This is not normal, not worth reading, and is something of a meditative exercise I thought would be good to do, for unknown reasons, around 12:30 p.m. today. It seems that pushing 12:30 a.m. seems oddly appropriate and full circle. You won't want to read it. It won't be thoughtful. It won't provide insight. I'm just trying to remember.
I woke up at 7:45 a.m. and made myself available to work for the delivery company.
I made a dreary-eyed swipe through facebook and then rolled over and proceeded to go back into my half-asleep half-awake state that carries me until close to 11 a.m. when the company opens for business.
As has been his habit, Ike, the dog, spent a portion of that sleep time also asleep nestled against me.
11 a.m. comes around and I haven't been pinged on.
I find this frustrating, mess around on my computer, and begrudge my phone to go off with the familiar sound that signifies they need me at the kitchen.
I decided to download and transfer some show files to my tablet.
I get tired of waiting and decide to drive to the kitchen regardless.
I park next to the queue and pull out a clarinet which I practice for a half hour before getting pinged.
I continue to play, confused by why the A has a resistance the lower notes don't.
For Saturday around lunch there's 3 drivers and it's fairly slow.
I watch an episode of Friends from College while delivering 2 orders.
While I'm waiting on my third order, I get a notification that an item I posted on Ebay sold.
I did not think that item was ever going to get sold, and my day took an entirely different direction.
Now I was concerned about what had happened to the item, heat wraps, because I was sure they had gotten packed and mixed up in the flurry of moving recently.
It's around 1 p.m. and all I can do is try to imagine where I last saw the heat wraps.
I had one pack of hot wraps, 1 pack of cold wraps, and I thought I had made special pains to put them somewhere fairly easily accessible in the off chance they actually sold.
I look through my car and take things out of my trunk.
I attempt to visualize if they were somehow in the apartment I'm staying in and I just lost track.
I decide until I explore every corner where I suspect they might be, I'm not going to be able to relax.
I decided to sign myself off of work and drive to my plot of land and garage.
First, I had to drive back to the apartment and grab my van keys in case I left them in there, and I also had to check in on and lock Ike up.
I put Ike in the bathroom with his food and water because he hasn't shit the last few times I took him out and I think his crate is too small to be trapped in for too long.
I leave the apartment and get halfway through the parking lot before I realize I forgot the key.
I return and grab it while scolding myself for forgetting the exact reason I even bothered to drive back to the other side of town in the first place.
I start driving to the plot and start another episode of Friends from College.
The ride felt like it took longer than I wanted, but the mission came first.
I parked my car next to my van and went to search it for the wraps.
The sun is out and I'm immediately drenched in sweat.
I begrudgingly marvel at my body's ability to retain water as I wipe sweat off my sunglasses, which have a habit of sliding off my face already.
I walk to my shed and proceed to rearrange and pick through some of the places I thought I would have put them.
I find my refrigerator magnets and decide I want to finally put them on the wall that separates the back from front in the van.
I walk to the van and arrange them after a fruitless search does not turn up the wraps.
I decide to open the garage door and stare ominously at my moving truck.
Part of my general list of tasks is to move house things from the truck to the garage and storage shed things to the broken moving truck.
There is a chance the wraps are in one of the boxes at the back of the truck.
I decided to open the truck, and find that the bay glass window at the gate has shifted just enough that I can only open it about 6 inches.
Proceeded to pull up and down until I've splashed too much sweat on my glasses and start really feeling the heat coming down from the sun.
I think maybe I can jostle the window forward by lunging the moving van and hitting the breaks.
The van does not really run, inches forward and dies.
I grab a mop and try to inch the window back a bit.
Much to my surprise, it works and I get the door up most of the way before it catches on a table that has also shifted.
I grab the pills and stuffed animal bags I used to buffer the window and throw them in the shed.
I take the last 2 pillows and put them on the ground as I rotate and place the end of the bay glass window onto them.
I walk the window from each end to the garage door and hoist and push it into the shed.
I take the mini fridge, white boards, mattresses, and table from the truck and put them into the shed as well.
I open the toy chest, which didn't have the wraps, so I put it aside.
I open the freezer, which had scattered tools and things I kept behind the bar, but no wraps.
I take out the black gutter tubing I found for free on Craigslist and lay it on the ground next to the garage.
I take out the bar stools I said I'd put at the counter in the apartment.
I glance at the back of the van, one of my stadium seating platforms laid on top of other things my path to them.
I shuffle along the platform feeling all of the vehicle keys and lock for the back of the van in my pockets.
I learn how hot the top of the moving truck is.
I decide to take a break and go back to my car with the bar stools and sit in the air conditioning for a while.
I pick ticks off my jeans and flick them back into the weeds.
I swap out my better looking ill-fitting glasses for poorly colored better fitted ones.
After a solid portion of sweat dries, I walk back to the van and continue the search.
One by one I do a bad dismantling of the boxes that I think the wraps would be in.
I pick up rope, video game controllers, and my drum pad, but no wraps.
Literally everything I own is now in these two "rooms" and I can't find them.
I'm tired, hot, and incredibly uncomfortable with the amount of ticks accumulating on my body.
I decide to pack up and leave. I close and lock the doors on the shed and start walking back to the car.
Forgetting my drum pad, controllers, and rope, I turn around and retrieve them.
I sit in my car and take in the air conditioning for 2 minutes before I decide to do one last sweep of the van.
I open the driver's side door and see a line of ants crawling in the crevasse.
I use a napkins to sweap them out, concerned they had discovered the flavoring I leave in the van.
I open the side door and pick up each mildewy cushion and stack them on a counter, despite knowing I had just done as much a week ago when I used them to protect solar panels.
I confirm there's nothing, lock all the doors and return to my car.
I make it 100 feet down the gravel-ish path before a tick falls out of my hair onto the back of my neck.
I do another tick check and find 2 more, all of which I use a quarter to saw through on my dashboard.
I continue to drive, scratching at my head hoping to dislodge more ticks I cannot feel through my hair.
I spend the first 20 minutes of the drive humming songs I can't remember to myself and poorly belting out Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" which has been stuck in my head for over a week.
I decided to start another episode of Friends from College.
I eyeballed several McDonalds as I drove home as I was craving a Coke, finally attempting to stop at the one in Elletsville only to find the service too slow the the drive-thru as long as the previous one's I skipped.
I left the McDonals without ordering anything and decided to go to Wal-Mart for anti-tick help.
I took the wrong exit and had to take a back road to get to 2nd Street.
I was stopped in traffic by a train.
Upon arriving to Wal-Mart, I proceed to the garden section and contemplate buying 2 bags of bug repellent, but settle for one, and then find the Deet containers which I slipped 2 of into my back pocket.
I walked to the front of Wal-Mart past 8 aisles before finding a cooler than held the Coke.
I pay for my bag of bug-repellent dust and Coke and leave.
I get back to the apartment and realize I've forgotten to buy a replacement heat wrap to send to the buyer on Ebay.
I go back to Wal-Mart and find the heat wrap.
I pay with a store-credit card I've forgotten to use the last 3 times I've been to that store.
I return to the apartment and attempt to access the shipping label from Ebay.
I retrieve my printer from the closet and borrow my projector cord having misplaced the ones that didn't fit securely in the printer during the move.
I attempt to set it up to wirelessly print with my chromebook.
I learn a half dozen ways why my model of printer will not work with my chromebook and I individually put in the wifi password twice, scrolled letter by scrolled letter, because I didn't realize it could differentiate between capitalized and lowercase letters.
I grab my other broken screen laptop and plug it into the TV.
I plug the printer into the laptop.
Not being set up on the wifi yet, it doesn't download the printer drivers.
I connect to the wifi and download both the simple and complete version of the drivers for my printer.
The simple do not install.
The complex require me to run into my settings and enable something I don't know how it got disabled.
I install the larger package and reset my computer.
I re-open the pages with the shipping label and pay for and print it.
I make myself available to work again.
I put my bowl of previously cooked tater-tots in the microwave, 20 seconds after which I get pinged on to work.
One of the roommates enters with his girlfriend.
I let the microwave finish and bring my label and and heat wraps with me.
I arrive and run inside to grab a Sierra Mist.
I get back to my car and watch Friends from College and finish off my tots.
I make two deliveries, one in the same apartment complex I'm staying in across town a half hour before close.
I decide to go back to the kitchen just in case for any last minute orders.
I go inside for a Sierra Mist and Mountain Dew combination drink and talk and joke with some of the kitchen staff.
They start to clean up and I return to my car.
I sit there finishing an episode as no further orders come in.
I return to the apartment.
I search my clothes for a complete set and realize I'm out of clean underwear.
I grab my normal clothes and a pair of swim trunks and take them to the shower.
I examine myself in the large mirror for more ticks and take extra time brushing my fingers through my hair and scratching my scalp.
I get done, dressed, and take to the couch to start writing this.
I engage in small talk with a roommate
A little later the roommate's girlfriend comes in and inquires if I'm to be here tonight.
I explain my circumstances but also take the hint.
I put on shorts and proceed to the bars.
On the drive I realize though I just got out of the shower I forgot deodorant and used the emergency cologne I keep in the car.
I park in the garage around the corner from The Back Door.
I hear the music from the street, walk in and pay the $2 cover, and proceed to the bar.
I order a PBR because it's the cheapest thing on the menu and tip $.50
I watch the different groups around me and catch a girl do a lean to check out if I'm hot.
She concludes I'm not to her friends and retort in my head that she has 2 years left of wearing shorts like that.
I drink the PBR before going to the dance floor.
I dance for 4 or 5 songs, sometimes next to one girl in particular, but not with her.
I return to the bar for another PBR and wipe down my face with the bar napkins.
An acquaintance walks in and does not like my cold peace sign flash to his wave as he heads to the bar.
We banter a bit about the proper kind of introductions in the future.
I head back to the dance floor for 2 more songs before I decide to head outside to the porch.
I stand against the railing for a few minutes and check my phone before wandering away mouthing the words to the song playing.
I walk around the corner to the taco truck outside of Atlas.
I accidentally obscure a couple checking out the menu which I was looking for as well.
I order a $3 chicken taco and make a circle around the cook standing in different places as I wait.
A very drunk mid 40's hair stylist notices and compliments my hair.
She stumbles up to me while her friend tries to reign her in.
I let her play with my hair and tell me how she thought I might be someone her sister recently started dating in town.
Her friend thanks me for letting her play with my hair and corrals her back to where they were standing.
I get my taco, a fork, and a napkin and start to eat and wander around again.
I cross the street to where the other Taco dealers were and continued down past The Comedy Attic.
I decided to sit up on a small wall the separates the parking lot and street.
I hear music from The Root Cellar and contemplate popping in for a second.
The light above my head goes out.
A drunk-enough guy walks up to me and says he's putting out the word that there's some seriously messed up drugs going around in town after asking me if I was from here.
He explains he's seen too many good people die for no reason and that he doesn't judge what I might do, but just to be careful.
I tell him I've seen the lights from all of the recent overdoses, but I don't do those kind of drugs.
He says he doesn't either and we fist bump and he leaves telling me to take care.
I walk back to my car in the parking garage and am tempted to steal a city ladder laid in the level below it.
I drive back listening to the DJ mash-up of the most popular radio station.
I get home and continue to write this.
A roommate comes out of his room, grabs laundry, places Ike in the crate, and goes back to his room.
I flirt with closing my eyes for the night and lazily scan for a place to add more unnecessary detail.
I add a few more and decide I can return to this later despite feeling it has served its purpose; a purpose I still cannot define.
I adjust my way too old and irritating contact lens, scratch my chest, end this sentence and click publish.
