Just Like Riding a Bike

I wasn’t very good at sex, and if you don’t believe me I’m sure “She” will agree with me. There were certainly some mitigating circumstances, like chemically induced erection rejection and anatomical disinterest that was yet to be detected. I’d like to think that if and when I get another chance, WITH A DUDE, that will change.

But the phrase “It’s just like riding a bike” took on a whole new meaning to me yesterday.

Thanks to the time change, I managed to wake up before noon on a Sunday. More importantly, I woke up before what would have been noon even if the time change hadn’t happened. I decided this was a good time to go out and blow the dust off the bicycle I bought more than a month ago with the intention of getting my sorry ass out for some much needed exercise. I got up, had some breakfast, fed Scared Kitty got dressed and went out to the bike. I took the bike down to the street, hopped on and started peddling… badly.

I haven’t been on a non-stationary bike, in more than 20 years so this turned out to be a much more difficult proposition than you might expect. It became apparent that my tires were under inflated (Even though I inflated them when I bought the bike) and that my seat was too low (I was kneeing myself in the chest with each revolution.) I only rode one time around the block and nearly got myself killed twice.

This is a 21 speed bike which I selected mostly based on the scientific conclusion that it’s orange and I like orange. But I have never been on a bike with “speeds” before. My last bike was a red and silver BMX bike and I was half my weight and two feet shorter then. Anyway, this bike has 21 speeds and I don’t have a clue what “speed” I should start off with and I’m pretty sure I was getting too much speed/distance with each revolution of peddling and I had a lot of trouble controlling my speed (not unlike with sex.) I made a wide turn that almost ran me into a curb (not unlike sex) (OK, even I don’t know what that means.)

When I turned the next corner I turned out in front of an on coming car that almost took me out. By the time I got back to my house I was done! I carried the bike back up to my locked porch, inflated the tires some more, raised the seat and called it a day. I was exhausted and drenched in sweat after only a few short minutes of effort – not unlike— Well you get the idea.

Cold Turkey

Yesterday, I confessed to an addiction.  Today, I’ll tell you about another.

I’ve been a drug addict for six years.  It’s true.  Every single day for the last six years, I have taken mood altering substances that my body very quickly became dependent upon and without which I turned into an unrecognizable monster oddly reminiscent of an enormous ass, but one that would sooner kill you then feel like you’ve let him down or disappointed him in anyway.

I’m not talking about anything you’d snort or inject, in fact, I’d have to check with Ex Con Older Brother to be sure, but I don’t think you could even buy these drugs on the street.  The internet?  Sure.  But not the street.  No, the drugs I’m talking about are the Doctor sanctioned, Government approved, Pharmaceutical Company foisted kind.  Yes, that’s right.  I’ve been taking Anti-Depressants for the last six years.

Today, however, marks the last day of this addictive behavior.  No longer will I assault my synaptic pathways with artificial fortification.  No longer will I ingest these foreign substances to do what they will with my psyche.

[ Gosh, I feel a little like I should be standing barefoot on a couch after an overnight drinking party shouting at my friends about our flaccid penises (peni?) and making deals about losing our virginity by prom night.  And if you don't get that reference - American Pie - then I don't want to be your friend anyway.]

Today I am taking back control of my emotional well being.  It isn’t actually, really cold turkey  I made this decision back in April when I was taking 300 Milligrams of Welbutrin and 40 milligrams of Celexa on a daily basis.  I felt like I was in a haze all the time.  I felt like I wasn’t able to access my feelings.  Like I wasn’t having a genuine experience.  And I felt like this ride was never going to end unless I stepped on the breaks and got out of the car.  So I did.

This whole ordeal started a little over six years ago–  Well, really it started 33 years ago with my childhood and my genetics and my divorced parents and my general state of misery, but I don’t have all day to write and you don’t have all day to read and if I tried to put it all in here, WordPress very well might explode, but not before you found me boring and hit that nifty little arrow in the upper right corner to take you to the next random post!  So with that being said…

We’ll pick up this ordeal six years ago.  I had been working for about four months for The Company that Created the HMO and wasn’t really loving it (I was an Administrative Assistant for fuck’s sake) but it followed a nine month period of unemployment where I could barely pay for my car with the unemployment checks I received ever other week, let alone rent and utilities, or assisting Green M&M, who graciously allowed me to move in with her, with expenses.  I had been drinking a lot, and feeling really dejected because I wasn’t able to find another job and I was at a really low point in my emotional cycle.  So when the opportunity with The Company came along, I really had not choice but to take it.

One day I had had a blow up with a co-worker and I didn’t know what to do about it so I made an appointment with the Employee Assistance Program Counselor, ostensibly to talk about work relations and how I could deal with this person.  I sat for an hour with this Counselor who talked to me for five minutes about my coworker problem and then asked me all kinds of questions about my life, my childhood, how I live now, etc., etc., etc.  Then she said, “You sound depressed to me.  Here.  The Company that Created the HMO offers all these classes and they’re bound to fix you.”

OK, so that last part may not have come out quite like that, but all these years later, that’s how I feel about it.  The counselor referred me to the Oakland Adult Psychiatry department of The Company that Created the HMO where I was pared up with a Psychologist that I would get to see once every six weeks (whether I needed it or not, I guess.)  They never did offer me any assistance with the coworker and we continued to have conflict until the day she went on maternity leave and then decided not to come back.

Once every six weeks, I’d go to this appointment with this woman who looked strangely like a Yahoo Messenger avatar making the “angry” face and who always made me feel inferior and pathetic.  She kept urging me to go to this Depression Overview Class that was offered.  It was supposed to give me a better understanding of what I’m dealing with and was a precursor to the eight week Depression Management Class she also wanted me to take.  I resisted it for some time but it was obvious to me that I was not going to get what I needed from attending these sessions with Avatar Face and something had to give so I went.

Up to that point, I had been determined that I was not going to take medication and I did not want anyone else to know what I was going through.  I resisted the class because then people would know.  I gave in and attended the class and one of the things they focused on in this class (not even 2 hours) was the idea of medication, how it works, and why I should take it.  I will acknowledge that it has been six years.  I will acknowledge that I was uncomfortable in the situation and wanted to go home.  And I will acknowledge that I was desperate for someone, somehow to make me better and take all this pain away.

All those acknowledgments being put out there, do not change the fact that what I remember the instructor of this overview class saying was that I’d take meds for two to three years and that while I was taking them, not only would the stabilize my neurotransmitters but it would correct the problem in my brain that causes the imbalance in the first place.  So, OK.  Two or three years…  I can accept that.  Especially if I’ll be all better after.

I set an appointment with a Psychiatrist at The Company and got a prescription from her for Paxil.  The prescription was, take 10 milligrams a day for the first week and then bump it up to 20.  About this time I inquired with Ex Con Older Brother who I knew was also taking Paxil and he informed me that it worked, for him, like flipping a switch.  That he started taking it and almost instantly things changed.  I really wanted that for myself so within six weeks, with the Psychiatrist’s approval I increased my dosage twice, first to 30 milligrams and then to 40.

It took a little while for it to completely kick in but once it did, I felt great.  Best I’ve ever felt.  I had confidence, I enjoyed people, I was in great emotional shape.  It was around this time that Green M&M and I decided that neither of us had anything to lose and so we decided to give a “friends with benefits” scenario a try.  This was when I found out that some of those side effects they tell you about were going to be a problem.  I was having serious sexual side effects and couldn’t’ get past them.

I asked my doctor to help me out with this problem and her solution was to take me off the Paxil and put me on Welbutrin.  Her instructions were to taper off the Paxil over the course of 10 days.  Which I did.  Which is when the aforementioned unrecognizable, enormous ass, monster appeared.

I crack jokes and be obnoxious about this because it’s easier to face, but the truth is, it was an emotionally excruciating, hold on for dear life, MY GOD HE’S GONNA BLOW, volatile two weeks and I really didn’t think I was going to make it.  It’s easier to laugh now.  I’m reminded of a Saturday Night Live commercial parody not too long ago about a Birth Control Pill that would make a woman have her period only once a year.  In the fast talking, fine print they talk about how during that one week-end out of the year you better hold on to your hat ’cause your gonna lose your shit, etc., etc., etc.  It says that you should alert your law enforcement officials as they may wish to lock you up as a preemptive measure.  That’s how I felt.

When I think about these times I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude toward Green as well as some shame over the way I acted.  In truth her actions set me off on more than one occasion but my reactions were out of control excessive and she put up with a lot of vitriol from me during that period of time.  It would probably have been easier for her to just walk away, but she didn’t.  She stood by me and for that I’ll be eternally grateful.

Anyway, once the psychotic episode passed and I was back to “normal” whatever that is, I was on just the 300 Miligrams of Welbutrin.  It’s the only Anti-Depressant with little or now sexual side effects.  What I’ve learned in the recent past is that it’s also commonly know to increase anxiety in those who are prone to it (I am.)

I took Welbutrin by itself for nearly four years, never really feeling like it was doing me any good, but afraid to say anything for fear of what they’d recommend next.  But when the time came that I couldn’t stand it anymore, this image approximates what I was feeling.  I felt like I was standing right down there at the bottom of this mammoth wall of rock, knowing that on the other side of this structure was millions of gallons of water just waiting to burst through and destroy me.  I felt like I was standing at the bottom of that wall looking up at the top, and just watching as the wall slowly crumbled knowing that at any moment the water could break through and all would be lost.

At that point my Psychiatrist recommended adding the Celexa to the mix, and while I’ll admit that it did seem to help for a time, it really just put me on top of the dam.  No longer was the wall crumbling.  No longer did I fear that it would all come crashing down on me.  Instead, I was standing on the road, looking out at all the water, all the feelings and emotions, knowing that disaster lay before me, but then again so did the potential for good.  But either way, I couldn’t get to it.  It was inaccessible.  And if I tried, I just might drown.

It’s strange, but knowing that all that was there, and that I couldn’t get to it had a two fold effect on me.  First it sent me into a deep despair.  On the advice of my therapist I took a leave of absence from work and went into an outpatient treatment program that is offered by The Company that Created the HMO.  I don’t particularly feel like the program itself offered me anything of value, other than time away from work to regroup and collect my thoughts.  But six weeks later when I was back at work full time and I was more in control again, I realized something else.

In a very real way, the meds have been that dam for six long years.  The only reason those millions of gallons of water are back there waiting to crush me, is because I built the dam and backed it up, rather than making an effort to tread it as it flowed through.

I never wanted the drugs.  I never should have taken the drugs.  I will never again take the drugs.  What I needed was therapy.  I needed steady care from someone who could help me to come to terms with my issues and help me to find that I’d be OK all the same.  I needed a life vest and a kayak, and an oar (am I over-doing the metaphor?)

I took the drugs because I heard “You’ll take them for two years and you’ll be fixed.”  I took the drugs because The Company that Created the HMO isn’t interested in dealing with life long problems, they want to send you to a class that amounts to them saying “Suck it up.  You’ll be fine.”  I took the drugs because once I started them, I was afraid to stop, lest I end up in that puddle of anger and tears and desperation on the floor in my closet that I had been during the Paxil/Welbutrin transition.  I took the drugs because I didn’t know how not to.

But I finally made a decision.  The best decision I’ve made for myself in a long time.  I will not take the drugs anymore.  I started this process in April.  I was taking two tablets of each medication.  So starting on May 1st, I took one and three quarters.  On June 1st, I reduced it to one and one half, etc., until today, Friday, October 31, 2008.  THE last day, I will take my drugs.  Starting tomorrow, I will be drug free.  Starting tomorrow the last brick will have been removed from that dam.  The waters will flow freely and I will wade through them until I’ve learned to swim peacefully from shore to shore.  It may be a struggle sometimes.  Some days will surely be worse than others, but so far I’m strong and steady.  The current isn’t that bad.

I Am Still a Heba Hate-a

I have a problem.  An addiction actually.  I’ve tried to deny it for a long time, but it seems clear that I can’t pretend any more…

Hello, my name is Kevin and I’m a TV-aholic.  I’ve tried to cut back.  I’ve tried to stop watching, but they just keep making new and better shows that grab my attention and that I have to check out and then they turn out to be good and I keep watching them.  Every Summer, I swear that I’m not going to take on any new programs.  I’m not going to add to my number of hours of programming.  And every year I fail.

Four years ago, Green M&M and I moved into a new apartment that didn’t get standard cable service.  The company that did provide service, was only selling DirecTV though a cable connection and for a lot more money.  So we decided to sign up directly with DirecTV and cut out the middleman.  At the time that I was setting up our service they were running a special.  Receivers and dish for up to four rooms absolutely free with a two year contract.  But even more importantly to me, I could upgrade one of those receivers to a Tivo receiver for only $99.00.

I had heard about but had never experienced the wonder that is the Tivo.  Pause and rewind live TV?  Digitally record hours of television without having to worry about tapes and timer settings?  Listening to the b-doop, B-doop, B-DOOP, as I fast forward over the commercials I’d NEVER have to watch again?  What’s not to love!?!  Oh and did I mention that this receiver could record two separate shows at the same time?  My television viewing opportunities were endless! Heaven really is a place on earth!  Thank you Belinda Carlisle!

It is because of this perfection in a box that I never watch TV shows while they’re airing.  First, I always have a backlog of TV shows to watch, not a huge backlog, but I’m usually watching yesterday’s programming today, and today’s programming tomorrow.  Second, if I watched TV shows while they were on, I couldn’t enjoy the b-doop, B-doop, B-DOOP, because I’d have no choice but to watch the fucking commercials!  As a result, I know that I am a day behind on the Heba hating bandwagon but I couldn’t not join in on the Heba hate!

Unsvelt Girl who Runs is a member on the forums on the Runner’s World Website and apparently her gaggle of friends there had all kinds of venom to spew about Heba yesterday after Tuesday nights broadcast of The Biggest Loser.  Yesterday afternoon a chat window popped up on my computer screen and it was she, asking, “What’s up with Heba?”  I of course had no idea of what she spoke.  But I told her what I knew and sent her the link to my previous Heba hating blog post.  After that, I was jonesing to get home and turn on my beloved DVR and find out what kind of evil, beastly shit she pulled this week.

I wasn’t disappointed.  Well, I was disappointed.  I’m always disappointed to see people make idiots of themselves on National Television…  Or Local Television…  Or one on one for that matter.  But I got the information I was seeking and I don’t guess I can ask for much more than that.

So, if you even care about such things, I’m sure you can imagine how sad it was for Phil to come back to his room on The Biggest Loser Campus last week to find that Amy P., his wife, had in fact been eliminated and sent home.  There he was, along with the rest of the black team, having a quiet, somber dinner, when in marches the Blue Team (read: Gang) to intrude on their solace and make a scene about the perceived evil deeds of one Phil P.

“I hear you’re still saying hateful things about me.  I want to know why?”  Said the Evil War Lord, Heba.

But as if that weren’t bad enough, the other three Blue Team roughians– er, members, Brady, Vicky and Amy C. all joined in.  On a side note.  I thought there was hope for Amy C.  I thought how unfortunate that she got stuck with this bad crowd.  Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if one by one the evil three got sent home and here was Amy C., left behind to make something of herself and her experience.  Alas, ’twas not to be.

So Phil freely admitted that he approached Brady about forming an alliance to send Heba home.  He also pointed out that it was purely game play and that’s what the show is about.  He has never been shown saying anything derogatory about her.

Heba was on a rant about how he’s always been hateful to her and treated her so badly and she just can’t understand why (Gee, I wonder) and how she had never done anything to him.

But here’s the best part.  She sat there, looked Phil in the eyes and said, “I just want you to know that I forgive you.  I’m the bigger person and I forgive you.  You have to live with what you’ve done.”  Um…  Earth to Heba…  the moment you say, “I’m the bigger person” you lost all hope of being the bigger person.

The most pathetic part of this whole thing, to me, is this.  Heba and her husband came on the show this season because they’re newly weds and they want to start a family in a couple years and she wants to make sure she’s healthy enough to have a baby.  I can only feel sorry for any unfortunate child, cursed enough to have such a horrible person for a mother.  This is going to sound bad, but I hope she’s barren and I hope she can’t ever afford – or is never approved for – adoption.  People like her should not be allowed to procreate.

Last night, I reached a conclusion.  No matter who ultimately loses the highest percentage of their body weight and wins the show, Heba is now and will always THE BIGGEST LOSER.

The Entry it Took Two Weeks to Write

I have fallen into almost every job I’ve ever had.  The first job I had was working in the gift shop of the hotel where my mother worked as the hotel managers secretary.  Sure, in high school, I worked at a Hardee’s fast food restaurant for about a year, and then worked as a cashier in a local grocery store, but first of all those are not particularly ambitious jobs, and secondly, they hire any warm body that will apply for those positions.

When I was 19 years old I was engaged to a woman.  We were to marry two weeks before my 20th birthday.  Problem was I did not own a vehicle and was relegated to jobs I could walk to.  The jobs I could walk to couldn’t pay for a car, let alone a life with a wife and child (She had a two year old son.)  We agreed that I’d go to live with my father in Cincinnati, Ohio for six months.  He had a car I could drive (It was my father’s Oldsmobile, despite what the commercials always said.)  With my father’s Oldsmobile, I could drive anywhere and get a job anywhere.  So I went to the mall.  It seemed like a logical next step after the grocery store.

I went into a Men’s Clothing store in the mall that I’d never heard of called Webster Menswear and applied for a job.  I apparently made a good impression on the manager and he wanted to hire me to be his Assistant Manager right then and there, but I was honest with him and told him I was only planning to be in town for six months and that I would be quitting to move back to Oklahoma when the six months were up.  He hired me as a sales clerk and then two weeks later he promoted me to Assistant Manager.

My engagement ended shortly thereafter and I end up staying in Cincinnati for nine months instead of six.  I moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma on Father’s day, 1995.  Before I left I made contact with the Regional Manager of a different clothing store – owned by the same parent company – called J. Riggings, advised him that I was moving to town and would like to see about interviewing with him if he had any open positions.  As luck would have it, there was a Second Assistant Manager position open at the store in Tulsa and he hired me for it.  I worked for another roughly nine months in Tulsa at Woodland Hills Mall before being promoted to Store Manager at a store at Quail Springs Mall in Oklahoma City.  Three months after that I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas where I spent the longest nine months of my life managing the store at the Northwest Arkansas Mall.

I hated it there and I felt trapped in that job, like there was no where else for me to go.  So I decided that it was time to go back to school.  I was 22 years old and had no idea what I was going to do with my life but I had to take action.  I quit my job, moved back to Tulsa and into Vengeful Mother’s house.  I applied for a job at one of our favorite restaurants as a waiter.  I figured that would be easy enough money and good flexible hours for a college student.  WRONG!!!  I was the worst waiter you’ll ever encounter in your life!  I forgot things constantly, I was slow getting the orders in and the food out, and I was perpetually sweaty!  Who wants their food served to them by a fat, sweaty guy?  I averaged $2.00 tips on every table and lasted about three months.  Somehow during this time, school never seemed to come to pass.

It was during this time that I decided I wanted to reconnect with my best friend from High School, “Batman”…  Batman was a huge fan of the superhero, stating that he liked him so much because he was just a man and all his “abilities” came from his gadgets and not because of some superhuman trait.  Batman was an artist and he sketched bat signals on his book covers and notebooks on a regular basis.  When his parents bought him a Ford Ranger Splash pick-up truck, he had a Batman symbol custom painted on the tailgate.  I could probably write a whole post about Batman and not scratch the surface, but the bottom line is, I was very attached to him.  I realize now that I was probably in love, but I was in no position to acknowledge or profess that at the time.  Batman was a year younger than I, and when I graduated from high school we lost touch.

So it was when I returned to Tulsa after my stint in Arkansas that I decided to try and locate him.  Turned out to be pretty easy.  I opened up the phone book and there it was.  His distinctive, three-worded, German last name right in the beginning of the Vs.  I wasn’t positive that it was him so I sent him a letter.  A few days later the phone rang and it was his voice on the line.  We made plans to meet for lunch by his work a few days later.

Batman worked for what was then LDDS WorldCom.  We talked about his job and he told me that I could easily get in with the next training class and that he’d put in a good word for me.  A few weeks later I was training in the telecommunications industry to work in the customer service call center.  Much to my dismay, Batman informed me that he and his wife were moving to California a few weeks later.  His wife grew up in Turlock and they were going to move there to be closer to family since his family had moved away from Tulsa already.

Batman had already lined up a job with what was locally known as MFS WorldCom.  He’d pretty well settled in by the time I was nearing the end of my training.  With Batman’s recommendation and assistance, I too got in to MFS WorldCom and moved to California in March, 1998.

When I left MCI WorldCom in March of 2000, I expected to have no problem finding a new job in the telecommunications industry.  How could I?  The whole world runs on phone lines and data connections.  In October of 2000 I started a new job with a small hole in the wall Telecom company in San Carlos, California.  That job lasted 10 months.  The owner was a psycho and he didn’t like me because I didn’t cower before him and jump at his every whim.

On September 15, 2001 I moved in with Green M&M and started looking for a job.  When my unemployment benefits had run out and I still hadn’t found a job I signed up with a local staffing agency.  A week or so after I signed up with them I got a rather excited call from the rep telling me they had a great job for me, working in the Facility Management office of a high rise office building in Downtown Oakland, with a great company and a great manager.  It was a temp job, but I was desperate for full time work and the job was easy so I applied to be the new Administrative Assistant.  Nearly six and a half years later, I still work for The Company that Created the HMO, and still report to Douche Bag.  I’ve been promoted three times now, and I’m not an Administrative Assistant anymore, but the last promotion came when I was ordered to take on an entirely new set of responsibilities, despite the fact that I’d been very vocal about the fact that I did not want to do that work.  I wasn’t asked, or offered.  I was ordered and if I wasn’t happy about it I could quit.  I had every intention of it…  If I could just find something new.  It’s been three years.  I hate my job and I really want out.  But I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to proactively get myself a job and I don’t know what I would want to do if I did.

What, you might ask, is the point of all this?  Well, more than once it has been the topic of my therapy sessions: “I hate my job.”  “I want a new job.”  “I don’t know what I want to do with my life.”  “I don’t know the right steps to take to find a new job that I’ll be happy with.”  This is all very true, but the biggest issue has always been finding something that I’d be happy to make a career out of.  I have fears and insecurities about all the things I’ve ever considered and most of it requires educational experiences I do not have.

Lately I’ve really been thinking more about creative things.  You see, when I was young I wanted to be an actor.  If you’ve read this blog before you know this already.  The problem is, I have no confidence in my abilities anymore.  I took some drama classes in high school and I really enjoyed it, but I stopped and I’ve regretted it ever since.

Eight or nine years ago, I took an acting class from a man named Ed Hooks.  Ed was an actor in his earlier days, but hadn’t worked in years.  I now know that he didn’t have a terribly illustrious career (although I did see him on an episode of Quantum Leap on DVD the other day.)  Anyway, Ed was moving to Chicago and I knew going into it that my time in his class was short term.  During those few months I attended this man’s acting classes, I lost all of my remaining confidence in my ability to act.  I know I had a lot of growing to do and I wanted to do it but it’s hard, and Ed’s criticism always made me feel like I didn’t have the ability.  I’d like to think that my time in therapy has helped but I’m not sure that I’m any more able to be comfortable making a fool of myself than I was then…

Most of my formative years I was a singer.  I was in choir most of my school years and at church.  I love to sing.  And before my balls dropped– er puberty hit, my voice was pretty good.  I had solos regularly.  But something happened as the bottom started dropping out of my vocal chords and my voice became weaker, and my range far more limited.  I still sing all the time (in the shower, in the car, in places where no one can hear me, usually.)  Yeah, I have an OK enough voice that most people aren’t bothered by my singing, but I’m not any kind of performer.

I don’t have any dancing experience, and though I do have rhythm I’m not particularly confident on that front either.

All that is to say that I have been thinking a lot lately that I’d really like to get involved in musical theater or television and movies, but I don’t have the skills or the confidence to go for it.  I’m aware that there are classes I can take, but they cost money and I don’t have it.  Plus I spent my entire childhood living in poverty, and in the last few months things have been really, really tight.  I just can’t imagine how I could possibly take any cut in pay, financially, or emotionally.

So that’s my dilemma.  The only thing my entire life I’ve ever imagined I could be happy doing, is the one thing that I’m afraid to go for.  So I stay in my lousy job, with my decent, but not great, salary, and horrible working conditions, because I don’t know how I could possibly go for the one thing I want, and I don’t know what job to fall into next!

Bathroom Transformation Days Seven and Eight

I must apologize to those of you who have been following this particular thread (Fixator) for the lapse in updates.

I sort of expected that nothing much would happen yesterday, since it was Labor Day and since Adorable Little Contractor spent all day Saturday here working on the floor.  I took advantage of the long weekend and I did made my bi-wekekley trip to M&Ms apartment to do my laundry.  Because I was expecting Adorable Little contractor to be here around 9:00, I got up and out early.  I arrived at M&Ms house around 9:30 and started my laundry….  OK…  Before I get too far down that road, let me remember that nothing exciting happened.  Around 2:00 in the afternoon, we headed off to Dave and Busters in Milpitas, CA.  I’ve never been there before so it was interesting (and kinda dissapointing – I thought there’d be more to it.)  It was fun enough, but I’m not sure how worth the trouble it was… 

I did the Fast and the Furious races several times.  Raced against both M&M (AKA Green M&M) and her sister Yellow M&M.  They both beat me…  REPEATEDLY.  Later we went to a motor cycle racing game….  They beat me theere too…  and NONE of us knew how to ride a motorcycle. 

Beaten by girls…  Over and over.  I really am a sissy…

Green and I watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry too.  It was really good, I thought. 

Anyway, I got home around 10:30 PM.  The first thing I noticed when I walked in the house was that it smelled kind of like paint.  I wasn’t expecting painting yesterday.  As far as I knew, the floor was going to be grouted and sealed yesterday.  So I went in to check it out, only the new light fixture hasn’t been installed yet so there was no light in there besides the hall light.  The walls appeared to be mint green.  Really bad!!!!

Green said “At least it’s not pink.” 

“Um yeah…  Mint Green is NOT good.”  I would have really hated to have had him paint the whole room just to hate the color.  Fortuantely, I realized that was just the primer.  ALC had taken down the thick plastic he had hung and he rehung it from the walls instead of the cieling.  My shower this morning was a little more… intricate than normal.  There was a big gap in the curtain that, had I not been careful, would have spilled water all over the floor behind the toilet. 

So it’s clear to me that I need to take my “after” pictures in day light but here goes all the same…

I came home tonight to find this. 

  I really like the color, but it doesn’t show up very well on the pictures.  Hopefully, in the daytime with full daylight it’ll be clearer.  I was having second thoughts when Whealer Dealer LandLady backtracked on her conditions for me picking the color (I have to return it to “antique white” when I moe out) of paint but now that I’ve seen the final result I’m very glad I didn’t back out.  I’m planning to paint the rest of my apartment when I get the chance.  The vanity is going to look nice once it’s finished and installed.  Things are looking pretty good.  I just wish I had a shower curtain.   Thanks to the painting, the make shift shower curtain has been removed and now I’m either supposed to try and carefully use my handheld shower wand without a shower curtain, or I’m going to have to go back to using the trickle in the basement at work.  Neither one is terribly appealing to me.  I don’t guess I have much of a choice though.  I hope that the new shower rod will be installed soon.  It looks to me, like ALC should be finished in the next day or three with his part of the renovations.