A grocery store top five… well, pre-gastric bypass it would have been the three food groups: Chocolate, chips, and ice cream. Today? Post-gastric bypass? It’s a little different.
As the Disney movie song says, it’s a whole new world.
I could mention family members, teachers, friends, co-workers, anyone. There have been many people who have positively impacted my life. No, there is only one answer. My father.
He taught me everything I know. How to work hard, how to put family first, how to sacrifice for the benefit of your kids. Hell, he basically taught me how to walk and talk and eat with utensils, and literally everything. There cannot be a more positive influence. As good as he’s been to me, I feel like I have been a terrible son to him. I feel like a failure in that regard. I need to do better.
He was married to my mother for over 55 years before she passed away. This has been such a hard year for him and I haven’t done nearly enough to help him through it. I am literally the worst son to the best father.
As my father likes to say, S.S.D.D. Same shit, different day.
Okay, that’s both overly negative and overly dramatic, but the idea works. I am right where I thought I would be a year ago, because I am more or less in the same place I was a year ago. Same job, same staff, same schedule, same musical situation, same photography situation. More important than any of that, same immediate family situation. I wish the kids were home more often, but other than that we’re in the same boat as last year. My mother is gone, so the extended family isn’t quite what I was hoping for. I guess I was hoping that this year would produce a miracle cure for dementia, but we had pretty much the exact opposite result. Xmas is going to be painful
So what does this mean, really? I am happy, I am healthy, I love my wife and my step kids and I am happy with my family life. I still enjoy my job, especially when I work from home. Socially speaking, I have not moved on from the pandemic yet, but that wasn’t really part of the plan for this year. Maybe that’s something we can put on the agenda for 2024. 2023 has been a good year. Other than losing my mother and my aunt and uncle, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Here’s to more of the same in 2024. Minus the absent family members, of course. I can’t handle any more of that.
As uninspiring questions go: This is one.
I took some short trainings at work that covered topics like emotional intelligence and unconscious bias recently. This topics fascinate me, and I am hoping I can put what I have learned into practice as a supervisor at work.
I’m learning a little bit about Windows 11. Specifically, using multiple monitors. I knew how to do it already using older versions of Windows, but I have to come up with something for this post, right?
I am constantly learning about life post-gastric bypass. The most recent thing is, am I having actual episodes of low blood sugar? Is that even a thing? I’ll ask my doctor when I check in with her next week. I’m sure I’ll let you know what she says.
Also, I am constantly trying to learn more about playing guitar, using guitar gear, and photography. I can’t think of anything I’ve learned recently that has turned my thinking upside down or anything, but I’m always on the look out for new things.
There… a few uninspiring answers to an uninspiring question. Happy Saturday, oh my readers and only friends.
What cities do I want to visit? You mean, besides all of them?
Based on my travel history over the last 16 years or so, my favorite travel destinations are San Diego, CA and New York, NY. Any excuse to visit those cities and I am there. No hesitation. The answer to this question then is where else do I want to visit?
I have never been to Europe so most of my daydream destinations are there. London, Paris, Rome, Berlin. All the places you would expect, but also Glasgow, Dublin, Athens, Florence and all the smaller targets that you would also expect. Also… you know… all cities and towns, large and small across all countries. Like I said, which cities? All of them.
You can say the same for cities in Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia too, but when it comes to continental travel, seeing everything there is to see in Europe is going to be my first goal.
As for the rest of the United States, I’ve seen some pretty magical places, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of travel in my country. I want to someday visit San Francisco, CA, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Las Vegas, NV, Chicago, IL. I’ve been in Chicago once, but we never got out of the car. I’d like to rectify that at some point.
So the list of cities I’d like to visit is effectively infinite. I mean, sure there are a finite number of them but given time and money constraints and also my age, they may as well be infinite. I’m still holding out for a Xmas season road trip to Manhattan. What do you say, Jen? Wanna leave tonight and spend tomorrow in the Big Apple? I’m game if you are.
One thing? No. This one is going to be a nice, sarcastic list.
In no particular order…
Any of those would be nice to hear about. Think away, my friends and neighbors! Happy thoughts!
First day at school was 10000 years ago, so that’s too long to remember anything useful.
First day at work… the last first day at work was July 12, 2004. I spent the whole day in new hire training with about 20 other people. Months later I learned that others in the new hire group referred to me as “the old guy.” Nice.
First day as a parent… I can give you a couple along that line, but I am not actually anyone’s parent. I’m Bellana and Harry’s step parent, so that will have to do. I’ll give you a snippet from the first time I met them and the first official day as their legal step father.
The first day I met them was September 2007. Jen and I had been dating for about six months and that made me eligible to meet the kids (according to the rules agreed upon by Jen and her ex husband). Jen prepped me by saying that Bellana (age six) would be outgoing and social, while Harry (age four) would be shy and probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. We met at a Chuck-E-Cheese’s near my office in Framingham (pour one out for our Framingham building which the company sold a few years ago).
Outside of the building, Harry came running up to me to show me a paper he worked on at pre-school that day. He was very outgoing and wanted to share everything with me. The exact opposite of what we expected. Bellana hid behind her mother and barely said a word. Again, the exact opposite of what we expected. By the end of the night I realized that these two kids were more important to me than just about anything on Earth. 16 years later that is still 100% the case. That was a really good night.
The first day as their official, legal step father was, of course, our wedding day. Harry (now age six) was a Junior Usher. He hung out with me all day before the ceremony. He wore a tuxedo and he looked like a million bucks. He was very nervous about the whole thing, but he did help give Jen away during the ceremony and it was pretty much the most adorable thing ever. Bellana (now age eight) was a Junior Bridesmaid. She spent the pre-ceremony time with Jen so I didn’t see her, but she wore a bridesmaid dress and she was absolutely adorable too.
At the reception, they had fun like the rest of us. They danced, they ran around, they were pretty much the stars of the show. Bellana twisted her ankle near the end of the evening so that was the only negative. Everyone circled around her to try and make her feel better. After the reception was over and Jen and I were about to leave for the honeymoon, Harry had a tough time. He didn’t want his mom to leave. He was very upset. Eventually he came around and he handled the separation well enough. It was tough leaving him behind though. It was tough leaving both of them behind.
There you have it. A few first from my recent past. Well… the first day at work was over 19 years ago, and the first day with the kids was 16 years ago, and the wedding was 14 years ago… so not that recent, I guess.
Have I ever performed on stage? You can bet your sweet ass that hells yes I have.
The first time was when I was in elementary school playing with the elementary school band. That would have been 5th grade so… 1981 or so. Every year from then on saw me do at least a xmas and a spring concert with some school band. That ran all the way through my first trip through college when I was a music major. Besides that, I have lost track of how many times a band of my own played in front of an audience. The last time was February 1, 2020, just before the pandemic hit.
I am a shy introvert who doesn’t feel comfortable dealing with people, but for some unknowable reason, I absolutely love being on stage, playing with a band. As long as I have a guitar or a saxophone to hide behind. I fucking love it. I Love It. Also, I can’t wait to do it again.
You know there is one physical activity… the real, honest answer for nearly all of us… you know… when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…
Now that that is out of the way, what is my second choice? There are two that come to mind. One is going to seem obvious if you read the previous post. The other is a little bit of out of the box thinking.
First, I like to go for walks. Imagine driving into the city with my beloved wife and a camera or two, then just picking a neighborhood and walking around while enjoying the company and the sights, and snapping off a ton of pictures that I can post to this page after we get home. That’s a quality piece of physical activity right there. The setting can be swapped out for other places. For example, instead of walking around Boston we could walk around a Disney World theme park. Perfect.
My second, less conventional idea for a favorite physical activity? Band practice. Yeah, you read that right. There’s no running around or anything like that, but band practice generally results in a bumped up heart rate and working up a serious sweat. You heard it here first. Band practice is cardio, babie. Rock and Roll.
Both of those are much more fun than the exercise I did just before I wrote this post. I ran in place for 45 minutes. My legs feel like rubber. I’m toast. I literally sit down and post something after my morning faux jog (pronounced “yog”, with a soft “j”) just to give myself some time to recover. That’s what I do for exercise every day, but it sure as hell ain’t my fav.
This is a tough one for me. There are a lot of things I could mention, but explaining them are somewhat beyond me. Maybe I’m just suffering from some minor brain fry today. Maybe I’m just letting the cold, damp weather get to me. I don’t know.
The one thing that comes to mind is focus. I am such a procrastinator that focus is an issue for me. Is work ethic a better term in this case? I don’t think so. I think my work ethic is okay, I just feel like I need a jump start now and then to get me out of procrastination mode.
Speaking of procrastination… it has more or less taken me three tries (and counting) to write the prior two paragraphs. Ugh.
What are some other things? I admire people who don’t have to eat all the time. Even post-gastric bypass, I feel like I am snacking on something all the time. I also feel like the length of time I can go in between snacks is getting shorter. Yesterday my stomach was yelling at me to eat all day long and it was annoying.
I admire people who are decisive. I am not decisive. I am Mr Indecisive. I constantly second guess myself. When other people do that I get upset because I have faith in their decisions, even if they are just gut reactions. I don’t feel that way about my own decisions though. I doubt and doubt and doubt.
I admire musicians who have the discipline to practice. I just can’t do it. I can’t sit down and practice scales or picking patterns or anything like that. I have to come up with a project and work on it. That’s one of the reasons I do so many song writing challenges. I feel like I won’t play at all if I don’t have a project to work on. I wish I could just sit down with my guitar and practice for the sake of practicing. I admire people who can do that.
Okay, there are a few examples. It took me almost an hour to write this because I am in full procrastination mode today. How’s that for irony?
Inside the Red Head's Head 