Operation Cut Back
It went pretty well last night. I swam laps right after work, had dinner, ran errands, and opened my first beer at 8:45.
One of my errands was filling the car with gas. At $1.96 a gallon it cost me a grand total of $12.42.
I have been confronted recently with the phenomenon of the gay republican. An oxymoron, it seems. Yet they exist. One was recently interviewed on NPR who said he was GOP because he didn't like a high level of government regulation of things in general. Apparently this is a long-time plank of the Republican philosophy, which stereotypically leads to letting big corporations shit all over the environment. However, the opposition to gay marriage is a contradiction of this philosophy. Putting laws on the books making gay marriage illegal is big-time government regulation, and there are apparently many old-style Republicans who are livid that the current administration is taking the anti-gay marriage stance, because it makes their platform completely inconsistent.
* * * * * * *
And I'm leaving work at noon . . . hurray.

Confound It

I was confounded by two things last night. First, there were thunderstorms in the area. It never really stormed here, but it thundered, therefore the pools closed, so I couldn't swim.
The other thing is that the grocery store I went to was out of six-packs of Yeungling. I should have bought a six of something else, but instead I got a twelve-pack of Yeungling.
Enough said.
I slept really well, though, and I even dreamed some.
But I'm really drowsey this morning. I was thinking of working out tonight, but instead I think I will simply swim again, and work out at the begining of next week after a weekend of rest.

Law School in the Summer

Graduation was two weeks ago, the weekend I was in New Orleans, but there are still students hanging around. And some of them graduated. Some are foreign students. I don't know if they graduated or not. Foreign students are either here as "visiting scholars," or as students in a program called "LLM." The latter is a sort of master's in law, a legis magister. Visiting scholars don't do anything. They just hang around.
A guy I work with says the foreign students stay around because they think if they go home they can't get back into the country because of Homeland Security.
And Oh Joy I can't wait for the Summer Starters to start. They're first-year law students who start school at the beginning of the summer instead of in the fall. They're all real go-getters (i.e., complete and utter assholes).

Oh Yeah, I Forgot
I'm leaving work at noon on Friday. I was planning to go visit my parents. There's been a slight change of plans. My older brother is having some extended mid-life breakdown, and last Thanksgiving he moved into our parents' basement. If I seem a little casual about this, it's because my brother has always been . . . shall I say, dramatic. Also he was never good with money but until fairly recently he had a lot. Now he has very little but he hasn't figured out how to adjust. I found out from my dad yesterday that my brother's vehicle has been repossessed.
I decided this wasn't a good weekend to go visit them.
But I'm still leaving work at noon on Friday, I tell ya whut . . .

Adjustments
Last nights' exercise in moderation went fairly well. I puttered around and kept busy until a little after nine o'clock when I popped my first top.
Dispite the low caffeine dosage earlier in the day, I still had trouble getting to sleep. When I finally did, I had some really uncomfortable dream. I can't remember anything specific, but if anybody's read any of the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels, the parts where he makes the reader imagine the really awful things from the Dungeon Dimensions by not describing them, it was like that. It woke me up and in fact motivated me to get up and go into the living room and smoke a cigarette. That's something else I need to stop doing.
But the dream was caused by a backlog of subconscious stuff. People who drink a lot of beer - or any alcohol - don't dream unless they can stay in bed long enough for the alcohol to work out of their systems. People who are used to drinking a lot and then stop or cut back severely have intense and uncomfortable dreams the first night. It's the backlog of subconscious activity that piled up while they were drinking a lot.
But don't let this stop you.
Or I hope it's just the first night. I'll find out tonight . . .

Missing the Buzz
I have only had one cup of coffee and one Coca-Cola today. While I usually only have one soda a day I usually have much more coffee. It is now early afternoon and I am feeling it. I think I could lay down and take a nap right now.
I'm cutting back on caffeine so tonight when I don't drink so much beer I can still get to sleep.

Other People's Moments
My school teacher friend I've known since 1986 graduated last week getting a master's in early childhood special education. There was a dinner in a restaurant in Hickory to celebrate. I went. It was fun but it was also good to remind myself why I left Hickory. There's something in the water, I swear. The percentage of crazy nut-job freaks per capita is through the roof. At my table Saturday night was a middle-aged woman throwing back wine and basically chain smoking. Her conversation alternated between various health problems she has had to when she lived in Manhattan over a 24-hour Blimpies and she'd go down at 4 in the morning and order a large everything on a small roll, or how hard it is to get service at a local strip-club when you're laying on the couch in the manager's office. Or how a gay guy she knew who had to get married by age forty to keep access to a large trust fund didn't invite her to his wedding.
My school-teacher friend is preggers. She found out about a month ago and she's already big. She said she and her husband thought she must be having twins because she got big so fast, but the ultrasound said otherwise. Amazingly she has quit both smoking and drinking and says she doesn't miss it.
Uh-huh.