The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 455): Power Outage

We got up and had our traditional bacon and egg sandwiches before driving over to pick up #1GF!’s mom. I dropped #1GF! and her mom off at the pavilion to see one of the last live bands of the summer, and then took the car home and walked back. The band turned out to be country with a touch of rockabilly, and within five minutes of me showing up, a six plus foot tall guy dragged #1GF!’s mom onto the dance floor. He was so tall that he had to stoop down to dance with her. The way he was standing was almost obscene.

Once #1GF!’s mom had been safely returned to us, #1GF! and I left her mom and her friends to go sit on the beach. After a while, I decided to go in to the water, and #1GF! stayed on the sand. The surf was a bit choppy because of the wind, but I laid back, popped my toes out of the water and floated over the cresting waves. I looked over my toes at a sailboat and thought about how easy it is for me to float now. When I was young, I had to put my head way back and even put my arms over my head to get enough buoyancy to stay afloat. Now, I can have my head up enough to stare at at a sailboat on the horizon while my toes sit high in the open air. I know that means I have less muscle and more fat, but man, the new found floating ability is certainly worth it.

When floating lost it’s magic, I got out of the water and sat on my chair, picking out the sound of the country bass lines floating on the wind. I couldn’t really make out the songs too well from the beach, but it was still cool to hear a live band while sitting there. #1GF! went back up to spend some time with her mom, assuring me that it wasn’t to dance with the tall old dude who was after her mother. I definitely didn’t want to dance with any tall old dudes, so I sat on the beach reading my latest heavy metal book.

Once the band finished, we packed up and walked home to shower and have some iced tea. Spending ten minutes making iced tea and making sure you have lemon on hand before you go to the beach is well worth the effort when you get home. I called my parents and asked them if they wanted to join us for dinner, and they agreed to come down. Although we agreed on a time, #1GF! pointed out that we never actually said where we were going to meet. I think the definition of “regular hangout” is forgetting to say where you are meeting and knowing exactly where to be.

Even though there were empty tables, there was a 45 minute wait to get one. We ended up waiting for an hour, and not five minutes after we were seated, the power went out. The minute the place was black, one of the tables kicked into a chorus of “happy birthday”, which I found pretty amusing. We had waited so long that we sat there chatting away in the dark, hoping that the power would come back on. We hadn’t even gotten menus yet, so we were pretty much out of luck unless it came on pretty quickly. People who had ordered earlier were still being served, and one waitress managed to find a flashlight to provide a table just enough light that they could see their food.

And here’s where I started getting tired of sitting in the dark. The people behind us hadn’t even ordered their food, so they were in the same boat as us, yet they started bitching with “Where’s OUR flashlight?” as if someone had suddenly thrown a single toy into a room full of babies. It was one of those times where if I could have seen the menu, I would’ve liked to have ordered the table a round of tall, cold glasses of shut the fuck up. We’re all here in the dark, lady. Fuck. Give everyone a break and turn on your fucking camera phone light if you need to see your drink. Or take my camera phone. Or grab a pacifier from the table full of kids next to us. Just shut your fat, complaining yap.

I went outside to check on the status… Wait, that’s not actually true. I was sent outside by Commandant #1GF! to check on the status of the power outage, as if I would be able to discern the cause of the outage with my elite nerd skills. My nerd skills don’t work too well without an internet connection, so all I could report was that every other restaurant in the area was suffering the same fate.

We bailed and headed to the next town over to see if they had any power. Luckily, they did, and there was no wait. By the time we finished dinner, it was 9PM and the power had been restored, so we took everyone over to Fascination to squeeze in a couple of games. Unfortunately, the power outage really cut the number of players, and the only people there were the regulars. And because there were less players, the payouts were lower and it was running a dollar a game just to play. Game after game, the same handful of people were splitting the winnings. I think everyone was feeling it because at one point the guy next to me and said “I wish he’d go back to wherever he came from” about the yuppie looking guy who kept winning. I couldn’t help but agree.

We got wiped out pretty quickly, said goodbye to my parents, and drove #1GF!’s mom home. On the ride back, #1GF! and I listened to Led Zeppelin I, which I hadn’t heard in at least a decade. I realized that it was pretty basic blues rock, with the exception of “Communication Breakdown”, which really is sort of metal. For 1969, the song was about ten years ahead of its time.

Monday (Day 456): Labor Day

We went to the beach early because we wanted to get in a few hours of beach time before the tide wiped out the beach at noon. I spent a few hours building a sand wall that drew the attention of an older lady sitting next to us. She walked over and asked us about the wall, and said that there was a guy at the beach the week before building one in the same spot. She asked if I was an engineer, and all I could say was “I wish”. She mentioned that it was too bad that I wasn’t in advertising, because I could make some money with all the attention it was getting. I thought that was interesting and somewhat strange comment at the same time.

The guy on the other side of us took our wall as a sign of encouragement that the tide could be stopped, so he built a wall and a trench. I led him down a path of false hope, as most people in advertising do. My wall ended up being an epic failure, so I tried to put a comedic spin on it for #1GF!. As the water pushed through the middle of the wall, I dove to the ground to block it with my body. #1GF! laughed as she usually does when I do unexpectedly stupid things, and pointed out that the old lady was having a laugh over it as well. I don’t think I’ve seen something look so big fail so badly since the Bears put out “The Super Bowl Shuffle” in 1985. The trench didn’t do much better, and we all ended up sitting on the rocks waiting for the tide to recede. All except the old lady, who picked a good spot that didn’t need walls or trenches to keep dry. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

We went home and relaxed for a bit before going out to dinner. We tried our hand in Fascination and I won $10 almost instantly by not looking at the board and randomly rolling the balls. One guy won $200 on one game thanks to a promise of a double payout and a lucky spin on the prize wheel. After he won, some of the regular ladies started bitching about it. They acted like he should’ve given the lady who collects money a tip. I’ve never heard of giving those ladies a tip. They’re nice and all, but to tip them for taking your money seems a little bit much. They went on and on once the guy left, acting like he should’ve stayed and played his winnings back in. I don’t know, man. Can’t people be friggin’ happy about someone getting a big win? I friggin’ clapped and hooted for the guy because I thought it was so awesomely lucky. Fuck. Happiness is not a zero sum game, ladies. There is plenty to go around.

Tuesday (Day 457): Writing All Day

We woke up at midnight thanks to an alarm that was set by one of several power outages. Five hours later, we got up and went to the complex gym. I haven’t worked out in a long time, but it felt good to lift again even if it was machines instead of free weights. I was home, dressed and on the PC by 7:30, and there was an interview request from a large UK newspaper in my inbox, but it didn’t say what it was about. I had to assume that it was about beards, but I didn’t know for sure.

I wrote LOR all day, and stopped only long enough to reject an album review. Yea, I know that it’s probably stupid of me to reject submissions if I want people to send me CDs to review, but I do it for the band’s own good. If a band requests a review, I’ll check them out to see if they’re something that I can give a good review to. If I can’t because of personal preference or other reasons, I’ll send them a note back thanking them and offering an excuse for why I can’t review their CD. It’s not the best way to become an album reviewer. It’s probably a little too nice.

The most fun album reviews to read are absolutely brutal to the musician, and accepting CD’s that you don’t like are the quickest way to get those reviews done. If I have to buy a CD, I look at my $10 as my price of admission to shred the CD if I feel the need, but accepting a free CD and ripping the band apart feels too much like entrapment to me. On the other hand, reviewing all free CD’s positively just because they’re free is dishonest to the reader. To help me walk the line between honesty and entertainment, I pick and choose what I accept for submissions. It’s probably not the best thing for me, but I think it’s better for the bands in the long run.

I scheduled a meeting with the contractor at night to go over what we wanted done at the house. He was a little late, and #1GF! and I started getting pissed off. We weren’t mad at him, we just find that being in the house for more than ten minutes gets us picking apart the house and the crappy job the last contractor did. I think we just want the job finished.

After the meeting, we decided to get takeout from a local place that we consistently order pizza from on Thursdays. It’s almost like a running joke with one of the girls who works there because we get the exact same thing almost every week. When I went in to pick up the food, the girl looked at the order and then looked at me and said, “Finally mixing it up, huh?” I explained that we order the same thing on Thursdays, but when $day neq ‘Thursday’, we tend to order exactly the same order that she had in front of her. So, contrary to what it looked like, we weren’t really mixing it up at all. I think she just smiled at me like you do when a 7 year old tries to explain the difference between Pokemon and Bakugan: You don’t get aggravated. You sort of smile and wait for the explanation to end.

After dinner, I hadn’t finished writing, so I went back up to write until 10. #1GF! watched TV and then read my LOR post. She found some of the parts that I thought were cool when writing them, which made those words even cooler. She also found no mistakes, which is probably a first.

Wednesday (Day 458): Lucky Supermarket Man

I dropped off a check to the new plumber and filled in a sink hole under the bulkhead before going out to do the food shopping. Generally, if I can’t fit the items into a basket and under my arms, they get left for the next trip, but because of the amount of stuff I needed, this time I broke down and got a cart. Unfortunately, the supermarket was out of everything. The vegetables were missing or rotting, they didn’t have big half gallons of cream, and they were out of friggin’ butter. When the hell is a supermarket out of butter? I mean it’s one of the big three that I remember being immortalized on Sesame Street a thousand years ago. A loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and? That’s right, a stick of butter. It’s not an odd, one off item that people rarely buy, and there was no September blizzard bearing down on New England causing old women everywhere to make a run on cake making supplies.

Despite the length of my list, by the time I pulled into the registers, my cart wasn’t even half full. There were only a couple of registers open, so I pulled in behind two old ladies, and passed the time listening to the Binky Griptite Show. Two middle aged ladies pulled in right behind me.

Suddenly, a manager opened a new register a row over. I didn’t budge because, really, five extra minutes wasn’t really going to cause a major pile up in my schedule. I just smiled and watched the ladies behind me make the mad dash. When they got there, the manager held out her hand to stop them, and said, “No, him,” and pointed to me. The ladies were none too happy, but one of them mouthed “She wants you” as if I were deaf. I smiled, thanked her, and walked past the other frowning lady to the head of the new line.

I put my items onto the belt as if it were a race, and they got checked and bagged just as fast. I had just enough cash to cover the bill, and was out of everyone’s way in under five minutes. I then thanked the manager a couple of times, and the manager type lady who was bagging for me. In my head, I pretended that I was singled out because I’m a some sort of regular who sticks out from the crowd, but I think we all know I was just having a random stroke of luck.

When I got home, I tried to get some writing done, but my luck had run out.

Thursday (Day 459): It’s All Over

I got up at 5 and went to the gym once again. I wasn’t really happy about not having a post ready for the day, but figured that I would come up with something later. I met the plumbers at the house so that they could remove the old heating system, and then went home to write, but still had no luck. #1GF! was off, so instead of torturing myself to get the words out, we went to the beach. The waves were decent and there were surfers all over the place masking the fact that the summer was coming to a close. While we sat squeezing the last bit of beach time out of the summer, a front loader showed up and carried off the lifeguard stands.

By the time we got home, I was becoming aware of the quality level of any possible post slipping away. I decided it would be better to skip the day and focus on getting something out for Friday. Once I had something posted, I spent time mowing through the mountain of feeds that I had been neglecting for a couple of weeks to try to find some further inspiration.

Friday (Day 460): Metal And Brits, Go!

We got up at 5 AM again, because I’m trying to reset my internal clock to make it easier to work out in the mornings. I wasn’t actually going to work out, so I read my metal book. Instead of being relaxing, I started to notice the way that the book is written. You know how record reviews tend to use too many overblown adjectives to describe music? That’s the sort of thing that I started noticing in this book. Instead of giving me a history, it was giving me a bombastic anthology of the gloomy underbelly of heavy metal. If I wanted a pointless verbal jerk off session, I’d read Rolling Stone. Then, I started losing faith in the author’s authority on the subject matter because A.) He thinks that AC/DC is metal and that Back In Black is one of the top heavy metal albums of all time, and B.) He spends waaay too much time on Metallica, and thinks that the Black Album is not only valid, but deserving of praise.

I like AC/DC and I think Back In Black is great, but I’m not calling them metal. It’s hard rock and doesn’t belong on metal lists. In my view of metal, I consider that to be obvious. The second point is: Metallica had two good albums, slipped on a third, and then started sucking hard. Everything they have done from the Black Album on has been metal’s version of pop music. What Green Day is to punk, Metallica has become to metal. I like to think that the entire band died in the bus accident that killed Cliff Burton, and the record companies wouldn’t admit it and replaced them with pussified robot zombies. If you’ve ever seen their documentary, Some Kind Of Monster, I think you’ll find it hard to argue. I’m not claiming to be heavier than thou, but “Nothing Else Matters” was a prophetic song for the band, and anyone who backs The Black Album is of suspect metal opinion.

I got mad at the book and cast it unto the couch. I checked Facebook, and was jokingly told that talking about all of these interviews might get in the way of the “regular guy image” I’m cultivating. Folks, if you meet people who need to cultivate a regular guy image, you need to keep a good eye on them because they’re probably going to fuck you over big time. I, on the other hand, am just a regular plain old guy without a job. If I was going to cultivate any image, I’m sure I could come up with something better than what you’re reading now. Maybe I will, too. I’m almost positive that my new personality is going to land somewhere between Jerry Lewis, Mr. T, and Grandizer. Unfortunately, what I am now is just an uncultivated regular guy. Drop me an e-mail. You’ll see.

#1GF! and I left to run some errands, and as we were driving, an unknown number came up on my phone. I don’t usually answer numbers I don’t know, but because there have been so many new numbers with the different contractors, I thought it would be better to answer it. Get this: It was some foreign dude looking for my contractor. It seems that our old contractor stopped calling him back and owed him six thousand dollars. I laughed at his paltry number of zeroes, and told him to get in line. I also told him to call the Attorney General’s office because there wasn’t anything I could do for him. Once I hung up, I explained the story to #1GF! who shared my WTF? moment.

While we were out looking for door handles, I called the door guy to order our doors, and he sent us over to someone’s house to look at their doors because they had the same ones that we were ordering. I knocked on the door because I didn’t think I should be walking around someone’s house unannounced, but no one was home but the dog. I called back to confirm that the doors were fine, and got more options that I didn’t have answers to. Who knew that there were so many choices even after you picked out the door you want? I sure didn’t.

We put off the doors until we were in reach of an internet connection, and went to pick up some tile at a local home improvement store. On the way out, we got some iced coffee at the attached Dunkin’ Donuts. While we waited in line, a few high school soccer players with British accents were ahead of us. After we left, #1GF! thought they were faking their accents. I mentioned that a couple of them sounded like they had some regional differences, so I thought that they were real. Then, I turned to #1GF! and told her that I probably gotten to the bottom of it all by simply asking, “[in normal American accent] ’scuse me. Can I ask you a question? [in a badly rendered British accent] Is this the worst British accent you’ve ever heard?” Then, I pointed and said “Go!” as if the imaginary Brits had a limited time to answer.

#1GF! laughed, “What the hell is with the ‘Go’?”

“[still in a bad British accent] I have no idea. What do you think it’s all about? [quickly pointing at her again] Go!”

“There it is again. It makes me nervous! What’s with it?”

[still doing a bad British accent]” I don’t know. I throw it in because you seem to be thrown off by it. [quickly pointing yet again] GO!”

It went on like this for a lot longer than it should’ve. We dropped off the tile, and found that the neighbor had removed a six foot radiator from our house ahead of schedule. He had to hire movers to get it out of there, but I was happy that it was gone. It was suddenly hot as hell and it would’ve been a nice day to go to the beach, but we were happy that we got a few things done.

Saturday (Day 461): On Writing A Book

We went out to breakfast and then let the new contractor into the house to tear up some flooring before running various remodeling errands. By mid-afternoon, we went home so #1GF! could cook a batch of sauce. While she cooked, I decided to play some video games, which I found to be completely unsatisfying. I made Alfredo for dinner, and ended up getting a headache from it like I usually do.

As I sat on the couch after dinner, I thought once again about writing a book. I’m starting to think of blogging as a farm team for authors and journalists. It gets you writing every day and gets you instant feedback, but doesn’t offer the prestige, pay or audience of other types of writers. A lot of effort goes into blogging, and if you have to crank out 3 pages a day for three months developing one topic to get a rough draft of a book, how can you switch gears at the end of the day and put together a post? Even if you could find the time to do both, it seems like two different methods of thinking. Or maybe I’m making excuses.

Know what it reminds me of? Swimming. When I was a kid, I was a pretty good swimmer. I could do almost any event and destroy most of the competition in the YMCA circuit. Sure, there were kids out there who could beat me, but I made a couple of pool records that stood for almost a decade. When I stepped into the USA Swimming circuit, the game completely changed. I had to get more specialized, and I got fucking destroyed at nearly every meet. I mean destroyed. No matter how badly I wanted it or how hard I worked, I would never be at the top of that game. When you’re sharing the deck with Olympic qualifiers, unless you’re an Olympic qualifier yourself, you don’t think about how close to the top you’ll be, but how far from the bottom.

I learned what it was like to be that guy who’s still swimming long after everyone’s done, which was the complete opposite of what I was used to. When you’re operating at as close to capacity as you’re going to get, and you’re still getting destroyed, the feeling of fight that you’re filled with is eventually replaced with a sense of futility. That feeling eventually washed me out of swimming completely. The switch took my biggest source of achievement and turned it into my biggest source of frustration. I guess it was better than thinking that all I saw was all there was.

And that’s the fear I have about writing a book. Maybe I’m sitting here in the farm leagues, really happy with the feedback and the style of it, knowing that I’m working full time on a blog that probably won’t get any bigger than it is. If I spend three months working on a book at the expense of this blog, I just may be left with a book that no one wants to read, at the expense of a blog that people do. Even though I may not know you, my stats tell me you’re out there. And I figure that you’ll eventually tell me who you are. And I don’t want to miss that. It sounds weird, but it’s true.

Or maybe I just don’t have plot that hits you like a punch in the chest.

What I Learned

• Getting more body fat is worth it if you can easily float over waves while looking at your toes.
• Ian Christe likes the Black album and thinks Back In Black is metal. I ‘m sure he knows a lot about metal, but those two facts don’t sit well with me. It’s almost like he gave the secret handshake incorrectly.
• “Communication Breakdown” was a definite pre-metal tune.
• Fascination may simply be a game of chance.
• The supermarket can run out of butter?
• There are a lot of choices to doors.
• It seems that my old contractor is ducking other people’s calls as well.
• Writing a book may require cutting the blog.

Share, Bookmark, or E-Mail This Article

Posted in Leisure