Memoirs Of J

No, not Microsoft windows.

Our full-house window replacement job is underway.  This is a huge (and very expensive) undertaking.  It’s the biggest improvement project we’ve had done to-date, followed by the roof which we did ourselves.

Most of the new windows are already installed, with just some finishing work left.  The two largest windows are not even started.  The contractor came Monday and worked all day, getting quite a bit done for working all alone (his assistant was apparently AWOL).  He was supposed to come back this morning to finish the job.  I got a call from him at about 9am – his truck had broken down and he had it in the shop but said it should be fixed by noon, so would be here mid-day.  Well that came and went and no contractor.  He never showed up.  C and I went for a walk after dinner (around 7pm) and that’s when we finally heard back from the contractor.  Supposedly, all is well now and he will be here tomorrow morning.  I sincerely hope so because this project needs to be wrapped up by this weekend.  C goes back to work tomorrow so isn’t really going to be able to be up during the day to be available for the contractor’s access to our house.

I was scanning through radio stations on my way home from work today and somehow ended up on some religious talk channel – family life radio I think .  I don’t know exactly what kept me from flipping right through as soon as I heard the god discussions… raw curiosity I suppose.

From what I could tell from only about 10 minutes of listening, this is basically how it works.  Distraught, misguided, or confused Christians call the show seeking advice from “Doctor” Randy.  The doc basically interjects that whatever it is is God’s will, and that the caller needs to exhibit “intentional living.”

The first caller was Carrie from Michigan.  Her husband up and left about a year ago, citing a lack of love for her.  She hopes that he will change his mind and come home.  However, she’s come to the understanding that God knows what is right and that she must accept it as His will.  The doc agreed that God has His plan and that Carrie must live intentionally, being a good mother and friend.

So…  basically you just need to throw your hands up in the air, rejecting any notion of responsibility, influence, or blame for whatever situation you find yourself embroiled in.  God wants what he wants, right?  I’m not suggesting that Carrie could force her husband to come back because that’s absurd, but she could have attempted to work out the problems with him before it was too late by being proactive rather than just sitting back saying ‘oh woe is me *sigh* I guess God has his plan though…’

The next caller was Gary.  He has a porno problem and views internet porno 3-4 times a year (I’m thinking he said year but really meant hour…), despite having placed parental controls on his computer.  His wife is unhappy and he agrees that it is sinful, but hey, he’s a man and men are weak when it comes to nekked’ women!  His words, not mine.  The doc insisted that he seek the guidance of a trusted counselor in his church before it becomes a bigger issue.  Gary explained that he’s tried, but can’t shake the habit.  The conversation ended with the doc exclaiming that “God is bigger than Pornography!” and that Gary must work to overcome his indiscretions for his wife and marriage, but more importantly for God.

It was unreal, almost like a prank call.  Gary was so… um, Southern, to be p.c. about it.  The music from Deliverance popped into my head whenever he spoke.  Ultimately though, this “problem” is such a non-issue that I can’t believe someone had to call a radio talk show to seek advice, especially if he really only views porn as infrequently as 3-4 times per year.  So you look at some nude women on  the computer screen or in a magazine…wow.  That’s atrocious.

I went into our attic for the first time ever last night.  C is installing a whole house fan and needed help hanging it on the chains up there.  It’s hotter than hell up there and full of blown installation that gets in your clothes, eyes, throat, and nose, and you have to be *really* careful of where you step so you don’t fall through the drywall.

We got the fan hung though, and it is operational so all is well.  I bumped my head twice on the same board.  Now I have a scratch on my left temple and a bump on my right!

I hate coffee drinkers.  Let me rephrase that – I hate whole drawn-out performance that a coffee drinker invariably repeats each morning, so I hate coffee drinkers WHILE they are procuring their morning brew.  At other times I’m sure they’re upstanding citizens.

Each morning at work, all I want to do is get my glass of ice water while my laptop is booting up.  The ice maker is located inconveniently beneath the damn coffee pot.  If I enter the break-room and there is not someone standing idly there, well I check the calendar because it must be a Saturday.

Here are some tips, coffee drinkers.

1. The coffee will not brew faster if you stand in front of it staring longingly.  Push the button and come back in 5 minutes.
2. If you must add sugar / cream /honey / other additives to make it not taste like the percolated raccoon piss that it is, please take your cup and shuffle to the side so you are not blocking the coffee pot, ice, refrigerator, sink, cups, and anything else useful in the break-room that might be accessed by others.
3. It does not take 10 minutes to prepare a new pot for brewing.  I used to work in a restaurant with a very similar commercial coffee maker, so even though I never drink coffee I certainly know how to make it.  Open the pack, pour in the filter, put filter holder into the machines, press button, and walk away.  This should take 2 minutes, tops.
4. Brown is regular, orange is decaf.  This is common knowledge.  Don’t stand there motionless, acting confused.
5. If you use all but a drop of coffee, you should probably start a new pot (unless you are going to take 1/2 hour to do so).  Don’t be an ass.  I don’t even drink it, but when I see this happening I still get pissed.

We just got home from connxtions comedy club.  As always, it was hilarious and we had a great time.  I can’t remember the name of the first guy performing (um, I had a couple of long islands and then a rum drink…) but he had a really funny joke about how he had recently lost weight because his gut was looking like a big ball of dough that fell on the barbershop floor.   Another line I liked was how Kmart is like Target with AIDS.

The headliner was Alex Ortiz – very funny guy.  Probably because he was so dirty – lots of sexual jokes, which are always a hit with most people.  So now we’re home relaxing.   We’ll probably go to bed very soon.  I was up early for work today and C has only gotten 3 hours of sleep (his switch day).

We went to the KFC on Michigan Ave (downtown) for dinner tonight.  While enduring  a wait of approximately 12 minutes for our food (with a less-than-patient toddler in tow), I witnessed two people trying to scam the cashier for either free food or refunds.

First, a very rotund young ghetto queen wearing a skin-tight midriff (by that I mean massive-gut) baring tank top, stomped up to the counter ignoring all other patrons.  She insisted that that drive-thru employee shorted her on cole slaw.  The cashier checked the order and told the plump customer that she was not charged for any extra cole slaw.  After several minutes of snotty back-and-forth between the two, the cashier and manager relented and gave the lady her $1 or whatever it was to make up for the missing slaw.

Almost immediately after cole slaw girl squeezed her way through the exit door, a ghetto boo came in and walked up to the counter.  The cashier asked if she could help him.  That’s when he unintelligibly started muttering about being shorted some biscuits from an order earlier in the day.  He ended his rant with “just give me five biscuits.”  The cashier brought up his order on the screen, discovering that he had ordered two meals.  Each meal comes with ONE biscuit.  She told him this and he just said, “ok, just give me five biscuits then,” while waving a $20 in her face.

I’m no longer eating fast food, particularly chicken, in a downtown / hospital vicinity party of town.

I normally make a concerted effort to avoid the bathroom at work as much as possible.  Of course it’s pretty much impossible to be there all day and not have to pee (especially when you have a nice big glass of iced tea every morning).  So today when I finally decided that I was about to pee my pants, I chose the 4th stall.  This is not my normal stall since it is sort of the  unspoken reserved stall for the poopers.  But stall #1 actually had someone taking a horrendous, putrid dump so I was making an attempt to be as far as possible from the fumes.

First thing to note – there was a rolled up magazine gingerly resting on the back of the toilet seat, propped up against the wall.  That’s disgusting.  Who would read this magazine which is clearly covered in fecal germs? It had probably touched someone’s bare ass at some point, too.

Second thing to note – there was a  Woman’s Day magazine lying on the floor next to the toilet with a sticker “Please Leave In The Restroom!”  So someone not only takes the time to bring magazines from home to the work bathrooms, but they go to lengths to make homemade labels (complete with pretty font colors and italics) instructing other toilet squatters to leave the magazines there.  Right there on the floor next to the pot collecting the millions of germs that violently fly out of the toilet every time it flushes.  I mean I guess if you are going  to take a pair of latex gloves into the loo with you, sure.  But otherwise  I would not touch these magazines.

Third thing to note – there was a piece of floss danging over the side of the toilet seat, not quite long enough to touch the water.  Someone was actually FLOSSING WHILE SHITTING!!!  Sure, multitasking is a great thing, but seriously – it’s never acceptable to mix mouth and ass activities.

Well today was interesting…

This afternoon, I received a phone call regarding a contest / drawing I had entered recently at the Jackson Fair.  The caller told me that I had won a “chance to win” the $20,000 or truck (winner’s choice).  He explained that I could choose two prizes out of a set of six, then he rattled them off:  $500 cash, 27″ Sony flatscreen TV, Disney vacation including airfare, watches, and something else I can’t remember now.  I would just have to come to their business in Kalamazoo to “try my key” and would collect my prizes then.

Being a cynical person, I did not get excited.  I figured it must be a scam.  The caller explained further, “There will be no sales pitch, no obligation for anything.  You just have to take a 90-minute tour of our Campground.”  Yeah, sounds like one of those ultra high-pressure sales meetings where they try to get you to write a check on the spot for some obscene amount of money for something that you don’t really need or want.

But I humored the guy and refrained from hanging up on him.  He asked if we could come tomorrow and I said no, we can’t.  He (quite vehemently) wanted to set up an appointment, and reluctantly I agreed to a Saturday afternoon appointment.  He said he would be sending the directions and my key in the mail, and we ended the call.  About 30 seconds later, my phone rang again and it was the same guy.  He just realized that I would probably not receive my document in time, so wanted to know if he could email them.  I gave him my hotmail email (which is my junk email address).

After hanging up, I immediately googled this place.  Topix.com had a nice discussion thread about the sales pitch and how they pressure you into buying a campground membership for – get this – upwards of $7,000.  Um, right.  No way in hell would I buy a campground membership to begin with, let alone for thousands of dollars.

According to what I read, there really isn’t a choice of gifts at all.  You automatically get a couple of very cheap watches and a “buy one get one” travel voucher.  This is not what the representative stated – he said you get a choice, so he was lying (at least according to several forum pages worth of discussion on this place).  You are pressured to buy a membership.  You are not even qualified to win the $20k/ truck unless you do buy a membership (isn’t that illegal?).

Again, the caller failed to mention this, but instead explicitly lied that there would be no sales pitch whatsoever.  Just a leisurely tour.  Sure enough, when I checked my hotmail account I had a message from this place.  It was a form letter (Dear Contestant… blah blah blah) that did happen to have more detail.  It listed the odds of winning the various prizes, and of course the odds for the good stuff like the TV or cash were slim.  The way it really works is you get an envelope to open that shows you which prizes you win, and by the looks of it everyone wins the crap.

Needless to say we will not be honoring this appointment.  I’m only concerned now because they have my phone number and I don’t want telemarketing calls non-stop on my cell phone.

My wordpress site is running impossibly slow. It’s not just on my computer at home- it’s everywhere. I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong and fix it now. I just upgraded to a new version yesterday so that may be the problem. So I may revert back to a prior version to see if that helps. If not, I may have to uninstall and restore the entire database. We’ll see…it’s annoying. I’m trying to keep this thing updated daily now with a new post, but the site is not cooperating. Ugh… technology.

Sometimes when I’m in the passenger’s seat in a car, I stare at my face in the side mirror.  I guess I’m a little obsessed with facial symmetry, particularly because I don’t have it.  I will move my head enough to the left that only one side shows.  I think to myself, “well that wouldn’t be so bad,” then I move back to center and gag.  Then I’ll tilt my head to the right so I only see the left.  “Well, that wouldn’t be bad at all – maybe even attractive,” I ponder.  But snap, back to reality.  The two sides, while each being OK independently, don’t complement each other.  Not at all.

I decided that I prefer the left side (my left, so everyone else’s right), the reason being my brow area.   The brow isn’t jutted forward, kind of  like it is on a neanderthal.  That’s what my right brow reminds me of.  I don’t know, it’s sort of “meaty” on the right, like you can’t see my actual eyelid unless I push my eyebrow up with my hand.

That’s probably the most prominent example of asymmetry with me.  If it weren’t for that, I think it would be so minor that nobody would really notice.  My friends tell me that this is all in my head, but I’ve studied it enough to know better.  Or maybe I think I know because I have studied it so much, resulting in that phenomenon of seeing what you want to see.  Not that I want to be asymmetrical, but I do like to be right.  Besides, I’m always searching for explanations of why I have been so damn unpopular all my life.

And really, that’s all it is.  I’m happy with my life but am still searching for explanations of various events in my life, for example, having such a small number of friends that I can count them on one hand, not having a single date in high school and only maybe 5 all through college.  College!  On a campus of 40,000 people, I had five dates and only a few friends.  I mean what’s up with that?  It’s just not normal.  Sure, it turned out pretty perfect anyway so why should I care?  But I’m just curious – I can’t let things go.