 4” terracotta pot over my gas stove in March and April. In June, July and August I became an expert at timing the opening and closing of windows each morning and evening to maximize the overnight cooling.

But the lack of air conditioning – or even air movement – has kept poor Myrtle in a constant state of shedding. Hence the cat hair tumbleweeds.

Ironic that the reason I should have moved this past Spring indirectly became the reason I ended up moving with broken ribs.

Cause of (near) Death: ProChristination.

Busted Up & Busy

Shrinkflation: The Sequel

galby68, , , , , 11 Comments

I know I should just call this Shrinkflation: Part 2 – because you just know this ain’t the end of nothing – but I have too many numbered series on this blog, so I didn’t wanna. However, who knows when I’ll get around to being pissed enough about this phenomenon – or some random and mildly annoying aspect of it that probably only I notice – to add a third installment to the Shrinkflation saga?

Even in starting this post, two other things I should probably post about instead have caused me to almost abandon this entry. And you can rest assured I’ll probably forget what they were by the time I finish this.

Here’s the deal, though, it’s getting worse! And if you’re recreationally conspiracy theory minded, as I am, it’s simply out of control.

Now, I should note that this is undoubtedly enhanced by my Saturday night of doing nothing. I’m incensed over a potentially imagined recent offense at my local watering hole, so haven’t been there at all this weekend. Making matters worse is that the Silver Fox was in town, but had other plans for his Saturday night. Assignations, if you will.

Ergo: I was in my own.

Since I wasn’t going to Tanner Creek Tavern, and wasn’t going to risk going to any other of my haunts since they invariably lead to an expensive trip to the Reverse ATM, I decided to have a Dry Weekend.

And this brings us back to the cost of bubble water in Portland.

Before, I was mainly pointing out the difference in price a brand name can cost a consumer – cost of advertising be damned, since even the less glamorous brands I mentioned in that post advertise. The thought behind that post was enough to make me pony up for a Soda Stream and just make my own.

Sadly, just when I needed a refill, my nearest Bed, Bath & Beyond closed. A week later, I decided to order a new tank of CO2 on their website. They were out of stock on the singles and I didn’t want to order a two-pack, since I already had one empty and three seemed…fraught. I need to keep my tank rotation at two.

So I’ve had none. And truthfully, my bubble water consumption is down. I haven’t pivoted back to soda – at least not completely. I’d say the non-alcoholic beverage split is 50% soda, 35% still water (in a victory my liver and kidneys gave up on ever seeing last century) and 15% bubble water.

I’ll check that math a half dozen times before I publish this post and still get it wrong.

Why was I suddenly so resistant to buying bubble water? They committed an egregious – to only me, I’m sure – offense. The industry seemed to pivot in unison from 12-pack cans to 8-pack cans. Without lowering the price!

That’s very not ok.

A) an 8-pack is an insufficient quantity. That’s like a two day supply. Does not compute.

B) compounding that minimal supply is my retroactive offense at paying too much in the past simply by not taking advantage of the three 12-packs/$10 (or $11, once inflation started ticking up) deals because I didn’t want to make multiple trips to my car for groceries. Now I’d be making multiple trips for two 8-packs simply to have a reasonable supply on hand versus the oversupply situation of the past deals I’d eschewed in support of my inherent laziness.

Obviously, I was completely powerless in this situation that was clearly quite beyond my control. Just look at what happened last time I tried to do something: an entire Bed, Bath & Beyond closed! Obviously, challenging the system has a high price.

Nevertheless, last night I realized that the situation had deteriorated even further.

Now these loathsome 8-packs are going for $4.49. That’s $.50 more than I was paying for 12-packs a year ago!

This is not ok.

Is there some sort of cabal of bubble water producing companies I’m not aware of? An OPEC for enhanced drinking waters? The Organization of Bubble Water Producing Companies…OBWPC? An organization powerful enough to take retaliatory steps to close a big box retail location?

I do not know. But as a consumer, I will dare to speak for us all when I say that I am not down for this sort of corporate rogering.

Making this situation even more rewarding to my recreational conspiracy theorist is the timing of my realization: the very week that BB&B announced the closing of its remaining stores.

Going hmmmm at things that make you, am I.

The latest price increase is poorly-timed for an innocent industry. Although, I’ve clearly made the case for conviction in the court of public (me) opinion.

It’s enough to make me consider my options. Namely: trekking out to suburbia to a remaining – for now – BB&B for a refill cartridge or even trying a Walmart – since the Triple-B Ranch has proven its proficiency at being out of stock on these in the past, when things were only bad for them and not in their current state of cataclysm.

The Silver Fox suggested Amazon this morning during our coffee walk. And, yes, obviously. But also, no, because of all the bad. Also, I checked and shipping on CO2 cartridges is a full week, so…

Although, they do offset their corporate awfulness by offering a $15 gift card with their canister exchange program. Mind you, you got a $15 credit with the in-store canister exchanges at brick and mortar retailers, so it’s kind of same shit, different marketing. Plus, Walmart offers the same program, not that they aren’t just as bad – or worse – on a corporate level.

I just know I’m going to end up driving all over kingdom come to rectify this – and then still end up ordering future replacements through either Amazon or Walmart.

It’ll be Walmart, strictly for this reason. Fifteen bucks buys a lot of cheap Mac & Cheese. But I’m just as likely to say fuck it and go back to soda. Stay tuned.

Until then, just know my neurotic ass will be tying itself into absolute pretzels.

Also, I just had a premonition that Shrinkflation 3: The Unmitigated Gall will be about me discovering that Walmart’s $.47 Mac & Cheese – $.34 on sale! – has become $.60/box, reducing the buying power of my $15 exchange program gift card by one-third.

Goddamn, I am craving Mac & Cheese something awful now….

Shrinkflation: The Sequel

TIL 13: ABass

galby68, , , , 7 Comments

I started off my Saturday rip roaring and ready to go. Mainly thanks to a full 8 hours of sleep, brought to you by the perfectly managed cross-fade. IYKYK.

So, naturally, I stayed in bed reading for three hours. But then I was totally going to get up, exercise and then do more pre-potential-packing purging.

An hour later, I ordered lunch and settled in to watch Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Because I watch all of the Oscar nominated films, and Angela Bassett is up for her role as Queen Ramonda.

And I cannot lie, she kicked ass in that role., so good luck everyone else.

Also, I lied. I don’t watch all the Oscar movies. That would be boring beyond belief. Plus, I’ve been meaning to watch RRR for three weeks now – by all accounts, not boring and a lock to grab a few of the gold guys – but it’s 3 hours!

Don’t get me wrong, I can kill 3 hours like nobody’s business – and did, just waking up today. But to plan a block of 3 hours is another thing altogether.

Gets me in the mood to proChristinate – which is how I really ended up watching the Black Panther sequel. Not to worry, I was still able to cover all my top line goals for the day: exercise, pre-pack organizing and making some of that gig money.

Imagine my surprise when after all of that I ended up learning something!

It started out innocently enough. I wanted to relax a bit with a movie. I’ve been burning through The Mindy Project, but today wanted more than a 22 minute plot line to kind of offset that. I popped over the Amazon Prime because I thought I recalled something dropping there this weekend. Either I was wrong or just didn’t find it, because I ended up with something definitely not new.

Kindergarten Cop.

I’m always down for something filmed in my home state. And I’ve been feeling guilty with all the Goonies house news lately – because I’ve never seen it.

Still haven’t.

While not The Goonies, Kindergarten Cop was filmed in the same town: Astoria, Oregon.

Fun Fact: Astoria was named for John Jacob Astor, who famously died on the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

I have seen Titanic, if anyone was curious.

Anyway, there I am, minding my own beersness, watching an Oregon movie and out of nowhere my mom texts me asking what episode of Grimm I was in.

Well, mom, I was in a couple. I told her what episode my most visible shot was in, she said they were a ways away from that storyline and that was that.

Back to Astoria.

And, no, it did not escape me that my parents and I ended up watching Oregon-filmed shows on the same night.

I make it all the way through this movie – all I really wanted to see was the “It’s not a tumor” part, which came far too early in the show. But I was able to amuse myself with the 90s class of Where Are They Nows that popped into a shot here or there.

Park Overall and Heidi Swedberg both played school moms. As did Jayne Brooks and Cathy Moriarty. And, we can’t forget Penelope Ann Miller as the love interest!

Seriously, where are they now?!?

But it wasn’t until the credits that I learned I’d missed seeing someone whose current professional whereabouts I am well versed in:

Angela F Bassett!

Ok, the F was added for fucking emphasis.

But there she was, playing a one-line Flight Attendant on Alaska airlines in this 1990 movie.

Way before playing Ms. Turner. The novel Waiting to Exhale probably wasn’t even a draft yet. Marvel, obviously, had the Black Panther comics in print in the 90s, but the man who would bring them to the big screen was still 4 years old!

I don’t know why I needed to know this, other than idle curiosity. It amuses me to see stars in basically extras roles before they were famous. Don’t even get me started on Mary Louise Parker’s diner waitress part in When Harry Met Sally!

Regardless, now that I know, I felt it was important for you to also know. What are the odds we ever end up on opposing trivia teams?

Seems safe.

TIL 13: ABass

Irresolved

galby68, , , , 18 Comments

Welp, it’s 8:38 on Sunday morning. I’ve been up since 5. 4:30, really – I got up to pee and optimistically tried to sleep more before I had to get up at 6:30 to take the Silver Fox to the airport so he could anon to Tahiti.

8:38 on Sunday morning and I’ve been up since 5.

I’ve read the news.

Exercised.

Showered.

Completed said airport run.

Filled Angela’s tank.

…and called myself a dumb bitch three times. I’m averaging once an hour today. I suspect it’s having nothing to do for the foreseeable hours remaining in the day.

So I thought I’d do something productive to snap myself out of that self-effacing doldrum.

Can you have a single doldrum? Maybe that’s a torpor.

Neverthemess…I debated asking my parents to breakfast, but I don’t want to drive in this halfhearted rain, so I’m not going to make them do it.

That kind of leaves writing. Am I going to finish my Christmas week post? Finally? No. No, I am not.

I’m jumping into ‘23!

I’m not one for resolutions – or proper English simply for the sake of proper English, hence the nonsense title of this post – but at the same time, I realized in the shower today that I was presently living out a fairly common resolution.

Call it wasting less or doing something for the environment, but that’s what I’ve found myself in the middle of. (There’s some more bad English for ya.)

As I was heading out to pick up The Fox, I had the thought that I should take my redeemable recycling with me to drop off after. I had to stop at Freddy’s anyway to get Myrtle more cat food on my way back from the airport – her breakfast sounded like only two or three kibbles when the feeder went off at 5. Then I surprised myself when I realized I was short of my two bag usual for a trip to recycling and decided to leave it. Besides, who knew whether the Silver Fox would have bags that needed to go in Angela’s cargo area? Best not to risk it.

This is when I realized I’d left my fob to The Fox’s building in my car last night, so I’d have to have him meet me at the door to get in. That was dumb bitch #1.

Then as we were driving to the airport in the dark, drizzly wee hours, I was struggling to see clearly and remembered that I’d intended to bring my glasses so I could see better, but didn’t have them: dumb bitch #2.

On my way home, I took backroads to avoid the blurry freeway. This also took me right by the home of the bi-guy I’ve been banging out with lately. That was kind of a fun realization – but now I’m horny. Sadly, I’m withholding with him because last time I saw him he left a mark like we’re fucking high schoolers.

Do I seem amused?

I stopped off for gas before hitting the grocery store. I’d been at 31 miles to empty when I left for the airport and was at 11 when I made it back to my ‘hood.

Then I forgot to stop at the store for cat food: dumb bitch #3.

Crap! I just realized I’d miscounted my dumb bitches, so that’s dumb bitch #5!

#4 was walking to the RiteAid up the street for cat food and not realizing they don’t open until 9 on Sundays. Staffing issues.

So, yeah…I need some positivity this morning. That required reflection, so I reviewed my day.

I had a shower victory this morning. Two, really, if you count showering so early in the day as a victory (I do). But I finally figured out the “right” number of swipes my shampoo bar requires for a good lather. It’s two.

Two.

I’d picked it up at Trader Joe’s last time I was there – purely on a lark. I’d been looking for a candle and struck out. But right next to where candles should have been was their personal care section and for $3.49, I figured why not give a shampoo bar a try? I knew I was getting close to empty on my current shampoo bottle at home., so this was also an opportunity to be proactive versus finding myself shampoo-less in the near future.

The first time I used it, I gave myself three swipes on each side of my head.

Waaay too much. I looked like a shampoo commercial on crack.

Plus side: this bar produces an insanely rich lather. I noticed this as it covered my shoulders and oozed toward my navel.

For the next week or so I regrouped at two swipes per side. Still too much, but I wasn’t mad since it smells so good! It also does an amazing job of pulling the prior day’s product off my hair, so why under-do it?

But this morning I was in a hurry – I know, up at 5 and end up rushing my shower to be on time, can you believe that didn’t earn me a dumb bitch? – and shaved a second or two off my shower by giving each side of my head one swipe.

Realizing that two swipes total was plenty left me looking at the bar in amazement. It looks barely touched after a week+ of daily use. At this rate, if it only lasts me six months, I’d be surprised. But in that half year, it’ll keep three plastic bottles out of my (non-redeemable) recycling.

Looking back on that made me feel pretty good. I felt even better when the reason behind me not having enough redeemable recycling to merit taking it with me when I left the house hit me.

I bought myself a soda stream late last year. I’m actually rather enjoying it. At first I was conflicted about it for political and environmental reasons.

It’s a company based in Israel, which is ire-some to some.

Plus, I don’t like bubbly water just for the sake of bubbles. Hence, the flavoring syrups in front of it. The Bubbly brand concentrates come in glass bottles and make around 12 liters. The larger containers say they make up to 9 liters, but I’ve only been using 3/4 the recommended dose, so they’ll each get me around 12 liters, too. So for the environmental price of two plastic bottles, I’m keeping about two dozen plastic bottles out of the system. Add another dozen for the glass bottle of flavorings and you’ve got quite an impact.

I’m ok with the return on that trade off.

I realized that over the course of a year, that will be hundreds less plastic containers coming out of my home. That made me feel pretty good.

And it all happened without setting out on a resolution spree.

Not bad for a dumb, ol’ bitch, eh?

Irresolved

Mental Venn Diagrams

galby68, , , , 3 Comments

I’ve been taking some deliberate time lately. Grabbing back what I can of “me” time versus running from work (from home) to social engagements immediately after. Or making a point of taking a lunch to workout and shower before the back half of my day instead of working from 8-5 (or later, many days) without taking a lunch break at all.

I’m not mad that the job I ended up signing on for keeps me engaged at that level. I’m just forcing myself to remember, my work is only one part of my identity and happiness.

To that end, sometimes I’ll leave work (from home) and meet friends – or not – for drinks, maybe dinner. Others, I’ll leave work (from home) and go do dinner deliveries for a couple hours to get out of the house for a bit.

The thing that was missing there wasn’t immediately obvious to me. Just really revealing itself last week – the week before my vacation.

Me time.

All of my activities involved being a participant with someone else. Not that I know the intent wasn’t there. I know I would intentionally set out take myself out for a solo drink often. Sometimes neighbors would drop in to the local watering hole. Others, just the staff would pull me out of my solo time to just be at zero, thinking Xtopher things and recharging my spirit, if you will, so I was ready to put my best self out into the world again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad about being world famous on my block. I just remember from my days of career management, I always had my me time.

I was missing it.

Since my usual activities weren’t providing the recharge I needed, I ripped a page out of the Silver Fox’s playbook and just started staying home. There’s a bit more to that, which I’ll get into later this week or this weekend, but I looked at what I was doing and made a conscious change to change my results.

Like a damn smarty.

It’s kinda hard to stay home. I don’t have a big place, and there’s literally a bookshelf dividing my desk from my couch. Ergo, if I’m looking to get away from work, and “get away” isn’t physically executed…what’s giving me that perceived distance?

Since I’d joined HelloFresh, there were two nights of cooking built in as that get away. That was nice. Keeping the kitchen clean from its newly increased full-function usage versus the usual fridge and microwave abuse it was accustomed to could provide a nice transition one night a week. Can’t say I was keen on turning that critical cleanliness as an escape mindset loose on the rest of my home, though.

It’s a mess.

Last night, in a fit of semi-boredom, I cleaned to metal light fixtures that hang over my kitchen bar. The years of cumulative dust and cat hair since their last cleaning – lacquered in place by kitchen grease now that I’ve taken up cooking again – made it quite a task. I’m not lying when I say each fixture took closer to ten minutes than five to clean. Since it was hands over shoulders work, that added some extra humility to the exercise.

But I needed it last night.

Why? Why did I need a couple 5-10 minute tasks?

To give my mind time to make decisions in the background while I was focused on something else.

It’s a good trick.

And there are just too many TV show options to be able to decide!

If I were a younger gay man – or just one interested in blending my DNA in with the rest of the Gay Herd – I’d have opened up the loathsome Grindr and used that to kill time. But I’d still bet that I’d stand out from the other livestock there by thinking about something while there…

Are you shocked my dilemma is essentially nonsense? What TV show to watch…this is a first world problem of the highest order.

Here’s the deal, though. Last week I’d watched My Policeman – more on that in another blog – and had seen Don’t Worry Darling available to stream on another recent scroll through my entertainment options. In that moment, as the credits rolled, I was able to ask myself, “Self, do you want to watch both of Harry Styles’ current cinematic offerings in one night?”

I quickly responded – reflexively, even – in the negatory. I also dismissed switching to Disney+ to watch The Eternals as some sort of Harry Styles Plan B (he’s in the end credit scene).

Somehow, my addled brain ended up watching the first Kelvin Universe Star Trek movie to scratch the itch I was feeling. It’s Harry Styles adjacent since Chris Pine plays Captain Kirk in Star Trek but also co-stars with Styles in Don’t Worry Darling. As an extra Venn moment, the teaser at the beginning of the film – the moment that we later find out was the break from the standard Trek canon to Kelvin Universe – is Kirk’s birth. Kirk’s dad is played by none other than Chris Hemsworth, known for his role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of which The Eternals is a part.

Exhausting, right? And I didn’t even mention that Zoe Saldana plays Uhura in the Klein Star Trek films and Gamora in the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies. See? I pulled a punch for you in describing my insanity.

It took more effort and time to type that out than it dI’d to process and execute in real time. And I mention that because yesterday I finally got around to watching Booksmart.

Amazing movie. It did a fantastic job of presenting a story that should be relatable across multiple generations. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

As the credits rolled I found myself thinking, “Should I watch Don’t Worry Darling? Wait. Didn’t I just watch it a while back?” You see, Booksmart was Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, Darling is her sophomore effort.

This is why I needed to B-reel the question. I couldn’t recall whether I’d watched Don’t Worry Darling recently and I also wasn’t sure I wanted to dedicate an afternoon/evening geeking out on one director. It’s neither star Trek nor Wars, so giving something multiple movies in a day elevates it.

So I cleaned light fixtures.

Ultimately, the media drama – not buzz, drama – surrounding Don’t Worry Darling made me decide to give it a watch. It was time to see the thing that created the opportunity for all this other stuff people were talking about to exist.

Couldn’t find it.

I was goading myself in an attempt to sharpen my focus or resolve to succeed because I knew I had seen it available recently. Did I need to rent it to play out my plan?

Nope. Wasn’t even available for rent on any of the streamers I have.

I popped over to IMDb to see where I could watch it. HBOMax. I don’t have that one, and I wondered if I’d seen it advertised to watch while watching House of the Dragon with the Silver Fox at his place. Didn’t seem likely, the last time we’d watched TV together was too far removed.

Maddeningly, I couldn’t find it.

Gave up, I did. Watched Star Trek: Into Darkness instead, I did.

And, no…it wasn’t because of the Uhura thing since the overlap didn’t exist. But since Benedict Cumberbacht plays Khan in this movie, it was enough to derail the fleeting impulse I had to pull up Disney+ and watch an Avengers et al movie – because Xtopher definitely does not watch one Marvel movie, it’s “Sayonara, rest of the week” if I start down that rabbit hole. So the MCU crossover double casting in Into Darkness satisfied the Marvel impulse while also finishing up the two best Kelvin Universe Trek films. Sorry, Star Trek: Beyond, you were…fine.

Interestingly enough, Beyond also dips into the MCU casting pool with Idris Elba as the bad guy. Crap. Guess now I have to watch it. It’s not like I have to get up early tomorrow, so…why not?

I guess this blog was tonight’s B-reel activity. How nice you got to experience that realization in real time right along with me.

Mental Venn Diagrams

Falling Apart

galby68, , , 7 Comments

I have to admit that this could be it: the best I’ll feel for the rest of my life.

That might sound dramatic, but compared to the thought I had the other day about houseless people and warmth…maybe less so?

What prompted my musing on this age of slow decay?

Well, my toothache last weekend, for sure. Then, the other night I was sitting on my couch watching Mythic Quest (highly recommend!) and casually rubbing my face. Unsurprisingly, I found the usual psychotic puberty-era throwback oily skin. Along with that, though, were these oddly placed patches of dry skin. Not the usual T-zone dry patches…these were weird.

This, mind you, is on top of the still randomly rampant maskne. Why that needs to be hanging in a year after mask mandates dropped, I’m not sure. Probably karma.

Anyway, this new facial geography kinda felt like it would just flick off with a little lift.

So I did.

I don’t know why it made me feel better to accomplish something as small as removing dead skin cells, but there I was. And because the universe is a sonofabitch, there it was.

I’d explored the area under and around my eyes – and then was just kind of tracing the outline of a nostril with my fingernail and found something I’d never have seen. It was right there where the nostril meets the cheek, so the curve of even my unflared nostril would totally obscure it – if it were even visible to my aged eyes.

All thoughts of the randomness of these flaky, dry skin cells completely and instantly disappeared as blood started cascading out of my face.

And that’s only borderline hyperbole.

So, y’know, I get up and go get some tissue, dab it, drop it in the toilet and make my way for the couch.

Oh, no…that’s pure hubris. That fucker bled and bled and bled.

Nothing like these little shaving accidents that throw out a perfect orb of blood and then clot or are satisfied being staunched by a scrap of one-ply TP. No, this was more like – well, have you ever had your ear (the pinna, not the lone) accidentally nicked during a haircut? Yeah, it was like that.

I didn’t entirely rule out bleeding to death.

It took a return trip to the bathroom – I waited this time – applying pressure until the tissue was saturated. I waited during the second application of direct pressure instead of returning to the couch because it wasn’t slowing.

Finally, I opted for a double wad of TP to staunch my not-life-threatening wound and went back to the couch. I finished my episode of Mythic Quest before tentatively removing the pressure.

Finally.

I mean, sheesh. That was a lot of blood wasted. And wine! Well, not wasted wine, but wine drinking time wasted. Still, I wasn’t going to risk spilling or spoiling my wine, so I waited.

Seriously, though. Should it take 20 minutes for blood to clot? And that’s when it hit me, that this was probably the best I’d ever feel for the rest of my life. I’m sure the best age related physical shenanigannery (Chrisism, boom!)I can expect is massive bruising when I casually bump something.

Fun!

Falling Apart

My Kind of Conversion Therapy

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I got a call from my boss yesterday afternoon. She gets me. Here’s how the pre-call planning went via Microsoft Teams chat:

Boss: Hey!

Me: Quit screaming at me.

Boss: Call me.

Normally, my neurotic ass would immediately spiral with that enigmatic command. But like I said, she gets me. We have a…rapport.

She starts our conversation off with “Guess what?” Even though her tone suggested good news, that opener is cryptic enough that mentally I replied, “You need me to bring back my laptop?”

It was just the opposite, though. She told me that the CEO had finally signed off on my Offer Letter.

I probably added a “finally” retroactively where there was not one in reality.

Seriously, though, it had taken three months to get my Offer Letter put together and approved. I know this because I found it hard to take her seriously when she asked if I was interested in converting from a contractor to a core employee…since it was April 1st.

When I pointed that out a couple weeks later during our weekly touch base, her response was, “Wait, did you mean it when you said ‘Yes’?!?”

And this is why we get along.

I probably could have shared my thoughts on this surprise (to me) development with my boss. Thoughts like, “Thank gourd for The Great Resignation making employers desperate enough to hire a grumpy old bastard like me!” or “You could hire millennial or Gen Z folks for less than me…if you could actually hire anyone from those generations”. (Sorry, Vee!) Actually, I’m confident she would have beat me to the punch on that last part.

Anyhoo…she’d warned me it was gonna take a while. “We move slow”, she had admitted. She did not undersell that.

I just never imagined it would be a longer process to complete than the tenure I had as a temp with the company at the time she had issued that warning. I’d gotten the exploratory offer at two months.

Two weeks later when she’d “updated me” about my salary expectations, I’d told her that was faster than I’d expected. Two weeks after that, she’d confirmed that HR was starting on my Offer Letter.

Ok…

Five weeks later I hear that my Offer Letter was on the CEO’s desk for his approval and I’m all, “Eureka!”

Three weeks go by. Mind you, a week after I heard the CEO had it, his Admin called me to check on some expense reports “he’d” submitted.

I had patted myself on the back for not quid-pro-quo-ing his expense reports and just told her that I process expense reports on Fridays. It was Thursday…so the next day I reimbursed his $25,000 from four months worth of expense reports. Before the day ended, the Admin was back in my inbox telling me “she’d” completed the last two months of reports, so I added another $15k to his reimbursement before beer:30 that day.

You know how you know someone makes too much money? Not just that they can get by submitting expense reports only twice a year, but that they can do it by letting an average of $7k a month ride.

Oy.

Anyway, I’m glad I coughed up his dough because it took a scant two more weeks for the Offer Letter to find its way back to HR. No telling how long it would have taken if timing hadn’t worked out like it had!

But someone was impressed enough with me to throw a couple extra percentage points on my salary from what my boss had said she’d try to get for me – which was less than I’d asked for, but more than I was making as a contractor, so I wasn’t mad. But seeing it come back just a shade off of what I’d asked for made me feel it was worth the wait.

Mind you, this is still a 45 hr/week base at about 60-65% of what I made last year driving with Lyft. I’ve been doing some DoorDash deliveries to help bridge the gap, too – but that’s another shituation. I can max out at about a dozen hours on a good week with DoorDash, that’s about half as many hours as I drove for Lyft and on a good week I earn about a third of what I made driving for Lyft.

All that boils down to me working more than twice as many hours this year over last and maybe making 75% of what I earned driving <30 hours a week for Lyft. Since it’s July, I don’t think it’s premature to declare that this is gonna be a financially tough year.

But the first six months of this year have helped me get back into a budget mindset. Between that and the 16% bump I’m getting converting from contract to core, I think I can stare down the balance of the year without having to steal from my parent’s present retirement fund.

Anyway…here I am, the guy who swore he was done working for Da Man back in 2018. Didn’t quite make it five years before I found something that appealed enough to me that I could sell myself back to an outfit long-term.

Maybe this company is the conversion therapy I needed to take away the shitty taste my last few professional roles left in my mouth.

I don’t want to shock anyone – I have more than a few older readers – but, yes…that was me sounding optimistic. I apologize for not warning you ahead of time.

My Kind of Conversion Therapy

Crappy Pride, Y’all!

galby68, , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

I could probably just end this post at the title without leaving any mystery as to how I feel about how little my subculture deserves a fucking parade. Far be it from me to be succinct, though. But I also don’t want to bore you with my feelings about standing outside at a parade some stupid American would happily make a massacre of with a bunch of people who pretend both that I’m visible and that they’re decent people for one day a year.

Also, far be it from me to show restraint, so let the fact that I’ve been kicking this post idea around for about a month be known. Give that a damn parade. Rest assured, that’s not proChristination, either. I have literally been trying to decide whether posting a Pride month entry needed to happen. It didn’t last year, thank you for noticing.

Plus, being the volunteer voice of treason for my subculture has gotten me nothing but disavowed by said subculture. Not that I was expecting anything other than a culture I could feel pride in from those jokers. Me and my unreasonable expectations.

But that’s all I have to say about that. I’m Gay Kulture’s voice of treason, not their Don damn Quixote.

So I’ll just leave you with a little story. The Silver Fox has already kind of heard this – and I hate to bore my number one reader – although he may have unremembered it, as he likes to say.

Someone recently asked me if I had big plans for Pride month. Not sure how deep they imagined my pockets or clear my calendar might be when they asked, but it sounded like in their imagination, I’d be off traipsing around the globe, careening from circuit party to circuit party in some sort of cum-drunk stupor all month.

Ok, that grossed me out. Me.

Happy to burst their bubble – but with the style and panache a straight ally expects of their GBF – I set her, um…straight.

Here’s what I said, basically. She was rightfully near death when I finished.

“I dunno. I’ve been thinking about getting a haircut.”

I could see her translating my sentence from straight to gay and imagining me with rainbow colors died into my ‘do.

She needs a lot of setting straight. Straight setting? I don’t know what the proper Queen’s English would deem proper English syntax there…

“But then, I dunno. I’m kind of invested in the length at this point.”

“It’s never been this long before, has it?”

“Nah. Could’ve never pulled it off when I was working professionally. But that’s not the point.”

I see her confusion and debate dragging her along a little longer or moving in for the big finish. Knowing how tragically short American attention spans are these days – especially when the topic is not themselves – I decide not to risk losing my momentum to the “Squirrel! Phenomenon”.

“Yeah, at this point the rejection I get from trying to date The Gays just isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be.”

She’s starting to slow down during our walk, like a 70s-era robot being defeated by an illogic loop.

“So I’m thinking maybe – I dunno – maybe I’ll just grow it out to Locks of Love length and then try to donate it, because I’m sure they’d look at it and tell me in no uncertain terms that cancer patients would rather be bald than sport this stringy nest I call a mane. That seems like a man imminently satisfying level of rejection.”

Dead. She died right there on the sidewalk, dutifully swearing to me that my admittedly neglected hair was gorgeous. These are the types of transparent lies people who love me trot out…and that’s why I love them. That and their last gasp is apparently supposed to be an ego-boost to their favorite (only) homo.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go check the weather app to make sure it’s still gonna pour rain on Sunday’s parade. I will culturally fucking appropriate a dance if I have to…

Crappy Pride, Y’all!

TRSD 32: When You’re With Me…

galby68, , , , 7 Comments

…you’re with Stupid.

Surrealiously.

Pure, adulterated – let’s face it, I can’t pull off unadulterated – stupid.

I went to coffee with a friend this morning, came home, worked out and then finally got around to cleaning my bathroom.

I’d been proChristinating it for too long. Almost as long as I’ve been putting off a haircut, and, no…the causal relationship between a messy bathroom and long hair has not escaped my notice.

But here I am, finally addressing one of those issues.

So I do the whole thing: toilet, sink, mirror, sweep, baseboards and then mop.

I was rather surprised that my back only complained a little. Mops and brooms are not really made for long people’s bodies.

Then I reward myself with a much needed shower and as soon as I pull back the curtain…

And I just didn’t have it in me to do anything more than stand there naked with the shower running and chastise myself for my completely-within-my-control level of idiocy. I stepped into the shower and just sulked about it.

Sadly, while standing there, I realized that this wasn’t even the dumbest thing I’ve done in the last several weeks. Instead of boring you with proof, I’ll skip right to the apex of my dumbassery.

My parents has this big that was going around a while back. It descended upon them the week before Mother’s Day, causing them to isolate that weekend. My youngest brother also came down with it around that same time, prompting the chicken/egg question no one wants to openly ask anymore – except me, apparently.

I wasn’t asking the question. I was observing.

They were down for about a week and change, then flew to Dallas to watch BSB’s kids while he was down for back surgery. They are gone for a week and then want to connect with me for breakfast – which I’m always down for with them!

Except…

I wake up that day feeling…things I don’t like feeling.

My head was at about 30 psi, but there was nothing else. No runny nose, no headache, no fever, no phlegm-y throat…just pressure. Oh, my eyes were all runny and light sensitive. I’d slept like crap.

Naturally, I just assumed I had whatever they had. I told them, they’d just had it and were game, so off we went.

Well, almost off we went.

First, I went foraging in my medicine drawer. I’m sick rarely enough that I never know what I’ve got for over-the-counter cures around the house. With masks the last few years, that rarely became even more so.

Finding something in a blister pack that didn’t look like pepto, I made my way to the fridge for a bubble water to wash it down. Remembering my crappy night of rest, I popped a GOAT Fuel – a locally made, BIPOC-owned energy drink – and washed down my mystery cure with a half can in one quaff. Then I put on my shoes and ran out the door to meet mom and dad.

By the time I sat down at breakfast, I was high as a kite. I felt amazing. Not normal amazing. This was like MDMAmazing, and if you know, you know.

Over the course of breakfast, I over caffeinated to compensate and live-streamed my physical status updates to my poor parents. They seemed to enjoy – albeit in a horrified parental way – my body’s goings on. I’m sure they were simultaneously wondering how I’d made it this far in life without somehow winning a Darwin Award.

Simple – not dead yet. But don’t count me out!

Surprisingly, my parents let me leave with my car keys. I kid, but honestly, up until that last cup of coffee, I’d been thinking I was probably best walking home. I was also curious to see what I’d taken and how expired it was.

Literally.

I am use-my-camera-zoomed-all-the-way-in-to-take-a-pic-and-then-blow-the-pic-up-to-read-the-label years old.

Clearly, I’d lost the squinting game this time around.

When I get back home, I double-check the trash to make sure there’s an actual blister pack in there. I had begun to wonder if I’d accidentally taken that acid a passenger had tipped me back in my Lyft days.

Sure enough, there it was, one destroyed capsule package. I go to my medicine drawer again: allergy meds.

Ok, I can see that causing me to feel a little woozy. Ever since I have been on OTC remedies versus prescription, I’ve been a little more judicious in my use since they always hit me a little differently that they Rx stuff I took the first few years I had allergies.

Chalking it up to caveat dumbass, I decide to polish off the last of the GOAT Fuel from the fridge. Hey, the coffee seemed to help, right? When I open the fridge, I literally said, “Oh, for fuck sake” out loud.

If you’re wondering…my self-made attention deficit self had popped a can of 8% alcohol by volume White Claw and chugged half a can with an allergy pill on an empty stomach.

As humorous and simultaneously horrifying as that is, my brain instantly wondered if I’d just exposed my parents to the COVID since how would I not notice drinking alcohol if not for the loss of my taste?

Of course, I had to take several quick sips to see if I could taste the drink.

All good.

Knowing I was only a vector for stupidity and not a communicable disease, I laid down on the couch for a half hour and just reflected on what kind of dumb luck it must require to keep me alive.

A lot.

Like, seriously…if guardian angels and god are a thing, how the hell many angels are tasked with saving me from myself just to keep me alive to endure my hellacious existence longer?!?

Then it hit me. Maybe I was dead and this is my purgatory.

Or I’m just stupid.

TRSD 32: When You’re With Me…