This is week 97 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 672): I’m Not An Actor, I Just Play One On TV

I dug out some shirts for characters in a short film that I was putting together, before spending twenty minutes whipping up a magazine cover that would be used in the film. As I got dressed, I walked around the house trying to learn my lines. A friend of mine would be stopping by at around 1PM to commit the idea to film, and I wanted to be as prepared as I could.

At around 1PM, #1GF! and I sat on the stoop enjoying the sunshine. The air was warm and the flowers were pushing up, making it seem like a perfect day to not be filming inside.

We sat there for a bit, and I would occasionally lean over the edge of the brick stairs to pick up some large pieces of glass that were still hiding in the bushes. As I scanned across the lawn, I could see more glass sparkling as if it were winking at me to come get it. I didn’t have shoes on, so I started taking off my bright, white socks.

“What are you doing?” asked #1GF!.

“I’m going to pick up the glass and I don’t want to get my socks dirty.”

“But you’re ok with getting your feet dirty?”

“Well, yea, they’ll be inside the socks, so when I go back in, I won’t be dirtying up the house.”

It seemed like solid logic to me. I crouched on the lawn and picked up a small shopping bag full of glass.

Our friend from Burning Snowman called from the road and said that he was bringing a camera, a leather jacket, and sack of wigs. I laughed, until he showed up at 1:30PM with the camera and an actual sack of wigs in tow. #1GF! retired to make sauce, and I tried to explain the look that I had envisioned for the film.

In the following three hours, I realized that I am not an actor. You can make all the faces you want in the mirror, but when the camera’s rolling, there’s a distinct lack of feedback to tell if you’re making the right face at the right moment.

At one point during the filming, I tried to help myself out by having my friend turn the camera’s screen around so that I could see if I was reacting the way I wanted to. All I ended up doing was staring into the camera, and making faces instead of doing my lines.

And the lines… I wrote the f’n script, yet I couldn’t seem to remember a single line of dialog once the camera was on. I would flub them, mumble through them, and on occasion, burst out laughing for no good reason. There were points where I had to actually shake my hands and wipe my face hard to try to compose myself. I had a better understanding of why blooper reels look the way they do.

By 4:30PM, the filming was as done as it was going to get, with two scenes still unfilmed for logistical reasons. The filmmaker returned his equipment to the trunk of his film mobile and headed home. I hadn’t seen anything of what I had done, so I had no idea if things had gone well or not. My friend seemed like he was looking forward to getting started on the editing, so I took that as a good sign.

I shaved off my beard and took the annual beard pictures, although I liked the final mustache so much that I didn’t want to get rid of it. Without the surrounding beard, the handlebar was a lot more distinct, which I thought would be a lot of fun to walk around with. Especially if I had arm bands and a very old timey voice. Unfortunately, I had to shave it to complete the film and prepare for any interviews that I might go on, so this year’s mustache made its way to an undeserved end at the bottom of the bathroom bucket.

Once again, my face had returned to its unnatural and civilized state. I spent the rest of the day surprising myself every time I walked by a mirror, and then sat unconsciously trying to sooth myself by pulling at whiskers that no longer existed. My chin looked way too short for my face, but #1GF! couldn’t have been happier with my new, younger look.

Once the house returned to its quiet, peaceful state, the kitchen fire alarm beeped told us that there was an error and would chirp once a minute to remind us of the issue. It made it three minutes before being disabled. The noise startled #1GF!, but I finally could call the fire alarm company with concrete proof that they needed to replace the faulty alarm.

Monday (Day 673): Love That Dirty Water…

Well, if things aren’t strange enough around here, we started the day off with brown water coming out of all taps and the toilet. It was pretty early in the morning for hydrant cleaning (which would explain it), but I couldn’t be sure what was going on. We waited for an hour, and eventually the water ran clear. It’s a house of mystery, I tells ya. A house of mystery.

Once I finally got showered (in acceptably clear water), I called my barber to see if I could get in for a haircut. After twenty years of going to the same guy, I know that he doesn’t stay late on Mondays, so I wasn’t expecting to get an appointment that day. And yet, I did.

I wrote all morning and then drove to get a haircut around noon. I told my barber about the baby, and some of the stuff I had going on, and he told me a little about what was going on with his life.

“You know, Bob, I didn’t think that I was going to get in here today. Monday was always your early day…”

“Yea, I have to go pick up the kids, I had a little time and like talking to you. You’re a good guy.”

I felt bad because I forgot to bring him some homemade sauce, but I made a mental note to bring some along next time.

I stopped into the eye doctors to pick up my glasses and order some new contacts. I spent a fair amount of time talking and was surprised at how computer literate my eye doctor was for a business person. If a non-tech person knows enough to run Spybot S&D on their machines, I’m pretty impressed. Maybe that’s a low standard for computer literacy, but with some of the things I’ve seen in years of tech support, I’d disagree.

I was home by 2PM, and wrote LOR until 7PM. When I know it’s not going to be an exciting read, I try to at least stick in a few lines that I’m proud of. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I thought was good about that week.

I did like talking with my mouth full (“My twenty four inf pyffons?” I said while inspecting the scratches and chewing a piece of chicken as big as a turnbuckle. “Thaff nuffing. Juff a flesh wound.”), but there weren’t a lot of funny moments and the writing seemed list-like and stiff. I wasn’t impressed, but you do the best you can with the time and talent you have.

#1GF! got home late and cooked dinner while I started scratching out the outline for LOR week 97.

After dinner, we watched Bill Maher’s Religulous. I’m not a religious person, so I thought that a comedian doing a documentary on religion would be interesting, if not entertaining. What I ended up watching was the polar opposite of a religious recruitment film, but with the same level of elitist condescension. I was not impressed or entertained.

Maher came off like an a-hole, and the whole thing turned into a preachy, anti-religious tirade. He talked over people and tried to trip them up through the entire movie, and when he met with a rabbi who talked over him, Maher got up and left the interview. It seemed like an interesting move for someone who had been talking over other people for an hour and a half.

I may have learned too much about too many religions and decided they just weren’t for me, but that’s my deal. And a life without religion can be hard sometimes. There’s no master plan. No big man watching to make sure that things go right. No saints to help find things around the house. No feeling that when you’re on the bottom of a well that someone will pull you out. All you have is your hands and feet to push you up the slippery walls and out into the light. And forgoing all of that certainly doesn’t make me wrong, but I wouldn’t say that it makes me correct, either. It’s simply what works for me. It’s simply how I choose to get through that short string of moments that make up a lifetime.

I’m a little too old to think that just because something is wrong for me that it won’t be good for anyone. I can’t say that I’ve always been that way, but it’s something that I’ve been learning over time. Adults can make their own decisions on what they want to believe or not believe.

Just like humanity, religion has its good and bad points. On the one hand, it has created wars, divided people, and asked people to accept things that logistically make little sense. On the other hand, it has united communities, spread charity and hope, and given some unfortunate people a reason to get up in the morning.

Just because something isn’t your thing, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all. And I think that’s the point that was missed by this movie. It wasn’t funny enough to make me cheer, and not balanced enough to make me jeer. All in all, it seemed like nothing more than an angry baby crying. And that’s coming from someone who, on paper, should’ve been in the target demographic for the movie.

Tuesday (Day 674): Mr. T And The Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile

I took #1GF!’s mom to her appointment and then went to an office supply store to look at resume paper. I stared at the different weights and colors and realized that I didn’t know if people still used resume paper these days. I thought I’d google it and come back if I needed it.

I went home and made a call for one of the jobs and started reading through some of my business books to brush up on my interview skills. Then, I called to get a new smoke alarm sent out to replace the defective one in my kitchen. The phone call took less than five minutes, and was probably the shortest call to that company so far.

While looking through my e-mail, I got what I thought was the coolest e-mail of the day. The guy who used my WordPress suggestions to fix a site for his client offered to send $25 to me for my services. I refused the money, but thought it was really cool of him to offer. I was happy to help.

I googled resume paper, and it seemed like a toss up whether it was required or not. I went to OfficeMax to pick up some up. I’m still not sure if resume paper is the thing to do in the electronic age, but I didn’t think it could hurt.

What happened the rest of the day? I have no idea because I failed to make any notes. I’ll just say that Mr. T came by and we played some cards and talked about how awesome it would be to tour the country in the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile. That’s my best guess.

Wednesday (Day 675): The New Table Vs. Heathcliff Huckstable

I took delivery of our new dining room set, and one of the delivery guys asked if he could use the bathroom. I said that he could, but he was in there a little too long after the toilet flushed. Just as got to the point where I was going to walk down the hall to find out what was going on, the guy came out and went back to putting together the table.

The delivery guys were only in the house for twenty minutes, but it was an odd twenty. I don’t have any drugs above aspirin grade, and couldn’t find anything immediately wrong in the bathroom, so I can only assume that either nothing was wrong, or a picture of my toothbrush will surface on the internet sticking out of someone’s ass.

Once they were gone, I sent a picture of the table off to #1GF! and started compiling a timeline of events and money for the first contractor. It wasn’t exactly fun, but it wasn’t as difficult as it was time consuming. In the process, I realized that I spent way too much money on the renovation considering what I ended up with.

About halfway through the day, I set up a meeting to talk to someone about the job market. After 4PM, I took an early quitting time and unwound with a little QuakeLive.

#1GF! got home a little while later and told me that she had a four day weekend. I had assumed that I would be back to the contractor timeline on Friday, but this changed my whole outlook on the next few days. It made it suddenly seem like we were on vacation.

As the first order of business, I centered the table on the dining room and and rearranged it to #1GF!’s specs. We then ran out to a few of the home improvement megastores to see if we could pick up a cheap rug to keep the chairs from destroying the floor. After three stores, we found that there were only two types of rugs to choose from: Oriental rugs, or rugs that looked like they were patterned from one of Heathcliff Huckstable’s sweaters. Neither interested us, and neither was cheap.

We went home empty handed and went to bed.

Thursday (Day 676): Party Big Time? Woop Woop?

I woke up to “The Immigrant Song” wailing over the radio, which seemed like a perfect, yet random, start to the day. I think I may have discovered one of the best songs to wake up to. I made a mental note to see if I could put together a list of awesome songs to wake up to.

#1GF! and I got ready and then went to the monthly doctor’s appointment for the baby. I sat in the waiting room because it was supposed to be a five minute thing. At twenty minutes, I was starting to get a little nervous. Luckily, Bob Barker came on the TV to calm me down with his showcase smile and calm manner. #1GF! was out within minutes of the game show host’s appearance, and assured me that there was nothing to worry about.

The weather was in the 60’s, so I shed my outer shell as we hopped into the car.

“So, what would you like to do?” asked #1GF!. “It’s your day.”

I stuck with the standard response. “I dunno. Party?”

“We can do that.”

“Party big time? Woop Woop?”

“Sure.”

“Awesome.”

“Now, what do you really want to do?”

“I suppose we should do something.”

“We can do anything you want. Do you want to go to Spinnakers?”

I thought for a second. “Not really, but we could take a ride down The Cape. It seems like it would be something to do without actually doing anything. The weather’s nice enough for it.”

“Ok, It’s a plan. The Cape it is.”

#1GF! turned the wheel and hopped on the highway to Cape Cod.

When we got over the bridge and off the highway, we found that it was still to early in the season for the smell of warm pine needles and salt to be filling the air. Very few places were open yet, but the warm weather had brought out all of the landscaping and cleanup crews to get the local businesses ready for the tourist season.

We pulled off the road and parked the car to go into a barn sized store.

“We cannot say that we went antiquing. That is no way for a man to spend a day,” I said as we hopped out of the car.

“We don’t have to mention it to anyone,” she said.

There was a ton of interesting stuff in the store from ships wheels to antique muskets, and it was probably the cleanest antique store I’ve ever been in. Fortunately, given the premium that the word “antique” adds to a price, there wasn’t anything that was interesting enough to shell out money for.

We hopped back in the car and meandered from town to town, stopping once we hit the elbow of The Cape. We pulled into the parking lot at the Chatham light house and stared out at the water. The sun was shining in through the sunroof in an attempt at ruining the moment by burning off half of my forehead.

“I love being with you,” said #1GF!

“And I love being with you, too,” I said.

“I feel like I’m on a date,” she said with a grin.

We both smiled the goofy smiles of a couple who don’t realize just how old they are or how long they’ve been together.

“What do you say to some lunch?” I asked.

“What about the record store?” asked #1GF!.

“I don’t really care about the record store.”

“Well are we near it, yet?”

“You passed it about four towns back.”

“What?”

“Yea, it’s way back there.”

“Well, do you want to go?”

“Not really, but…”

“Well, where do you want to eat?”

“Wherever looks open, I guess…”

We headed back the way that we had come and wandered into a restaurant because of the number of cars in the parking lot and the the old people walking out. We walked in and I peeked over the host stand at the menu. It turned out to be $20 a plate. For lunch.

“It’s $20 a plate for lunch,” I whispered to #1GF!. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Ok…”

“That’s ok with you, right?”

“Oh, I don’t care,” said #1GF!.

The host suddenly appeared and called to our backs, “Can I help you folks?

“No thanks,” I said with a smile, and the man shrugged and went back to what he was doing in the other room.

We jumped in the car and went to a breakfast place in Hyannis. #1GF! loves breakfast any time of the day, so we parked the car and went in.

I ate two pancakes, three eggs, corned beef hash, potatoes, baked beans, and a half a piece of cornbread before fizzling out. I couldn’t drink more than a sip of my coffee because it just wouldn’t fit. No one will ever accuse me of having a poor appetite, but not finishing that corn bread made me realize that I can’t quite eat like a teenager anymore. I waddled out of the place feeling a mixture of shame for trying to eat like a teenager and pain for failing.

After #1GF! pulled out of her parking spot, we saw a tiny woman trying to parallel park. She was peering over the steering wheel and trying to pull her big grey car into a parking spot that was large enough to fit a semi. She was pulling in at all sorts of odd angles, and would randomly stop for extended periods, I assume to reassess the situation. It was also possible that she was simply stopping to let some blood back into the knuckles that looked like a set of massive, white pearls draped across the steering wheel in front of a big ball of cotton.

We sat at a light watching.

“This should be interesting…” I said.

“Oh boy,” said #1GF! as the lady sat with her car almost making a “T” with the curb. Three quarters of her car was hanging out in traffic. She sat there for a decent amount of time until the light changed.

We we drove up the road to find the record store. When we got in front of it, #1GF! said, “What do you think?”

“Forget it,” I said. “I’m not into it. I don’t want you waiting around, and I don’t need to be spending money on music. I’d rather spend the time with you.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

#1GF! smiled and we circled back to get to the highway. It was five or ten minutes later, and we were stuck at the same light near the breakfast place but facing the opposite direction.

“She’s still there,” said #1GF! nodding to the large grey car trying to pull in. The spot was still about two car lengths long, and the woman was still hanging her car halfway out into traffic, although at a slightly different angle.

“Oh, lord,” I said.

“I just want to park the thing for her.”

“I know.”

Just then, the woman gave up and drove off to find another spot.

“Good. You know if I tried to help her, with my luck, I would’ve gotten pepper sprayed or something,” I said.

#1GF! and I hopped on the highway and got home around four, and there were no messages on the answering machine. I turned on my PC to see if I had any e-mails, and I only had one Facebook message from my cousin. I had a couple of calls and a text message earlier in the day, so at least that was something.

My parents called and wanted to take us out to dinner. I didn’t really feel like going out, but didn’t want to disappoint them, either. I told them that I’d call them later, and sat down to play an hour or so of QuakeLive. The game wasn’t as fun as I anticipated, and by the time I called my parents back, they had already eaten dinner.

I was acting listless and weird, so #1GF! asked if I wanted to go out to get something to eat. I thought that I should, but I really didn’t want to. I sat on the stairs to the attic with my shoes on but untied, contemplating the round trip drive to get food that I didn’t care about getting. #1GF! did her best to make suggestions to get me moving in the direction I really wanted to go.

“You know what?” I said, “We’re not going out.” I kicked off my shoes and stood up. “I’m going to have fish sticks and french fries, and we’re going to sit on the couch and watch a movie or something.”

“Good,” said #1GF! with an over exaggerated nod of approval.

“I think if I stop trying to artificially inject a special feeling into dinner and treat this like a normal day, I’ll feel so much better. I’m not going to worry about what I feel like I should do, and I’m going to do what I want. And right now, I want fish and chips here at home.”

#1GF! and I watched a little TV, and the calls came in to the machine in waves, letting me know that I hadn’t been forgotten.

Friday (Day 677): A Baby N00b With No F’n M to R

#1GF! and I took her mother to her appointment in the morning, and it took longer than expected, leaving me in the waiting room trying to avoid conversation without resorting to magazines, staring at my phone, or pretending to be dead. We dropped her mother at home and went out to a local overstock warehouse to see if we could pick up a cheap rug for our dining room.

We wandered around and found a basic rug for $40, which was astronomically cheaper than any of the rugs that we had seen. As we were deciding, another customer walked over and said, “They’re really great about taking things back here. Take it home and try it. Then, bring it back if it doesn’t work.”

I sort of smiled, and thanked her for her unrequested input. I found it strange that a woman who didn’t work at the store was trying to convince me to buy a rug, and I found it a little annoying even though I knew that she was only trying to be helpful.

I slung the carpet under my arm like you’d carry a rifle in the woods. I knew that if I threw it up on my shoulder, I’d either obstruct half my vision and knock #1GF! over, or start making bazooka sounds. Neither were a very good idea, but were inevitable with a shoulder carry.

We threw the rug into the car and went into Friendly’s for lunch. The place was packed with kids, ranging from toddlers to teens. The little kids next to us kept popping up in a peekaboo game that kids play with the strangers over the backs of booths.

#1GF! played along, and I didn’t feel like it. If you encourage a kid in those games when you’re not in the mood for them, they’ll pretty much go on way past the point where you want to play anymore.

The waitress came over and seemed like she might’ve been quite a handful in her younger years, and was not someone to be messed with now. She had a slit down one of her ear lobes that indicated that she had once had an earring ripped out of it. She was nice enough, but you could feel the tension just under the surface like a fast moving underground river.

We ate our meal and one six year old started singing “Ice cream makes the meal” while kneeling on her chair. I wondered about how much advertising kids must consume, and then suddenly remembered that “choosy cheese choosers always say ‘cheese please’ when they choose the cheese in the cheeseburgers at McDonalds.” I was suddenly longing for a McDLT and wondering why no one wanted to be a Pepper anymore.

As if to snap me out of the retro commercial coma that was dragging me back through the years, the little girl let out, “Aw, shit.” There was a pause. “Sorry, Mommy. Aw, shoot.” I was sure that I was the only other person that heard it. It pretty much made the meal more than the ice cream.

After lunch, we went to #1GF!’s friend’s house to pick up some free baby stuff. I thought that we were picking up a couple of things, but there was so much stuff that we couldn’t fit it all in the car. Considering that the cost of baby items seems to inexplicably hover around $300, we were really thankful.

I loaded the stuff into the car while her son climbed on just about anything he could. We stood around talking about what sort of stuff worked for her and what was useless, and I learned about stuff that I had never even heard of before. A bottle warmer? Really? That’s a real thing? I guess it’s different for each mom, but advice on what works and what doesn’t is welcome when you have no clue what expensive stuff you need and what you don’t.

Once the car was loaded, we drove to pick up my contact lenses and have my new glasses adjusted so that they didn’t make me dizzy. #1GF! stayed in the car, and I was in and out in ten minutes. It would be the easiest transaction of the next few hours because our next stop was registering for baby stuff.

We walked through the door of the local baby stuff megastore, and sat down at the desk to register. The woman explained a bunch of things very quickly, gave us a list of items that you generally need, and handed us a scanning gun. We were on our way to registering in five minutes. And that’s where the fun ended.

Do you have any idea what this process is like? In my thirty plus years, I have yet to change a diaper. I’ve never washed a baby, I may have fed one once, and I’ve only held a couple of them that are small enough to be handled as carefully as a nuclear device. I am a baby N00b and there is no F’n M to R.

While children find me incredibly entertaining, I don’t know the first thing about caring for one. I don’t even know what half the basic stuff on the shelves are, never mind how to use them. As helpful as I wanted to be with registering for baby stuff, #1GF! would have been just as well off if I were a simple, lightweight step stool.

I felt stupid walking around with a pricing gun, and we had no idea what we were supposed to register for. We decided to look for someone who might be able to tell us what things that we might need and about any features of said items that we might need to know about.

It was a Friday, so there weren’t any crowds, but that also meant that there were very few employees in the store. In between wandering and staring, when we eventually did find an employee, they couldn’t help us because our questions weren’t within their department.

We eventually got frustrated and attempted to summon the correct salespeople by pressing the little help button at the end of one of the rows. I assumed this was like the flare of baby stores, and that a purple and possibly plush huey would zip in extract us from the hot zone at any minute.

We waited for five or ten minutes in the brush of swinging baby contraptions next to the flashing red beacon before realizing that we we had been left out here on our own. There would be no reinforcements and no air support. We were on our own. We wandered up and down the aisles looking for someone, and came up with nothing. When we circled back to the beacon, it had been shut off. Sunufa.

We wandered around for the first hour completely frustrated and were on the verge of leaving when I suggested that we start going through the list of stuff that they tell you you need when you have a baby. We would find what we could, and if we didn’t get it all done, so what? There had to be something simple on the list that didn’t require choices or baby knowledge.

We waded through the swamp of baby items, picking off the supplies that we needed one at a time. When we made it back to the car seat section, we were a lot less green. We found a guy in a section that we needed help in, but #1GF! didn’t want to engage him.

He had facial hair and looked like he might have a penis, and in #1GF!’s mind, people with facial hair and penises have no clue about babies. I think this may be my fault because I have reinforced this stereotype with my scant baby knowledge and my penis. There were no penisless salespeople available, so I convinced #1GF! that we should take an ally while we could, penis or not.

The guy gave us tons of information about car seats and strollers, and went on to clear up some misconceptions about bassinets and play pens. I found out that “play pens” are now called “pack and plays”. I guess people stopped thinking of children as animals at some point after I grew up. The guy was very knowledgeable about baby items and gave us tons of information, despite his facial hair and supposed penis.

We finished as much as we could by 6PM, and we were 75% done. Maybe. I think. We had some items beeped into the scanning gun, anyway, which was good enough for me. When I walked out into the sunlight, I really expected it to be dark. The sun in the sky made absolutely no sense to me considering the amount of time we had been lost in the jungle of that store.

We were supposed to have Macoosh over to play some games, but we were both beat. I sat in the car staring at the phone wondering what I would say when I called.

“I can’t believe how tired I am,” I said to #1GF! while still staring at the phone. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m pretty tired, but I’ll be fine.”

“I hate getting bagged on, especially at the last minute.”

“Then tell her to meet us at 7.”

And that’s what I did. Macoosh came over at 7PM, toting a game called WTF?, which was a grosser cousin to games like Would You Rather? We ate subs, played the game, and heard about some of the stranger inhabitants of the dating scene these days.

At one point, the hallway fire alarm decided that it wanted to get into the fun. “Error in hallway detector!” it said. “EVACUATE!” I doubted that there was reason to evacuate, but a fire alarm had been chirping randomly during the week, and I was having trouble figuring out which one it was. I wasn’t happy that a second fire alarm had died in under a week, but was relieved that I could finally call the fire alarm company with proof that they needed to send me another new smoke alarm.

Saturday (Day 678): I Know What You Like

I spent the night dreaming of all of the stuff around the house that I had to do and I was very worried about it all. When I woke up, I was happy to be awake, because even though I had the same list of stuff to do, it didn’t bother me like it did in the dream. I was exhausted though, and couldn’t find a reason why.

We had to drop by #1GF!’s Mom’s house in the morning, and I ended up in a not so quiet debate about politics with her uncle. I stay out of those conversations as long as I can, but if you throw enough ridiculous looking lures into the water, I’m eventually going to bite one of them. I jumped into the fray and it all ended like it should, with each party agreeing to disagree with no hard feelings.

#1GF! and I left and went to the food warehouse to pick up a whole bunch of oversized items. It was pouring, so I went and got the car so that #1GF! wouldn’t get wet.

We packed the stuff into the trunk, and went food shopping to pick up some of the items that we couldn’t buy in bulk. The store was packed with people who liked to stop in the middle of the aisles, and the Easter Bunny wandered around the store pushing an empty carriage. It was as close as I have come to being in a dream with my eyes open.

It was still raining when we finished up, so I went and got the car again. If #1GF! had a clear plastic kerchief, and I had a wool hat with a feather in it, we would’ve been a picture perfect 90 year old couple.

We got home at 3:30PM. As I sat eating a deviled ham sandwich, I wondered where the day went. Yes, deviled ham. I was already in character for a 90 year old man, and I thought it would be easier to simply stay there.

I plopped myself on the couch and watched home improvement shows until I remembered to check on the basement. It had been raining all day, but luckily, the basement was still dry. My robot sat on the floor facing the window, as he has been for the last few months. He was obviously in a powersave mode. As I walked up the stairs, I wondered why I had been so tired over the last few days. Maybe I need a powersave mode of my own.

I opened a letter from my cousin that contained a Mr. T finger puppet, wrapped in an article that said beards were making a comeback. The whole package screamed, “I know what you like.” I couldn’t help but put the puppet on my finger and pity various objects around the kitchen. I pitied the pans, the toaster, and even the dishwasher before #1GF! stopped me.

#1GF! and I sat down later to watch Year of The Dog with Molly Shannon, but I shut it off at the 45 minute mark because I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was painfully slow and I couldn’t imagine it going anywhere. I actually thought, “Life is too short for this,” before asking #1GF! if we could move on to something else. If she wanted to watch it, I was going to go get a book, but #1GF! said that she’d finish it another time.

What I Learned

• I am not an actor. I simply play one on TV.
• Just because you write the lines does not mean that you will have total recall. You still have to memorize them.
• Dirty feet inside clean socks is ok, but dirty socks on a clean floor isn’t?
• When some people say that they’re “bringing a sack of wigs” to a film shoot, it’s not film lingo. They’re bringing a sack of wigs.
• I’ve earned more QuakeLive Awards than I really should’ve for my age and employment level.
• “The Immigrant Song” is a great song to wake up to. It makes you want to conquer something.
• Bob Barker is still alive, coherent, and funny.
• I can’t eat like a teenager!
• The Easter Bunny pushing a carriage around a store is flashback inducingly weird.
• Mr. T on anything makes it better. I think.

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Posted in Leisure