RevSpork

Phoenix in July

Hurrah!  I'm going on vacation!  In Phoenix.  Next week.  In...July.

Can you imagine a worse time to go to Phoenix?  (besides August.)  Not really.  I'm beginning to suspect, however, that Phoenix is accommodating itself for my somewhat cooler needs.  The city is going through - of all things - a cool snap.  The city went two weeks in June without breaking one hundred degrees, and according to weather.gov, it's not going to be much hotter the week I'm there - the hottest high temperature expected is 108, which might sound like burning hell to you, but for Phoenix, it's a cool breeze.  And yes, it's a dry heat, and yes, it matters (Now if it were 120, of course it would be beyond my tolerance.  That's too freaking hot.)  But I've spent summers in Phoenix before, and I should be able to hack it. 

For a quarter of a century, my mother has called this hell home.  I'm no longer sure why she decided upon this place, and I only know she (and her sister; they've lived together for twenty years) wants out.  However, the real estate bust reduced the value of their home to about $67.12, so they're not escaping Arizona for a while.

I have my reasons for flying out to Phoenix in the middle of the summer.  I haven't seen my mother (or any of my family) since my wedding nearly three years ago.  I had no Fourth of July plans, and the technical school where I work is closed next week, so I figured, what the hey.  Finally, I have no idea when my gig will end (possibly within the next month), so I wanted to go out there while I still had a job and could afford it. 

I don't know whether I'll blog during my week off or not.  My mother does have internet access, so if they're at work, I might have a go.  If not, see you in a week.

I don't mind Mondays...much

Mondays get a lot attitude problems tossed at it, but I'm not one of those who do.  Truth is, Mondays bother me far less than, say, death or cheddar cheese on pizza.  This is partly due to my working a retail schedule for so long - when your "weekend" consists of constantly changing days, usually non-consecutive, there's no need to bitch about Monday.  It could be the beginning of your work week, the middle, the end, or a day off.  Bitching about Mondays is best left to traditional toilers and Garfield fans. 

This morning was a little different.  Like I do every Monday morning, I got up, showered, and threw on my work clothes.  Then I grabbed Jack the Psychotabby, stuffed him in his carry-on Guantanamo, and toted him to the vet, where he got his teeth cleaned.  Since he is a cat and not into the spirit of modern dentistry, the vet had to knock him out, which meant I had to pick him up in the afternoon.  Since I work a split shift at the tech college, this wasn't a big deal.  Once I paid the vet, I took off for work. 

I'm no fan of summer.  I like summer on occasion, when it's about eighty degrees, sunny, and women walk about in tight tops. Today was almost like that, except I was sweating so hard in the humid morning, I couldn't see if the women walking their dogs in my neighborhood were wearing tight tops, sweatshirts, or even women at all.  Within minutes my armpits had vanquished my deodorant and were squirting like a broken fire hydrant. 

Despite having to drop Jack off at the gulag, I managed to get to work only a couple minutes late.  Just before I reached the front entrance, however, one of my students waved me over from her car and informed me that morning classes had been cancelled.  The reason?  The building had no power, and in a school that focuses on computer programs, this was a setback. I walked in and confirmed it with one of the IT employees, who told me ComEd wouldn't arrive to correct the outage for a few hours.  As a result, I had the morning off.  Rah.  I only got about four hours of sleep last night, so I figured I could grab some catch-up Zs and return for the evening class. 

I walked back toward the Yellow Line station, stopping by Mickey Ds en route to grab a couple of Egg McMuffins, and caught the train.  I had just sat down and was browsing on my iPod when They arrived. 

There werre six of them: two parents, an au pair, and three kids between the ages of three and five and who screamed at between 90 and 60,000 decibels.  The first thing the adults did upon entering the train was to align their double-wide strollers next to each other, effectively blocking an entire section of the train car, including those of us unlucky enough to be fenced in on their side.  Realizing the danger, we immediately decamped to the other side of the car before we could be locked inside their homemade concentration camp. 

As it turned out, it wouldn't have mattered had we moved to the other end of the car, or the next car, or the next train; these kids were not only thrilled to be on a train, they were determined to share their enthusiasm with as many commuters as possible.  They belted out squeals and "choo-choos" louder than most trains.   Blasting Ministry on my iPod did no good.  I attempted to drain their life force by staring at them in an extremely annoyed manner, but they only made the choo-choo sound even louder.  I tried and failed to teleport them off the train with my mental powers.  I poured molten lead into my ears.  Nothing worked.  All I could do was sit and endure this disgusting bit of post-rush hour cheerfulness with the same dour look the rest of the passengers had. 

When I finally arrived at the abode, I removed my sweat-drenched clothes and popped a couple of Advil before dropping onto the bed like a sack of rice.  The squeals and laughter of the children echoed in my brain like a poltergeist.  I'm sure the laughter of children is nice on occasion, but there's a time and place for it, I thought.  Namely 1976 in New Hyde Park, NY, while the Good Humor truck rode slowly down the street.  But not now.  And definitely not on Mondays. 

Gimme a break

I'm at work this morning.  There's very little going on.  I just finished my round of chatting it up with the students and coaching them into getting their work done.  It's nominally easy, this job.  A typical day consists of sitting in front of a computer, occasionally assisting students either in lecture or in lab.  I've gotten to where I can help the student with just about any class they're working on...when they're working.  They putter around the internet quite frequently, much to my distress.  Problem is, I have so little to do between helping students, I end up doing the same thing.  It has developed into a nasty little habit, especially since I've independently finished every online class offered nearly two months ago.  I do spend some time on assignments, such as writing up labs, but those have become few and far between.  Left to my own devices, I inevitably end up puttering around with the rest of the students.  It's a habit I have to break. 

As a lifelong member of the ADD Fun Club, maintaining focus has always been a challenge for me.  This morning, for example, I finished (and passed) the assessment for advanced MS Excel.  Unlike some folks, I find certain aspects of Excel anything but boring, and I like playing around with the program.  Once one gets into the real nitty-gritty of Excel, however, the fascination evaporates.  XML, for example, is about as exciting as a soccer match between snails.  With subject matter like that, I get bored and antsy quickly, so an online game makes for a nice halftime break.  Problem is, that halftime break has a tendency to expand into an hour-long break.  

I've had some successes during this gig based on hard work.  I passed my certification exam in MS Word 2003 last week and just received my certificate in the mail.  Passing the assessment this morning is just the first part of my preparation for the MS Ezcel certification, which I hope to take in a couple of weeks.  Depending on how much longer my assignment lasts, I also plan to pick up certifications in PowerPoint and (could it be possible?) Access.  However, these little achievements won't happen unless I get off my figurative butt and stop playing games. 

From now on, if you see me online, you have my permission to harass me and tell me to get my ass back to work.  I'll appreciate it.

Key to losing weight: cough up your lungs

What an entertaining spring this has been. Two months after my fateful encounter with a cold virus, I’m finally feeling better. I cough very little now, I haven’t had to use my inhaler in a week, and even my energy is beginning to return to normal. However, another, more unexpected, side effect emerged from this ordeal: I’ve lost six percent of myself. Since I started recording my weight in early March (doctor’s orders), I’ve lost over ten pounds (I just typed that while finishing a small bag of Cheetos), and my weight loss since the illness goes on.

When you’re a fat dude like myself, losing weight is fantastic. I’m still about thirty pounds overweight, and dropping some pounds can’t hurt. On the other hand, I don’t feel like I really earned my weight loss. Bronchitis makes losing weight incredibly easy; who wants to stuff food in their mouth when they’re constantly coughing stuff out of their mouth? It’s just not worth the effort, and that’s the problem: I lost weight without putting much effort into it. That’s not the way to lose weight: what if I lost muscle mass instead of fat, and I’m even flabbier than before? Maybe I’m just a giant lump of lard. How totally gross.

Given, I did take advantage of my illness to make slight adjustments to my diet. The most important change I made is during mealtimes. I decided I was eating far more food towards the end of the day than any other time, so I switched my big meal from dinner to lunch. I now eat light dinners and heavy lunches; this way I work off the lunch during the afternoon, and I don’t go to bed full. Some foods have recently disappeared from the fridge, or are now present only part-time. We have less bread and cold cuts in the fridge than usual, for example. Instead, I buy tortillas or flatbread. Instead of, for example, eating four slices of bread (two sandwiches) for dinner, I’ll eat two burritos, filling them with slightly more food (and far more veggies) but eating less bread in the process. I eat similarly with flatbread, making gyros (or simply grabbing a couple slices and eating it with hummus), eating about the same but cutting the bread and ramping up the veggies. Ice cream has virtually disappeared from the freezer; in its place are juice pops. And if I do get ice cream, it’s at a restaurant, where I’ll eat only one serving instead of gulping down half a container at home. I am careful to eat breakfast as often as possible, usually cereal, occasionally with fruit. For dessert, fresh fruit or the aforementioned juice pops.

Another food I’ve eaten less of as of late is cheese. When you have bronchitis, the very last thing you want to eat is cheese; it feels horrible going down, and you feel like you’re coughing it all back up for the next several hours. So my dairy intake took a nosedive during my illness and hasn’t completely returned to normal. I still eat cheese: I throw some on my burritos or on my pasta. However, I don’t need it as much. If I have sour cream and cheddar available for my burritos, I choose one instead of both. These are all minor adjustments at best, but if you make enough minor adjustments to your daily diet, you will eventually see results.

I don’t expect to continue to lose weight; eventually my weight will bottom out at a certain point, and I will have to make further adjustments to lose more weight. I’ll have to start exercising. Count calories. Eat low-fat cheese. (NEVER!) For the time being, I’m happy that I’ve managed to keep off the weight I lost during my illness, plus a little extra besides. Maybe I’ll celebrate with a bigger bag of Cheetos.

None of yer business - right?

Maybe it's not privacy that's dead in the water.  Not yet, anyway.  What worries me more - far more - than losing the right to privacy is that we're being socially engineered to accept it.  Privacy in the 21^st century is less than quaint: it’s unfashionable.  In an era when twenty percent of American teenagers send nude photos of themselves to their friends with nary a twinge in their souls, and when reality TV routinely presents the most inconsequential goings-on of people’s lives, who wants privacy?  Blogs have turned every human being with the faintest dreams of writing fame (yes, including yours truly) into a memoirist.  Podcasts have done the same for the DJ dreams of the world.  MySpace and Facebook introduced to modern society the very odd concept of informing your friends of your every move.  Getting up?  Going to bed?  Eating dinner?  Brushing your teeth?  Proclaim it to the masses!  Nothing adds allure to the most mundane details of your life like a Facebook status line.  I’m not sure how Marcel Proust would have reacted to this had he been exposed to such avenues, but I suspect he either would have withdrawn into reclusiveness or put out the most amazing blog in the world.

Maybe I feel left behind.  Or perhaps I’m even envious.  I spent chunks of my childhood with therapists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, being a screwed-up child.  My confessional needs became so hard-wired, I required hours to answer the question, “so tell me about yourself,” no matter who the question came from.  A nun, a tutor, guidance counselors  (Yes!  I talked to guidance counselors!) – I confessed to all.  Remember sitting in our dorm rooms with friends or people you really wanted to make out with but fell short, talking about – you know, life – until 6am?  I think I had one of those chats every night.  I have more self-control now, and I only let loose when in front of my current therapist or (occasionally) my wife.  However, I fear society has passed me by, as with pop music, technology, and porn. 

I worry about this: by the time the first generation of internet addicts (read: people my age) reaches their 70s, general communication will have become so highly personal that our status lines will be filled with detailed reports of our bowel movements.  Ever stood in line at a grocery store behind a couple of old Jewish women?  That will be us in just over thirty years.  My only hope is that the teenagers sending nude photos of themselves today will be so appalled and socially damaged in thirty years that privacy will make a comeback.  Knowing how things are progressing, however, my guess is they’ll reminisce about it during parties.  (“Remember when I used to shave my crotch in the shape of Kanye West?”  “Oh, wow, that looked soooo cool!”  “Yeah, I got it on my flickr account now!”  “Oh.  I just looked it up on google.”  Is it too late to return to the caves?

Still sick after all these weeks

It's been over two months since I came down with a cold that triggered everything.  Three days after yet another doctor's appointment, I've been given another inhaler for my bronchitis, more pills for my high blood pressure, and the news that I might have to go to the main hospital to undergo more tests to see if something else is causing the Cough That Won't Go Away.  And the Sore Throat That Drops By Now and Then.  Or the latest: Soreness in the left side of my neck.  In short, I'm a mess, and not a week goes by before another bothersome malady makes an appearance. 

Needless to say, I'm also worried.  When I had chest X-rays at the ER a month back, the docs didn't see anything but bronchitis.  Given the bronchitis doesn't seem to be making a final exit, and I'm wheezing and coughing still, my regular doc suspects something else at work.  What is it?  Who knows. 

I just checked WebMD, and I tossed in all my symptoms.  I've managed to trim the possibilities down to twenty, ranging from a cold to tuberculosis to Legionnaire's disease.  In other words, who knows. 

Tori and I were watching Sicko this evening, and we watched how one can walk into a clinic in England or Canada and have pretty much everything taken care of for free.  Well, not free: nothing is free.  You pay taxes, which goes into health care.  An amazing concept.  But socialized medicine is evil and could lead to communism and sex with guinea pigs, so none of that here. 

I miss being well.  That never seems to happen anymore. If it's not one thing, it's another.  But at least I couldn't count on a particular malady to harass me day after day.  Nowadays, it's always something, and it's either in my chest, my throat, or both. 

Barring a medical emergency, I go back to the doctor in five weeks.  If I'm still coughing by that time, I might just move forward with my master plan: steal a healthy teenager's body and harvest what I need.  Hell, I might simply switch the brains: I won't look like the man my wife married, but at least I'll have a second chance to fuck up a relatively decent human body.