Lots of Monkeys

Over the last few months I’ve written down some of my dreams that flutter from behind my eyelids.  Here are a few:

• Matrix “Burly Brawl” style fight where I take on dozens and dozens of balloon people.
• High school anti drug church function featuring skateboarding and a Silent Hill themed bathroom.
• Very fast party boat that turned into an inflatable mattress that dropped me off at a swanky lake house.
• Drawing artwork on a whiteboard.
• Getting caught stealing from a coke machine, but Dwight from the Office was blamed immediately, even though my arm was stuck in the machine.  Doubly funny because I’ve never watched The Office.
• Sparring with someone and watching them die of exhaustion.
• I was buying photography equipment.  Oh, wait.
• I was so fantastically wealthy I was tipping people with large carat diamonds.
• Work relocated all of us to a disused prison and our cubicles were in cells.  Still trying to figure that one out.
• Rescuing someone from a pelican, in between eating chicken tenders, while wearing no pants.

I’m done with the snow.

I pass by walks unshoveled, crosswalks blocked, tree branches broken, and cars buried.  I tread carefully on still buried sidewalks, detour around mountains of ice my height, and wear heavier jackets.

Most of all, I await the arrival of spring and its longer, warmer days.  I listen to the trickle of water into the storm drains and I think that maybe, fluid ounce by fluid ounce, this ugly crystalline inconvenience can finally be over.

From this to dinner in 80 minutes

So I’m trying HomeMade Pizza Co. Here is the minute by minute breakdown.

Minutes 1-5: Cool, they have web ordering.

Minutes 6-10: Ordering via phone because web interface is not working currently.  It’ll be here in 45 minutes

Minute 55: It’s here!  Right on time.  Remember, I have just ordered an unbaked pizza for delivery.  As in, I still have to bake it. Continue reading →

I am in a GameStop in the Fair Oaks mall.  White Knight Chronicles is out, a game that I had no real interest in until I realized that it had a Phantasy Star Online element to it.

I’m in line when I think I recognize the manager.  I see his name tag and see that his name is Todd, just like the manager of the Electronics Boutique that I used to work weekends over five, maybe six years ago.  He is thin, and he looks older and yet younger at the same time.

“Todd?”  I try, still unsure.  His appearance is so different from the man I knew before.

“Yeah?  Oh hey Fil!  How are you?”

“Good, good.  Man, you lost a lot of weight.”

“Well I had cancer.”  The response is fast, matter of fact.  I grasp for a response.

“Well had is good, right?  Past tense.”  It explains why he looks so different.

He laughs and explains.  He had paranasal sinus cancer.  Five years ago he finished treatment.  Now he’s the manager at the Fair Oaks GameStop.  He gets me up to date with a couple of the other guys we used to work with.  Several others are now managers.

He rings me up and we say goodbye.  The file in my head gets updated.

Cancer survivor.