I did laundry today which is quite an ordeal when I let it go as long as I did. I entered “buying socks and underwear” mode last week with a Sunday night trip to Wal-Mart. Today I did six “loads” (meaning probably 10
“conventional” or “non-overloaded” loads).

With most of my clothes on the bed I decided a closet reorganization was in order. Once everything was placed I did a quick and dirty count, an inventory if you will. While I won’t commit to an exact number I will say that, provided the weather cooperates, I could easily go four weeks without effort and as long as three months without washing a shirt…and never have to wear anything twice.

I have a 7 gmail accounts. A hotmail account. A Yahoo! mail account. A work email account. I’m nearly always signed on to MSN Messenger. I have an XBox live account. Google Chat, Google Voice, Skype. Facebook and Twitter. Two blogs and a mobile phone.

Why do I have no one to talk to?

Am I the only person who gets more satisfaction from managing their queue than actually sitting down and watching something?

I’ve been in Texas for a little over a week now and since I promised I’d blog while I was here, I guess I need to get on that.

I’m in San Angelo, a town suddenly on everyone’s lips thanks to the FLDS folks a few miles away.  There’s a CNN van parked in the hotel parking lot and there’s not a hotel room to be had in this town.  The kids from the compound are being held about three miles up the road at the convention center.  Until recently they were being held at an old fort a bit further out but after the kids’ mothers’ started complaining that the facilities were sub-par.  Whatever.  They’re a bunch of crazies.

A woman a work said that she has a neighbor who has been working with some of the kids.  She said that two pregnant, twelve-year-old girls were upset that they were, most likely, not going to be allowed to return to their husband(s) to raise their kids.  These teen girls think of themselves as adults.

Aside from the media madness San Angelo is a quiet little city.  There’s right around a hundred-thousand people but the city offers the shopping, entertainment and dining of a much larger town.  There’s a mall, though not a very big one, two Wal-Marts, a Target, a Best Buy and the rest of discount stores.  It’s still seeing a lot of growth and, in typical Texas fashion, they’re creating some pretty crazy sprawl.  The strangest thing I’ve seen is that many of the apartment complexes require you to drive through a commercial parking lot to get to the apartments.  It’s enough to make me not want to rent.

The site is quite a bit different that Oak Ridge.  First of all, the site is located in a six-story building.  We occupy, and own, the entire facility.  My office is on the top floor where I manage five coaches and around sixty agents.  There are support people who do almost every task that I was taught would be my responsibility.  I spent a lot of time working with my staff on a one-on-one level.  I have a counterpart who works on the forth floor and, thus far, she’s seemed reluctant to let things go.  The people are great though and, assuming the job offer is right, I am thinking of staying.  We’ll see.

Since I’ve been staying in a hotel I’ve  had the chance to watch a lot of television.  I’ve come to a decision.  I don’t need cable.  Sure I’d like to see Deadliest Catch, Naurto, Dirty Jobs and Survivor Man but being subjected, even for a few seconds, to Rock of Love, Flavor of Love and the like is enough to make me rather go without.

My sister has asked that I take some photos of the town and such.  I’ll be doing that soon.  I promise.  Watch for more posts kids.

Two of my sisters had babies in the last forty-eight hours.  Each had girls; one weighing 9 pounds 2 ounces the other was 9 pounds 11 ounces.  These will bring my collection of nieces and nephews to nine. If I can get permission from my sisters I’ll post photos.  Rest assured though, we’ve now got a grand total of 90 fingers and 90 toes, though J hasn’t given me a current count on her son’s digits.

So I’m going to try and start posting again. I may someday go into all the reasons why I stopped but not tonight. (I actually just deleted an entire post I had written outlining a few reasons but…well…maybe some other time.) I do want to get you caught up though. I’ve decided to just give you the top fifteen words that more or less sum up the past few months. If any strike your fancy, let me know and I may elaborate.

1. Doubt
2. Rage
3. Release
4. Moves
5. God
6. Hopeless
7. Rejection
8. Family
9. Promotion
10. Stress
11. Rotation!
12. Placenta
13. Therapy
14. S-h
15. Kentucky

That sums it up kids.

So today I discovered that another old trend has started to emerge from my past.  I am, it seems, that catalyst required for people to move on from their prior relationships.  This is not to say that people move on with me, it is only the prospect of moving on with me that makes girls ready to date someone they actually like.

When you get rejected you get to indulge in some self pity for a bit.  Lately I’ve even been robbed of that.  The ‘relationships’ I’ve entered into lately have ended before they’ve started and the girls’ moving on has either been hidden or so far removed from my circumstances that the relationship was nearly invisible to begin with.

Still, rejection does hurt, even when it’s indirect.  What hurts more though is that when something is hidden from me so I wouldn’t get hurt, it tells me that my feelings were considered and just didn’t matter.

My sleep patterns have been really off lately.  One day last week I went to bed at 930 in the evening and was up and ready to go at 400, some two hours before I even start getting ready to go to work.  Saturday I decided to lay back down at about 1030; I’d woken up not feeling very well at about seven.  I slept until my sister called me at 200 wondering why I wasn’t at my nephew’s birthday party.  And last night I was in bed by 900 and woke up at about 530.

Its not just my sleeping pattern that’s messed up though.  I’ve long been weird about eating.  I can easily go a day without eating, without even thinking about food.  I literally forget to eat some days.  The meals I do eat are usually in the mid-evening, around six or seven and then its often crap; fast food or frozen meals.  Lately I’ve been hungry at weird times.  I’ve eaten breakfast a few times in the past few weeks and even had a few days of three full meals. 

There’s more that’s been off but this isn’t the forum for all that stuff.  I don’t know what the cause of all this is.  All I know is that I want things to go back to normal. 

Last night I picked up a copy of Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs.� I’ve read it before but it’s been a long time.� There was a passage that I’m sure I would have been unmoved by when I read it the first time but on this reading it really stood out.�

Do you remember that old TV series, Get Smart?� You remember at the beginning where Maxwell Smart is walking down the secret corridor and there are all these doors that open sideways, and upside down and gateways and stuff?� I think everybody keeps a whole bunch of doors just like this between themselves and the world. But when you’re in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open.� And you roller skate down your halls together.

The last few weeks have been hard but I wouldn’t give them up for anything.� I opened my doors and though there was no roller skating, I did let someone walk down my corridor.� In the end I didn’t have what she was looking for and that makes me sad but it was nice to have someone check the place out again.�

Those of you who know me know that I can tell some really great stories about really bad birthdays. In the past I’ve spent my special day throwing-up all day, fighting with friends and family or even letting it go unnoticed.

This one was good though. I got up early to play golf with my brother-in-law E. Golf is hard – don’t let anyone tell you that its not. The truth is golf is the only thing I subject myself to that I am a complete and total failure at doing. It’s not that I get bogies when I want birdies and its not that I have a really, really bad hook. These are things that every golfer faces – even the pros from time to time. No, my problem is that I miss the ball…a lot. I’m talking sometimes seven or eight swings of the club to move the ball fifteen or twenty feet down the course.

It was hot yesterday. So hot that I didn’t finish the nine holes we’d agreed to play. I got through seven and had to stop. I was frustrated, sore and terribly hot. E was as encouraging as he could be. He reminded me that I only play about once a year (it was, in fact, one year to the day since we’d played last) and that I should just spend some time on the driving range to get my swing under control. To encourage me he gave me his spare set of clubs. Thanks E! Now I have to actually practice so next year I can show him my mad skillz.

There were birthday greetings scattered throughout the day. T, a girl from work, put a note on my car making her the first person to with me well, S sent a text message and J left a voicemail. My sisters T and J both called and I got to speak to my niece E for a few minutes (we share the birthday).

For dinner last night the family went to an Italian bistro in Knoxville. R and E bought my a steak dinner and there were presents. E and R, in addition to the golf clubs gave me a cap and a DVD. The nephew B who is always allowed to select the gift from him, got me a nifty pair of Simpsons boxers. From mom and dad was a shirt and a card. T has mailed a hat and she says something else – it should be arriving very soon I am told.

After dinner I went to the mall with R, E and the kids. The actual purpose of our visit will be gone over in another post as its just too good to bury four paragraphs down in this one, so I’ll leave it at we got ice cream and I got a flat tire.

Now back at home, S came by for some quality hanging out time. We went and got ice cream again, paid a visit to everydaycompanion.com to see what Panic was playing in Lousiville and that was pretty much the end of my day.

Thanks to everyone who made my day a good one. Birthdays are a funny thing. I personally think that everyone should get their own birthday off work. A special day just for you, like Presidents Day or Labor day – a day to recognize all that you do to support your employer and government.

So here’s to thirty. May it be better than 29.