It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, July 21
There was good strength at the gym this morning, but boy, it was a battle getting there…We woke up more or less at your usual Friday morning time (see Sleep Log below) and felt sluggish, the after-effects of having eaten like an oink-oink the past day or so.
This is when you must look inside and decide what the deal is…Do you have what it takes to get in there, or are you going to negotiate with yourself and make excuses, the answer to this question never a given with ol’ Sparrow…Is your soundtrack going to be Eye of the Tiger or The Candy Man???…Well, outside of feeling sluggish we really couldn’t find a reason not to go in and, besides, once you get the workout supplements in you and you actually start moving some weight, all sluggishness disappears, and before you could say “bench press” we were moving our usual good weight…This is one of the reasons we came back early from Casinoville: because to have stayed would’ve meant stuffing our face with deep-fried shrimp at the buffest Thursday evening, and Lord knows the damage that would’ve done.
Diana, a Department of Human Services (DHS) stalwart, came by the veterans service office (VSO) to talk about Rick, the vet we are putting up at the hotel for a few days until something permanent comes up…She had heard about him thru someone or other and wanted to know if there was anything she could do, a polite, appropriate way of inquiring exactly what the f*ck I am doing for him…I told her he was at the hotel and that VOA was coming out with paperwork Tuesday and, all in all, we’re doing what we could…Then I asked her if she knew of any sources we could access that we could pass his bill off on, because right now, it’s my credit card that’s on file…She mentioned a county program, which got the attention of Liz, who was gabbing with Paula at the front desk and she heard because everything in the new county building is audible everywhere else.
So Liz came in and we chatted about assorted funding programs and we caught up, too…Her new apartment is $1500 a month for 400 square feet above a bakery in a town south of here…That’s pretty small, 400 square feet…We’ve lived in that before – it was a converted garage – and while it wasn’t that bad and we’re accustomed to, and not displeased with, small spaces thanks to service on a submarine…Liz has never been on a submarine.
I don’t think she’s seeing anybody, either…She just returned from a cruise to the Bahamas and we told her about how we got an American Express platinum card and how this was the greatest upset in the history of credit and while she laffed, she was also impressed…She’s done some waitressing and knows THE GD EFFING PLATINUM CARD is not passed out with the rations.
I’ve got to admit, the same feelings that led me to ask her out the first time all reappeared…But we’ve down that road and the first date didn’t lead to a second date, of course, so why bother???
The big news is we are hearing normally for the first time in a while…Recall Thursday morning we got rid of the excess wax in our left ear with that $50 kit, but then noticed our right ear wasn’t hearing as well as the left, but the kit didn’t rectify the problem…VA medical includes an urgent care and ER benefit, so we took some PTO and headed out to the urgent care in the next county, because we saw where they were in the VA’s network…They’re not, but the hospital out there is, so we ended up at their ER…We felt sort of silly going to an ER for ear wax, and we were afraid of both a ton of paperwork and a long wait and we are delighted to report neither happened…There was one hospital form to fill out, which had to be expected, and I was seen before we’d finished with it…(Later, the gal from the front desk came in and said she took care of everything, the VA would be billed and there was nothing left for me to do.)
The wax in the right ear was a bugger to get out, tho, and everything had to be done twice…In fact, the doctor was about ready to throw her hands up and give me a prescription, noting it would break up eventually anyway, but she went in one final time and then we heard/felt something move in there and a half-second later she said “there we go” and BOOM, ol’ Sparrow was hearing normally again…In addition to being generally good for morale, this will help out at the hotel, where there had been some problems hearing the phone ring and the front door opening.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
1630 Thursday until 0030 Friday
1730 Friday until 2130 Friday
12.0 hours for the day and 43.0 hours for the week, a figure that has been a weekly total recently but this week is a solid number heading into the finale, the Saturday Sleep Session (SSS), and barring utter catastrophe, we should have our first 50-hour sleep week in a month or so…God bless all of you.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!