So sleepy.

My sister came home this morning very EARLY, and of course she called me. To be honest, she didn’t call until 8:41, but it’s Sunday morning and I was still asleep. She called to remind me to pick up our mother at the airport. Like I was going to forget.

I was almost late, though. I busted out my brand new ladder and cleaned the gutters. Gutters get filled with the worst sort of muck: leaves, mud, and the grit from roofing shingles. My new shiny ladder is now covered in the stuff. I was hoping I could leave it pristine as a symbol of my commitment. I had to go to a suburban Costco to get it and the parking lot was so full that I parked diagonally across in the farthest corner, and I still had to wait for someone to leave before I could park. I braved all sorts of suburban shopping traffic, almost hitting a car that swerved into the turn lane I was in, and then when I rushed back to the gym I found that Dave the Trainer and I had screwed up our schedules and he was busy with another client.

But in any case, my mom is back, and she’s yelling at my dad now. I don’t have to do it any more.

Fruityness.

So if I get a manicure, does that mean I’m an ‘mo? My nails were getting so bad that they were snagging on everything. I went to a local nail store, Nails Atelier and got a fill and a manicure. Not a flawless job, but I just wanted to be able to get dressed without ruining my socks. Or sleep without catching my nails on the blankets. It was pretty good and the most contact with a woman I’ve had in a while. Which is what the woman at work said, that there are guys who get manicures just to get the contact with women. That’s kind of creepy.

Work advice.

A guy in my group at Megacorp told me that we work in a job we don’t like, for a guy we don’t like, on a project we don’t like, and his wife told him that was the time to start looking for a new job. An old group manager heard what we’re doing and called it monkey work. People who don’t know the situation don’t understand this at all.

This situation has also been described as, “Having your boss hand you a bowl of sh*t flavored ice cream.” It’s still a job, we still get paid, but it’s time to look for greener pastures. I was called into a meeting this morning by my manager and my manager’s manager because, apparently, not only am I required to do my job but I’m required to ENJOY it. I have no poker face. They know I don’t like it.

In other words, there’s no way I’m surviving this.

In other news, well, there is no other news. Dave the Trainer screwed up his knee and had to cancel so I thought this was a fine time to sit at home and watch TV on a Thursday night. Also, to eat food from Jack-in-the-Box. We don’t have In-N-Out Burger here.

Sounds like my demanding sister is OK.

My ma called from Japan and she said she’s bringing me back candy that is available at the local Asian grocery. Whoop-dee-doo. I told her to come back soon before I have to kill my father.

I found out what I’m doing at Megacorp for the next couple of months. I’m making marketing demos in Windows. Now, I was hired to be a Linux developer which is a lot different than being a Windows demo maker, but that’s just the Megacorp way. Your skills are not used to fit you to the proper job. If you’re standing around with your Masters degree in Computer Science and they need someone to fix the Megacorp van, you better become an auto mechanic real quick. Even if you don’t have a drivers license and only ride bicycles. If I were a spiritual man, I’d say my immortal soul was in danger. As it is I just think my ass hurts.

Little help here?

Every time I call my doctor with minor questions, and I do mean minor, the front desk just schedules an appointment for me. I go in and see my doctor who gives me a funny look like he’s wondering why I bothered to come in. In fact, there have been times where he asked me why I bothered to come in.

So now my nails are starting to crack. Actually, they all look like there was some singular event that caused them to act weird. Perhaps it was the hand-foot-and-mouth disease I had. In any case, here’s a picture. Anyone with any medical background (or  experience something similar) think I should go see the doctor about this?

Cracked nails.

The past comes back to haunt me.

Tonight the democrat won the Oregon gubernatorial race (thank goodness) but the web coverage of the event showed the head of Oregon’s Republican party, who I recognized.

I grew up on the edge of the “rich” area of Portland and my grade school had the hill kids (the rich ones) and the others (we freaks down below). Now it’s all kind of ritzy, but back then there was a social divide that could only be crossed if you were a jock. If it sounds like I still harbor some bitterness, I do.
My Boy Scout troop had the same mix of kids. Some of the guys were real pieces of work, and one of the biggest was Vance Day. I got along with him OK, but he was really awful to my buddy Greg. His dad was a plastic surgeon (still advertising in the “Living” section of the newspaper) and I think his sister was the singer of “Nu Shooz” who had the single hit “I Can’t Wait.”

Anyway, I heard stories about him while I was off in college and he was in seminary school. People would see him speeding up the hill in a convertible with a pair of blondes. He’s got quite a resumé now. I can hope he’s better, but since he’s the head of the Oregon Republican party, I’m pretty sure he isn’t. His background information doesn’t make him sound any more human, either. As a friend once said, people’s personalities are pretty set by the time they’re 12. (I don’t completely buy into it, but it’s a good rule-of-thumb.) Fortunately, I probably won’t ever have to talk to the guy again, and I’ll only see him on TV.

My dad is driving me crazy.

You’re probably thinking, “What’s a grown man doing living with his father?” and I’d have to say, “It’s an Asian thing.” He’s making a mess as only a 90-year-old man can, and complaining about the food I get him. He’s been passive-aggressive his whole life, so he won’t tell you what he wants to eat, but he will complain about what you get him. It’s easiest just to take him to places he doesn’t complain about, and that’s really only three or four places. Usually I can leave most of this to my mom, but she’s in Japan right now. I’d ask my sister for backup, but she’s in Japan right now.

Oh, and he tried to lock me out of the house tonight when I was out trying to unblock the gutters. It’s been raining hard enough to flood the creeks here and, of course, I only decided to fix the gutter situation after 9PM. Imagine being soaked in the dark after having buckets of water poured down your sleeve, only to hear the door slam and lock as you’re trying to get inside. Perhaps if I get more sleep.

Perhaps I should disconnect the phone.

There was a time yesterday when I wanted to be asleep. I was hung over, after all, and I didn’t want to be awake to experience it. Unfortunately, some clown decided that our number was the one he wanted to call at 5:20AM and when no one answered, he called three times. When I finally got to the phone, he figured out that he had misdialled THREE TIMES. Later, the election calls started. Usually they’re recorded nonsense and they’re quite annoying.

In Oregon we have 100% mail-in voting. Somehow they can tell when you’ve sent in your ballot and they stop calling. However, there’s no way for me to mail in my ballot and then find out if they actually received it. Voting seldom makes sense.

It’s raining so hard here that the police had to be called to block some streets that had become lakes. It usually doesn’t rain that much here (I keep reminding myself), it just rains all the time. We also had a 2.7 earthquake (barely an earthquake). Somehow, even with all that, I got myself so tired at the gym that I can’t get excited about it.

Carolyn, I have you beat.

I got up at 4PM today. I think I’ve realized long ago that after about three beers – the stronger microbrew ones anyway – I should stop. It was a horrible day, with pouring rain, and probably the right day to sleep in. In any case, I should probably get to sleep but I’m busy watching Doc Hollywood and trying to clean up things in my sister’s blog. I have lots of ways to waste time.

People actually read this stuff.

I realize that random people read my blog when I get random responses from time-to-time. Often its on weird stuff. A year-and-a-half ago I complained about a girl I knew in grade school and today someone wrote to me that Holly Ann Reinhorn is now Holiday Reinhorn, married to one of the guys in The Office TV show. She’s even mentioned on his IMDB page. Weird.

My sister has left for Japan today and I’d say more but I’m about to pass out. Being fat and lazy and not going to the gym for two weeks does not make the return any easier. Plus, I’ve been getting little sleep this week. I’m so tired that I immediately start having nightmares when I fall asleep and that makes me wake up. It doesn’t help that my group at Megacorp is still (STILL) in flux and my putative future job sounds so terribly tedious that I’m going to spend part of the day tomorrow polishing my resume. Yow.

What a weird trip to the acupuncurist.

I don’t know why I’m still going. Well, it’s probably doing SOME good, but I can’t be sure. Today was kind of strange because I got there 15 minutes early and he kind of rushed me into an exam room, then he got me on the table in record time and after a few minutes the batteries in his electro-stimulation-thingy went dead. I kept trying to get someone’s attention to fix it, but no luck. I was out of there in record time, and when I got to my car the acupuncturist was leaving as well.

I had a meeting with my new 2nd-level manager at Megacorp. Or at least the guy who is likely to be my 2nd-level manager. Most of the meeting was him talking on his cell phone in some Indian language. I thought I had a boring job already, but it looks like I’m going to be doing something so much more boring that I couldn’t even imagine it before. Well, we’ll see what they decide to make me do, before I decide whether to make myself part of the solution by removing myself as part of the problem. At least in this transition time I’ve been removed from all of my scheduled meetings.