seems I am babbling more in RealTime� than I am here of late, especially when I am home... not that all that much is happening in RealTime�, but then, a few major life changes are happening right here right now as the world is watching me... or at least you few dear people who stop by occasionally to check in...

and once again I uploaded a week's worth of entries in a day and someday, when posterity looks back on this diary, some may wonder why some entries received a many hundred page views and a handful of comments and why other entries had just a few page views, if any and no comments at all and the puzzle for posterity might be trying to understand why entries that are babbling nonsense or substantially less in content and thought-provoking value would get so many more views and comments than entries that might be much more profound and worth remembering... and hopefully posterity will find this paragraph written for posterity (if I use the word posterity enough, perhaps posterity will google for the word posterity, aye?) and understand better the nature of my uploading...

cuz we wouldn't want posterity to get the wrong idea about us, right?... I mean, I am well worth reading and you are caring to read everything when you have the time, so it's a good thing we cleared this up for posterity once and for all...

and so, over in RealTime� today I rambled on releasing stress about this, that, and other things... this being home, that being work, and other things being other things...

at home, there's the usual environmental mess that comes from living with people who are walking toxic waste dumps... but I love them like family, of course... just picture Pigpen from Charlie Brown and Peanuts cartoon fame and imagine all the dust cloud that surrounds him to be dirty dishes, pots, pans, clothes, empty Pepsi bottles, half-filled cups, mostly empty pizza boxes, and much spillage of everything and you've got the picture...

I am also making major changes in my lifestyle... exercise and eating better has been happening big time this week... a cleansing fast, a cold turkey elimination of all meats and almost all fat, and a dramatic increase in daily exercise all at once kicks off what hopefully will continue to be a new phase in the physical existence in this body that I loosely call my life... for this week, actually, the past five I have eaten only as many calories per day as I have burned at the gym according to the machines there and have dropped 11 pounds in 5 days... and the best news is I am resisting my roommates fast-food habits well (ok, so it's only been five days and it doesn't include Friday or Saturday or college football Sunday... I'll cheer much more if I can say this in a week or two as it takes a few weeks to really change habits, but it's great news for me)...

at work, the usual laziness and apathy comes to it's shining crescendo as separation anxiety reaches it's peak as I have one night left before those I leave behind must fend for themselves and since I did 95% of the patient care work and at least 80% of the paperwork and I've been coaxing them to do more while I am there so they can ask me how while I am there and not pretend I never trained them or they don't know how to do their job after years of being paid for it, they are suddenly hitting the wall and panicking about being on their own and having to interact with the kids and do work...

one, who has transferred to every unit over the course of his nine years at the place, seeking the position where he has to do the least work and have the fewest interactions with the kids, is actually talking of quitting if they don't let him go to a 32 hour week with Thursday nights off... Thursday nights are the busiest and most important night of the week for the place because the weekly data is tallied and each kid's privileges for the whole next week are determined... of course it has nothing to do with that fact...

and he's one of the highest paid direct care workers in the hospital...

it's almost funny when I don't personalize it and step back to view it as if it were a sit-com... the blind leading the blind, the lazy running the show through passive aggression and playing ignorant, and the patients taking care of themselves as well as they can until their life of being warehoused ends at 18 years old... childhood, American style... oh sure, plenty of kids grow up fat and spoiled, never wanting for a thing... and there are even some who grow up balanced getting just the right amount of honest love and independence and stuff and discipline... but I don't work with those kids...

and I am preparing to return to working a day shift, living a day shift life (please don't let me call it normal)... one more night and then after the weekend it is Monday-Friday sort of 9-5 (flex hours, a privilege I will use liberally)... I will miss daylight... I will miss writing in the wee hours (unless I wake really early, but then, the gym isn't 24 hours so I'd be sleeping after work the only time I could get to the gym... one solution is buy a machine or two for the apartment, but space... another is running the streets, but I want more than running in my workouts... so logistics will be worked out, but the change is eminent)...

Rasputin just walked in... he walked into the kitchen, saw the mess he left from last night and the fact that Precious didn't clean up or put the food away like he asked (so it's all trash), put his Pepsi's in the fridge (he buys at least a few 32 ounce bottles a day, at convenience store prices, and they're gone by the next day) and heads to his room to check his email and fantasy teams and do whatever else he does (which I don't think is too much else, though maybe he has some secrets I'll coax out of him by writing this... if he read this... he never mentions my online babbling, but I've shared the addresses many times with both of them and sit here tapping away at the keys daily while they're watching TV, so they know they're welcome... they are family, so I might not like the mess or the farts in the living room, but I love them and extend myself every which way {including loose} as family does, so they know it) on his computer...

Precious is out (probably with a Pepsi in her hand, not thinking about the wasted food, the mess, or the fact that she almost didn't have a Homecoming dress because she keeps gaining weight and leaves everything for the last moment... I taunt them because I love them)... she spends a lot of time out at after school activities... football games, band performances, Drama club, Spanish club, ACLU club, and more... she's also one of the techies at the drama performances so she's there a lot building sets and adjusting lights and preparing for shows... she's even made some money doing it for organizations that use the school for their events...

and here I am spilling RealTime� into this rambling (but this is life in black and white behind the candoor where anything goes so keep that rulebook sorting crap over in the other writing places thank you very much)...

yeah, well I told me off, didn't I?...

I should probably shower and eat something since I just got back from the gym a little while ago... veggie patties and asparagus sound good... I hope you find time to read the entries that flooded your airwaves today because out of every batch of mass-uploads, there just might be a profound thought or two worth reading and sharing... and I don't want to waste your time here, so feel free to pull out any words of wisdom you come across and create a diary or website dedicated to the best of me... I mean, if you have time and all...

it is good to be back to my ridiculously egocentric irreverently carefree self after all the venting I did this week (and even up to a few hours ago)... I am so psyched to head into work tonight and say my farewells to the dysfunctional night shift with genuine wishes that they come together and realize doing the job is not nearly as hard as avoiding doing the work makes it... and that they either find lives they enjoy or learn to enjoy the lives they choose to live... and I hope if you haven't gotten there yet, that you pause as you rush through your day and realize that you decide how you feel, what you do, how you react to your world, and you can change most things in your life if you want to...

don't be afraid to ask yourself what you want, set some goals you can attain, and head for the better life you can have simply by doing it... and I hope to see you there...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)