1. We have a thing in my state, Find Mass Money. It’s for people to check whether they have unclaimed money, property, stocks, or anything like that. I used it once before and had a small amount of money I was owed on a Sears credit card, probably from the early 2000s, back when Sears was still a thing. This week, one of my sisters messaged me saying that they found me on Find Mass Money. I went and checked. It was through Google and had me listed at an address I hadn’t been at since 2010. I was intrigued and claimed my ‘property.’ For a few minutes, it was like waiting for the lottery numbers to get drawn. Would it be some untold fortune that I had forgotten about? Then I got the email. I’d be getting a check sent to me for the sum of $8.29. Yay. Oh well, it is free money. At least I assume it is. I have no clue what I did to earn it. I’m guessing selling ebooks way back then. Luckily, it’ll only be 6 weeks until I get my check. I can buy a small pizza with a coupon code.
2. If I don’t have a client to train at the beginning or end of my shift at work, I will usually adjust my schedule accordingly so I can have a little extra time to do content/creative work. I had a pair of days this week where it was the opposite. I had a client at the beginning and end of my shift, but nothing in the middle. That’s the worst because it leaves me hours to fill. If we have other therapies to do, or if I have paperwork to do, I can make the day not seem excruciatingly long. However, one day this week, I walked in the door and within 5 seconds found out my first client had canceled less than an hour earlier. She said she ‘didn’t feel well.’ I think it was because it was raining. Anyway, the big issue wasn’t the cancellation. It was the fact that I had no other client until 6 hours later. This meant I could have clocked in maybe two hours later and gotten a lot of work done at home. I was pretty angry about that, but I did my best not to take it out on anyone else.
3. Something that doesn’t happen every day. At work, I was leading both a resting and an active metabolic test. The resting is easy. You sit in a dark room for 10 minutes and breathe normally through a mask with a filter, and the data is recorded. The active is more difficult. Think of it as a sort of stress test. You warm up, typically on a treadmill, and then go through an escalating ramp-up. You go until your body has had enough and then get to do a shorter recovery. Again, you breathe through the filtered mask with the data being recorded. When running the treadmill, the speeds can get up there as the client pushes themselves to the brink. When I did my test a few years ago, I was cruising up to 8.8mph on the treadmill. For this active test, I had the client running the treadmill. They were up to 7.9mph. By that point, we had enough data, so I told them that if they wanted to stop, we could. They wanted to go a little longer, which was fine. Then fate intervened. Out of nowhere, a fuse blew and immediately shut the power off to the treadmill. Luckily, the client caught themselves before they went flying into the monitor. I have no idea what happened. We’ve had the same equipment powered on for a few years and never had a fuse blow. It might have been from somewhere else in the building connected to the same circuit breaker. The client definitely wasn’t complaining that the test was just suddenly over, though. That was the most unique ending to one of those metabolic tests.
4. Being that I am knee-deep in Season 3 of Yellowjackets, you could say I was a little happy to see that Christina Ricci, who plays Misty, had joined Threads. Being that I am a big fan of hers and may have had (or still have) a crush on her for 30 years, I wondered if I should message her, welcoming her to Threads. I went halfway and shared a post that I tagged her in, mostly since I am sure she’ll be getting loads of DM’s and other mentions. I have a slightly higher than zero percent chance of her seeing it or responding, but just know that if she does, you’ll be able to hear me fanboying out through your screen.
5. I was partying like it was 2004 this week. The washing machine where I live is down, so I’ve been driving to the next town over to use the laundromat. Back 20+ years ago, I frequented the same spot to do laundry, not to hang out. So that has been a blast from the past. I’ve even taken the scenic route down past where I lived at the time. After putting together my 1990s retro short video on Instagram and busting out an old flannel for it, I had been jonesing to start wearing them again. I haven’t worn a flannel shirt regularly in probably 20 years. I thought that I needed to change and evolve my style as I grew older. This week though, I caved and wore the same flannel I used to wear when going to that same laundromat back in the mid 2000s. I played my new favorite 1990s playlist I created on Spotify, and pulled up to the laundromat feeling like it was 2004. I doubt I’ll go back to torn jeans like back in the 90s though. I’m like a hybrid of several versions of myself now. It’s interesting how you grow and evolve even when you don’t think you are.
6. There are certainly different levels of stupidity in the world. Driving up a sidewalk thinking it’s a road has to be near the top. Yes, I saw this happen this week. A person pulled their car up the paved walkway leading from the sidewalk to a library. Hopefully realizing how dumb they were, they pulled back out onto the main road, took a turn, and drove into the actual library parking lot. How do these morons even have licenses? They were either a moron or drunk. Instead of GPS and onboard computers, new vehicles should have tattlers like some trucks do. These should be connected to the local police or DMV, and they should register when an idiot driver breaks a law or makes a dangerous mistake while driving. It should tally points with some infractions being more than others. Speeding, crossing into the other lane, cutting people off, these things should be added up, and once you hit a certain magic number, your license is revoked, and your car shuts off wherever you are. Then you have to pay to have it towed as an extra kick in the ass for your stupidity. It’s beyond ridiculous the number of stupid drivers I see. They are all ages, too.
7. One of my new favorite things to do is shoot driving content. I open my moon roof and stick my arm out of it while holding my phone. Before we go too far, I have only done this on quiet back roads with nobody driving behind me, not on a main road or highway. I did a trial run of shooting using my selfie stick from the roof. I hadn’t used it before because I was worried the phone would blow away, because of course it would. After a successful video using the selfie stick, I was even more enthused about driving content. I had a plan to drive to Skaket Beach in Orleans. I knew where I could stop, assemble my apparatus, and get to recording. The drive was a minute or so. I was excited because I could hear birds in the trees while driving. I slowly pulled into a parking spot facing the water. It was perfect, or was it? Nope. Apparently, after I hit record on my phone, I accidentally stopped recording before the dang selfie stick was even extended. So my whole drive down was for nothing. What did I do? Drive back out and do it again. Yes, I did the Skaket Beach drive again because the footage was so good. In the end, I parked in the same spot again, between the same cars. I am sure I looked highly suspect.
8. Winter is finally over, yes. But nothing said the winter weather would go away. Having temperatures hovering around freezing and even seeing some flakes this weekend is enough to make me rip my hair out. Everywhere else in the country is seeing record highs, and in New England, it’s mid-30s. I feel like my body and mind have just shut down until we get our first real taste of spring. I just want to sit around and wait for it. Of course, I will force myself outside to get some high-quality video, but if I didn’t have that, I’d literally say call me when it’s 60. It looks like this upcoming week might see us get regularly into the 50s just in time for April to start. Fingers crossed.
9. I was raised at a time when you were basically on your own growing up, and you had to figure most things out yourself. Being a Gen-Xer meant becoming an adult, or at least feeling like an adult, long before you even had your driver’s license. It made you keenly aware and objectively skeptical of nearly everything and everyone around you. I think this protected us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, but it’s not as helpful the older you get. It makes it that much harder for you to open up and ask for help or advice. As I stare down 50, I feel at times like I am still trying to figure out what my path is. I have many things I enjoy, and I believe several useful skills that could be turned into paying jobs that will feel fulfilling. The problem comes with asking for advice. I feel like I should know what it is I want to do and how to get there. So if I never ask outside voices, even close friends and family, what they think, all I get left with is my own voice. My voice has certain beliefs, fears, and hangups. I try, but at times feel like I can’t see beyond the limitations my own voice and thoughts put on me. So it becomes a process where I am on a treadmill with a sail on it. I am constantly moving on the treadmill, but I can only go so far as the wind will move the actual machine. But being on the treadmill feels safer and more secure than stepping off onto the unknown ground.
10. As far as dating sites go, the worst free version has to be eHarmony. There are two giant issues with that site. One is that you don’t see photos. Well, you do, but they’re blurred. Yeah, I know, the site is meant to match you on personality, but come on. I can’t even get a vague idea of what a person looks like. It’s like they’re in witness protection. The other issue that is even bigger is the fact that your matches are based on your state. Anybody from your state is sent as a match on the free version. I live in Massachusetts, so I could, and have, had matches from over 200 miles away. I’m willing to push my match distance to 50 miles, but over 200? Not a chance. That’s just me. Imagine living in California? You could get matched with someone 1,000 miles away. Why even have match distances then? It’s so dumb. Just match everyone in the U.S. with anyone, regardless of distance. The ultimate disaster would be driving 3 hours to meet a match with the blurred face and getting there, and they’re hideous. Now what? Drive all the way home, or waste more money on a hotel for the night? Yikes. You might be asking why I keep my profile there. Probably laziness. I check every so often, get mad at how lame it is, and quickly sign out. Plus, my profile is hidden, so it’s not like I get messages.
11. It’s interesting how many things can change in a few years. No, this isn’t something about life. It’s about a spot I hadn’t been to on Cape Cod in, I’d guess, 5 years. Long Beach in Centerville is ostensibly just the western end of the more well-known Craigville Beach. There is no divider separating the two beaches. At least that’s how it used to be. Years ago, there used to be this amazing dead tree located about a mile walk from the parking area that was adorned with what had to be a hundred or more shells. Some were painted, others were just resting on or tied to the tree. I believe it was either a dead tree or just a gigantic piece of driftwood with numerous branches. Anyway, probably in 2021, word got out that the shell tree had been destroyed. I went out to see, and it was true. All that remained was a few shells on the ground, and I think a sawed-off stump. The rich jerks who owned that piece of beach decided that they needed to put us commoners in our place and ruin something that only brought joy to those who ventured out that way. This weekend, I returned, hoping that maybe a new shell tree had sprung up. I did find one about a mile out. It was much smaller with a few dozen shells on it. The big thing now is that Long Beach is littered with ‘private property’ signs. Granted, you can walk the water line, but the sign says it’s the owner's discretion. So beware, just when you think the rich assholes have forgotten, they’re going to strike and put a barbed wire fence across the beach. Not so that they can enjoy their ‘private property’ but just so that we have less public space to enjoy.
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| Part of the new, smaller shell tree. |
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