Hey is for horses

I was on the phone when my first cube visitor arrived and I was still on the phone when that first visitor was joined by a second visitor.

The cube across from mine is unoccupied so they were hanging out there.

I was explaining to the guy on the other end of the phone that we still have to plan for all scenarios and we have to do it three days in advance so there will be times when we will do things and then have to undo those things and sometimes twice over. "It's all in the memo," I kept saying; and it was, it was a very fine memo and it took me awhile to compose it. It was not dissimilar to writing computer code with a lot of "if-then" loops, planning for Game 5 when it was only Game 2.

When I hung up my phone, I said, "Listen just because you want a parade and you want a tree lighting doesn't mean the world stops."

The world was actually going like gangbusters.

Today was more of the same, only I was shorted a few hours because I had to do someone else's job while still doing my own.

Sometimes, the newbie (who has been around for two years) will tell me to take a deep breathe and I say, "Fuck you newbie! Breathing is for the weak."

I got five minutes to work on the latest problem that was going to needs signs. I had arranged it so someone would come and get the signs, all I had to do was make them up. Easy Peasy. I printed the stickers and peeled them from their backing and carefully placed them over the cardboard sign and I read what I had typed. At the bottom was:

"Hey Ride Event"

It was too funny not to show to my coworkers and one acted out a scene were folks are riding around saying, "Hey."

He didn't say broom tree. He said prune tree.

Sometimes, I will do things to prove that I have no fear, that I am truly brave; but mostly I am just end up proving that I am reckless.

I am probably never without fear, it's just that sometimes I am able to stomp that fear into a mud hole but it always shows back up because it never really goes away.

"Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean people are not trying to get you" comes to mind when I think about my anxiety. A part of my mind says that my anxiety is all in my head and another part recites all of the oral tradition of what can go wrong.

...

"You look worried."

"I look worried because doom chases me."

I should get HOLD FAST knuckle tattoos.

I wrote three days in a row and then skipped a day and then stopped.

I been trying to read a chapter or two a day and I am almost not failing at that.

The yard needs to be mowed.

I did get a hair cut. The person cutting my hair asked where I was last week and I told here and then she asked about the week before that; I was at least three weeks over do.

I need to remind myself to keep rowing when I have the sails down because they were working against me. I have a point fixed on the horizon of where I want to go but the tides and the winds seem to be against me. I fight to readjust my course and say "Fuck you winds," but I do not know if I fight the winds because I have a true desire to reach my point or whether I do it just to spite what blows.

Having a fixed point is an improvement because I usually just let the waves and wind take me.

At times my eyes fall from the horizon and I just watch the ocean splashing over the gunwale.

One lawn to go

This is me avoiding mowing the lawn.

The back yard lawn is done and the side yard lawn is done. The front lawn is stilling waiting its turn.

It might wait until tomorrow.

...

My sister was complaining about how someone asked her to meet at an inconvenient time to her. My sister was doing a favor for the other person and this was not the first time that I have heard this complaint from her.

I said, "You know, sometimes you get to drive the boat."

I said it like it was a popular saying. I do not know where it even came from. If you google it, it does not show up as a popular saying.

Sometimes, I make up my own sayings.

I was complaining to myself about my work situation while I was mowing the lawn. Some of the situation I have let be created and some of it I have chosen not to handle in the best way possible. My rational is that I didn't make the situation so I don't have to solve it but it is starting to have a negative impact on me.

I heard, "Sometimes, you get to drive the boat."

too

Too many people ask me for too many things.

"It was one problem after another" would have been more welcomed than several problems all at once.

I was waist deep in problems when a pretty coworker came by my cube and started telling me her problem. In part, it was that she saw a problem on the street and tried to address it and the guy told her to go pound sand because I had told him that he could do it.

I told her I would fix it but that she was fourth on the list.

I did actually give permission to the guy to do what he was doing but I thought he was going to do it in a slightly different place. 

I walked outside and told the guy that he had to move, at least a little. 

The guy moved.

...

My patience is mostly gone and I am challenging folks when folks really shouldn't be challenged. 

Sometimes I am rude.

"How are things today?" I was asked as someone sat at the desk I was at.

"Not good. How can I help you?"

Shots rang out

"Shots rang out in the night"

It was about 2:30am Monday but it still felt like Sunday because I was sleeping.

I heard the distinctive pop/crack of a gun being fired. Three or four shots at first and then a couple more a moment later. What I didn't hear were police sirens. I remember thinking that the newspapers would probably say the shots rang out even though most gunfire doesn't ring.

I was wrong though because I didn't see any mention of any shooting in that part of town.

I am across the tracks from a neighborhood that seems to like to settle things with firearms.

It is five sets of tracks and an eight lane interstate highway and a different neighborhood trying to survive in peace between them and me.

I could hear the cars on the interstate that night.

The sirens were heard about a minute later so I opened an app on my iPad to listen to the police scanner.

Three crime scenes. Two found victims. One shot in the neck. One shot in the abdomen. The neck wound was non-life threatening on the male victim. The female victim was quickly taken to the hospital.

Someone said something at a party that a certain other someone didn't like was the motive.

I feel asleep not long after that.

Things are different. Things are the same.

I was supposed to have been there, sort of.

In danger's way, and if unscathed, then I was supposed to help.

But I had went to lunch, and then home because it was just another do nothing event.


I still have trouble going into that place where I had lunch because coincidentally the same folks that own the place where I had lunch also are the same folks that own the place that was known as location number two.

Survivor's guilt, I guess.

...

The drinking has returned but it is no longer an assortment of hard liquors after a few beers, it is mostly just beers.

Beers and Margarita's because if you win a round of trivia, you win a round of Margarita's and playing trivia is a good way to convince yourself you are not an alcoholic but a games man.

Which two Presidents were born in 1924?

2013-1924=89

89 years old. George H.W. Bush. Jimmy Carter.


In which decade was Goldie Hawn born?

Goldie was on Laugh-In in the 60's and she was in her twenties.

I think I actually wrote down 1960 minus 20 instead of just doing it in my head.

You do not get extra points for showing your work.

I asked.

...

Lately, I just want to shout at people but all of the people that are within shouting distance are not the actual problem, which leaves me no one to shout at, except myself and then I am that crazy guy on the subway.

Finish Line

That is my pass for the 117th Boston Marathon. The black letter F on the yellow dot means that I was allowed access to the finish line area.

It is the same type of pass that I have been giving for the past four years.

Prior to the race, I walked right down Boylston Street stopping here and there to say that things look good to the people that I knew putting the finishing touches on the area. I also walked down either side of the sidewalk and stopped in the Starbucks along the way.

Everything did look good so I drove to the other side of town to check on what was going on with the Patriots Day Parade and then drove by Tufts Medical Center to check on something else and then headed back to the finish line area.

Things still looked good.

The people that run the marathon have been doing it for quite some time. It is a huge event but most everything happens the same as last year. The set-up sometimes get tweaked but no big changes.

I walked the sidewalks one last time and then I left.  The things that I was there to address would have already made themselves evident if they were a problem. There were no problems so I went to lunch.

I watched the end of the Red Sox game and would peek at the other tv with the Marathon on it occasionally, as I ate something called Cajun chicken Alfredo and sipped a cheap draft beer  My friends asked if I was working. "I was but I'm not now. I don't like to milk the overtime so when there is nothing to do: I leave." was my answer. After lunch and a couple more beers I went home.

The first couple of times I was asked to worked the marathon I would stick around longer, trying to find stuff to do.  I would walk up one side of the sidewalk and down the other. I would do it seven or eight times. I would never see anything.

This year, I would have seen something.

Some people reached out to make sure I was okay.  I told them that I was but I could not help reflect on what might have happened if I didn't leave when I did.

Halloween

Hurricane Monday

I tell myself

I tell myself to just deal with the present.

But both the past and the future haunt me.

Prior

My feet weren't moving.

My mind wasn't turning.

I was unaware of things changing.

My world was getting smaller and smaller to the point I could not see past my arm's length.

Calls from beyond the length of my arm were distant and impossible to connect with.

I imagine from the outside it was like trying to wake someone up from a coma.

I could hear but I could not respond.

The leaves are falling like large snowflakes. I guess it is Fall.

Membership

(Friday, instead of drinking)

My membership gets me previews and I feel a little stupid not using them so I end up seeing more exhibits than I typically would.

I try to get into the mood. I try to not feel guilty and sad.

It was some photographer's work. I actually recognized some photos even if I didn't recognize the name.

One of his quotes about the space says that he tries to push the edge.

I thought: "there are times I do that."
But usually it is in some unpleasant way. I will say something that goes about almost too far.

I don't really enjoy the exhibit and I blame it on the crowd which really wasn't a crowd at all.

At 3:30pm we started making plans at work on what to do after. I said that I would not be joining them I said that I was done drinking for the day. I got a couple of eyebrows to go up.

I get a pumpkin latte. I do not like lattes.

I do like pumpkin though.

I didn't know how much of his photos were real there is something about catching the moment and that thing is different than creating the moment either physically or digitally,

She then mentioned something about chandeliers and morano glass

The work week has started

My goal today I'd to get ride of some clutter. There is a chance that today might be almost normal.