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A snake eating its tail

Michael considered fate at 12:26   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Like a lot of bloggers, I find it awfully hard not to write about people and about the things they write when all I do all day is read read read.

At work, I come in around 8.. okay, 9. Well.. to be terribly honest, I probably average 9:45.. but regardless, I do show up every day! And when I do I show up and I fill up my coffee cup 2/3rds of the way (it holds about 20oz) so that I don't have to worry about spilling. I sit down at my computer and sort of think about what I might work on and then I fire up my browser. I'd like to say I use phoenix, or opera, or something appropriately trendy but I'm stuck with internet explorer just cause it's quick and painless, in that "i accept you satan" sort of way. I fire up my browser and I hit yahoo mail first because maybe someone wrote me. I read emails from friends, I learn new words from AWAD, and I hear about various people's motorcycle problems from the Ducati CD-ROM mailing list. Then, depending on my mood, I hit slashdot for a quick parusal but rarely linger that long these days. I used to hit up boondocks, the comic, but I got sick of reading the tiny print, quite frankly. I used to hit up Get Fuzzy and pearls before swine, too, but I find I like reading it in big portions, day after day after day of comic all at once.. reading just one a day is like having a hot girl flash her boob at you only to disappear around the corner never to be seen again - appreciated, but much more frustrating than anything else, really.

And then I get down to business.

I muss that Bunnie has probably not posted anything yet, since she is running on west-coast/mid-west time and also tends to post large chunks at a time so she isn't on top of things by 10am, my time. Sometimes I check anyway.

Then I check up on Tony. He's always got one or two or even three new rants about old people's driving skills, or about how nothing is true and he is just lonely and old. Well.. steinbeck was a fucking downer, too, so maybe he has something there...

More and more lately, despite the link being at the bottom of my bookmarks, I check on Jaime. He doesn't post often, but somehow.. I dunno.. a little glimpse into a New York hipster's life. It's funny, cause at first I didn't take him for a hipster.. He seemed more like a lifer. He seemed like he tread a lot of water in his mind - which makes for good muscle but doesn't get you anywhere, really. But then he talks about delivering clothes to celebrities, having all these friends around the glob, eating at diners with pretty girls.

Every life is so rich in different ways it blows my mind. Of course, looking out of my tiny window of perspective I feel as if mine is less rich, less interesting, less intense, less exciting.. But there is probably someone out there, someone close or someone far, who thinks I have it pretty good. They probably say things like "he went to school abroad" as if I were terribly cultured... I just don't think that way. I don't look at it that way. I'm just me.

When I get home I rush out to meet someone, usually, eat on the run or at a restuarant or not at all. I have a beer or two or ten and if it's ten I usually cave and have a late night pizza or take home fries. When I'm finally curled up in bed I'm checking the email again and I'm reading one of the many magazines that keep coming and coming and coming even though I have never paid for them. GQ, Stuff, Wired, Maxim, Rolling Stones, Blender, Spin.. Junk mostly, but I try to keep up. I do the GQ and the Wired mostly cover to cover and flip through the dumbass Stuff, Maxim, and Blender. Spin is alright but used to be better when it was in it's larger format. Rolling Stones.. eh. Then it's on to my books. Sometimes I switch it up - non-fiction, fiction, biography, drama, comedy. If I had my way I'd put in an hour or two but I'm old and responsible now and I turn the light out far sooner than I'd like. Sometimes as few as 8 pages.. sometimes as many as 100.

But the worst thing - the WORST thing - I read every day is the clock. At home it has alarm 1 and alarm 2 and I set them both 45 min apart and when they ring I stumble up out of bed to shut it off. A long time ago I put it across the room in an attempt to force the getting-up issue, but my body has quickly adapted. I shut alarm 1 off and fall, face first, back into my pillow. Alarm 2 never comes as much of a surprise, but it makes me cringe regardless. I shut that off too, and then I spend the next half hour peaking across the room every few minutes from my bed, squinty and blurry eyed, trying to make out the time on the clock.

9:02

9:14

9:23

I set the clock 20 or so minutes ahead, another jedi-mind trick. Only problem is jedi's have a hard time playing tricks on themselves. You have to believe in the illusion for it to work.

In the car I read the clock on my way out the driveway. It's 7 minutes fast, or 1:07 if it's daylight savings, and I mark the time in my head because I know how long it takes to get to work and I know I'll round down to the nearest 10 minute interval on my time sheet. It's never rounds down as early as I want.

In the office the computer's time doesn't match up with the phone system time which doesn't match up with the server times. I use the fastest one on my way out the door. If I stayed late I'm running behind and someone's waiting somewhere for me. If I leave early it's earlier than I should and I'll be making it up tomorrow or the next day or even on my weekend.

And when it's all said and done, here I am.. writing this down and, to be concise and correct and not repeat myself, I'm reading it over. I'm checking grammar and spelling and context and sense and I'm reading my own words, like an Ouroboros.