Is it just Tuesday?

Somehow it seems like it should be later in the week. Maybe it’s all the drugs. I’m feeling much better today, but it was one of those days where you’re supposed to go as hard as you can for 15 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, and then go again. I thought I was going to pass out at one point which would have been a bit embarrassing because I know THMFIC would still make me mop the floor. The brains behind the gym is back from her trip to SoCal, though, and so I’m guessing his days of wandering aimlessly around his house poking at things trying to figure out how they work without reading any manuals is over.

There has to be something interesting that I can write about that won’t get me in trouble, but I can’t think of what it could be. I read today about how some PR dude got in trouble for twittering that he hated Memphis before giving a presentation to FedEx, who are based in Memphis. I mean, holy hell, can’t the guy have an opinion? Don’t the people at FedEx have a frigging sense of humor? I really don’t want to live in the south, either. In fact, I’m trying hard to avoid ever going to Texas in my life. OK, so not really trying HARD, but I’m telling myself that I’m going to use my sheer force of will to keep me out of that state and some of the adjoining states like Oklahoma or Arkansas. Then again, I had to drive through parts of Kentucky a couple years ago and I even went to a Microsoft conference in San Diego. (I was too conscientious to skip out, so it could have been in Peoria for all the sightseeing I didn’t do in San Diego.) Texas is probably not all that bad, comparatively, plus they have all that barbecue.

What am I saying? I’m avoiding Texas. Yes. And anything south of, say, San Diego. I watched those shows on parasites on the Discovery Channel back when it was the airplanes and tropical diseases channel and not the Mythbuster/blow-stuff-up channel like it is now. Guinea worms! Malaria! Dengue fever! It all comes when you get south of the border. And by “the border” I think I mean the city limits of Santa Barbara. That’ll even keep me out of LA, another place where you could catch me twittering about how I’d hate to live there. You can even tell my boss. He has a sense of humor.

I’d make a graph as to how hot a woman would have to be to get me to live in the South (again) or Los Angeles, but I’m not sure of the units of woman heat. It’s probably something metric and just plain confusing like Kelvin. I mean, Kelvin doesn’t even line up right with Celsius. Who was the marketing genius who came up with that? Dry ice, -77°C. What was I talking about again?

Another Monday survived.

Meetings seem overrated to begin with, but when you get last-minute meetings that go from 11AM to 3PM you know you’ve done something wrong. Or at the very least someone thinks you’ve done something wrong and you’re being punished. In any case, it really felt like a Monday and I’m lucky to have survived it.

It was also my first real day of hay fever symptoms this year. I took some Claratin, and I felt sleepy all day. But today was also the first day that my back felt OK when I got up and that made for a relatively easier time at the gym. Relatively, because I still feel more tired than I usually do, and the first lap around the building I wondered if I could do any more (I did 6 more, along with the cleans and burpees that went along with them.) Still, having to stop in the middle of a workout to blow my nose was a little weird.

What is it I was doing?

My back’s been hurting again and yesterday after working out at the gym I was looking forward to taking a handful of Advil and taking a nap. I did go out to breakfast at the Tin Shed and stuffed myself so it was the best idea I could think of. But I got a call from a friend who wanted help moving. I’ve known his family since way before he was born and I couldn’t say no. He’s even had some health issues lately, so that trumped any sensible thoughts of taking it easy on my back.

Today was much more of the sitting around I was planning on doing yesterday. I finished A Spot of Bother which was a good book that made me feel uneasy through most of it, though nothing truly horrible happened in the storyline. Some friends from the gym came by in the afternoon and got me out of the house, but at what cost? A bird pooped on the side of my head. I keep hearing that’s lucky, but I think the only lucky part is if I don’t end up with the bird ‘flu. Ah, well, it’s not as bad as if something larger and more mammalian pooped on my head. If I had to make a choice, I suppose cloaca poo is the way to go. But why would I have to make such a choice?

Stupid Apple updates

I’ve been waiting for about an hour for my Mac to update iLife and iWork and I’m close to giving up now. I’m even resorting to blogging on my iPhone which is usually more painful than it’s worth. Give me a real keyboard any day.

In any case, I was a little under the weather today and almost went home mid-morning like I did on Tuesday but I have a surprisingly large amount of questions popping up from all sorts of customers this week. I felt a little better by the end of the day and should have stayed home from the gym but I made it in for several silly reasons. The biggest reason is sheer compulsiveness, as always. It was a long cardio workout and I was sucking wind the whole time. And cranky too. There is a small subset of people at the gym who find it cool to throw their dumbbells and kettlebells and it pisses me off for some reason. I think its the noise, mostly, though it is dangerous because the rubber mats and bumpers make the weights, 20-100lbs, jump around and they could hurt someone.

The noise just reminds me of the loud guy in the next cubicle over at work who is the worlds loudest typist and noisy in general. All day long he sounds like he’s hocking up a lung and farts loudly. He also grunts while he eats and generally makes me glad I have an iPod every day hes at work. Customer phone calls are also a joy when he’s around.

Oh well I better call it a night before my thumbs fall off.

Tomorrow is the day!

And yet another personal defect I’ve found today: I can’t remember to lay off of exercises when I’m coming off an illness. When I get sick, my back gets hurt pretty easily and I should remember this when I’m at the gym. We were doing 10x deadlifts and box jumps and my back cramped up a little on the deadlifts and I certainly felt it jumping down off the box. I substituted something else, but I should have known better. When I got up this morning I felt much better than I did yesterday, but my back was a little tight.

Oh, and what a great nights sleep I had. I started with kids parking across the street and being so boisterous that the cops were called. Then, around 5AM, I found out that the country code for El Salvador is the same as the area code for Portland, Oregon, 503. That’s because I got THREE calls that were for El Salvador at 5:09AM, 5:16AM, and 5:17AM. If you dial 011 you get international dialing, then if you dial another 1 by mistake you get Estados Unidos and then when you dial 503 you get Oregon, and the rest is the phone that happens to ring in my bedroom. In the past half-year, I’ve only gotten phone calls from four people I care about (3 dudes and my sister) and a half dozen telemarketers. It’s just dumb luck that I got a call from someone calling for El Salvador.

In any case, the high point of my month is tomorrow. I’m sorry Grayson, it wasn’t the lunch we all had on Saturday, but it’s the day I finally get to start using my new shower again! The grout has been resealed and we’ve given it more than three days to cure.

I wish the zenith of my month could have been more exciting, and I even tried going on a date, but the most interesting thing for me is the actual use of the rooms I’m getting renovated. Which reminds me, I still need to clear out my dad’s old bedroom and have it refloored, recarpeted, and repainted. Ah, the excitement in my life is neverending. This reminds of a song by Limahl. I really shouldn’t have had that glass of wine with dinner.

Sick day.

I knew things wouldn’t be going that well when I got up in the middle of the night and my stomach felt like I’d eaten cement. When I got up this morning I just felt lightheaded and just not quite right. I’m used to this being a symptom along with a head cold, but this was different. I left work early and finally took a sick day. I still got on my computer and checked my email, but most of the day I just took it easy.

I did, finally, do my mom’s taxes and I sorted through all the credit card bills I was piling up. I can’t say anything exciting happened, but I got some things done. I just hope I feel better tomorrow.

The way to finish faster.

I guess I was the first one to finish our normal workout at the gym (it was timed) though three people were faster than me in the earlier class. That’s good enough for me. I knew Nicky would be faster than me, so I decided not to fight in his weight class and picked up heavier weights. HaHA! Not that it really means anything. You just need to compare your own times and just use the people around you as motivation. Today, we ran two laps, and did a 30-20-10 of dumbbell deadlifts and dumbbell push press. Jeff was faster than me on the middle of the workout, though he doesn’t run as fast as I do now. I made it back in after two laps around the building first, but he caught up to me on the 30, and we were pacing each other throughout. I took off out of the building just before he did and I think I made it around the corner as he was coming out. The thing is, I felt out of breath and wanted to walk, but I could hear him behind me. I thought I was going to throw up but I kept pushing myself and finished in pretty good time.

I forgot to mention that it was in the high 30’s and raining when we were out there and I was pretty miserable and cold. The sound of Jeff’s footsteps behind me was really the rain falling off of the building because when I finally decided to look behind me, he wasn’t there. I’m still not willing to push myself to the point of throwing up, but I was lying on the ground for a while after this.

I get grief from THMFIC for my old t-shirts that I wear to the gym. I have a lot of running shirts from my sister and I figure nobody’s going to care at the gym. The long-sleeved t-shirt I had was from 1990. I had to admit to someone who told me she was 9 at that time that I was 26 then. That sort of math makes me feel old, probably because I am old. Ah, well, it’s still a long way to 91, where my dad just about made it to.

And if anyone else is keeping track of my bathroom woes: I get to start using my shower again on Thursday. Finally!

It’s a mystery how I remember who won the games yesterday.

I was hanging out with people from the gym and now I know better than to go out drinking with certain people. In the same way that I’m able to stop eating everything on the plate in front of me, I also seem to drink whatever is put in front of me. Some people are more cruel in their drink selections.

In any case, a more exciting Saturday makes for a more subdued Sunday which is fine by me. I spent most of the day reading Real World, translated from the Japanese book by Natsuo Kirino and I’ve really decided that I need to finish that book and put it out of my mind. It really doesn’t seem to have much of a point, just characters that annoy me. I’m getting close to the bottom of my stack of real books, unfortunately finding A Spot of Bother to make the stack a bit taller. Once they’re all gone, though, it’s back to thinking about the Kindle again.

Happy Birthday Ma!

I canceled my Friday workout at the gym because today was the last day of the deadlift cycle and I’ve been overdoing things. Everyone else is breaking their PRs but I really should be taking it easy because of my back. Serendipitously I realized that Friday was also my mom’s birthday.

My mom said didn’t care about actually having any more birthdays, she’d had enough, but it sure beats the alternative. We went out to a Japanese restaurant and then to my sister’s house for cake. I finally used my iPhone for taking pictures of something besides the workout written on the board at the gym.

macake
justcake

Some stupid guy needs to get some sleep.

If I had any sense (and if you’ve reading this you probably have some idea of how much sense I have) I’d probably be asleep right now. But I started watching some TV shows from the last few nights and they’re addicting like the Skittles I really shouldn’t have open on the kitchen table all the time. Fortunately for me, I probably only eat a half-dozen individual Skittles in a day, and according to the intarweb there are an estimated 31 to 41 individual Skittles in a bag. So even if I ate ten a day, that means I eat one small bag every three to four days. My mom buys them at Costco in boxes of 36 bags, so 1116 to 1476 little Skittles in a box, or 1296 on the average. That’s about one hundred thirty days of Skittles in a box. And what can I gain from this calculation? I’m not really sure. What I am sure about is that I ought to turn off the TV and this computer and get some sleep.

I have noticed that I’m getting better at running around the building, probably because it’s much shorter than running around the block at the old gym. I also noticed that my eyes are starting to get itchy so the first day of spring tomorrow (also my mom’s birthday) may signal the start of hay fever season. It’s hard to run hard when your nose is running as well.

Whose idea was it to stay up so late?

I figured I should get out of the house when someone calls, but it’s a school night and they wanted to meet about the time I usually go to bed. Well, stupid me, I went anyway (the whole needing to get out of the house thing) but I should have been in bed for three hours already. I’m surly enough as it is at work, this isn’t going to help.

That’s what I get for having friends who work in creative fields with flexible hours and are decades younger. This isn’t going to help my workout recovery, either, though I only had one drink.

Stuck in the 80’s.

I really have nothing interesting going on today (no surprise) and just left work early to take the restrictor out of the downstairs shower because it felt like it was just dribbling water on me this morning. The old shower is nothing compared to the new shower that I’m forbidden from using at the moment. Other than that I punted the gym since I’d already canceled and I could use the rest.

The only thing that’s cheering me up is finding this 80’s tune that they used to play in Boston when I was there for school. It gets stuck in my head and I’d really like to buy a copy of it, but just try searching for “My Ex” by the “Sex Execs” and you’ll see what comes up on google. Nothing savory, that’s for sure. This is pure 80’s cheese. You’ll know what I mean if this link works for you.

My Ex – Sex Execs

Oh, and I did have a bacon cheeseburger today at King Torta for lunch. It was salty and nasty but really, I don’t give a shit right now.