speed bumps

 

 

now playing: joe walsh, “in my car”

 

yawn.

came in against my will this morning to a bit of a mess (but came in i did, because i knew that my partner across the room would be out because her daughter-in-law was having some kind of gallstone surgery, and she was taking off to help with her kids…and if i didn’t come in, we’d have a repeat of the disastrous day when the boss was the only one here)…it seems that the new spam firewall that we put in on friday managed to block all outside email for the entire weekend. i did exactly as i was told – i backed up the configuration on the old one and loaded it into the new one as soon as i had it powered up and out of the box…but apparently it didn’t register the DNS server from the old machine, so that field was blank – which meant that every incoming email was blocked with an “no valid recipient” or “fake sender domain” error.

needless to say, there’s some unhappiness about that in the ranks.

i returned home this weekend, rather uneventfully…not that i expected it to be any different. considering my state, the only way i could’ve done less this weekend would’ve been by not getting out of bed at all – but that’s not an option. in fact, i’m thinking about packing wendy’s bed early and buying another mattress…i have about a six hour limit in this bed before i feel like i need cortisone just to get out of it. i had started to think that it was me until i had an extended opportunity to sleep elsewhere, and now i’m pretty much convinced that it’s not me at all. i think i got my most productive rest between the point when i got up and went downstairs and the point that i woke up on the sofa. other than that, i actually sat on my ass and watched movies all weekend…funny girl on sunday afternoon, desk set (a spencer tracy/katherine hepburn classic…the next to last movie they made together) on saturday night, right after one of the worst movies in the history of man (saturday night fever)…and finally – after much fanfare from my son – napoleon dynamite last night.

dylan spent most of the weekend with his buddy derrick, but then came over last night – they’re both at my house to make up for some lost time from last week now. he brought some great stories with him. apparently, derrick had a couple of friends, jose and steve (steve is the latino kid, jose is caucasian…go figure) stay over with them. at some point, they were playing video games and derrick turned down the music from the game and put on a shania twain cd instead – at which point, one of the kids said to derrick, “man…is this the music you jerk off to?

to which derrick replied, “well, it’s not the only music…“

apparently, these remarks were caught on videotape, too.

so there’s video evidence of what could potentially be the most embarrassing public remarks of his short life.

have i repeated my “no way would i want to be a teenager now” rant lately?

the last time the three of us went out for dinner together, they did nothing but laugh – in fact, jayda caught dylan off-guard and he ended up spraying mountain dew out his nose across the table at her.

i want to think that the speed bumps from the last couple of weeks might be behind us for a bit. i know there’ll be more, but i do appreciate the smooth road between them right now.

there was a great saturday night live retrospective on tv last night…something i’d love to have on video if it ever shows up in purchasable form.  live from new york: saturday night live – the first five years. they actually dared to interview the writers, which is where the real story of the genesis of that show lies. those people were brilliant – and while they’ve had some good writers in the time since, i don’t think that show will ever again live up to the legend that looms over it from that first cast and the writers who wrote for them.

but then again, we’ll never live in times like those again, either.

last night, while we were sitting together on the sofa after the kids had gone upstairs watching tv, wendy looked over at me and said, “we’re gonna be ok, you and me…aren’t we?”

i wasn’t sure, initially, if that was a question or an affirmation…and before i really got a chance to answer her, she’d managed to change the subject, so i don’t know if she heard me or not.

there’s been no real packing…the only sign that change is underfoot would be a slow stream of purchases on her behalf that are starting to clog the few remaining spaces in the house with their presence – new glasses, new pillows, things of that nature.

and i know that eventually, i’m going to have to start my own steady stream – it just seems at this point that there’s not much point in crowding the house even further than it already is. that, plus i have a ton of other stuff to pay for, pay off, and pay on between now and the point when i’ll actually need to replace some of these things…so i’m not going to sweat it for the moment. there’s plenty of other stuff to sweat.