Do you ever have one of those days? You go way back. Get back. Way-back machine. Yet it all seems to come full circle. Or parallelogram. Or whatever.

First we must go back to yesterday. Because that is where today really started.

At 3:40 yesterday the boss says to me “Where are you going to be at 7:55 tomorrow morning?”

Aw, well, I, no fool, full well know the answer to this. You see we had an All Hands scheduled for 8:00 this morning. You know, where you show up with all of your hands. (Or, as someone said to me last night - “An all hands at 8:00? I guess you need “all hands” to hold your face up.” Yes, now you understand.)

So I said, “I will be parking my car behind building 9. No actually, I will be turning from River Oaks onto Zanker and two minutes away from parking my car behind building 9.”

You see, I am not a morning person. And my boss full well knows and appreciates this. Yet I am NEVER late. NEVER. If I am late, there is a problem. Like I am dead or deathly ill and about to be dead. Call the authorities. I’m just sayin’.

Now we are on today.

At 7:43 I’m driving to work. This is exactly one hour earlier than I drive to work on any other day. The radio is also one hour earlier. There is a trivia question about some tenor sax player who did this and that and tried to steal Ella Fitzgerald from Chick Webb and what all ,but it’s a bit too early and the mind cannot compute. Then there is music to help you figure out the answer.

The first song is good. Never heard before but like. The second song I know. And the third song reminds me of Open the Door Richard. But it’s not Open the Door Richard. Oh, you remember Open the Door Richard. But I haven’t thought of Open the Door Richard in some time.

And I think - “wouldn’t it be funny if it was Open the Door Richard? I’d have to text John.” (John being Deborah’s boyfriend who has a thorough appreciation for Open the Door Richard. But perhaps more thorough for More Beer. Oh, you definitely remember More Beer.)

But I’d forgotten about More Beer.

So I turn the car from River Oaks onto Zanker at 7:51. (4 minutes early. YES! NEVER LATE!) Then into the back of building 8 and park behind building 9.

So long Richard or whatever.

Cut to many many hours later and I’m leaving 7. (OK, I know you’re shocked. Whatever.)

It was hot today and I didn’t want to put the top down getting there at 5:30 in 95 degrees and black pants but thought that it was going to be a great night to drive home roofless.

And right I was.

So I reclined the roof and the radio was playing Jazz at Lincoln Center. Only it was Bill Cosby with Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Perhaps the Cos deserves a post of his own, but I have very fond and very distinct memories of my parents playing his standup on records (yes, I said records) when I was a kid. I was maybe 8 when this started. Long LONG before The Cosby Show. You know, when the Cos was actually funny.

We would just laugh our asses off. There is something about his comedy and just LISTENING not seeing it. He tells a story so well that I think it’s funnier if you only hear it.

So I’m driving through downtown SJ with the top off and the Cos turned up full blast talking about wanting 15 cents for some box top and the demons and whatever and cracking up.

Then.

Then KCSM pauses for a station break. You know, just one of those short identification things. “This is KCSM. Blah.” Finished.

Except.

EXCEPT.

They follow it up with

………..

Open

the

Door

Richard

(Yeah, I don’t get the fish at all. But whatever. You get “the picture.”)

So a thought occurred to me the other day.

I have a co-worker who has Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, so we’ve had a lot of fundraising and bone marrow-drive type stuff going on around here lately. I decided to register as a bone marrow donor. This is something I thought about doing when my mom was sick but then just never got around to it. Even though I will not be a match for my co-worker (she’s South Asian), it’s possible I might be a match for someone else so the whole thing seems like a good idea.

When I went to sign up, the guy helping me was a bit embarrassed and said something along the lines of “I hate to tell you this but because you’re white, you have to pay.” The government subsidizes the fee for Asians (there’s a shortage of Asian donors) but not for us crackers. So I want to do something good and possibly save the life of someone I don’t even know and I have to PAY $35???

But that’s not the thought. Here’s the thought: OK, if you are on welfare, it should be mandatory that you sign up as a donor. You take money from “society.” You need to give something back to “society.” You’re down on your luck and need a little help. OK, I’ll help. (Actually, I don’t have a choice. Uncle Sam forces me to help.) But now it’s your turn to help someone who’s down on their luck in a totally different way.

What do you think?

The worst part of my surgery? Having to look at myself in the mirror Saturday morning after 2 days of not washing my hair.

If you ever need to have surgery and for some reason you get to pick which part they remove, pick your thyroid! This whole thing has been very easy (despite the fact I look like someone tried to cut my head off) and pain free. Discomfort: yes. Pain: no. I haven’t taken anything more than Tylenol including when I was in the hospital.

My biggest fear going in was actually around the anaesthesia. 1. I ABSOLUTELY did NOT want to puke. 2. I did not want to feel groggy and out of it for the entire day. (This is what happened the one and only other time I was under general anaesthesia. I mean the groggy part not the puking. I haven’t puked since July 3, 1990, so I really didn’t want to break my streak.)

When the anesthesiologist came in to start my IV, I asked him to promise that I wouldn’t puke. He said he couldn’t promise, but he would do his very best. He also said I should be back to earth about 30 minutes after surgery. He was cute but married. (DAMN!)

So he fires up the IV and wheels me down the hall to the operating room while we discuss Grey’s Anatomy and the fact that there are probably people having sex in that closet we just passed. (I later thought it odd that there wasn’t some flunky to do the wheeling.) When we got into the operating room there was that weird relaxation sort of music playing. I hate that shit. So he asked what I wanted to hear and I said “do you have any Eminem?” He said “no but I’ve got some Tupac.” Perfect!

So I’m laying there with the oxygen mask on and the IV going listening to Tupac.

Then I was at 7 and everyone wanted me to dance on the bar. But I really REALLY didn’t want to dance on the bar. But they really REALLY wanted me to and were all calling my name.

Next thing I know, the doctors and nurses are all shaking my various limbs and calling my name to wake up. My first thought was, “wow, it’s over already and thank GOD I didn’t have to dance on the bar.”

I never puked. I never felt any pain. And I was not the least bit groggy.

Thank you all for your kind wishes!

I am home. The pain is tolerable. I’m on tylenol and haven’t needed to invoke the vicodin yet. (Let’s hope it stays that way. Can’t invoke the wine if you’re on the vicodin.)

Will post details over the weekend and looking forward to catching up on your blogs as well.

OK, going to sit my ass down on the couch now with a boxed set of I Love Lucy.

Well I had a total fucking full on break down Tuesday night (or really very early Wednesday morning) about the impending surgery. I had a thought that I should send a “contact list” to a friend should everything not turn out shiney and happy. Yes, I know that people do not generally die during “routine” surgery. However, I’m also fucking smart enough to know that sometimes “shit happens” so better to have my shit (ducks?) in a row or whatever.

Anyway, I’m staring at a shiney copy of Scarface which I’ve never seen (oh whatver) and I’m planning to watch during that “recovery week” which I will milk to its fullest extent by “working from home” and only working on the fun shit. I AM lucky enough to have a job which includes “fun shit.” (Although I still cannot get the fucking Queen out of my head. NO I do not mean Felony Joyride.)

And thanks to my fav btender for the movie.

And if I live anymore, I’m going to die.

Ugh, I need a week of sleep but that’s not going to happen as I seem to be jamming as much fun as I possibly can in before the surgery.

Last Monday it was dinner with the Wine & Martini Girls at Stacy’s. Dinner was excellent as always and there was plenty of wine!

Tuesday Felony Joyride and I hit 7. (Thank god we didn’t fall into the 7 abyss. I saved that for Friday.)

Wednesday Carrie and I hit the Lion.

Thursday was the only night of non-fun. (Dinner with my fellow HOA board members. The beer was the only fun element.)

Friday I got my hair cut, so of course I had to take it out. I decided to go to 7 (big surprise). There was a hip-hop concert later that night at the arena so the place got fairly jammed very early. I ran into two other regulars whom I’ve gotten to know over the years. I left 7 hours later. 7 hours at 7. Yikes! And of course I could not run home and go to bed right away. I had blogs to read and comment upon. I think I was asleep about 3:00.

Saturday I met Vodka Girl in the city for a matinee of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore at A.C.T. Great play although there were times when I couldn’t understand it. (written in Shakespearean (is that a word?) English or whatever.) Then we went to dinner at Orson. LOVED IT! (More on that later.) There were cocktails and plenty of wine. But I needed a tad more wine before calling it a night so I headed over to Cafe Majestic for one more glass. Bedtime: 4:00.

Yesterday was Deborah’s birthday, so I had her and her boyfriend and another friend over for dinner. Main course: buffalo meatballs with penne pasta. Birthday cake: chocolate stout cake with cream cheese frosting. Bedtime: sometime around 1:00. I think.

I think I may be looking forward to being in the hospital.

I’m getting a pair of Louboutins as a bonus at work!!!

YIPPEE!!!!!

I used to believe in ghosts. I’m a die hard atheist, so I’m not sure why I believed in ghosts. Although, I’m also not sure the two are mutually exclusive.

The other night I happened to turn on the TV and do a quick channel flip. I came across Ghost Hunters (Watchers? Fakers?) or whatever it’s called on the Sci-Fi channel. I’ve seen it before. It is the most ridiculous, lame, fake, and BORING show on the planet. (I don’t get reality TV. It’s all FAKE people! But that’s a topic for another post.)

While I caught a few minutes of these two goofballs trying to convince some attention-starved homeowner that the burbling noise on the tape was really a voice from the great beyond saying “help me” or whatever I suddenly remembered two stories that were always circling about my school - 1. The nun who supposedly hanged herself in a classroom (I think she was supposed to be pregnant with a priest’s baby. I guess this was before priests were all gay.) and 2. the university is supposedly built on an old cemetery.

So I went to the intertubes to check it out. You see, in 1988 Al Gore had not yet invented the internet so there was no way to verify such stories. You simply took them as fact. Especially after you went on a ghost hunt one Halloween in search of Sister Agnes’s classroom. (I think that was her name.) What we found was a door that looked like all of the other classroom doors except this one had a large deadbolt lock that none of the others had. We automatically assumed something sinister had occurred behind that door and therefore the Jesuits were keeping it all locked up in there!

Alas, I could find nothing about the nun who supposedly hang herself.

But what I did find was much information about the old cemeteries. Apparently that part of San Francisco used to have many cemeteries. (They’ve since all been moved out of the city). And USF was indeed built on the sight of not one but TWO cemeteries - the Calvary Catholic cemetery and the Masonic cemetery.

So if I attended classes and worked on top of an old cemetery (although minus the bodies) for four years and lived on campus for two of those years, shouldn’t I have seen a ghost by now???

Today I wore the giraffe shoes. I don’t wear them often because there is a limited amount of “outfits” that go with giraffe shoes. But this does not matter since I got them for a song. It helps when you spend so much money in a shoe store that you get to know “the guy” and “the guy” calls you when the $350 pair of shoes goes on sale for like 80% off. Of course, you forgot that you told him to call you if they went on sale because you were half drunk at the time, but that’s neither here nor there. You cannot turn down 80% off.

But back to wherever I was. A co-worker walks by and says “cute shoes. are those giraffe?” And I say “yes.” And she says “but not like ‘real’ giraffe right?” And I say “no, they’re like that pony fur stuff (or whatever). no actual giraffes died.” And she says “i can deal with leather but not sure I could deal with giraffes.”

And I’m thinking “mmmmmm…. how about a nice juicy giraffe steak for dinner?”

Drunk shopping is always fun. Drunk online shopping is even better especially when a week and a half later what you ordered shows up and you actually like it!

I was recently at Paragon and struck up a conversation with a guy who programs the shorts for Cinequest. Cool! Then it turned out that we both love film noir. So what followed was a 2-hour conversation along the lines of “Have you seen this?” “Yeah but have you seen this???”

We each left with a cocktail napkin scrawled with the other’s favorites. In other words - a shopping list! After I got home I hit Amazon. $100 later I have 3 movies and a box set of 5. (Not bad for a hundred bucks!)

The 3 movies are:

• No Way Out
• Nightmare Alley
• The Killers (actually I already have and love The Killers but it’s on VHS. Now I have it on DVD!)

In the box set is:

• Born to Kill
• Clash by Night
• Crossfire
• The Narrow Margin
• Dillinger

I guess I’ll be staying home Friday night!

Oh, and I finally got around to watching Pick Up on South Street last weekend. (I’ve had it for several months.) It definitely goes down as one of my ALL TIME favorites!