I’m starting to feel pretty good. I feel like I can count on myself again, mostly physically, and mentally too. Mentally since my incident I’ve had a lot of feeling bad for myself or my situation. Some of that may be warranted, a year and a half ago my situation was pretty dismal. Bad feelings are okay and they get really boring after a while. However, it’s pretty easy to get happiness in a bottle now-a-days.
I wonder if it always has been. Somehow I’m picturing a neanderthal munching on some rotting grapes and fruits. I haven’t studied it though I’m sure there is long native history of the coca plant in south America (or where ever it did originate,) the same coffee or sugar in the East. People like stuff that make them happy. LOL. That has got to be the most obvious line ever. I’m sure everyone already sees where I would take that next.
Hmm, actually a few interesting spurs there.. 1) What makes them “happy”? 2) There are three words between ‘stuff’ and ‘happy’ so time and distance are at play, to what effect? 3) ‘Them’, is this inclusive, a singe set? 4) ‘make them’, what is the inverse? 5) ‘like’ and ‘happy’, are these qualitative or quantitative? 6) What is the ratio from cause to effect in number five? 7) ‘people’, that seems definitive, synonymous with ‘human’ even.
There we go, seven topics, seven essays. It would take me a week for the first six and obviously I’d have to skip the seventh because if I don’t have enough words to describe myself I must not have enough to describe humanity. That is too many stories for me to write. Which make me glad that I can borrow from other stories. Like the clip I shared yesterday. I can not describe how many episodes of Blue Bloods I have watched in the last eighteen months. I must have seen everyone by now, I’m close at least.
Close enough that I want to make a list of every episode from their wikipedia page and check off the ones I can recite the story line. Even with the ones I’m missing, I could probably guess what happened in the main story arcs from the episodes before and after.
Let’s get back to those seven topics, well six of them at least. How would I answer those questions? Better, how would I answer those questions today. What about yesterday? Or better, a decade ago and two decades ago.
I keep thinking about the fourth in my list and I wonder now if I subconsciously put it fourth in the list as it seems.. human. They make. I suppose that is so simple that my answer couldn’t change over time, though really, the deeper thought is if I would have thought to ask that question ten years ago.
Let’s try it that way. People like stuff that they make happy. Hmm… that doesn’t work anymore, it doesn’t sound right. How could anyone make stuff happy? Okay, lets fix it by substituting something that could receive ‘happy’ from ‘people’, more people.
People like people that they make happy. That is starting to sound like a true story. Unfortunately, that true story has a major problem with it. ‘They make happy’ is now a qualifier onto the the second use of the word ‘people’, by definition we just lost the seventh topic on my list.
Let’s dice that dish one more time. People don’t like people that they don’t make happy? Hmm, to definite now in the first use of the word people. How about ‘Some people don’t like people that they don’t make happy.’ That sounds like it’s back on an even keel.
Hmm, let’s make a list:
- People like stuff that make them happy.
- People like people that make them happy.
- People like people that they make happy.
Some people don’t like people that they don’t make happy.- Some people don’t like some people.
I could keep going but nothing else is jumping out at me and well, four is nice number for that list anyway. Wait, the fourth line looks out of place, let’s fix it and put it back on as five (but really, it’s the new four, we’re replacing.) Ha, skipping four, that sounds like a very, very human story!
Where was I? Happiness in a bottle. Just a little please. Though, please use your mind as you devise the chemical in that pill. Thinking of the second, fifth and sixth topical essays that I’ll probably never have the time to write down; it’s easy for me to see that it’s all about the efficacy of the mix in your bottle. Today we have the concept of evidence based medicine. Alcohol might be fine, a drip or two from time to time. Though you wouldn’t notice the effects either way. That medicine goes by the shot.
Just finished one can. Five percent by volume, left over from the other day. And you know what, it feels goods. Tasted good too, a tropical ipa, not what I usually drink. I still have two Labatts left from the last six pack I bought and it seemed weird to have two different types of beer left over from two different occasions in my fridge. It’s one thing to not drink for months, at a certain point it’s just worth the drive to the store. However, to have beer in the fridge going stale? I suppose that is probably good thing. Just in case though, I drank the island beat to narrow my next selection to one.
The pills seem to limit my emotional dynamic range and I like it- they mellow me out. Still get the ups and downs and a full range of emotional responses, just all a bit lower, mellower… quieter. Is this normal?
I woke at seven thirty, downstairs for a smoke, pills and shower at eight thirty, working on the list by nine. Waited four minutes until nine actually, when the mortgage company retention department opened. A wonderful operator there was able to email me the statement I needed (have to show DHHS how much mortgage I can’t pay,) and also enroll me in the next forbearance period, that buys me until the end of October. Off the phone and uploaded the documents by nine thirty.
Ahead of schedule I stopped for breakfast and flipped on the detective show channel. Xfinity opened at ten, yet there was no rush- I hoped I wouldn’t need to be there all day. By time I got that way it was closer to eleven and I think my timing was perfect.
For every word I’ve spoken of hero’s in my blog, I met a new one today from Xfinity, Tony. His service was beyond. From sitting down at his workstation he asked me what my problems were and told me he wanted to help me. A description of the current issues and enough history to explain the likely problems he might have. He accepted the challenge and told me so, “I’m going to fix this for you today.”
To work he went collecting my details and taking notes, to not ask me again. After a minute or two I suggested I path I would take if I was tasked with the same problems he was about find. He had stopped and listened to my suggestion. Then followed it.
He was upbeat and positive throughout and also quietly minded his way when I spent time just checking on my phone (the one he wasn’t working on.) Also, quick to pick back up when he saw me put it away. Patient to work while I walked around the store and when confronted with a problem that required calling AT&T’s customer support, he just used my phone and said that he was me- I just kept walk laps, so proud and happy to watch him work on my affairs.
His task compete- managing two customer service reps, one on his line, one on mine, putting them on hold as he double checked information with the other and his computer screen (definitely more powerful than the tablet,) as he watched my phone number progress across the national system. He told me it would just be a fifteen minute wait- yet, if I could he wanted me to stay, to make sure I left with a working phone, just as he had promised when I arrived.
His request granted, I went to walk out to my car for a smoke- and got to run into an old friend of mine and her son- a friend of my younger son. I hadn’t seen him in years- now a large man in front of me. So nice to catch up with them both, the details the life brings us all.
Back inside, Tony was still patiently on task at his desk working at his computer, I was still his only customer. I could see when the system began to test his patience, yet he just double checked the information on his computer and rebooted my phone one more time. I walked, he waited and rebooted again. I walked, he waited and rebooted again. He assured me absolutely that my phone would work as he dialed his work phone and showed me it was “almost trying to connect.”
I trusted him. He looked and trusted me, my laps were done and my patience tested near it peak. He bid me well and told me to keep rebooting hourly until it worked. I left. Two hours later, my phones are now working. Two lines, both on Xfinity, on two different phones.
Oh my God – just said out loud while looking at my Crucifix (just an image to remind me of what it represents.) How hard was that? Two months? Three rounds at the AT&T store, three at Xfinity, and how many hours on the phone? How many hours? It is done. And in one to seven months, I’m sure my bills will reflect all the changes. That sounds like tomorrows problem. Today I found a hero to solve every Xfinity problem I had.
Was exhausted when I got home, my legs were tired and quivering. Took a baclofen (then an hour late,) and it knocked me out for a two hour nap. Then just reading and watching a bit of TV, dinner of course- another single serving lasanga in a paper tray. Forty eight minutes the oven and it is actually pretty okay. Better than pizza rolls I think. I found two errors on the page I wrote yesterday. I always read and correct my mind, yet that felt like an important work and the errors were significant in that they involved another person. I made my corrections and left my editors mark on the page, proof I know I was wrong.
Another error was pointed out to me today as well, that is not corrected as it was not an error when I wrote it. Quick proof today that sometimes I do mis-understand another’s friendly move. Also, it showed I think that at the least, one person read the headline of the TV clip, “Please don’t hurt my family”, yet I hope everyone watched it all the way through.
It’s important to me that my family- and in this context it is a large, large family, full of close friends- does not get hurt. Which, requires two things or maybe just one. Trust. My family will trust I am not aiming at them and I will trust that my family knows how to duck.
Xfinity for the win, someone give Tony a raise (or buy that man a beer!) Hoping my writing turned out well, fighting a goldfish bowl feeling the last few days, confidence is harder to maintain when it is so quiet inside my brain.
Time to rest.