X: Eleven Hours

We woke up yesterday morning, Saturday, and decided we would spend the day out. Mel was feeling like a Williams Coffee and we figured it would be nice to go out and hang there, have breakfast, read and talk.

It always takes a while to get food -- and particularly our mochas -- there, so we read until they came, then talked while we ate. Some of it was serious stuff about our life together, some was random anecdotes, some was silliness. There was a couple on a first date at the next table over, engrossed in a very animated conversation. They were about our ages, which is always hard for me to process because I don't always feel like I look my own age.

It was like something out of a short story. One couple meeting over coffee on a Saturday afternoon, sitting forward and talking energetically about their lives, their hobbies, their qualities, Lord of the Rings extended editions, discovering and coveting common ground, and only a few feet away a couple that's been together for more than a decade and sometimes just doesn't have much left to say but the same old I Love Yous. Talk about the dog, talk about surrogacy, talk about old times.

One thing that's always on our mind is intimacy. After ten years, the spark isn't always there; we've been through a lot and gotten to our comfort level. There have been conversations lately about what is the source of that and what to do about it. I'm as sexual of a person as anyone, but I've never really "felt" "sexy" and I don't know how to make her feel sexy: if there's a hole in my game it's that, setting the mood and making us both feel comfortable and desirable, even though I always try to emphasize that she is. She asked whether I would want to try something later, and of course I was in.

After coffee, we went to Value Village, which Mel has been wanting to do for sometime. She was interested in a new napkin holder, which we landed on a ceramic one with some pears on it. I was interested in bookends but didn't find any. We got some old magazines to cut up for her annual vision board, which was ostensibly targeted as a new year's thing once but I kind of re-framed as a "Birth-month" activity, so we're coming up on the time for that. We got puzzles, and a bunch of DVDs of random movies, although we ended up putting back any selections we had that were on streaming services we had. And one VHS of Jerry Maguire ("Is that, 'You Had Me At Hello?'") I have a whole box of VHS I want to watch, just need to set up the VCR and confirm it works. We also got some clothes -- shirts for me, a sweater for her.

We had so much stuff that we had to pack up, we almost left without paying at self-checkout. We were literally out the door when the very nice cash attendant called after us. We got 5 bucks off thanks to my membership, this after getting 10% off at Williams. Score.

We got home, fed Hank, and diddled on our phones for a bit. She asked what I was in the mood to do and I suggested the thing she had proposed earlier. She seemed uncertain about doing it before dinner, but I pointed out, not wrongly, that after dinner we're just too settled in, and that's probably part of our problem.

So she went upstairs and asked me not to come until called (I had, however, set up some mood lighting.) She had me bring up some music. I found her there, reclining in her sexiest mode, and we, well, dot dot dot...

It's tough but easy. So hard to avoid doing what's comfortable and letting it fall by the wayside, but when you get started, and you know each other's bodies, it's not tricky at all. You want it, you do it. I know that sex does have a certain amount of our mindshare; she reads a ton of erotica, and of course, I'm the person I am. But to port that into the real world, to sync ourselves, somehow that proves elusive. Until it's not.

It was good, of course. Great. There was a couple of hiccups near the end with a logistical error or two but we needn't dwell on that, because we got our momentum back quickly. In the end it was brilliant and emotional, as these things tend to be a bit loaded, although with time they don't have to be.

After a good long cuddle and some time basking in the dulcet tones of Alex Turner, we returned downstairs, heated up some Chinese, and watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It was a great day, up until she started feeling ill because we had had some cheesy popcorn that her parents had gotten us for Christmas. Boo to that. That ended the night, but didn't dull the greatness of the day.

The week preceding it had been a weird, off-kilter one as I still hadn't gotten my new phone and I was getting antsy. So while I was out running errands I stopped in at Best Buy and bought the literal cheapest phone I could -- an old Motorola for $150. Getting a new phone is a bit like moving to a new house, nothing's where it should be, so many little bits of comfort are gone, but it is what it is. Only a few things are gone forever, which unfortunately includes my contacts, and my Finch; pretty much everything else I could restore from backup or won't miss.

One side-effect of not having a phone for almost a whole week is that I may have missed out on a temp job opportunity. My mom was trying to reach out to me to see if I wanted to send some e-mails for her company. When she finally got ahold of me, I had mixed feelings about it but Mel encouraged me to do it, but I was seemingly too late. We'll see, but it's sort of opened up temp work as a possible avenue while I look for something more permanent and/or life-affirming.

I've been reading a lot of my old Tumblr lately, trying to remember 2011. This isn't pure unadulterated nostalgia, it's related to a writing project, but in the course of that I've discovered some of the stuff I was posting back then isn't totally awful. There's probably nothing I could do with it, but it does make one think.

One thing I didn't talk much about was Valentine's Day; as you know Mel was sick last weekend (and was still coughing as of yesterday morning and I think maybe I heard some today -- ohp, there it is...) and we had in fact planned to go to Mel's parents for Family Day on the 14th, so I gave her flowers on the 13th because I didn't know what was going to happen the next day. We didn't particularly do anything special, but it was quiet, intimate and nice anyway.

I've got some ideas about what this week and the next few can look like if I can knuckle down, but life is always testing my resolve with distractions, whether with Hankey or with quotidian tasks. An interesting side-effect of lacking a phone was that I ended up spending a lot of time sitting at my computer (how like 2011!) largely working on things I want to get done, instead of whiling away the time with phoney baloney distractions. This week won't be like that, but we'll see what I can do. I'm pretty set on finally monetizing my X-Men blog starting in March, and have mentally committed to doing that for four months even if I have no takers.

We'll see what today ends up bringing.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto

IX: No Direct Quotes (Sincere Tribute)

We're on the verge of a milestone, although we haven't hit it yet I just thought I would call it out because it's on my mind.

I started this blog back in May 2004. It was active -- although trailing off for several years by the end -- until June 2013. I always think about that as the original iteration of the blog. That's just a little over 9 years. Then after an absence of just under 4 years, I revived it in 2017 and eventually ramped back up to where I post fairly frequently. That's pretty interesting and that means that this new iteration is on the verge of lasting as long as the original.

By my count -- which is imperfect but my best analysis -- this will be the 235th post, not including drafts, since I revived in 2017. That means I only post approximately 26 times per year, or once every two weeks. There are 1581 posts total prior to this one, but between 2011 and 2013 I only posted 44 times, meaning 1303 posts were done between 2004 and 2010. That's 233 posts per year for 5.5 years. That's a crazy bananas amount of writing. I was wondering if and when I might overtake the original incarnation of the blog in terms of post quantity, but at this rate it would take fifty years. Wild.

I began this post three days ago in kind of a wistful, nostalgic mood. I'd been looking back at old posts, and old Tumblr, trying to reacquaint myself with the guy I was in 2011. Not out of dislike for my current state of affairs, but actually more for a writing project. If I ever idealize the five years or so before I met Mel, all I have to do is look at the plethora of writing I left behind to remember how rough I felt for that entire period. That said, there was good company, and occasionally decent writing. It occurred to me that since I'm no longer the writer I was trying to be back then, it wouldn't be the worst idea to try to repurpose some of the stories I did back then, but there's probably not enough of them for a book, and "Here's some old junk by someone you've never heard of" is not a selling point at all.

Then again, one person bought my gibberish poem book, so you never know.

So that was me on the weekend, looking backward. Mel was still feeling pretty sick so we mostly spent it recuperating in bed, and it was even a long weekend. We didn't end up going to Mel's parents' for Family Day, eg, because she didn't want to get anyone else sick, particularly Nonna. Sunday, which we had high hopes for, went kind of sideways when Mel started feeling not-good and really felt defeated by that. We did end up getting back on track, and indeed had a better evening and Monday, although that's all a blur. One day I went out and got us Bagel Barn, one day I made sunny side up eggs, then on Monday we had cream cheese bagels with bacon and tomato. We just sort of let the weekend go by as we do, but it was good. We watched a lot of Amazing Race Canada, did puzzle, Mel finished Hank's winter hat (just in time for the temperature to creep above zero.) We read, I played a lot of solitaire on my phone. 

The week proper got off to a rough start. My phone took one too many tumbled and became a brick. I took it to the repair guy and, after an hour of looking at it he couldn't even determine what was wrong with it -- it might work with a new screen, but maybe not, and it might not even be worth trying to fix, you know? Truth is, if that was all it was going to take to murder my phone, it was already on borrowed time because I'm famously clumsy. 

So my victory over technology was short-lived. That fucking sucks, but in the interim I had moved all my photos over to SD card so I can extract them easily. I had this sense that I should move everything -- contacts, games, all of it -- because this was going to happen sooner or later, but I didn't pull the trigger and here we are. I can live, but in the meantime I'm waiting for a new phone to arrive and it sucks.

The awkward part was trying to buy a phone and having TD ask me to verify the purchase on my app which of course I can't access. I got around that by adding my credit card to paypal and using that.

Being without a phone kind of sucks, but I can manage. Mel thinks I'm addicted to it so it's not bad to detox. It helps prod me into writing during the day. A little inconvenient to have to communicate via email or whatever while she's working, but this is life.

Other than that, I'm really, really, really trying to get writing done. I've put my e-learning (and job searching) on hold in a calculated move while I try to finish this book that will get me some pocket money. Then I want to expand my blog into monetization (again) and while I'm doing that I can resume my search.

It's a weird shell game of "where is Scotto getting money from anyway." I really don't know if I'm ever going to have a real job again. Yet I'm mentally healthier and happier than I was in the last year of my employment, and we're not struggling as a couple, so it's all worth it. Someday it will come out in the wash, I am sure.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto

VIII: Yesterday's Fresh Tea (Everyday blurs)

Nothing's much different today, except I have a bit of time to talk to you while Mel is on a call. Well, I have time every day but I'm judicious in how I use it. Today I did 2000 words or so on my work in progress -- thank you, thank you, no applause necessary. I haven't done my much-touted professional development in a while. If I were dedicated I could do a lot of it in a week, but I have other things on my mind.

Mel is still sick, afflicted with a nasty cough. After spending the weekend in the bedroom, and then working from bed on Monday, she took Tuesday off to rest and then go to the doctor. Doc gave her some nasal spray and a recommendation for a different cough syrup. I wouldn't say it hasn't helped, but last night she was still up all hours with coughing fits. Wellness is a journey.

I was thinking about old times again today. I mean, when aren't I, right? My whole life is old times. I feel like I haven't made any new times in a while, but the truth is, Mel and I have had some good ones lately. I think we really try to be active and present.

I was thinking about high school. And middle school. Who-liked-who-when, that sort of thing. What-could-we-have-done. It's academic. It doesn't matter. It's moot. I like my wife now and she likes me. I was just thinking about how I had this nasty habit of never liking the girls who liked me, even when I should have. I don't regret anything, but I could have gone down some fun wrong directions over the years if I'd given in to one or two of them. Too safe, that kid. Afraid. Hey, he still is.

I want to be something so badly, but my Goodness, I don't want to undergo the process of becoming.

The Christmas Tree's still up. Part of that is down to spending so much of the last few weeks tending to Mel upstairs that we don't make any moves downstairs. Laundry has suffered but that's not new. We're coming up on Valentine's Day and I've made some tentative movements toward changeover of decor but nothing solid.

I don't know if I have any problem with the way I'm living my life but I do, every so often, feel pangs of guilt I am not doing more to better my station and what I left behind. (Then I remember I left behind mental illness along with status and consistency.) Life hasn't really changed, Mel just can't buy as many crystals. I do need to do big things in 2026. Maybe starting next month.

I've never been the fastest runner. Or the one with the most endurance. In fact I haven't finished many races at all. I'd rather not race. But we're all racing.

Anyway. This was a nothingburger of a post and that's okay. Just a little ping to the universe. I spent the last twenty minutes reading old Tumblr stuff from April 2011, aka when Tumblr was more active than this site, (aka my prime??) There was some good stuff and some stuff that I should probably regard as cringeworthy but don't, because I posted it knowing that it might be.

Bwoof.

Well, I've nothinged this evening away decently. Let's call it, break, and regroup tomorrow (which is Friday??! What is time anymore?)

I miss you all.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto

VII: Anything (Such unique sonic qualities)

It's been a fairly interesting week as far as mundane weeks go. While I waited to learn the fate of my phone I dedicated myself to trying to fix my coffee maker. See, we've got this Hamilton Beach Flexbrew that can do either a carafe or a single cup and of course the single cup gets a lot of use around here since only one of us drinks coffee pretty much ever. But it was doing this thing where it was saying "Fill H2O" when I'd already filled the H2O. 

I've opened it up before and mucked with the insides and that seemed to work but I wasn't getting results this time. So I googled (-ai) the problem and after going down a wrong path briefly I found out I needed to clean the sensor that determined the presence of water. A little scraping and a few rounds of vinegar later and yay, I've got single cups of coffee again. Which is great because making an entire carafe for one person, even doing an extra cup that I can maybe reheat later, feels wasteful.

So that was triumphant. Then on Tuesday, I went to get my phone done, and all was well, except having to pay for it and also sometimes the color goes weird when I'm playing my stupid solitaire game. I made sure, by the end of the week, to insert an SD card and move all my existing photos and all future photos onto it. So now not only have I cleared internal space, but I can give my phone a brain transplant if I ever do finally destroy it once and for all, which at this rate will happen sometime in the next year.

Two wins against technology. Plus at one point on Monday I reset my laptop and it didn't wake back up but eventually it did, so that gave me a third. I worry about this thing, both because it's obviously quite old and I don't always treat it well. If I ever get a new job I'll probably treat myself to a new laptop and give this one back to my dad. Maybe. It and I, we've, uh, been through some shit together.

On the negative side, Mel's been sick all week. She kept pushing through to work, trying unsuccessfully to get away early to rest, until finally taking Wednesday off, so we just chilled in the bedroom together. We actually did go out to our previously-arranged event at the Sobr Market, a Gin-tervention where we learned a bit of zero-proof mixology. I had fun although I don't think I'll be applying that in our day-to-day lives. Afterward we went to Swiss Chalet for dinner, which was nice (to eat facing one another) but kind of slow service, in spite of there being a waiter robot.

She was worried about it being COVID but our possibly-out-of-date test suggests it's not. It doesn't seem to be hitting her that hard (and she's vaxxed anyway) but it's pretty long-lingering, with a sore throat and persistent cough. The hardest part has probably been finding things to eat and making time to eat it. She gets oversubscribed at work and indecisive and I'm trying to work around what works for her because of all that plus other recent dietary concerns. Last night was a toughie, going from salmon and noodles to soup and chicken strips to ordering Kelsey's. Her couch was so persistent that she woke up in the middle of the night and asked for a Halls, and I got kinda paranoid she'd fall back asleep with it in her mouth so I stayed up with he ra while until I was satisfied she was done with it. Weird night I guess.  

Other than that, the ongoing existential crises I face daily and the burgeoning panic about the state of the world, not much to tell. I've gotten some writing done but I'm focussing on revising right now and it's kicking my ass. This is not one of the easier things I've written despite putting a large volume of words on the page very quickly. I'm thinking I might be hitting a stopping point with this project -- the whole gestalt of it -- pretty soon, especially if this one doesn't go anywhere. I've never expected to get rich off of it, but I do feel like the financial rewards have significantly diminished over the years.

Well, that's another life, another me.

Who will I turn out to have been?

I keep thinking about some realname writing. And it's not impossible if I give up on the other thing. I also have a thing to submit and more coding school to do.

Well, here's my stop. This wasn't a bad one, was it?

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto

VI: Put Me Back (Together Wrong)

Here's a novel one. Writing a blog post at 9:41 AM on a Monday.

Let me explain. Saturday night, I was getting into the car. I closed the door and heard a crunch. The door had closed on the pocket of my big winter coat. And that pocket just happened to have my phone in it.

My phone is now inoperable. I spent Sunday morning running around trying to see if I could get it fixed but nobody could get the needed part here before Tuesday. One shop even intimated that the problem may be with the motherboard. He indicated that if it was, there would be nothing I could do, but I have since learned that it is possible to replace a motherboard, provided you can source a working part. Hm.

With no phone until Tuesday evening at the earliest, I'm a little out of sorts. Okay, I'm on the computer doing stuff. But I used to alternate stuff with distractions like games and passively refreshing social media. There's only so much of that I can do on the laptop, although it's also probably healthier not to anyway. My brain is a little frazzled and it's also going to impede my communication level with Mel while she works, but we can make do.

It was going to be a noteworthy weekend anyway. Saturday was mom's 70th birthday, the main feature of which was that the guys and I put it together. By which I mean, a few weeks ago, Brandon texted to say, "Hey, mom's birthday is coming up, should we do something?" and I then figured out what that would be. We arranged for the aunts to come -- Gail wasn't going to come because they just got a new dog but Cam wasn't feeling well so he stayed home and Gail came. We ordered catering from Jimmy the Greek, which was a big hit, with the caveat that I had to go pick it up which ended up taking a while... if I were to do it again, I'd probably alter the timing so that I got it in advance, especially since it had to be heated up anyway. There was also an obscene amount of rice, which merited a lot of commentary. We all had our share though. Maybe could have done with another salad. We ended up taking a lot home. Hank was there, mostly curled up on the couch in his sweater, very fawned over.

Long convos into the night. You know, whenever you get my mom and aunts together it's a long trip down memory lane. Then after they left it was more family chat until we made our exit, went home and had a second skewer each for second dinner (we'd had a late breakfast so we were light on dinner.)

Sunday was Mel's hair appointment day. This was delayed from last week when there was the insane snowfall. Mel was booked at 4:20, so we had this scheme of going over to her parents for dinner. The plan was for me to drop her off, then bring Hank to her parents' place, say a quick hello and come back to pick her up because she wasn't expecting to be very long. The lack of a cell phone complicated this a little but not much.

We got a bit of a late start out the door, but by the time I got to the in-laws, Mel texted her dad to reveal that her hairdresser was running behind and she'd be an hour later to see her. Well then. We sat and chatted, and Mama H came home and we chatted some more. Hank settled on the dog bed after trying to eat a spider plant (that's a new one.) We decided what to order for dinner from the Chinese place, then at 6 I was getting my shoes on to go when Mel texted anyway to say she was ready, so that worked out.

A nice evening was had. We tried to fix the magnification settings on Mama H's tablet, to no avail. We put some pieces in their puzzle. (We dropped off some of the puzzles we'd done this winter, in exchange for some from them.) Mel was feeling drowsy and eventually a little bit of stomach upset so when we got home she went right into bed and I sat up, doing not-having-phone things.

Such is life. Hey, what can I say.

Back on Friday, I spent some time cleaning the front hallway at Mel's behest. It felt good to accomplish something tangible. There are other things I really should do. No idea when any of them might happen though.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto