Yeah, so I haven't smoked in like a week. Not since Andy Kemp's farewell party. Mostly because I got sick with a cold right after that. I was coughing so hard I couldn't even think about cigarettes. Even when I got better (I'm still not completely well) The desire to smoke wasn't even there.

So I just simply made the decision to quit cold turkey. I know what everyone says, "Oh, it won't work. It'll fail. You can't quit cold turkey." Eat Me. Fuck You I can.

I haven't had a cigarette in a week now. So far, so good. Although it is tough. My body's not craving the smoke, but it is craving the nicotine. My brain is sending me messages while I'm driving like, "Shouldn't you be smoking? You mostly smoke when you drive." But my will to defy and resist even my own urges is strong. I'm having nic fits, but I'm replacing them with drinking water.

I still go out of the office with the smokers when they feel the need. Even though I'm not smoking. I can tolerate being around smoke. Most people it would make them want to smoke more. Not me. It's more of an endurance test. I go out just to get away from my desk for a while. My brain needs the break.

One thing I've noticed since I've stopped is my senses have become more acute. I can smell what my clothes really smelled like when I was smoking. Usually I'm pretty conscious of that. I try to keep the scent off of me to a degree, but sometimes it's pretty obvious. But now I can instantly tell when someone else has recently had a cigarette. I can go "He had one five minutes ago, and she had one ten." My father went through the same thing when he got out of the hospital this past summer. He lost the desire to smoke and when he stopped he realized what his clothes smelled like.

It's funny the lack of nicotine in my system has started to make me act weird(er). I'm walking around more silly and it's probably because I haven't had a smoke to mellow me out in a week.


Well, I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. Next thing you know, I'll be eating right and exercising.

Labels: Fitness, Health

So I thought I was just a little wrecked when I came in to work on Friday after being out until 3AM the previous night. I had some dehydration and a little nagging cough. I would speak to people and my voice would get more and more gravely. People thought, "Man, you must have tore it up last night. I can't believe you even bothered to show up today."
    "That's right. And on a snow day, too...bitches!"

As the day went on, the cough got worse. By the time I left work, I couldn't speak anymore. My throat was that irritated. By the time I got home, I was horking up little chunks of hurl and lung butter. I'd sit on the couch and cough so hard I would gag. This was fun. Thank God I didn't have to go to work in the morning. I kept thinking I must have caught the West Nile Virus, or at least the West Conshy Virus.

Here it is Saturday, and I can't bring myself to get out of bed. I'm not weak or anything, I simply know that If I sit up and breathe, that I'm gonna cough. Fuck that. I'll sleep all day. I ain't got shit else to do.

So Saturday's gone. Now for the fucked up shit. The cold has moved from primarily my chest to my head. I'm still coughing, but now I've got all kinds of shit happening. I've got a killer headache at the base of my skull. Every orifice on my head is closed up. I'm got so much sinus pressure that my eyeballs hurt, and on top of it all, I've got a fever of like 110.

Too fatigued to cook and to dizzy to even stand, I spent most of Sunday hungry until my Mom came over and brought me some Chicken and Dumplings. Nothin like that momma love when you're sick. Oh, that shit made my day.

I could feel the fever just radiating off of me. Anywhere skin was touching skin I could feel the heat. My balls were like this mist-laden, tropical, Evil Jungle Penis, forest fire. I was in a constant sweat. I'm sure I smelled great.

I couldn't even sleep with the fever. I had two blankets and a fan. I felt like an old menopausal woman. I'm HOOOOOOOTTT!!! I'm COOOOOOLLLLDD!!! I'm HOOOOOOOTTT!!! I'm COOOOOOLLLLDD!!! Yeesh!

Monday I wasn't even trying to feel work. I was still horking up chunks of things that didn't belong in my body. Awesome.

I truly didn't realize how sick I was until I tried to go to the store and get some supplies. I dragged my ass to the Giant and loaded up on cough drops, decongestants, and antihistamines. I filled my cart with microwavable soups and Gatorade. ('Cause it's got lectro-lights) I was so dehydrated I nearly passed out three times in the store. I'm walking around and my lips are so dry, I look like I've been giving blowjobs to powdered donuts all day. I wanted to kill the little aggravating checkout boy, who didn't have any change in his drawer. Ordinarily I'd have leapt over the counter and strangled him AND his manager after I floated him a C-Note and he looked at me like he was stupid, but I was far too weak. I just wanted to get back home.

And for some reason, the sunlight made me nauseous. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn't eaten anything solid in the last three days.

I somehow made it back home. And nearly passed out on the couch. I didn't even bother to put the food away. OK, so now I've made my journey out into the world and hopefully once I get a little food in me, I'll feel better.

I'm online IM'ing people at work because I'm starved for entertainment. Nothing on TV. I ended up watching a lot of Lifetime. THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE ON! I was so eff'ing bored. Anyway, I'm IM'ing Gina when I made the biggest dumbass move I've made in a while. Never eat saltines and drink orange juice after your lips have split from being dehydrated. BIG MISTAKE! Oh, that sucked so bad!

I was hoping that people would send me entertaining e-mails and stuff because I was sick. No such luck. I was so bored!

The meds I took were enough to kill a horse, but I was feeling shitty so I doubled up on them. Jeezus, Mucinex are big fucking pills! Could choke a bull moose with them sons o' bitches! They say take them with a full glass of water. No shit! Wouldn't want to risk one of thtem getting lodged in your esophagus on the way down. It's like trying to swallow a football every twelve hours!

Anyway, Monday was spent. Tuesday I was feeling much better, but still not quite 100%. I still had a nagging cough, but my body was just trying to get phlegm out of my left lung. It wasn't like a hacking anymore. I still wasn't going to work. I decided that today I wasn't going in to the office, but at least I could get some work done from home.

Well, it's Wednesday. I'm dragging my ass into work like a wounded dog. I still can't really speak, and I'm a phlegm machine. Oh well. One good thing about being sick. I must have lost 5 pounds in sweat alone. Another is I haven't even thought about a cigarette since last week.

Labels: Health

Found in Parking Lot at 2560:
One (1) used condom.
Magnum size.
Discarded in lot.

Please see Facilities Manager to claim.

Yeah. You read right. I'll be Gat Damned if I didn't find a used condom in the parking lot when I pulled in to work this morning. I setp out of my truck and BAM! There it is lying on the ground. Staring me in the face.

"Is that a ?...It damn sure is!!!"

And they bitched about the "sea of cigarette butts" in the parking lots at work. How about somebody do something to clean up this shit? If I track a cigarette butt on my shoe, that's not exactly end-of-the-world nasty. But a goddman used fucking condom? Eww Eww Eww!

What I wanna know is who's fucking in the YellowBook parking lot? What kind of mad parking lot sex does a yellow pages provider inspire?

"Unh... Ooooh... Say it, bitch!"
    "Ohhh ... Yellow Book dot commmmm!!!"
"Business is off the charts!"

OK. Eww. I just grossed myself out with that one.

I'm debating whether or not to send something to facilities in response to their ludicrous flame e-mail about smoking. But I talked to HR and they said they have my back.

Dear Facilities,

Attached is photographic evidence of what I found in the parking lot today. You people have the nerve to complain about the highly dubious "sea of butts" in the parking lot. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Piss off, you hypocritical collection of contradictions.



xoxo
keller Rob

Labels: Work

So I'm checking up on MySpace this weekend and I get a new friend request from someone I don't know. My first instinct is to Mark It As Spam. But sometimes I check out the profile to see if it's a real person or if it's the usual "Come see my pornographic pictures on another site" request.

Turns out it's some 15 14*-year old girl living somewhere in California Georgia**. Usually most friend requests that come from people I don't know and aren't spam are usually musicians that want to promote themselves through me or random people who find some interest in me, usually by finding a blog entry of mine. So I figured this girl was the latter.

So I added this girl because I figured, "What's the harm?" Whatever. It's one more friend. Most people on MySpace just collect friends. Most people they don't actually know, so whatever. I've seen people with 1,000 friends. I feel like a loser because I only have 70.

I see this girl post a couple of bulletins shortly after. One of which is the exact same survey that I forwarded on from ?uestLove, Songs In The Key Of Life (Childhood-Adulthood). I read it and most of the answers are the exact same as mine. HAH! I mean verbatim.

That's awesome! My very first MySpace groupie. Hahaha!

It's awesome to know that I'm corrupting 15 14*-year old minds in small towns in California Georgia**.

So come on and be my friend because I'm a loser and I need the attention. Hahaha!



RETRACTIONS:
*-OK, so she was 14, not 15. Woot. ;)
**-And she was from Covington, Georgia not California. Easy mistake to make when you're drunk; CA for GA. Hah!

Labels: Blogging, MySpace

So I was buying some new clothes last night at the Casual Male XL. I'm just looking around. I usually know what I want.

In walk these three South Philly Guidos. Three loud, fat, sloppy-looking bastards. They come blustering in the door like, "Yo, I heard you gots dem underwears for us!" They were loud, rude, ignorant, and obnoxious. They wandered around the store like they had never been in a Big & Tall store, much less a Men's Store before. I could smell the cheesesteaks seeping through their pores.

They would drop little gems, like, "Yeah, we needs to get summadem thermal underwears. We're freezing our asses off. I'm gonna put summa dese on right now. I need some underwears on." and "Do yous gots summadem diuretic socks?"
"Look at these ties they made for us!"

They kept trying to finagle coupons and discounts out of the clerk.
"They mailed me a coupon, so it should be in the system"
    "Sir, you have to bring in the coupon so I can honor it. I can't do anything if you don't bring it in."
"Well, it should be 75% off. The sign out front says You gots 75% off on things."
    "Yes sir, the things marked as 75% off have tickets stating so."

So I'm politely waiting for these guys to leave so I can make my purchases. The entire time I'm laughing my ass off quietly at how ignorant these guys are.

Anyway, Once these guys leave, I make my way to the register. As I'm ringing out, I start flirting with the clerk that was working. You know, my little charming act. You know me, smooth as hell. ;-)
"Will there be anything else today, sir?"
    "Actually, I was looking at these patent leather loafers over here. I was wondering if you had them in a size 11?"
"Oh, you like these? These are nice. Let me look in the back for you."
...
"Well, I'm afraid I don't, but I do have these other loafers in an 11."
    "Well, I really liked these patent leather ones."
"Oh, you like the patent leather, huh? Yeah I like the shiny, too."
    "Yeah, well, you know. I got to keep it shinin'"

Oh, she was eating it up.

"Yeah, you have good taste."
    "Well, I know what I like."
"I can tell by your purchases, you know how to dress. And you're not afraid of a little splash of color."
    "Yeah, I can put a little something together."
"Ooh, and look at these pants and this belt. You really know what's good."
    "Yeah, I've been looking for a grommet belt for a while. You know what would really be fly, is if you guys had a pyramid studded belt."
"Well, let me know what you'd like, and I'll tell my manager. We'll see what we can do about getting that in for you."

We also spent a little time laughing at those Guidos who just left.

"Did you see how they were trying to get over on me?."
    "Yeah, I saw that."
"I can't do anything about the prices marked."
    "I know, they just can't read."
"Let me see if I can hook you up with a couple of 'specials'."
    "Bet."
...
    "So what's your name?"
"Oh, my name's ******"
    "It was good to meet you."
"Oh, I hope you come back soon. I'll be here all week. Let me carry those bags for you."

Now she could have just let me pay full price for my purchases, seeing as she was a little aggravated it how those Guidos were trying to squeeze out nonexistent discounts for ultimately $50 worth of underwear. But because I was flirting with her, engaging her like a person not a clerk, she hooked me up with five $50 shirts for $19.99 each. That's a hookup.

So what did we learn from this?

A little flirting, a little nicety goes a long way. People in the retail and service industries are typically treated like tools; even nuisances. They are ignored or mistreated by the impatient masses. They appreciate it so much. I had no interest in this girl. And I certainly wasn't trying to pick someone up in the Casual Male XL. But look at how the Guidos treated her. Rude, crass, ignorant. She just wanted to get them out of the store as fast as she could. Now me, a little flirting and she was hooking me up left and right, even carried my bags out the store. Look at the mileage I got from it. That certainly wasn't my intent, either. I was simply being myself, who is a nice engaging guy to talk to.

The next time you're in a restaurant, or in a retail store, show some kindness. Talk to the person who's taking care of you. See what a difference treating someone like a person makes. They will bend over backwards to make you satisfied. My mother is the exact same way. She makes friends everywhere she goes out of the wait staff or salespeople. Because of that, they remember her everywhere she goes and they go out of their way to ensure she's taken care of.







DISCLAIMER:
I make no aspersions on the Italian people as a whole. Italians are a rich beautiful people with a deep cultural heritage.
I do not think of all Italians in the way described in this post, nor do I casually use the term 'Guido'.
In fact, some of my favorite people are Italian. Gina, you know I love ya :)
The slobs in this particular case were truly deserving of the term, 'Guido'.
Please don't hold that against me, but rather against those three guys that could embarrass an entire race of people.
    - Read, the Management

Labels: Clothes, Life, Society