Twitchday #884

The front door at work is on a time lock, access granted via swipe card. It is, in this fashion, like 300 million other doors in the greater DC metro area.

Unlike those 300 million other doors, I have a swipe card for this one. And, because I have a recurrent, oh, every four months or so bout of "Card In Other Pants Pockets"-itis, this morning found me chafing in the breeze (the wind-chill-in-the-twenties breeze) before I came to my senses and lit out for a breakfast date with one of the 72659482743 Starbucks that has dropped like poop in a dog park in the last two years. Crass commercialism and mass production? Absolutely. Also a reasonably quiet place to write for 45 minutes while sipping a Gingerbread latte until the automatic door lock unlocks for the morning. I already know I will absently, on call of nature, slip out the back door to the men's room (who puts the toilets outside the compound?), lock myself out (no time lock on the back doors - it's a one-way voyage without the magical card), and need to chafe some more in the breeze (the so-cold-your-nipples-could-pop-off breeze) while I scamper like a manic squirrel around to the front door - past all of the executive offices.

On the plus side, it can't help but get me labeled "eccentric"...

Upon exiting the House of Fishwoman with my latte this morning, I met a brunette at the door (me leaving, she arriving) in her thirties, and as she smiled and opened the door for me I'd swear she said something under her breath about how I was handsome. Oh, sure, my back brain allowed that to stand for about three seconds of smile and "thank you" (for the door hold; inverse chivalry isn't lost on me) before it pissed on that little sense of pleasantry by informing me she probably said something about opening the door for me because my hands were full, which they were... but given it's that bastard child of the week, Herr Twitchday, I'll take the smile and the probable mishearing anyway. I am handsome. Suck it, brain.

Writing-related: the "Machine of Death" anthology is still coming along. Word today that covers are being contemplated. Covers are nice. Line edits would be better. I have a need to tweak the very end of my story to reduce the instances of reader eye-rolling. Meanwhile, in between pieces of story writing and research for school, I'm pulling together the threads of short stories to key in, work, or finish on Christmas break. Sure, I'll probably get to one of them out of a half dozen. Three are waiting for submission. I'll need to skim some markets when I have two free minutes and see if they can find homes. A third sale would get me one story closer to that first collection...

** random iPod track of the moment **

"Because Of Her Beauty" - Karl Denson's Tiny Universe

from The Bridge

39 and a Half Won't Do

And I make no apologies to the brothers Fogerty for riffing on their song title, either...

A quick sideways glance at the calendar on the cubicle wall, a lighthouse pictorial that currently features the Owl's Head Light in Maine and which will be obsolete in 32 days (to be replaced by an analog 2008 chronograph as yet unchosen, and being a cheap bastard who's content to get 346/366ths out of his date-keeper for 90% off - that sounds like an SAT math problem - probably won't be chosen until after confetti rains down on all of us at the turn of the year) tells me that in four days, I will have half a year left in my thirties.

My thirties were ten thousand years away when I was in my teens. They'll be in the rear-view mirror in six months.

Not inconsequentially, a very dear person in my life posed the puzzler yesterday: "I've been meaning to ask you how you are in general. I mean, I ask about work, I ask about school, I ask about fun. But I really want to know how *you* are."

I was a little alarmed at not having a snappy answer. Both Bernie and Barney (not related) will tell you I tend to have the witty patter that moves with the speed of the tip of a whip, but this singular inquiry actually tipped me back on my heels a bit. Partly because I was tired when I read it (when am I not tired?) and partly because of the realization that like the boiler in The Shining, life has crept on me while I was otherwise occupied.

How am I?

To be honest (to riff Dirty Harry), in all the confusion, I kinda lost track myself.

I'm wrapping the first semester of grad school, a foray into higher higher education seventeen years in the making. Last night, I noticed as I sat in a mostly unbusy Panera Bread in Ashburn with cousin Mel that if all goes according to the plan of the Mystic Purple Lemur, I'll finish grad school in Spring, 2010 (accounting for summers taken off, because frankly I need the mental down time if this semester is any indication). 2010 marks my 20th college graduation anniversary. It was just a weird bit of synchronicity. But as the semester draws to a close, I have that internal head check going - are you sure this is what you wanted? Did you rub the lamp the wrong way when you made this wish? And while I can safely and honestly say to myself "NUH HUH! This is EXACTLY what I wanted!", the fact that I could close my eyes and go to sleep right at my desk, and sleep until noon, the keyboard tattooing a reverse QWERTY on my forehead, tells me that it's a right choice supported by some P4* scenarios.

I'm 39 and a half and young at heart, but that doesn't refill the coffers when your eyes close for about five hours a night for 18 of 39 years. The 5 am alarm for work directly conflicts with the no-matter-how-I-try-I-can't-seem-to-roll-back Midnight lights out.

How am I? Exhausted. Unfortunately, that state tints everything else with a moody blue patina, so any other comments on the Oesterized swirl of work distress, personal duress, holiday planning, dietary gyration, and miscellaneous notes of SNAFU and FUBAR that is the smoothie of my days would be snapshots of works in progress lighted in a muddy fashion with an epileptic hand. Suffice for now: know those posters of cats hanging from branches waiting for Friday? I feel like that poor unfortunate branch, and would you kindly get your hooks out of me?

It isn't at all bad, mind you. It's been a good semester and shows promise for the coming academic foray; I'm headed home for the holidays (something else I need - been away from the Catskills for too long, and my 'home' batteries need a charge) and to the Italian Embassy for New Year's Eve; I've got sweet seats for the Georgetown/Notre Dame game at Verizon in January (half-court Lexus luxury box, baaaaaybeeeee); I've got two short stories circulating, with a small cache waiting for me to catch up to them. My assignments are on course and schedule. My rent didn't go up at renewal for the coming year; and for being so tired and overstretched, I've managed (knock on wood) to avoid any serious sinus or cold elements, despite my usual susceptibility and the presence of such germs around me. I consider it a benefit of being combat-hardened.

Meanwhile, I'm 39 and a Half. Which means I have six months to either a) prove the mathematical equation that life begins at forty, or b) go all-in on a mid-life meltdown. I figure a) may come with career change and personal accomplishment, a few Nats games at the new stadium, Springsteen in the summer, and finishing another short film - all going a long way to show I'm only speeding up and attacking the notion of age.

I figure b) comes with a stacked blond co-ed who thinks Scruples is a Ben & Jerry flavor and a sports car that represents what Georgetown tuition COULD have bought me instead of journalistic prowess and standing.

Hmm... when I write it out, it's not exactly Sophie's choice...

**random iPod track of the moment**

"Look At Little Sister", Stevie Ray Vaughan,

live in Denmark, 8-1-88

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*P4 - Piss Poor Prior Planning