Day Dreaming and Night Dreaming

I failed to stay awake past 8:30 pm the other night. When I woke up it was still dark, and I thought, I hope it's at least 5 am so I got enough sleep that I can get up. It was 1 am. I'd gotten 4.5 hours of sleep, and I can operate pretty well on that amount. I didn't want to get up, but I began to imagine all of the things I could get done if I did. I'll finally get started on that book! I can take care of all the bills online and clean out the front closet! When I woke up again it was 6 am. So I've discovered a fantastic new method of falling back asleep when I wake up too early -- daydreaming about all the amazing things I'm going to accomplish with my extra time.

Beer Me

I'm going to see my father-in-law this weekend. I remember the first time I met him. His daughter had told him that I like beer, and he called her from the grocery store. He told her he was in the beer isle and wanted to know what I'd like to drink. I said I like almost anything (except Corona). He asked where I was from (Wisconsin) and then said he found something perfect for me. When we arrived it turned out to be a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee, which I didn't think they sold in Florida. I would have guessed that the cost of shipping it outside of Wisconsin would cut too deeply into the profit margin on those $12 case. I had one (case), and it was delicious and warm, which is appropriate since that stuff doesn't taste any better when you ice it down. Well played, sir.

Bad Oysters

I'm not sure I'd recognize a bad oyster if it crossed my path. I've heard you can tell the moment it's in your mouth, but I take those things down by the plateful and don't notice too much of a difference. Do bad oysters taste like underwater snot? If so, then maybe all I've ever eaten are bad oysters. And if that's the case, they're delicious.

Social Hour That Lasts Days

I finally have a puppy but I'm married as are all of my friends. This situation is the opposite of a perfect storm, whatever that is. I'd love to loan out my pup to my friends who are trying to meet people and set them loose in the park. Puppies attract everyone, they're the perfect icebreaker, better than a hurricane (which you know everyone is going to talk about), plus they're approachable and don't cause loss of human life. In one day of having a puppy I met more people in my neighborhood than I have in the last five years. As an intellectual exercise I've tried to brainstorm other ways that it would be possible to meet so many strangers (margarita machine, T-shirt gun, Oscar Mayer Wienermobile) and they all have their own problems.

Food Memory

Eating Thai red curry or Indian chicken tikka masala is an exercise fading pain for me. I love both of these foods but whenever I eat them I gorge myself to troubling proportions and get so sick that I vow to never touch them again. Then it's a matter of time until that memory of intense food sickness fades enough for me to get it again. I've noticed over the years that the duration of time between my eating the stuff grows longer each incident, so by my estimates if I live to 90 I'll only eat it once that last decade. I'm worried that by then I may not be strong enough to recover from what it does to me. The first case of death by curry.

Idiotic People or Idiotic Rules (or both?)

I struggle with how to feel about people who get upset while going through airport security. There was the guy with 10 jars of salsa throwing a fit that the TSA was removing it from his carry-on and yelling about how they'll have a "salsa party" (food not dancing) in the break room. On one hand I think he's an idiot, we all know the rules, but on the other hand the rules are idiotic, and none of us should have to follow them. If his salsa carry-on were civil disobedience, I would be more supportive, but once you start throwing around baseless impromptu dip party allegations you lose the moral high ground.

Batteries Not Included

Someone at work was telling me that she saw a depressing movie she can't shake. She couldn't remember the name of it to warn us off, but she said it was on Netflix and had two actors whose names I'd never heard, so I'm in much danger. But I know what she means. I have no idea why, but hearing the name of the movie "Batteries Not Included" sends me into deep depression. I don't remember the precise details of the movie (spoiler alert: I think it's about alien robots that help save a tenement from demolition). And I know the film was meant to be an uplifting story, but I must have a strange association with depression. Sometimes I think I should watch it to try to get it out of my system. Push it out with immersion therapy, but then I think that could open even darker doors, and the truth is that it's not all that difficult to avoid Batteries Not Included in my day-to-day life.

Animal Safety

I talk to myself a lot. I work out ideas, I have conversations with myself. I'm a good listener I (for myself, though I admit I'm quite repetitive). So far, the nicest surprise to having a new dog is that it no longer looks like I'm talking to myself when we're out walking. Now instead of a bearded weirdo walking down the street muttering to himself, I'm a charming bearded weirdo talking to his dog about nonsense. I hope no one calls animal safety services on me, if that's even a thing.

Passwords Are The Worst

You know those awful websites that make you change your password every two months but won’t let you have sequential passwords (i.e. password1, password2, etc.)? I found a great workaround: all you need to do is add an asterisk at the end and then you can make them sequential, guaranteeing that you’ll only have to guess the password about ten times before getting it right. This whole password thing, by the way, is absurd. It’s like you bought a record and then every time you want to listen to it the next 10 years you have to show someone the receipt. I for one welcome the looming biometric data like fingerprints and retinal scanners we’ll be able to use instead of passwords. I know everyone is paranoid about privacy, but they have all the rest of your information already. At least I don’t have to worry about people stealing my fingers and eyeballs to hack my accounts.

My Winter Jacket

I’m sick of seeing my winter jacket. While I have many the one I’m talking about is the one that I wear every single day while all my others crowd my closet with unused stuff. Most winters it would have been washed and tucked away in a bag underneath my bed by this time of year. But our winter persists. A day of blue skies and warm weather has you thinking it might be over, then the next day everyone’s talking about salt shortages and you find yourself searching for nice throwing rocks in case you run into the TV weatherman on the street. It’s occurring to me right now that the solution may be to buy a brand new winter jacket today, and then it’ll be certain to warm up for the long term within hours.

Of All The Addictions

Of all the things to be addicted to lip balm isn't too bad. It's not too expensive or socially alienating, and it's not likely to cause you to die young. There are no negative health consequences that I know of, and even if I have to go without it for a couple days or hours, I would never resort to stabbing someone for lip balm money. My friend had terrible chapped lips, and he confided in me that he was trying to quit. His theory was that if his lips stopped getting used to lip balm they would produce more moisture and he could break the Burt’s Bees cycle. I didn’t see him for several months and looked forward to hearing the results of his self experiment, but when we met again he was back on the balm. Now I’m waiting for the day I go to the drug store and find all the lip balm is selling for $50 a tube. They have us right where they want us.

GPS Has Ruined Us All

Reliance on driving GPS has turned me into a fantastic moron. I might be able to check the movie times in India on my phone but if it dies I won't be able to find my way across town. I have a 10-hour drive ahead of me today and I've vowed that before I leave I'm going to by an atlas and trace the route, then make notations on mileage and pay attention. I will even buy a compass from a gas station and glue it to the dash of my rental and when I get lost, I will stop at a gas station and ask the attendant for directions, and I’m sure he’ll check his smartphone, and I won’t even get upset.

Lotto Time

I try not to buy lottery tickets because I find it impossible not to fall into the trap of thinking about the things I would do if I won the lottery. It's a waste of time, and if I'm being honest, I'm way too optimistic about all the wise decisions I'd make with that windfall. I may think I'll invest it all and grow it over the years, but if we can learn anything from other lotto winners it's that they always alienate all their friends and family and use the money to get into way more trouble than they would have ever been able to without it, and then they will suffer a premature death. But I'm sure it will be different for you and me.

March Madness

I can count on one hand the number of college basketball games I watch each year, but if you think lack of knowledge is going to stop me from filling out an NCAA bracket then you don't know me very well. I've just returned from leaving my bracket with my local bar. My method is simple: go online and see what the pros pick and copy them. With little allegiance I don't get bogged down in emotional decisions (my college leads the NIT every year), so I make all the high probability picks. Last year I made a mistake and left a few slots blank and still won a little money. Plus, more importantly, since I'll find myself watching basketball at some point in the tournament I'll at least have a team I know nothing about to cheer for. And then I can gloat about their winning to other people I don't know.

Tattoo Issues

I was hanging out with a friend over the weekend talking tattoos and health insurance. Specifically  about trying to get your health insurance to pay for your tattoo removal once you've met your deductible. I'm at the age where this is what passes for normal conversation. My friend is trying to get a butterfly (or maybe it's a symbol from an indeterminate Asian language) removed from her ankle. The conversation reminded me of the first person I knew who got a tattoo: a 20-year-old manager at my shoe store, who seemed so old and mature at the time. The tattoo of a tree she got on her ankle looked like a mushroom cloud. It said "peace" underneath it. Even then I knew it was pretty bad. I hope she's figured out a way to get insurance to give her a hand.

Stove Repairman

I was a bike mechanic and ski tech for a few years when I took a job at a gear repair shop. We fixed broken tent poles and repaired stoves. It was an interesting, dynamic job that required critical thinking on a daily basis and challenged me quite often. Not because it was super hard, but because we had no training program. They hired you, put you on the schedule to work alone, and then people started coming in and asking the guy behind the desk (you) to fix their stuff. I can't imagine that the first few tent poles I fixed lasted all that long, but you figure out what works after a couple tries. I could have used a bit of training when I started, but now that I look back I'm happy that my boss assumed we all had adequate common sense to figure these things out on our own.

Being Horrible At Giving Bad News

I'm bad at giving news about peoples' deaths, but not in the way you probably imagine. When old coworkers or mutual friends die and I run into an old coworker or someone from a friend group who's drifted off, after we catch up for a bit I'll remember the death and say, "Oh! You probably don't know!" Then I'll remember that it's horrible upsetting news, but I've already primed this person in what seems a happy, upbeat way, so I'll say, "It's really, really horrible news, I'm so sorry I started like that." By then the person is on the verge of killing me, and then I'll have to tell them what happened. It's awful, but it's one of those things I hope I don't get too much more practice on.

Young Impressions

My wife has blown it with the neighbors' 4-year-old. The first time we met she said, "Hi little guy! I'm your neighbor!" He skulked behind his father's legs and said from the shadow in even tones, "I'm not a little guy." Then last week we opened the door at the same time as them and when he stepped out she yelled, "Do you want to see my puppy!?" Only the puppy wasn't anywhere near us so it came off more as a creepy hey-kid-you-want-some-candy kind of line. I keep telling her to play it cool. The other day I saw the kid and we had on the same jacket, so I said, "Cool jacket." Now we're bros for life.

A Double Standard

It drives me crazy when I send someone a work email and then realize I left something out, so I have to send a follow-up email 15 seconds later. It feels like such a sloppy waste of time. On the other hand, I love it when people send me an email and then send me another one 15 seconds later because usually the first one says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "I need you to do a bunch of mundane work please!" And then the follow up says, "Never mind, you did all this mundane work last year and I can reuse it." Getting me that second email offers me a real sense of accomplishment without doing any extra work, which is nice once in a while.

What's Bothering You

Sometimes when I'm biking home or walking along the street I'll experience very negative feelings about people around me. I've tried to be more cognizant of this, and I've tried to focus on thinking about what's really driving the negative feelings. I'll ask myself, "Are all of these people really this stupid?" I'm talking about the guy who just threw his trash bag in the bike lane or the guy who didn't pick up after his dog. And then, upon reflection, most often I'll answer, "Yes." But, the much harder question: why let it bother you? I haven't been able to sort that one out. Until then, I'll be the guy yelling at the person who throws his trash on the sidewalk while next to a trash can.

Off to the Cleaner

Our rug was once new, not even that long ago. Now it's more like a rag used for soaking up wine, spaghetti, and pet stains. We decided to get it washed, and the cleaner offered me two options. One, which he guaranteed would work, would cost several hundred dollars. As that's greater than the value of the rug it was easy to decline. The second was very cheap but he warned, "I can't guarantee it will work or that the colors won't run." I selected the cheap option. This guy is going to find out that I also can't guarantee I will pay him.

Sandwich Confusion

The McRib is the world's most confusing sandwich. The pork-like meat is shaped into a patty that resembles a tiny rack of ribs complete with bones, but then you bite into it and find that it lacks bones and doesn't taste like ribs either. It'd be interesting to try to make a whole-food version with actual ribs, but between the huge bones and oversized, Fred-Flintstone-sized piece of meat it would require, eating it would be impossible. What's most confusing about the McRib is that rational human beings don't look at this odd synthesized version of food and ask themselves what decision in their lives have led to this meal. I try to eat a McRib every few years to remind myself how weird it gets out there.

Unsolicited Advice

I try not to offer unsolicited advice. Especially in the case of strangers. I'll let people figure it out for themselves. But I have a problem, I don't know how I could advise someone I don't know not to offer unsolicited advice. I really want to tell this lady to stop pestering me with dog care advice, but the doom-loop of irony is too much for me to bear.

The Zombie People

Look, I didn't think I was going to have to say this, but all you people who love zombie movies and TV shows, it's getting pretty obvious that you're all hoping for a real zombie apocalypse. The just-joking survival plans you share over a beer are far too detailed. And your analysis of city exit points and the best places to fortify must have required hours of poring over maps. It's okay though, nothing to be concerned about. As a pastime it's no more of a waste of time than memorizing baseball statistics. I just don't want you all to be disappointed when the zombies never rise.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of Year

Sure we "lose" an hour of sleep but there's no reason you can't lay in bed for that extra hour on Sunday. This weekend is the day we return to normalcy and move the clocks forward. At least I think we move them forward, but that forward-backwards part never made sense to me in terms of time. It's like saying you turn a screw right or left, it's a circle, how do you know what's left and right? So enjoy your daylight savings time, the hour of daylight after getting out of work every day. Unless, of course, you're one of those freaks who wakes up super early every day and now you're complaining about it being dark when you wake up. I have no sympathy for you.

Dog People Are Weird

A new puppy has been my entree into a massive underground community that I knew nothing about weeks ago. Dog people. They walk their dogs, I walk mine. We meet. The dogs sniff each other, and the other dog owner tells me a 10-minute story about the time they broke up a fight in the dog park. Then they share their dog's bowel history and the time it got lost in a mall and every veterinarian horror story they've ever heard. I do not ask, they volunteer this material. It's interesting, this undercurrent to the society I never knew about. I'm curious what the cat people are like.

Birthday Party Requests

This year, for my birthday party, I'm going to send an email that says, "Instead of buying me gifts this year, I ask that you donate to this charity of my choosing." Then I'll include a link and we'll track how much money I raise. The thing is, I don't normally have birthday parties, and no one every buys me gifts. So, it's a bit odd to ask for something in lieu of something that you would never get in the first place. I should raise no money, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway, it'll be easier to stack rank my friends.

The Salt Storm

A big storm was heading for the city, but at the last moment the jet stream edged it south 20 miles. We didn't even get a dusting. But boy, were we ready. I'm not sure if the mayor of the city is friends with the man who has the largest stockpile of the world's road salt, but he spared no expense in caking the streets white. It's all still there waiting to be washed into the storm drains. In the meantime, the salt clouds drift in the wake of busses and cars, and I can taste it while riding my bike home and then on my lips for hours after. Second-hand salt. I'll be the first person to contract hypertension from exercise.

Drivers and Driving Laws

I was driving along the highway the other day making use of the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane, enjoying cruising along at a nice clip in my personal lane while all the "normals" in the solo lanes jockeyed for position and tried to pass each other. There was one young man in a particular hurry, swerving in and out of tight spaces, stomping on the gas and shooting to at least 30mph over the limit, but never managing to escape our convoy of cars. In spite of speeding, driving recklessly, failing to use a turn signal, and flaunting any traffic law imaginable, he never once veered into the HOV lane. It was interesting to watch him and ponder the extent to which this young man has been trained to avoid a few very specific laws. It made me wonder why I stop at red lights when there are no cars around.

Airport Helper

Airlines are doing it all wrong. They thank you for choosing their airline at the end of your flight, when we all know that you chose their airline because it was the absolute cheapest way to get to your destination. They try to build goodwill by reminding you several times that your flight was on time (whenever it is), and they give you reward points that don't add up to much unless you fly for work every week. They're getting nowhere with these tactics. Then, the other day I saw something new: I was sitting in an airport bar and a person from the airline walked in after a flight had been delayed, and made an announcement to everyone in the bar that the flight was back on time. About 10 people slugged their drinks and ran for the gate. It would have been so easy to leave them behind, but I guarantee those drinkers now have real goodwill towards that airline. That's all it takes a real gesture so that you don't have to tell everyone at home that you missed your flight because you were in a bar.

This Email is Dye-Free

I was at the drugstore making my annual purchase of a huge bottle of ibuprofen and I noticed that bottle right next to the one I normally buy said "dye-free" ibuprofen. Since I'm quite certain that the dye isn't what gets rid of my headaches, and it's not like I need to have my pills dyed to make them more appetizing, I selected the dye-free option. Then I noticed that dye-free costs $1 more than the dyed version. Listen, unless some dye company is paying the ibuprofen makers to take dye off their hands, that doesn't make sense. So, not only have they been poisoning me with unnecessary dye for decades, but now I have to pay them to take it out.