Sunday, July 25, 2004

I've witnessed or experienced more adventures with a telephone this weekend to last a year. Whether it be a customer asking a dumbass question at work, or Megan answering her phone while at work, or even the strange call I got from some weird area code today, it's been a weird weekend.

To put it simple, the questions asked by customers this weekend were atrocious. Most asked insanely stupid questions, then questioned the pharmacist, who was a fill-in, when he gave them an answer. Some didn't believe him, or if they did, asked him another pointless question. After a few of these, you start to get a little peeved. After a day's worth, you've had enough.

When both days you work are like that, you want to scream. And the fill-in, Keith, wanted to scream.

Of course, it didn't help that a customer who we've had problems with for the last week or so called and berated Keith even though Keith had no clue what was going on, what the problem was, or how to get the guy to stop calling. This was probably the most insane moment in a weekend filled with insane moments on the job.

No one was spared from these calls either. Yesterday I was stuck on the phone for just over six minutes with a woman who only wanted three refills, but had to give me a story behind each individual medication, tell me three times that we needed to call the doctor on one of them, and then gave me a lecture about how she had to have non-safety caps on her bottles. The lecture included her telling me about how she has to smash the bottles with a hammer to get them open. I didn't dare ask how she avoided smashing the pills. No way in hell was I going to go there.

This weekend was a Heckyll and Jyde kind of weekend though. Work was a pain in the ass, slow, and filled with ridiculous phone calls. Outside of work, I had a date with Jessica that culminated in me asking her out, her saying yes, and basically completing a piece of me that had been missing for the last year or so.

Not only did I want to have a girlfriend to be in the actual relationship, but I wanted to have one because I felt like it would add motivation for me down the road. I felt like it would only help me drive myself to succeed in what I want to do this fall and winter, and if I'm not going so well for whatever reason, I have someone who is going to be there to support me like I'd support them.

Jessica is that girl. I know that I can count on her if I do need her for whatever reason. It makes me feel a little more secure and makes a huge difference in what I'm trying to accomplish.

I still can't get over how well last night went either. I still can't stop thinking about the kiss we had. It had that much of an effect on me. I still can't put it into words, probably because there isn't a word or group of words that would do it justice.

I want to go around at work and tell everyone, but I'm going to keep it on the low for the time being, not because I don't want to, but because I work in a store where things get around, stories get twisted, and once one person finds out, everyone wants to know every last detail. I don't like telling people things unless I want them to know, so it becomes excruciatingly uncomfortable for me when one person after another wants to know what's up. There are a few people I actually tell things to, the rest don't really give a shit about me so I feel no need to share personal information with them.

For now, they'll have to be satisfied with knowing that I went on a very good date and that I'm seeing the girl. If I choose to divulge any more information, it will be with select people and when I feel it's the time to do so.

That being said, I wanted to tell my mom all about it last night, but she was asleep by the time I got home. I don't think it would've gone over real well if I had bothered her at all since she's like me in she hates being woken up by someone unless it's a life or death matter.

At some point I'll be able to tell her about it, but we have to both be home at the same time and not be busy.

I think it's easy to imagine how long the day was today though. Not only did I have Jessica on my mind all day, but it was slower than molasses. Plus Swati wouldn't shut up about anything and while I love Swati to death, she does get carried away a lot of the time.

I was happy when it was time to go and even happier when Jessica called me while I was driving home. I wanted to be able to see her tonight, but things conspired against that happening, which means I do have to wait to see her again, but I think I'll survive. I do have a phone and can talk to her. I also talk to her online, at least when she's not away for some reason.

I got something to eat and was taking the dog outside when my phone rang. Of course, I popped it open to see who it was, not knowing who in the hell could possibly be calling me at that point. Even more baffling was when I saw the number and saw an area code of 240. Now, I have no idea where the hell that is, much less who would be calling me from there. It turned out to be a wrong number, but it continues what has been a disturbing trend.

My number must be awfully similar to some important number because I get a lot of wrong numbers. I'm also no expert on voice recognition or being able to detect an ethnicity based on a voice, but it sounds like most of the time it's a black person.

It's totally reassuring. Strange black people, some from out of state, keep calling my phone.

That'll help you sleep at night.

I at least did get to talk to Jessica for a while and make the night a lot better, not that it had been bad.

The day itself wasn't bad. I was able to listen to the Indians game while at work (which they won 5-1 to push their record over .500 for the first time since they were 2-1 back in 2003), get a few things taken care of, and generally talk to Keith about a lot of different things.

This Keith and I go back to my days in Strongsville. How? He was an intern at my store for his final year of pharmacy school and his first day as a pharmacist was at my store working with me. So we know each other quite well.

It's not that it was a great day either though. I didn't get to actually see Jessica, the house was a disaster when I got home, and I didn't react very well to what I ate (still not sure what that was about, although with my stomach you never know).

The weather hasn't been great either. I mean, I don't mind the rain, I find it relaxing, but it at least needs to be raining when it's cloudy. I don't like plain cloudy days. Just let it rain a little to set the mood.

Rain relaxes me, clears my head, allowing me to think better and organize my thoughts in a cohesive way. I can sit in my room and listen to the rain fall and just feel myself easing up, forgetting about the numerous things I need to deal with.

Then like the idiot I am I turn on the baseball game on ESPN to find it's the Yankees and Red Sox and all those calm feelings go away. It's not that I hate those two teams, I just get tired of seeing them on tv all the time.

What I have realized is that I've found the one thing that makes me happy, and that's Jessica. For all the drama and bullshit I experienced the past month and a half with Molly, it's all been erased. I seriously doubt that anything more is going to come out of talking to Molly, even friendship. She just doesn't seem to have the interest in me to maintain a friendship. With Jessica, that doesn't matter anymore. In her, I found someone who is interested in me and already gives a damn about me.

That in itself is enough to lift my spirits back up to where I like them to be. I don't like being mopey and unhappy. I hate it. I like to be happy, someone that helps everyone's mood when you're around that person. Being sad, quiet, and distant is something I don't like. It's too much of a reminder of how I was for much of my life. It harkens back to a day that I don't want to go back to.

I'm happy. I have my woman. Nothing else matters now.

---

I was finishing going through the entries from the last two years, fixing link problems and anything else I could notice, and I was interested in reading a lot of the things that I had written in my site during those times.

I obviously skipped past the entries detailing the fire and the aftermath. It's just too hard for me to read those entries, not because I don't like to think about the events, but because it's so clear how much it messed me up at the time.

A few things jumped out at me. For one, the pictures are heinous. It is quite clear to me that while the short hair with gel experiment was better than when I had longer hair, it still looked pretty bad. It may have scored me points with girls who like the preppy look, but it didn't look right on the way I had it cut.

I also found it interesting how much resentment I had for Keith, not the fill-in from today, but our regular pharmacist, even just a couple of weeks into his time at my store. I have a first impression in one entry that's favorable towards Keith, but the next time I write about him, the opinion is clearly changing.

I seem to remember we had a confrontation about the inventory shortly after he arrived, setting the stage for future confrontations and the way we view each other now. There is no love lost between us and neither of us attempts to hide it. He knows I do not like him and I know he doesn't like me. If I wasn't so good at what I do, he could do something about me, but because I am competent, he can't do shit and I love it.

I had a very love-hate relationship with Nichole from the get-go as well. Most of the time I would write about how much of a pain in the ass she was, even earlier this year when she had the massive blow-up towards me. I constantly made an issue out of her temper and her tendency to lose it.

This is funny to me now because I've had the chance to hang out with her a few times, and while I continue to maintain the stand that I couldn't date her, she's at least proven to be a decent friend, someone who I can talk to. Yes, she said unflattering things about Megan when we were dating, but in her own way, she was trying to protect me. It was a poor way of doing so, but I see it now.

In short, she's not a bad person. She still isn't a great employee because of that short fuse, but she's tolerable as a person.

Anyone who goes through the entries will see how the site has transitioned appearance-wise. Initially, the fonts are green, Arial, and the links at the bottom are in a border set-up like they are now, but with a blue background. You eventually see the change in color, a slight change in font (if your computer supports the fonts I chose), and at least in the first batch, the "social experiment" titles I had been using.

That didn't last long and eventually the entries get into this year and they look like they do now.

I will admit to being finicky with the appearance of this site. I like the layout that I use, I like the fonts and colors, but I'm still not satisfied with the graphical titles, if only because I feel they could be better. It's almost like I tried to be too fancy with them and went beyond what I wanted and what I want this site to stand for.

For clarification purposes, this site is supposed to be a simple site. I don't care for fancy titles, fancy pictures or graphics, and I certainly don't want to be going high-tech on y'all. That's not me and it wouldn't work in a site that consists mostly of things that I write about.

I'm a simple guy and I keep my site simple as well. It's easy to navigate, easy to read, and if you don't like it, then that's fine with me.

I don't write for an audience. I don't write for any reason other than to get things off my mind and to have something to look back upon down the road.

The site has become more popular of late. I'm aware of this. It's nothing mind-blowing, but the counter is going up at a much faster clip than it had been. However, I don't feel the need to write more just to keep that audience.

I write because I'm in the mood or because something happened that was worth writing for. Writers can't just sit and write about nothing. It doesn't work.

Although I seem to be doing a fine job of it now.

---

In all the excitement and drama that I've had in the last month, I completely forgot about a very important date that concerns this web site. I do this every year so it's not anything new, but I've been writing more this summer and should've at least mentioned it.

The date? June 23. As in June 23, 1997. That's the date that I consider the true start of this web site, the date that this site stepped out into the real world and announced itself to the public.

However, seeing as the counter is sitting at 3298 visitors since I moved this site to Yahoo!Geocities about a year or so after it's humble beginnings, the site hasn't been the model of popularity.

As mentioned in this entry earlier, I never wrote in this site intending it to be popular or even catered to an audience. This site has always been a stress release first and foremost and will always be that way. Sure, I won't argue with a lot of people reading it, but that's not what I aim for anyway.

However, this site is over seven years old. Seven years worth of experiences that I've shared with others in one form or another. Six and half years worth of entries in this section alone, the other half year was mostly editorials and columns that cease to be in existence.

In a way, I do regret not saving those past columns. I love reading the older stuff I wrote to see how I've evolved, yet I've never seen a reason to save anything I write other than what's in here. Would I be better served to save those columns? Maybe, but considering the huge number of ones that I've written over the years, it would be near-impossible to keep them all. Simply put, the archive system needed to maintain some semblance of order in those columns would be vast and beyond what I'm willing to do.

Lazy? Maybe, but I prefer to use the term efficient.

However, this site has been around seven years. Seven years of opinions, complaints, and descriptions of my experiences. Seven years of memory, written down to be remembered as long as I'm willing to continue to maintain archives.

There was a time when I was considering discontinuing this site. I've had it happen a few times, but yet something continues to draw me back, makes me want to write more. Something just pulls at me to not give up on this.

How long will I continue to go with this? I don't know. I don't anticipate stopping anytime soon, but sometimes things beyond your control conspire to end things before you're ready. Maybe one day I'll just stop. Maybe one day I'll decide I don't want my thoughts to be public.

As it stands, it's been a great run and I appreciate anyone who's ever let me know what they thought of this site and of me. I wish more of you did that because I love knowing what people think, so I'm even more appreciative of those who have.

Here's to another seven years.

---

Some final observations from the weekend that's passing by...I don't follow cycling, but I will give major props to Lance Armstrong for winning a sixth straight Tour de France. I don't care if you like the guy or not, he's incredible...Ricky Williams announced his retirement from the NFL today. The next person that figures that guy out will be the first. Just what is it with running backs anyway? Jim Brown, Robert Smith, and Barry Sanders all retired in their prime as well...The Indians as metioned earlier did get over .500 for the first time since they were 2-1 in 2003. They did it with their first ever four-game sweep of listless Kansas City. Just when you think this team is going to finally give in, they bounce back and show they might just be in it until the end...If I see one more highlight of the Red Sox-Yankee game from yesterday concerning the brawl, I'm going to hurt someone. Seriously, they fought, the Sox won, and it's over with. Damn...The Cavs acquiring Dwight Gooden is either going to be pure genius or a pure let-down. However, folks seem to forget that Carlos Boozer was challenged by Paul Silas at one point last season, sparking his season. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same happen with Gooden. Silas has a way of getting players to play harder...It's disturbing the number of accidents that seem to happen on the road to people who are completely innocent of any wrong-doing, yet die because of the other driver for some reason. The latest involved a young athlete driving by himself who was hit by another car where the two people in that car had been arguing. The athlete died, the two were fine...Signs might be needed in the backyards of Florida residents after a landscaper was attacked by an alligator, eventually dying from the attack while in surgery at the hospital. Reportedly, the alligator nearly took the woman's arm off in the attack, not that it mattered in the end.