Entry 15-01.11.13 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Entry Table of Contents
(1) Greeting
(2) Wasted Day
(3) Good? News on Photography
(4) The One With…
(5) Study? Run?
(6) Congratulations Green Bay!

Me of the inconsistent follow through.

I had a rough time sleeping last night; so I got out of bed at 5 am and started playing video games. Video games can often help put my mind into a place where I can sleep… and it worked… after three hours. So… blah. I should have started studying at 5 am when I got up… because one of the lecture videos I need to catch up is 3.45 hours. I didn’t do that. And then I went back to sleep… until noon. Did I instantly wake up and study? No, because I’m dumb. Even though there are still 35 Hours of catch up materials… nope, grabbed a slow lunch and flipped on Friends. “The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break” and “The One The Morning After” especially. I’ll write why especially in a few paragraphs. But… yeah… when I finally get to studying, it is going to be 5 pm. Granted, the wife has the late shift tonight so I can still squeeze in at least 5 hours of studying… which kind of works out because my next session is a four hour lecture and a one hour Review Exercise. But still… don’t feel great about only taking out 5 hours of the 35 hour chunk.

So, good news maybe? On Friday, I sent an e-mail to the photographer (similar one I sent to him earlier) and sent a snail-mail letter suggesting that suit was a possibility but only as a last resort. That… makes what happened next a bit weird. For the first time in three years, the photographer got back to an e-mail within 24 hours! So, open line of communication is a nice change. Plus, he stated specifics about actions he would take as opposed to a general brush off response. We’ll see if he follows through and we’ll see if he suddenly puts his asshole hat back on when he reads that we are/were contemplating suit. But… frankly, just getting a response from the guy is a nice enough change to mention.

Now back to “The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break” and “The One The Morning After.” For fans of the show, these episode titles are big ones to remember. This is the whole “We were on a break” fiasco. To explain to the non-viewer: Ross and Rachel are supposed to celebrate their One Year Anniversary but Rachel is stuck at work. Ross feels like Rachel has been putting work first a lot and goes to her office to surprise her. Ross goes too far and Rachel overreacts. Rachel specifically says that they should take a break from the relationship. The entire time, both Ross and Rachel are treating the event as a break up. When Rachel calls to apologize, she specifically states “I want to be your girlfriend again.” During this period, Ross gets stupid drunk and has sex with a young woman. This eventually leads to The Big Break Up of the show. Here’s where this whole thing gets strangely important. How people react to these episodes has defined an interesting aspect of my relationships. You see… I tended, my whole life, to date women who agreed with Rachel in this mess. Obviously, I agree with Ross. If two people are broken up, and one person makes a stupid mistake… that isn’t cheating. I mean, I understand why Rachel would be hurt… but for her to act like it was cheating is both an overreaction and a wildly miscalculated play. Almost all of the women I had ever dated, however, agreed with Rachel. They all had their own reasons, but the combination of all of them sounds something like this: Rachel is right because she had an outburst during a fight that Ross should have known was emotionally charged and not her real intent and Ross did something that couldn’t be taken back but Rachel didn’t. Okay… I suppose… all I understood from that was… I tended to date women who said, “Women are emotional and a man should just accept that.” BUT this is a big reason I married my wife! Because… Ross was feeling iced out because of Rachel’s work; Ross also was trying to show Rachel that her new friend Mark was trying to make a move on her. Ross tried to bring her a picnic basket for their anniversary, but it was bad timing. For that Rachel breaks up with him? And then, when Ross sleeps with someone before he and Rachel get back together, Rachel acts like he cheated on her? My wife and I agree on this. There could be reasons for Rachel to feel hurt; but the stated reasons are clearly illogical or an irrational cover. As I would always try to explain to my past girlfriends… if Ross was wrong about Mark; how come the first thing Mark did when Rachel was single was ask her out?

Now, off to shower, followed by Contracts/Sales study! A four hour lecture… that I hope I can stay awake for… and more reviewing. I also feel bad that I haven’t worked out lately. I mean, I’m mostly doing what I should… helping around the house, studying, that kind of thing… but I should work out for my health, I should work out so my wife can find me more attractive… all the reasons to work out. But… it is hard to squeeze in the time. Especially coming up. Monday the wife has the day off… but… if I wake up early enough and get straight to studying, I should be able to get a few hours in before she wakes up… then we have to redo the lease… then I have to go in to work because the woman who is filling in for me wasn’t trained… then I drive 2 hours to Des Moines… where hopefully, I’ll get some dog time and a few more hours of studying in. Tuesday… second verse, same as the first. Wake up to study, grab lunch with my dad, head over to the bank to talk to the one lawyer my dad knows, drive home and maybe get some more studying in. It’s just… so, I really do want to start trying to get into the 12 hour routine. If I can get on (and stay on) that cycle, I should be caught up and ahead in less than a week. I just… need to do that.

BTW, even though my favorite team is the San Diego Chargers… back in the 90s, my best friend was from Wisconsin and was a huge cheese head. So much, in fact, that one year for my birthday he bought me a Green Bay Packers Ball Cap and an actual real Green Bay Cheesehead. So… in that spirit… wOOt Green Bay! Great win over Dallas!