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The 750 Words One Month Challenge

I’ve been making a push to use 750words.com the last few weeks to get myself in the habit of writing. Will it make me more prolific on the blog? Possibly. Am I going to start cutting and pasting from that website onto here? Hell, no!

Well, unless you want to read two or three paragraphs every day of “Lessee, what to write… I can’t think of anything at the moment, but since I have to write 750 words, I have to think of something…” Sometimes I can come up with something worthwhile, sometimes it’s a lot of rambling bullshit. Either way, I’ve been getting better about writing every day.

I’ve got a nine-day streak going at the moment—before now, I maxed out at three. Pretty impressive display of willpower back then, right? But to show my commitment this time, I’ve signed up for May’s One Month Challenge. I’ve pledged that I’ll write 750 words every day for the entire month. If I succeed, my name goes up on the Wall of Awesomeness. If I miss a day or more, it gets posted on the Wall of Shame. Which sounds better to you, awesomeness or shame? Time to summon a little extra willpower!

Incidentally, the website gives participants the option to pledge themselves some self-created rewards or consequences depending on the result of the challenge. Sure, some people will go on a shopping trip if they succeed and cry if they fail, but some are more creative. Consider:

If I succeed, I will… treat myself to double cheese burger
If I miss a day or more, I will… go into a one-month abstinence of double cheese burger

Now that is a commitment. I couldn’t think of anything to put in my personal contract, but suffice it to say that I’ll revel in my awesomeness or wallow in my shame depending on the results. Wish me luck!

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They can’t all be the greatest!

You can see it almost everywhere on the internet. Well, maybe not porn sites, so almost 30% of the internet. People claiming that their kids are perfect, they have the greatest spouse in the world, no one could ever have better parents, etc. So basically, it’s either a tie between tens of thousands of kids/spouses/parents or a bunch of people out there are completely delusional. Either way, whenever I read stuff like that, it makes me want to pull a Highlander:

Yell out “THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!” and then start cutting people’s heads off.

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Temper, temper…

I went to dinner with Mom tonight and she ordered salmon. It sounded good and it looked good until she got to the thicker part and discovered it was undercooked. No big deal, she put it to the side, told the waiter when he came back to the table, he brought her another (fully-cooked) piece of salmon and gave me a slice of pie for free. (He offered one to Mom, but she didn’t want the extra calories.)

It made me think about all the times when people absolutely explode over something that isn’t that important. Your food sucks? Don’t throw a temper tantrum, just talk to waiters and they’ll try to make it better. Unless the waiter sucks, in which case you tell the manager, don’t leave a tip and then set the restaurant on fire when you leave.

A few weeks ago, I was walking into a grocery store and some guy was standing outside literally screaming into his phone. I guess he was a customer at US Bank… or at least he used to be up until that conversation. How much money do you want to bet that the other person on the phone was the one who set up the shitty policy that this guy was screaming about?

Last week, I pulled all of my money out of Wells Fargo because I had a free checking account there that was no longer going to be free starting in May. I’d made plenty of banking adjustments in the past so I wouldn’t have to pay fees: I accepted a debit card, I accepted a credit card, I started a savings account that automatically transferred $25 from checking to savings every month. Alas, they were changing their policy yet again, so my no-longer-free checking account would have cost me ten bucks a month.

I found another bank where I don’t have to pay any extra fees, so I went to Wells Fargo to close my accounts there. When I sat down at the desk to talk to someone, I asked him how many people were coming into the bank, yelling and screaming about the policy change.

“More than enough.”

Which means, of course, he was happy to charge people these new fees and didn’t care how they felt about it. He loved everyone yelling at him and didn’t mind because it was all his fault. Or maybe not.

Maybe I’m sympathetic because I worked in a call center for a while and had to deal with people screaming at me, too. I’m not the one who made the change, I can’t change it back, what am I supposed to do besides listen to you yell? When training people, the company would start by having them listen to a few calls. One morning, I had someone listening on my line. The first three calls, I had to turn and ensure him that not everyone will be yelling at him the whole time.

Some of you might be saying, “They’re stupid policies! The bank is taking people’s hard-earned money for no reason! I have the right to be pissed off!” I understand that. I’m not blaming you for being pissed off. I’m just trying to point out two things:

1) The people getting yelled at probably aren’t responsible for the reason you’re yelling, so lower your voice. It’s not going to make things better more quickly; if anything, you’re making the situation worse.

2) Some things are not worth getting upset about. It was a piece of salmon. Remember that your waiter has to face your wrath because someone else fucked up, so ask politely to get it replaced and enjoy your free slice of pie with a sense of peace and fulfillment. That’s how your stomach will feel in a couple minutes, so why not follow suit?

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Ten seizure-free years and counting…

This might not be the actual date, but it’s the one I’ve chosen to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my last “involuntary loss of consciousness.” I haven’t had a blackout in a decade. My anti-seizure meds seem to be working…

It’s strange that I can remember the exact dates of my two generalized tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures: 9/30/91 and 1/2/02. Beyond those, I’m lucky if I can pin them down to a specific month. Except for this one, of course. April 16th was a special date, primarily because Minnesota suspends your driver’s license for six months after an involuntary loss of consciousness. If my last seizure had happened after April 19th, that six months could have carried over past my 26th birthday and I would have had to retake my driver’s test. At age 26.

So when the necessary time had passed and it was a few days before my birthday, we were scurrying around to fill out paperwork so I could get my license back without sitting in a room full of teenagers for an entire day, facing a constant battle of wanting to bash my head against a table, hopefully leading to a voluntary loss of consciousness.

I don’t think I’ve written about my seizure in ’02 before, so I’ll try to give you all an abridged version of the story. Keep in mind that some of this is a little fuzzy, especially the order in which stuff happened, but 1 1/2 weeks in the hospital tends to blend things together a bit. Continue reading “Ten seizure-free years and counting…”

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Raking: A time for reflection

In part because of the weather we had in the Twin Cities area this winter (and in part because it didn’t get done enough times in the fall), my dad and I have been out raking the lawn the last couple evenings. It’s slow work and allows the mind plenty of time to wander. However, the fact that it is work may be why this thought crossed my mind:

Which is currently the greater time-waster in America, Farmville or Angry Birds?

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Get a room to bowl, you two!

I went bowling with a group of friends this weekend and they had a deal: $11.99 for three games and shoe rental. Actually, getting to the bowling alley is a story in itself. I’d driven there twice before (once from home and once from another bowling alley that was packed) and I was starting from my friend’s house this time, so I’ve driven there from three different starting locations. Consequently, I had no idea where I was going.

That wouldn’t have been a big deal if my friend realized I was following him to get there, but he didn’t and thus didn’t think twice about ditching me at a stoplight. I pulled onto the highway all alone and thus completely missed an exit onto an interstate, which would have taken me there a lot sooner. By missing that exit, I ended up on a highway where there was nowhere to turn around for close to five miles. Seriously. Nowhere to turn around. And if I hadn’t had the bowling alley’s address in my phone’s GPS, I would’ve had to go home.

So there I was, driving and driving and driving, noting that every time my phone told me to take a U-turn, it was one of those police car turnarounds that probably shouldn’t exist on a GPS system. I was torn between being ticked off and pissy when I got to the bowling alley and knowing that my detour wasn’t a big deal and I’d get there eventually anyway. I ended up choosing the latter, although it didn’t help that when I was finally about three minutes away, I got a text from my friend asking, “Are you coming?”

The reason that the big ol’ detour is worth mentioning is that because everyone else paid as soon as they got to the bowling alley. I didn’t. I just got my shoes and started bowling with everyone else. I thought I was supposed to pay when I left, but since the guy at the counter didn’t say anything, I figured someone was generous enough to pay for the group. I sent a message to my friend after I got home asking about that last option, but nope! I ended up bowling three games for free! So my unfortunate detour ended up being very anti-expensive.

So to jump way back to the beginning, the deal was three games plus shoes. I’m assuming that the bowling alley also has a “bowl by the hour” option because of what happened in the lane next to ours. (Well, technically, we had two lanes, so I was only forced to watch the event, not have it happen directly behind me.)

I’m surprised my spider-sense didn’t start buzzing as soon as I saw them slow-dancing to music in the background and looking directly into each other’s eyes. You’d think that would be difficult since he was about eight inches taller than her. Well, it’s a lot less difficult when he’s got her ass cupped in his hands and she’s got her legs wrapped around his waist.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a constant make-out session. During the hour or so that they spent in the lane next to ours, they finished an entire 4 1/2 frames. I just… ew. That’s all I have to say. Ew.

Actually, no, I would like to say something else. We played a round of gold for our third game—put up the bumpers and try to get as low a score as possible. Last time, I got my ass kicked when I cleared 150. This time, I won with the low score of 66. And if the couple in the lane next to ours had been there, I still would have won because they were scoring more than me, too.