The life of Riley in Normal entries

I want to tell y’all a story. I’m too fuzzy for that so I’ll type other stupid shit because I need to maintain the discipline. I replaced my old fitbit when I joined the gym. Heh, not really cause and effect. I had picked up the old one in June when I was cycling daily and doing mindful movement, it was the second anniversary of my fathers death. Granted, nothing I do stops dementia, but he was pretty fucked up in other ways, so much so that the two years I accompanied him to doctors offices, when I would ask about his other issues, muscular-skeletal, prostate cancer, arthritis, the universal answer was “Yeah, but that’s not what’s gonna kill him.” That’s verbatim. I heard it a lot. They were sure it was going to be his heart. It wasn’t. Why he screamed in pain for four straight days before being given morphine …? No one knows, and, on paper, that’s not what killed him a week later. Um, I just mean I was motivated.

In September I quit mindful movement because I was going to Oregon for a week and my trainer was eight and a half months pregnant so getting another appointment with the other trainer was both complicated and about six weeks out from when I returned. Six days of driving (round trip, and that’s hard driving, about 900 miles a day). Kind of takes the winds out of your sails and later in October I took a long quick trip to deep Louisiana. I had gotten out of the habit of wearing the fitbit to tell me I’d been sitting for twelve hours. I lost the charger. The model was replaced and I couldn’t find a replacement charger. It’s be nice if those assholes in the fitness tracker industry used the mini plug standard. Um, maybe some of them do.

So I’m back on their mailing list and they send stats and little encouragement things and have workout programs (free trials, they found a way of making more money out of the trend. I think it’ll backfire, the trial is three months. I think after three months, especially if those are January, February and March, that people have either quit or know the routine well enough. The tracker doesn’t do the workout, it just logs the stats.). What surprised me and pleased me more than anything fitbit has ever done was two stats for last year, or, two stats for the three months last year that I tracked ;
803,521 steps and 347 miles. The steps a bit impressive just by sheer quantity, the miles very impressive, so much so that I have a doubt or two about their accuracy, though, often I was under-credited. I wonder if they would have sent that to me if I hadn’t replaced … oh. No. They sent it to last years email. Um. I still have the email, I just couldn’t use it to register the app for the new tracker. It kept telling me I was registered and was using old tracker, so I used another email address as opposed to taking the five minutes, probably, that it would have taken to straighten out the app. Hmmm, that and instant gratification. I was doing it from my phone. If I had waited until home — I’m much slicker with a computer than I am with a phone. Probably a couple of mouse clicks and updating tracker.

I meant to go to gym this morning, but I ate left over chicken shawarma and napped. I know, that should be in large font with a picture of a sleeping kitten and posted on facebook. It’s not funny, but it’s true. And then I read this article on Schwarzenegger in Cigar Aficionado, I know he was steered that way, but there are a few polite digs at trump and a quote from Obama. Arnold doesn’t like Trumps “promises” to kill the EPA and revive coal. He said he didn’t vote for him. I think Baby Bush said he didn’t vote for him either, but I can’t imagine the context there just that it’s been posted on facebook. That Michelle Obama had a sex change operation was posted on facebook too. Call me crazy but I consider Cigar aficionado a real source and facebook the thing that shit turns it’s nose up at and says “gross”. Arnold, of course, is in that magazine a lot, he’s a big cigar aficionado. He comes off as likable in print. Hell, he might be likable, it’s really just his accent that makes him sound stupid, like folks from Texas or Oklahoma, and that, in my opinion, he isn’t a very good actor, that’s subjective. I mean when I say Dan Brown isn’t a very good writer I can show you with a red pencil and a lecture that his technical abilities are sophomoric, not liking his books is subjective. If Arnold blew his lines or read the stage directions I could say that objectively he wasn’t good.

I think, for the most part, you’re average Californian liked him as governor. When he was caught in an indiscretion he owned up to it. Um, I think that was another dig at trump too, I mean in the article. Arnold said he apologized for behaving badly and he was already finished with his second term. Arnold is the old school republican idea of a wet dream. Trump would be too if he was a democrat, as it is, the silent majority, republicans, are more dismayed by the idea of a trump presidency than the pussy hat fringe. Christ I hope everybody knows about the pussy hats. The most baseless fear is the idea of a republican white house and a republican majority in congress. They are not the same republicans. The GOP has been around forever, errs on the side of caution, is subtle about squeezing capitalism for personal gain, and, for the most part are white, not orange. How baby bush got away with no bid contracts to his VP’s firm is beyond me, but it’s not like he paved the road or announced he was going to do that. Baby Bush was like a clown; a lot of people hate clowns, but the people who like them are awfully forgiving. Trump may look like a clown but he doesn’t have the charisma. I’m not spreading gossip or unsubstantiated sex change operations, he fully intends to run his business’s and conflict of interest schmonflict of schminterest. To be fair he hasn’t really done or tried doing any of the crazy shit he said he would and might genuinely believe all that protocol shit are just suggestions. Not calling him stupid, I’m calling him naïve, which is sometimes endearing. Not in this case. And Arnold did not vote for him.

I’m getting cigar aficionado free along with entertainment weekly, mens fitness and something else. The catch? My number was sold to every call center in the world. I’d forgotten they still do that. The loophole to the do not call list is when you give your number away for a contest or promotion it becomes fair game again. They’ve gotten meaner and sneakier about it. My new record is getting hung up on within 30 seconds, that one I wasn’t even an asshole about it. My being an asshole about it record is over a minute. I’m blocking them one call at a time.
Oh, heh, my favorite was today. The phone rang, there was a delay and call center sounds in the background I was about to hang up when dude says “Hello mr. dawg? I’m so and so with the US grant division how are you today?” I said “You guys call me four times a week …” I paused because when I say that in my manly pissed off voice they hang up, he didn’t, “I want to be removed from your list.” Heh. He said “You called me.” “What?” “I was sitting here minding my own business and the phone rang and I picked it up” I just started laughing, in hindsight there were much more clever things to have said, but I laughed and apologized and promised to take him off my call list. Interesting way to answer a wrong number call though, I wonder how the fake department of fake free grants feel about their employees just sitting there minding their own business? I had a brief moment of doubt, but, you know, it’s 2017, my phone keeps a record of incoming and outgoing calls, time stamps and duration. That’s part of why I just block one number at a time, I want the numbers still in my log so I can randomly call them back when hindsight comes up with some good lines.

The kettle is whistling. Pu-erh. I live the life of Reilly.