Baby it’s cold outside.
It’s friggin February though so why the fuss? Seriously one snowstorm and some freezing weather and everyone starts getting all apocalyptic. Relax. Shoveling is good for your health and Mets training camp has opened. Oh my god is this post turning into Confessions Of A Mets fan XV or whatever Roman numeral I left off at last October? Will I mention Lost, Jack Bauer, Anna Nicile Smith, Idol, Cheney, Van Halen, or other relevant pop cultural topics. To find out you must read on.
It might but right now back to the snow.
So I go into Hannaford Tuesday to pick up a few things as I’m wont to do, whatever wont means in that context. Or is it want to do? Do I want to do it. Or wont I? I don’t understand this.
Anyway.
I get there and the place is just crawling with crazies rushing around hording supplies and making a number of long lines. So I say to myself, “self, there must be a snowstorm coming because this is how people always overreact to snowstorms though most of them have been through countless.” And despite being through countless, none of which presumably secluded them from civilization for weeks on end, they always act like they’re prepping the fallout shelters for the day after tomorrow. I have visions of them running home to Jason Robards or making urgent phone calls to Jake Gyllenhall to get him to come home before dad has to walk 500 miles through New Arctica to get him out of a library.
They kind of also reminded me of the denizens of South Park frantically scrambling to run from Global Warming which chased them down in the streets leaving those it caught in twitching and writhing messes on the streets.
So I’m strolling around the store looking at people with amusement as they scurry to secure their Perfect Storm supplies and run and huddle in their homes with their pets and or loved ones praying that Jesus will come but just not quite yet.
Seriously. Do people hear a storm is coming and then suddenly realize they may get hungry during it? Do people only shop for a day or two at a time and not want to go out until the roads are cleared? I don’t get it. They are not getting trapped in their homes for days on end. Why do they have to go all scrambling for supplies on my semi-regular day to pick up stuff?
David Wright is in camp early and pitchers are long tossing people!
Calm the fuck down!
As far as that semi-regular shopping day thing goes I must pause for comment since my patterns are getting a bit out of whack lately. If you read my Ass Man post you know I’ve taken on a different situation at work. If you’re like most people you don’t care. Why should you? That’s a families job. I’ll get to that point in a moment.
The job has included non steady hours that are fluid and flexible. This is both good and bad. I’ve still been working the occasional 3-11 but with a mix of 7-3 and 1-9′s thrown in on shifting days. It’s kind of cool actually. I have evenings available I’m not used to having available regularly. This work week which started today (Thursday), will have me working no later than 8 on any day. That’s Sunday. The other 4 I’m out at 3 or in tomorrow’s case around 4:30 since I’m going in at 8:30 now that we have a new part timer starting. I’ll get to do more of that 8-9 a.m. check in time more which is nice. My eves are mainly weekend oriented but with that flex to often be out at 7, 8, or 9.
This might not seem interesting or noteworthy to you but after the comparatively rigid steadiness of being at work until 11 or 12 at least 3 nights a week with an overnight thrown in fairly often, for the better part of a decade, it’s interesting to me. It’s a break from routine and the old demands of the job and affords me a break from redundancy and some old job stresses. They’re still there along with some new ones but it’s more mixed now. All this is nice.
So why don’t I feel happier?
Well I’m a sick and twisted man who might be clinically incapable of experiencing happiness. I can’t help dwell on the negatives of all this. At least part of the time. Part of me misses old routine and its steadying effects. I certainly miss Granite IRA where I transferred from in order to take this promotion. I fit in better there as far as sharing a wavelength with staff, residents, and management. We got each other as much as can be expected in this job and area. None of those groups are all that bad where I am now at Neighborhood IRA but that easy humor, loose insouciance, casual asides, and laid back atmosphere at the last place is missed. I even volunteered to work there this past Monday when a staff of mine had to go to cover them in their temp abode in Rhinebeck. As an Ass Man I don’t have to do that. This woman didn’t want to go. But I didn’t do it to be nice to her. She’s a pathological liar. I don’t do nice things for liars unless it’s professionally fair. I wanted to relax a bit in a safer environment. I don’t have alot of family so I guess it’s nice feeling a measure of it at work even if it’s a very disjointed family that only gets together for 8 hour shifts for the most part. At least we had each others back with no agenda.
And then there is the fact that the extra evening time reminds me of all that that is missing to complete this picture of comparative normalcy. Maybe if it was spring or I lived closer to the city it wouldn’t be as bad. But up here, at this time of year, it just magnifies that whole “you’re pathetically alone during primetime hours people are huddling together during to escape overhyped storms you always wanted more of!” thing. That and the lacking family to whine about your day to or get sympathy from. rR applause or pat on the back when appropriate. So part of me wishes I were getting more sleep and working later if there’s nothing to do anyway. Might as well get full rest which I’m not getting now. I’m seriously thinking of moving down closer to the city at some point down the road. It’s not that I want to anymore but that I might need to. It’s like that Chilli Peppers song “the city she loves me, lonely as I am, together we cry.” Kiedis is talking about L.A. But Manhattan too is an entitity, a companion, an invigorating and comforting distraction.
And I do have a couple of cousins in Yonkers still. Having people is nice. And as I said family has to care. Or at least act like they do. Argue together or die alone. I’m seriously not looking for sympathy here. I’m not big on sympathy. I don’t handle it well just as I don’t handle compliments well. But then I get pissed when I don’t get them. This is all part of an illness relating to an inability to be satisfied.
Which brings me to Lost.
What the bloody hell was that last night?
Time travel? Is that really where we’re going here? Or was Desmond just having an episode? A life before his eyes moment after the hatch imploded? If so I could have done without an hour of it. I like Desmond. I love Penelope and appreciate any chance to see her. Sweet loyal Penny who doesn’t care that Desmond isn’t good enough for her. He wants to be worthwhile and so believes he’s been saving the world by pushing a button. Guy with no esteem or self-worth is put into enclosed space and becomes convinced the world is in his hands. Part of the experiment? If so it makes more sense with what we are learning about Desmond. He’s not even worth a bottle of scotch. That was some cold ass shite by the way. That scene with Widmore. I need Desmond going all Sawyer on chain gang guy on Penny’s father. But something about the flashback that wasn’t left me a little hollow.
As for Sawyer he is the man. Old Wookie prisoner trick indeed.
But if Charlie dies now this show might die to me with him. Not because I love Charlie that much. Actually he’s become quite dispensable the past year. But now that his fate is tied into all this clairvoyant free will vs determinism shit I’m pulling for the old boy. I hate all that universe balancing itself by killing guys no matter how many times you save them according to some Oracle ring seller. I hate that kind of defeatist bullshit. If this show is going in that direction and all this was destined with no free will I might be bailing.
I can even deal with some sort of time travel as silly as it is. If Desmond telling his friend all that island stuff at that pub led to him telling Penny after he disappeared, thusly leading to her Arctic base and search for the electromagnetic anomaly, I can sort of get a kick out of that in a Donnie Darko it’s been done but at least not on a network show kind of way.
Now ABC is plugging next week as answering 3 of Lost’s biggest questions. Like they billed this as the best season. And episode 6 as the best episode. Biggest secrets? So we’re going to find out about the 4 toed statue? What the Dharma Initiative is? Why all the coincidences? The numbers? The electromagnetisms meaning? Is or was the island cloaked? Was the button really saving the world? Did the Others know?
I doubt it. I’m guessing we find out why Paolo can’t hold his bowels, why Hurley doesn’t lose weight on an island without a tv (only a minute has passed on the island), and why a rogue like Sawyer who obviously gets laid is still so obsessed with Star Wars.
And something about the kidnapped passengers. That we know we’re getting. Like that’s really been one of the biggest questions. Seems like bait and switch to me.
Quickly on 24. The Bauer’s are one weird ass creepy family. Da da da dum, snap, snap, da da da dum, snap, snap. They’re creepy and they’re cooky. I still haven’t watched hour 2 of last Monday’s 2 eps. I’m just tired and part of me wants Wayne Palmer to be take out. This is conflicting me in very personal ways.
But Jack on brother action is some serious shit. Jack was bad cop and good cop all by himself while torturing that sissy-ass neo-con brother.
Heroes. Bit slow lately. Doing some predictable padding of their own. Please let Nikki/Jessica die. I can’t take much more of her lip. I’m afraid of it. I want to use her face as a garden hoe.
Nathan is Claire’s father. Who could have seen that coming?
Oh yeah, everybody.
But hey it is more credible than pulling something really surprising out just for surprises sake. Sort of like 24 does even though 24 is alot more exciting.
Van Halen reunion. Roth is back. I will admit to you right now that I think Diamond Dave is one of the greatest frontmen in musical history. I am biased. I can’t wait to see how they handle the Hall Of Fame induction next month. sammy may be there. Dave will be there. Michael Anthony may be there after he just got fired in favor of Eddie’s kid Wolfgang, the product of one of the early hybrid relationships that today would be known as Valeddie Vanhanelli.
I loves me the VH but I want an album. A good one. i don’t care if they tour this summer. I’m not going to be a roadie.
All those meaninglesly optimistic stories about baseball teams, locally Mets and Yanks have begun, Everyday we’ll get bullshit about the vet fighting for a roster spot, the rookie trying to show he belongs, the rehabbing comeback attempt, etc etc. Such hack crap. Thank you Jeebus.
Idol. Take out that one dark haired girl who’s a bit different but still sexy and Chris the funny guy who looks like Ozzy’s kid, and this is a very bland and indistinguishable field. The best part may be over after being done with the fake bad auditions. At least some of them are fake. Unbelievably so. As for those who are not it’s very hard to fathom. Well not that hard in this country. Kids are stupid and full of themselves. They really think they are due their tv exposure. Things come too easy to us and too many kids now feel they simply must be handed fame no matter how little talent they have. Growing up in this oversaturated media culture has really turned out an army of psycho children with no conception of reality or normalcy.
Another side effect of the boosting esteem positive feedback upbringing from parents afraid to deal with the truth. Drop these kids in Darfur for a year and they’d come out wanting to star in a movie about a kid from Darfur and feel it was their due. The least society could do. It’s that Terrel Owens mentality we see in the NFL so much now. And NBA.
Everyone is worshipping at the cult of me and if they aren’t given their proper religious respectful reverence they go all holy shit my rights of free worship are being violated by you not respecting me. When Simon or Randy say they suck they’re doing the equivalent of walking into a church and screaming “Jesus sucks cock!”
I don’t want to go off on a rant here.
But I just did.
Because it’s my due too.
My due too.
Due too.
Doo doo.
Heh.
Heh-heh.
Oh yeah guess who I didn’t mention in this post?
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