I had been doing a good job knocking out story after story, something around two a day when the month kicked off. Thanks on again/off again cold. Aunt Letty’s passing couldn’t be helped. I’m glad she got what she wanted to say to Uncle Cliff out before she expired.
Now I’m back to being behind the eight ball again for I blew the opportunity to catch up on all the piling up stories, reviews and whatever. A mix of wellness, work being crazy, other obligations and general annoyances (see work for this lately for I’ve always had a great hatred of change for the sake of change managers). I’ll be knocking out a slug again since I’m now in the middle of a five-day weekend, woo hoo…no, I forgot to my maintenance on the server, that’s for Saturday or Friday. Still, kick back for something new on the Internet to get you through what I consider the long stretch off from school and work I grew to hate as soon as 1980.
Somara volunteered to work, other friends made plans (good for them) and I decided to take in a movie I know Somara had little interest in (review later). It did get me to remembering on my 20th anniversary of living in Austin over the first Thanksgiving I kind of celebrated. Like all things near the end of 1994, it was a milestone in suck. Work was a tense situation (another reason why I dislike “do-as-I-say, not as-I-do leadership, especially from friends), the shine on Austin had dulled months earlier, money concerns grew and all the unrealistic plans I imagined in Illinois were falling apart. I think I had recently interviewed with Apple for their intern program too. It being a disaster was an understatement. What I hated most around this time of year was kicking in, most of the West goes into lockdown on decision making which is hardest when you’re job hunting and/or unemployed. I wasn’t the latter but I had to get out from being completely dependent upon my dorm job. The GM was the embodiment of what’s wrong with America; if you looked up white-male privilege in any dictionary, there’s a picture of this asshole next to the definition. Doc didn’t make it better, especially when he’d go into a yelling-cursing tear at me, the GM, whoever. Anyway, the lockdown jazz sucked since I was trying to get the ball rolling on transferring back up to Chicago. I had concluded Austin was merely an expensive amusement park for rich kids attending UT. Today, it’s a an expensive amusement park for rich d-bags of all ages! What I had to do was dial down my expectations, tackle some smaller goals, then work up to the larger ones.
The dorm was closed which meant no income for a day. Thankfully, Comedy Central did its MST3K marathon to pass the time…except Time Warmer used to split the channel during the daytime hours and CC flipped on at six or seven PM. No exception there. I recall wasting the energy bitching to them via the phone about it.
The evening before, my French tutor/friend Patricia came by and we saw Star Trek:Generations. It was the first movie I fell asleep during while being sober, not attending a midnight screening or on cold medication. The NextGen crew followed tradition by making a terrible debut movie covered in the stench of glorified TV episode. Patricia returned by Thanksgiving afternoon after her slavers were done in the morning. How I wish I turned in those scumbag lawyers to the Immigration Department yet Patricia seemed to like these taskmasters. The woman was never civil to me on the phone. I can imitate her scream off the phone to summon my friend. Back to our fun. Patricia really enjoyed America and her time was winding down. The two of us were trying to make the best of it, load up her brain with more good memories. She wanted to have a little Thanksgiving dinner using my kitchen. No dice. HEB was closed after 2 PM. We drove around a tad and stumbled upon a place near downtown which is surprisingly intact given all the other hangouts the technoratis have destroyed, the Tavern. What this restaurant/bar had on the menu was close enough to a Thanksgiving dinner, primarily mashed potatoes. Bored, we returned to the movies to see Interview with a Vampire.
I wasn’t deprived of a drama-free day though. My brain short-circuited while I totally spaced on my PIN number at the ATM resulting in the card being confiscated. Good thing the bank was open on Black Friday and I think I had another without-pay day off.
This reminiscing sounds rather bitter, dreary. On the surface, yeah. Today I look back and use the time as a measuring rod to compare how far/better my life has improved. Not in a material sense, screw those people who claim they’re “winning!” I hunt for the positive changes in my well being, my personal happiness and how I’m not in some scary panic hoping February hurries up.
I wish I kept touch with Patricia. I owe her a proper American Thanksgiving experience!
- The boring parade on NBC in the morning
- The calorie-laden, ‘itis-inducing meal representing American excess
- The uninteresting Cowboys and Lions’ games because they’re both out of the playoff running by this week. This year the Chicago Bears did the honors against the Lions
- The inevitable borden that sets in by 5 PM
Now Patricia can request one of several possible endings
- The ditch the family, run off to the movies option; Blockbusters are gone (high school era)
- Finish laundry and start packing so we can travel back home Friday (college era)
- Veg out, maybe get the conscious interested in a cool board game while dreading tomorrow because it’s a work day (most of post-college era)
- Bundle up, bring supplies and camp out like a moron for the Black Friday trash which really isn’t a bargain (other people do this, my family stays home)