This evening, my socks made a squeaking sound against the worn, smooth leather insoles of my sandals, every time I walked. This was due mostly to the fact that I tracked through the somewhat-waxy organic “flying insect” spray that lay spattered across my kitchen floor, used a fair bit in battle with an errant wasp flying around the house.

Another night of calm, which was a good change from the non-stop days at work, through the weekend. Today is not Monday, it is Saturday+2, as far as I reckon. It’s kind of like an ultraviolet wavelength at the end of a spectrum. It’s there, but surreal, not really tangible…

Didn’t watch football, this evening. Instead went to the bookstore. Drank my “pumpkin spice” flavoured coffee. Bought some more CDs that were on sale, cheap: The Velvet Underground and Nico, Sublime Robbin’ The Hood and re-purchased Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever, to replace my severely scratched vinyl copy.

Also bought a book, Anger – Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, by renowned Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ve always wanted to read some Hanh, and this seemed as good a choice as any. Kerouac once talked about enlightenment, and basically came to the conclusion that his failing was that “I like girls“. I, on the other hand, dislike idiot drivers. If this is my failing, perhaps the Bodhisattva is not far off, right? Doubtful! Nonetheless, perhaps this will give me a new way to look at things.

Looked for some stuff by Yoder, but nothing of particular interest, only Christology and beginning theology stuff. I want to read what he has to say about peace and/or war.

Talked with a friend with whom I’ve lost touch, over the past few years. Paths have just diverged a bit. May meet with her, and a friend of hers/ours, this week. Said friend is a cool guy, the kinda guy who gives you his copy of Bitches Brew, without hesitation, after one relatively brief (albeit dynamic) evening discussion about music. Selfless, you know.

I want to do good. Not well, but good.

Doing both would be fine with me, however.

QOTD:

And speaking of angry receivers, congratulations to all of you who had Week 3 in the Randy Moss Stops Trying Pool. Remember, every one is eligible to re-enter next season.

I won my first FFL matchup this week, finally, long overdue. It was a squeaker, yes, and had that Tampa defender run in for the TD, I would have had yet another 90+ point effort in a loss. Sorry that such had to be your situation, eddiecoyote. It would really have stunk, however, to have had the second highest point total in the league and be 0-3. That’s just not right!

I still have been feeling kinda under the weather, but not bad. I can’t figure it out. This morning was the worst yet, with my stomach cramping up a bit and barely being able to keep my eyes open for the first 10 minutes of walking around. A glass of juice fixed the stomach thing, so maybe that was just some weird hunger pang. Meanwhile, all through the day, a dose of caffeine or two has consistently raised me over the edge just enough to where I feel okay, but once that wears off, I feel kinda dreary.

Maybe I have West Nile. Someone just died from it in Sterling, after all.

That’s a dark joke. :-/ Maybe tasteless, as well. However, it’s only a joke — I’ve not been outside enough recently to have gotten a mosquito bite

Around 9.30 this morning, I get a call at work from the guy who is going to come to my house tonight and complete the settlement on my refinance. He asked me if he could move it from 6.00 to 5.15. I said yes; This didn’t bother me. Tension Level (scale of 1-10): 0

About 15 minutes later, I get a phone call from the mortgage company themselves, telling me that I have to bring $xxxx to the settlement. This didn’t bother me, either. Tension Level: 0

Then he tells me that it has to be a certified cheque, or cashier’s cheque, or money order, etc. This bothers me a bit, but not terribly. I know I can get money orders from the post office, right? There’s one just down the street. Tension level: 0.5

Around 11.45, I take a walk down to the post office to get a money order. It is there that I find out I can only use cash or a debit card to pay for such. Tension level: 1.5

Guy says that you can use ATM cards to pay for things at the post office. I try this. I forget that ATM cards have a limit of $450/day. Tension level: 2

I call my bank, who tells me that “any bank” can give me a cash advance on my VISA card. A relief… until I go to the Chevy Chase branch at work, who tells me I can’t do one there. Tension Level: 3.

I drive 15 minute away to the next closest bank, who goes through all the hassle of doing a cash advance. They tell me that they can give me a cash advance, but not a cashier’s cheque, since I am not a customer Tension Level: 4

I get my cash. I now have to drive back to the post office. Tension Level: 4.5

At the post office, I give them my cash. The maximum money order size is $1000, and I knew this — so I was already expecting to fill out two orders. However, it seems that despite the fact that the order limit is $1000, the actual cheque size can be no larger than $700. Thus, I now get to fill out three forms. Tension Level: 5.5

Start time: 11.45AM
Return time: 1.30PM

The process is all done, now. I don’t think there’s any way the settlement itself could possibly frustrate me, at this point.

Sitting on my balcony, reading my book, I was halfway jolted out of my seat by a bone-jarring, ringing sound, somewhere to my left. I peeked through the rails on my balcony to try and figure out what it was. Was it a fire, or perhaps burglar alarm? Construction workers?

No.

A few seconds later, I saw an ice-cream truck roll into the apartment units behind my house. Yes, the cacaphony that sounded very much like a jackhammer, or something you might encounter on-site at a construction project, was the “sonorous” ringing of the ice-cream man.

I was somewhat taken aback by this. Whatever happened to the light, happy tones of the Good Humor truck, as it came down the street? Even if the occasional overzealous driver rang that thing incessantly, it was still so much more suitable than this! How could anyone expect any positive response, when putting up a racket?

I simply can’t figure out why such a terrible sound was used. Are we perhaps so used to noise pollution, bedlam, that it takes dissonance such as this to grab our attention? Does the simple ringing of bells not ellicit any sort of pleasurable response anymore? Pavlovian jokes aside, I found this very saddening, for some reason.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it.

11.30 on a Friday night, and I’m sitting here. Not much going on tonight. Probably for the better, I’ve been in kinda a weird… uh, I dunno. it’s partially mood, partially physical. I don’t feel bad, just not quite all there. I took a nap after work (11 hour work day, ugh), and that didn’t seem to shake it. Hope I’m not coming down with the flu or something. Hungry but not hungry. Want to do something, but nothing really sounds fun. This is a shame, because I’ve bought a bunch of books in the past few days, to add to the stack of books that I haven’t yet read/finished. In addition to my prior purchase of Fast Food Nation, I bought both The Devil Soldier and The Botany of Desire, yesterday. Fast Food Nation is turning out to be pretty good, although it does make me hungry for fries, every time I look at the cover.

I went to the health fair at work yesterday. My blood pressure was amazingly normal — 117/60, or something. That’s crazy, esp. considering I’ve got a family history of high blood pressure. My cholesterol, on the other hand, was 220, which is borderline. That, too, runs in my family, and I dunno what else I can do to lower it — all this running I’ve been doing ought to help; I don’t eat a lot of red meat anymore, and I pretty much watch my fat intake. Of course, last weekend’s pizza might have had something to do with that, as well.

I had a few other things about which I was gonna write, but I can’t remember them. Add “absentminded” to the symptoms at the top of this entry.

Last night that I had a dream in which my housemate broke up with her boyfriend and my aunt and her fiancé had just been involved in a really serious argument, causing things to start falling apart.

I’m glad I’m not a psychic. Is it any wonder that I woke up exhausted this morning, still having heavy eyes an hour later?

I was amazingly cool and collected tonight. Images, ideas, flitted across my mind, full of colour. I didn’t get to write this stuff out when I wanted, though, so there’s a little tarnish on the mirror. These thoughts make no sense to anyone else, but they are a patchwork of my evening, one of clarity.

The smell of sampoernas, coffee remind me of Brandon. There’s no anisette, though. Brandon died four years ago next month. I wish I’d gotten to know him even better than I did; I wish I’d get a chance to visit him. It always starts to hit me this time of year. I really dig Fall. Crouching, my knees fall asleep, burning. I don’t think I much like gold trim on vehicles. I really don’t like making left turns into parking spots. I need fun again, I am settling into a rut. I need to try harder to genuinely enjoy good times with an assortment of friends; I hope my geniune interest in enjoying the company of others can be reciprocated. Why has my cynicism come back? Where has my compassion gone? Fast Food Nation. Guilty patron. I love her touch, her curves; I miss her a lot. Where is that church that Tom told me about? Pilot on his cellphone, climbing the corporate ladder. How can I apply my skills to get ahead in my job? Chaka Khan sounds really good on this Clapton album. Why do people tend to look good in sunglasses?

Monday, I got Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Pulling into the parking lot, I parked next to a big ole SUV, a big, shiny black Lincoln Navigator. The license plate said simply, “JOB 9“.

Nothing really hypocritical about that verse, in itself, I suppose. But it was strange to see a quote from Job – a man who lost everything he had, a man of extreme humility – proclaimed on the front of this tank.

Also, kinda interesting — the quote of the day at that website is Psalm 121. I’m guessing it was randomly chosen, I don’t suspect they picked it specifically for Sept. 11.

It’s a soothing one, I suppose — although verses 3-4 have prophetic undertones in this day and age…

³He will not let your foot slip-
he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

Was a busy weekend. Had a friend who came into town Friday night, left this morning. Friday night consisted of a little bit of bar-hopping. Not exciting, really, but it was good times with good friends.

Saturday was a day of touch football. It was great to get out there and play football again, I hadn’t done that in years. I also played QB for a few sets, which was actually pretty fun. I was never very good at tracking my recievers when I was younger. Yesterday, however, i could just lock in on them. I think that’s the contacts lenses, to some degree — my peripheral vision is so much better. I’m also decidedly a short-to-midrange kinda passer. I just don’t have the height or arm to air it out there… but I was threading those short passes right through.

I was not so good at WR or coverage…. again, part of it was the height difference, I think. Lost a bit of my sprinting speed too, it seems — although, when your opponents are playing in cleats on this tall, messy grass, and you are in tennis shoes, you’re gonna lose a step or two anyway.

Woke up a little sore today, but not horrible. In addition, today was real football, on TV. As per usual, my FFL team continued in my typical string of bad luck — who’d have thought that Corey Dillon and Curtis Martin would barely compile a miserable fifty rushing yards between the two of them?

Before the football came on, I flipped back and forth between the various news programs. It annoyed me to see Rumsfield and Cheney, on different shows, trying to sell the concept of “War on Iraq”. Back in the 80s, Russian comedian Yakov Smirnov had a joke about there only being two channels of TV in Russia. Channel 1 was all government propaganda, and Channel 2 was a KGB agent telling you to “turn back to Channel 1″. Boy, that seemed kinda familiar, watching the news this morning.

I posted this one in an ESPN FFL message board, in response to someone’s description of his team, and the all-too-common mistake of using a 1RB/3WR set, rather than a 2/2 set. His text in italics.

I am loaded at WR and somewhat thin at RB.

That’s like being the east end of a westbound racehorse at Preakness. Even if you’re stud, you’re still the arse end thereof.

Yes, I guess it would probably be lost on most of them, who most likely don’t know what The Preakness is, in the first place…

I don’t know who can, and to what degree people can access this — so don’t expect much tech support, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you — but there’s an addicting game for WAP-enabled mobile phones. The concept is simple, the strategy is amazingly complex. It’s called Alien Fish Exchange. It’s a commodity-trading, resource management game that can be pretty damn fun.

I get to it through the AOL portal on my Nextel phone. I don’t know how else to do it, offhand.

This weekend was pretty uneventful, but it was still fun. Didn’t make any holiday plans, because I didn’t know if I was going to have to work. Had dinner and drinks w/ friends, enjoyed the cool weather, worked on setting up my online photo gallery. Already looking forward to next weekend, which features the commencement of two types of football: the NFL regular season, and neighborhood ball.

I always liked playing football as a kid, but I always had to take it extremely careful since I already had the tendency to beat up my glasses. Now that I’ve got contacts, I’ve got about 20 years worth of rough-and-tumble ball aching to escape every muscle fibre in my body.

I feel really old, however, watching all these people go back to school in the fall. I never much noticed this last year, but now it just seems to really stand out.