This is week 87 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing 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 602): Going Through The Motions

I made breakfast for #1GF!, and then played a couple of games of Hive when she went to take a shower. I get a strange sense of accomplishment when I beat the PC, but that wasn’t happening much. I got a little bored with finding patterns that provided hollow human over PC victories, so I took a shot at the cube. I did it in 2:46.

Once #1GF! was ready, the two of us tried to figure out what sized dining table would fit in our dining room. We laid pieces of cardboard on top of the old apartment sized table that I wish was only figuratively on its last legs. We zeroed in on a size that wouldn’t overwhelm the room, and gave up instead of going to buy table. Once again, thinking like I’m broke gummed up the process.

We drove to #1GF!’s mom’s house to program her phone because we were looking for an errand to do, but didn’t want to do anything on our own lists. Getting to her house was a long enough ride to make it seem like we were getting something done, but it really was just an excuse to feel like we were doing something.

We went to the local home megastore to pick up a towel rack and something to clean brick. They had the towel rack, but no brick cleaner. The clerk explained that harsh chemicals were being removed from the shelves to avoid any sort of liability on the part of the store. I don’t know how true the reason was, but they didn’t have any muriatic acid or 5F5.

While we wandered the store, I got a call from a friend looking for some help on the data cabling in his house. Within seconds of starting the conversation, he also wanted to know what we thought we were doing starting a family because he and his wife were looking for people to have pizza and beer with now that their kids are grown.

He then asked what room I was giving up for the baby, my office or my TV room. Before I could answer he told me that I’d be giving up both: one for the baby and one for the baby toys. I hung my head, but couldn’t argue. He congratulated me and said that he’d have more kids if his wife wouldn’t kill him.

When we got home, we sat down to watch the latest Batman installment, The Dark Knight. I’m not one for superhero movies, but I rented this one on the strength of Batman Begins. Even though Heath Ledger’s version of The Joker was interesting, Maggie Gyllenhaal seemed completely miscast. She lacked the poise slathered grit that I would’ve expected of a comic book heroin. I think I would’ve expected someone more 1940’s looking. In either case, the movie ended up being just OK.

Monday (Day 603): Four Eyes To Two Eyes

I got up and got stuck in front of a Your Baby Can Read infomercial. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to teach a baby to read before the age of two or not, but I was intrigued that the babies on the infomercial were reading so young. I later found out that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children should not watch any TV before the age of two.

When I went to put my contacts in, I broke my glasses. They were three years old, but I still slumped my head back and my shoulders forward and let out a sigh. I have had the same reaction to breaking my glasses since I was a kid. Maybe even this kid.

Then, I remembered that the reaction is a leftover from a time when broken glasses meant having tape on my glasses and taking shit from everyone for a week. Now that I’m an adult (ahem), I can throw in my contacts and drive myself to get new ones.

I stood there staring at the glasses for a minute like I was going to suddenly gain the ability to shoot eye beams and melt them back together. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. On the other hand, this was probably a good thing because you know I’d probably end up turning the glasses to a molten ball of metal that would end up falling on the floor and permanently fusing itself to the tile. Then, #1GF! would have to give me a talking to about using my eye beams in the house, and I’d end up grumbling about not being able to eye beam stuff when I wanted to.

They weren’t the best glasses in the world, and I had done plenty of damage to them over the last three years, but getting new glasses would mean getting my eyes checked, and that seemed like a pain in the ass that I didn’t want to add to my routine this week. I put the whole thing on the back burner to tackle later.

I talked to #1GF! about whether she wanted to take a couple of years off after the baby was born. I thought it would be fair considering I have been off for a couple of years. She said the idea bothered her because she always had her own money. I sort of stared at her for a minute and shook my head. It was almost as if she had forgotten who she was talking to.

“Who pays for groceries?” I asked.

“Well, I do, but you have your own money. I don’t want to have to ask you for money for things.”

“You have to be kidding me.”

“It’s just the way I am.”

“Oh, I’m getting a damned job. An awesome one. With sprinkles. And I’ll leave the money all over the place so you never have to ask for it.”

“We’ll see,” she said, which always means “I have to go now, nut case.” I kissed her goodbye and my sugar mama headed out to work.

Once #1GF! was out the door, I wrote for a while and then updated my LinkedIn profile to include my current, ahem, job. Then, I went back to writing and editing some more. In the afternoon, I went out food shopping, as I usually do once a week. Can you guess what I did when I got home? Yea, that’s right, I wrote more.

I thought I was being clever and made a roasted red pepper and tomato quiche for dinner. #1GF! had given me pretty direct hints about wanting spinach quiche during our daily phone call, but I seemed to have missed half of the hints.

Tuesday (Day 604): Who’s Getting Screwed?

I chatted on Facebook with a bartender from Sweden that I haven’t talked to since I visited there years ago. Then, I spent the day working on LOR. I made appointments for the dentist and optometrist, and I was going to tack on a doctor’s appointment, but I put it off.

I got calls from a couple of my close friends, which is a little unusual to happen in the same day. Man, that sounds sad. One laughed at my cord leveling OCD, and the other talked to me about the plumber. He asked me how the plumber situation was going and I said that I was trying to work the situation out without screwing the guy over. He said that it sounded like I was the only one getting screwed. It made me wonder why I was still playing nice with someone who wasn’t.

At night, #1GF! had a friend come over to see the house. #1GF! started telling a story, and trailed off, forgetting what she was saying. Tangents are a family trait for my family, but I had never seen #1GF! do it before. I realized that it was part of what the pregnancy book said would happen to #1GF!’s brain. It was like the shoe incident a few days before: The baby was taking over #1GF!’s brain.

While the three of us talked, #1GF! told her friend about the baby. Her friend was so excited that she called her mother to give her the news. I realized that I wasn’t acting as excited, and I felt bad about it. I didn’t want to give the impression that I’m anything but ecstatic about this pregnancy, no matter how dumbfounding the situation seems. There was a lot of girl talk and tears before the two of them went out to dinner. They invited me along, but I figured I wouldn’t add anything useful to the conversation, so I stayed home.

I trimmed my eyebrows because I was starting to look like the Juiceman or Pai Mei. Look, it’s required according to the Gentleman’s Guide to Grooming. Mid chop, my aunt called to tell me that it took a shop two weeks to fix her PC. She didn’t want me to feel bad for not being able to fix it in a couple of days, but I still was amazed that someone fixed the issue without wiping it down and declaring a do-over.

The only other thing that happened was that I managed to solve the Cube in 2:36, which was a record for me.

Wednesday (Day 605): Privacy For Relief

#1GF! couldn’t find one of her boots, so she sent me to the attic to grab her shoe bin. I went upstairs and couldn’t see the boot she was looking for, so I brought the whole bin down. She looked through and couldn’t find it either. She looked on the bottom of her closet and lo and behold, there it was. They said this would start to happen eventually, but I really thought I would be the one to go first.

Once I got #1GF! out the door, I sat down to write and ended up doing the Rubik’s cube again. I didn’t beat any times, but after the cube, typing felt amazingly easy to the point of feeling weird. It reminded me of how walking feels after ice skating. I eventually put down the cube long enough to publish LOR Week 83.

It was snowing pretty hard, but I had an eye appointment, so I took ROCKET CAR! out and set the adjustable differential to snow. The roads were covered with an unforgiving six inches of slop. I was sideways like I was rallying a couple of times, and slid past a couple of lefts. Not even ROCKET CAR!’s all wheel drive was dealing with the snow well. Then again, my tires are probably on their last legs, too.

The eye appointment was a standard game of “better or worse” except for one thing: They put me on a machine called a keratometer (KEE YAH!) that actually measures your prescription by measuring the curvature of your eye. Now, that was pretty cool. The doctor said that she liked to use it as a baseline for all her patients, but that it was invaluable in getting a prescription for patients who cannot communicate.

After my eye appointment, I went to get some new frames from the same lady I’ve been getting glasses from since I was a kid. The snow was still sloppy as hell, allowing me to easily find a parking space right out front.

I tried on a bunch of different pairs of glasses trying to find the ones that would define my look for a couple of hours a day for the next few years. Some made me look like a pimp, and others made me think look like I knew a lot more technical acronyms than I do. Others would work if I actually were cool, but everyone knows that I don’t have the attitude to pull something like that off. I narrowed the field down to a couple of pairs in under fifteen minutes, and my optometrist told me that 1990s Harry Potter style glasses were making a comeback. I told her I really hoped not.

I was all settled to pick a pair when the optometrist said that she wanted to order up one more pair because she thought that they’d fit my face better than the ones that I had chosen. She asked if I could come back for them in a few days. I said no problem because I have been trusting her with my glasses for about as long as I can remember.

I headed home, and ROCKET CAR! couldn’t even make it up the hill to my house. Damn ROCKET CAR!. I had to shamefully back down the hill and take the long way around the block. By the time I was in my driveway and finished chastising ROCKET CAR!, it was raining and the snow was getting even sloppier than it had been.

I grabbed a shovel and went to work on getting things cleaned out so that #1GF! would have a nice place to park when she got home. I was soaked by the time I got in.

I had a quick sandwich and thought about getting some writing done, but decided to try to get the bathroom door to close instead. I brought up all kinds of tools, intending to do all kinds of damage, and ended up merely moving the latch a quarter of an inch. All cuts were made with my Dremel because it’s so easy and versatile to use. Although it’s the nerds tool of choice, I forgot how awesome the Dremel is. It’s been too long, old friend.

I was trying to get it all done and cleaned up before #1GF! got home so that she would accidentally find the door fixed, but I had to wait for some wood fill to dry before I could put in the final screw to finish things up. #1GF! came home and found tools all over the floor, which she always takes with a grain of panic.

I felt really good about getting the door done so that I wouldn’t have to tell visitors that the bathroom door didn’t actually close. It had become a pet peeve of mine that made me feel like I was telling every visitor that my house sucked every time I said it.

After dinner, #1GF! paused a show we were watching to have an unexpectedly long phone conversation with a friend of hers. I found myself eavesdropping because the house was so quiet and was sitting there waiting. Once I realized what I was doing, I turned on the Family Guy to distract myself.

I ran downstairs to check on the basement because I suddenly realized that it had been raining all day and I hadn’t checked it. The basement didn’t get any real water, even though we had some water come in through another crack in the wall that I never knew about before. I wondered if I had bought a boat or a house. I guess if you seal everything, the water will find any open spot to come in. I made a note to fix them when the temperatures stayed above freezing for more than a few days at a time.

Thursday (Day 606): Calling In The Cavalry

Had my cereal and alternated between watching CurrentTV and music videos. I have no idea why I was watching music videos, but I’ve been on a kick where I listen more to JAMN 94.5 and Big City 101.3 more than CDs when I’m in the car. I think I may be going through an urban pop phase again.

I wrote in the morning and managed to publish LOR Week 84. I wrote a little more and then thought about what my friend said about getting screwed. I pieced all the information and the dates together, and pulled out all the invoices for the issues we had been having with the plumber.

Once #1GF! was off to work, I filed one of our complaints with the Attorney General’s Office. It took four hours to put together, but having a blog that details all the things that happen every day is invaluable when things go wrong. Normally, I’d feel bad about having to do something like file a complaint against someone, but I didn’t feel bad at all. I stopped caring. You can only be accommodating for so long before you have to give up.

Once the complaint was filed, I headed out to a local hardware store to pick up a soot sponge and some brick cleaner for the mantle. When I got home, I skipped the mantle to get some more writing done.

When I needed a little break, I talked to a friend from MIT about board games. Then, I got looked up by a kid I haven’t heard from since my carefree, mullet wearing teenage days roaming the South Shore. I have to say that Facebook is probably the easiest light communication tool that I’ve ever used, but it can be a major time sink. Why aren’t you on Facebook yet, Grampy?

#1GF! called to ask what kind of pizza I wanted, and we had an argument about our usual pepperoni pizza. Pepperoni contains nitrates, and nitrates aren’t good for developing babies. I had to tell her that there was no way that she was bringing a pepperoni pizza into the house. That I would stop her at the door. That I would ignore the sweet goodness of the pizza before I let her near it. I put my foot down. I forbid it.

As I never forbid anything or put my foot anywhere with #1GF!, it’s interesting that my first stand was over pepperoni.

#1GF! suggested I call my mother to tell her that she could tell whoever she wanted that #1GF! was pregnant. So, I did. My mom was very excited because she had a party to go to and she was going to be the first grandma of her friends.

Just as I was going to settle into some writing, a recruiter sent me a message through my site about a job he thought I’d be interested in. I found that a bit odd, but didn’t have time to look into it because #1GF! brought home a buffalo chicken pizza. A man has his priorities. And my priority starts with dough and ends with cheese.

Friday (Day 607): I Want Um, A Billion Dollars

I talked to the recruiter that wanted my resume about a particular job that he wanted me for, so I worked on updating my resume all morning. Once I was close to done, I realized that the commute might be a little more than I wanted, so I forwarded the recruiter some outlandish salary requirements to nicely put him off. Even though the salary requirements were way, way above what would be an average salary for the job (think double), it didn’t slow the recruiter down at all.

Then, I realized that this guy was asking for my resume and I didn’t know him at all, nor had I reached out to him or given him any indication of my job qualifications. Why was he emailing me out of the blue? I thanked the guy and said I’d rather not forward my resume. He didn’t seem like a nut or a scammer, but you never know. I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

I checked out some jobs at MIT because everyone and their grandmother seems to work there these days. They had some interesting jobs listed, which I bookmarked and didn’t apply for.

In the afternoon, I went out to get new glasses and ended up liking the ones that my optometrist ordered. I paid for them and headed home.

I wrote some more and finally got caught up on LOR. I felt pretty good, so I turned my attention to something important: replacement stickers for my Rubik’s cube. After only a few weeks of use, my cube is hammered. I’ve lost one color completely, and four others have most of the stickers peeling off. A number of the squares are held on with super glue and scotch tape. It ain’t pretty. I found some extremely reasonable stickers online, but didn’t buy them because of the long processing time. I figured I’d find another way to fix my cube.

A bunch of people had been sending me requests for a list of “25 Random Facts” about me for a meme that has been making its way around Facebook lately. Even though I love to read those facts about other people, I’ve been blogging almost every day for the last seven years. There are a billion random facts in the nearly 1600 posts on this blog, and I couldn’t bring myself to regurgitate anything new.

I looked up old versions of my site at archive.org because I knew that my “About” page used to contain a list exactly like people were asking for. My old core dump of random facts is still preserved out there in the digital amber, but I eventually decided against reposting it and went back to writing.

When I was finished all the writing I was going to do, I downloaded Chamillionaire’s Mixtape Messiah Volume 2 and 3. I enjoyed them more than I thought possible. You can download both for free at Chamillionaire.com, ya heard?

Saturday (Day 608):

I spent the morning cleaning the fireplace again. I used harsher chemicals and a soot sponge, but it still didn’t come out very well. It was a lot better than it had been, but no one who looked at would say that it was clean. #1GF! wasn’t feeling well, but she still swept the house because she can’t sit down if I’m working on something. I finally got her to just lay on the couch by making a joke about being Cinderfella.

When #1GF! jumped into the shower, I burned Chamillionaire’s Mixtape Messiah 2 to disc to take in the car. I never turn on the PC on the weekend, but I needed something new to listen to, and I haven’t entered a record shop in quite some time.

We got dressed and went out to Costco to check out their shelves of oversized merchandise. It was our first major shopping runs there, and even though they had some surprisingly good looking produce, we didn’t buy any. We realized that 25 pounds of potatoes or a dozen tomatoes would go bad long before we could use them. We did get an enormous package of pork chops that were an inch an a half thick for short money, which easily made the trip worthwhile.

We went to Target and picked up clothes for #1GF!, and rather than standing outside the dressing room like a dope, I went wandering through the game section. I always hate wandering around toy aisles as bearded man on my own because I tend to involuntarily smile when I see kids, and I don’t want to creep any parents out.

I found another Rubik’s Cube, and was amazed at how the stickers look when they’re new. Every single sticker on my cube that is not white or yellow has been peeled off and repaired with some combination of tape and super glue. I grabbed one for myself. I also picked up a set of Mexican Train dominoes for #1GF!, but couldn’t find any domino stands.

Just before we left, I called to Macoosh and invited her over to play some games. She was going to bring Apples to Apples, and I told her that the game drives me crazy because of its arbitrary voting system. I didn’t care what she brought though, we just wanted her over because she’s good company.

#1GF! and I were running late, so when Macoosh showed up we were still stowing giant sized Costco products in the cabinets. We had picked up subs on the way home, and they were sitting on the counter. We had to eat them in front of her, which I felt bad about, but couldn’t help because shopping for games and giant boxes of cereal builds a man-sized appetite.

We left a “what to expect if you’re pregnant” book on the counter as a way to let Macoosh know that we were going to have a kid. She took the bait and was psyched for us. She didn’t cry like other women tend to do, which was good because I think she only cries when she’s acting.

We never actually played any games, and Macoosh told us some really funny, if not insane, stories about what it is like to date in the internet age. I was happy to have humped a coworker because I don’t think that I’d do well in the digital dating pool.

All of us started talking about how I was sending out my resume to get a job, and my feelings on writing suddenly crystallized. I love writing. Writing is what I’m built for.

I love trying to come up with interesting similes to describe absolutely mundane events. I love editing the same line over and over to find phrases that I actually feel proud of. I love making people chuckle and wonder if I’m mentally competent. I love telling people about what I ate for breakfast and trying to get them interested enough that they can smell the toast.

I might not always successful, but I love the effort of turning something absolutely mundane into something that people find interesting. And smile at. Or chuckle to themselves about when they’re nowhere near a computer. This goes double if those people have never met or had any contact with me. When I get feedback from people telling me that I made them chuckle, it’s like spreading a thin layer of joy over a life that can sometimes seem as dry as toast.

Macoosh asked if I read her blog, and I had to admit that I hadn’t checked in on it since it went password protected. I honestly haven’t checked any of my favorite blogs in months because I haven’t been able to find the time. There are hundreds of blogs that I read to keep up with readers, fans, and writers that I like, and I haven’t had the time to break into them. I felt a little bad, because, to me, blogging isn’t a monologue, but the start of a dialog. And that implies a two way street.

I mentioned that even though I love writing, I’d feel a hell of a lot more legitimate if I could write a book. I just don’t want to write one of those “Look! It’s another bunch of unrelated stories about my life” books that are all over the place these days. I want to write a book where someone goes through something and ends up better in the end. I just can’t find a way to do it.

“You could write a book,” said Macoosh.

“You really could,” said #1GF!.

“I don’t know if I could. All my ideas end up being so depressing that I never want to finish them.”

“Write a Seinfeld book then,” Machoosh said. “A book about nothing.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t have a story to tell. It’s just the way that I write that I think is interesting. I read books by Neil Gaiman or Orson Scott Card and think, ‘There’s no way that I could ever write this. No way’. They craft stories. I craft phrases.”

“But, people like the way you say things,” said #1GF!.

I looked across the counter at the two of them and shrugged.

“So,” said Macoosh with #1GF! looking on, “Everyone thinks that you can write a book, except you then?”

“I guess so.”

What I Learned

• I can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under three minutes.
• Home megastores are carrying less powerful chemicals than they did in the past.
• ROCKET CAR! can’t handle snow like it used to.
• A keratometer can not measure your nunchuck skills, but it can measure the curvature of your eye.
• There’s a station called Big City 101.3 that is as close to the cutting edge of hip hop that I’m going to find on the radio.
• Chamillionaire’s Mixtape Messiah Volume 2 is pretty awesome.
• Sometimes, you have to stop trying to salvage bad relationships and throw them overboard.
• Costco has surprisingly nice produce and really nice meat.
• My feelings on writing crystallized.
• The internet dating scene has its fair share of weirdos.
• According to the American Academy Of Pediatrics, children should not watch any TV before the age of two.
• The local buffalo chicken pizza is not as good as the version that I’ve had from the pizza place near #1GF!’s family’s house.

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