Higher and Higher

Today, I went rock climbing for the first time in a long while. Perhaps, to the casual reader, that means very little, but to me, that statement means a lot. What's more, I paid for a 30 day pass to the rock gym, the hope being that that will convince me to go back on a regular basis. There are activities in everyone's life that bring that person back to normal, if you will. Rock climbing is such an activity for me. It helps keep me grounded (pun intended!). Not only is it healthy for the body (I know this because I'm always sore afterwards, and that means it's good for you, right? If it hurts?), it is healthy for the mind too. It gives me something to work towards. Goals and challenges. And it makes me feel good because I am a decent climber, and I know that I can go to the gym and be at least average (even without having been there for so long).

You know, just me having a relaxing day on the wall. No big deal...

Now, why do I bring all this up? Because, as I said, it's been a while since I've been climbing, and I think this has been a mistake. It's good to find something you're good at and then to do that thing. And it's good to find activities that keep you grounded in reality. When life gets complicated, it's nice to know that I have somewhere to go. A healthy outlet for my emotions. Climbing is this for me.

What do you do to feel normal?

~The Piebald Penguin

Memoirs of an Insomniac: 8

What is life save for a mess of experiences and challenges to be overcome? I am fond of saying that we live and learn. Few things are truer than this. As life progresses, we learn who we are and of what we are capable. In all things, we are capable of great hurt to others or great kindness. And these are the lessons that everyone must learn. It is, quite frankly, what the concept of maturity revolves around. Human to human and human to environment, a mature person learns how to interact with his (or her!) surroundings. When not to hold the tongue or turn off the faucet. When a soft word will solve a problem that an angry word would merely inflame.

Maturity and responsibility seem to come later in life to some than to others. Perhaps those people merely experience less in the same amount of time, so it takes them longer to learn their lessons. Or, perhaps some are more sensitive to the lessons that need to be learned. This is, in my opinion, closer to the truth. But who is to say?

Speaking of maturity and responsibility...guess who has to be up in 5 hours for a 10-hour work day?!?? (at this point The Piebald Penguin dissolves into a fit of hysterical laughter and points at himself...)

This is not The Piebald Penguin at work. The Piebald Penguin is waaaayyyy better looking. And he doesn't have the luxury of sitting down at work. Because that's nonsense. Everyone knows that it's healthy to stand on your feet for long periods of time. It builds character. The Piebald Penguin has lots of that already, but the more the merrier, right?

Go to sleep!
~The Piebald Penguin

A Lesson Learned a Little Late in Life

You know those days where you wake up and realize that you should have done things differently the night before? I had one of those mornings today. I learned the hard way that my body does not react well to binge drinking...ok, ok, it reacts incredibly poorly to binge drinking. So, I got to spend the day recovering from that and cleaning up after my night of wildness. I now have a new household cleaning product (for the floors) and clean sheets and a clean toilet. Which aren't bad things by themselves, it just would have been nice if I had had little more forethought last night. But, I suppose the saying goes, "Live and learn." And I am alive, and I learned my lesson.

~The Piebald Penguin

Memoirs of an Insomniac: 7

Let's talk about motivation. Usually I'm rather unmotivated to do anything I don't want to do. This results in me staying in bed until 3 in the afternoon (assuming I don't have to get up for work), playing computer games until 3 in the morning, and, in general, just not doing much of anything (like dishes). But when I'm motivated, I tend to switch into a hyper-productive mood, and I just get things done. Like today.

It was my day off, and I had decided to just stay in bed. For hours and hours. I was being lazy, but, let's be honest, I didn't have anything to do, so there was no reason for me to get up. And then, when the clock read 1:31pm, there was a flurry of activity. In a mere 11 minutes, I had gotten out of bed, showered, brushed my teeth, payed the water bill, dressed, and walked out to my car. In 11 minutes, I went from being an inert object on a moderately comfortable sleeping device to an energized and refreshed individual ready to meet the day head on. All it took was a little motivation. I'm constantly amazed by how much I can accomplish when I'm actually motivated.

~TPP

Elmer's Press and Punches from the Sun

I was driving to work the other day, and I had the pleasure of pulling up behind a moving truck that had definitely seen better days. It was a rental truck from a small company that I didn't recognize. Fortunately, it had an advertisement for itself on the truck. So I took a picture.

Really, I just love the URL. Because you know that it's supposed to be "Elmer's Express", but since URLs don't have punctuation, it looks like "Elmer Sex Press". It made me laugh.


Oh, and in other news....there was supposed to be a large solar storm yesterday. A solar flare erupted on the surface of the sun on Sunday sending a whole lot of radioactive particles toward the earth. The radiation was supposed to disrupt GPS systems and other communications, but I didn't really notice anything odd. Still, an interesting thing to note is that the earth has a fairly good defensive barrier that protects all us pathetic life forms from all this nasty business. Something to be thankful for.

~TPP

Memoirs of an Insomniac: 6

"The Sun goes down, the stars come out..." Unless you're The Piebald Penguin...in which case there should be an additional phrase: "and the stars faded in favor of the light from the burning sunrise." Or something like that.

Do you ever say something (whether verbally or in written form) and then instantly regret saying it? And then spend the next half an hour trying to explain why you said what you said, when the answer should have just been "yes" to begin with? Dwelling on such thoughts seldom return a positive yield, yet such thoughts are what keep me awake into the wee hours of the morning. You know the sad thing about all this? It doesn't even really matter. I mean, not in the long run. Probably not in the less-than-long run either. It is what is.

It's the small things that make or break the day. I like to think that I deal with most day-to-day stress decently well because I am pretty good at taking pleasure in the small things. Like drinking cheap grape soda. Or, when I'm at working, helping a server who's nice to me. It's these small things that get me through each day. The placement of jacket next to mine, a parked car. I think it helps that I like symbols. Even if no one else sees life the way I do. I like to find the hidden meaning in something. More importantly, I like to have a hidden meaning behind my actions. Which is not a segue into my next paragraph...

My manager asked me a great question at work today. I was doing my job, bussing a dirty table and setting silverware on it, when my manager turned away from her previous conversation and said, "Piebald, you're still here?" I looked at her, then down at myself, and then back at her, and then back at myself again. And I replied with (something to the effect of), "Uh...." But my thought process was something like this..."Of course I'm still here. Where else would I be? I think the fact that we're having this dialogue is indicative of the answer to your question. I am physically present, yes...but mentally I'm elsewhere. Are you blind? Yes, I don't leave without permission, and you have yet to provide me with said permission." It was a silly question. Who did she think I was? Probably Tadpole (that's not his name...but it is an anonymous blog for a reason...) Tadpole frustrates the managers because he sometimes leaves without making sure it's ok with the managers. Oh Tadpole. He's quite the character. He's likeable enough, but he isn't really very good at his job. Which is slightly infuriating because it's not a difficult job. But if he doesn't do his work, then those of us who work with him have to pick up his slack. Because it looks bad on all of us. So, really, we should be able to fire/hire people. If we're going to get flack for having a weak link, then we should be able to break that link and reforge the chain...hopefully stronger than before. I suppose that's essentially social evolution.

After spending fifteen minutes looking through lolcats picutres, this is the one I decided on. Because it's awesome. Yep.

~The Piebald Penguin

Hark! Holidays Hear Happy Hearths and Haggard Harpies

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

I know, I know. I haven't posted ANYTHING recently. And you've all been waiting patiently for the next story, or joke, or anything that is remotely amusing. And I know I missed my deadline for reaching 150 posts (like big time missed it. I think I'm more than 30 posts short and it's the 3rd week of January? Yep.) but I'm back from an extended break! Hopefully there will be a more regular schedule (I also know that I say this a lot and then it never happens. *Fingers crossed*)

So, what have you all missed from my life? Well, the week before Christmas was just crazy at work. I had the pleasure of working Christmas Eve and let me tell you how that went. IT WAS RIDICULOUS. Ok, there I said it. It really was. The restaurant was a mess by the end of the night. We had so many large parties come in that night. Which I don't really understand. If you have all your family together, why don't you all get together and cook a big meal? Or a small meal? Why go out to a chain restaurant that serves overpriced food? Anyways, it doesn't matter because it's over now.

Christmas was incredibly pleasant. Just me and Goraxypox in our apartment. I cooked up some steaks for dinner, played Skyrim for a few hours and then did laundry. Oh yeah. Because Christmas day was technically just one of my days off that week, and I was working so much that I had to wash my clothes on every day off that I had.

The week after Christmas was worse than the week prior to Christmas. It was busy, busy, busy, and I worked a lot and didn't have much time for anything else. And then New Year's came and went in a flash. And it's just been work as usual for the last couple of weeks.

Until this week when it SNOWED. So, that's made life interesting. The streets are icy and crashes are common. Getting to work has become an adventure.

And that's been my life, as of late.
Stay frosty!
~The Piebald Penguin