I've been extremely productive this morning. At work, I mean. Not sure why. It is Friday; usually I'm a bit more lackadaisical. Maybe it's because I feel less of a need to check the news to make sure some terrible thing isn't happening because of our current president. I had forgotten what having a normal boring dull administration was like. 

I'm still paranoid enough that I don't completely discount the possibility that this was the plan all along, to return to the status quo and have us feeling grateful for it. Trickle-upwards economics.

And what will I do next. Keep working of course. Suffer my forty hours, and live in relative comfort the rest. Faraday cage. Bottled tempest. Annoyed armadillo. 

I've been meaning to write a relationship guide for my nephews. Or not a guide exactly; a charted path of what I've observed in myself. Initially, being myself attracts someone, then I got self-conscious and clammed up afraid to express myself and basically becoming boring. I'm talking early on, early teenage dating. The challenges of lacking agency in your life will affect relationships too. Still, it's good practice because things are never fully under your control. People have to move while they're adults, too. I don't know. Mulling it over. 

I demand quiet. The writing demands quiet. Everything demands quiet. Except the quiet. The quiet doesn't like being noticed. It lives in the basement rec room below the main house. 

A dream, yes, that's what the quiet reminds me of. An old woman in an old farmhouse. All feared her. I sought her out; I don't know why. All feared her. 

There was swimming also. Perhaps the falling rain in the waking world influenced my dream. Ah yes, the woman could steal faces. Not forever, but any amount of time without a face was...unsettling. For everyone.

The pool was in the center of a small field. Houses surrounded the green space, spaced generously apart, and beyond them was the woods. 

Where have I been? I had a couple days off. Monday, MLK Jr. Day, and Tuesday. It was very pleasant. And today is Inauguration Day also. What a week.  

Fascinating times. I keep checking the news for any disruptions aka attacks on the ceremony. Having a high-level of security should keep out most of the disturbed people, but there's always an Ahab; someone with just the right level of crazy to know not to look crazy, and the technical know-how to make things happen.

Also time for my yearly review here at work. Good thing I shaved this weekend. 

Didn't have time to shave my entire body, but hey it's just a Zoom call. 

Cell Phone Sunday #3

Bah I say. I've moved to the couch because the puppies have stolen my bed. Now I'm sad because they didn't follow me. 

Sometimes they sleep on my legs.

I'm taking the day off on Tuesday just because. I'll have to run back into the office because I forget to turn on a certain "away" setting.

I should cut my hair today. That would be a small productive thing. I was also going to go the grocery. My continuing quest for orange-flavored Metamucil goes on. I currently have the unflavored kind and I never realized how good I had it before. 

When I drink it, I have to imagine I am in some exotic location trying the local cuisine, or visiting a king and this is their royal custom, or the drink is how I must pay penance for my many failings. 

I remember my friend Nicole. I worked with her at Brian's sister's French restaurant. I loved that restaurant. Not so much working there, because it's still work, but overall I enjoyed my time there. 

Nicole and I had a conversation where she was talking about the importance of fiber in fighting toxins. I argued, of course, that fiber was inert and how could it fight toxins. Later, I did research some studies about fiber in our system (okay, I read the abstracts of some studies) and found that basically, interesting things happen around the ingestion of fiber. Maybe mechanical in nature, stimulating a response from the intestinal lining, or possibly the fiber acts as a food source for beneficial bacteria, and other such ideas. I forget now, but that's not the point. The point is that Nicole has since died of colon cancer. Now I take my fiber drink and sometimes I think of her. 

I don't take the fiber for its potential cancer-fighting abilities. It's just nice to not have to strain to poop. 

I think I'll go to the store now.