Avoidance

Avoidance. That's probably my most commonly used superpower. Sometimes, it's a good thing, like avoiding a tackle while playing football but sometimes it is not such a good thing as avoiding doing the dishes.

I was going to say avoiding work instead of dishes but the work I avoid is the menial things not the pressing things, I'm best under pressure and if the pressure isn't there, then I will create it.

...

I have a USB seven port hub that I plug my 8GB flashdrive into and twice today the connection to the flashdrive dropped off. I would click on the icon for the drive and I would get a message that the drive was empty which is slightly scary. And by slightly, I mean very.

I back up the drive occasionally, but there would have been two rather involved projects that I would have had to recreate.

It took ten minutes to copy the contents to my 1TB external drive.

...

I'm posting this to avoid work.

...

I'm still working on a very good cup of homemade coffee. It's a project that I've been working on for quite some time. A lot of money and effort has been spent. I grind my own beans in my burr grinder, I use twice filtered water which I measure in a measuring cup, I weigh the coffee, and I'm currently trying my efforts with a French press, adjusting the amount of coffee and the coarseness of the grind up and down.

I mostly drink alone

It's a controlled situation. I usually just talk to the bartenders and waitresses because most of the other people there just bother me. I go there to put things on hold. When you tell someone you're at the bar when they call you on your cell phone to ask you a favor, they usually say that they will call you back later.

I don't go to the bar to talk to the other patrons but when you are known as a regular, sometimes people just can't help themselves.

One guy that can't help himself is Bobby. Bobby is actually there more than I am but when we're there together, he always defers to me. I say, "Bobby, this is your bar too. You're a regular. You rate."

Bobby is a couple years younger than I am but he looks a few years older. He's a doorman, makes decent money and has a good soul but he's sometimes unsure of himself.

When I got there it was crowded but I got to sit in my usual seat and Bobby was sitting in the farthest seat from me, by the Jager machine. I waved to him when I caught his eye. Bobby is the only one that I make an effort to acknowledge because sometime his get a little bruise if he thinks you no longer like him.

There is a table for two behind where Bobby was sitting and two women about Bobby's age where sitting there, he would pass beers to them and make small talk and then he got into a conversation with them.

I was happy for Bobby. He made a move and he was doing well, there were smiles and laughs. Bobby possesses a simple charm.

Then some other regular name Bob walked in. I never liked Bob but I would respond whenever he would speak to me. Bob usually comes in to see Roy, who was sitting at a table behind me but Bob walked right over to Bobby and started chatting up the two women.

I watched.

Bobby wasn't doing to badly but he doesn't have the superficial social skills as Bob. Bob is an energetic bullshitter.

For a moment I thought Bobby just gave up, he sat back down on his stool at the bar and just sipped his beer. I had wanted to tell him not to give up, when he ordered a beer and then stood up as he passed it to the table and he remained standing as he rejoined the conversation.

After awhile, it seemed Bobby was losing steam so I sent a round of beers over for everyone but Bob. Eventually, Bobby did give up and came and sat by me.

"That guy's a piece of shit," I said.

"Who?"

"Bob, or whatever his name is," I said as I pointed with my chin. "You were over there having a conversation with those ladies and he just walks in and cock blocks you."

"You saw that?"

"Yeah, I saw it. He comes here to talk to Roy and Roy was sitting behind me and he didn't even talk to Roy, he just went over and got into your conversation. I hate him. I never liked him but know I hate him."

"Yeah, I'll talk to him later about it. I've never seen you like this."

"I bothers me. This is your bar, he shouldn't be doing that to you."

I went on for awhile, and then had the bartender send over two more beers to that table and to tell them that they were from Bobby.

Bob shouted over, "Hey, Bobby! What about me?" Bobby, nervously laughed and just shrugged his shoulders, I leaned over and said, "Fuck that guy." Then I left.

It's Large and the Women Like It.

It was the whole Mohammad & Mountain thing and I was in charge of the mountain.

Everyone that saw it, remarked on how impressive it was but it's something I see everyday so I'm a bit jaded to it.

My laptop was set-up on her kitchen table and my 24" monitor was to the right of that, much like it sits on my desk at home. I would hear "Nice Set-up," and I would think, "Not Really," but I would say something in agreement or thank them.

It's a three year old laptop running on a non-Intel processor with the cheapest-largest monitor I could get at the time. I'm not impressed.

Four pages of a tabloid is what we were creating. I like having all the pieces and then place them in general locations and go from there. I like doing that because sometimes you have this one element that stands out and should be focused on, or this one thing that everything else needs to work around and if you don't have those special elements from the get go, you have to redesign all of your work.

We didn't have all the elements even though there had been time to get them and I was being asked to get going on it even though that wasn't the original deal but time was running out so I got going.

My status is kind of volunteer; I'm a quest; I'm doing them a favor, so when it comes to who gets accommodated, it's me. I'll work with you, I'll set-up my computer on someone's kitchen table so we all can see what's going on but if I need something, it's going to come in the way I want it. I don't want to have to make something work because someone halfassed it. I want the thing good when it hits my hand.

My status is 'kind of a volunteer' because, I'm working for free but I didn't volunteer, I was volunteered by a friend of a friend which gives me an 'F-You' card in my pocket.

We were working on it in earnest, for three days straight. Seven hours on Sunday, five hours on Monday and then eight on Tuesday - twenty hours total and probably half of that was waiting for things that should have been in hand.

She was holding a smaller version on the four page tabloid in her hand. It was a smaller version because the largest we can print in the office is 11x17. She said,"I like it. It's a good piece." I just stood silent, it was a good piece but it wasn't worth twenty hours of my life, it wasn't worth the parking ticket I got because I had to stay later than what was planned, it wasn't worth the aggravation of having to make all sorts of phone calls to get things that should have been at the ready, it wasn't worth asking to leave early from work and using 'vacation' time to do it.

"Don't you like it?," she continued. It was raining outside. I knew that rain was forecast for the day but I didn't wear a jacket or bring an umbrella because I was supposed to have been at home before the rain came. I thought about waiting in the rain for the bus to get to the subway because for the sake of time, I didn't go home and get my truck but took the bus in from work. I thought about hustling to make a deadline that nobody else gave a shit about. I said, "I'll like it in the future. Right now I'm a bit irritated at this whole process."

She was chilling

She was wearing a form fitting black knit top and designer jeans, and leaning back in her highback chair, her shoulders hitting to top of the back and her ass right at the edge of the seat. Her arms just hung in her lap and her legs were parted. It wasn’t very lady like but I wasn't complaining.

eh

I left work early so that I could help them meet their deadline.

I hurried up.

I waited.

And waited.

The deadline that we wanted to make was at 2:30PM. The last version of the piece was sent at 9:30PM.

Most of that was waiting. Waiting for a photo, waiting for another photo, waiting for a decision, waiting for an opinion, waiting for approval, waiting for the final changes.

By the end of the day I was a little bit irritated. Not making the 2:30PM deadline was not a good first impression to give to the printer and sending the finished product out at 9:30PM meant that I certainly did not need to burn a favor and leave work early.

Non-Angelina Related

This post is unrelated to Angelina's post it's just that her title was familiar.

Wonders, Wanders for a long time I had thought the phrase was "wonderlust." You know, a lust for wonder, so you have to travel to see it because your everyday local things are just that, everyday, and where's the wonder in that.

Then I found out it was wanderlust and that was good too.

I'm surprised that I hadn't seen that phrase in print before I found out that I had it wrong.

like olden days

My rockstar status is still in effect.

It not mega rockstar; it more of a times-have-changed rockstar.

It shows up most when the timing is just right.

Everyone who walked through the door knew me, except for this one lady. She ordered the chicken fingers.

I was having the teriyaki steak tips over Caesar salad.

The bar talked about the homeless across the street and that it looked like there was a new guy and how it was odd that the Pine Street Inn would send a van around to pick them up at that time of day. We talked to the Bud distributor as he came in with banners. We talked about the high-wire act that had just taken place.

I finished my salad as she was having her left over chicken fingers packed up to go.

“I think those are one of the best things on the menu. You choose wisely.”

“Yeah, they were very good.”

“And it looks like they went back to their regular honey mustard sauce. Last week they had a different one.’

“This one was delicious.”

“I used to get the chicken finger or the boneless buffalo fingers all the time until one of the bartenders started making fun of me.”

“Hey! What? Who me? I wasn’t making fun of you; I would just ask every time that you can in whether it would be the chicken fingers or the boneless buffs.”

“So, then I started mixing it up, and I would have to remember the last time I ordered them and then figure out if it was too soon to order them or not.”

“And now you have a complex about it,” the unknown customer said.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“I could eat chicken fingers everyday,” she added.

“Timmy, you can order them whenever you want; there is never a wrong time.”

She sat quiet for a little bit after that, I answered a question here and there from the others in the place and then she left.

I watched her go.

Boil water advisory

Boil water advisory.

Saturday, I called on my way to the supermarket to see if there was anything that was needed in the house. I was told bread, which I knew about and then I was also told that a water main broke so that I should get some bottled water too. I was told that we could boil our water drinking but sometimes that’s a hassle.

It was about 7:30PM and by the time I got to the supermarket. All the water was gone. All the water was gone from three supermarkets and a BJ’s, so I drove home.

For the last half of forever, I’ve been filtering my drinking water; it’s not because I’m scared of contaminants, it’s that I’m not a fan of off flavors.

Drinking unfiltered boiled water was rather flavorful and not in a pleasant way. So, I have a five gallon cooler jug of boiled water that I filter through a Brita Filter for drinking. It’s not bad, there is still a slight taste to it but it’s nothing to complain about.

The worst part of having to boil your drinking water is the amount of time it takes for all that water to cool back down, so in the morning I make certain to fill the five gallon jug to the top from water I boiled the night before and refilled the pots and boiled some more so that it will be cooled down by the time I get out of work.

You have to plan ahead, a step or two.

Reading the news and talking to people out and about makes me worried for society. It’s seems people refuse to take the time to listen and just don’t take a moment to try to understand.

In Kmart, where I was buying ice cube trays, the cashier was asking me about the problems with the water supply. I told her what I gathered from the news and the internet. She was worried about the water that was being bottled at the moment. I told her not to worry about that water, the problem was only regional and most of the bottled water comes from a different region.

She asked about water for pets. I said that water for the pets should be boiled. She asked about water for the garden. I said that you didn’t need to boil the water for garden plants unless you were going to eat them. She said. “That seems rude.” I thought she was from India and I wondered if that had an affect on her views.

Coffee on Monday morning was hard to find. I had thought of making it at home but I figured that someone downtown would have figured something out. Someone did figure something out but I only found them after my third stop.

I then read the paper online and it turns out that some coffee shop owners were under the impression that the normal process of making coffee was enough to make the water safe to drink.

I wonder if boiling water for just a minute which is what is being recommend is enough and then you have these chuckle heads who think just getting the water hot is good enough. These people are in the food preparation industry and you think that there would be some sort of knowledge that they should have.

Then I imported Lady Gaga to iTunes

I rolled out of bed fully clothed. It was 5:47AM. I forget the reason I left my bed but since I was up, I picked up my iPod Touch and checked my email. The only new messages were showing up in my normal email account as opposed to any email aliases I may or may not have.

I touched the screen to see the messages. I thought they would all be junk but then I saw one sender's name that doesn't send me junk and then I remembered a phone call from yesterday.

I was supposed to have been called if they needed a photo worked on but instead they just emailed me. By the time the email had been sent, I had a few hours invested at the bar. I thought to myself, "They should have called."

I opened the photo and one guy was washed out and the other guy was in the shadows. The guy on the left must have been standing directly under a recessed spot light; and the other guy was standing at the mouth of some dark abyss, or so it seemed.

The photo sucked.

There wasn't much I could do. I made it better but better horse shit is still shit.

Then I imported Lady Gaga to iTunes.

unholey

The chances of me getting stabbed are on the decline.

Me being there is getting treated like some grand coup.

holey

The first warning I took as a sort of “heads-up” type of thing, particularly because that's how the statement was prefaced.

The second warning I took as a “be mindful” type of thing.

The third warning was, “He pulled a knife on a guy.”

I’m just talking to her, that’s it. I talked to her while she was just some barista at Starbucks; it would be rude if I didn’t talk to her when she’s sitting next to me at a bar.

The thing of it is: the thought of getting a knife pulled on me doesn’t frighten me.

So, now I have to weigh talking to an acquaintance and the slight risk of getting stabbed.

I could probably get the guy thrown out of the bar if he did threaten me because bar owners do not like that type of thing because the Licensing Board does not like that type of thing.

“So, this is the thing?”

Sometimes I just want to quit. I want to stop fighting against the ever coming tide. I’ll get tired of the

endless journey. I'll fail to see the point of it all.

There are other things that I could be doing.

“Yeah, just stop. Let it wash right over you. Drowning ain’t all that bad,” is what I’ll hear in my head and I

won’t disagree. But then I’ll hear, “So this is the thing that does you in? This is the thing that is going to

defeat you?”

And the ‘thing’ is not worthy of a victory over me, so I’ll just take the next step further and shut up about it.

Usually, the internal dialog is condensed to:

“I want to quit.”

“So, this is the thing?”

The manager came over and said, "Man, Timmy, all the crazy just seem to seek you out."

Monday.

It’s a bit of a let down. There is no drama. There are no last minutes things that need to get done with no time to do them. There are no possibly crazy people making problems at the front desk. All the computers seem to be working.

It’s no longer Rock & Roll.

Jimmy was at the bar on Sunday. He told a joke. And what follows is pretty much word for word how he told it.

There’s this priest and a rabbi and they decided to switch jobs.

The priest says, “You do the confessions and I’ll do whatever it is you do.”

“But how will I know what the restitution is for the sins.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got a book there with a list of sins and what the restitution is for each so you just look it up in the book and if a sin isn’t in the book then just ask the alter boy, Johnny.”

So the rabbi agrees to swap jobs with the priest and he’s sitting in the confessional when a lady enters.

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned it’s been three weeks since my last confession.”

“What is you sin, my child?”

“Father, I kissed a married man.”

So the rabbi looks it up in the book and says, “Okay, say one Our Father and one Hail Mary and your sin will be forgiven.”

“Thank you, Father,” she said as she left.

A moment later, she enters the confessional again.

“Forgive me Father but I more than just kissed that married man, I gave him a blowjob.”

So, the rabbi, looks that up in the book and says, “Okay, say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys and your sin will be forgiven.”

“Thank you, Father,” she said as she left.

A moment later, she enters the confessional yet again.

“Forgive me Father but there is something else. I also had annual sex with him.”

(I looked over at the bartender at this point and just smiled. Neither of us said anything and just let him continue)

So, the rabbi starts to look up annual sex in the book but he can’t find it. So, he calls out to Johnny the alter boy and asks, “Hey, Johnny. What does the Father give for annual sex?”

“Usually a Snickers bar and a soda.”

(I just rolled my eyes and the bartender just walked away)

“Ha HA HA ha. I love it when the jokes stick it to the priests.”

Jimmy then stepped outside.

“I don’t know if he got the joke wrong and doesn’t know what anal sex is or if he was trying to clean up the joke because you’re a woman.”

“Yeah, what’s annual sex, anyway?”

“That’s the kind of sex I usually have. Annual-ly.”

You always know when you hear the punch line on one of Jimmy’s jokes because he always laughs the loudest.

Brevity was not his strong suit

The best thing to come about out of last week was that I survived it.

That's not true in actuality but I think it makes a good opening line.

Anyway, work-wise, last week was a trial. We had one guy out on vacation and despite my busy workload, I had to cover about half of his work-load. He deals with people right off the street so you never know who or how many area going to show up. And every computer went down for a day and a half.

I was just trying to get to the end of the day on Friday when I overheard someone at the front desk getting a little loud. His volume was caused by frustration more than anger. My time filling in the desk of the guy on vacation had just ended and I was making sure that the next guy was as comfortable as possible when the loud discussion at the front desk began.

The lobby was full, which means about seven people were waiting in chairs; people who really have nothing better to do than to listen to what goes on at the front desk. The guy was getting no appeasement and not even a bit of courtesy, interjecting myself into the situation wasn't something I wanted to do but all of the people that normally deal with these issues were out and the front desk was being a very poor ambassador.

The guy was tall, about late forties or early fifties, clearly irritated and had a mountain's worth of papers to make his case.

When I was somewhat certain that the guy coming on was settled in, I took the couple steps to the front desk and stood next to the guy and listened.

"This here is Tim. He's one of the engineers here, maybe he can help you."

"Hi, I'm Peter Miller. I work helping people get by the scalpers at Fenway and the other day I was kicked out by the Police who were responding to a complaint by the manager at the Commonwealth Hotel but he was complaining about the other guys and not me but the police kicked everyone out and I have a letter from the manager that says I can be there..."

"Sir, I don't mean to be rude but we are very busy here," I said as I turned to the room full of people, "And I'm here to try to help you but I can help you better if you just tell me why you are here in this department."

"Well, that's what I was getting at. It's all kind of complicated and I think that the whole history of the situation is necessary."

"My problem is that this my not be the correct department to help you and if you just tell me briefly what you are trying to accomplish, then I can direct you better."

"I'm just trying to do my job and not have a repeat of getting kicked out of where I was and someone directed me to the Commissioner here. I was paid in advance and when I got kicked out I couldn't do my job and I could be sued if I'm unable to complete my job, and I'm here to see the Commissioner but I'm told that he is out and there is no one here that can help me."

"First off. That's true. The Commissioner is not in, the Deputy Commissioner is not in, the guy that usually deals with unique issues like you are talking about is not in. And secondly, it's a little unrealistic for you to think that you would be able to just walk in with all these papers and get to talk to the Commissioner right away without an appointment. But if I figure out some way that this department can help you, I will let the appropriate people know on Monday."

His problem boiled down to that he uses a Segway as part of his job because he has a disability. Segways are not approved to be on the sidewalks in my city but they are not explicitly forbidden either and I don't think that the police kicked this guy out for doing his job, they kicked him out for doing his job on a Segway, on a busy sidewalk, on one of the busiest days in the area - a Red Sox game day. The Segway is the problem, not anything else he was so emphatically trying to tell me about and if he had just said that at the beginning of the story I could have had him on his way but he knew that the Segway was the problem so he didn't want to bring it up because in other departments he got the bum's rush as soon as he said, "Segway."

He kept on trying to give me all sorts of documents and I kept on explaining to him that no one is going to read a mountain's worth of paperwork and that he should just compile a brief letter of introduction stating his dilemma and just submit that and then come in with all the supporting paperwork. He then informed he that not only does he have a physical disability but he also has a disability that makes it difficult for him to write letters.

So I picked four sheets of his information which included his I.D.'s, a letter from Hotel Commonwealth, his permit to hand out fliers, and something with his employer's information on it. I gave him one of my cards and wrote on the back the name of the guy that I was going to talk to.

It took about twenty minutes to get the guy out the door and at that point in time I pretty much gave up hope of completing all the thing that I needed to get done that day, so I stayed a little while longer at the permit desk to help clear the room of all those people who just witnessed the show.

I was complemented a few times on my patience by the folks that sat down, I would just shrug and say that it was part of my job and explain that there are people in City Hall that honestly will try to help you out, it's just getting the right information to the right people that is the tricky part.

Bottom line is: the front desk sucks.

It was the last train home

I wasn't keeping track of time because I always leave before things become an issue but for some reason I thought it would be grand to visit all of my bartender friends that were working Friday night and that caused me to catch the very last train.

The pillars of Boston society do not ride the last subway train.

The dude that was chatting me up pulled out a bottle of rum that had about two fingers worth of booze at the bottom and offered me a shot. I told him that I was all set. He then moved on to someone more interesting. Someone with a back tattoo. Someone who insisted that the train waiting just outside the station was waiting because he just clocked some guy in the mouth and the authorities were waiting for the police to arrive. He also decline a shot of rum.

...

My regular bar is not my favorite bar anymore but I still feel some sort of obligation to visit. The place was busy for four o'clock Friday; all the chairs at the bar were taken. I was slid a beer and stood by the railing for the downstairs bathrooms. A manager stood beside me and asked if I wanted him to add a chair at the bar. I told him that I didn't mind standing.

There was only one customer that I recognized and he is disliked by the bartender and I find him to be annoying; but there was plenty of distance between he and me so I felt assured that any interaction with him would be brief.

I got the chair at the bar by the taps, four chairs away from the guy I knew but that didn't last too long as that guy relocated right next to me. I knew then that my running conversation with the bartender was over. She once joked that I wasn't even supposed to wave at the guy much less talk to him. But what was supposed to do? I could hear only half of what he was saying and I only asked him to repeat half of that.

He would wave at the bartender to get her attention and she was doing her darnedest to ignore his empty glass. He mentioned that he thought the bartender hated him. I just shrugged.

"Can I ask you something? And you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to but I've seen you leave generous tips and do you think it helps you get better service?"

"I don't know," I said as I hardened my outer shell.

"Because I've left generous tips and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I also don't want to just leave a big tip and have it seem - I don't know, weird."

"I tip on what I get or if it's a slow day. I don't care if the percentage is high. If you order two beers and leave a ten, that's over 150% tip but it's only six bucks. I tip to make me feel good; to make certain I'm doing right by them. I don't tip to get anything out of it."

I then put my elbows on the bar and drank my beer. He was quiet for a moment. I may have thanked God.

"That's a good answer," he said but I didn't hear him, I only caught it after I asked him to repeat himself.

"What is?" I asked.

"That you tip for you."

I heard, "Oh, we're still having that conversation?" from the smartassed part of my brain. I just shrugged, took a large sip of beer and got even more irritated because he seemed to be indicating that what I said were just words and not a part of my soul.

I out lasted him but by that time Janel was counting her cash drawer. We only got to talk for a moment. I had shown up to decompress from a busy week but I got no relief. So I headed over to what is probably going to be my new bar.

One of the owner's was smoking outside.

"Hey, how's this Friday going for you?"

He smiled and held out his hand and said, "It's better last week. No trouble but it's busy." I shook his hand and he then tossed his cigarette and lead me inside to get me a beer. I didn't see anyone I knew. I was looking for the best free chair at the bar when I was poked in the shoulder.

"Hey, Steve! I couldn't see anyone I recognized until you just got my attention. I was worried about were I was going to sit."

"Timmy. I have a seat right here waiting for ya."