(With apologies to Harlan Ellison.)

Another day of nothing to say. Or, rather, no ability to say it. Worse, I’m starting to sound like one of Krapp’s recordings in Krapp’s Last Tape.

Over on Facebook, a friend asked if the NyQuil SEVERE had any impact — yes, but only in separating us from some money. Other than that, no. Another friend speculated that I had shouted my voice away cheering the triumph of the Los Angeles Kings last night; no, but had that been the case, this would be The Kings Speechlessness.

Lacking the desire to go do anything substantial, I filled the day mostly with puttering around. I don’t even own a putter, but somehow I got it done. I:

• made breakfast for my youngest, using those damn extra large eggs
• restacked the newspaper sections from the previous week that I will absolutely for-sure read at some point this week
• filled out an online survey that promised me some “points” of some sort if I would weigh in about sushi; I was game at first, but as it wore on, I started commenting on the length of the survey and dropping in whole stanzas from John Donne’s No Man Is An Island (although at least if you were stranded on that island, you would be qualified to render an opinion on raw fish)
• dipped back into the Mediterranean diet book that I will positively be following very soon now
• played an untold number of games of Risk on my iPad, with absolutely no concern for the other-colored peoples of the computer world as my red horde crushed them
• did some writing (with more planned for later)
• watched Alien (the first one) with my two younger children and my 15-year-old daughter’s male friend — notice I didn’t say “boyfriend,” although they were twisted together like a tangled phone cord over on the couch from which I was averting my gaze; in this latest viewing of this now shockingly 35-year-old movie, I felt that the future never looked so antiquated before. Evidently when we’re traversing the galaxy picking up alien parasites, we’ll still be wearing Converse sneakers, drinking coffee out of mugs, using everyday cat carriers, and landing multi-trillion-dollar spaceships using computers running DOS on green screens
• went back over my household budget — always a good time; when I had no money, I wasn’t troubled by things like this, but since having some money, I haven’t wanted to send any of it anywhere if possible — and noticed that AT&T is gouging me again; looks like between our U-verse plan (cable, one phone line and Internet) and our cellphone family plan we’re paying $440 a month, or $5280 a year. (And that’s without a smartphone bill for me — that’s billed to my company, at that address.) If I’m spending $5280 a year for something, I expect it to have a gas tank. The AT&T battle resumes on Monday!

I think I’ll go back downstairs now and rustle up some dinner. Just a little exertion on that refrigerator door and I’ll be able to choose from all the carefully labeled meals my wife left inside. Over dinner, maybe I’ll read a few of those newspapers — because for now, conversation is definitely out.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2014 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.