Tuesday, August 9, 2011

What to say when you run out of things to say

Ever since the resurgence of The Boring Things, I have been convicted by the fact that I have lost my propensity for original and mildly entertaining irreverent observations and insights into the world around me. And then I realized that my external censorship of myself in public has seeped into my private life and I have built such massive walls against what I say, do, portray, and share with friends, family, co-workers, and random acquaintances that I miss the fun of just B.S.ing on the Internet. But I have stepped into various roles that can't be easily managed without a light level of anonymity, so I can't even share what I really did, thought, and want to say about my true thoughts and feelings about the day. So, as a compromise, I'm simply going to vaguely summarize the account of my day, with some generalities and redactions. I believe I have done this before and found it to be less than cathartic and not up to the level of content Joe produces on a regular basis. But it's something. And, if all goes according to plan, I will watch a meaningful movie and post thoughts over at Movie Posts Only sometime between now and the forthcoming zombiepocalypse.

Today

5:45am - Both alarms go off. I hit the snooze button on the alarm clock every 9 minutes until 7:45, when I finally get tired of reaching so far. I hit the snooze button on my cell phone every 5 minutes, and I continue to do this until 8:10, but only because I worried that I had a meeting at 9, and I looked forward to the possibility of getting coffee before the meeting. I haven't had coffee more than three times all summer.

8:15am - I realize I don't have a meeting. I have a day free to be productive with errands, my career, or my aspiring second career. So, I go get coffee at 8:30. On the way to get coffee, I realize it's Monday morning, and I was so excited to go to sleep early last night that I failed to download and watch the newest "Curb Your Enthusiasm." So, from 8:40 to 9:10 I rectified this, while enjoying a great Americano.

9:10am - I had a 20oz Americano, and I didn't finish it all while watching Curb, so I needed to do something to feel productive while finishing my coffee, so I found and installed an extension to Google Chrome that allows me to circumvent The New York Times' paywall, so I gorged on some Paul Krugman articles and blog posts and reflected upon what I should do with my overflowing box of quarters. There's probably like $22 worth of quarters in this box. I should invest it.

9:45am - I put my Americano in the microwave around 9:30 and forgot about it, so I needed to go reheat it and find something else productive to do while I finished it (because really, I will take any and all excuses to keep my real day from getting started). So, I decided to watch an episode of "WWII in HD." But 41 minutes into this riveting documentary, I stop because they're describing specific units from the day the Marines landed on Guadalcanal in 1942 and I needed to see if I could do a military records search and find out what unit(s) my grandfather served in, because he was part of the forces that landed in the initial landing on Guadalcanal. This is what I found - I decided to follow up on it sometime later in the week. http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/ww2-participation.pdf

11:10am - I decide that I should start my "work" for the day by noon, so I go turn on the iron and get out my shaving cream and razor to shave. Then I realized I needed some music to blast from my room so I had some good shaving music. A coworker texted me for a few minutes, and I was delayed, and then I answered a few e-mails, so I was delayed again, and finally by noon I was rocking out to the Kanye/Jay-Z collaboration "Watch the Throne" whilst I shaved. Then I showered.

1:00pm - I iron, get dressed, get all my paperwork together, grab a water bottle, and then head out to begin "work."

1:30pm - After a few DH-stops, I have a 15 minute conversation with a woman who wants to lessen restrictions and criminal histories for sex offenders who committed a crime before the age of 17.

1:45pm - I have a 10 minute conversation with a couple about the value of their property.

2:30 - After a long period of limited contact, I have a conversation with a man who is over 50 but super positive, enthusiastic, kind, and encouraging. We talked for 20 minutes and he was the highlight of my day.

3:00-4:45pm - Limited interactions worth note.

4:45 - 5:15pm - I enter a man's home and we talk about teaching, education, working overseas, and I charmed his pants off, as he did to me. I liked him.

6:00pm - Dinner and hangout time with friends the rest of the evening.

8:30-10pm - I watched a friend take apart his iPhone 4 and put it back together again, only to see the cheap plastic of the newly purchased cover break, rendering his efforts pointless.

10:30-11:30pm - I watched "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." I laughed at the name "Liqma Cuchee."

3 comments:

Joe said...

I found this post extremely entertaining. A few notes/highlights:

5:45am: I like the fact that you go to the trouble of hitting the snooze button every 9 minutes for two hours, before finally deciding that reaching over is too much effort, and instead hitting the snooze button on your cell phone every 5 minutes for the next 25 minutes. Reminds me of something I would do. Really, is there anything more aversive than getting up? I think not.

8:30am: This week's Curb was good, but it's hard to beat the one (from the week before or two weeks ago?) about the Palestinian chicken place.

9:10am: you should keep saving the quarters (and all your coinage, for that matter), and then when you have a ton of it, get some empty coin rolls at the bank (they're FREE, whaaaat?!??) and experience the almost-unmatched relaxation and satisfaction of rolling your coins while watching a dumb comedy movie.

4:45pm: "I entered a man's home..." I was expecting, "I entered a man's home, which he didn't appreciate." Apparently you were invited in.

10:30pm: I too particularly enjoyed that segment of The Colbert Report.

Joe said...

Oh yeah, and I feel guilty every time I go to Movie Posts Only about my woefully inadequate updating of that site. It's not that I haven't seen movies worth writing about... it's just that I'm too lazy to do so.

Anonymous said...

The Palestinian Chicken episode was great.

I can also relate to creating elaborate lies to avoid unwanted obligations and complications only to complicate things further.

I, on the other hand, have not seen any movies worth writing about.

Perhaps "X-Men: First Class." I still can't decide if it was good or if I was just pleasantly surprised. I finally got around to watching "Brick." It was interesting.