Mark’s Notes On The Go

Time Marches On

Had to skip my morning treadmill torture today. I’ve had a catch or something in my side for two days. Today, I felt it on awakening, an almost stab-like sensation on my right side right about the bottom of the rib cage. Another one hit in the shower. Where the first few on Monday were momentary, they hit and hang on for 20 or 30 seconds now. Always a worry-wart, I called the doctor. Have an appointment for tomorrow to get checked out.

I’ll probably find out that it’s a pulled muscle from working in the yard on Saturday evening and Sunday. Or, the fearful Doctor Quack (i.e. me) has been reading and has diagnosed it as a gallstone. We’ll see which, if either, scenario wins out with the doctor tomorrow.

Meanwhile, picked up a big haul of comics today. Wednesday is my regular geek outing to Drake’s Comics. Will go to bed shortly (tired, I think more from worry than anything) and read a few before bed.

I’m about to begin my busy, but hopefully rewarding April. Friday night, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers will be rolling through town. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to see them perform when I didn’t have to crawl out of bed and go to work the next morning, so I’m looking forward to that.

And this weekend is otherwise my last in town for awhile. The next weekend is Easter. I’ll be going home to see my parents. It’s a two-fold trip. Obviously, one is to spend time with the family, but the other is to drop off the cats with my parents. I’ll miss them, but I think they’d miss being fed when I was in London quite a bit more. I guess, at least, I get a few weeks where I won’t have to vacuum as much.

The following weekend is Atlanta Comicon. Quite looking forward to it. Being as Chris at Drake’s is one of the convention organizers, I’ve heard a lot about this year’s plans. Sounds like it’ll be a fun geek-fest of a weekend. I’ve yet to hear if my cousin and maybe Kelly will make it this time. They live about as close as I do, so that’s not an excuse.

The following Wednesday after that, I fly to London! So, that weekend will be spent absorbing another country, seeing what sights I can, etc. I’m quite looking forward to it. Thursday, I’ve already paid for my hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. That’s been strongly recommended by several people as an excellent way to get familiar with London. And as I’ll likely be jet-lagged (I arrive about 7am local time), I didn’t want to plan a heavy day. Friday, I’m going to see Stonehenge and some other places west of London. Saturday and Sunday are still a bit open. Somewhere in there is seeing the Tower of London and dipping my toes in the British Museum (hey, I’d need my whole vacation to explore 13 acres of antiquities - definitely a highlights tour). Saturday night, I’ve got my ticket to attend the Ceremony of the Keys at the tower - this is a 700+ year tradition - ceremonial closing of the tower. I’m so excited, and at the same time sad that I’ll have no pictures of this event - no photography. Ah well, great memories, I’m sure! I also figure on taking in the odd walking tour. On that point, I’m just going to write down the ones I’m interested in and take a couple when I can.

The last weekend in April is Music Midtown. I almost feel like saying a silent prayer of thanks that there’s nothing really calling me to attend this year. I’ll need that weekend to decompress!

Now, if my body can just stop disintegrating around me.

File this one under:

You know you’re getting old when:

You go to work and spend the first two hours of the day wondering whether or not you turned off the heating pad that you were using to doctor your aching foot. And then you finally leave work and take an abbreviated lunch just that day just so that you can confirm… drum roll please…. Yes, the heating pad was off….

Add to that this evening. Went to dinner with a friend after work - largely to bitch about co-workers and acquaintances and their immaturity. Afterwards, we spent some time in the parking lot talking before heading off in our separate directions. Left when a large pile of kids pulled into the spots near us and began, as is common to talk and goof off. I don’t know about my friend, but I felt increasingly ill at ease (and cold… brrr..) until we left. Is there that big a gulf between me and someone in high school? I know that they have the increasing need to sir me to death in most retail settings. But it’s still hard for me on some level to accept the years that now yawn like a chasm between us. Was I really a freshman in high school 18 years ago? Is next year really 15 years since I walked across the high school football field to pick up my diploma? Where did the time go? Why do I feel no wiser? No more grown up? With no more established direction in my life?

At an age where most of my cohort has married and many have had kids, I still struggle with just where my life is going. Is it Atlanta? Is it the job I’m in now? What else would I do with my life?

I’ll put off the true soul searching for awhile. There are bills to pay. Maybe when I’ve paid off the car note I’ll ponder changing my life’s course. Maybe then when all I’ll have is the house payment, which can be traded in for the equity, I’ll consider what else I might do.

I don’t think I want to live here. There’s a lot I like about the area. I enjoy that there’s so much to do, etc. But I also find myself turned off to Atlanta in some fundamental way. Do I want to pay a couple hundred thousand to live in a cookie cutter house on a tiny lot surrounded by humanity? What’s my other option here? Move well north of the city and wait for the sprawl to catch up with me while sitting in soul-numbing traffic? I don’t think so. Option A definitely wins over the latter, but what are my other options first? And don’t tell me surprises lie behind door number three! It might be a yugo!

What else besides being forced to rub elbows with humanity do I find at fault? Atlanta, at its heart, seems to be about show rather than substance. You see it in the architecture. The house in front of me just got a new paint job on its stucco facade. While it looks nice, it made me notice that the sides and back are vinyl siding, now a different color. And I started looking around at the houses I pass everyday. Everywhere the same, brick facades and cheap sides. If you’re well off, maybe you can splurge for all brick on house number two or three. In the meantime, you’ll show your pretty side to the public. Maybe this is true of the people, too. While my neighbors have never been anything but friendly, I don’t really know any of them. I’ve never had more than the odd conversation in the front yard, etc. This isn’t their fault alone. It’s mine, too. I haven’t made the effort. Maybe I should? But which side do I make friends with? The brick or the vinyl? And how do I tell them apart?

Whoever catalogues the Radio Stations for Windows Media Player needs to be shot.

This morning, running behind and tired of listening to the same couple of albums saved as MP3’s on my hard drive, I decided to tune into some net radio during my morning jaunt on the tread mill.

I picked an alternative rock station out of London called TotalRock. Again, I was running behind, so I didn’t have time to hear out a song or two before jumping on the treadmill…. I knew I was in trouble when I heard them talking about playing an exclusive Gene Simmons (from Kiss fame) song later on. I got to hear it, too. And I’m not a metal-hard rock fan, really anyway, but this song totally sucked…. The song was titled Asshole… There was one lyric that went something like, and I have nowhere to quote this from - “you’re a creep, you look like a sheep??” Something like that. I would have fallen over laughing if the treadmill wouldn’t have done me serious damage.

As I said, the person or machine who chooses the categories the net stations are put in should be shot. The title on the main page of said station? The Hardest Rock on the Planet!