First Weekend Alone in Almost Six Months

Why can't I wake up in the morning? I've never been a morning person. Lots of people can spring out of bed around dawn, or at least some semblance of a morning time (which I consider to be half past eight), and some can't. I fall into the group that can't, but in my case, I can't seem to even be functional by lunch time. Yesterday I slept until 2:30pm. Today I was up about three hours sooner, but still, it botched up my half-formed plans of going to church. Yizong has been bugging me to go to Trinity Christian, and I have been twice. Neither time impressed me, as the guy that was preaching was an unqualified disaster at doing so. Today the senior minister was supposed to be preaching, and Yizong really wanted me to hear him. Alas, church started at 11am, and I was still fast asleep.

When I did finally wake up, I once again found myself with nothing to do. It's amazing what you can get accomplished when you have nothing to do. Last night I finished adding some categories to previous blog posts. (I don't know why I did, but I did anyway.) Today, after wasting more time in front of the TV, I dragged myself over to the barber shop for a haircut.

I go to a Pro-Cuts a couple of miles away from me that has one of the best stylists I've used. She is oriental, I'm not sure from where. Her name is Evon. She has a way and a touch that surpass anything I've had before. When I get in her chair, she holds my head gently but firmly, moves me around where she needs to be, and takes some time and pride in her work. My hair isn't that complicated--I always ask for a 4-guard on the sides, short on top and no sideburns. A lot of stylists take about five minutes and boot me out of the chair. Evon makes sure all the little details are taken care of from the length to the shape to the alignment of the sides. While all this is wonderful, it's the shampoo after the cut that takes the cake. I always have my hair washed after a cut. It gets all the little cut hairs out and makes me feel refreshed. The way Evon scrubs and massages my scalp is pure bliss. Too bad she's married.

After my haircut I went back home and, on a lark, decided to trim my crepe myrtle tree in the front. It has been getting out of control and knocking against the house, so with nothing else to do, I got out my lopper and pruned it back pretty severely. I hope it turns out in spring/summer, but at least it looks like most other crepe myrtles that have been pruned around here.

During the pruning, I noticed that three of my across-the-street neighbors were having a supper together. I also noticed Screamer was not joining in. I asked him why, and I get one of the most annoying answers: "because." He likes to do this repetition of "why, because" over and over just like a grade schooler. He's a sophomore in high school, and I think it's important that he start getting into the more adult phases of life. (Not too adult, but definitely into the high school arena.) I told him he should socialize more, if for nothing else to hear some more interesting communication. It didn't go well. Screamer went, and five minutes later he was chased out of the neighbor's house by their kids, all grade schoolers. Screamer really doesn't get acting adult yet, but I'm working on him.

Well, the pruning of the crepe myrtle done, I had to go to the store for some twine. The waste disposal company won't take away loose branches. They have to be bundled and tied. I didn't have any twine, so that's what I went for.

After the store back home, it was too late to tie up the branches (too dark), so I settled in to surfing the web for awhile. I got hungry, but I really didn't want to go back to the store for more food. Instead I practiced my biscuit making again. I started out a few days ago with a recipe I found online. It wasn't all I hoped, but Julia Child's recipe works wonderfully. I got it out of Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. This is the second time I've made the recipe and the fourth time I've made biscuits. I've got them down pat now. And I've got all my dishes in the dish washer, finally!

I wish I could say I'm looking forward to this week, but I'm not. Work is going to be contentious with a software problem that seems never to go away, and I somehow found myself on another hot-button issue on the trainer. On top of that I also get to find out what the bad news is on my air conditioner replacement. Well, at least I had a couple of days where I was able to downshift. Finally!

One Day Without Anything To Do...

Wow! This has been the first weekend since August where I really haven't had anything to do, and it wiped me out! I've had no plans, no commitments, nothing to really come up, no emergencies, really not anything at all. This morning my phone rang at 9am. Herman called me and brought me up to date on his family situation. He mentioned that they were pretty booked for the weekend, and I said no problem. We agreed that if they became unbooked he'd call me and see if I was likewise free. After that phone call I went back to bed.

I didn't wake up until 2:30 in the afternoon! I must have been really tired. I made it to my sofa and started to do a little categorizing on this blog. At about 3pm Screamer (aka Zach), the kid of one of my across the street neighbors, rang my doorbell. I've been threatening (or promising depending on point of view) to take him to the range and let him shoot. Today he decided to take me up on the offer. I had him clear the outing with his mom. She was ok, so off we went to the range.

On the way I stopped at one of my favorite places, Military Gun Supply. Screamer hadn't been to a gun store, and I needed to get a rifle out of layaway. He looked around, and so did I. I was interested to see if MGS had any Saigas in 12 gauge. They didn't. I ended up with my CETME, and we were off to the range.

We took three guns to the range: a Walther P22, a .357 revolver, and a Walther P1. I started Screamer off with the P22. We talked about range safety--muzzle downrange, how to aim, how to hold the pistol, etc. We ended up shooting about a hundred rounds of .22 and fifty of .38 special. I shot all but one of the .38s. Screamer wanted to stick to the .22.

One thing I noticed at the range was the distinct lack of brass barrels. When I asked the range guys there, they told me they were asking people to simply sweep their brass forward into the range. Uh oh! That will not help my brass-scrounging reloading activities. I'll have to figure out how to get around that one. (What the range is doing is trying to discourage people from picking up brass--the most expensive part of reloading.)

That's about all I did for the day. No grocery shopping, just a little bumming around Wally World. I may rant about Walmart later, but not tonight. Tonight I'm too tired. Even though I slept ultra late and didn't do anything at all, I'm fairly wiped out!

Measuring Worth

Several times in this relationship with Monica I was asked the following question: "is she worth it?" I thought it was kind of a stupid question. As far as I'm concerned, everybody is "worth it." But I didn't realize what the question really was until nearly the end of the relationship. What was really being asked was: "is the relationship worth it?"

That's a different question. In the case of the former, I would be placing a value judgment on a person. Judgments bear problems and consequences, whether or not the judgment is in the positive or the negative. By command of the Bible, we are not to judge others. I struggled with that question each and every time it was put to me. That is, until I realized what people were really asking me.

Is the relationship worth it? That's the question that people were really asking me. I had much less problem answering this question. The reason that is so is because of the nature of valuation and evaluation.

Here's the way I thought about it. If I were to measure my worth in a financial sense, I would add up all my assets, add up all my liabilities, and then compare the two. If I had more assets than liabilities I would have a positive monetary worth. Likewise the way people are evaluated at work. Do I meat all the requirements to maintain employment at my job? If I do, then I keep my job. If not, then I get fired. These are really more simplistic than what I'm talking about here, though. The best way I found to think about it was to liken the relationship to buying stock in a company. Let's say I put some money into a company's stock. In six months I check up on that stock. If it has done well, I may very well put more money into that stock. If it hasn't I'll probably sell what shares I had and try to recoup my losses.

That's the way I started looking at relationships. Was I getting a return on investment? Did I think I was going to get a return on investment? How much did I have to invest, and what would be the anticipated return? Once I understood the question, it was much easier to find a paradigm of thought to answer that question. Unfortunately, in this case, I decided that the return on my present investment was going to be a losing proposition, and if I wanted a more positive return, I would have probably ended up losing everything.

Ok, I admit, this seems a little cold-blooded, but I don't have a better frame of reference with which to compare. What do you think? Is this a good way of looking at relationships?

Friday Night and Nothing To Do

So why am I at home on Friday night instead of going out and being social? Good question.

Something happened today that greatly curtails my free time and money for awhile. I had an air conditioning guy come out to look at my heater. It has been acting up for about a week and a half, and I've been slowly and progressively getting colder in my house. Today that a/c conctractor delivered news which I had been dreading and expecting at the same time. My entire air conditioner/heater needs to be replaced. Both indoor and outdoor units. That translates to a minimum of $4,000 at the very least!

God knows that I'm going to have trouble raising that kind of scratch, and of course it won't be $4k. It'll be more because of my house, or the setup, or any one of a hundred reasons to hike the price. I've got a home warranty that will offset the cost a little, but I'll still end up paying the lion's share of the repair. With that in mind, and not having any other outstanding invites or plans for the night, I figured low key and cheap were good words to implement tonight.

Would that it went the way I had anticipated. This afternoon I finally got around to a hobby that had been completely put on hold due to the girlfriend: reloading. I sorted out all my spent brass and started the process of depriming all that brass. By 8pm I had snapped the pins in both my decapping dies, bringing that part of the process to a screeching halt.

I've been putting off doing housework. I loathe house cleaning (one of the things I know I need to do, but only did begrudgingly when Monica and I were still together), so I've put it off. Now that may be the only thing I've got to do that's active. Chances are I'll end up vegging out in front of the TV, rotting my brain with some rerun movie or TV show. Ah, the joys of being single again.

Where Have I Been?

Alright folks, here's what's become of Joe:

I started to blog about my first relationship in this journey of mine. Her name was Monica. Well, in the course of my taking care of Monica, she started reading my blog, and at first she seemed flattered to be written about. However, several days later, she made it abundantly clear to me that she did not appreciate being written about the way I was presenting, so I stopped writing about her.

In truth, I stopped writing altogether. Our relationship seemed to take off, and I found myself with very little free time (and very little spare money). I even stopped going to church. Monica took the same stance on church that I did when I was sixteen: church was full of hypocrites, and she didn't need a group of people to tell her what she believed and what she knew. Considering my recent history with church and church politics. it was very easy for me to fall into this behavior, and I did. In the nearly five months I was with Monica, I went to church once, and that was only a week or two before our relationship ended.

Our relationship was not meant to be. At first we were inseparable. Then, when the hospital thing came about, we were effectively married. That blinded us both to some very real issues that we both tried to bury. I was looking for a relationship that would hopefully lead to marriage, and Monica was thinking along the same lines. Unfortunately we were just too different to click, so about three weeks ago, we separated.

So here I am once again, alone on a Friday night, with nothing much to do, except the chores that I should be doing (and really have no appetite for). I hope to write more as I go forward. There is a lot I learned from this relationship. I learned about myself, relationships, compromise, principles, morals and a few other things. I'll write about those as they occur to me. In the meantime...

In the meantime I'm not quite sure in what direction this blog should go. Church singles groups haven't seemed to work out for me, but I'm not sure I've been taking the right tack. I went looking for a singles group to meet people, hopefully find a girlfriend, and get married. There are two problems with that theory. The first is that singles groups don't seem to be geared to that concept. I'll write more about that later. The second is that I have to arrange my own life according to the Father's will. Whether or not that means marriage is yet to be seen, but I have found that all I need to be is open and observant. I think I've been trying to force the issue, and that's why Monica and I didn't last.

There's much more to come, folks, that is, if anyone is still reading this. Stay tuned!