I suddenly had this gigantic rush of sleepiness wash over me like the ocean does to the beach. Normally, I wouldn't be concerned about this. The problem, however, is that it is 10:00 PM and I have only been awake for five hours since I do that whole staying up all night thing from Saturday to Sunday because no person in their right mind would go to bed at 9:00 PM on a Saturday just to get up and go to work at 6:00 in the morning on Sunday. My boss fired the guy who comes in to replace me at 9:00 AM so I spent from 8:55 until 9:05 going, "Please let the boss come in, please let the boss come in," while sitting on a counter until he did. I don't mind the Tuesday or Thursday nights, but the Sunday morning is slowly eating me from the inside. Every Sunday morning when that lousy coworker of mine would come in ten minutes late, I would become more and more angry. So I told the boss that if he doesn't take me off Sundays within two weeks that I'm quitting. He said he'd see what he can do. Ffeh.
Back in high school, I remember that we used to sit in the upstairs junction of the A and B hallways while waiting for the bell to ring. The floors were always completely dirty and people hardly had any room to walk past because of us. There was a door that, until Dave W. decided to alter it, used to say "Art Storage" (he put an "F" in front of it). Nobody ever went into the room except janitors because it was a closet. Pappy was insanely interested in photography at that point and would bring his camera to school. This was before he became Bill Gates junior, so it wasn't a digital camera. He would take pictures of us in various compromising poses and develop them down in the room that functioned as the Macintosh lab, yearbook headquarters, school newspaper headquarters, printing and dark room. They'd crammed all that stuff into one area and called it "reprographics". I have a picture which Pappy snapped of me one morning: I'm givin him the finger, my hair is totally unwashed and hanging down to my shoulders, I have a pair of headphones on which I still have to this day, and I'm holding a can of Coke.
I like to hold onto pictures. I have stuff from back in kindergarten. Pictures of Bean and I, a picture my mom took of me kissing Marcy before our parents had to seperate us, a picture of Dad with his afro, a set of pictures I took while on vacation in the Caribbean with Lio Convoy, pictures of my first car after a woman rear-ended it at a stoplight, a set I took at the Susatron's house down in Florida, pictures from Utah, and various others. I think the best picture I have is of Bean standing outside of Blood's house in the winter - he's wearing a ski cap, a stained wife-beater and khaki shorts, trying to light his cigarette in the freezing cold. He was a nut. Lio has this picture of himself which I like to call the "Caveman Lio discovering fire" picture. He's holding a lighter of death with one of those foot-long flames and looking down at it in such surprise. He's unshaven and his hair is long and he looks like a caveman. It's wacky.
I made a rule a while back where I stated that something is true only when I say so and something that I declare as false is, from then on, false. I'm going to invoke that rule and say that a fifteen percent tip is the average for dinner at a regular restaurant. Taking my order and bringing my food, asking once how things are, does not merit adding a fifth of the bill to what I'm paying. If you believe otherwise, you're clearly wrong. Clearly. The Rock says so.
I'm worried about Caniprokis. I can't really explain why, but it has to do with how he's been lately. He's been having some rough times with Arcee, he's been really edgy and quick to get angry. It bothers me, just like it bothered me after Bloody got arrested. Just like it bothered me when Lio was walking on the wild side with his medication and illicit substances. Maybe I shouldn't worry so much, but these are my friends. These are the people I want to be sitting around on lawn chairs with in my eighties, you know? Playing bocce and reminiscing about all the broads we fancied back in the day. If you're reading this, Caniprokis, don't hesitate to let me know what's shaking.
Baseball season is finally starting again. I probably won't watch, though, until September, depending on whether or not the Yankees/Mets are participating. It's almost guaranteed that the former will, but you never know. There's only one certainty in baseball - the Boston Red Sox will never win a World Series. The poor Red Sox, they always have this great team but they never seem to make it. Something happens and they fall short. They've got probably one of the best hitters in Nomar (though, isn't he injured?) and one of the best pitchers in Pedro, plus a very talented cadre of other players. But maybe my "certainty" will be wrong. Again, you never know. I like baseball because there's a lot of tension during the battle between pitcher and hitter. Every pitch, every hit, every footfall matters. I know that's pretty much the same in any other sport, but other sports don't have that personal feeling. There are a lot of miscellaneous people in football and hockey and soccer, and I'll never understand the pull of NASCAR. (And wrestling isn't a sport, it's a soap opera with occasional violence.) I think that ties into why I'm so closed-minded when it comes to video games, because I like that personal feeling I get from playing an RPG and advancing the story along. I know that others can do the same, and I know that other games can pretty much do the same thing with far less FMV, but other games have a lot of miscellaneous stuff. RPG's keep track of everything and put you in the center. In baseball, you can watch and feel like you're in the spot of the pitcher or hitter. Maybe I'm putting too much into it. It is just a game, after all.
I read too much. I read too much, and I read too quickly. I read an entire five-book series by Orson Scott Card over the course of two weeks. I'm now finishing up the second book in a three book series by Robert Silverberg (I'd read the third except he's not done writing it, yet). This wouldn't bother me if I wasn't reading fluff. But I read science fiction and fantasy, and while they're entertaining, they have no significant value. I don't even increase my vocabulary! I think the most challenging word I've come across so far is "prognosticating". I was a tad off on the definition, I think. Meh. I need to start picking up some real literature. Goodnight. Sorry to ramble.