Category: Day To Day

Wow!  For the first time in a very long time, I came home from work today around 7pm and NOBODY was here!!  Now I love my family, but with six people in this house plus all of our friends, it is rarely quiet.  I came home, grabbed a glass of water, fed my dog, Charlie, and plopped down on the couch to watch the two episodes of Two And A Half Men that I have set to record every day.  After a while, it grew dark in the house, but I didn’t turn on the lights.  I just sat on the couch and relaxed.  I don’t get to relax often, that is for sure.   The boys are in San Diego this week visiting their father and everyone else was at work.   So for three hours, I sat here, did some writing and reflecting and enjoyed the quiet.    I managed to get a good bit of writing done.    This past week, I have felt inspired again and it is refreshing.  I feel that I am suddenly getting my thoughts out that have been swirling around in my head so furiously.

This week has been very busy with work.  I have actually only had about 8 hours sleep in the past three days.  Once I get everything finished, however, I will be taking next week off.  I plan to seriously decompress!

For the past few months, Jamey and I have been stumbling to each other the most impressive and artistic nude and semi-nude photos we find on the net.  So, I just received a stumble from him, and the note he attached with it was really cool.  He said:

So we dated for a while, worked together for a while, have been friends forever, I became an honorary member of your family, and now we send pornographic pictures to each other.  It’s an impressive relationship 🙂

My response was simply:

I concur whole-heartedly!

I mean, really, what can be better than continuously trying to out-do eachother with an even sexier photo than the last?  The symbiosity is exciting!

Today during lunch I went to the dentist and got a root canal.  That was loads of fun.  It was 3 hours long with my mouth wide open propped by some metal brackets.  I kind of took a nap, which was cool.    Word of advice to everyone, if your tooth breaks, find a way to get it fixed.  Don’t wait 2 years like I did otherwise you run the risk of having damage to the root and needing a root canal.

Afterward, I went back to work.  It is kind of funny that I can say that I got a root canal during my lunch break anyway.

Last night was fantastic.  It sarted out with dinner, drinks and darts at Fibber McGees.  I was out with the guy I have been seeing and it was a very nice time.  After I went over to Bogey’s where I had heard there would be a good band playing (Sister Cities).  When I got there, I walked up to the bar to order a beer and suddenly had several new friends.  I love when I walk into a bar and meet new people who take to me like an old friend.   It’s great.  The band was setting up, I was conversing with my new friends, women were getting body painted in the back of the bar and then a belly dancer came on stage and did a really hot show….really hot!  The band was just about ready to begin and Pink Floyd came on and I was loose enough to just start dancing and having a great time.  Then the band started and I was standing by the bar and this really hot girl came up and asked me if I would dance with her.  Of course I would.  Yay!  So we went out to the dance floor and she was a great dancer….very nice.  After that the body painted woman came out and we just stared at her.  It was all very surreal.  I got a photo:

So, Benjamin sends me a text message a little while ago with a Haiku as follows:

Today may suck balls
But tomorrow is reborn
Each day is it’s own

So I responded with my own Haiku as follows:

We have this moment
And our perceptions of it
And then it is gone

Of course, my son, Jacob, had to add his in as well:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes do not make sense
Refrigerator

So, I stumbled upon a page that has 23 words used to impress and stumbled it over to Benjamin who then took it upon himself to use all of the words in the following story draft:

As I endeavor to attain apotheosis in my circumscript living space during this algid period, I am faced with a conundrum as I realize how edacious I am to expiate myself from my previous moment of whinge, whilst simultaneously seeking telos.

Then in my mind’s eye I see her…calling forth the more sybarite part of myself as I sit in meditation beholding the lascivious angel of a demon beckoning me to surrender to the moment. I sit tacid and unable to overcome her ubiquitous presence with my normal defense mechanisms. Unable to call upon my normal skepsis…unable to avoid the intoxication. Her intentions, she only partially obfuscates as she moves closer…closer. I fight…but her circean prowess leaves my attempts puerile at best. I am rendered weak…as a tyro to this presence…this elemental…this angel demon. She leaves me swayed from enlightenment at the realization of the hobson’s choice before me…this maven of ethereal seduction…entranced…bewitched…the question of occam’s razor pounding my thoughts as I realize what is about to transpire…but why me? How did she choose me, this unearthly demon of lust? I can no longer fight…I can no longer speculate. I can only succumb…so edacious I am for what is to come…this angel demon…her eyes like the universe…promising me my death. For a moment I misinterpret her voice intertwined with my thoughts as my own deranged illeism…this whole thing as my own twisted hallucination. Please let this be a hallucination…please let it be a dream…this angel demon who has come for me with her purpose…I cannot fight, I must comply. Let this pass…let this be fantasy…let this be……….real. Let it overpower my every sense…this angel demon…come to bring me such bliss as no human can withstand…such unending bliss……such agony. Such terror, such shame. I understand now…just before my final breath. Zeitgeist. Her beauty…her terror. My pain…her pleasure.

It’s so amazing that today marks the end of 2008. What a year! Looking back, I am amazed at everything that took place this year and the transitions that occurred. I have to say, I am in a far better place now than I was at the beginning of this year when my life was so much in limbo. But now, it is all about moving forward into 2009 and I am so happy to not look back.

Here is the photo of Mom and I getting ready to head out and celebrate the new year.

For the first time in as far back as I can remember, I am taking time off work without much of an agenda.  No airport security to wait through, no long train rides across country, no long car rides.    Well, sort of.    I am driving my boys to Yuma today for our traditional halfway point to San Diego to meet their Dad so that they can go with him for the weekend.    When I get back, this afternoon, I have a week off of work just for the heck of it…just because I badly need to decompress.

After over a decade of always having 30 hours of things to do in every 24 hour period, I am looking forward to a week with practically no plan.  After five years of college in San Diego while raising young children followed by the day after graduation moving back to Phoenix to start my new and long anticipated career with four years of working days and nights and weekends while raising my children and taking on a HUGE renovation project on my house, and then moving to Florida to help take care of my mom and my very ill father while starting and running two corporations around the clock and raising children and taking on another HUGE renovation project, and finally, moving back here to Phoenix and starting my new job while at the same time trying to finish and close my businesses and, of course, raise my children.   And in the midst of all of this, let’s not forget the constant karate classes, and piano lessons, and guitar lessons, and parent-teacher conferences, and school plays, and sleep-over parties and everything else that comes along with having two active boys.   I have learned how to juggle ten balls in the air while dancing on the tight-rope.  The whirlwind of the last 10 years or so has been non-stop and all-encompassing.

Now I have a week with no children, no job, no sick father, no school, no pressing agenda of any kind.

There are things that I plan to do such as getting my blog up to date, finally organizing my room which I haven’t really done since we moved here, learning more Python, and going to the state fair on Friday.  I am, however, planning at least a couple days of doing absolutely nothing.  I might go hiking or I might just hang out in my pajamas all day.  I am looking forward to feeling what it is like to sleep until noon on a Monday.

This is my desk today. Work is crazy when you are the boss. I feel like I need to hire someone just to help me stay organized. The queen of multi-tasking is what they call me. I wish one of those multiple tasks was to keep the clutter off my desk. Somehow, though, it seems to work for me and I always know where everything is.

So, Ben and I have made a pact to quit smoking today.  I understand that we have said this before, but the difference about now is that we are both determined to not only make sure we ourselves quit smoking but that we combined quit.  This is hopefully going to help us to actually do it this time.

We have also quit energy drinks.  Now is the time to get healthy and save some money.  I was drinking 3 or 4 energy drinks per day plus a pack of cigarettes per day.   Ben was doing about the same.  We calculated that we are going to each save about $15 to $20 per day.  That is  $105 to $140  per week.  So we should be able to get some other bills paid.

We are planning on taking a train trip to South Carolina in 5 weeks with some of our savings.  I am also putting Lucas in Violin Lessons.