This is week 101 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 700): What Is Happening To Me

I woke up and turned to #1GF!. “I just had a dream that the weather was going to be 64 degrees with a thirty percent chance of rain.”

“That’s weird,” said #1GF! while wiping the sleep out of her eyes.

“What it is, is the most boring dream ever created. I mean, if you talk about the weather, you’re short on conversational topics. What is going on in your head when you dream about a weather forecast? A mild and nondescript one at that.”

#1GF! just smiled and rubbed her belly like she has a tendency to do these days.

We got up, and I made breakfast for #1GF!. I plugged in the portable radio, and swished through the dials looking for something to listen to while I cooked. I ended up settling on a station known for its bone drying selection of soft classic rock.

The music hovered between the rock of my parents’ generation and music that was released when I was way too young to notice anything that wasn’t played as a string of single notes by a colorful toy. The station leaned into the sleepy reaches of Carole King and The Rolling Stones and refused to get up.

It was unoffensive and unnoticeable, like a grandfather concentrating on the newspaper at the kitchen table. The music sort of hung in the air and quickly faded from memory. While dropping an egg into a pan, the sizzle snapped me out of the blanket of sound that I was wrapped in, and I wondered what was happening to me that I thought that soft hits were suddenly preferable to an actual heart rate.

We ate our breakfast as we usually do, with #1GF! enjoying every leisurely bite, and me trying to get the food into my belly as fast as possible. I cleaned off my plate, and #1GF! went the other room and turned on the television.

“Hey come in here!” she called.

I walked into the room wondering what funny or interesting thing I’d see on a Sunday morning home show, but #1GF! pointed to the TV. As the new age jazz played, the local weather forecast sat on the screen: It was to be 64 degrees with a thirty percent chance of rain.

“What’s the rest of the week going to be like?” said #1GF! with semi-mockingly wide eyes at the man who had suddenly earned himself the title of the most boring psychic reader in the world.

I smiled at the implication that I would soon be working alongside Dion Warwick and her other Psychic Friends. Although I couldn’t remember watching the weather, I must’ve seen the forecast the day before.

“I probably saw the forecast yesterday or something. Sadly, my brain added it to the day’s highlight reel.”

I was comfortable listening to smooth rock, and was now a psychic weatherman. I again wondered what was happening to me.

I went to the kitchen and stared at the green, digital numbers of the stove clock. It was already 11:30, and I still hadn’t showered. Half the day had slipped away, and I wasn’t prepared for it in the least. I suddenly found that irritating. I had no plans, but it’s nice to be dressed and ready just in case something interesting materializes.

#1GF! asked me to do a little research on a piece of electronics that she wanted to buy her mom for Mother’s Day, so I stood at the computer dusting off sites that I haven’t looked at in years. #1GF! watched my progress on the TV, periodically asking where all the sites were coming from. I would just shrug and look through page after page of specs.

After a very small amount of research, I started getting aggravated because it felt like I was wasting my time. I used to like to research electronics. I’d subscribe to various sites showing off the latest gadgets that were coming out, I’d search out the best values that I’d never buy, and I’d usually know a fair amount of electronics specs off the top of my head. I used to think it was fun. Now, I find most electronics to be, well, more of an occasionally interesting oddity than lifestyle choice.

I don’t TXT (LOL WTF? RUOK?). My TV is older than my computer, and my computer, while cutting edge four years ago, is nothing special now. I don’t have high definition anything in my house. I don’t have an ipod, and the only music player that I have is my phone. And I lost the headphones for that a long time ago and never cared enough to replace them. In fact, I’m writing this long running blog post on a secondhand keyboard while staring at a CRT.

I’m far from technology phobic, but the more I get away from the bustle and pitch of consumer electronics, the more it seems like a sham. You upgrade your TV, your phone, your camera, and your monitor, and a majority of the time spent researching specs and deals offers only marginal benefits over keeping your old equipment or doing without. Are iphones cool? Sure they are. Are they something that I need? I barely use all the digits on the phone I have.

#1GF! and I drove to a local big box electronics stores and picked up her mother’s gift. #1GF! had us wander through the TV section while we were there because I think she’s hankering for a flat screen. I found myself uninterested, and thinking that most of the TVs were ridiculous. It costs thousands of dollars for the opportunity to give television a stronger foothold in your life, and all you get is a crisper picture that will be outdated in two years time.

As we walked through the store, I couldn’t even be bothered with the CDs. Everything in the store seemed to have a hidden and pointless bundle of research and work attached to it. It was like standing at the foot of a mountain and turning away from it because there was absolutely no reason to climb it. I was not on, or even contemplating scaling, technology mountain. Once again, I wondered what was happening to me.

We left the electronics store and walked up the road to the baby megastore to continue registering for baby stuff. As we walked down one of the aisles, a woman in her mid-40’s was hovering near us, trying to apply her research to the vast selection of multi-colored baby contraptions in front of her. She seemed frustrated and overwhelmed, so I think that it might’ve been her first time in the store. She started talking to us about what she had read online about various items.

She turned to #1GF! with a small amount of exasperation. “We’re going to be in the AARP before the kids get out of grade school.”

I humored her by laughing, and she half jokingly asked us if we wanted to come over to babysit because she was “having triplets, but not twins.” Her husband showed up, so #1GF! and I sort of smiled, wished her luck with everything, and slowly backed out of the aisle, leaving her in someone else’s care.

When we got outside, the weather made good on its five day long threat of rain. We hopped into the car, and threw on our seat belts.

“That had to be that lady’s first time in there,” I said to #1GF! who nodded back at me.

“What was that thing about the twins and triplets?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” said #1GF!. “I thought she said she had three kids.”

“She pointed to three spots on her belly,” I said, pointing to three spots on my own.

“I don’t know then.”

I shrugged.

“She made me feel old.”

“What? How?”

“That AARP crack.”

“Oh, you’re not as old as she was. I was more concerned with the off the wall babysitting offer.”

We went home and #1GF! went in for a nap. I didn’t wrap her in a shawl or give her any lemon tea because she’s not that old. I used / wasted the time playing Quake. I should’ve spent the time on something more useful, but didn’t. #1GF! never actually slept, so we both sort of wasted an hour.

#1GF! got up, and I shut my PC down. I caught a few minutes of Heavy: The Story of Metal on VH1, and found out that Kiss had a disco album. I can’t say that I was all that surprised, but I felt shame for them that they couldn’t feel for themselves. I shut the show off soon after that fact was revealed.

We got some takeout and spent the rest of the evening watching Weirdsville. The movie had me interested enough to keep me from shutting it off, but I ended up falling asleep before the end. I never did find out what happened, but it still doesn’t seem to bother me. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I must be getting old.

Monday (Day 701): Star Wars Day

I wrote LOR all day as I have done most Mondays over the last two years. I did take a break to eat a piece of cheesecake for lunch because I’m an adult, and adults can do those sort of things if they want to. I ate the cheesecake off of a knife because forks seemed too civilized for such a wild man who would forgo the sanity of nutrition in favor of something with enough calories to feed a small family.

I stood there eating that cake off a knife in my kitchen, and I wasn’t being the least bit careful of where the sticky glops of cake might land if they didn’t reach my mouth. Ok, I sort of was eating over the sink, and did lean in on more than a couple of occasions so that any non ingested cake would end up in the sink. And maybe it was a butter knife and not the sharp, Rambo like instrument of death that I will describe it as when I’m trying to use the story to coax a second bowl of pudding out of the nice young nurses when I’m in the home. And maybe, just maybe, I had a sandwich afterward because I didn’t think that cheesecake for lunch was very nutritious.

Rebellion in my life is now defined as cake for lunch. Feel that? It’s the last great surge of a rebellion machine that lost its alternator long ago. I better go get some tea with antioxidants and a bit of lemon. You know what I just did? I couldn’t find my glasses, and then I found them hanging on a string around my neck. Can you believe that? How funny. Oh I almost forgot to mention the part about… Zzzzzzzzzzz.

It was May 4th, and K pointed out that it was Star Wars Day. It took me a few minutes to catch on, but once I did, I called #1GF! in hysterics. She happened to be out to dinner with a friend.

“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you,” I said,

“Oh, it’s no bother. What’s up?”

[Fighting back snickers] “I wanted to wish you happy Star Wars Day.”

“What?”

[more snickering] “Star Wars Day is today.”

“What are you talking about?” #1GF! said, as if switching between her normal friend and her geeky boyfriend were causing her to grind social gears.

[giggling like a seven year old] “May the fourth… be with you,” I said before bursting out in uncontrollable laughter.

“Awwwriiiight then,” said #1GF!, probably trying to figure out who’s seven year old she was going to tell her friend had called.

“the fourth…” I slipped out through a small break between letting the laughter out and the air in.

“I’m going now.”

“You can tell your friend that one if you want,” I said wiping the tears out of my eyes. “It’s free.”

“Uh huh. Loveyoubye.”

I hung up the phone and finished writing LOR. I checked my e-mail and found that Big Poppa E had sent over an awesome beard poem that I wanted to put into a post. I was trading e-mails back and forth with him, when my internet connection and phone suddenly dropped.

I troubleshot the desktop and the router, and called our ISP. I waded through the phone options and pressed a button that said they would reset my router, and an automated voice told me to wait fifteen to twenty minutes and call back. It then hung up on me. “Ugh. Friggin’ robots,” I said to no one in particular.

I sat waiting for fifteen minutes, and then navigated through the ISP’s phone options once again. After a short stint on hold, I reached a guy who seemed completely and understandably bored by his job. He walked me through some basic troubleshooting steps like disconnecting and unplugging the router, and I followed the instructions in case he was doing something additional on his end. Nothing was working.

Right after we passed the rebooting stage and were ready to move on to what I hoped was a little actual troubleshooting, the call started to drop. I looked at the phone and it was only showing two tiny little red bars. They looked a bit sleepy and thoroughly uninterested that I was currently on the phone.

“No.”

My robot suddenly woke up and put on his pre-programmed “ashamed” look.

“Not you,” I said as I ran out of the basement and bounded up the stairs two at a time in an attempt to get to higher ground and better reception. I made it to the middle of the house before hearing the di do long that indicated the call was over.

“Noooooo! Shhhhhit.”

I couldn’t call on the house phone because it was dead. The cell phone was my only option. This is the problem when it comes to bundle packages: If there’s an outage, you have no phone or internet to help you tell the company that there’s an issue. It’s perfect for the company, but not so good for the consumer.

I dialed the company again and went through the phone options for the third time. Not Spanish. Yes internet. Punch in account number. An automated voice kicked in.

“There is a known outage in your area, and support personnel are working to resolve the issue. We are sorry for any inconvenience.”

Awesome. If I had shut everything off and spent an hour reading, I would’ve been in better shape than spending an hour trying to fix the unfixable. I wandered around the house for fifteen minutes looking for something to do before flopping on the couch. I spent the rest of the night flipping back and forth between the science and history channel until #1GF! got home.

Tuesday (Day 702): Beards, Kitchens, And Dreams

Spent a couple of hours in the morning putting together a beard post featuring a beard-based slam poetry video from Big Poppa E. The writing took longer than I expected because I kept revising and changing small phrases. Sometimes that happens on posts when I have too much time and too little pressure.

I started working on the kitchen site, but gave up after a couple of hours. Sometimes tedious work looks unappealing when it’s in a massive pile, and that’s the point that I was at with the site. I was down to the data entry portion of the project, and there was a fair amount of it waiting.

It was raining, so I checked on the basement and downspouts every couple of hours to make sure that things were staying dry and my robot was off his feet. They were, and he was. I even checked on the gutter seals, and they were holding too. One day, I hope to get to a point where my first instinct when it rains isn’t to run around checking for leaks. I have no idea how many years that might take, but a man has to have dreams that are bigger than weather forecasts.

Wednesday (Day 703): Kitchen Pictures And Chicken Pizzas

I fixed a meta tag issue on my site where I realized that I had two different meta descriptions generated for each post. I wondered if it had any real affect on my Google ranking, but couldn’t be sure.

I worked from 9-6 organizing, cropping, and choosing photos for the kitchen site. I made a couple of new headers, and tried not to get too in depth with them.

#1GF! brought home buffalo chicken pizza. That’s not usually the sort of thing that happens on Wednesday, but I swear to you it did.

Thursday (Day 704): Mocha Satana Devilla

I was out the door at 7:30, and drove #1GF!’s mom to her appointment. I read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys while I sat in the waiting room. A bald custodian with a massive goatee repetitively climbed a ladder in a game of hide and seek with an air filter. His frustration was vented through several sighs.

As I read, two women showed up together and started talking. The younger of the two had a very slight accent. As I sat there reading, I couldn’t help but think that her voice sounded familiar, although she didn’t look the least bit familiar at all.

As I racked my brain trying to figure out where I might know her from, I realized that she may have the same accent as a friend’s wife. I marked the case as solved without asking if I was right. It was none of my business where the woman was from, and I certainly didn’t want to imply that I was interested.

I had been on the same page of my book for longer than would’ve made sense for someone with more than a fourth grade education, so if they were tracking my reading like I was tracking that accent, they would’ve thought that I was either eavesdropping or illiterate. They would’ve been half right on either point.

On the way home, #1GF!’s mom asked if we had any names for the baby. In my most convincing voice, I said that we were seriously considering two names. #1GF!’s mom seemed excited to hear them.

“Well, the first is ‘Satana’,” I said.

“Tama?”

“Satana”

“Stana?”

“Satana”

“Sitama?”

The ruse was losing its fun. “SAY. TANA.”

“Satana…” She thought for a second and burst out once the name sunk in. “JON! STOP! NO! You’re not serious!”

“Devilla then.”

“DeLilla?”

“Devilla.”

“Gak.” She looked at the roof of my car. “Oh please god. He’s only kidding.”

“What about Satana Devilla?”

“It’s a BAAAby!”

“Yes. Baby Satana Devilla Evilla.”

“Do you have any real names?”

“Mocha?”

“Argh.” She waved me off knowing that she wasn’t going to get a straight answer.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Now, you don’t believe in god…” #1GF!’s mom asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Well, look around you. Isn’t that all proof enough? Where do you think the world came from?”

“Big Bang? I really don’t know.”

“Well it had to come from somewhere.”

In her own way, #1GF!’s mother was essentially postulating the watchmaker analogy.

“I suppose, but that doesn’t point to a god for me. I don’t think there’s a right answer to the question though. I think people can believe whatever they want on the subject as long as it makes them happier at the end of the day.”

“To each his own,” #1GF!’s mom said thoughtfully.

“To each his own,” I repeated.

I got home around 10:30AM, and immediately started working on the kitchen site. I worked on it until normal people would be leaving their jobs. After dinner, I played Quake while #1GF! watched TV. Both activities seemed like a big waste of time, but they were what we wanted to do.

Friday (Day 705): No, No. What I Meant To Say Was…

I drove #1GF!’s mom to her appointment and then dropped into the supermarket so that she could pick up some ingredients for a Mother’s Day dessert. As we drove along, we talked about Mother’s and Father’s Day, and I mentioned that I thought that both holidays were a scam. As someone who likes his parents and is positioned to be a dad within a few months, I probably didn’t express it as eloquently as I should’ve.

What I meant to say was…

Every year, the minor holidays seem to be taking one step closer to dethroning the king of commercial holidays from its December seat. You know I have nothing against mothers and fathers, and there’s no denying the effort that goes into raising kids, but that’s a natural inclination. You’re supposed to want to raise your kids. You’re naturally compelled to. While cranking out kids that thrive is certainly an achievement, simply having one is largely a matter of timing and luck.

When I was a kid, I once asked my mother, “If there’s a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day, when is Kid’s Day?”

The weary reply: “Every day is Kid’s Day.”

At the time, it didn’t seem fair that people were excluded from having their own holiday. Even now, on the cusp of parenthood, I feel the same way. People who refuse to have kids because they just don’t want them, don’t get to have a Sunday where people drop off gifts for international “I Don’t Have Kids Day”. People who want children, but can’t have them, are expected to greet others who hit what they feel is the genetic lottery with a cheery, “Happy Mother’s Day.” And people who have lost their children do their best to limp through the day, trying not to sink in a pool of what might have been.

It just seems like the holidays are akin to having an annual celebration for people who have won the lottery. I’m sure a day like that would be fun for the winners, but for a lot of people, it might look to be a bit depressing.

What I actually said was, “Why don’t we just have a holiday for people with blond hair or brown eyes? It’s all arbitrary and getting like Christmas.”

This is one of the reasons why I’m a writer and not a public speaker. Well, that and my propensity toward jeans and T-shirts over suits and ties.

When I got home, I worked on the kitchen site until 1PM. It was 95% done, and I had to stop before I started working harder than smarter.

I went out to mow the lawn and pulled up some weeds from our new mulch. In all honesty, they could be plants, but I’m not sure. I didn’t put ‘em there myself, so out they came.

I made plans for both Mothers Day Eve and Mother’s Day, and then worked to resolve the plumber issue since his attorney has stopped responding to mediation. I mailed a copy of the letter to the mediator and sent the lawyer’s copy certified mail so that there would be no mistake about whether he was ignoring it or not.

I put some boneless ribs in the oven at 4PM to stew in some BBQ sauce for next three hours and went back to work on the kitchen site a little. I stopped working at 5PM and played some Quake.

Although #1GF! wouldn’t admit it, the ribs came out dry. I suspect that it may be because of the lack of bone, but I’m not sure.

Saturday (Day 706): The Mother’s Day Eve Pandemic

I got up and tried to figure out what I was going to make my mother for dessert on her Mother’s Day eve Mother’s Day celebration. I was going through a number of options spanning a number of dessert categories, and my mother happened to call and mention that she liked pudding. I put all the recipes aside, and #1GF! found a few recipes for bread pudding for me. I sort of followed one of the recipes, and a small taste test proved that my first batch of bread pudding ever wasn’t a total disaster.

I got dressed, and #1GF! and I went to a local big box electronics store to get some DS Lite games for my mother for Mother’s Day. We picked out eight or so, and whittled the pile down to a couple. We went next door to an office supply store so that #1GF! could pick up another appointment calendar for her mother, and then stopped by the market to pick up some vanilla ice cream for the bread pudding.

When we got home, #1GF! gave me an old People magazine to wrap my mother’s presents in. I ripped a few pictures of Susan Boyle out of there and wrapped the gifts so that her face adorned both sides. I had never heard the woman sing, but it seemed funnier than having another picture of yet another Hollywood star claiming to have a seesawing weight problem.

I changed from shorts and a T-shirt into jeans and a button down shirt because we were going to a slightly fancy restaurant. I contemplated wearing dress pants, but dressing up just to eat in a restaurant always seems silly to me.

#1GF! and I sat at the table playing Fluxx while we waited for my parents to show up. #1GF! won a hand without realizing it, and I got bored with the game after a couple of hands. I swept up the cards into a pile mid hand, and we played a couple of rounds of Uno to pass the time.

My parents got stuck in bridge traffic and arrived a half hour late. They were five minutes early for our dinner reservation at a small, upscale restaurant that was a five minute drive away. We put away the crackers and chips that they had warned us not to put out.

I had the door open and was waiting for #1GF! to put on her shoes, but my father thought it would be funny to beep a few times anyway.

“Doesn’t he know we’re coming out?” asked an exasperated #1GF!.

“Oh, he knows alright. I’m looking right at him and I can see him laughing.”

We went to the restaurant and ate. The meal was good, but it’s rare that I think an unadorned pork chop in the middle of a plate should command $25, no matter how thick it is. Maybe I’m simple. Or cheap. Or a little of both. People have to make a living, I suppose, so if you can charge $25, I say go for it. I’m just not the ideal clientele for that sort of thing.

We went home and sat around the table eating warm bread pudding and ice cream. We served up coffee and wine, and I splashed wine on my shirt because I’m not used to pouring it. Instead of dabbing some water on the small, but expanding purple dot on the front of my shirt, I ended up taking the shirt off and throwing it under the water in the kitchen sink. I stood there in a T shirt, soaking the wine out of that shirt using the kitchen sponge. It seemed like the easiest way to keep from ruining a good shirt, and within five minutes, there was no question that the spot was gone.

I looked like I stepped out of the 50’s with my jeans, white T-shirt, and gelled hair, but we’re all family, and no one else was coming over. I kicked off my shoes and grabbed Pandemic out of the forbidden closet of mystery. I gave the game to my mother last Christmas, and stole it out of their basement the first time they went on vacation.

Pandemic is interesting in that it’s a cooperative, strategy-based board game in which all players play to cure four pandemics that are spreading around the world. Players work together against the game itself, and either everyone wins, or everyone loses.

We taught my parents the game, and we ended up winning the beginners round. We stepped up to normal difficulty for the second round, and the game beat us pretty badly. Virus outbreaks exploded all over the world, and we couldn’t find a single cure to stop them.

“Pretty good game, huh?” I said. “When you lose, you feel a little like you let the world down. It’s sort of a weird feeling.”

Everyone agreed. We put the game back in the box and offered it back to my parents since it was really my mother’s game. She told me to keep it because she’d probably only play it with us anyway. I didn’t protest as much as I should’ve before stashing the game back in the forbidden closet of mystery.

What I Learned

• Kiss had a disco album. I feel like their should be a bigger word for shame. Or shameless.
• May the 4th be with you…
• I had a double meta tag issue.
• Slow cooked boneless ribs end up drier than bone in ribs after three hours.
• I may not have too much use for poetry, but I found some slam poetry that I like.
• Some dream in technicolor. I’ve started to dream in boring.

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