(Phaysis)

I’m sitting here at the very tail end of the weekend, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve completely wasted my time. Trying to find the words to say, to put together, to make myself feel like I’ve done something, like I’ve not let 56 hours of my life slip by with nothing to show for it. But it’s hard. There was once a time I could flood the page with meaning and passion. Once, I could fixate on a drawing and produce a thing of beauty. Now, I just want escape. Want to create without having to explain. Want to put out a chunk of creative output without providing a back story. Want to not be distracted. But in my middle age, all I can think of is my job and how, even though it’s great, I just want to turn off and escape it when I’m not at work. And when I’m not at work, I don’t want to work on anything; I just want to wander, to leave, to be unmotivated. And that is the horror of it all. That my motivation has vanished, and that I spent the last 56 hours of my life with nothing to show for it.

So yeah, I’ve had a dumb weekend. Friday was ok, but saturday found me in a hell of a bad mood. Sat inside most of the day going between snoozing in my chair, cleaning the house, reading documentation on the Ruby programming language, and feeling bad about my life. Moody McGivesafuck. Brooded over myself as I changed venue; left the house at sunset and ambled over to Epoch where I absorbed myself in journal writing and reading more on Ruby. In one weekend I’ve read nearly the entire manual. Finally, my friend Jonathon came around and we discussed things; felt better about my current state.

By this morning, I felt fine. Took my time getting out of bed. An hour of reading the Internet did its job on distancing me from my snoozy feelings of a pure morning. Did laundry while making lunch, then read some more Ruby docs. Got dressed and went to Epoch. More reading. It’s my goal to learn enough Ruby to proficiently use it with Ruby On Rails to build a site for a friend of mine. After several hours there, I started walking; took the long way home in the crisp air. Autumn is approaching, and this full moon is making things nice. I haven’t driven my car since I got home from work on Friday; it’s a weird feeling. As long as my car’s not up to snuff, it’s in my best interest to let it sit in the parking lot whenever I can. It’ll still drive decently, but the smoke, the smoke.

So I’ve still got this outstanding dental issue. There’s the molar that needs a root canal. That’s still gotta get done. I’m fine with that; I’m fairly certain I know where I’m going for that. But just an hour ago I discovered something else that may’ve happened this week since my recent dentist visit: I noticed in the mirror that my crooked incisor tooth is broken. There’s a crack right across it on the front; may’ve happened while eating, since the tooth has a filling on the backside. This scares the shit out of me. I don’t know what procedure is done for cases like that. Bonding? Patching up? Removal?

I’m becoming a poor man, and my bad teeth are to blame.

Scary shit.

Addendum:
Ok, so what I thought was a crack in a tooth was just the edge of the tooth-colored remnants of dinner. After brushing, it’s no longer there. I feel like a fool. I still need the root canal though.

After a nice, warm week, a cold front blew through on Friday evening and chilled us down. It’s been a decent weekend for going out; granted it’s been overcast and rain has been a threat. But today I overcame gravity and answered a deep urge to get out with my bicycle. It’s my second ride since I knocked the winter dust off of it. Really feels kinda nice riding again.

You just get that urge, y’know?

My teeth are doing better. The right fillings aren’t so sensitive anymore which is fortunate because the lefts are still tender from the week-old fillings. I’m having my right wisdoms removed this wednesday, so hopefully my left molars will be fine enough to eat on. After the wisdom holes heal up, I’ll be good to go until I can afford to get the left wisdoms removed. And then hopefully the dental drama will be over with.

I called my sister last wednesday to wish her a happy 28th birthday (that means I’m getting old, too). Surprise of all surprises, her cellphone is out of service. Looks to me like she and her hubby haven’t been paying the bill. I might try later this week, but shit at least I tried. Y’know?

Work is picking up. After a tedious week of very little to do, but with a ton of stuff just waiting on customer go-ahead, it’s finally avalanching and we have rush jobs and lots of stuff to do. Lots of ass is being kicked.

This Saturday is Eeyore’s Birthday Party down at Pease Park. It’s a rite of spring, a hippy holdover for 42 years running. It’s dirty, it’s hot, it’s dusty, it’s sweaty, there are massive drum circles, reggae and rasta bands, people in costumes, people wearing little more than shorts and body paint, the smell of cannabis floats in the air, and the cops just walk around and not care.

This is an event that I look forward to months in advance. My whole regimen of allergy shots is inspired by being able to go to EB without allergy problems. I bought a bike last year so I could ride it down there. And this year it is my hope that my mouth is well enough to let me go. I’d hate to miss it 2 years in a row.

Ok. Sun’s setting soon; should wrap this up and ride on home.

I really did overdo myself sunday. After sleeping for something like 12 hours I woke up at 3:30am sunday morning. After milling around the room for a few hours, I gathered the gumption to go do some laundry. Sitting in my car in front of the laundromat was a unique experience; while the laundry was going, I sat out there and just soaked in the quiet of a sunday-morning dawn. I don’t know what it is about morning hues, but it always puts me at peace. I hungered for a good camera and decent photographic skills.

After laundry, I returned to the apartment just in time to meet up with my roomate when he got home from work. We had set aside the day to go to McGregor Park, also known as Hippy Hollow, the only clothing-optional state park in Texas. We headed out and got there around 9am, and it was quiet, calm, and peaceful. After settling down in a nice shady spot with a good view, we stripped down to our naturals and just chilled out. I was quite surprised with how not-modest I was about the whole nudity thing. It just felt O.K.

I crawled down the rocks to the water and took a swim for about fifteen minutes – my first swim in a year. Since I usually take showers only, being surrounded by water has become a new sensation, but after a few short minutes I got accustomed to it. For the lack of any kind of flotational device (note to self: get a floatie before next time), I got tired and crawled out to go back up to our stoop under the shade tree to air dry. Heart racing and dripping wet, I felt so good. I finally understood the joy of skinny dipping.

We left around 1:30pm, tired, hot, and a little baked from the sun. I managed to get a little too red from relying on nothing more than the solar protection equivalent of SPF-shadetree. The hot car didn’t make it that much easier, but we weathered it like troopers and headed back into town.

On the way in, my car suffered a bad mechanical failure: during a hard-braking event to stop at a traffic signal between Hwy 360 and MoPac I heard a pop and a crunch coming from my left-front wheel. After driving the way to MoPac, then to Burnet, then to Lamar, the crunch and the grinding got worse – I was hearing grinding while driving, and the braking action was tough and chunky. This was not good. Being sunday afternoon, my chances for a mechanic’s help were slim to none, but I had to try anyway; we headed down Lamar towards two brake shops. The first was closed, but 3 miles down, with my hand on the emergency-brake handle just in case, we found the other shop was opened until 3pm; it was 2 o’clock. A true blessing.

We got the car into the shop, they pulled the wheels off, and after inspection of all the brakes, the mechanics confirmed what I had suspected: the outside brake pad on my front-left wheel had gotten so thin that during that hard-brake the pad had snapped in half and was caught in the clamp so the the clamp itself was grinding into my rotor. The situation wasn’t pretty. So, after a hundred bucks and two hours of time I was driving away with brand new brake pads and newly-machined rotors on my front wheels.

:sighs: At least my brakes work better. :)

So, after dealing with all that, we head over to a local fried-fish chain restaurant (grease in a sunburned body = bad idea), and we finally get home, take turns with the shower, and I discovered just how red I turned from the beach. Youch! Aloe vera felt so good. Roomate went to take a nap, I tool around online, and head out to grab a friend to go hang out at Mojo’s. By that time, the heat, sunburn, and heavy heavy grease did their number on my stomach, and I got nauseous again.

My friend and I opt for walking around for a little bit to get my stomach settled, thereby overstretching myself again, and we head home to freshen up and rendezvous back to my apartment for a planned dinner and movies. He and his girlfriend show up, my roomate prepares dinner, and by the time dinner’s ready, I’m about to heave-hork again. I had to excuse myself and go to bed.

If you’ve noticed, nausea is becoming a recurring theme. I beseech the gods of medical technology to make my stomach whole again. This morning I still wasn’t A-OK, but I went to work like a trooper and stuck it out. Finally, around mid-afternoon, I was ok to eat something, so I heated the charity-plate my roomate had made for me and picked at it for an hour. Damn was it good. I only wish I could’ve eaten it last night. Huh.

Saturday was short, sunday morning was sweet, and the rest of the day was sweaty, sour, and more sour.

I woke up this morning with a really bizarre dream involving a girl I know; it’s quite apparent to me how I feel for her, because in the dream we were making love and I felt the heat, the pressure, the holding, the whole thing. Love-dreams always unsettle me, but it’s a sweetness that I can carry with me throughout the day. Little things like that make my life better.

And it all starts with holding someone’s hand.

Ok. So in my last entry I raved about how well the weekend was going, how the weekend was just beginning, how I for once was going to have a kick-ass weekend, etc., etc. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Believe me, the Fates are so fuckin’ mean. MEAN!

Below is my fancy, high-tech Powerpoint illustration of my weekend. The curve, in blue, denotes the “suckitude” of the weekend with the vertical axis inverted such that low values represent the most “suckitude.” The horizontal axis represents forward time. The red boxes represent key points on the path of time.

So. Friday night was good, definitely. Saturday afternoon and early evening, when I was still going on the buzz of friday night, were good as well. Got to chill out, listen to more Harley’s cruising by, guzzle iced tea, and just hang-out in general. Had the chance to go see King’s X at the Back Room that night, but for some reason (which still escapes me) I opted out; decided to hang out some more, see who showed up. Anyway, somehow I think this is the part where the Freewillers and the Predestined’s will part ways, if you’ll pardon the pun.

There I am, it’s around 1am or so, and I get hungry. I go out and get a sausage-and-egg breakfast taco, with salsa. Chowed down on it and felt good. Went back to Mojo’s and hung out some more. Chatted with my friend Ernie about things computers and things Dell, which is a joy; been years since I could sit and talk geek for hours and suffer no social consequences. Around 4 or 5am I was feeling a little “gassy”, so home was the best choice.

About 15 minutes after I went to bed, my bowels clenched, my stomach ground, and I got that sudden, anxious feeling that’s usually immediately followed by the words, “Uh-oh.” (You know that feeling.) I grabbed the trashcan, bolted to the bathroom, and sat there for over an hour in three different sessions. No hurling, luckily, but the hair-trigger was really tickling. It was a close call, but thankfully it was all coming out of the other end, which is my preference (I’m wierd with throwing-up). So, if you’ll forgive me for the lurid details, let us continue.

Sunday, oh Sunday. After 6 dreamless hours of sleep, with me on my side on the side of the bed and the trashcan beneath me, I got up around 1pm. Wasn’t feeling all too sparkly, so I moped around. Waited on a phone call from Bart – we had planned to go out to pick up a new motherboard to replace his which fried a month ago. He called, learned that I was ill, and called it off. I tried to venture out of the house but realized really quickly that: heat + nausea = hell. Went back home with a quickness, undressed to my essentials, and moped around the house for the rest of the day, trashcan at the ready.

A bright spot, though. I did do something productive. My friend [Danielle] had called for volunteers to offer server space so she could have comment capabilities on her blog. I stepped forward last week, and we finally got it installed and set up yesterday. She was much appreciative; I’m glad I got to help (damn shame she lives in Canada).

The rest of the day, though, sucked. Watched some pre-taped TV from years ago and went to bed around 2am. Got up this morning at 8, still feeling like hell, took a shower, and slogged to work. I then realized that after not eating a single thing yesterday I was in no shape, and had no strength, to be working around machinery. Add to that the stomach spasms and twinges, and yeah, I headed home after just over an hour of work.

Which worked-out, actually. Finally got a call from a Dell service tech. Told him to meet me at my apartment instead of my job. After about half an hour of work, the hinges and plastics on my laptop’s screen are made whole again. Yay! No more cracks, no more wobbling, no more “close it carefully, carefully!” A bright point, definitely. And under warranty, too!

So, now, I think I need to eat a little bit of something bland, have some more ginger ale, and possibly see about seeing my doctor. Low-level nausea for over two weeks might mean something important. You’d think, right?

You know, I’m thinking that if I had gone to the King’s X show instead of hanging out at Mojo’s all night, none of this would’ve happened, and this journal entry would’ve been done later this evening and filled with a report of good news and glad tidings. So let this be a lesson to you, children. Don’t exercise your free will. Go do what you were predestined, and nothing like this would happen. Um, yeah.

Anyway. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. :sighs: Best of health to you guys. Later.