Tag Archive for: life

I am not my father

No, this isn’t a post about how I’m turning into my dad, though my dad and I are a lot alike when it comes to many things, especially politics and baseball. The title of this post needs to be taken literally. For those who don’t know, I am named after my dad. Growing up in the same house, phone calls could get confusing. Are they calling for me or my dad? Then I started getting mail. It was easier to figure out that college pamphlets were for me and AARP material was for my dad. There is one avenue in my life where I’m still confused with my dad: email.

My dad and I have very similar email addresses because we have the same name. My family on his side continuously sends me emails (emails that are sent to the entire family) thinking I’m him. Then I get all the replies when they reply to all. It’s been explained that my email address is not my dad’s, but once your email address is in their address books there’s no turning back. You’re on the chain for good and because of family happenings regarding my grandparents over the past few weeks I’ve been seeing an influx of emails. Sometimes I’ll get 20 a day not meant for me.

I’ve decided I’ve had enough and set up a gmail filter. Any message that comes from the addresses of my aunts and uncles go directly to a new label and are marked as read. It’s not that risky because they think I’m my dad anyway so they wouldn’t be using that address to contact me. They also know that my dad never checks his email so they including my mom’s address on all emails. Then once a day I will delete all the mails from the label. I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to enter in multiple email addresses in the from field in a gmail filter but I think I found a solution. If you place a | between the email addresses, gmail will see them as separate addresses and apply the rule accordingly. Let’s hope it works. I’m waiting for the next email to arrive.

On Missed Opportunities

I hate missed opportunities. I let this sit and fester until I obsess over them, going over every possible scenario in my head until I can’t think anymore. There was a situation today where I wish I would have totally done the opposite of what I did. I didn’t do anything bad, in fact, I didn’t do anything at all, and that is the problem. I wish I would have done something. I won’t say what, because it’s really not that important. It’s the principal of the thing that is important.

I really need to start the Costanza Experiment again and start doing the opposite of what I normally do. If I would have stuck with this, I would not be stressing over the missed opportunity today. The real kick in the shin is that I have, in one way or another, been waiting for this opportunity all week. Finally it presented itself in the most perfect way possible and I didn’t do anything. Will the opportunity be lost forever or will it present itself again? Maybe I shouldn’t wait for another opportunity to present itself and instead abide by the old cliche and “make my own opportunity.” That would be the opposite of what I usually do. Enough stressing.

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Bat for Lashes Saved My Life

The band Bat for Lashes saved my life this morning. No, really. Let me explain. It all started last night while reading Questlove’s tweets. Questlove is the drummer for The Roots. If you don’t know The Roots, they are a fantastic band and also the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Bat for Lashes was a guest last night on Late Night, which is why Questlove was tweeting about them. He said how good they were, so I purchased their album last night.

Fast forward to this morning. I wanted to listen to my newly purchased album on the way to work. Normally I listen to hip hop or 90’s alt-rock on my way to work in the morning, and usually at a fairly high volume. Since I decided to go with Bat for Lashes, a relatively chill band, the volume was not up too high. This is what saved my life. I was driving down highway 94, like I do every morning, and I come to the intersection at Harvester and 94. Shortly before I reach the intersection I notice the car in the left lane was not moving. Normally I would have thought the driver was having car troubles and kept on through the intersection. Normally I would have been listening to the music loud enough that I would not have heard the St. Charles County Sheriff’s sirens going off as he comes speeding through the intersection. But I was listening to Bat for Lashes. So I did hear the sirens, I did stop in time, and I did avoid running directly into a Sheriff’s car at 55 mph. My life was saved because of what was playing in my car this morning.

While I didn’t collide head-on with another car, I did almost get hit from behind. The person behind me was not as observant as I was and almost plowed right into the back of me at 55 mph. Luckily he was able to slow and swerve and avoid hitting me. It was scary seeing him miss me by inches and wind up along side of me. Two catastrophes were avoided this morning and Bat for Lashes saved my life. Nothing like a near-death experience to wake you up in the morning.

Becoming Healthy

Lately I’ve been trying to do things in my life to make me more healthy. I’ve been drinking less soda and have switched to water and juices. I’ve been eating better, making sure to include plenty of fruit and salads when normally I would have eaten more junk food. I’ve also started to make sure I work out every night, which I wasn’t doing before. I’ve also started taking vitamins, because of my lack of vegetables at dinner time.

It is a lot easier to eat healthier at breakfast and lunch. I can buy healthy things to eat at those meals. My problem is with dinner. Some nights I teach at sylvan and don’t get home until 8:30, which makes cooking a meal that late and close to when I go to bed is undesirable. On nights when I can cook, I don’t. I’m not a cook. At all. While I have tried various recipes, it just isn’t something I like to do. I wish I’d like it. I have a friend who is a chef and I wish I had his passion for cooking. My sister is also an excellent cook, but I don’t think she’d come over every night to cook for me.

I need to find simple, yet healthy, recipes for dinners. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on where to find some?

Sweating the Small Stuff

I’m guilty of sweating the small stuff.  I don’t know why or when this started, but I notice that in certain situations I find myself stressing and over-thinking to the point of exhaustion. I’ll give you some examples of my weirdness.

Whenever I have to go somewhere I’ve never been I stress about it non-stop. What time do I need to leave? How do I get there? Do I take this exit or the next? I could have the whole route memorized and still stress about it. I don’t know why. I’ve never gotten lost and I generally have a great sense of direction. In fact, I used to deliver pizzas and found myself to have a great sense of direction and never stressed about going on a delivery to a place I didn’t know. I don’t know what makes me stress out now, but I do.

Whenever I’m going to a place where there is a set of procedures that I’ve never preformed before, I stress, going over every possible scenario in my head over and over. This could be anything from a trip to the doctor’s office to a trip to the DMV. If I’ve never been there, I stress. Do I have everything I’m supposed to have? What do I do next? Are other people judging my actions because I don’t know what I’m doing?

At the end of all the stressing, when whatever action I wanted to complete has been completed, I always relax. I think to myself, that wasn’t bad, why was I stressing? I know I’m weird and I have really no reason to stress, but I do. I sweat the small stuff, but I’m trying to change that.