I'll probably do this at some point.

Longer ago than I'd care to remember at this point I made a cross-country drive (CT to AZ and back) by myself and I really enjoyed it and I'd like to do it again.

The next time, though, I'd like to do as much of the driving as possible at night.*

America just looks different at night and I'd love to see things like the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains by moonlight and small towns and big cities by streetlight.

That looks much more sappy in print than it sounds in my head, but I think it would be really interesting and maybe even a little bit dangerous.

*not the PA Turnpike, though, that was hellish.

Seriously?

Vegan Smoking Woman was wearing leather today.

Were I not so busy having a horrible work day today I might have engaged her in conversation about this.

She got lucky.

Quoth the Vegan...

"If you cared at all about your body or the environment you'd stop eating meat."

I'm not inclined in this "direction" to begin with, so it should come as any surprise to the person who said this to me that I have no plans to heed her words.

It probably didn't help that she was smoking a cigarette while she was saying this to me.

Well, THAT was uncalled for!!

...nothing like finding out only a few days in advance that you're going to be running in a 5K on Thanksgiving morning!

It's bad enough that I hadn't trained- at all!- for the race, but I was also nursing two injuries left over from soccer this summer/fall.

I didn't stop during the race and I did finish, but my time was a joke.

I guess the saving grace is that it made my family and friends happy that I took part, and I'll try to remember that as I limp around for the next few days...or weeks.

Hopefully I'll be healed up in time from my surgery (shooting for midwinter) that I'll actually be ready for next year's race.

We'll see.

A Question

Okay, so I really don't like talking on the phone. I'm not sure why. Other than my family there is exactly one person that I will talk to at length on the phone- one. I talk to that person maybe three or four times a year. I'd rather talk to somebody in person, send an email, or- gasp!- write somebody a letter!

Clearly, however, all of these things put me in a very, very small minority and that's just fine with me, but it leaves me with a question.

When I see all of these people out in public on their cellphones all the time, who are they talking to and what the hell are they talking about!?

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from former Scottish international footballer Gordon Strachan:

Reporter: "Gordon, can we have a quick word please?"

Strachan: "Velocity" [walks off]

I know your secret identity!

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

It took me a little while, but once I figured out how you found my blog I knew it was you!

So, Abby, let me be perfectly clear about a few things:

1. You are a horrible person. Maybe now that your "inside" and "outside" match you will learn that you have to be nice to people. Guess what? No matter how beautiful you are (were!) it doesn't really help when people can't stand being in the same room with you.

2. Your sunglasses are ugly, but what made you look like a jackass was the fact that when I ran into you the other day it was raining!

3. Am I bitter? Sure. Mainly because I ignored what everyone told me about you and entered into a relationship with you anyway (see, no "s"). So, sure, I'll take some of the blame.

Have fun in Austin, I won't be visiting.

I would prefer not to.

I think Bartleby the Scrivener may be my hero.

Is it wrong?

To become giddily happy upon learning that an ex who treated you badly has gained a prodigious amount of weight? I mean, dozens and dozens of pounds?

Well, if that's wrong I don't want to be right.

Oh, and the sunglasses make you look like a preppy jackass.

Wait, that was redundant.

A Brief Reminder

Folks, if I may borrow a line from George Constanza, "We're living in a society!!"

What does that mean? It means that while we don't have to like each other, if our society is going to continue to exist, we at least have to control ourselves just a wee bit. For example:

• There is no reason for you to stand so close to me in the checkout at the grocery store that I can feel you breathing on the back of my neck. Seriously, no hyperbole here at all, I could feel the woman's breath. Did I mention that I was at the self-checkout line?
  
• Speaking of the checkout line, who still writes a check at the grocery store?! Seriously, it's 2010, you can get an ATM card which deducts funds directly from your checking account! I'm sure if you send your bank a telegram they will dispatch one of these magical cards to you by the next available mail coach.
  
• You can ride my back bumper as much as you want, it won't make the car in front of me go any faster.
• Your two-footed, studs-up tackle that took out both of my legs and drew blood from one of my ankles was uncalled for in any game, but especially a pick-up soccer game. Please note that, when I was eventually able to stand up, I shook your hand and told you "don't worry about it." Just because you think you live in "Thunderdome" doesn't mean I have to join you there.
• Earlier this week I went to see George Clooney's new movie, "The American." I quite enjoyed it. The consensus of those exiting the theater with me, however, included comments like, "All the good stuff was in the trailer..." and "There was barely any action!" I guess I was mistaken in thinking that it was a well-crafted, thoughtful film, that raised a lot of interesting questions that are usually lost amid the car chases and explosions.
• Sitting in your beat-up van by yourself with the dome light on at 4:30am is creepy under any circumstances. Doing it in a van that is full of all of your "hoarding" materiel in the parking lot of the building from which you were evicted because of what your hoarding did to your apartment? SUPER-creepy.
• The way to return from six weeks on paid administrative leave because of your bi-polar disorder is not to work a day, call-in sick the next day, then leave after half a day on your third day. Furthermore, upon returning from your time away it's pretty bad form to spend that third day talking about how excited you are to take a vacation before the end of the month. I may be taking a vacation next spring- in case you were wondering.

Again, I'm not even saying you have to be nice, just civil and, frankly, reasonably normal.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Ha!

Roger Clemens has been indicted for perjury.

Serves you right you sanctimonious...

FYI

Working with a genuinely mentally ill person is exhausting.

I wish her only the best in getting the help she needs, but I hope she is gone soon. And "real" help, not the kind where your psychiatrist tells you something you don't want to hear and then you "fire" her, or, when your new doctor changes your medication, deciding you don't like the change and going back to your old medication- without telling the doctor.

Going to work- always a challenge for a person as lazy as I am- has become almost unbearable.

Did This Really Have To Happen?

Let me preface this by saying that I have no animosity towards any of the people below and that all of this happened after I had discovered at my first destination that I had left my wallet at home, requiring a 40 minute round trip that I hadn't planned on making. So, I might not have been in the best mood.

Today was my only day off this week and not much of one as I had numerous unavoidable tasks that I had to complete. The first of which was to fill my car with gas for a lengthy drive I have to make tomorrow afternoon.

I pulled into my usual gas station and as I was exiting the car a co-worker pulled in next to me. Luckily, he was preoccupied with his own business and, let's just say, I don't look anything like my "work self" when I am out in the real world. As we were pumping our gas a third car pulled in next to him- another co-worker. They engaged each other in conversation as I was finishing up and I escaped unscathed. Well, not really, or I wouldn't be writing about it!

Wallet now on my person, I returned to the task at hand: getting my car inspected and an oil change. While waiting for this to be done I went to a near by movie theater and caught a matinee (Inception...meh.). After the movie I walked back to retrieve my car. I hadn't even put both feet through the door before I saw another co-worker. Pleasantries were exchanged, etc..

Again, nothing against any of these people- one of them is actually very nice- but I just didn't need to be reminded about what is waiting for me tomorrow!

I'm not dead!

Just busy.

I'll be back.

Whether you like it or not.

Should this happen?

Almost seven hours have passed since I played soccer tonight.

Only now did I discover that at some point while playing tonight somebody stepped on my foot (I assume- I don't actually remember it happening), causing the nail on my big toe to crack almost halfway across.

Luckily, this is not the first time that something similar has happened and it only too a few minutes with my "foot injury triage kit" to fashion a binding that, while it won't save the part of the nail that was damaged, will at least keep the crack/tear from getting worse before it falls off of its own accord.

And now you know that.

No, no, no...

I already loathe the Proactive commercials that pop up on television every, oh, four or five minutes, and now one of their ads features the beautiful and talented Jenna Fischer from The Office.

Sadness.

A word about existential dilemmas

They suck.

Make of this what you will...

You know how sometimes when you navigate to a page that has a search box on it the box will sometimes display a few of the most recent terms that you searched? Well, that just happened to me and here are the terms that it displayed-

• Humphrey Bogart
• Boston
• Europa League
• Scotland
• Johnny Cash

I don't want to read too much into this list, but I wonder how much you could learn about somebody by seeing what they search for. I know that, if you showed this list to somebody as representative of me, I'd be just fine with it.

I don't get it.

Why are otherwise rational adults obsessed with crown molding?

This small strip of contoured wood seems to make people blind to almost anything else.

"Sure, the house has termites, is in a high crime neighborhood, and is built on the site of an ancient graveyard, but look- crown molding!!"

If at first you don't succeed...

I live, more or less, at an intersection.

Today and ice cream shop opened up in the storefront diagonally across the intersection from me.

I wish the owners the best of luck, but there's something they should know-

While this may seem like an ideal location (at a busy intersection and within about a 90 second walk of the town's waterpark/Little League park/soccer fields, here is what has preceded the ice cream shop at the same location- at least the ones that I can remember off the top of my head: a tattoo/body piercing parlor, a seasonal tax preparation service, a nail salon, a storefront church (maybe two of them, I'm not sure), a day spa (not the same as the nail salon), and a temporary staffing agency.

I'm not saying the ice cream shop is doomed to failure- I hope it isn't, actually!- but I'm not going to get too attached to it.