Funny Turns (It's me, expect TMI) in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

It’s funny. It being a Monday, I assumed I’d be so swamped with Juvenile Court Issues that I wouldn’t be writing at all today! However, when I sat down… I reviewed my calendar and… Great Caesar’s Ghost! A little pro-active paperwork and my day went from “Light, but typical Juvenile Court Day” to… no hearings in the morning and only 4 hearings in the afternoon. And of those 4? First one: Status Quo; Second one: Status Quo; Third One: Case Dismissed; Fourth One: Case Moved to a different court. So… not the most labor intensive!! Considering all the work I did Friday? I definitely have some time.

With that… where is my mind?

My boss celebrates a YEAR at this job on Thursday. My YEAR date is Fiscal Year Start, July 1, so I’ve been here about 323 days. We’ve had Nala for 51 days. We’ve been moved into our house for over 200 days.

It is funny how some things can so quickly feel like “it’s always been that way.” In a good way. In Tiny Town? Nothing ever felt… right. Settled. With The Firm… God, most days were nightmares and there was no positive feeling emotionally, mentally, or spiritually! Now, we’re at a complete opposite. It feels like I’ve done this job for years and that it is a great fit. It feels like that house is ours and will be for a long time. It honestly feels like Nala’s been part of our family forever. She had some accidents this weekend and I had to remind myself that… yeah… she hasn’t even been with us for a full 2 months yet! It is a very interesting and very good place to be in a lot of the “Good Life Checklist” ways! Which is probably why when there are things that aren’t as good… they are more noticeable.

First and foremost, it should be pointed out that it was a dark and rainy weekend. Like… night time at four p.m. dark and just relentlessly rainy.

Next, it should be pointed out that… at best typically, my Video Game or “Time for what I want to do” is pathetically limited during weekdays. Typically, I’ll get home at 5:00-ish. From 5 to 7 is either (1) Working Out; or (2) Watching Nala. 7 to 9 is typically Dinner, Cleaning the Kitchen, watching TV w/Wife, and playing with Nala. Sometimes I’ll use 9 to 10:30 for video games. But not all the time. So that means that from 7 a.m. until I hit the sack at 10:30 p.m. (15.5 hours), I get maybe 1.5 hours to do something that I want to do. Arguably. Often, I simply skip it and use that time, instead, to clean my CPAP and get a few “recorded hours of use without actually sleeping” just to make sure there is enough usage hours on it. This compared to Wife’s day… where, yes, she is with the dog all day and has things like dishes and laundry and other things that can take her attention. But it often doesn’t. And truly? If she wants some time away from the dog? Put the dog outside… or put the dog in the three season room… or use the time to work on her kennel training. Honestly, you’ve got the same 15.5 hours in a day that I do… and you can choose to use it by sleeping in, watching whatever you want on TV, going shopping, pretty much whatever you want to do until I get home… at which point we might work out and then watch some TV together.

I mention this because my Video Game Playing is annoying my wife. Despite my frequent and consistent suggestions that she bring her laptop, or tablet, or cell phone downstairs so that we can still spend time together… she does not do that and is still upset with my video game playing. Why? Because it isn’t something that we can do together. Okay… so when she picks out a horror movie because she wants to watch it, and I sit there not caring about the movie… that’s better? Or how almost every evening mostly what we’re doing is watching TV? Passively non-engaged sitting on the couch watching the same program on television is fine; but when I want a digital activity that may engage my brain, suddenly there’s a problem. She’s trying to say there isn’t… but unless she’s developed a strange mental tick that only activates when I go play video games? I can tell that it bothers her. And here’s the thing. As long as she is content to call “Watching her TV programs” quality time, I’m not going to apologize for wanting Video Game Time. That being said, since she has been kind of a raging critical noise on this subject.... on Friday, I basically “snuck downstairs”. See… video game time doesn’t have to be alone time. And alone time doesn’t have to be masturbation time. But the proper opportunities are there for these things to happen. This comes up later. Friday Night, after about 10 or 11; I go downstairs and start playing video games. At some point, around 3 or so, I fall asleep while playing. Doesn’t often happen anymore but… end of the work week, these things do happen. Around 9 a.m., Wife and the Dog come downstairs to wake me up. As I go upstairs? Barometric pressure is fucked up; it is pounding rain so much that the Dog doesn’t want to go outside for anything, and it is super dark outside. Wife is lecturing me on sleeping without using my CPAP so at that point, I was like: “Fine. I’ll go sleep with my CPAP!” So Nala and I walked into the bedroom, I put the mask on, Nala curled up in the bed next to me… and we had a very long nap. All the way to about 4 pm!!!

At 4, I get up and change into workout clothes (as we were going to work out Sat and Sun) and Nala and I go to the living room. Wife is there, annoyed, and starts discussing how she thought we were going to be productive today. I ask what she’s been doing for the last 7 hours while I’ve had the dog. She emptied the dishwasher and did some laundry. What else did she have on her list that needed to be accomplished? She was hoping to do something… she didn’t know what… but she wanted to do something with the day. At this point, it is still dark outside and still pouring down rain. I tell her that we can try to figure something out while we’re exercising maybe?

We go workout. We come home. Wife goes and sits in front of the TV. I make dinner and serve dinner and clean the kitchen. We eat dinner and… it is around 8:30 at night. Wife is still watching TV. I play with the dog. We’re like that until about 10:30 that night. We go to bed. I wake up at about 5 a.m. and figure… I’m hungry, I want to play video games, and Wife and Dog won’t be awake for another 4 to 5 hours, easily! I go downstairs, start playing my game, and cook up some Pizza Rolls. I also take the time to appreciate the Alone Time and masturbate for the first time in a while. It was.... glorious. I don’t mean to say that in a humorous manner. I mean to say that in… when you’re not having sex and not able to masturbate, there is some build up that I was happy to exercise. AND I got almost 90% or so of the way through my game! But… with pizza rolls in the belly, and a vigorous orgasm exercised from my person… I curled up with the blanket and powered off the PS4 and TV and dozed off.

At 10 a.m. the Wife and Dog come downstairs to wake me up. As I go upstairs? Barometric pressure is fucked up; it is pounding rain so much that the Dog doesn’t want to go outside for anything, and it is super dark outside. Wife is lecturing me on sleeping without using my CPAP and I try to explain to her that I did sleep with my CPAP but when I woke up early, I went downstairs. At about noon, with nothing going on and the weather still dark and rainy… I grab Nala and we have a nap in bed with my CPAP on. I wake up at 3 p.m. and get into Workout Underwear but not the full workout gear. I go into the living room. Wife has been watching more Netflix Horror Movies and is not dressed for working out. I play with the dog and select the next Netflix thing. This is how we are until about 5. When Wife asks, somewhat condescendingly, if we’re going to work out today. I tell her, “That was the plan, right?” To which she, still in khakis and a sweatshirt, says, “Then why aren’t you ready?” I inform her that I am more ready than she is, and was waiting for her. This starts a small debate on the nature of “being ready”… is fully dressed in non-workout clothes more “ready for working out” than someone who is mostly naked but for workout underwear? This becomes a moot point, because after I use the restroom, I grab workout shorts and shirt and ta-da ready to go in under 60 seconds!! Now… let’s see how long it takes Wife to get ready and have us out the door?

We get to the gym, we workout, we go to the store to pick up dog food, we’re home by 8:00 p.m. Wife puts a skillet meal on the stove, I’m working with Nala trying to get her to bite less. We eat and 9:00 p.m. rolls around. I tell Wife that my phone has been downstairs all day and ask if I can grab my phone and play maybe an hour of games. She sighs but says, “I said you could play whenever you wanted to. It’s no big deal!” Of course… her tone of voice is very much saying, “it’s a big deal.” BUT whatever. I grab my phone, see some text messages that my 5 year old niece bought her first makeup kit… and is painting her face like she’s auditioning for the Road Warrior, lol. I do exactly as I said I would do… I start my PS4 and play just long enough to get my character to a position where most of what’s left is cartography. Then I come upstairs. Pet the dog. Kiss my wife on the cheek, and tell them I’m going to bed.

I put the CPAP on and… of course my legs are in pain. Barometric pressure being as fucked as it’s been all weekend… not surprised. ALSO probably why I was able to sleep so much more than I normally would be able to. So sleep does not come quickly or easily. I can hear Wife let Nala out an hour after I start trying for sleep. I hear Nala come back in. I hear Wife follow Nala around for a bit before she brings Nala into the room. Nala starts shaking her body (full body tail wag) as Wife says, “See! There’s Dada.” Then she looks at me and says, “Nala checked the basement for you twice. She thinks you live down there.” Maybe I’m wrong, but considering the whole “Video Game Argument Vibe” that certainly felt like a bit of passive aggressive commentary. At some point, I did actually fall asleep. But it didn’t last long. I woke up at about 2 a.m. with some leg pain and a massive boner. And I thought… y’know what? Fuck it. I’m the sole financial provider for this household; I haven’t had sex since before we got the dog; and I don’t do a whole lot of things just for myself. I’m going to go downstairs, finish a single map, and jerk off. Which is exactly what I did! Then I came back upstairs and went back to sleep. Woke up again at 6, then 6:30, then 7. Each time… with a massive erection. So, took a shower and took care of myself again. And as I considered the weekend? Video Games and Masturbation and Excessive Sleep?? It felt like, “Well, at least I know what I haven’t been getting much of!”

So that was my weekend. Nothing that any of you wanted to hear about, I’m sure.