Le Changement

Nothing interesting happened today.

That's just the way I like it. I've never really enjoyed change, not that most people do. Some of my most traumatic days have been the first days at school after having Summer off, especially the early years when I was used to just my parents and a few kids on my block. The crowded masses of screaming children, and the fists that would find their way to my solar plexus with uncanny accuracy and frequency were sure deterrents to leaving my house, yet I had no choice. Just as I adapted to elementary school and made some friends, things changed. The girl I wanted to be more than just friends with was sent to a new school and I only heard from her once more. I myself was sent to the local middle school where five elementary schools' worth of students pooled in to one. Multiply that number by the number of grades in middle school, three, and I found myself facing fifteen times as many people on a daily basis. Just as I got used to THAT, it was time for high school and my parents sent me to a private school. This trend continued to college, and through two professional jobs.

Life is change, and transition is rough, but once I'm used to something it becomes familiar. It becomes safe. I remember a time when I wouldn't eat lettuce. Or Taco Bell. Or Chinese food. Or write in sentence fragments. Seriously though, there was a time in college when, on a road trip, my buddies chose a Chinese restaurant to eat in. I studied the menu, found something I thought I would like with a slight variation, and proceeded to ask the bewildered waiter for the “Chicken with Broccoli; hold the broccoli.” I STILL hear about that one from the old gang.

This need for the familiar and caution with the unknown may be one of the reasons I've stayed home so long. I know one guy who's left his home at least five times, only to wind up so deeply in debt that he's moved back home every time. It's scary. But it's also extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, the thing I hate as much as change is my status quo existence, the way I drift through the same routines. Monday, Thursday, and Friday is always Italian food for dinner. Tuesday is a chicken dish, usually cutlets or breasts. Wednesday brings turkey burgers made on a George Foreman grill. Saturday night we have Burger King and Sunday we have Wendy's. It's an unending cycle.

I also become attached to things, from toys to clothes. It'd be nice to have a TV in my room, but where would I put it? Surely I couldn't displace the boardgames I haven't played in years since I'd need other people to play. That bin full of generic robot toys moves over my dead body. As for clothing, I now have so many things that they don't fit in my bureau, and I stack clean laundry on my radiator. My friends always recommend I get new clothes, but I don't even wear my full wardrobe now; I tend to wear the same things over and over. I once had a sleeveless shirt that no longer fit me but had a cool monkey in a baseball uniform on it and said “beast”. I thought it made me look stronger to the girls in school, especially as I outgrew it. At the age of 12 or so I had to face the reality that it no longer fit. Yet I couldn't part with it and rescued it from a stack of clothes my mom was donating to charity, putting it on a teddy bear where it still resides today. Come to think of it, I still have all my stuffed animals too, though the bulk of them live in a big plastic garbage back in the back of my closet. As hard as it is to part with things, toys and action figures had lives and personalities of their own, souls infused by my imagination as I spent hours giving them all voices and histories. Losing them would be losing something alive, like a pet, and the six cat deaths that have occurred over the past thirty years in this home have been increasingly traumatic. As Peter Griffin once said to his dog Brian, “You know...at times like these it makes me feel bad that I'll die 40 years after you”

Basically, I'm constantly at war with myself. There's one side that hates living from weekend to weekend and enjoying the winter months when I don't have to play in any bands, and can just sit home and do nothing for two days. That side got very stressed a few days ago when his dad told him one of the leaders called and he booked us two jobs for next season already, even though that's months away. That side wasn't looking forward to spending time with family today, and going to his cousin's house to finally exchange the last of his Christmas presents. That side was relieved when, at 9:30 this morning, he awoke to hear his uncle leaving a message. It seems my cousin's daughter caught a bug in kindergarten, and was vomiting since 5AM this morning. Naturally, today's get-together was postponed and I found myself with nothing to do. When my parents got home from the doctor I told them the “good” news, although my dad was annoyed and suggested we just drop off the presents at my Uncle's house instead to “get it over with”. Part of me shared that slightly cold and pragmatic sentiment, realizing that next weekend we'd still be having a get-together.

After hearing the message, I decided to focus on my DSL problem and took a flashlight down to the basement, where I traced all the wiring in my house. It seems that the three white wires from our rotary phone in the kitchen terminate at the same junction box as a second wire connecting the other four phones in the house. This box has only THREE screws, and with each wire only two are actually connected, the third acting as a loose ground. 56K is slow, but this explains why I average about 4 or 5 K. This junction box or whatever the correct term for it is resides by some big scary wires and a fuse box, things I have no desire to mess with. DSL is impossible to achieve with only 2 of the 4 basic phone wires hooked up, so it seems past time for a change. Monday my mom is calling the phone company and letting them know we need to be updated or I'm going to have to cancel my DSL. I have high hopes; my mom is awesome on the phone. I seem to have inherited my dad's phone skills, with an added aversion. Not that I'm a great writer, but I communicate better when I have the opportunity to reread things. I prefer e-mail to answering the phone. My dad isn't averse to using the phone, but doesn't think on his feet either. I've heard him call people and immediately ask for what he needs, without saying who it is. A typical call from my dad begins something like this: “Yeah Rudy, I need a muffler for a Mazda 626 no turbo and...huh? Oh this is [MCF senior]. Yeah, anyway...” Even talking to family members my mom is often required to remind him to say certain things, like ask his sister how her surgery was or something. Since his hearing is bad, he'll sometimes hang up without registering what she was telling him and then she'll lecture him on rudeness. It's not rude; he just doesn't think of everything to say in the moment. Fortunately for us both, early years spent working at a phone company and a few receptionist positions have given my mom great phone skills. She even gets the name of the person helping her, something I forget consistently. “OK, I called the insurance company and they said this.” “OK, who did you speak to?” “I dunno.”

I slept for a few hours today. I was really tired. Or possibly bored. Then we went to church and had Burger King. Tonight I watched the network premiere of the new Battlestar Gallactica. They changed some things, like making the robots develop synthetic human forms and one of the characters from the original show is a female in this version. Overall though, it was good; it felt like a Peter F. Hamilton novel with the amount of characters and stories coming together across a big expanse of space. And now, “for a change”, I've written a lot about nothing. I think I'm going to do something tomorrow, leave the house for a few hours and go somewhere. I have no idea where, but I need a little change of pace. It may be nothing more than going to a store, or driving around the block, but I need to get out. The side of me that hates status quo is itchy after a day spent napping.

Seinfeld was successful as a “show about nothing,” but I'm not certain how long a “blog about nothing” can last....