11/6/10

"Just what I needed..."  How many times in your life have you used that expression?  Quite a few times, I'll bet.  I'm gonna go ahead and use it here.  Tonight was, indeed, just what I needed.  My work shift only took six hours, so I was home by 8pm for the first time in a long time.  My unfortunate lodger has gone to Ohio for some sort of family gathering.  Today has 25 hours for some reason that I'm not sure has any validity in the year 2010, but whatever.  I'll take the extra hour.  And my start time for tomorrow is 3:15pm, a bit later than usual, meaning that I don't have to get out of bed until I damn well please.  I have draft cider in the fridge, pizza rolls in the oven, and a heating pad under my ass.  Ahhh...  Just what I needed.

11/5/10

Life is nothing but double-edged swords.  For instance, my weight training has progressed somewhat well in spite of my... situation.  Each time I reach a given number of repetitions of a given lift, I bump the weight upward for the next time.  As this process is repeated week after week, I actually get stronger.  Go figure.

So I was sitting there tonight, taking a break between sets of hammer curls.  A fella sat down nearby and started doing preacher curls with a 40 pound barbell.  I looked at the floor and saw that I was using a pair of 70 pound dumbbells at the time.  My belly is still ample enough to ensure that I won't be posing in front of a mirror in the foreseeable future, but for a moment at least I thought I was kinda strong.  Then later in the workout, as I got to my overhead tricep extensions (or whatever you would call it technically - I hold an EZ bar behind my head and then straighten my elbows), my third set called for 115 pounds of weight.  The heaviest pre-packaged EZ bar in the place weighs 115 pounds.  If I care to go any higher, I'll have to start sliding plates onto an empty bar.

The other 'edge' of the sword, as it were, is that those heavier weights put an awful lot of strain on the tendons and joints and shit that connect everything together.  After tonight's arm workout, my left elbow is killing me.  This aging shit is for the birds.

Work was okay though.  Two loads, five stores altogether, no worries.  And today was payday.  Apparently I made $1,450 last week.  I know I was burned out by the time all was said and done, so I guess that sounds about right.  I surely won't be invited to any high brow cocktail parties in my lifetime, but for a blue collar dude from Downriver I manage to keep the bills paid.  That's enough for me.

I think I only have one load for tomorrow, but I'll have to confirm this with the dispatcher when I go in.  The way that my assignment is listed on the board seems a little ambiguous.  Anyhow, if it's only the one load and those damned Fighting Irish have the weekend off, I may have an enjoyable Saturday for a change.

11/4/10

Well, shit.  I simply don't know.  Things are supposed to get better with time, right?  I slept all morning and much of the afternoon.  That was nice.  I took it easy all day.  That should be helpful, but I wasn't feeling like a million bucks.  Still though, it was good to relax for a while.  It seems that the days have been far too short lately.

I went to see my old buddy in the hospital for a while.  He can lift his left arm and move his left leg now, so apparently the rehab process is going well.  The doctors still don't seem to know what exactly has been causing the trouble, but ole Mr. Pedro is getting better by the day.  Or so I'm told.

Then I went out to dinner with Mr. Pedro's son - the reverand, and my unfortunate lodger - the non-reverand.  Neither of those candyasses was willing to pick a restaurant, so I decided that we were going to Vito's.  (Blog address unrelated.)  When I was a kid, Vito's was the go-to place in Lincoln Park after any kind of event.  Then Vito sold the place and went back to Italy, but the pizza was still awesome.  Then Vito came back from Italy and bought Roma's, leaving Vito's as a competitor to Vito, but that's another story.

So anyhow, Vito's has a bit of nostalgic value for those of us from the LP.  I went there many years ago with an ex-girlfriend and found that I didn't like what the new owners had done with the place.  Now someone else owns the joint, so I was curious to see how the pizza would measure up.  It was pretty good, all things considered, but it was no Vito's pizza.  Bummer.

After a few hours back home, spent mainly reading through news headlines and such, it was time to head to the damned gym.  Off we go...

I waste a lot of time.  Since I have a pretty pitiful social life and I have no responsibilities to anyone, I can afford to waste as much time as I like.  The weird thing is that it really bugs me to waste time unintentionally.  I drove all the way out to Novi.  I changed into my workout clothes.  I headed upstairs.  I did a quick cardio warmup.  I grabbed a barbell... and... fuck!

I set down the barbell.  I limped downstairs.  I changed out of my workout clothes.  I drove all the way home from Novi.  What a waste of time.  And now I feel even worse than I did before.  I just can't figure this shit out.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow will bring a better outcome.  I do have two loads again, which seems to be the case somewhat consistently nowadays, but they shouldn't be too tough.  Three stops in the Flint area and then another two in Toledo.  Maybe, assuming that I can walk upright after work, I'll get to tonight's scheduled workout, just a day late and so forth.  We'll see how it goes.

Now, for the second time in recent memory, I must drink.  The beers didn't really alleviate the pain last night but, as a good Irish lad, I'm confident that they'll work a little better this time around.

11/3/10

You know what I did tonight?  I took my first step on the road to 2012.  I bought 96 incandescent light bulbs and put them in my storage room.  (Admit it.  You thought I was making some sort of political reference there.  Wait, I kinda was... Nevermind.)   I figure I'll stockpile a few boxes of those suckers every now and then.  This way I'll be able to run some kind of black market operation when you can no longer buy a regular 20-cent light bulb in the 'Land of the Free.'  My unfortunate lodger mentioned a couple of days ago that "we" needed light bulbs and toilet paper.  By "we," of course, we're talking about me.  I'm the guy with the job and the income, after all.

Once I wrapped up a tedious but largely uneventful four-stop milk run tonight, I stopped at Meijer to do a little shopping.  You may or may not be aware of this, but I don't enjoy shopping.  So I tossed one of those gigantic 2,000,000-roll packages of toilet paper in my cart.  Won't be buying that stuff again for a while.  Next came the light bulbs.  It was $2.39 for a 12-pack.  Sweet.  I grabbed all eight packs that were on the shelf.  I'll do it again sometime too.  You can count on that much.

Aside from TP and bulbs, I just needed a few odds and ends to finish off my shopping list.  Bottle of vitamins, pack of beef jerky, etc.  I got everything into my car and headed home.  As I was driving down I-275, I started to wonder - How many of these cheap bulbs can I store before the feds take over that aspect of my life in a couple of years?  A few thousand, I think.  I'm gonna shoot for a few thousand.

Given the way things have gone lately, in terms of these damned 24-hour days proving to be too short, it was nice to have a fairly short day of work.  I didn't start until 3:30pm and I was done by 10:30pm.  In addition, today was a scheduled day off from that Godforsaken gym.  My weary body was grateful.

So... off early... no gym tonight... no need to get up tomorrow morning... yeah, I'm drinking tonight.  I would have thought, back when I transitioned to local work, that I would be having beers on a frequent basis.  This hasn't been the case.  Not even close.  The drinking occasions seem to be few and far between since I started lifting again.  Even before that though, I just found that I wasn't often in the mood.  I'm gonna have to work on that.  Until then, let's just hope for a pain-free night with tasty refreshment.  We're well on the way there...