You're Doing It Wrong

Every morning I smile and say good morning to the bus driver and he never smiles or says good morning back.

It’s like the ultimate challenge now, each morning, trying to relay how sincere and meaningful my morning greeting is and hoping to wear him down. He will good morning me one of these days.

He doesn’t look like a typical grumpy bus driver. He’s younger than I am and looks like the mild-mannered guy you’d see coaching his kid’s basketball team.

For awhile we were getting a different bus driver every couple of days. I like the range of personalities from the crazy cowboy drivers and my favorite driver who I have in the afternoons sometimes who gives us the weather and traffic report and asks if the environment is okay and then suggests that we relax while he gets us to the park-n-ride.

A couple of weeks ago I ended up taking a later morning bus and the bus driver was great, doing some tricky shortcuts. I arrived at the office at 8:01am. I’m tempted to switch to that bus and get a little extra sleep but I’m not sure if he can do that every day.

The reason I took this picture was because of that little pink flower in the midst of all the dying stuff. But it didn’t turn out as interesting as I thought it would be.

I’m doing a photo project of my neighbor’s tree. I’ve been taking a photo of it (almost) daily since October 11. I missed a few days and the time change totally messed me up because I am not home during daylight on workdays now. I’m still taking night photos which I don’t think are going to work.

I have a mouthpiece thing that I wear at night for teeth grinding. It has helped a lot so I recommend although it does take a bit to get used to it.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed I didn’t have it. It was made specifically for my teeth so it clicks into place. While I was half asleep and not wanting to wake myself up too much, I tried to remember whether I was wearing when I went to bed and I was certain that I was.

Then I started wondering if I could have swallowed it without waking up. I don’t think I could swallow even if I wanted to but it was gone and there was a lightning fast mental progression of what it would be like for this thing to travel through my digestive system.

I finally turned on the light and found it in the bed. (Your guess is as good as mine.) I put it back in its plastic dish and we’ll try again tonight.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it for 30 days. I’m already phoning it in and it’s the weekend.

What the hell with these things? I had to buy a new hair dryer. AGAIN. Because nowadays they only make them to last a year. And it came with this thing.

I understand the principle of diffusing but does it actually work? Because to me it just kept grazing my scalp in an unpleasant way and it was like a neighbor was trying to blow out birthday candles on my head and not like my hair was getting dried.

I saved my money from my jobs to buy that receiver. I started babysitting when I was 13 and I worked at Jack-in-the-Box when I was 16.

My Dad took me to the stereo store and I think I got the receiver, a turntable and speakers. I didn’t get the most expensive thing but it cost real money. Not like all the cheap crap there is now. And look, it’s lasted over 30 years.

KMET was the hard rock station that was my favorite. Later it turned into a New Age music station which was a huge tragedy. Do they have “New Age” music anymore?

You know when you go into old people’s houses and they look like they haven’t changed anything for 30 years? And when you’re young you wonder what is wrong with these people. And when you’re old you realize that changing things takes time and energy and if you’re fine with the old things, why change?

That’s how it is at our house. It’s not even the money, although that’s part of it. It’s taking the time to change things. We’d always rather be doing something else.