Eighteenth Hour

How long have you been on your own?

I've never lived on my own. I've always either had a roommate or, more often, lived with a lover. My siblings, on the other hand, have dwelled by themselves at some point in their lives.

I sometimes wonder if I missed something from the lack of solo experience, of being responsible to myself and no one else. What would it have been like, for example, to come home to a place that's all mine? Or to bring a date/fling and say, "here's my place"? Is it as lonely as everyone says it is? Note that folks who use such replies often are either looking for a relationship or are bitter in their solitude.

I wonder if I would found contentment in a solo situation? I often claim I'm a loner, but I wonder sometimes if it's true. Yes, I can easily get lost into a book or show. But I also enjoy the company of friends, and I know I get stir crazy when it's a Friday night and there's no one to talk with.

Hmmm. Time for nap.
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Seventeenth Hour

Lust.

That's how I feel every summer. I've noted the feeling for some time now; making a mental note where my eyes look, what my thoughts are, and where my hands go (over The Spouse, of course).

Is it the sun? Nah. See that pretty much every day here in SoCal. Food? Or the number of good-lookin' folks suddenly shedding as much clothing as decently possible to enjoy the former while avoiding the latter? I think it's both factors plus hormones and lots of it.

So, where am I going with this post? I enjoy the feeling. There would have been a time I would have mentally suppressed them, thinking that I had issues with my relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. Now, it's an entirely different matter if I acted on said emotions. The feeling though...is just a feeling. Like the wind, the surf, and indigestion, the feeling, too, shall past.
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Thirteen Hundred

Don't you hate it when technology fails you and you don't know why?

That just happened to me. Here I am, doing my work, copying and pasting some text from a Microsoft Word document to Notepad. Why? Let's just say Microsoft likes to hide code which doesn't like non-Microsoft products (and even some other MS products).

Anyway, I select Ctrl and V keys to paste the selected text. What do I see? Well, I see text but it's the wrong one. What the frak? I think. Instead, I see the text from the prior copy/paste job.

A bit of explanation. MS Word apparently has a feature that records a certain number of copy/paste jobs in the Paste functionality. Normally it defaults to the most recent copy when pasting text. However, one can open this job list to paste in earlier material. I never use the feature, since I copy/paste what I want to paste the first time.

Anyway, I try again, copying the right text, then paste again. Still old stuff. Argh! This time I cut the material from the Word document, confident I could restore it using the Undo feature. Nope. Argh! (I'm beginning to sound like a pirate, eh?) I undo the Cut, then give up. I've dealt with this admittedly rare issue in the past and know of only one way to stop it. Yup. That's right. Reboot.

Grrr....
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Twelve Hours

One of my "faults" is that I, once I figure I like something, I can be quite obsessive about the new interest. The Spouse has seen it over and over: books, comic books, religion, cars, and role-playing games.

Now I'm interested in personal blogging as opposed to my blogger job. Today I'm going to generate one post per hour from noon until midnight. And these won't be half-arsed posts like a couple of sentences each. No, each will be at least four meaningful sentences.

So what will I be covering? Originally, I was going to cover what I did during my job. I decided finally that blogging about blogging was, well, kinda boring. Instead, I'll figure a topic at the spur of the moment. The Spouse always said I'm chockfull of ideas. Let's put that to the test, shall we?

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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Outside Looking In

Last night I joined friends C., G, and R. (not The Spouse) at a local restaurant.

A little background here. C. and G. have been meeting almost regularly once a week at said restaurant. Both used to do volunteer duty at this center. We'd meet at the center, then move over to the restaurant where we'd chat over the latest dramas, movies, and books. At one point, we actually formed an impromptu reading group, selecting a book a month to read and discuss the next month. That has fallen by the wayside as new interests have taken their place.

R.'s is G.'s old roommate and currently lives in his old digs after G. moved out. All three maintain contact with each other, especially C. and G., who used to regularly attend the Happiest Place on Earth for Years.

That bond really hit me last night at the restaurant. There they chatted about people and events I had never heard of or attended. Later, G. teased R. about his alleycat ways with a casualness that was almost shocking (especially from G., whom I remember was the most uptight of the three. People change.) I was never excluded from the conversation, but I definitely felt like a fourth wheel.

It's my own fault, really. C. and G. have been more than generous in inviting me and The Spouse to many of their events and outings. We share plenty of the same interests to do so. But life, in the form of vacations, fatigue, other events, or just play bad timing, have made such rendezvous few and far between. Finally, The Spouse and I are quite insular with our free time to the point even our families barely see us.

Is it time to change the dynamics of my relationship with C., G., and R.?
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)