Muddleman

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I’ve been thinking about my grandfather lately. Mostly because it is tax time, and I have to do his taxes for him.

My grandfather is an interesting fellow, in a clinical sort of way. He was a very bright electrical engineer, and believe it or not he was on the small team of people who helped invent the color television. I have pictures and news clippings somewhere to prove it. As a kid, I thought he was Mr. Wizard; he had a basement full of tools, and electrical parts, and he would put stuff together just from ideas in his head. He built an autodialer from spare parts in the late 1970s, about five years before you ever saw them in stores as part of telephones. I thought he was a genius.

Genius does have its price, though. As an adult, I came to realize that my grandfather has an advanced case of Asperger’s syndrome. Essentially, he can’t emote with others, can’t put himself into other people’s shoes, isn’t very social, and has no social skills.

Anyhow, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to say was that he retired at age 65, and moved out West with grandma. And although grandma passed away, he’s still plugging along, soon to be 92 years old. And although he had a stroke a few years ago, and isn’t doing too hot medically, he still gets up every morning.

So, this is what I want to talk about: If I retire at 65, I could conceivably have 25 or more years to blow before I die. Given that I can’t sit still for five minutes, what the hell am I going to do for 25 entire years? I can’t spend a week at home without going insane.

OK, we’ll even pretend that the retirement age is pushed to 70, and that I only have 20 years left to kill (so to speak). Think about it: I haven’t even worked for 20 years yet!. These last 19.5 years seem like forever, and at least I had some place to go during eight hours of every weekday.

Volunteer work? Bingo? Shuffleboard? OK, and what about the week after that?

And no, I am not kidding, this is really what worries me. As much as working sucks, I am starting to feel that not working could be worse.

“Boy, I sure am exhausted. Today was such a long day, and the last thing I want to do is spend another hour in front of a computer screen. Perhaps I’ll take a break tonight, and put off writing a blog post until tomorrow.”

And if you say that long and often enough, an entire month can go by without writing anything.

I wish I could say that I’d spent the last month backpacking through Europe, or doing missionary work in a third world country, or in prison; something that would provide even the most legitimate excuse for not having written anything here in so long. But nope. I got nothin’.

I suppose I could have written about the fact that March, as a whole, sucked as far as work was concerned, and that all I wanted to do when I got home (very late, every night) was to take off the stupid tie and fall asleep while watching CSI. But I am not sure how many posts like that would be entertaining.

I suppose I could have written about how purchasing a house is a nerve-wracking experience, forcing you to rely on a sideshow circus of unreliable people who repeatedly forget to call you back or do what they promised, leaving you with a feeling that you are caught up in a process that is entirely out of your control. But living it during the day is bad enough; I didn’t want to re-live it again while vomiting it onto the keyboard for your entertainment every night. Perhaps I need some distance from that first.

Even now, I suppose I could regale you with the saga of how, after the house closing, my wife got ripped-off by the national gypsy locksmith conspiracy, and how I am in the middle of trying to make sure that their charges don’t wind up on my credit card. But lets see if that story has an ending first (or, at least, something close enough to a resolution to justify ending a chapter, even if the entire saga continues).

And maybe next week, when I take off from work for an entire week to do 9 days worth of repairs at the new house, while living, eating, and sleeping in layers of sawdust and tile grout, I could possibly steal access to a neighbor’s unsecured wireless network and relate my daily accomplishments. However, even a tool-guy like myself would be bored to tears by daily diary entries of how to correctly paint a radiator, or re-route wiring, or locate the nearest repairman capable of fixing something called “bilco” doors. So perhaps I won’t write to you about that, either.

All in all, though, things are going well, we didn’t get screwed on the house closing, work is back to normal, and I still have a job. And although I'll try to write more now that things have mellowed, I just can’t promise to be particularly regular.  Although if I ditch for too long, please feel free to kick me awake again.

Because I sure am exhausted. Lucky for you, tonight CSI has been pre-empted by professional wrestling.

Its amazing how a human being can hold two completely and diametrically opposed ideas in his head without having to justify doing so, and without his head exploding.

Evidence:

Part 1: I am the heaviest I have ever been. No, I am not obese. I am about 5’10”, and still wear fitted shirts, but as of this morning I have achieved my heaviest weight ever, 200 lbs. On someone with a wider frame this would be underweight, but on me it is not. I was a skinny 175 lbs in college, and was happy at 185 lbs. about 10 years ago. Thus:

Idea # 1: I should watch what I eat and lose some weight.

Part 2: For some deeply rooted reason that I suspect only a trained psychiatrist could discover, I have a hard time sitting still. Although I can occasionally be lulled into a stupor by television, most of the time I need to do something. As a result, I’ve collected all sorts of hobbies and activities designed to keep me busy. Some of these involve food.

Two years ago, a friend of mine taught me how to make jam, so now my basement is filled with jars of blueberry, plum, strawberry, and tomato jam. But what can you put jam on? Why, bread of course. So, at some point (during what must have been a peak of extreme Winter boredom and cabin fever), I pulled down an old 1940’s cookbook from the shelf and figured out how to make bread.

After the first two or three thick and inedible bricks of dough, I started to get the hang of it, and it always tasted better than store-bought bread. The problem was, it always took too long of a commitment to make it very often (what with having to wait for the dough to rise several times and all), and the time commitment got in the way of doing anything else that day.

Idea # 2: I should make bread using a bread machine.

So I purchased a cheap bread machine. It’s ridiculously easy to use. Making bread takes about five minutes of work, and the machine does the rest. The family loves the bread, with each person preferring a different kind. The result? Three or four loaves of bread get made per week. And eaten per week. With jam.

The conflict:

I should watch what I eat and lose some weight.

I should make bread using a bread machine.

I should watch what I eat and lose some weight and make bread using a bread machine and watch what I eat and make some bread and lose some weight and make some bread and . . . .

And I am now 200 lbs.

So much for rational behavior.

I spent the whole weekend spackling and painting. It’s an outgrowth of the flood that my daughter caused, and we were tired of looking at the huge stain and cracks on the kitchen ceiling. And while we were at that, we decided that I might as well fix some drywall cracks in our bathroom.

Now, I should point out that although I am extremely handy with tools, woodwork, metalwork, computers, painting, cooking, gardening, and all sorts of other things that you’d never expect from me if you were to look at me, I have a bad history when it comes to spackle. In fact, my first encounter with spackle was a horrible experience. I had finished the entire basement of our first townhouse all by myself. Although I was teaching myself how to do it from multiple home repair books, I had done a pretty good job so far. I had perfectly hung all of the wallboard. According to the books, all that was needed was to apply three coats of spackle to the joints, and then sand.

In my defense, none of the books said that I was supposed to sand between the three coats.

So I put each of the three coats of spackle right on top of each other. The end result was that, every four feet along the new wall, there was an enormous vertical bulge of spackle.

After that, I spent days in that basement with a power sander and a mask, trying to rub off several inches of spackle. My hair was covered with dust, my skin was ghost white and, despite the facemask, I could probably have filled any cracks in the wallboard just by blowing my nose. When I finished vacuuming up all of the dust, I think it filled a 30 gallon garbage can.

Since then, my spackling skills had improved only slightly, with my lack of skill probably linked to a fear that I would screw up each job. Essentially a self fulfilling prophecy.

This weekend, however, was different. Somehow my trowel had been blessed by St. Vinnie, patron saint of handymen, and I had acquired the magic touch. The spackle went on perfectly, the various colors of paint went on and matched perfectly, and the entire family oooohed and aaaaahed at the results.

And do you know what the best part about spackling and painting turns out to be? The fact that it takes longer for each coat to dry than it does to put each actual coat on, and yet the drying time is just short enough so that you aren’t expected to change out of your crappy painting clothes and run some errands or do any car pooling for anyone. Between each coat, you have an unlimited license to nap, rest, read the paper, and just loaf around.

My new favorite chore.

So, I was planning on opening up this post by apologizing for not writing anything for most of February. But then I went and checked out all of the blogs that I like, and noted that almost no one else wrote much in February, either. So, forget the apology.

I was then going to follow up the apology with an explanation, in three parts. The first part was going to talk about the horrible cold/cough/fever thing that laid me low for over two weeks, and which I still seem to have a bit of. But then I went and checked out all of the blogs that I like, and noted that there were more posts in February about being sick with a cold than there were posts in November about children and knitting (courtesy of Nablopomo, of course). So, forget whining about having a cold.

That leaves me with only two excuses left. Which one do you want to hear first; the one about financial anxiety, or the one about gaining some maturity? Really? OK.

My wife and I have decided to take the financial plunge and try to buy a house. And despite the fact that I handle complicated financial matters for a living, its entirely different when you are doing it with your own money. To be honest, I am freaking out a bit. I have become comfortable with my current budget, and don't like the idea of committing myself to spending more.  I have now developed this obsessive-compulsive habit of repeatedly opening Excel and checking out my “can we really affords this?” spreadsheet, followed by opening Quicken to make sure that the numbers in the spreadsheet aren’t wrong. I do this at least once or twice a day. Or more.  In fact, I just did it again halfway through typing this paragraph. I can’t help myself. Did I mention that this home-buying thing is freaking me out?

We’ve spent the last few weeks dealing with this, almost nonstop. Its still not a done deal. We’ve done the contract thing, and we just finished the inspection thing, and we are doing the borrowing thing (yikes, I hate owing money), and the whole thing could still fall through. And if it did fall through, I’d be upset and disappointed. And I’d also be relieved. Did I mention that this home-buying thing is freaking me out?

OK, that leaves me with my final excuse, which is that my boss went on vacation.

Now, I now what you are thinking. You’re wondering why that could possibly affect my ability to write even one blog post while he’s gone. After all, when the cat’s away, the mice will play, right? With all that free time, I should have written a whole month’s of blog posts, right?

Well, until recently, I would have completely agreed with you. When I heard that my boss was going to be away for two entire weeks, I thought “Thank god! This is gonna be the cushiest two weeks ever. It’ll be like an ‘in-office’ vacation.”

Unfortunately, the rest of the office didn’t seem to share my outlook. To my dismay, the office seems to have assumed that, in my boss’ absence, I would be doing his work for him. “Why would that be?”, I wondered. And although it completely does not jibe with my self image, the reason slowly dawned on me: In my bosses absence, I was apparently the most senior person in my department, the most experienced, and (strangely) the most trusted. Go figure.

So I got all of my bosses work, in addition to my own. But without the boss-ly benefit of being able to assign it to anyone else in the department. The upshot is that, instead of the in-office vacation that I’d hoped for, I’ve been completely overwhelmed with work

And the gain in maturity? Well, I am now disappointed to admit that, given the above, I can’t wait for my boss to come back from vacation. And if that isn’t a sign of growing old, I don’t know what is.

Go back, way back in time. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, to when humans lived in caves. When small clans had to work together to survive. While the women gathered herbs and nuts all day, the men went out to hunt for meat.

The men had to be careful; they had to walk quietly, lest their prey hear them and run away, or other animals attack them. They had to be attentive, and work together in strategic attacks against faster and stronger animals. Any misstep would, at best, cause the loss of the prey, and hunger for the tribe. At worst, a misstep could cause the death of that hunter, or another one of the men in the hunting party.

Evolution is a wonderful thing. When a woman in the tribe got a cold or a flu, the tribe would suffer if she did not continue to assist in the gathering of food. By the cruel process of natural selection, as well as elimination by social rejection, any woman who was bedridden when sick failed to survive to reproduce.

On the other hand, any man who got sick, and who nonetheless felt fit enough to go out with the rest of the hunting party, was a liability to the clan. No matter how well he felt, he wasn’t going to be at the top of his game. He would be slower, weaker than normal, and easily disoriented. He would not as careful as he should be, and he would often cause injury to himself or to another. Or, at best, loss of food for the clan.

Again, evolution is a wonderful thing. By the cruel process of natural selection, as well as elimination by social rejection, any man who felt able to go out with the hunting party while sick failed to survive to reproduce.

The end result of this is that, due to this long and gradual process of natural selection, modern men stay in bed and whine like babies when they have a cold.

Can any of you tell that I’ve been under the weather for the past few weeks?

When I was about 7 years old, I went to play with my friend Dave. It was snowing outside. It had snowed a lot over the last few days, and there was over a foot of snow outside. It may even have been a snow day.

I put on my snow jacket, and stuffed a pair of mittens into my pocket. I did not put the mittens on.

I walked over to Dave’s house, and we played outside in the snow for a long while. When we went inside, my hands were red, and freezing cold.

This is my earliest memory of Dave’s mom. She saw me blowing into my hands, and immediately made me warm my hands by putting them on top of the hot, running clothes dryer. I quickly discovered that this particular method of warming my hands hurt like hell, and it made me cry. Her unsympathetic comment was “That’s what you get for not wearing gloves.”

I don’t remember going back there for about ten years.

Fast forward, to a day when I am about 30 years old. When I am allegedly an adult, an educated professional, wearing a suit and tie to work. I come to work one day, and who is the new receptionist?

Dave’s mom.

And even at age 30, I was still scared of her.

I just remembered something that is probably key to the development of my sense of humor, and the realization that I could get a sense of personal satisfaction by making people laugh.

I was very shy when I entered college, and was very malleable. From a social perspective, I was also somewhat invisible. In my quest for social acceptance, I wound up joining a fraternity. Agreeing to become a fraternity “brother” was an act completely devoid of thought. It was an acquiescence to the ebbs and flows that had randomly brought me there for a party, as well as to their offer to pledge, and to the desire not to make waves by turning down the offer. I was a bit of an idiot.

Luckily, it turned out that most of the “brothers” in the fraternity were good guys, and that I had miraculously landed in a supportive environment.

Every Sunday, there’d be a meeting at the fraternity, at which some drunken version of Robert’s Rules Of Order were enforced while routine issues were discussed (e.g., how to fund the next party, who’s responsible for breaking the toilets, and what charitable event can we participate in to offset the fact that we are drunken fools?). And at the end of each meeting, there was an awards ceremony, where everyone could submit anonymous written nominations as to which brother should be awarded the D.O.W. award.

That is, the “Dick Of The Week.”

The “Dick Of The Week” was awarded to the brother who had done the absolute dumbest, stupidest, boneheaded thing during the past week. After all of the written nominations were read aloud, the “winner” was chosen by a show of hands. The “winner” was required to take the “trophy” back to his dorm or apartment, and display it prominently in his room. If he didn’t display the “trophy,” but was instead caught hiding it, he’d automatically win the award the next Sunday.

The “trophy” was an improbably enormous rubber dildo.

[Oh, shut up. Yes, I know it was immature, but what did you expect from 60 college boys? Besides, it served the common good by acting as negative reinforcement for anyone who might otherwise have done something particularly stupid. And yes, I still think it was funny.]

Midway through freshman year, I made my first written nomination for D.O.W. My roommate, who had also joined the fraternity, had done something embarrassingly and hilariously stupid and, no matter how shy I was, I couldn’t keep it to myself. To my surprise, when my submission was read aloud it got HUGE laughs, and my roommate “won” the award by a landslide.

Encouraged, I began to be more observant of my brothers. I took mental notes, and cautiously made more nominations. And I noticed that my nominations often got laughs, and my nominees often “won.” And I loved the way it made me feel when people laughed at what I’d written.

At some point I realized that the wording of the nomination was almost as important as what the “winner” had actually done to deserve the award. Why, with the proper phrasing, even a mildly silly event could be made to seem ridiculously stupid, and deserving of the D.O.W. award. And the initial anonymity helped a little. When one of my nominations didn’t get laughs, or got groans, or otherwise fell flat, I tried to figure out how it could have been rephrased.

Meanwhile, no matter how anonymous the nominations were intended to be, sooner or later everyone realized that I was a frequent contributor, and that my nominations were a source of entertainment. Brothers were paying attention to what I wrote. And soon, they started to pay attention to what I said.

And I was no longer invisible.

On my way to work, I saw a blue Toyota minivan in front of me. My eyes fell vacantly upon one of those silver fish outlines that had been glued to the back, looking sort of like half of a Pisces sign, and which normally indicate Catholicism. I had always thought of these as a somewhat classier version of a “Honk If You Love Jesus” bumper sticker.

But even through my pre-caffeine haze, I realized that there was something odd about it. I couldn’t place my finger on it at first, but then I noticed that, in addition to the normal fish shape, it had legs.

“That’s strange,” I thought. And I looked more closely.

I then saw that there was something in the middle of the fish outline. I pulled up a little closer, and noticed that it was a word. Creeping closer, the word finally became clear.

Inside the outline of the fish with legs, was the word “Darwin.”