Hello!

I have a new phone. I am a tard and lost my old one.

Replacement obtained. Numbers lost.

I have most, but if you'd like to volunteer for me to add you to my Contact List(tm), comment.

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Thanks!

Lately I have been feeling.. irriated? I guess that's a good word for it. Aggro, perhaps. The problem this time is, usually, when I'm irritated or grumpy or aggro or generally cranky, there's a reason -- maybe not one I'm willing to admit aloud to myself, but there is still a reason.

I've spent the past couple weeks doing the "it will go away, it always does" bit which is true. I usually just get over it and move on. This time, I'm just cranky and for no reason I can identify. Not even that "I know the reason but I don't want to think about it" reason. I think, maybe, my current job has something to do with it. I seem to be the whipping boy as of late and it's starting the wear on me.

Here's something you probably don't know about me. I make fast decisions. Not hasty ones, just fast. I trust my intiution, and have learned to accept the consequences. My intuition is usually leads me in a good direction. Sometimes, not so much. But my thing is, whatever I do, if I'm doing something I don't, deep down, think I should be doing, it's not going to go well. Either I'll be unhappy, or maybe I might even sabotage whatever it is I'm doing without knowing it, and so on and so forth. I've just learned it's better to trust my instincts. They usually know what's up long before I've caught on.

So, when you come up to me and ask me what should be a difficult question, I stop for maybe 3 seconds, and respond, don't try to convince me otherwise. Don't belittle my decision-making process. Just because I didn't sit down and make a list of the pros and cons on a piece of notebook paper doesn't mean I didn't think about it. If I'm unsure, you know what I'm going to say instead of "Yes" or "No"? I will say: "I don't know," or maybe, "Dunno." And then, I will move on.

I suppose this is a long version of, "No one understands me, I hate you all!" *doorslam*

It'll get better, I'm sure.

Yesterday, on the bus, I was traveling to the Fred Meyer, looking to get a bit of lunch before going to work.  I got on, and took my usual seat on un-crowded buses -- the sideways one, up front, in a corner-type thing so I can relax.  Sitting across the aisle was a woman that had to be at least 400 pounds.  She was holding 3 Dollar Tree bags full of shit in that way that fat people do, little t-rex arms encased mostly in flab.  

About halfway there, she started pawing through each bag in turn, until she pulled out a can of lysol.  I arched an eyebrow as she uncapped it and sprayed herself down.  

Really. 

A fat slob on the bus sprayed herself down with lysol. 

My job consists of two distinct components, one as Scheduler and one as an inbound agent. The agent (CSA) position is simple and one I've been doing for over a year now. "Hi, thanks for calling, my name is Dave, may I have your...." etc. Mindless, repetitive, and it's a paycheck.

As a Scheduler, there are two sub-aspects: On-site and Phone-based. I do on-site, wherein I arrange for people to go to places at certain times. The phone people arrange to have a certain number of people available to answer calls at certain times. This is dealing with interpreters, so there's the mixed-in aspect of language (you can't send a Somali interpreter to a Spanish appointment, etc.).

I work swing when doing on-site. What happens is, when I arrive, I finish up the stuff the day-shifter has been doing, and poke around for an hour or so organizing my stuff for the evening, when a very large client sends in a very long list of a whole metric shitton of appointments for the next 36-48 hours. I fill these, daily, every day. Very well, I might add. Also, I deal with "omg we need an interpreter RIGHT NOW!" appointments, and interpreters with their various drama (my car broke! I'm late! I never got that! the client said to go home! There are two of us here!" and so on).

My boss has said, repeatedly, that she doesn't even know how to fill an appointment. Which is fine; the phone-based guys are far more busy during the day, and the reason there is one on-site person to the 5 or 6 phone people at any given time.

Which made the comment today, as told by my boss, to me, really, honestly, make me want to quit:

When Dave works, it's like we're short a person.

Bitch nearly got to fill her own on-site appointments.

In today's edition of Dave's Amazing Mucus Factory, I mention that that seems to be all I'm producing.  Two days of doing nothing and being insanely bored while doing it have paid off and I feel, for the most part, better.  I'm still all gross and congested, but I don't feel bad.  Which means I get to go to work tomorrow and cough and spread germs to my fellow coworkers.  Hah!

Tuesday, more dental work.  Tooth yanked.  No biggie.  But, I think, the tooth coming out was sort of a cascade effect because I woke up the next day with that motherfucking Venesian Death Flu.  I staggered into work Wednesday and suffered through.  Thursday, I emailed-in-sick, because I literally couldn't talk.

Today, Friday, I think I shall do the same.  Though, I am feeling somewhat better. 

I can't wait for cyborg bodies that don't get sick and have awesome arm-mounted plasma canons.

Watching the continuing saga of friends (not just here!) adopting kids or squeezing them out, as genetics, relationships, and circumstance warrants, brings to the moment a thought I've had.  Like so many others, I'm an adopted kid.  My sister and I, actually.  My parents -- here's the first thing for non-adopted people:  "parents" are the people that you lived with.  "dad" is the guy that taught you how to shave, and "mom" is the lady that caught you beating off that one time -- adopted because, as they tell it, they wanted kids and circumstances prevented it.  The details aren't terribly important.

I was one of those "closed adoptions" in Texas, where, actually, by law, the identity of the birth parent(s) (the lady the squeezed me out, and the dude that stuck his dick in her) is kept secret from everyone, me, my parents, official records.  The only record is at the adoption agency (think: double blind third party).  

There's many lifetime movies about someone finding out where they came from and confronting their birth mother 30 years later in teary-eyed accusation-slash-reconciliation because, oh no, she was raped and it was just so traumatic.  As far as I can tell, this is what non-adopted people think happens in real life.  We, The Adopted, harbor some sort of secret fantasy that we will some day break free of our paper prison and burst forth onto the world as a new person, empowered with the knowledge of where we really came from and also, finally able to answer those "family history" questions at the doctor in a meaningful way.  

It doesn't happen.  At least, not for me.  I don't particularly care which vagina I came from (admit it guys, the first time you ever saw one in the wild.. myself, I thought, "That's nothing like the drawings in the books!"), what really matters (shit, Lifetime moment) is who raised me.  

It's not even some sort of "Well, if they can't care enough to keep me, I don't care about them!" thing.  That implies that, in the scheme of things, they matter.  Sure, those two people whom I will probably never know, managed to do what a trillion other people have done before me, and make another person.  And then, they didn't raise me.  Maybe by choice, maybe not.  Maybe I'm the heir to a secret underground kingdom, or maybe my birth parents were gangsters and shot down in a senseless drive-by shooting while my birth mother was blowing some latino dude behind the dumpster.  

Point is, this is the hand and lot I was dealt, and the universe has managed so far doing things this way.  I'll trust creation to handle this for the best as well.  Or not.  

I am sure someone far more aware than I can explain to me the why, but I felt I should document the what of today.  

Holy crap:  I have not encountered so much cranky and pissy in months.  Perhaps it was me emoting and people around me picking up on it?  Or the other way around?  I'll admit, my (work)day started out pretty irritating and got worse as the day progressed. The irritants I encountered were, in this order:

• My semi-ultimate boss hauled me into her office and had the discussion that started, "So.. maybe I wasn't clear when we discussed your new position, but there have been people that have mentioned you're not doing this one small aspect of your job?"  Where the word people means one person, and small aspect of your job is the thing that one person should already be doing but I do when I have time and, actually, was already doing, and doing better than said person before said person even showed up for work, but whatever.
• After, my chicken tofu spicy curry and rice was cold.  God damnit.  As was my coffee. 
• The next seven -- I counted -- customers I spoke to all felt it was necesssary -- nay!  required! -- to interrupt me mid sent
•  
• ence.  Cunt.
• As some may know!  I have issues with the whole "seeing red" (and sometimes green) thing.  I have mentioned this to my boss-people as a concern because the awesome and well-designed perfectly accessible software we use uses only red text to indicate something is required over black text that indicates something is optional.  Most of the time, I can guess right, or, if I stare at it long enough, I can get it.  Usually, I just memorize who needs what and work from that.  When new customers with new questions come in, well, it sucks.  I asked my immediate boss about one today that was, despite being in the "ask the customer this question" area, was actually a "please ignore this it's just information fyi" datum.  I asked with the assumption he remembered this whole color thing; he did not.  He told me to "stop being me."  I sighed.
• My other immediate boss ("Bob, I have three bosses.") wandered over and chatted with me about the same thing that my semi-ultimate boss talked to me about.  I tried to smile and not punch walls.
• More
• fucking people inter
•  
•  
•  rrupting me ever oth
•  
• er word.  FUCK YOU ALL.
• No Mr. Homeless man, I do not have change.  I did not have change four hours ago when I walked into this building, nor do I have change now as I am leaving this building on my way to lunch, and you know what, when I come back in about 20 minutes, I won't have change then, and you know what might be more effective that standing here, all day, pretending that you're poor and helpless would be to schlep your way down to the Sisters of the Road cafe and being like, "Hey, I can work for ya for a bit and get something to eat?"  Or maybe hit up a food bank.  Ask one of the many places downtown for help?  Hey, this Sunday, they're doing the potluck in the park, right over there, mark it down on your calendar, or shoe, or whatever you keep track of things on, and also?  You smell like pot, so yeah, I don't much have sympathy for your case of the munchies going unanswered.  Bye!
• And then, the headache started.  And, not to be left out, the tooth that's getting yanked in 12 days wanted to get some extra hurting in.  Ooh, the irritation, it rises.
• And, of course, hey, we monitored a couple of your calls, and there's just a few small things you could do better...

Today has been one of those days where, I'm sure, individually, everyone was reasonable, but taken together, I sort of wanted to punch a wall.  Several times. 

Tomorrow, better?

There's a language simulator out there called MegaHAL.  Without going into computer science details that I don't really understand, you feed it things and it plays free association and learns from the grammar and vocabulary it is exposed to.  It "learns" language.  I created a wrapper for the MUSH-world, and called it HALBot.  I keep forgetting to turn it back on when it loses connection for whatever reason.  I just turned it back on and had the following conversation:

I was cleaning the closet out the other day.  That, by the way, is euphamism for throwing shit out while looking for something and then forgetting what you're looking for but throwing things is just so much fun, why stop now?

I was cleaning the closet out the other day when I came across a pile of books, notebooks, folders, papers, and so forth that I can infer from their content and arrangement were all piled on my desk at one point and not in a neat pile when the need to clean my desk (which, by the way, is a shorter way of saying that I was throwing shit across the room in a fury looking for something, forgot what it was and kept throwing shit because fuck it all, now I'm pissed and I don't care and what the fuck is this and oh my god how long has that teacup been the--too long, etc.) and piled all the papers and books and notebooks and so forth into a pile and threw it into the back of the closet, and every now and then, added to it.  

This time, I knocked it over (accidental) and had took the moment to examine some of the contents.  This particular pile has been through maybe three or four different closets in different homes.  The bottom-most contents were from my high school days.  There was a school spiral notebook full of chemistry notes.  And yes, when I take notes, I use one notebook per class.  And it was multi-colored.  

Above that, and the part that hurt?  I found the "personal" notebook.  It was full of all sorts of horrible things.  I'll admit, I sat down and read through it, and there were things that I thought at the time that I thought were very deep, and very meaningful, and very original, and you know what I did?  I sat there, and read them, and then, I got out a pen and I added margin notes.  Things like:

Am illegally downloading slowly watching on television while time- and format-shifting the media for my own personal use seasons 1 - 3 of BSG.

Oddly, I never got around to watching it. I think it started airing about the time I started not having the Sci-Fi channel and realizing that I didn't mind that.

We'll talk in a bit, when I've watched them and am a suitable fanboy.

You have permission to stay in bed until mid-afternoon. It's perfectly ok to eat a can of chili for breakfast. There is nothing wrong with wearing those sweat pants with the hole for the rest of the day. No one said you couldn't stay up until the sun rises.

I got back from my dentist a couple hours ago. I now have a temporary crown over a tooth that has been root-canaled. It's not nearly as awful as you're lead to believe. Aside from the initial discomfort of having someone root around in your mouth for two hours with drills and pokey things and other strange sensations, it doesn't hurt.

My jaw is a bit sore, and I'm sure, tomorrow, it's going to be even worse, but it's nothing like having a tooth pulled -- which this dentist also happily did for me a couple weeks ago.

Overall, I am pleased. I am poor, and I owe them a staggering sum of money, which my tax refund will handle, for the most part. Come Friday I will discern if I have to put off rent or a portion of for a week so I have some extra cash to live on until payday. I do not wish to dip into savings for this, for no good reason other than I don't want to.

In other, non-dental news -- I obtained a new notebook. A HP Pavillion db6000t. It is shiney and about a year old. I need to get a replacement AC adapter (already ordered, shipping from Beautiful Hong Kong for only $13) and I am looking at a new battery too, as this one is at about 70% capacity. It runs pretty warm,a but the internet has told me this is "normal".

For someone that just got one, I should mention that there is a configuration option for the linux, if you ever get one, to make the screen not flicker randomly. It has to do with the nvidia card toggling in and out of some sort of power management mode. Add this to your module's options (/etc/modprobe.d/options in ubuntu!):

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x222"

which sets it to max performance levels all the time. You end up with a slightly warmer notebook, but no flicker.

Guess what I did today.  Thank god for flexible spending accounts, eh?

Treatment Plan

Item	Patient	Insurance	Total
Extraction, surgical	31.20	124.80	156.00
Root Canal	155.20	620.80	776.00
Crown, fuse	428.5	343.5	772.00
Crown buildup	68.5	68.5	137.00

That belch that has the hint of throw-up in it, but also you can taste the spoon of peanut butter you ate for "breakfast".

I have discovered three things today. 

First, Verizon Wireless will, eventually, refund your security deposit.  I got a check in the mail yesterday.  I didn't know it was a check, so I tossed it with the bill and ignored it.  I opened it today.

I also discovered that I am, in fact, sick.  I've been pretending otherwise for a week, but today I woke up and my body protested on about seven different levels, enough so that I called in and went back to sleep.

Finally, if you have a citibank checking account but no nearby Citibank ATMs in your area, you can deposit checks with a US Bank ATM instead and it works.  That is much better than mailing checks halfway across the country.

It's been that kind of day.  Plus side, I'm finally a bit ahead on my finances.  I've been coupling being a frugal ass with various bonuses overtime, and so forth that I have a small chunk set aside for "In case" instead of my standard "well this sucks" method of dealing with financial problems.  We'll see how that works.

For a very long time, I didn't bother with resolutions.  I've never been one to set major goals for myself.  It's not that I lack drive or motivation, but I've always looked at the typical "goal setting" mindset as identifying something that I don't have but if I did have it, I'd be happy and to be happy, I must work toward it, and by "work toward my goal" school counselors and teachers and ministers and the guy on television with really great hair all told me that some sacrifices had to be made.  I'll reiterate with bullet points:

• You don't have something.
• Set a goal to get that something.
• Getting that something will make you happy.
• Set a goal, and you can be happy.  By the way, you are not happy now.
• Once you achieve your goal, you are happy.
• Make sacrifices in the now to reach your goal.  Or, don't be happy now so you can maybe be happy later.
• Now that you've achieved your goal, you're happy.
• Right?

It just doesn't work for me.  I don't understand it.  Why would I bother with doing something that makes me unhappy now if there's a chance that I could be happy later?  This is not an elaborate justification for instant gratification but rather a question of why do I think that what I don't have now isn't enough to make me happy?  Do I really have to sit around and identify some small subset or parcel of life that if I obtained, would roll the celestial counter over one more digit and my Happiness Meter would mean I am suddenly happy? 

Bull.  Bull shit.  Bull fucking shit. 

But here I am, caught on the 1st of the year, surrounded by people making resolutions because that's what you do.  It's a great social goal-setting program.  It is the wet dream of every middle school guidance counselor.  The entire nation passes up their papers with their Long Term Goals scrawled in as the answer for #3.  And here I am, not unwilling, but unable to come up with a good answer. 

I always wonder, for a moment, am I doing this whole living thing wrong?  Am I missing out on something bigger, or better?  I know I have almost mastered the art of simply existing and learning to be where I am, but I look around and I can't help but wonder:  Are those that are constantly setting goals, are they doing it because they want to or because they must?  Are they looking around, each little goal a misguided stab at happiness, when they should just sit back and be happy with what they have?

So this year, like so many years past, I will write in, for question number three, that my New Year's resolution is to be happy.

I suddenly realized that I hadn't posted a picture of me in well, forever. You might wonder, "What does he look like?!"

You probably don't. This is mostly to make it easier for the stalkers to track me down and the police to find some photo of me after I go missing and/or commit a crime. Hello $city_name Police!

This was taken last week, during Snowpocolypse, as I had mentioned that I had a hat that made me look like a taxi driver. My mother insisted on photos. I was walking home, and the phone had a camera. Picture taken. No, I did not stop.  No, I do not know what is going on with my mouth there.  No, I am not high.  Or drunk.  Yes, it is very cold.  I assert that is why it is such an awful photo.

.

Through strange acts of scheduling and other factors, I went to work on Friday.  Thursday, Christmas.  Saturday, I had off.  I go in tomorrow for two days, followed by another two days off.  All together, this has accomplished making me want to just stay in bed for a week.  The prospect of trudging through snow and ice and still-not-shoveled sidewalks (REALLY people, chop chop) has not helped with the motivation.  

However, on the other hand, snow is melting, and for the first time in a while, I'm finally feeling that "oo, spring, new year, horray!" thing.  Usually this manifests itself in me cleaning off my desk (it needs to be done) and doing my taxes early.  Today, I was staring at the fridge and looking for dinner and grumped, slammed the door, and like 30 paper grocery bags the stupid hippie had crammed up in that little space between the wall and fridge came crashing down.  I glared.  I thought about just leaving them.  Instead, I pulled the rest out, got the broom and got the rest out and sat down and folded them all up and put them in to larger bags and so forth.  4 bags, total, crammed with more bags.  Then, I glared at the top of the fridge, covered in plastic bags.  Why stop now?  10 plastic bags full of plastic grocery bags later, I have created a little pyramid, which I shall leave in the kitchen and when the hippie arrives from Seattle and asks, "What?" I shall say, "How many do you need to keep?"

When I was but a wee child, I enjoyed Christmas.  Not because of the family thing but because dude, I got stuff for free, without having to beg for it.  I'm like Cartman that way.  This marks the second year -- this year by choice, the first by random happenstance -- that I'm all alone on Christmas eve / day.  

I love it.  

While I don't mind having someone else in the house (though, I'd prefer it to be someone that knows how to clean up after themselves) when there's no one here, it's one of the few times in life lately that I have some peace and quiet.  It's very nice. 

My only complaint -- or worry -- is where I'm going to get caffiene tomorrow.  I guess I could take a walk mid-day and try to find some random gas station open.