This is the confession of a 42YO loser, who hasn’t been on a date since he was dumped the week before 9/11 (that’s 2001, the real 9/11) who hadn’t kissed a woman since the same week. Well, so that’s a lie. If you remember that I went out with my friend Reid and his 24YO babysitter, I got a little drunk and I stole a kiss from her. Actually stole a second to make sure that the first was as fun as I thought. I am paying the price.

The price of kissing a 24YO is not just the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease that I probably got from her. The price is not just the dinner that Reid convinced me to buy her, she of the poor luck with men, she of the crashed car, she of the bad luck in general. No, the price of going out with a 24YO — even when you know nothing is going to happen — is to be toyed with and to be tormented in ways you can’t yet imagine.

And the luck is rubbing off as well. First the virus. Then crashy computers. Even the expensive new Mac I took in for repairs last month is making noises like there’s a leaf caught in the exhaust fan. And work scheduled “important” meetings on NFL kickoff night, a night I’ve been waiting for since the end of the last season on February 5. I just hope the bad luck doesn’t continue.

So knowing it was just dinner, I took her to a nice restaurant. Not great, not horrible. A date spot for the yoot, though, from the looks of things. (Sun, it’s where we went when you were last in Portland, so no comments from you.) Afterwards, she wanted me to take her to the strip club where she wants to get a job as a waitress. Still no problem; she’s 24 and I have no idea what kids these days do for money. But at the strip club she PICKS UP SOME GUY. On a night where I thought I was going to spend a lot of money on dinner and get away scot free, she found a way to stick the knife in and twist it.

Well, there you go. My only date in five years. I bet it will be another five until the next. If I live that long.

P.S. This isn’t the only “first date” where the woman I was with picked up another guy. The last time, the woman ended up marrying the other guy.

I can’t say I’m 100%, but I can say I made it through the day. As did everyone else at Megacorp, I expect, since the big announcement seemed to be a lot less than everyone expected. In any case, I think I’m employed at least for a few more months. It’s all a big mystery.

I have no real insight on much else, but the birds are going into the chimney early and you might want to come see them soon.

Saturday I had plans to help a guy move some 32′ pressure-treated 6×12’s down onto his boat dock so he could use them to hold up the front of his boathouse (a house for his half-million dollar boat). I was getting over my virus, or so I though. I was out in the 95°F heat all day. Turns out that it wiped me out and I slept for 12 hours that night. It also made something hurt in the lower abdominal area, so I felt fine while I was lying down but felt intense cramping when I stood up. That was a joy. Felt a little better today, but not great. And tomorrow work starts again.

Traffic is going to be hell again. I don’t understand why traffic is so much better when school is out. I can understand the morning traffic, since everyone is trying to get to work and school at the same time. But why is evening traffic so much worse? I’m sure there’s a reason, but knowing it isn’t going to make my commute any better. I guess I better hope that the Advil and the iPod hold up tomorrow.

My throat was so sore that I couldn’t sleep (every hour or so I’d swallow and that would wake me up) so I went in to see my slightly odd doctor. He said, “It’s just a virus. Let’s make sure it’s not strep, because I’ve been wrong before.” He also said that all you can do for a virus is drink “soothing drinks” and take Tylenol. The rapid strep was negative, and I felt reassured until I got home and noticed that my hands felt weird and so did my lips. Fortunately, my expensive neighborhood is populated by doctors, so I just asked one of them if my symptoms sounded typical. The friendly epidemiologist was outside watching the birds, and she said it sounded like an adenovirus. After some google searching I think it might be a coxsackie virus: hand, foot, and mouth disease sounds very likely.

Yuck. I don’t suggest looking up anything medical on the internet.

The good news is that even with a fever of 100.1°F I felt well enough to drive myself to the doc and back. I only had one near mishap, and that’s because there are some intersections in town where accidents are meant to happen. I mean, seriously, look at this link. 60th and Stark is one light for that complicated intersection. If you’re on 60th, everything is green, and making a left turn onto Stark is certain doom. And yet I still try to turn left onto Stark. Of course I’d never have to go there if I wasn’t trying to visit my sister.

I felt much better in the middle of the day. But my sister was right; taking a shower tired me out. And then in the afternoon I took a nap and it was all over.

I hope I do get better soon. I was told to avoid Megacorp tomorrow because of all the carnage, but there’s no way to avoid that. Still, who wants to be called in from a sick day just to get laid off? Better if you’re healthy.

So if I said I stayed in bed all day, would you think I was hung over, scared of the world, or running a fever of 101.9°F? (It was the last one.) I was down to 99.2°F at one point, but I’m back to 100.0°F. I’m the most coherent I’ve been all day. I finally had to get up to drink some more water. I think I’ve had two glasses of water, a dozen Chicken-in-a-Biskit crackers, and four Advil today. Oh, and a half-cup of coffee to see if that would stop my head from splitting open.

I wonder what I have? My throat hurts a little, my head hurts a lot, I’m running a fever, and my nose isn’t any more congested than usual. The best part was last night when I had the chills and was shivering AND I felt hot! Oh, and even worse, I think someone mailed me some cookies and I haven’t had the energy to open the package!

Every time I think I feel OK, I lie down and it’s several hour later. Well, I like naps, so I suppose it’s OK.

Time for another nap!

I was having trouble doing much of anything at work because of yet another stomach ache, and the funny thing is that I forgot about it while I was at the gym. Not that anything very exciting happened at the gym. I don’t think I even talked to anyone other than to say hello. All very odd if you ask me.

At Megacorp a friend who is a 21-year employee was telling me that he didn’t really care what happened. If he got canned, he’d get another job. Fine morale at that place. I got a call from an outside organization related to work who wanted to know if I’d take more of a leadership position, but I had to tell the other organization that my project lead seems to think that he owns my immortal soul. Ah, life.

Well, I felt quite dehydrated yesterday. I don’t think it had anything to do with the night of drinking, or the 1.3 mile walk to the hardware store in 95°F heat, or the run up the stairs of death in the same heat. It must have been something else.

In any case, I was feeling too good about myself, what with the impending doom at Megacorp, or the lack of anything interesting in my social front, so I decided to temper my good feelings with another trip to an online dating site. Same people. Same lack of response. Good to see that you can count on some things.

Time to see if I can find my copy of, “I Don’t Like Mondays,” by The Boomtown Rats.

I missed yesterday’s post because my friend Reid wanted me to meet his 24YO babysitter. He likes screwing with people and he kept telling me how cute and available she was so he could introduce me to her and say YOU CAN NEVER GO OUT WITH A 24YO. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Once he took me on a pub crawl to meet women, and when I actually had someone talking to me, he started saying, “HEY, WHAT IF WE WERE SERIAL KILLERS? NOBODY WOULD KNOW.” He kept it up until the woman left (which didn’t take very long, as you can imagine.)

We stayed out way too late because one of the parts of the torture was to show me how late a 24YO can stay out compared to an old guy.

In any case, yesterday’s post would have just been something like: Why is it so <deleted> hard to find a <deleted> bucket? I bought a cheap <deleted> sponge mop at <deleted> QFC, but they didn’t have any <deleted> buckets that were big enough for the <deleted> head of the <deleted> mop. I went to the <deleted> hippie neighborhood food co-op and the <deleted> didn’t have any <deleted> buckets. I went to <deleted> Trader Joe’s and the <deleted> didn’t have any <deleted> buckets. I finally had to walk to the <deleted> hardware store and buy a <deleted> $10 cheap <deleted> Rubbermaid bucket. Next time I’m going to the feed store and buying a <deleted> horse bucket.

Boy howdy, I really got nothing.

Well, I left work early ’cause Dave the trainer wanted me to show up early at 5:30. Turns out he wanted to get two of us at the same time, so he could make DOUBLE WAGES. Actually, it was because his dad was in town and he was having dinner with him. Even then, I didn’t get out of there until about 8PM. I must be a gym rat. Not because I look like a rat (after all, I am SO HOT now.)

Mariko & Peter’s silly dog Dede is here while they’re hiking in the wilds of Oregon. She’s quite wily and keeps getting into my dad’s candy which, unfortunately for Dede, often contains chocolate. Well, apparently chocolate doesn’t immediately kill basenjis, but it does give them horrible gas.

I had an hour-long phone meeting today with a guy who really likes the sound of his voice. Actually, I think he’s just not quite right, and he likes repeating obvious things loudly and clearly. Some people on this particular call often try to talk over the guy, and that really just makes it a shouting match. The hour-long call went from 12 noon to 1:40PM. My 4PM group meeting, scheduled for an hour-and-a-half, went until 6:40PM. At least that was interesting.

MARIKO IS NOT MISSING (yet). She’s hiking in the mountains with Peter and Dr. Harris.

Yesterday at the gym, I was called a gym rat. I only go 2-3 times a week, but sometimes I’m there for 2 1/2 hours. I also was asked how old I was because I’m always picking on Timmy, the Stanford guy, like it was grade school. Ah, well. At least I got a tour of the local animation studio afterwards.

Let me tell you, I think the whole Tom Cruise thing is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING than the whole Jonbenet Ramsey thing. Dave the Trainer even had a rumor that they found Tom in NYC spanking some guys and feathers all over the room. I think he got suckered by some fake rumor in the local “alternative” newspaper, but who knows? Weirder things have happened.

Everyone at Megacorp is still worried about getting laid off. The ones who got it early are the best off, since they can look for jobs before the number of unemployed people in Oregon skyrockets because of the layoffs. The best bet, according to the guys I have coffee with, is to get hired by Union Pacific driving railroad trains. For some reason, there’s a shortage of applicants. It sounds like a pretty nice job, really. Honestly, I think I might actually go for degree #5. Masters in Public Health? Bioinformatics? Masters of Nursing? A law degree? I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just try to keep my job. Change is scary.