Veterans Day

There were multiple events marking Veterans Day at work. One of them was a patriotic costume contest, though just 3 people entered it. I said to one of them how I wondered if the World Series was beginning as they were wearing bunting. Another thing was writing to service personnel. I did this in the afternoon after the payoff reports were finished. I marked the day by wearing a Desert Storm shirt, and my Navy p-coat that a college roommate gave me. I don't wear the coat much now since the lining inside the sleeves is torn. It's an old coat that belonged to his dad, Korean War-era.
   Having one colleague in my department has led to me getting more intelligent conversations, which I like. I learn plenty from him, we discussed an Oasis song and it reminded me before how he said 'what's the story morning glory' was slang. But I had forgot to look it up then. I looked it up tonight online and found out it refers to sex and drugs, at least as British slang and it's a British music act.
   The other would be how I had a gift card for a bookstore and hadn't used it yet. I've had it since February. It's for Common Good Books, owned by Garrison Keillor, and I had a hard time fitting it into my schedule especially when it's in a neighborhood of St. Paul I'm not too familiar with. Looked up the store hours online and found out they're open until 10 pm on most days, which made it easier to go there after work. Made it there tonight and got a book about the TV show 'the Simpsons' and ordered another called 'Idiot America'. It should arrive in a week. I had read about the latter one in a catalog I had been sent this week. So it is nice to get something crossed off my list.
   

Red Ribbon Day

I almost forgot to wear red today for the Red Ribbon events, but saw the reminder form in my backpack this morning when putting a book in there to read while riding the bus to work. There was a seminar about teen drug and alcohol use, I thought the main speaker wasn't as articulate as the other two since she kept saying 'and,um'. When somebody does this they aren't very sure of themselves and haven't practiced their material well enough. Some of the things depicted were familiar, as I saw beer bongs in college. Didn't know what one was when I went off to college, was a little naive, had to learn quick.
   It did remind me of a cop talking to us about drugs in 6th grade, as part of the DARE program, but I was informed that DARE has suffered from lack of funding in many places. And I recall 'Red Ribbon Week' in high school. It got me into a picture on the front page of the paper as I was one of those who wore black stripes in the shape of an X, representing those who were killed in drunk driving crashes. I knew that somebody would want to shut me up, and yes it was somebody who was dressed up as the Grim Reaper who gave me those stripes to wear.
   It was a routine Wednesday evening, after getting off the bus I sent two items from the office to a donation bin bear my home. It rained off and on tonight, including on my way to the bin. Picked up some laundry soap at Walgreen, since I finished up the bottle this past weekend.
   Also at work, I got caught up on some paperwork, like submitting another time off form and ordering 2 gift cards after getting an award at a meeting recently. I decided to go with the staples of life- food and clothing- this time, last time it was a bookstore card at Barnes and Noble. I ordered a Red Lobster gift card, and a Kohl's card. I haven't been to a Red Lobster before, but it should be a nice reminder of my vacation in Boston in 2001 where I had lobster for the first time. And it helped me see some of the places where my favorite movie, 'Good Will Hunting', was filmed. I made sure to see the historic sites and a baseball game as well.

Skewered and Seared

I was onstage tonight, what I like about comedy is being able to skewer exes, it's therapeutic. I called the latest one 'scatterbrained and loopy', since she forgot I was going to be out of town for the weekend even though it was why we met on a Thursday. It flowed a lot better than the last time onstage, since I made sure to commit it all to memory in terms of the jokes I wanted to do. I forgot some of them last time and covered it up with laugh breaks and running my fingers through my hair. I also promoted a friend who would be on later, saying I was privileged to do a comedy duet with him recently. I was helped on remembering one about my dad by a coworker, since my dad liked saying 'getting seared at Sears'.
   There are likely a few more dating stories I can tell soon, like the match who said she wanted a ride to a concert. The match went away, may have been just a 3-day free trial. It wasn't a musician I knew that well, but I would have welcomed making it back to my old neighborhood in suburban Chicago, where the venue is. The tickets for the Michael Buble concert seemed to be scarce and expensive, only scattered single tickets on Ticketmaster and well above face value on Stubhub. It was a fairly routine day at work, got the forms back today for some Fridays off next month. Need to use up days before yearend as I am unable to carry them over.

Helped a Rookie Comic

I decided to help a rookie comic who was asking me questions tonight, it's my version of 'don't ask, don't tell'. If they don't ask, I don't tell- them about things like the 'red time light'. I'm flattered when people look to me for answers about the craft. They didn't stay for the entire show, but I thought they did fine while onstage, though a joke about exorcisms when I'm not Catholic was largely lost on me. Much like when I saw the movie 'Dogma', my college buddies who had went to Catholic school understood the jokes better.
    I was a fill-in, or role player, at work today. It meant doing my least-favorite duty, special requests. But I did fine, I just don't like having to do so much copying of documents. I just told myself it was for only one day, then back to my 'normal duties' for the week.
    One new match from online dating did raise some eyebrows. She said she was mainly interested in a ride to a concert in Chicago early next month. At first I thought, 'why doesn't she just rent a car?' Then I realized I don't think quite like others- she wants a companion, idiot!  Most people like to share events with others. I know I once rented a car to get to a concert- Pearl Jam at Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, my first year in Illinois. I checked the performer's website, it is actually the suburban arena, just a few miles from where I lived so it's my old neighborhood.  I did attend a few concerts there when living nearby like Billy Joel/Elton John, Everclear/Matchbox 20, and No Doubt. So I would welcome a visit there, but reminded myself to have expectations in line with reality. I never meet most of my online matches, the percentage is right now still about 1 in 250. But it will be a good story to tell if it does happen, reminding me of some of those road movies I enjoy since I like traveling a lot.

Penpals

I decided to respond to a message from somebody in France about penpals. There was mention on a website I frequent about somebody from France wanting one. The responder said her grandson would like one, sounds like he attends a prestigious school in Paris and is a resident of the French Riviera when not in school. I had to translate the message from French and then translate what I wanted to write since I wanted to write it in French. I mentioned how I studied the language in high school for 4 years but was out of practice. So we will see how it goes, I am hopeful to get better at French in exchange for helping somebody with English.
  There was still more chores and errand running to do today, such as laundry and a few more dishes. Also watched a DVD called 'Crude', about a lawsuit against an oil company for contamination in Ecuador. Since much of it was subtitled from Spanish it didn't interest me as much as I thought it would, and I was nearly falling asleep during it. This tends to happen when comfortable and tired, I was on the couch while watching it.
   Went to the comedy club tonight, but the show was called off, not enough people showed up. So I got caught up on some record keeping.

2 Dark Rooms

Went to a comedy show tonight, and a movie. So I spent time in two dark rooms. Odd how I referred to Rogers Hornsby, the baseball player, on one of the reasons I said I was fine with just attending the first comedy show. Hornsby was known for saying he didn't attend movies as he was afraid being in a dark room for an extended period would damage his vision and make it harder for him to see the ball while at bat. Also odd, since I made a spur of the moment decision.  I looked at my watch and said I had enough time to drive to a movie theater to see the final showing of the night of  'Inside Job', about the economic crisis of 2008 and narrated by Matt Damon. I had wanted to see it earlier in the day, but got to the parking ramp and it was full. First time I could recall this happening to me at this theater. So I had a Blizzard treat at the nearby Dairy Queen and picked up some toilet paper at the Walgreen and left. I then drove to a Blockbuster where I found a documentary I missed at the theater, along with a Misfits wrist band. It was a band I had heard about from a comedian friend who likes doing music education on Facebook. I will admit the band's name is a drawing card, since I have thought of myself as a misfit before, but then again, who hasn't?
   To be accurate, I did more than just attend the comedy show. I was asked to help bring pieces of cake to people as there was a birthday celebration, and I lit candles inside the globes on each table. Then at the end of the show after the headliner I was asked to say a few words, something I had asked about in advance. Surprised to get the opportunity! Guess I can do well unrehearsed, it helped that the headliner was still there and we were more like a duo, where I was the ham and he was the straight man. It was a benefit event for a fictional disease, which was part of the joke, like doing Robert Frost on Facebook and looking like a college professor on public TV. Must be why somebody honked at me while I was in my car after the show, must have recognized me from being onstage. I get that more often now and I am getting used to it since I like the recognition.

Lunching With a Leader

I had a rare opportunity to lunch with a senior leader today. It was somebody I had known already as I had taken the time to find out his favorite baseball team is the same as mine. We're all people, and there's no need to be in awe or afraid of anyone because of their job being higher on the ladder. I knew well enough to do plenty of listening, as I learn more when I listen more. What I learned was he had played tennis in college at Ball State. Usually I had just seen him in passing before, so even though we spoke it wasn't for long since he is a busy man. He can be out of the office often, traveling to other locations, in fact he said he was doing that next week. Before we went to a lunch counter that had a judge theme- including pictures of people like Oliver Wendell Holmes on the wall- I noticed a picture in his office. It was with baseball pitcher Rich Gossage, now in the Hall of Fame. He shared in other areas as well, like how he met his wife and when, college buddies and how some of them are divorced, even handling his dad's finances more after his mom passed. Proof that it  was well worth it to put in the entry for the 'lunch with a senior leader' drawing through the United Way campaign. Might have had minimal competition for it, but who cares?
   Part of the evening was spent getting caught up on chores like doing dishes and trash and recycle, along with going through mail and shredding some of it. Not much fun, but I need to do it regularly.