I backed out of the driveway at 7:29am. At that time the GPS app (Waze) was already telling me I was going to be late to work. My ETA was 9:03. The app detoured me off of my normal route less than half a mile from my house…
…and it was all downhill from there.
At about 8:50 I still had 10 miles to go and Waze started recalculating. My ETA started going up… fast. There was an accident on route 128 South (that’s route 95 for all of you non-locals) right at the junction with the Mass Pike (route 90, for all of you non-locals). I pulled into a parking spot at work at 9:30.
Nine. Fucking. Thirty.
So tell me, how’s your fucking Thursday morning treating you? Nothing like a two hour drive as your democracy is collapsing to make you feel good about the state of the world, know what I mean?
It’s 9:08am and this day is already an epic pile of suck.
I overslept a little. Just a little. It was enough to screw up my whole routine though. I managed to get all of the trash out to the street and get some semblance of my morning exercise in with enough time left over to have me outside in the car by 7:30. I would have preferred 7:15, but 7:30 usually gets the job done.
Usually.
Not today though.
I had construction traffic on my street, I had gridlock on route 213 and gridlock on route 93. Google Maps told me to exit route 93 and take route 495. There was gridlock getting on to 495. It was about 8:15 when Google Maps started telling me I wouldn’t be at my destination until after 9:20, 20 minutes late for work, when I said screw it and turned around. I got on route 495 North instead of South, which is one of two main highways that get me home, and of course there was gridlock on 495 North as well. I was home by 9:40 and immediately punched in to work.
I have to work from the office three times this week. One of them has to be Wednesday. I already worked from the office on Monday and I fully expected to do it today (Tuesday) too, which would put me at home for Thursday and Friday. Now I have to work from the office on one of those days to make up for today. It will probably be Friday.
I am so pissed off and frustrated right now, I can’t even think straight. I ate breakfast in the car and was so stressed out that it affected my stomach and now I feel all blocked up and bloated and gross (it’s a gastric bypass thing, you probably wouldn’t understand unless you’ve had the surgery too).
9:15am and it’s already a Grade A Shitty Day. Fucking traffic!
I am tired today. I’m wrapping up my lunch break on this fine(?) Monday afternoon and I am tired. Over night last night I woke up at about 1:00am with hunger pains. Lovely. I had a bite to eat and felt better and fortunately it held me over until morning. I overslept a little and thought I was going to be late to work but fortunately the morning after the super bowl (superb owl) lead to light traffic and I got to my desk with plenty of time to spare.
I had no interest in the super bowl (superb owl) at all yesterday. Knowing that the fat nazi fuck face of a president was going to be in the stands meant that you couldn’t have paid me to watch. Not in a million, billion years. Fuck that fat nazi fuck. I read an article today that reported the US TV broadcasts included audio of applauding crowds as the scumbag was introduced, while the same moment on foreign TV broadcasts could clearly hear a resounding round of boos. Thanks, fascist collaborating TV networks. Fuck you too. I swear, the entire US media industry is currently made up of a bunch of fucking Neville Chamberlains. Fuck them all.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I am tired. It’s 2:30pm. I have three hours left in my work day. I wanna go home. I wanna go home, give my wife a great big hug and a great big smooch and then fall asleep until morning. That would really hit the spot.
In closing, fuck that fat stupid nazi loser fucking fuck.
Here’s an example of why traffic in greater Boston is funny. I don’t mean funny as in hahaha, I mean funny as in I am so mad I want to claw my eyes out.
I drove about 70 miles to get to work today. It was pouring rain the whole way. It was also seriously foggy out. The fog plus the rain plus the spray coming off of everyone’s tires meant that visibility was only slightly better than zero. For almost the entire drive I was up around 70-75 miles per hour. I made excellent time.
Yesterday it was gloomy out but other than a little drizzle at the tail end of the drive it was dry. No precipitation, no fog to speak of, no road spray. It had rained the day before though. How did I do for time? There were pockets of gridlock everywhere. The drive took 30 minutes longer than it took today.
Rain today = no traffic jams. No rain today but rain yesterday = huge traffic jams.
See what I mean about “funny”?
Anyway, here’s a picture of a guitar to try to guilt myself into playing before work tomorrow, when I will thankfully be working from home again.
Three days in a row this week I have worked in the office. Tomorrow will be the fourth day. I don’t think I’ve done four days in the office in one week since before Covid came along and fudged up everything. It’s only a half day tomorrow thanks to a doctors appointment. It’s still a day in the office though, and the office isn’t my usual office, it’s the one that’s way further away from home. Crud.
The traffic coming home tonight was insane. At one point I looked down at Google Maps running on my phone and it told me to get off route 128. I did. The traffic was only slightly better than stopped so I exited. Maps then told me to get back on the highway in the opposite direction. I think we all can wrap our heads around the GPS telling you to drive the wrong way is a bad sign.
Eventually I got onto route 3. I had a moment… I drove past the assisted living place my parents lived at before they passed away. I haven’t been there since we finished cleaning out Dad’s apartment. It made me sad. Then the route took me past the exist in Tewksbury that I would take to go to the house I grew up in. For the first time since it was sold I felt sad driving past. Yeah… today’s evening commute sucked in multiple ways.
It’s 9:47pm now. I am going to post this masterpiece and go try to get a little songwriting work in before I go to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow to make the most difficult of my four consecutive morning commutes. It’s like the pandemic never happened. Crud.
Today is the day that used to be known as columbus day, before those of us who actually care about other people decided that chris columbus was a dick and giving him a holiday was in bad taste. Now it’s Indigenous Peoples Day and I much prefer the sound of that.
Unfortunately, it’s not a holiday for me. I have to work. Worse, I have to work in the office. Worse than worse, I have a 9:00 meeting. I left home super early out of fear that traffic would make me late for the meeting. I completely forgot that most of Massachusetts is off work today and there was so little traffic that I was in the parking lot over an hour early.
Oops. At least I won’t be late for the 9:00am meeting, right?
Happy Indigenous Peoples day to all who celebrate. Also, chris columbus was a dick who “discovered America” through nothing more than incompetence. Let’s not give him any more holidays.
I left the driveway for work at 7:40 or so. I drove until about 8:10 and then something came up at home and I had to turn around and head back. It took less than 10 minutes to get home.
And now you understand how Boston traffic works once Labor Day is over.
That moment when you’re running a little late getting through your morning routine and you remember you don’t have enough gas in the car to get you to the office.
Ugh.
300/365
Fortunately the traffic was awful but normal levels of awful (unlike yesterday which was awful times two) and I got to my desk with a few minutes to spare.
I have a story from the road too. Want to hear it?
You know that old saying, there’s never a cop around when you need one?
I was stuck in a 1.5 mile long line of gridlocked traffic trying to exit route 93 South and merge onto route 128/95 South. Some jerk off in a pickup with Pennsylvania plates decided to drive up to the exit ramp in the breakdown lane. Prick. Schmuck. There’s never a state trooper around when you need one, I thought. At that very instant, an unmarked state trooper pulled into the breakdown lane behind him, put on his flashers, and pulled said prick/schmuck over.
Finally! I’ve been driving for 37 years and that is the first time I can ever remember seeing karma kick some jack ass in the teeth like that. It was glorious.
It’s Wednesday. I’m back in the office. You don’t care, but I want to write about something… anything… so here we are.
Today is Juneteenth. I completely forgot. When the state first established today as a holiday we got it off. Less than a year later our company turned most of the non-national holidays into floating holidays so now we don’t get today off. It was just another day for me except that there was no traffic on the highways this morning. From my house to my office, 43 miles, took 46 minutes. Why couldn’t every commute be this easy? While having the day off would have been great, I will take this as the next best thing… sort of.
I failed to get six hours of sleep again last night. My watch tells me I got 5:45 but my heart rate numbers were pretty spectacular. Hopefully that means I won’t be too completely exhausted again today. Just mildly completely exhausted. I still haven’t hooked up my CPAP machine since coming back from Florida a few weeks ago. I think my sleep numbers (assuming my watch pulls accurate data) are implying that using the machine won’t make much of a difference. I should probably use it anyway. Maybe there will be a placebo effect or something and I won’t be quite as tired after a short night’s sleep. I don’t know.
The Oilers won last night. Yippee. Well… that’s being mean. I am glad they won. Not because I expect them to dig out of a three games to none series hole, but because it literally extended the NHL season. If they are going to lose on me and prove that I suck at picking the outcome of NHL playoff series’, then the least they can do is lose in seven games so we get our money’s worth, right?
As for the Red Sox, they have won four in a row including two wins against the first place Yankees. Glorious. I saw a post on social media where someone said that this streak proves they will not only make the playoffs, but advance to the American League Championship Series. I laughed out loud. No, let me be more specific… I laughed out loud for a long, long time. They are four games above .500. They are in third place in the division, 11.5 games behind the first place (and thoroughly evil) Yankees. They are two games out of the wild card. Oh yeah, it is June. Yeah… they are better than I thought they would be, but they are still pretty clearly mediocre. They might sneak into the wild card, but I am not holding my breath. If you’re expecting the Red Sox to do anything better than middle of the pack, then you haven’t been paying attention. No. They will not make it to the ALCS. If they do, I will happily eat my words, but I won’t have to because there’s no chance. This is the way. I have spoken.
I watched last night’s new episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. There has been so much hate spewed at this show. Most of it rooted in sexism and racism rather than the story or anything to do with it. I’ve enjoyed the show so far and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. I’m on for the ride, as the saying goes. Last night though… episode four… I finally had something that I didn’t like. What was it? The running time was less than 30 minutes. Come on, Star Wars. We need more than that from our weekly episodes. We need more to sink our teeth into. These episodes should be more like 45-60 minutes, right? We need that content, folks. We need it! Star Wars, babie! Give us more!
It’s a work-in-the-office day. I woke up nice and early, though about half an hour later than I was hoping. I had a lot of meetings on my work calendar today, the first of them being very early in the day. I wanted to make sure I could get through my whole morning routine, including 45 minutes of jogging (pronounced yogging) in place and making lunch and packing emergency protein snacks and all of that stuff while still leaving enough time for me to get to work a little early.
Unfortunately when I got out of bed I saw that we got a dusting of snow overnight. Not a lot, but enough to cover everything and guarantee a terrible morning commute. I was hoping to get out onto the road by 7:15. I made it by 7:20, but I had to cut my exercise in half to pull off that feat. That means I am going to have to yog tonight when I get home and I really do not want to do that. I wasn’t late to work, but it did take me an hour and a half to drive the 40 miles.
Now that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon, I have survived two big meetings and I have a third coming up in half an hour. I’m stressing out, big time, but once I get through today I will not have to worry about this sort of thing for a while and I am happy about that idea.
Tomorrow and Friday I will be working from home. I am optimistic that I will be able to get a lot of music done before work both days. Fingers crossed for some guitar playing and car vocals and fun stuff like that. I’m also thinking it would be nice to mix a song or two over the weekend. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
For now though, I am really tired and can’t wait to get through my next meeting so that I can relax a little. Maybe if I can get my exercise finished right after dinner tonight I might be able to go to bed early and enjoy not having to stress over a work project for the first time in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, right?
Inside the Red Head's Head 