Dale Miller

Post your favorite fake memories of me. It can be anything you like, as long as it never happened. Then post this in your journal so people can make up shit about you, too.

Sleepy. So very sleepy.

While doing the HotOrNot moderation job (how’s that for having no life?), I came across one entry which read

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an ex told me that I was… “just a shy little f**k who lugs a book around wishing someone would talk to him.” And that’s really not that untrue.

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That’s the way I feel much of the time.

I did my first stint as cashier last night. That’s far preferable to folding clothes and restacking piles of shirts. Of course, I still helped close, so I got to do some of that anyway. My head started hurting about halfway through the evening (sinuses), and continued until I arrived home to discover I was out of BC Powder, Aspirin, Advil, and anything else which would help. So I just went to bed. It’s better this morning, but I envision a stop for drugs on the way to the office. I’m going to have to adjust to the concept of working seven days a week. I’ll probably schedule an occasional day off from UALR just to recover a bit. I don’t have a vacation planned this year, so I may as well use the days productively. I would be better off taking a real vacation, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

It’s Sunday morning, and time for my traditional feel-sorry-for-myself-because-I-spent-the-weekend-alone rant. But that’s not going to happen today. And Why? Because I’m too tired. I have now put in my first two full evening’s work at Old Navy. I have folded more shirts than any human should do in that length of time. I get to go back in this afternoon for more fun. But, they are paying me, and it keeps me occupied. I even get to see quite a few attractive women, even if I don’t get a chance to talk to them. I had never realized just how much clothing shoppers mess up tables of clothing. I have a greater respect for store employees now. However, it has made me wonder if I shouldn’t try to find a job in a smaller store. :) the sheer size of this one means there will always me more displays to straighten.

Cinderella just brought me breakfast — a tasty little mouse. Well, maybe tasty for her. I prefer cereal. I have to always praise her for being a good hunter while at the same time taking the victim and disposing of it.

Time to watch another episode of Azumanga Daioh before getting ready for work.

Pisces: (Feb. 19 – March 20)
You’re in grave danger of planning your life around vague interpretations of the mysterious patterns that can supposedly be seen in the night sky.

Sandy was still not home when I got in last night, amid the rain. I went upstairs and did my usual computer thing, and then went back downstairs to bed. There she was, sitting on my pillow (quite wet) and looking at me as if to say “Here I am, why aren’t you petting me?”. Needless to say, I felt better after that.

Apparently I was in serious need of writing a program. I was depressed most of the day at work. I managed to do the things that needed to be done, but not much more. I officially get off work at 4:00. At 4:10 I locked myself in my office and began doing something I had been meaning to play with for a couple of weeks. I wrote a perl script to go through all the profiles at http://meetme.hotornot.com and pull local copies of both the pictures and profiles. The interface they use just gives a random profile. You can never know if you’ve seen them all, or when new ones are added. I still don’t know but I have a much higher probability of finding new profiles without having to go through all of the old ones if I have a program do most of the work. As a result, I didn’t leave the office until about 8:00. As I was walking out the door, I realized that I felt better than I had all day. Sometimes hobbies are relaxing. :)

This is a series of short posts cleverly disguised as a long post.

Sandy wasn’t home last night or this morning. I would think that in this weather she would want to be inside where it’s warm and dry. I’m worried about her.

I spent part of yesterday evening with Harvest. It was enjoyable, but I found out that she is planning to move to Boston on June 12th. So, no chance of anything long-term there. :( I was hoping that after her divorce is final I might stand a chance. It seems she also met a guy on the plane to Boston during her recent visit, and already has him waiting for her there. Ah well, another woman who likes me, but isn’t going to be a girlfriend/lover/etc. That seems to be the way of the world lately.

I should be more careful when I’m driving home late, in a hurry, and sleepy. I caught myself trying to fall asleep last night while driving Highway 10 at 90 mph. That would not be a good combination. I also found myself taking turns on SR 113 at far greater speeds than I should. I have been doing much better at staying near the speed limit lately, but for some reason I just wanted to get home last night.

This is a day that I should have stayed in bed. I didn’t want to get up when my alarm went off. I finally got ready (late) and headed out the door. My 40 minute commute turned into a 70 minute commute due to the rain.

$ set mode=rant

If you were driving a car at 30 mph down a 2-lane highway with a speed limit of 55 mph, and there were 30+ cars backed up behind you, would you be inclined to pull over and let them pass? That didn’t seem to occur to the driver of a vehicle this morning on the way in. Of course, as soon as he hit the 4-lane section of the highway, he sped up to 55.

$ set mode=norant

I have, over the last week, spent an inordinate amount of time and money on women who aren’t interested in me. I had thought that Darla might be a possibility, but she hasn’t returned my emails. That’s probably just as well, since Springdale is a long commute. I would like to find someone semi-local.

I need a vacation. I don’t have anywhere in particular I want to go, and no one to join me. I like to travel, but don’t like to go by myself. The fun seems to go out of it. And it wouldn’t much matter, because I don’t have anyone to watch my cats.

I’m in a “feel sorry for myself” mood this morning. It’s not very pleasant.

Why do people find it necessary to write letters such as

From: “Nisha M.”
To: domiller@skirtman.org
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 18:26:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: wow.

You know, just as I was thinking society couldn’t become any more ignorant, and that they had hit rock bottom. I find out that some sadistic psycho gave an ignoramus like you a shovel, and taught you how to dig. CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU’RE INANE!!!! Have a fun time with the person who’s a bigger loser than you are. Also, some of your reasons to date you are pathetic. “I wouldn’t smoke if you were pregnant”? I hope not. I mean then I’d have to see your face on tv as being the first man to become pregnant. Another thing, “I don’t take breathing for granted”. Well that’s reassuring. I mean, for a second there I thought you were born without lungs. After I read that I wasn’t worried anymore. Oh, and one last thing.
Suicide isn’t always a bad thing. In your case, it’s a terrific thing. Trust me, take a WHOLE lot of sleeping pills and then nightie-night. It would be a huge contribution to society. So, voicing the opinion of perhaps millions, we would be so proud if you kicked the bucket…..and soon. Thank you for reading this e-mail, you lazy bastard.

My response was:

From: “Dale Miller”
To: “Nisha M.”
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 10:17:32 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: wow.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share that uplifting and constructive message. I have no sleeping pills available at the moment, so I won’t be able to implement your suggestion.

Dale

I’m tired.

I drove up to Fayetteville yesterday afternoon. I didn’t think about the fact that I hadn’t been in a tanning bed this year, and that my arms would be in the sun for 3 hours if I had the top down on the car. So, my arms and face are sunburned. :( I had plenty of time, so I took US-71 rather then I-540 from Alma to Fayetteville. That’s really a pretty drive when there’s no traffic. Quite a change from that same highway before the Interstate went in. I met Angie at Northwest Arkansas plaza to give her some books and an Albert Einstein action figure I had bought for her. She convinced me to help her shop for shoes and accessories. I enjoy helping other people spend their money. Somewhere around $2,500 later we were done. Of course, $1,500 of that was two pieces of jewelry, but she had an expensive trip (and she had already gotten dresses before I met her).

Then, on to the real reason I went up there — dinner with Darla. It was quite enjoyable. She’s pretty, intelligent, has a nice sense of humor, … We spent about 2-1/2 hours sitting and talking (somewhat annoying the waiter, I imagine). I think we spent most of the time talking about our respective pets. I have no idea what might become of this. I like her, and I think it might be mutual, but that’s an awfully long distance to “date”.

I arrived back home a little before midnight and crashed. I got up this morning and went in for my first “real” shift at Old Navy. It was only 3 hours, and half of that was spent training as a cashier. I didn’t get to run the register today, though. I spent the rest of my time folding and restacking shirts. That store (at least the women’s section) was trashed. Two of us spent over an hour just getting one table cleaned up.

I decided to get out and mow the yard this afternoon. Easy, right? I filled the mower with gas, and started in. I noticed almost immediately that gasoline was collecting on the mower housing. Apparently the gas tank had rusted through and was leaking. I decided to finish mowing and deal with it at a later time. I got about halfway through and ran out of gas. Okay, that’s to be expected since it was running out faster than I was burning it. I refilled the tank and kept going. The mower quickly died again. Remember that I said the tank rusted? Apparently when I ran it dry some of the rust was pulled into the carburetor causing it to clog. Okay, time to just finish up with the old mower. When I tried to get it started, the starter rope broke. Grrrr…. So, I pulled the gas tank off the old mower, disassembled and cleaned the carburetor from the new(er) one, reassembled everything, and finally was able to finish mowing the yard. That was far more trouble than it was worth.