I've been reminiscing a lot lately. Obviously it was the trip to the old desert stomping grounds. That place, those people, have a profound effect on me.
I spent my 30s in the deserts of Southern California. In many ways, I came of age there. I learned and grew a lot professionally, achieve some successes and endured some setbacks. It was a bit of a mixed bag socially. I made some great friends, and strengthened some key friendships, but the dating life was disappointing, except for a couple of adventures and one romance spectacular in its emotional highs and lows.
I am not deluding myself. It was not all sunshine and roses. But there was a lot of sunshine and I love the sunshine.
Fortunately the sun was shining today and spring is in the air, at least for a few days. But I miss the friendships built over the California decade. I miss working in a big office filled with people and energy, excitement, enthusiasm and ideas. I miss nights spent dining out or talking under the stars.
I miss the me I was there. I miss the me I could see myself becoming.
Fortunately, I'll be spending Easter with my daughter and her family. I'll take unconditional love and acceptance where I can get it.
OK, maybe I made a play to buy a little of that love with my daughter's birthday present, an inscribed silver bracelet that came in a distinctive blue box. Better to be bankrupt than disappoint my one and only child on her Sweet 16!
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Monday, April 24, 2006
Nocturnal emission
So last night I was feeling good. I made a blog post (which hasn't happened since well before the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ) and went to bed relatively early. I say relatively, because over the previous couple of nights I'd actually been awake at and after sunrise. So, I fell asleep relatively early, was snoozing away... .
And that's when it happened.
The nose bleed.
I get periodic nose bleeds. I've never plotted them out on a calendar, or compared them to phases of the moon or anything, but there are "times" when I get them. Changes in weather, like a warming or cooling. Spring and fall are notorious for such events and the visits of my nasally hemorrhagic "friend." If I get a cold, in never fails, as soon as the sneezing and sniffles start getting under control, that tell-tale feeling of a runny nose will, sooner or later, run red.
Periods of stress sock me a stiff one in the proboscis too.
So, this was probably a case of the climatic arrival of spring and pulling a couple of all nighters to watch bad cable TV and my attempt to rule the electronic baseball empire on EA Sports' MVP Baseball game.
So, at 3:30 in the morning, I'm awakened from a sound sleep by the feeling of warm, thick liquid dripping inside my right nostril heading directly for my freshly changed bedsheets.
So I sprang out of bed, got the bleeding stopped, checked the sheets for bloody nasal discharge and crawled back into bed.
And then I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't sleep by 4 a.m., or 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m.
By 6 o'clock, I decided I might as well get out of bed, because if I did manage to fall asleep, the alarm clock would not wake me it. The irony is not lost on me that my brain can ignore a blaring alarm clock when it is in the midst of slumber after days or weeks of sleep deprivation, but the first sign of a runny, or bleeding nose, while dead asleep can send my hand flying toward my face as my feet scramble for the floor and toward the bathroom, dragging my still sleeping body behind it.
The blood vessels, and the mind, work in truly warped ways in the middle of the night.
Now it is time to see if I can keep the restless mind at bay the little capillaries in my nose from popping a cork for the night. We'll see how it goes. There must be a better way to deal with this stuff. And, in the spirit of the previous post, getting laid probably wouldn't hurt the insomnia or the nose bleeds either. That's not to say it would help either, but it's worth a shot.
Spring
Insomnia
Nose bleeds
And that's when it happened.
The nose bleed.
I get periodic nose bleeds. I've never plotted them out on a calendar, or compared them to phases of the moon or anything, but there are "times" when I get them. Changes in weather, like a warming or cooling. Spring and fall are notorious for such events and the visits of my nasally hemorrhagic "friend." If I get a cold, in never fails, as soon as the sneezing and sniffles start getting under control, that tell-tale feeling of a runny nose will, sooner or later, run red.
Periods of stress sock me a stiff one in the proboscis too.
So, this was probably a case of the climatic arrival of spring and pulling a couple of all nighters to watch bad cable TV and my attempt to rule the electronic baseball empire on EA Sports' MVP Baseball game.
So, at 3:30 in the morning, I'm awakened from a sound sleep by the feeling of warm, thick liquid dripping inside my right nostril heading directly for my freshly changed bedsheets.
So I sprang out of bed, got the bleeding stopped, checked the sheets for bloody nasal discharge and crawled back into bed.
And then I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't sleep by 4 a.m., or 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m.
By 6 o'clock, I decided I might as well get out of bed, because if I did manage to fall asleep, the alarm clock would not wake me it. The irony is not lost on me that my brain can ignore a blaring alarm clock when it is in the midst of slumber after days or weeks of sleep deprivation, but the first sign of a runny, or bleeding nose, while dead asleep can send my hand flying toward my face as my feet scramble for the floor and toward the bathroom, dragging my still sleeping body behind it.
The blood vessels, and the mind, work in truly warped ways in the middle of the night.
Now it is time to see if I can keep the restless mind at bay the little capillaries in my nose from popping a cork for the night. We'll see how it goes. There must be a better way to deal with this stuff. And, in the spirit of the previous post, getting laid probably wouldn't hurt the insomnia or the nose bleeds either. That's not to say it would help either, but it's worth a shot.
Spring
Insomnia
Nose bleeds
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Throwing cold water on wet T-shirts
Yesterday morning the "Today" show was teasing a story about the things young women in college and high school are doing on their spring vacations. I had to leave for work, so I didn't get to see the whole segment, but they were talking about things like spring breakers having multiple sex partners, drinking and drug use.
My reaction to the segment, or what I saw of it anyway, caught me by surprise.
Ordinarily, I would expect myself to want to see such a segment for the titillation factor. As an unmarried man, I've been known to want to see the sights and sounds of girls going wild and wondering why I never made a classic spring break trip myself back in my college days to see if women really do the kinds of things you hear about on those late-night infomercials.
But that wasn't my reaction to the segment at all. My reaction was: How the hell do I prevent my daughter from ever taking one of those spring break trips?
I realize that my daughter, who will soon be turning 15, will do some things that I might not be able to prevent her from doing, some of the very things I myself did in high school and college. I would certainly not make anyone's list of wildest youths, but I certainly did some thing in my teens and early 20s that I don't relish my daughter trying: drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. OK, so she can do the rock 'n' roll, as long as the lyrics are clean. Why is it on most of the filthiest songs, most of the lyrics are unintelligible to anyone over the age of 25, but the singers enunciate quite clearly when they say "fuck" and other terms of profanity?
But I digress.
I guess I just want to protect my not-so-little girl, but realize as an absentee parent that I can't be there nearly enough to help her make good choice or deflect the pain that may come her way from such youthful experimentation. And the reality is that I won't be the first call she makes if she finds herself in trouble. Odds are slim I'll even be able to be there to hold her when she gets her heart broken, or suffers some other indignity or indiscretion, to be able to hold her and tell her that things will be OK and that love her, no matter what.
Of course I wouldn't mind having someone do that for me right now either. Now that I've realized that my primal motivation has shifted from fantasizing about seeing a wet T-shirt contest to living in terror that my daughter would ever be at, or in, one.
Parenthood
Spring Break
Aging
My reaction to the segment, or what I saw of it anyway, caught me by surprise.
Ordinarily, I would expect myself to want to see such a segment for the titillation factor. As an unmarried man, I've been known to want to see the sights and sounds of girls going wild and wondering why I never made a classic spring break trip myself back in my college days to see if women really do the kinds of things you hear about on those late-night infomercials.
But that wasn't my reaction to the segment at all. My reaction was: How the hell do I prevent my daughter from ever taking one of those spring break trips?
I realize that my daughter, who will soon be turning 15, will do some things that I might not be able to prevent her from doing, some of the very things I myself did in high school and college. I would certainly not make anyone's list of wildest youths, but I certainly did some thing in my teens and early 20s that I don't relish my daughter trying: drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. OK, so she can do the rock 'n' roll, as long as the lyrics are clean. Why is it on most of the filthiest songs, most of the lyrics are unintelligible to anyone over the age of 25, but the singers enunciate quite clearly when they say "fuck" and other terms of profanity?
But I digress.
I guess I just want to protect my not-so-little girl, but realize as an absentee parent that I can't be there nearly enough to help her make good choice or deflect the pain that may come her way from such youthful experimentation. And the reality is that I won't be the first call she makes if she finds herself in trouble. Odds are slim I'll even be able to be there to hold her when she gets her heart broken, or suffers some other indignity or indiscretion, to be able to hold her and tell her that things will be OK and that love her, no matter what.
Of course I wouldn't mind having someone do that for me right now either. Now that I've realized that my primal motivation has shifted from fantasizing about seeing a wet T-shirt contest to living in terror that my daughter would ever be at, or in, one.
Parenthood
Spring Break
Aging
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Daylight Savings Time
Before we get too far into this whole April thing, and time has passed, I want to take the time to talk about time and go on record as saying I love daylight savings time.
Two of my favorite non-traditional "holidays" on the calendar are the first day of winter (because the days start getting longer) and daylight savings time. Long days, with daylight into the evening hours, is bliss!
I think my passion for daylight savings time has to do with the fact that I am a weird combination of night owl who loves evening light. I could sleep until noon every day of the week. My day doesn't get started until at least noon. Lunch is my breakfast. I usually say I don't eat breakfast, which is true, in that I normally do not eat a meal in the early morning hours. My stomach does not wake up until noon. But if my body doesn't wake up until noon, they are suddenly in synch, and I can have my breakfast over lunch, and my lunch over dinner. Then, I can skip dinner (which would probably be sometime around midnight, or later, in my day, although I'm not opposed to a midnight snack now and then).
I think our friends in Arizona have the right idea, only backwards. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time. They refuse to change their clocks when most of the rest of the country does. So, from now until October when standard time resumes, Arizona, which is in the mountain time zone, and California and Nevada (and Washington and most of Oregon for that matter are on the same time. It's now a little after midnight in Palm Springs. What time is it in Phoenix? Same time! I admire Arizona's pluck!
I want to take that same stubborn spunk and individualism and refuse to return to standard time. Think I can get the rest of the Coachella Valley to go along? California even?
But think about it! It makes sense, especially here in the Palm Springs area. If you've ever been here, you would know that we have this big mountain range to the west, which means we lose the afternoon sun about an hour or so before the sun actually sets. So during standard time, our mountain sunset would be at roughly the same time as the sun would be setting in the rest of Southern California (well not literally the same time, but the same time on the clock).
OK, so I concede that the rest of the valley or the county or the state, let alone the nation, probably won't sign off on my idea. Maybe I'll have to go it alone. Start my own time zone, which can travel with me when I go on the road to Oregon or Illinois or Timbuktu for that matter. I'll call it (when here in Palm Springs and on the West Coast) PGT, or Pacific G-man Time. If I travel to Arizona, it will be Mountain G-man Time (or MGT). A trek to the East Coast would be a voyage into Eastern G-man Time or EGT.
It's an idea whose time has come.
Time
Spring
Daylight savings time
Palm Springs
Two of my favorite non-traditional "holidays" on the calendar are the first day of winter (because the days start getting longer) and daylight savings time. Long days, with daylight into the evening hours, is bliss!
I think my passion for daylight savings time has to do with the fact that I am a weird combination of night owl who loves evening light. I could sleep until noon every day of the week. My day doesn't get started until at least noon. Lunch is my breakfast. I usually say I don't eat breakfast, which is true, in that I normally do not eat a meal in the early morning hours. My stomach does not wake up until noon. But if my body doesn't wake up until noon, they are suddenly in synch, and I can have my breakfast over lunch, and my lunch over dinner. Then, I can skip dinner (which would probably be sometime around midnight, or later, in my day, although I'm not opposed to a midnight snack now and then).
I think our friends in Arizona have the right idea, only backwards. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time. They refuse to change their clocks when most of the rest of the country does. So, from now until October when standard time resumes, Arizona, which is in the mountain time zone, and California and Nevada (and Washington and most of Oregon for that matter are on the same time. It's now a little after midnight in Palm Springs. What time is it in Phoenix? Same time! I admire Arizona's pluck!
I want to take that same stubborn spunk and individualism and refuse to return to standard time. Think I can get the rest of the Coachella Valley to go along? California even?
But think about it! It makes sense, especially here in the Palm Springs area. If you've ever been here, you would know that we have this big mountain range to the west, which means we lose the afternoon sun about an hour or so before the sun actually sets. So during standard time, our mountain sunset would be at roughly the same time as the sun would be setting in the rest of Southern California (well not literally the same time, but the same time on the clock).
OK, so I concede that the rest of the valley or the county or the state, let alone the nation, probably won't sign off on my idea. Maybe I'll have to go it alone. Start my own time zone, which can travel with me when I go on the road to Oregon or Illinois or Timbuktu for that matter. I'll call it (when here in Palm Springs and on the West Coast) PGT, or Pacific G-man Time. If I travel to Arizona, it will be Mountain G-man Time (or MGT). A trek to the East Coast would be a voyage into Eastern G-man Time or EGT.
It's an idea whose time has come.
Time
Spring
Daylight savings time
Palm Springs
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Spring Fever
OK, maybe it was hanging out with alums from my former university last night that has me reminiscing about college days, but I can't escape the feeling today that I really want to skip class. Um, I mean work.
I just got back from voting in Palm Springs' special election and then grabbed some lunch. I called the office to find out that my normal Tuesday afternoon staff meeting has been canceled, so I have a short reprieve before having to report to work. But more than anything else, I really don't want to go to work at all.
Call it spring fever. The clouds and rain have cleared, and it's really starting to warm up. It's already in the mid to high 80s. No long sleeved-shirt and tie today, no sir. I was reading another of my regular blog reads today from someone who live in New York, and read that they are being hit by snow. It honor of the East Coasters suffering winter weather, it seems only right to have a skip day.
I remember back in college on those nice spring days, after a winter of rainy dreary days, it was just so hard to waste the precious sunshine by sitting in class. And there were really no consequences to skipping class, at least none that matter now all these years later, but the memories of those few days soaking up the sunshine and breathing the warm air still bring back a smile.
If only skipping work were as easy as skipping class in a large lecture hall.
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