For some reason, I've been feeling like an intruder lately in our little online world. It's just one of those feelings that comes out of nowhere (or maybe next to nowhere). Regardless of its origins, it has affected my ability to post entries. I've finished (or partially finished) two or three of them, but I just haven't been able to make myself post them yet.
Nonetheless, I am in the mood to post something at this time, so I will do just as I did last month, after returning from South Dakota. I will post a list of random thoughts and facts. I began compiling this list last night. It goes as follows:
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11:34 PM, Sunday, April 10, 2005
The first draft of this entry is being written in longhand. Sometimes I love to lie in bed, on my side, head propped up on my right hand, and simply record my thoughts the old-fashioned way -- on paper. I've written some of my favorite thoughts in this setting -- or should I say "in this lying"? -- I mean "lying down," not "lying through my teeth" :-).
The following list of "stuff" combines the best of both the superficial and ficial (deep :-) aspects of my character.
1. My wrist was getting sore holding my head up, so I am now sitting up in bed and using a pillow desk to write on. [I wrote a lot more in bed last night than you see here. That's why my wrist got sore by the time I reached this first item.]
2. I'm much too private and unwilling to reveal certain events in -- and aspects of -- my life.
3. The odds are now about even that I will soon be relieved of the "burden" that has caused me to remain in western Nebraska for the past year. [But those odds are getting longer again, with every passing minute.]
4. Until last week, the odds were about 90-10 against my being released from this burden.
5. If, by chance, I am relieved of this burden (and my writing about it here will probably ruin it), I don't have a clue where to go or what to do with myself. What sort of job will I eventually find?
6. Throughout history, many veterans have celebrated the end of the wars in which they fought. For many of them, however, permanent psychological damage was done. No matter how wonderful the ensuing peace was, they could not make themselves enjoy it. To a much lesser degree, thanks to the events of the past two years, that analogy fits me (with regard to the possible lifting of the previously mentioned burden).
7. I worry that the next move I make in this life will determine the sort of life I live forevermore. That has scared me into hesitating, because I don't want to make a mistake. If I move somewhere, I will either stay there for the rest of my life, or else I will realize too quickly -- and once and for all -- that I am a restless vagabond, who is doomed to roam from town to town until I am old enough to qualify for a Scooter Chair.
8. I had my first Healthy Choice French-bread pizza for supper this evening. It was very good, but a bit rich in flavor. It was on sale at Albertson's Supermarket for only $1.00.
9. I should have gotten a bigger writing tablet. [I was using a miniature legal note pad in bed, and it was very difficult to write on it in a horizontal position.]
10. Squirt, the former runt of the kitty litter, but which is now the size of a small, prehistoric horse, is convinced that there is something outside the bedroom door that poses a slight danger. It is paranoid and has a vivid imagination.
11. I am a big fan of the art of Alberto Vargas. I have two of his works (this one and this one), from a 1944 edition of Esquire Magazine, framed and hanging on my wall. I have more of his works, too, but they are not hanging on the walls.
12. I really enjoy watching Desperate Housewives and also a new show called Grey's Anatomy. They were both on TV this evening. Another well done show is Eyes. Their producers have proven that TV shows can still get great critical reviews and huge audiences WITHOUT WOBBLING THE CAMERAS!
13. There are four separate bookshelves in my bedroom (and other bookshelves elsewhere). I am tired of looking at the same old books on them night after night. They have also been my biggest burden whenever I have moved. [There's that darned word, "burden," again.]
14. There was a time when I was saving those books -- in other words, I was taking my time in reading them -- because I didn't want to finish them all and have nothing left for the future. Silly, eh? Now I wish I had read all of them a long time ago because I doubt I will ever be able to drum up enough energy to read even twenty percent of them in the next twenty years. There are at least two reasons for this: 1.) I think I have permanently lost the desire to read most fiction, and 2.) my tastes have changed dramatically since I bought most of my books. I suppose I am going to have to sell most of them; but if I do so then my homemade bookshelves (which I will never sell) would suddenly look depressing and forlorn in their empty state.
15. Squirt has not taken his eyes off the bedroom door for almost a half hour now (and I think he was hiding under a footstool prior to that time). I guess I am going to have to carry him out there and show him that there is no danger.
16. I'm back. Squirt has now been made aware that the coast is clear.
17. I have on the back of my right hand a bruise shaped like a round washer (the kind of washer that goes with a bolt). I have no idea how it got there, even though it looks as if it probably hurt when it happened.
18. Check out nikib's diary. She has a very good sense of humor. DangerSpouse might like the first one listed below (including the revealing photo that is included :-). I found her by clicking on one of those gold-member DiaryLand ads. The seven entries listed here are just random samplings that I enjoyed reading. There are many, many more. BOOOOOOOOOOOBS 101 Things I Bet You Didn't Know My Armpits Really Smell, What Should I Do? A Power of an Hour Fight the Fuzz Old Wounds Department of the Alter-Ego
19. When I was in South Dakota, I met a young cousin (once removed) for the first time. One day, several of us were driving from my Aunt "Rory's" new house in town back to her farm house (helping her move possessions). This cousin was sitting in the front passenger seat, while I was sitting in the back seat behind the driver. When we were about half way back to the farm, I happened to be looking at him just as a certain realization slowly dawned upon him (he was looking forward, partially away from me). It was almost like watching a slow-motion scene in a movie. His face tilted upward ever so slightly, and his eyes widened just a little. My curiosity was piqued. He then turned his head slowly (almost dramatically, I thought) to look at me. He asked with a touch of awe, "Are you the one who wrote our family history?!" I nodded my head with a flattered smile and said proudly, "Yes, I am." For the first time in my life, I felt like a celebrity. :-)
20. Why are gas prices so criminally high now that there is a 50-50 chance that I could soon be free to travel the region looking for work and just generally exhaling a constant, "Whew!!!" as I enjoy the open road?
21. One of my fantasies is to visit the two little villages in the Czech Republic where my father's father's ancestors once lived. The villages' names are Habri and Kvitkovice. They are only a half mile apart and are about seven miles west of the city of Ceské Budejovice (pronounced "Chesky Buddah Yo Vizza," according to Ted Koppel), the birthplace of the original Budweiser Beer. Since I'm not fond of flying (or rather of the bad things that could happen while flying), I'll probably never go there. I would enjoy taking a good old-fashioned transAtlantic voyage, though. [I am amazed that the spell checker says that is the correct way to spell "transAtlantic."]
22. Very little in life excites me anymore, so I am having trouble thinking of "small" things to put into this list.
23. During the past year and a half, I had nothing but unpleasant news to report to my former coworkers/close friends at the school in which I used to work, so I never called them and seldom went back to visit them (a 50-mile drive). I guess I sort of went into an involuntary hibernation mode. They called me a lot in the beginning, asking me what the deal was. I asked them to be patient with me and that eventually things would return to normal; however, their calls slowly dwindled to zero anyway (even a married female coworker -- and good friend -- who propositioned me several times before and after I left has finally stopped calling). I'm sure they think I abandoned them, even though I told them a hundred times that such is not the case. Why didn't they believe me? They know me better than that.
24. I will be mailing my tax return tomorrow [Monday]. It was about as complicated as it could get without being one that a giant corporation fills out, but I did them myself anyway because I wasn't about to pay someone a fortune just to tell me I don't owe any taxes. The thing is, I majored in both English and history. Math and accounting are about as grating to my sanity as anything could be, but I made myself do it (last year and this year); and, in so doing, I discovered that the vast majority of Americans could do their own taxes if they just put their minds to it. If the majority of us did our own taxes, then maybe we would finally get angry enough to revolt against the busybody, loser bureaucrats and politicians who write those forms in such a ***king ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated manner.
25. That last entry was the last one I wrote before turning out the light and going to sleep last night. It is now Monday, and I am typing the rest of this entry without writing it in longhand first.
26. The north edge of the storm that left a foot of snow in Colorado this past weekend just barely grazed this area. Once again, the moisture has mostly missed this severely parched region.
27. Oh yeah, just so you know, I politely refused my married female coworker's propositions. There were several reasons for this, but if I give specifics, someone "out there" might realize who I am talking about. Believe it or not, another female coworker (and mutual friend of the two of us) thought I was crazy for refusing; nonetheless, she admired a couple of my ethical reasons for refusing. Not all of my reasons were ethical, though, and I am not a 100-percent pure saint, either.
28. Why oh why oh why do the women who fall for me always have stings attached? That became old news a long time ago. It's as if the entity who pulls our puppet strings is a sadist and enjoys teasing me.
29. Until a few months ago, I was doing 100 sit ups every morning. Then I got sick of it. This has happened several times over the years. I will do 100 sit ups for a year or so, then I will quit for six months to a year. Then I start up again. Sometimes I do 100 in the morning and another 100 at night. I'll probably start doing them again in the next month or two.
30. I used to have a stair-climbing exerciser, but I used it so much that a part in it broke. It broke the day I reached 1,007 steps in a single session. If fact, it broke on the 1,007th step. The company that makes this particular machine (Alpine Climber) went out of business, and it is next to impossible to get replacement parts. This machine was sheer torture, but it was the best exercise experience I have ever had. I can only imagine the excellent condition I would be in now if that machine was still in working order.
31. I have tried running, but I suffer from extremely painful shin splints, even when I am wearing expensive running shoes.
32. I have often dreamt of walking or riding a bike across my home state of South Dakota. That would keep my busy for a long time (I could also take thousands of photographs), and it would get me in great shape, too. There are reasons (weak excuses, rather) that such a dream is no longer feasible, though. I'm also not too eager to encounter that certain mosquito that "has my name on it," the one that is a carrier of the West Nile virus.
33. I forgot to say in a previous entry that my love of photography has mostly to do with chronicling moments in the lives and existences of people, places and things. I think of my images mostly in a historical sense. I'm not trying to be an avant-garde or abstract artist (or even an "artist" of any sort), although I do love preserving scenes of sheer natural beauty, too.
34. Speaking of sheer natural beauty, I was lucky enough to work with a nude female model once a few years ago. Words cannot describe...!
35. Believe it or not, she asked me. I didn't ask her.
36. I was so excited that I took the first 25 or 30 pictures before discovering that I had no film in the camera. I had never made such a mistake before, and it was very embarrassing (if she had only given me advance notice!). I then put film in the camera and gave it another go.
37. Oh, if only I had had a digital camera at that time!
38. I am almost certain that I will never get such an amazing opportunity again.
39. If I list too many things in this entry, I won't have any left for my next "list" entry.
40. As one of my old college friends used to say facetiously when he was on his way out the door, "Hey! Later days there, dude."
Sincerely, YouNameIt
