2024-11-13-12:43:09-Wednesday-5 ~inquiry ------------------------------------------------------------------ ### 2024-11-13-12:43:09-Wednesday-5 Admitted, I don't get out very much. I mean, I do to the same few places. But being in a food court in a large mall-ish setting feels bizarre, as though having borrowed a tardis to go back at least half a decade. <mental note to show up in Dr. Who? garb next time> ### 2024-11-13-12:26:59-Wednesday-4 I just "marked read" a reply 9991, which suggests someone will soon be the lucky 10,000th Midnight Pub replier! I'm in a food court area of a Macy's in a large city. Had some palatable "chicken tenders" w/ fries, and an overly expensive bottled water. My phone's "hotspot" still works after all these years. I actually have a more usable internet situation here than at home because at home I'm using T-Mobile's 5G wireless service, which somehow does DNS in a way that gives my Chromebook fits, meaning I'm constantly getting into patches where I'm waiting half of forever. It's so bad that I had to write a script that loops on invoking 'dig' (Ctrl-D to exit), which takes arguments representing the network-requiring terminal command I *want* to run... so as soon as "dig" tells me it's finding a nameserver, I hit <enter> quickly so hopefully my command runs without hanging. It's incredibly patience-trying at times. Wife is with friends in a fancy restaurant in the same building. After we're done here, it's off to surprise my dad for his birthday. ### 2024-11-13-07:14:26-Wednesday-3 Ho, hum... the online has gotten boring again. I've only "I" to blame, though. Really. The unreasonable expectations. The pretending not to remember about how everyone brings their own meanings to words. The pretending not to remember you're not supposed to post too much unless interested in being seen as a lunatic. And so on. It also could be that I realize I'm running out of time for this, as it's nearly time to awaken my wife, and then get busy preparing for sailing off (by car..) for Other People Adventures (That I Could Have Told Her In Advance Won't Be All That). Something weird has been happening to me, lately. I find myself experiencing an image of a couple TV personalities (whose specialty is in the area of deriding those of opposite political leanings) when getting long winded, either in speech or text. I mean, right down to grinning the way they would after imagining making a particularly good point, especially cleverly. Maybe it's not merely weird? Maybe it's <GASP> sick? Hmmm.... ### 2024-11-13-04:20:51-Wednesday-2 Have you ever encountered and interested with the same person online, albeit not realizing that's what was happening due to different "handles", and the relationship/interaction was completely different, e.g. specifically polar opposites in that you got along great in one context, but were at odds in another? Well, not that anyone here reads me anymore, anyway. But I needed to "wonder out loud" nevertheless. In just slightly related news, I had a really odd dream last night. I was working for a company I worked many years for, but this time the "where" as radically different. And I was somehow one of the more "quiet" employees. And one of them tried helping me by insisting I become more demonstrative, starting with having a heart to heart with my manager. Well, it's something I'd actually *wanted* to do for a while, so I sought him out. And found him. Put he kept sorta kinda putting off the desired conversation by leading me on a bit of a wild goose chase between buildings, usually involving multi-story stairwells. At some point, there were what I took to be stereotypically mafioso Italian types gathered, and there was something about me that one didn't like, so he decided to pick a fight. _But_, he was maybe a foot shorter than me, so the best he could do was jump me from behind, little jumping up onto my back, and then clasping his arms around me to hold on. But that's where his "fighting" ended. So I, almost feeling embarrassed for him, felt like I had to make *some* show of actually fighting, so I jumped up and backwards rather hard to land on him, and then moved around a bit to guarantee he got good 'n scratched up by the pavement we were on (I remember being particularly happy to note there was a bit of gravel on that surface), and he eventually let go of me. And without communicating, I somehow knew his name (which just so happened to be the name of one of my actual past managers...), and he somehow looks a lot like a "regular" Italian-looking guy on the Piers Morgan show.... Crazy, man.... the ways of "mind".... ### 2024-11-13-03:49:24-Wednesday-1 As if yesterday wasn't busy enough, today involves driving 90 minutes so my wife can spend an hour with a couple high school friends (during which time it's still not clear to me I'll get to do what I really want to do (i.e. some online thingies) or get stuck having to make small talk with one or more of the husbands, then it's another couple hours from there to surprise my dad for his birthday in a restaurant, then it's a night with him/them, then up fairly early to travel back home to follow through on other commitments. I dunno. It doesn't sound as back as it feels like it is when I re-read that, but this old body really isn't up for it, especially after going to bed around 8:30pm out of semi-drunken fear of not getting enough sleep after being exposed to questionably healthy people, and then getting around around 3:30am for getting to bed to early. It's easy to imagine that going south in the personal vitality department.