Tired

I don't think it's fair. Last night I dreamt I was being chased. I escaped from a house and ran through a backyard then through a schoolyard and was suddenly driving a car down city streets before turning into a deserted section of a shopping mall pushing a cart with someone (one of my brothers?) in it. We strolled into the active part of the mall, apparently safe from whomever was pursuing me. After all this 'exercise' I woke up tired, about as tired as I was when I went to sleep. The tired has hung with me all day. I don't think it's fair.

I got a haircut yesterday so you could also look at my head and think it's not hair.

Sometimes I miss the Lucha

By 'lucha' I don't so much mean 'lucha libre', translated from the Spanish as 'free fight', as I mean, well, 'fight'. On and off for about a year or so, some of my friends and I played at being wrestlers. The goal was not to hurt each other ala the 'backyard' wrestlers of that era but just to goof around, have fun and have it look like professional wrestling.

This is where the character of 'El Hombre de Silla' was born, slowly and painfully in performance. His name changed a bit here and there but not as much as the accent I thought he needed at first. I have NO clue what I was going for there. He slowly grew into That Guy, the cheerful good natured fellow that tried to fight fair and shook hands with his opponent. He was a nice guy, a hero. In fact, in the last event we performed, that's really all El Hombre gets to do. He has no grand storyline, no mountains to climb; he fights a 'jobber' (generic) wrestler, wins, shakes hands and waves a lot. He's probably smiling but you can't see his mouth throught the mask.

At the time, I developed the theory that El Hombre had three 'personas'; not so much personalities but ways of acting in public. The 'in-ring' El Hombre was the character as already discussed. The 'movie' El Hombre (which, despite my desires, has yet to be developed) is a strange non-super super-hero in the mold of El Santo. The 'real' El Hombre is the character that has appeared in a text story or two. He has no life to speak of, he's paranoid, he fights crime (cheerfully, like his ring character) and does nothing but fight. He knows nothing else. He also never takes his mask off. Never? Well, hardly ever.

I miss the performing aspect of 'being' El Hombre. I miss developing that version of the character. To be honest, I mostly miss hitting guys with a chest chop. It can be very carthartic.

Milwaukee: The Biggest Small Town There Is

So Friday I'm at work chit-chatting with the intern that's training me in my temporary new job. We'd already decided we have similiar interests (he reacted very positively to the Doctor Who ringtone on my cell phone) and I was heading down the path of comfortable stories and complaints that I tell new people that I'm becoming friendly with. I was heading into mid-nineties Best Buy (when CDs were $10 and it encouraged experimenting) and had noted that this was also the period where I knew 'half' the store. He checked which Best Buy I was referring to: Northridge. He also had some friends that worked there at the time.

This made my Spidey-sense tingle. As a test, I continued the story, using my long neglected pal Chuck's name. "Chuck who?" he questioned raising his eyebrow. When I told him, he laughed as it's the same Chuck he hangs out with twice a week.

Neat how things come together like that.

Labor Dabor Day

I feel it's important to know when you're being an idiot. One of the advantages to this is that it won't be a surprise if someone points it out to you. It also gives you a chance to have a 'reason' ready when someone does point it out to you and, chances are, someone will.

For the past week I've been an idiot. Why? Because I'm pig-headed.

I'm generally very easy going but, in certain circumstances, I'm very stubborn. This is particularly true when it comes to my job and my health. If I'm feeling a tad under the weather, I still go to work. I'll push myself through projects, sometimes working harder because the opportunity to work smarter has yet to present itself. I tend to get wrapped up in projects and forget to eat. I tend to kick my own butt a lot.

Last Monday I went to sleep feeling just fine. Tuesday I woke up with my left eye feeling a little sore, slightly irritated. This is not so abnormal for right away in the morning and I figured it would work itself out. Over the course of Tuesday, my eye's irritation level rose and fell like a roller coaster. I had my eye drops with me and flushed my eye out in the morning, hoping that would help. I did, for a few minutes anyway. Then it got worse again. In the afternoon, I hit myself with the eyedrops again and that took care of whatever was irritating my eye. Of course, by then, it had been a few hours and my left eye was highly annoyed. Not the best conditions under which to be learning new tasks at work.

Here's where the pig-headedness surfaces. The smart thing to do would be to go home, take out my contacts and rest my eyes until Wednesday. By the time I got home, my eye was relaxing. Instead of removing my contacts, I left them in. This was a problem as I couldn't ready do anything with my eyes for very long. I kept shutting off the lights in my room because it preventing me from looking at things. Watching, Reading and Looking are three of my favourite things so this made most of Tuesday a rather miserable day and night.

Wednesday, I felt a little better. My face looked like someone had punched me in the eye. With a wrench. Still too pig-headed to take out my contacts.

Thursday things continued to improve and I started to feel a little less stupid.

Friday my left contact kept blurring on me. I started to wonder if it had been scratched, in which case, I should have taken it out ages ago. My plan became to remove them Sunday night and replace them Monday morning, taking advantage of Labor Day.

Saturday it felt better. I started to see clearly again although my eye was still a little annoyed.

Sunday I had problems seeing in the morning and I couldn't wait to remove those contacts. By the afternoon, I was fine and was seeing better than I had in days. By the evening I was starting to question the need to remove them. I wasn't in any pain anymore and my eyes weren't irritated. Of course, that could be the beer talking. I ended up leaving them in.

They're still in now. My ability to focus fades occasionally but not for very long. Really, I should change them. I expect to be getting my eyes checked soon and I expect to have to remove them for that check-up. I'd really rather kill two birds with one stone.

Cause I'm an idiot.

Normal service will be restored. Thank you for your patience.