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February 15, 2000 |
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Okay, I know this journal sucks. Bear with me while I'm finding
my voice. I'm caught up between knowing how much of my daily events to put
down, how many of my opinions should find themselves into this journal,
etc. So while I figure out precisely how this is going to go from day to
day (if even that frequently), you'll have to endure this stream of dribble
that I happen to label as my journal.
My apologies.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to send me mail. I'll be sure to
interpret all constructive criticism as hostile and hate you forever. Okay,
probably not… I'm sure you'll simply ignore my suggestion and move on
to the next journal or next page. Or maybe you'll go fetch yourself some
coffee, since that simply has to be more interesting than reading
my page. I hate you already.
Okay… maybe I have issues?
When I got home last night, there was a package waiting for me at the door. It was the movie Parent Trap, the version with Dennis Quaid. It's not so much that I simply needed to own this movie. A couple of years ago I got my mom a television for a Christmas present since her older one broke down. Since she still aspires to learn English, I figured that I would get her one with closed captioning, which incidentally, she has yet to use. So when I was in Florida during the holidays, we agreed that she should watch movies in English with the closed captioning turned on, and that I would be more than willing to help her translate the parts that she can't understand. Well, I got her the movie Parent Trap for her birthday (at her request), and got myself a copy so that I would be able to translate it if she had any questions.
Ha! Parent Trap… What's in a name you say? That's funny. Oh, the irony!
I had a strange message on my voice mail when I got into work today. I saw the red flashing light. I have voice mail? I checked my pager, sure enough… I must've been sleeping pretty soundly. The message was left at 7:20pm last night, I was asleep by then due to my entire wrapping around incident. I played back the message, two words…
"Table Tennis…"It was from one of my workmates, Dugan. I simply cannot make this up.
I've been thinking more and more about my friend Lisa, and for you cynics out there… No, not just because she sent me an e-Valentine. She and I have exchanged many mail messages and I probably shared more with her than with many of my real life friends. The strange thing is that we've never met face to face; we have, on occasion, talked on the phone. She's a real sweetheart; I simply cannot say enough wonderful things about her.
It is just that lately I've been really wanting to finally meet her. Maybe it stems from reading journals where long time online friends finally meet. Maybe it is that now that I'm dating more actively, I find myself comparing some of these women's traits to hers. I know it is not fair to any of them, but I can't help it. Maybe our openness is due to the fact that we're communicating online most of the time. All I know is that I've never felt as comfortable with anyone as I feel with her.
So after exchanging a few e-mail messages, I finally called her and we chatted about it for a while.
I have an appointment with Dr. J today. [Yes… he really does go by "Dr. J"] For those of you paying attention, he's my orthodontist. He's certainly a good guy, with the possible exception of grossly underestimating the amount of time I'd have to wear these irritating metal torture devices. He's off by eight months (…and counting). He also has this nasty habit of calling me by my legal name, which isn't that big of a deal, except that I don't really answer to it and feel like a bit of an idiot when I don't realize that he's talking to me. Enough about Dr. J.
I'm still a bit sluggish from yesterday's wrapping around incident, despite my having gotten over twelve hours of sleep. So I was dozing off a little at Dr. J's office. I suppose that's okay, if I were to pick something to sleep through, orthodontic work would certainly be a good candidate.
So the good doctor comes by and looks around. He asks me to bite. I'm thinking to myself, "Your finger is out of reach…" I bite. He looks at one particular part of my mouth and states that we're almost finished… 90% done. Didn't he say that last time? Liar!!.
He then turns to his assistant points some things out and says, "…torque these three teeth…"
I'm thinking to myself, "Uhmm… excuse me? You're doing what to my teeth?" I'm picturing medieval torture devices here. Maybe Laurence Olivier stopping by and asking me, "Is it safe?" Fortunately, it was only a different wire and a wire tie. That's all. Relatively simple actually.
As I was wandering the hallways, I get paged. It is Carlos. Okay, technically, it is voice mail, but it is Carlos in the voice-mail. He wanted to know if we were still on for Friday. Well, since initially our plans were only tentative, I had made other plans. I'd be getting Indian food with Pam.
Carlos and I ended up talking for a bit while we were doing work, which is something we do fairly frequently. I asked him if he would like to join Len and I for dinner on Sunday. Well, technically, Len and I haven't discussed it, but we always have dinner on Sunday. Carlos tells me to call him during the weekend to see if something else would come up.
Did I mention that Carlos is a little flaky? That's okay, he's really quite likeable.
Tonight is also workout night. I was doing intervals on the treadmill. Did I mention I hate intervals? I've been told that you know you're doing them properly when you feel like puking. Well, isn't that a lovely sentiment? Is this why they hand out the towels? Where do they keep the barf bags? I did briefly feel like puking, not to mention having the cramps on my side, but otherwise I was able to finish the thirty minute run with the fifteen minutes of intervals. Oh, and I ran 2.518 miles. [Woo Hoo!!]
Oh, it would seem that my ankle sprain is fully healed. Thank goodness!
After the run I do my free weights. I saw someone from work at the gym. Now, Eric is not a bad guy; he's just someone I don't really hang out with. Maybe a bit highstrung, but otherwise okay. I was doing my bicep curls and he started talking to me, which really isn't that big a deal except that he's making me lose count. [Oh, I'm sorry, did that slip?] I continued with my routine and while I was during my crunches, he asked if I was doing anything after the gym. "Uhmm, not really…" He asks me if I wanted to get some beers with him. I figured, why not? I agreed, although I said that I still had to get dinner.
We went to Dead Robin and sat at the bar. He was having a particularly bad day and needed to wind down a bit. I can certainly sympathize with that, although I would've imagined that he would have other folks that may be a little more… close he would have preferred to spend time with. I mean this is the first time we have ever talked about anything but work. It turns out that he is recently a father. Although he is the first new father that I know that says that is like nothing at all… that his life hasn't changed at all. That struck me as a little odd. He also said that he's going to force his son to get an engineering degree. [How does he propose he's going to accomplish this?] I had a couple of beers (MGD, since they didn't have Michelob) and also got dinner (the seafood pasta). After dinner, I dropped him off at his car. I hoped his day turned out better, but to be honest, I wasn't a particularly good listener tonight.
February 15, 2000