It was the end of the week, and things are catching up with me.

  

 
Several  weeks ago, Vicki suggested I buy the above top to go with the wide leg trousers I wore to dinner with her.  Today, due to Lane Bryant not having the top in its warehouse, I decided to drive to New Jersey to buy it.  This top and the top below were the results of this shopping trip, a trip that cost me more in gas and tolls than what I may have saved if I could have bought either top online.

With my face, I am far from a 10.  The weight also makes me look fat - because I am.  Yet, I seem to blend in well enough to be accepted by people in the female role.  Of course, the voice training I got at Mercy College helped a lot in making my female presentation workable for everyday use.  (Now, if only I could get rid of my male body fat distribution and develop a set of hips in its place....)

But why do I say that things were catching up with me?  People I didn't expect to get in contact were getting in contact with me, and I didn't have the time to do all the things I needed or wanted to do.  For example, my friend from game night wanted to confirm going on our hike and wanted to bring another friend from game night along.  I wasn't going to miss seeing this other friend as well, so I made sure to say YES to that.  Then, one of the two women I befriended from Mercy contacted me and wanted to schedule getting together.  With two events already on my calendar that took up days I'd normally use to get together, I decided to use a Thursday, now that my Texas friends are meeting in person and not via Zoom.  And I had to consider my get together with FH, along with my weekly chores of buying food for the week, with laundry afterwards.  How do I fit everything in to my schedule, now that things are opening up again?  I haven't had to think this way since the last time I was gainfully employed.

If I were dating someone who were coming to my apartment on a regular basis, I wouldn't have done what I did after work today - go shopping for the above two tops.  I would have been with the woman, as I would have put her needs first.  Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to take a drive to look at the above two tops. It's been ages since I was in Clifton, NJ - almost 40 years ago, when on a gig for a "consulting" firm (read: Rent a Programmer) that has been gobbled up by even larger firms since then.  The firm I was contracted to also has been gobbled up.  So I didn't expect many professional memories to be stirred up while on the drive - and they weren't.  Yet, I didn't expect to see how much the area had changed since I was there last.  All the landmarks I might have remembered were gone, and either large strip malls or apartment complexes were left in their wake.  The Lane Bryant store I went to was in one of those malls.

By the time I left the store, all the rush hour traffic I saw along the way had dissipated. So I decided to take a leisurely ride back home.  Could I have bothered to do laundry?  Yes.  But I was too tired from getting up at 6 am.  Instead, I decided to rest, and fell out with the TV on....

I keep making lists, but nothing comes of them.

 

One of the things I do at work each day while not looking at a computer screen is to make a list of things to buy and things to accomplish.  Some of these lists I make involve things I need to do now, and other things I need to do in the future- such as blogging about my future vaccinations.  This helps to keep my mind focused enough to get through the day at work, and to help set my priorities for the near future.

Some of the things on these lists involve people I want to call, so that I can arrange my social schedule for the next couple of weeks.  This can involve setting up an occasional date or two. Other things involve cooking, and and the ingredients I have at hand.  Often, I plan to buy salad and eat it, but I never get around to it. Other times, I plan to cook some pudding, but I never get around to it - the milk I have in the ice box always seems to go to waste. Very little of these things to do and things to buy ever get checked off.

With this being said, I feel that making these lists is a good thing, as I know what my priorities are.  The things I did not buy or did not do are not that important at the moment, but the ones I checked off the list were the ones that were needed to be taken care of most. 

So I will continue to make my lists and see what happens next.

Things are starting to open up again - somewhere.

 

Last night, I found that my friends in Texas were about to have their first in-person meeting in a while.  Sadly, this means that our Zoom Meetups will likely be ending soon.  That saddens me, as I see this happening in New York as well, and I've been blackballed from a group that I would have liked to attend in either of my modes.  Such is life.

Eventually, other venues will open up as well.  I can't dwell on the past, as it is long gone.  There are things that I'd do differently if I had the chance to do a "redo" on 2020.   But that's not realistic.  When I asked a question of the ex, "what would she do differently?", she avoided answering the question.  I can only infer only one thing from her actions of last year: she didn't want to deal with me in either presentation at a meetup group), and didn't care about how she accomplished this.  She could have gotten what she really wanted with less pain had she been willing to communicatet and negotiate, but that' didn't happen.  Her "nastygram" on the morning of my birthday showed her real self -  someone who doesn't worry about the degree of pain she inflicts on others when she's pursuing a goal of her own.  (I know she will think differently from me on this.  Last year's dispute was proof that she wanted me as far away from her group(s) as possible and didn't care how she'd keep me away.)

But enough about the ex.  I've given her way too much headspace lately. There are other, more important things I'm concerned with right now - such as getting vaccinated against Covid-19.  Now that things have opened up even more, I figure that I'll try to score an earlier appointment than what I have now.  I want to be "fully protected" before summer comes.  Of course, I have taxes to file, and it looks like last year's withholding game plan worked - over withhold by 10%, and that should cover progressive taxes on income from sources other than the census.  So I'll do the same for this years income from the new job, and withhold taxes with the assumption that I'll be there until year end.

I still have a big vacation to plan.  However, to take it means that I will likely have to leave my job, or accept unpaid time off.  (I'd accept the latter option if I could get it.)  You'll note that I've made the assumption that I'll remain on this job until then.   But any job I can joke about in the way I do is likely to be too mind numbing to stay there too long.  I need something that occupies my mind, and only so much vacation planning can be done in my head at work.

At least one good thing has happened so far due to the loosening of pandemic restrictions. I have been able to schedule a get together with the new friend I made at the Zoom Meetup the other day.  She only knows me as Marian, and that's how I intend to keep it for now.

 

It's hard to believe how much things have changed.

There's a certain timeless twisted quality in the movie UHF that defies description.  It's a great spoof of the nature of (then) UHF TV, where most stations made their money by showing reruns.  Today, all broadcast TV is digital, and there is no physical difference between what were UHF stations, and the original VHF stations - they all share the same area of spectrum reserved for broadcast TV signals.  Yet, when one gets past the technology used to deliver media to people, the gags still work. In the image above, the man at the right is asking for "change"  One man gives him a penny (later found to be a valuable 1909-S VDB penny), while Weird Al's character gives him $1.00 in change, and receives a $1.00 bill in exchange for it.  "Change?" My favorite gag from the film involves a shipment of Badgers for "Raul's Wild Kingdom."  When Raul sees the Badgers, he says: "Badgers?  Badgers?  We don't need no stinking Badgers!"  Raul's show stinks, but it's popular - just like many UHF shows of the past.

Why do I mention "Change?"  Well, I never thought I'd be working in female mode.  Now, I'm employed for the second time as Marian.  If I had been able to get another technology job, I'd have worked as Mario.  But, since these jobs are not open to me right now, why not work as a female and enjoy how many people react to me? If the ex had stayed in my life, I never would have taken this step - romance was always more important to me.  She never understood that, and never will. But that's water under the bridge now.

Because of my new job, I have started wearing clothing more typical of the average American female.  Instead of wearing dresses all the time, I'm wearing tunics with leggings, or long sweaters over trouser like garments.  I seem to be blending in better than I did in the past.  I truly have a foot in each of the male and female worlds.  And this is a good thing....

 

Monday, Monday....

It was Monday, and it's back to work.  I'm getting good at sleeping until almost 6 am, but there are times where I still wake up too early.  However, I've noticed that more traffic is on Route 9a these days, and this will likely be a factor in when I eventually decide to leave this job.

- - - - - -

As usual, I showered, shaved, put on my makeup and left for work at 7:15.  Now, that's not early enough to guarantee that I can stop at the local deli, order a sausage & egg sandwich, and get to work on time.  So I've shifted my deli to one 15 minutes closer to work, and past the Southbound Route 9a traffic jam on the road between Croton and Briarclff Manor.  Luckily, they make a good sandwich, and I get in and out quick enough to make it to work and have a cup of coffee before clocking in.

In an email conversation with the ex, she brought up the fact that living as Marian was my goal.  What she didn't recognize is that I would have sacrificed future progress on this goal to have romance.  Alas, this was not to be - with her.  Strangely enough, I received a call from my accountant this evening to tell me NOT to file my 2020 tax return until I receive my $1400 stimulus check, as I earned too much in tax year 2020 to qualify for a payment.  I mentioned some of the events from the past, and my accountant was incensed. One can make threats of someone, but not ones that can negatively affect a family.  But enough of that.  That problem is in the past  I'm looking towards the future and forgiven the people in my past.

I find it amazing how much time one can waste watching TV.  If I had a brain (and I'm not sure if I do), I'd toss the vidiot boxes out and go back to reading books and listening to radio.  There was a list of 15 things to do in my bag, and I only took care of two of them.  It could be worse....

All I really wanted to do is stay in bed all day

 

As nice as the weather may have been this morning, I wanted to stay in bed and binge watch TV all day.  And that is what I did until almost 5 pm.  (I didn't react well to "Springing Forward" and rather "Fall Back" to a standard time again.)

In the recent past, I used to binge watch "Lucifer" when I had hours to kill and nothing much else to do.  Now, I've been watching "Gotham", and wonder what the show runners would do next.  However, I think I'm getting to the end of what I want to see, as I'm noticing a repetition of theme that indicates that a show should be closed down.

I am a fan of Melissa Hunter's Youtube series, Adult Wednesday Addams.  It's a shame that the Charles and Tee Addams Foundation stopped this woman from making a very enjoyable series with the Wednesday Addams character.  It had better writing than most TV shows, including some that my uncle (who I will not name here) had worked on.  Recently, it was announced that Tim Burton is working on a series to be shown on Netflix which features Wednesday Addams, but I don't think it will be half as creative as the Youtube series was.  In any case, I will watch the show at least once to see if I like it. 

Sadly, one of the shows I loved from 20+ years ago is not available online (as of now).  Midnight Caller's first two seasons were good TV, and I wish I could find the whole series on Netflix or some other streaming service.  Hopefully, that will change soon.  At least, I can find most of the episodes somewhere if I really want to watch them.

Enough of TV for now.  I have to finish my laundry and then get ready for sleep....

 

Commenting on a conversation with Vicki

 

As many of my readers know, I have a job that can be done by a trained monkey for peanuts.  Since they already pay peanuts to us humans anyway, it isn't worth the personnel costs to switch over to a non-human labor force.  Nor do they want to deal with PETA for the mistreatment of animals....

- - - - - -

A job like I have doesn't call for much mental horsepower.  This means I have way too much time to think, and the wrong things have been occupying my headspace.  So I have to work on changing things as much as possible. And that may mean that I will have to look for a new job sooner than I'd like to do so.

This was not the most comfortable conversation I've had with Vicki, as she had more anger than I have had regarding events of the past year.  In certain ways, it feels like I'm being gaslighted because some of my observations and comments in conversations with another person are not triggering a response acknowledging some responsibility for mutual problems. Vicki notices that, and will not let go of her anger towards this person.  At least, I know that I can always count on Vicki to tell me the truth as she sees it - and we've never been in the sort of ambiguous situation where logic would imply one thing, but facts presented would imply something else. 

Eventually, she will move from her current home, and I will miss her dearly.  This date will come way too soon....