But it FEELS like Monday, dammit.

Sometimes the carefully calculated and practiced schedule of my bubbleboy routine gets disrupted. Things don't seem quite as they should. I can go through the motions of morning preparation, accomplishing everything on my mental checklist, but finishing each task leaves somewhat of an empty feeling. There's a disturbance in The Force, Obi Wan. Something has tipped my world on its side. Many environmental factors can cause this to happen...

This time it was Memorial Day.

Sure, it feels like Monday. In my twisted mind, the day that follows Sunday is Monday, even when it's actually Tuesday because yesterday was Monday. And it really shouldn't matter a lick anyway since my Tuesday routine is identical to my Monday routine. I should just be able to snap out of bed, write-off yesterday as if it happened like any other typical Monday, and welcome Tuesday with open arms.

But it's not that easy.

I'm going to arrive at work in a short while, flip on my computer and launch my email program. That's when unread messages dated Monday, May 28th will start flying in. Then I'll have that moment, however brief, where I question my decision to not answer those emails before I left the office yesterday. How could I have missed an email that came in at 2:20 p.m.? It's right THERE, you blind fool! And it even has a highest priority flag icon. It could have been an emergency that only I am equipped to handle and I missed it! For a brief moment, I'll be angry with myself for failing my duties. Then I'll remember that it is Tuesday and that I did not work yesterday.

And then I'll get agitated. Who the hell is sending me a "high priority" email on Memorial Day?! Every one of my fellow employees has this day off. Either someone didn't get that holiday reminder memo, or they are doing work and sending emails to co-workers from home. Why?! This isn't exactly the time of year when things absolutely have to be done in one day or else. There are no urgent publishing or project deadlines. Sure, things still need to get done, but this is summer. People take vacations in the summer. And the workload reflects that fact. Everyone busts their collective butts throughout the year so when summer rolls around they can take it down a notch and, dare I say, relax even.

People should not be sending emails marked "high priority" during the summer since there are no short deadlines for anyone to worry about. The only reason someone might find themselves in a "high priority" situation is if they, somehow, dropped the ball and forgot to handle a long-term project in a timely manner. And now, suddenly, THEIR time mismanagement and impending deadline become MY problem because I just received their "high priority" email! I don't even want to open the message now because I'm so pissed! How dare they have the nerve to thrust their disorganization and stress on me! I get my projects done on time, or at least I make every effort to bring all the peices of a project together long before its actual deadline. That's probably what this priority email is all about. They need stuff from me, stuff that I photographed, or created before they can finish whatever it is they've been asked to do. Or I'll bet they need me to create something from scratch. Ugh! I can't stand last-minute requests for original artwork! Don't these people realize that I'm not creative 24/7?! Sometimes it takes time for an idea to materialize into a coherent design. You just can't rush that stuff, folks. I'm not built that way! I don't even want to open this email message!

And where do these people get off with even using that stupid priority flag catorizing feature when sending an email, anyway?!! Who are they to decide what messages I should be treating as priority? I'm fully capable of determining what is important for ME and what is not, thankyouverymuch. I don't need your little red fucking flag to tell me to read your message before any others! I shouldn't even open this thing just out of principle! Not only did this person use the red "high priorty" flag, they typed "URGENT!!!" in all-caps in the subject line! They must think I'm a fucking retard to have---- oh wait.

It's just a spam message for Cialis.

Never mind.

It still feels like Monday, though.

Ugh.

'nuff said.

Oh, and on this Memorial Day, please don't forget all the men and women in the armed forces, past and present, who have always done what was asked of them --- even though the people asking often did not know what the hell they were talking about.

The Birds

Around this time for the past few years, the Bubbleboy Bathroom Experience at the homestead changes. No, it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of soapy buildup on the shower doors (Although, I am not happy about that at all and will continue my quest for a cleaning solvent that effectively cuts through the Dove-soapy-muck without producing toxic vapors that also effectively kill more of my heavily-taxed braincells). It doesn't have anything to do with the month of May being "Bubbleboy Q-tip re-stock Month" (two ear swabs used post-shower, per day equals 730 ... yet Q-tips are sold in boxes of 300, 500, and 750, making the calculation of box overlap during "Bubbleboy Q-tip re-stock Month" very important). And it doesn't have anything to do with the warm-ish outside temperatures that prevent the Bubbleboy Furnace System from pre-heating the bathroom each morning, preventing the mirror fog-up issue that further amplifies an already unnecessarily complex Bubbleboy Morning Preparation Mental Checklist each day. It's none of those things.

May is the month the birds move into the outside duct work of my dormant bathroom exhaust fan.

I usually hear the winged fluttering of would-be squatters checking out the place in late April. This time of year must be quite busy for avian real estate agents and their clients alike. Imagine the pressure they face, having just flown some 2,000 miles from a winter home in Boca Raton, with the seemingly implausible prospect of finding a worthy mate and a suitable place to start a family in just a few short weeks time. Imagine their horror upon returning to Buffalo this year to find half the timeshares they left behind last September have either been torn down, or were so mangled by the October Surprise ice storm that they are now completely unlivable.

I'm surprised more birds haven't abandoned this city altogether. After all, so many of their friends and neighbors have begun wonderful lives in the suburbs. With its vast forests, carefully conceived (and easily avoidable) network of power lines, and a wide array of cars with open convertible tops and sunroofs driving on roads free of any and all of the buggersome old-growth tree cover that can make city streets such a challenge, the 'burbs provide a plethora of opportunities for recreational target practice SPLAT fly-overs. Many suburban birds even brag that their offspring learn more, get smarter, and grow up to become more successful than those whose young were educated in the city. While that claim may be true for some, if the number of window collisions and other daft calculations that occur with some frequency at my parent's suburban home is any indication, it is safe to report that some birds are just retarded, and it has nothing to do with where they grew up.

Still, the choice to live in the city, with its many and varied challenges (and the occasional, yet utterly senseless backlot murders at the hands of Lee Ling Li, near-sighted head wok chef at Number 1 China take-out) is not always an easy one. So, in early May, when the occasional sounds of fluttering wings becomes a nearly continuous bombardment of birdy noise pollution emanating from my bathroom exhaust vent, I do what few bubbleboys in my situation would: I embrace it.

There is something to be said for a contrived daily morning routine. It keeps me sane and assists in dealing with those events that may come later, for which I have no control. I don't shower the minute I wake up every morning, but most days I do. Following the shower is always a two-Q-tip-ear-spin, and a shave-every-other-day-unless-work-or-social-responsibly-deems-otherwise ritual, though. This is typically followed by a banana, Carnation Instant Breakfast (chocolate, of course, and mixed with 12 ounces of two-percent organically-produced milk in the most un-smug way possible). Then, eating the banana, I gaze out the front window of my second-floor abode at the sheer number of people who have seemingly been awake for hours, go about their own early morning routine with such purpose and damned awe-inspiring verve, that a banana-eating, Carnation-Instant-Breakfast-drinking, window-gawking bubbleboy can only wonder about it in dumbfounded amazement. Watching the moms and random dads in a mad, pre-work dash, dropping their children off at the daycare/preschool building across the street each day is, without a doubt, the event offering the greatest amount of comic fodder and morning enjoyment for me. That every one of these kids has the innate ability to locate, and proceed to douse their clean sneakers in to, the tiniest patch of mud next to a completely dry stretch of perfectly good paved sidewalk, all while being energetically towed by the arm into the front door of the preschool, is truly one of the unsolved mysteries of the child's brain.

I let this carefully considered and rather comfortable daily routine evolve a bit in May, though, knowing how tough it must be for birds trying to make a go of it in the city. When I hear the fluttering of wings, I make no effort to discourage their choice of my bathroom fan exhaust vent as their home and love nest for 2007 (the fan has been inoperable for years anyway). The birds move in. The birds make babies. The baby birds never shut up about being hungry. They argue over the remote, complain that one keeps touching the other even though mom said to stop it or else, and any number of other things that baby birds never shut up about. And so it goes each and every morning until late June when the kids finally leave the nest, and the parents can spend the brief, but relaxing time that remains of summer looking for bridge partners (get it? Bridge partners?) before they return to Boca Raton for the winter, and Bubbleboy's morning routine becomes much more routine, once again.

I wish them all the luck and good fortune that this world can possibly offer. I welcome them to live in peace and prosper just outside my bathroom wall each spring. I just wish the kids would contract a non-life-threatening, but very effective case of laryngitis is all.

Is that so wrong?

Little-melty-rabbit-turdy-chocolately-goodness

There are many vices for people to choose from. Some are more common than others, and are often dictated by deeply ingrained societal routines practiced within various cultures around the world. Smoking and drinking are still biggies in the US. Their wide acceptance by people from all walks of life is a testament to years of careful market research, scientific formulations, and millions of dollars worth of jam-it-down-your-throat-and-pull-it-out-from-the-bottom-end targeted advertising aimed squarely at keeping these vices legal, romantic, and desirable. No matter how hard those so-called "health experts" try, the ugly and rather sordid reality of what alcohol and cigarettes does to the human body never seems to quite outweigh the sex appeal of a glossy magazine ad featuring an airbrushed babe, her Camel lights, and Mr. Tanned-like-Hamilton Sixpack, with his Sam Adams in tow, on some exotic beach nowhere near Buffalo, NY.

I don't drink or smoke.

I eat Raisinets.

There's a chance I eat too many Raisinets.

But the subtleties of this apparent addiction don't typically bubble to the surface of my own hyper-awareness of self until an unexpected causal factor influences the carefully controlled environment that I have enshrouded myself.

So I'm reclined in my comfy chair, feet up, fan blowing, hilarious re-run of "30 Rock" on the tele. The hot, humid day's air still dominates the space. No, the Kenmore UltraFreeze 8000 has not been installed yet. I'm wearing shorts and doing my best to remain comfortable. And what better way to accelerate one's path to inner-peace and comfort than to embrace the personal vice that might as well have printed on its product label: "This product will definitely make Chet happy---Fuckin' aye right it will!"

Method of consumption goes something like this:

• Carefully snip off top of vacuum-sealed bag (That's right, I said bag. People should not be eating Raisinets from a tiny cardboard box unless they are at the movies and have just spent $3.50 for the privilege to do so.)
• Cradle bag-o-chocolatey goodness in left hand while plucking out individual 'Nets and popping into mouth.
• Savor the moment before chewing but be sure to secure any renegade shriveled grapies between cheek and gum before giggling or cackling at "30 Rock" funnies. Choking is no laughing matter at Bubbleboy's house.
• Repeat above steps until tummy indicates too much of a good thing by making "gurgle sounds of the Yeti," or the right hand reaches bottom of bag.

Things were going well. The yeti was held at bay and my right hand was hitting bag bottom. Then I noticed a few stray Raisinets huddled in the sharp inside corner crease and decided a quick, upside-down shake should be enough to dish out what remained.

It didn't work.

These suckers were melted together and spot-welded in place. At times like this, only a surgical slice down the side of the bag will work. Then one needs to use his front teeth like a beaver to extrude the delicacies. To some, this act might appear quite pathetic. Fear not. It's perfectly okay to do this if, like me, the thought of popping little, melted, rabbit-turd-lookin', chocolate-covered raisins into your mouth is, quite simply, the culmination of all that is good in this world we live.

Fuckin' aye.

Thursday Confession

Recycling is easy. The city even provides me with a handy plastic bin to carry my recycled whatnots to the curb. It's blue. It has convenient handles molded into the design on each side. It's sort of like a laundry basket to help wash away my carbon footprint from the planet. It sits outside, behind the garage, next to the large, city-provided, flip-top, rat-proof garbage container on wheels. That's blue too.

Every Wednesday night, I cinch the drawstring handles on my single, kitchen-sized bag of weekly garbage. Then I carry this single bag outside and place it into the hulking garbage container. This gets rolled out to the curb in preparation for an early morning Thursday pickup.

I bag per week.

On Thursday morning, I roll the blue garbage container with the flip lid, now empty, back to its holding area behind the garage. Sometimes I'll glance down at the empty, plastic bin with "recycling" marked on the side. The blue one.

Maybe if it was green I would feel differently about using it.

The Bubbleboy finds Blogger

There's something to be said for A/C. And then there's something to be said for A/C at Chez Bubbleboy: it ain't in the window yet!

Yes, tonight is the first night that the ol' Kenmore UltraFreeze 8000 would have really made a difference. But that would require planning, a bit of elbow grease and more ambition than I care to muster at 1:02 am.

The reassuring fact that the UltraFreeze 8000 is resting comfortably on the floor in the corner of the spare room is enough for me tonight. The 13 pounds of humidity-induced bloat around my ankles? Not so much.

Oh yeah. I started this blog tonight.