I just had the realization, from the July, when M. biked and ran from Hitchcock’s “Birds” roost to August with our work retreat, late August to my artisanal vacation in Edinburgh until now, I haven’t been sleeping a lot at home. My second realization is I like my bed at home.

Tonight, I’m channeling work trips to DC from at least a decade ago, but more. Flying into the capitol and then thinking “What next?” Here’s a major, fucking huge difference, though. Then, those ten to fifteen years of change ago, I was at a national convention with a horny, guido conventioneer, who was also my director. Scary and sad to start drinking at night and realize hours later you were pimping out a friend’s colleague. Scary times, bad days.

Now, I had dinner in the Irish pub in the hotel, because for fuck’s sake I could order a Black Velvet and get a beverage with Guinness floated on top of cider. Sure, California has the Arnold Palmer, but for half and half drinks, that’s all she wrote. I also had a respectable sandwich and fries.

Unlike the horny director who bellied up to the bar and whatever contemporary young woman with whom I spoke, as though frottage was an acceptable greeting, nope now I’m with a cool coworker who met me at the bar. We had a normal, non-frightening convo.

Now it’s 1:30 in the morning where I am, but 10:30 in the evening where I live. Cold water to wash away the Black Velvet and sleep to forget the jet travel.

Tomorrow, I feign training. It’s harder to feign when you’re the trainer.

Im sitting on a spanking new Virgin America plane getting ready to experience the richard branson- esque experience. But, of course, without Richard Branson, because hes a brit and this is a domestic flight and well foreigners and allthat in our domestic atmosphere.

So far, i’ve learned this morning thqt if your leave town for thw second tizmr in as many months, yiur life partner is a bit blase.

Ive also learned that civility isright dead and peopl suck. Very glad i was a witness not a participant in the checkin line scuffle. Seriously, more to come, because people suck but they are fubny.

Off to our nations seat of government for work. If there’s a news story in the next couple if days about a hippie-looking chick taking a dump on the Whitehouse lawn, it’s a coincidence.

I’m sitting on the plane. Of course, there’s no internet, so I’ll be letting this upload once I’m on terra firma. So far, the only event of note was on earth not in the stratosphere.

The deal with Virgin America is, of course, all modern and shite, what like the kids like. You know, wired. So, I logged in and did the whole online check in thing, printed out my boarding pass and got to the airport. Then, I stood in line where you could allegedly just drop your bag and go. Or, you could stand in line and wait with the non-computer-literate riffraff checking backs the old-fashioned way. Today, they pretty much made everyone stand in line old school.

I got in line behind a woman that I would peg at at least 60, but she had some lines and whatnot that made me think older. She was dressed very Californian casual, no matronly frump, including hip, stylish hippie-ish glasses. But, yeah, clearly not on the young side of the divide. She was jockeying up in the line as a middle-aged guy slid in on the diagonal. I gathered right away they had been doing to who’s next dance for a bit.

The middle-aged guy, south of the woman’s age but not by much, although even tougher to tell, towered over her short stature by about minimally a foot. He was probably over 6-feet and he inched in closer to the line’s front just past her hip. Having none of it, she twisted forward and nudged him back. He pushed back. “Alright,” I’m thinking as I step back a foot, couple of excitable folks eager to get checked in and go.

Generally, I can’t get it up to give that much of a shit in that type of line. I figure, they know when the flights are leaving and have the financial incentive to get our asses on board.

The lady lets me in on her world view, mainly that the guy had muscled his way in the minute they opened a new line and rushed her in the first place. Who the fuck knows.

She turns her back on the alleged muscle-inner, and he makes her move. A solid hip-check to her blind side and she just missed losing the footing beneath her. What the fuck? When did guys of an age certainly old enough to know better throw their weight behind tossing old ladies. He was a standard-issue, middle-class looking dude. Maybe a white-collar job, some kind of college degree, nice watch and shoes and weekend cardigan, you dig. A dad, an uncle, probably born of a mother.

So the woman keeps on her feet and shoves back. There is a mini-shoving match right in front of me, inches away, and I’m just thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with people?” Then it got better.

Enter stage left, the wife. The dude’s wife comes flying up on her broomstick and starts screaming at the woman to keep her hands off her husband, and she makes some sort of dig (in a proper British accent, I might add) about the woman having no sense of decency or courtesy. Then the two woman, seriously, are yelling at each other. The only thing that broke it up was wifey needing to get back into the line she was manning. Apparently, they had split up, she and her husband, to be sure to get the bestestest places in line. (Editorial note, it wasn’t that crowded or that late.)

She scoots back in her line and then goes for the classic shrew stage whisper. The clenched jaw hiss to your spouse (or dog), “Get over here!” with a bit of a petulant foot stamp.

He obeyed.

So for no fucking reason at all, since his wife had pushed them ahead of a whole other line, the guy almost dropped a stranger.

My two cents — I hope I always fucking remember life is short and lines will pass. You know, Serenity Prayer and all that shit.

I also think I chose my partner on the basis of never having to find out what I would do in that situation. I mean, I’ve seen M. pissed off and impatient, but never to the point of physically shoving someone smaller and older (or even contemporary). If that ever did happen, I’d throw him into the back of the car and drive fast to the hospital, because clearly he would be having a brain tumor or aneurysm problem. Anything short of brain damage, and he’d stay cool.

But, if in the hypothetical bizarro universe where I did end up with another man who was that particular kind of dickhead, I can’t imagine defending him. Maybe I’d stand to the side and observe (Jesus, I hope not), but I doubt I’d accuse the other chick of roughing up my big psycho goon.

The visibly shaken older woman got her turn at the counter, and her last words to me were to hope that the lovely couple weren’t sitting next to her on her flight. Thankfully, none of them seem to be on my flight.

Civility is deader than dead, and people are becoming meaner.

Technorati Tags: civility, cutting, flight, queue, strangers, stress

Tomorrow shall see the old, forlorn back of Nick’s slightly balding heading and dispirited, stooped shoulders as he lumbers into the metaphoric sunset of our acquaintance.

M. and Nick are supposed to meet up tomorrow so we can collect our court winnings. I might go, but I’m afraid of one last nasty encounter. I don’t know. I’m torn between a stories end and the desire to avoid all lunatic fuckwads in a 100 mile radius.

What to do, what to do?

They say that the French say, and for all I know the “they” are French, the more shit changes the more it stays the same. I think it means that shit never really changes. But, how the fuck do I know, I speak American.

Point is, I left my old job, moved a coast over, started a new life and, you know, got all rehabbed. Like, I haven’t even read a Stephen King novel or any other kind of shit about the evil people do. Nope. Living one day at a time, clean and not writing in the old horrorshow violence way, my little droogs.

Lately, though, I’ve been scratching my itchy literary trigger finger. I’ve been thinking of my old prose on shivs, my drama. The stress of the workaday world is re-piling up. The desire to write about useless meetings, politics, cube farms, paperwork, the whole swirling Scott Adams, Dilbert-esque, sucky swirl of toiling every single fucking day.

But, I’m reformed. No more blades. Now, my fantasy is a TASER. How fucking awesome would that be?

Isn’t it cute? All happy fun toy looking. Someone gives you the old guff, I hates guff, afterall, in the office setting or just wastes your time about a minute too log? Whammo, and buzz, buzz, buzz, problem solved. You got clear space to walk away.

Better yet, TASER makes swell attachments, like the TASER cam. No shit. I’m not poitively, absolutely sure, but I think you get to TASER some kind of malingerer in TASERing range and simultaneously videotape the shenanigans. Awesome YouTube potential right there.

I think I could use a day off, though.

Technorati Tags: California, Landlord, pranks, TASER, stress, work, fun

I want to write something politically astute about the campaign. I want to comment on the special-interest group debates and whether that splintering makes any fucking sense. Or whether it’s just further divisiveness which helps no one and confuses the sound-bite politics of our town to less than bites with the consistency of pablum.

But, all I got is what is the fucking deal with Giuliani? And/or Mrs. Giuliani?

There was this one a while back:

Now, there’s the NRA debate:

Is he that much of a goon? Does his wife not know something like, I don’t know, his fucking schedule? I mean, fucking a, she could check the Tivo or something. Or, maybe she’s so needy, it’s like “Rudy, don’t put that phone on silence or vibrate. I mean it, you better pick up.” He’s either retarded or whipped. Great fucking presidential stance that one.

Technorati Tags: Giuliani, NRA_debate, Cell phone, special_interest, Rudy_Giuliani, 2008_Campaign, Cell, debate, presidential

Yesterday was mall day. The large, full of outlets and discount shops and Asians mall in Milpitas. Among the features of this mall is a wide array of Chinese massaging going on.

We got side-by-side, half-hour “reflexology” foot massages, or feet massage, or feet massages. Four feet, two massagers, 30 minutes.

Whenever I get a manicure or a pedicure and now a foot massage, I become acutely aware of the people alongside me. The ones with beatific, peaceful smiles. The ones who look limp, languid. I think they call the state “relaxed.” It’s something like that, and it’s an entirely foreign concept to me.

Invariably, I’m in a weird muscular tug-of-war with a helpful professional beseeching me to “just relax…relax” while manipulating some extremity or another. Taut is how the world made me and taut I stay. Rigid. Unyielding. I don’t do anything but clenched. Really. I try. Turns out, though, that using your brain to will yourself relaxed leads to board-like stiffness.

M.’s reaction was, “You’re from New England and a stranger was touching you.” Like, duh.

I’m thinking of loaning myself out as scaffolding.

Technorati Tags: California, massage, foot_massage, Chinese_massage, New England, relaxed, stiff, tension

Earlier in the week, I got voicemail from a very funny man. Specifically, a funny Boston comedian, Tony Moschetto, who’s around the Bay competing in the San Francisco Comedy Competition.

I was happy to figure out he’d be performing about 15 minutes down the road from us in Redwood City. And, it was a Sunday matinee, which was pretty damn convenient. The possible downside, if you were like in a 12-step program or otherwise frowned on misbehavior, was I had a Stella Artois in my fist by 2:30 in the afternoon. Been awhile since I started drinking early.

They suitably darkened the room, though, and a nice little performance space it was. A few giggles midday. I still hate comedy competitions, though.

It was great seeing Tony. I always liked him. He’s one of the good guys of comedy, I think, who a lot of folks, myself included, root for making it. Of course, it was a reminder of a sad little bit of truth from my leaving the East. More than one of my friends from East have mentioned that we’re friendlier and closer and all that kind of shit, since I left town and headed West. Mostly, I figure it says that I’m definitely the sort where absence makes your heart grow fonder.

If you dig me a bit as a friend, stay far the fuck away from me and we’ll be tight.

Perhaps not unrelatedly, there’s a shared part of M. and me that prefers not having to associate with the rest of the world. After his Cambridge buddies were in the ‘hood and Tony’s call, there was a bit of a discussion on out-of-town visitors. Since we’ve had a few since moving West, M.’s attitude and statement was “Who’s next?”

Sure as fucking hell, he jinxed us. Sitting in his email box this morning were greetings from his aunt, mentioning the impending visit of the sister of her husband, M.’s uncle by marriage, to San Francisco, along with her Australian husband.

There’ll be time enough to be alone together when we’re too old to visit, I guess. Or dead.

Get in touch and plan your Cali trip so M. and I can whine behind your back. Everyone is welcome.

Technorati Tags: alone, California, comedy, happiness, Tony_Moschetto, visitors

If your soul decision-making in the day so far has been (a) to wear a hat and (b) put on socks, because your feet are cold, you may not be the standard-bearer of intellectual achievement for your generation.

It is a nice hat, though. A tweed scally cap, my souvenir from the recent trek to Scotland.

I got myself into a whole lot of budgeting at work. It’s literally been years now since I was flipping through spreadsheet after spreadsheet trying to get some shit to balance and make some sense.

What was I thinking when I mentioned a certain familiarity to the toil a while back?

The plus side is working on spreadsheets really feeds into my OCD tendencies. Columns, rows, highlighting, cutting pasting over and over and over and over again. Then checking all the formulas, going back through the detail, double-checking the formulas, reformatting. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

It’s cathartic in a weird, repetitive, raking leaves into piles kind of way. If only I could convince people not to talk with me. At all. Ever. As I rake and rearrange the piles.

As I started writing this little bit of lazy prose, I had nothing of any kind of interest. But, for a few nights now, there’s a commercial running during “The Daily Show” —
“Colbert Report” block on Comedy Central. It’s a marketing campaign for the local Unitarians. Whatever, don’t care to mock the quasi-religious.

What I don’t get about the commercials is that they are animated. But, like shitty Photoshop, create a cartoon from a photograph kind of animation. So, the people talking look a bit like a courtroom sketch or some other kind of not quite revealing their identity kind of picture.

I don’t get it. Are they hiding?