Hollywood Bound

 

Well, I finally had my big Hollywood break.

The new season of The Lowdown started last week, and I made my television debut as a little tiny blur way in the background. If I hadn’t remembered what everyone was wearing that day, I probably would have missed it myself. I think Dennis was a little disappointed, but I told him when I did the shoot that I would most likely be nothing more than a blur in the background. Honestly, I’m surprised I made the cut at all.

If you're interested in seeing my big moment, I'm in the first episode of the second season, during the scene where they're outside the public defender's office talking. There were five of us standing outside, and we were told to pretend we were making lunch plans. My specific direction was to pretend I got a phone call or text message and needed to go back inside, but to linger outside like I really didn't want to go back to work.

Say less. I was born for that role. I don’t have to pretend.

At the time, the entire process was long and boring, and I said I probably wouldn't do it again. But I have to admit, playing a twisted game of Where's Terrie? was kind of fun. It was a little like looking for Bigfoot in the background of a grainy video as he tries to duck behind a tree. Maybe I'll have to reconsider my acting career.

Other than my brief brush with Hollywood fame, my life has pretty much consisted of work lately, so there isn't a whole lot to report.

I had two opportunities to deploy recently, one to Hawaii and another to Guam, but I'm right in the middle of report season, which won't wrap up until mid-November. Unfortunately, I had to turn both down. Knowing I could be sitting in Guam right now instead of staring at reports is a little maddening.

I'm also not sure what's going on with the fly deployment in Texas. We had an all-day meeting and training session a few weeks ago, and from what I gathered, they're looking for people with a different skill set than mine. It sounds like they primarily need structural engineers, and I am most definitely not that.

I can do punch-list and closeout inspections because that was a big part of my job when I worked in Real Estate, but I'm not about to venture outside my expertise and potentially screw up a multimillion-dollar contract. I've sent a couple of emails asking for clarification and haven't heard anything back, which is pretty typical.

Adding to the fun is the fact that I need to figure out my use-or-lose leave for the rest of the year. I usually try to take the last two weeks of December off, but if I end up deploying, that would likely be the timeframe. Federal employees generally can't carry over more than 240 hours of annual leave, and I sure as hell don't want to donate my hard-earned vacation time back to the government. I earned that leave, and I intend to use every bit of it.

So, like most things with the government, it's hurry up and wait.

Speaking of work-related frustrations, I was supposed to go to Seattle next week for a meeting with the sign nerds, but most of the team backed out, so now we're doing it virtually.

I pretty much knew that was going to happen when they pushed the meeting from spring to fall. Our fiscal year starts October 1, and we never have an approved budget that quickly. Anything beyond short day trips or emergency travel is generally off the table. Still, I was looking forward to Seattle. I guess nerds hate fun because I had plans to explore the grunge era memorabilia.

At this point, I'm seriously considering resigning from the Sign Advisory Working Group. I've been on the team longer than anyone else, and I'm afraid they're eventually going to try to make me chair. I do not have that kind of time, nor do I particularly want the responsibility.

There's also a rumor floating around that the program manager might be leaving, which could make things interesting. I like him as a person, but I can't say I've been particularly impressed with the amount of progress we've made. Managing the sign program is his primary responsibility, yet we seem to have very little to show for it.

Several years ago, we lost our sign design program when Java was disabled, and we've pretty much been winging it ever since. I finally got tired of waiting for a replacement and sat down with ChatGPT to see what I could come up with. In one day, while still managing my regular workload, I built the basic framework for a new sign design system.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it's a starting point, and it's something we can actually build on. Which does make me wonder what's been happening behind the scenes all these years.

Honestly, that's one of the biggest reasons I haven't walked away from the team. I've put a lot of time into this program, and I'd really like to see the new design system become a reality. That, and being the subject matter expert pretty much guarantees me a "5" on my annual performance appraisal. I'm not going to pretend that isn't a factor.

I also received an unexpected email from headquarters a few weeks ago recognizing my work with the program. It was nice, although a little odd and completely out of the blue. It also made me wonder if there might be something to the rumor about the program manager leaving, since I'm assuming he submitted my name for the recognition.

But enough about signs. I know you're all devastated that this fascinating discussion has to end.

In other news, I'm still going to the old people gym.

I mentioned that I might cancel my membership closer to the holidays, and they immediately started talking about putting it on hold instead. Yeah, I don't think so.

I am seeing some improvement, though. I don't know how accurate the machines are, but I meet or exceed my previous workout numbers almost every time I go, which is usually about twice a week. So something must be working.

Honestly, one of the things I like most about the place is that I don't have to change in a giant locker room or worry about locking up my belongings. It's a small thing, but I appreciate it. I'm not looking forward to dealing with all of that when I eventually move to a regular gym.

I've already started looking at gyms near where I wouls work if I deploy because I don't want to lose the progress I've made and have to start all over again. Again.

As for my ongoing relationship with the splint, retainer, mouth torture device, or whatever we're calling it these days, things have gotten a little better. I'm actually to the point where it almost feels more comfortable to wear it than not. I've even gotten used to hearing myself talk with a lisp, which is something I never thought would happen.

I went to my regular dentist yesterday for a cleaning, and he mentioned that there was a 2 mm difference. Great. A difference in what, exactly? Naturally, it didn't occur to me to ask that question until after he'd left the room. I asked my hygienist, but she seemed a little confused, too. So I guess I'll add that to my list of questions.

And I'm glad I'm writing this because I just remembered I have an appointment with my TMJ specialist on Thursday. Apparently, this blog also serves as my personal reminder system.

The biggest issue right now is that the splint seems to be changing my bite. My teeth on the right side no longer come together when I close my mouth. Maybe that's a normal part of the process, but it's certainly not normal for me.

I'm starting to wonder whether this whole thing is actually going to be a permanent fix or if I'm eventually going to need surgery anyway. If that's where we're headed, I'd honestly rather get it over with now, while I have good insurance and am otherwise healthy, instead of waiting until things get bad enough that I can't eat again.

Speaking of eating, I wish someone had told me 20 years ago that all I needed to do to lose weight was wear a retainer.

Technically, I'm supposed to be able to eat with it in, but that's a hard pass from me. I also can't stand putting it back in without brushing my teeth first, which has pretty much eliminated mindless snacking.

I carry those little disposable toothbrushes that don't require water, but every time I think about grabbing a snack, I immediately imagine what it's going to taste like mixed with toothpaste. It's a pretty effective deterrent.

Needless to say, I have yet to eat a single Reese's peanut butter pumpkin this season, which is a tragedy because everyone knows the pumpkin is the superior Reese's shape.

Apparently, my dedication to buying food hasn't suffered nearly as much as my interest in eating it.

Porch bakeries are all the rage around here right now. Basically, people bake things in their home kitchens, set everything out on their porches, and leave a QR code or cash box for payment. It's like a lemonade stand for adults with disposable income and poor impulse control.

Last weekend, there was a porch bakery crawl, so Mom and I decided to check it out. I came home with a metric shit ton of cookies and cake pops. How much have I eaten? Half a cookie and one bite of a cake pop.

I'm sure most of it will eventually end up at work so it doesn't rot on my kitchen counter. Dennis certainly doesn't need to eat all of it, and apparently neither do I.

Porch goodies

Speaking of Dennis, he's doing well with his substitute teaching job. He says it's the easiest job he's ever had, and other than one bad experience at his old high school, he seems to be enjoying it.

He did have a minor spiral a couple of weeks ago when he got a phone call telling him his services were no longer needed for a particular day because the teacher had canceled whatever they had planned. He immediately decided he'd been fired. I tried explaining that this was not how someone would go about firing him and that it was obviously just a scheduling change, but he wasn't having it. Of course, I was right. As usual.

Despite initially saying he wasn't going to work every day, he's pretty much worked every single day since he started. So I guess his semi-retirement is going well.

Between his new job, my never-ending work obligations, the gym, and my ongoing adventures in orthodontic misery, I suppose things have been fairly uneventful around here.

Fat Bear Week

 No idea where to even start. It has been a hot minute since I’ve updated, so I’ll do my best to recap some of the highlights, if you can call them that.

For some reason, I haven’t been online much lately. No real reason, just tired of the same old shit. I would completely delete my Facebook if so many places didn’t use it as their primary website. That and the occasional stalking assignment, but that is more of an Instagram assignment these days, lol.

Anyway, I guess the biggest update is that last weekend Brooke and I met up in Denver for a girls’ weekend.

I got front-row seats for “the” show a few months ago, and for a while I really thought she was going to try to back out of going. She didn’t buy her plane ticket until the week before and kept talking about driving. I told her if it were a longer trip I would have considered driving too, but for the one full day we would actually be in town, that was just too much. She finally agreed, bought a plane ticket, and we met up at the Denver airport.

My flight got in about an hour before hers, and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to kill time by walking the length of the C terminal.

I severely underestimated the size of the Denver airport.

I ended up backtracking all over the place just to get to the tram to the B terminal. I still made it to her gate before she got off the plane, but by then I was pretty much over carting my bag around.

Once we met up, we got an Uber and headed to the hotel. Me, being the ever-graceful person I am, made it all the way to the last step outside the hotel before somehow misjudging it and completely biting it before we even made it into the lobby.

So that was a strong start.

I ended up with a pretty good road-rash situation on my right forearm. It was right over the bone, so I’m probably lucky I didn’t break my arm. It smarted, but nothing other than my pride was permanently damaged.

We did a ton of exploring that first day and went to the Fluevog store, which was one of the top things on our to-do list. It was smaller than I expected, and they didn’t have any of the summer closeout shoes I had hoped to find.

I did, however, find a bag that I had to have.

Brooke bought a pair of shoes, but somehow I managed to leave a Fluevog store without even trying on a pair, which might be some kind of personal growth.

The person working there recommended a Japanese/Italian fusion place on the corner for dinner, but Japanese/Italian seemed like an awkward combination neither of us was emotionally prepared to explore, so we caught the tail end of happy hour at a Mexican place instead.

The tacos were very good. No regrets.

We ended the day at Oktoberfest, but by then I was about 16,000 steps in and really just wanted somewhere to sit and people-watch. There wasn’t a great place to do that, so we headed back to the hotel. I think we were back in our rooms before midnight.

We did end up having an interesting conversation that night that I’m still a little torn about.

Brooke told me about something her husband had done because he apparently doesn’t trust her. At first I kind of went off about how offended I would be if someone did that to me…until I realized there was more to the story.

Yeah.

Apparently the situation I thought was over is very much not over just a different person  

I’ve had my suspicions for a while, mostly because I’m not completely oblivious, but she hadn’t actually come right out and told me. She knows I don’t agree with what she’s doing, so I’m guessing that’s why we’ve both just been pretending I don’t know what I pretty much know.

I don’t really know the other person involved beyond vaguely knowing who he is and being in some of the same meetings, but I don’t trust the situation at all. There are parts of the story that make absolutely no sense to me. So…yeah.

I’m apparently not buying what she’s selling.

We also started talking about how ridiculous it is that we have to plan an entire trip just to hang out when we only live about four hours from each other. She started talking about coming to Tulsa over the holiday in October, but during that conversation it became pretty obvious that seeing me might not be the only reason for the trip.

That’s where I drew the line.

I told her that as much as I like hanging out with her and would absolutely look forward to another hang, I wasn’t going to be her cover. If coming to see me was really an excuse to meet up with a side piece, we could find another time to hang out.

Maybe I sound like a jealous, bitchy friend, but I just don’t want to get involved in that crap. I have worked with her husband, and I have absolutely no desire to someday find myself standing there awkwardly knowing things I never asked to know.

She seemed a little surprised by my reaction, and I’m not sure she knew what to say or how to take it.

Honestly, same.

Saturday morning we went to Snooze for pancakes (yum) and wandered around a few thrift stores. We had also signed up for a bottomless-mimosa craft thing at a place called Upstairs Circus.  We made leather wrap bracelets and only drank one mimosa.  Well, they kept refilling the same glass, so technically I’m counting it as one.

By the time we were done, I felt pretty happy.

We got an Uber to Broadway Street and did more thrift shopping. I would really like to go back when I have more room to pack stuff home because there were several places I could have done some serious damage.

By the time we made our way back toward downtown, it was getting close to 5:30. We had planned to go back to the hotel, shower, get ready, eat and leisurely head to the theater.

That did not happen.

We had just enough time to eat, rush back to the hotel, freshen up, change clothes and get back out the door.

We made it to the theater around 7 for the 7:30 show.

I had snagged the seat next to the Ponyboy seat. The seat is used for about 15 seconds during the first song. On Broadway they sell it as a rush ticket and after the first song the usher leads the person to that seat but on tour they have always kept it empty.

I noticed on the board that there were a lot of understudies on that night, including a Pony I hadn’t seen before. He had been brought in to Broadway to cover a few shows, so I was looking forward to seeing him. There was also a different Johnny who had recently joined the cast, so I hadn’t seen him either.

The girl sitting next to Brooke was an interesting person.  She is insane also, lol, but on a parasocial level and not just a show level.  She was nice enough, but man, was she a lot.

After the Ponyboy seat was used during the first song, someone came and sat down in it.  My immediate thought was, What jackass snuck down here and stole a front-row seat?

Then I glanced over and noticed the person was wearing a hoodie that partially covered his face. I also noticed the cast onstage seemed to be deliberately targeting our area with extra gravel.

Turns out the mystery jackass was the guy who normally plays Johnny.

I guess he gets a pass.

During intermission he stepped away, and I told Brooke Johnny had been sitting next to me. Her immediate response was basically, whatever we do, DO NOT let the girl sitting next to her know.

When he came back, I asked him if he was wearing the hoodie to keep from being recognized or to protect himself from getting pelted with extra gravel.  He laughed and said both.

He was so into the show that you would never know he had been performing in it for a year. Eventually the girl next to Brooke figured out who he was and tried to get me to have him sign her Playbill.  We told her to just let the poor guy enjoy himself.

We had a really good time. I know Brooke doesn’t understand my obsession with the show.  Hell, I don’t really understand my obsession with the show.

But she did enjoy it. She had never read the book or seen the movie, so afterward she said she needed a little time to process everything.

We thought about going to the dueling piano bar across from the theater afterward, but it was packed and really loud. At that point we just wanted somewhere to sit and talk, so we headed back to the hotel and sat at the bar.

Since our flights left around the same time Sunday morning, we didn’t have time to do anything except grab an Uber to the airport.

It was a really fast weekend, and we both wished we had stayed one more day.

Speaking of shows, because apparently that is my entire personality, the day before I left for Denver I went to Spamalot with Laura.  I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know I saw Monty Python when I was way too young to understand it, back in the days when there was only one TV in the house and my older sister and her friends watched it when my parents weren’t home.

I didn’t get it at all then, but a surprising amount came back to me while watching the show.  

I expected Book of Mormon-level humor, but it didn’t compare. It was funny, just not one I would want to see again.  I told HMF it was a good one to miss since she was stuck in Waco  

I expected more.

I was also forced to attend a family reunion my mom planned a couple of weekends ago.

I hate family reunions.

Luckily, they had it at the building where Heather has her studio, so I was able to hide some. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of volunteering my iPad for the photo booth, which meant I was stuck there longer than I would have liked.

It was fine, though.

We got some cute pictures.

Work, meanwhile, has been…interesting.

It looks like I may be getting deployed to South Texas sometime in November or December for up to 90 days for the New World screwworm mission.  Fun little fact about me that very few people know:  I have a serious phobia of worms.  Like, I can barely say the word.

Luckily, the mission is at a facility that is bioengineering sterile flies to combat the gross little fuckers. If I actually come into contact with one, however, I will lose my ever-loving mind and probably hurt myself and whoever else happens to be in my way while trying to escape.

I don’t tell many people about this particular phobia because it is exactly the kind of thing people hear and immediately think would be hilarious to torment someone with.

It would not be hilarious.

Brooke is trying to get deployed at the same time so she can be my emotional-support bestie in case I need assistance during the possible nervous breakdown.

It’s a USDA mission instead of FEMA, so I’m not exactly sure how everything will work. We’re supposed to have training next week, so hopefully I’ll know more after that.

If actual contact with the things is a requirement, I will quietly remove my name from consideration and blame work.

I have limits.

We also had a situation at work last week that I had never encountered in all my years there.

I sit right outside a conference room.  I hate it, but it is what it is.  People are constantly gathering around my work area waiting for meetings, and I finally broke down and bought Bose noise-cancelling headphones so I can tune everyone out.

Last week, several guys from security started lingering around the conference room. I assumed there was a meeting and didn’t think anything of it. Two of the three were standing near my desk, I acknowledged them, and I was about to put my headphones on when AP came over and asked if I had time to sit in on a meeting in her office about campground administration.  It was an odd request, but I had heard her give my coworker some other BS reason to come into her office, so apparently none of this registered as suspicious to me.  I had just eaten lunch and told her I wanted to brush my teeth really fast before putting my retainer back in.

She said, “Sure, take your time.”

So there I am, casually brushing my teeth and rinsing my retainer while apparently some major shit is going down twenty feet away.

Still oblivious.

I headed to her office with the other two people in my group, and on the way I noticed the third security guy.

Once we got into AP’s office, it became pretty obvious she was just trying to keep us in there. Not even 10 minutes later, the boss came in and told us they had let the archaeologists in our branch go and that we were not to let them back onto our floor.

What. The. Fuck.

I have absolutely no idea what they did, and honestly, the less I know, the better. But firing two people at the same time is unheard of around here.

We unexpectedly lost another archeologist to cancer a few months ago, and hiring right now is almost impossible, so whatever happened had to have been serious.

Then, just to make the week even more comfortable, the next afternoon the boss came up to me as I was getting ready to leave and asked if I had time to talk in his office.

I was about to shit myself trying to figure out WTF I could possibly have done.

Turns out he just wanted to talk to us and let us know he had our backs and that he had only done what he had to do. Whatever had happened had apparently been in the works for a few months, so although it seemed sudden to us, it wasn’t.

I told him I didn’t think it was a part of the job he particularly enjoyed, based on the way he looked when he came in to tell us.

So far, he hasn’t given me any reason not to like him.

He did think it was pretty funny when I told him I had been freaking out because he asked me to come into his office.

“Yeah,” I told him. “It’s funny now.”

Things are odd.

Dennis is doing better with his job. He was talking about all the different systems and passwords he has to keep track of, and I told him he needed to keep some kind of list.

He said they told him not to do that.

So I pulled up the list on my phone containing all of mine.

There is absolutely no way I could keep track of them all.

I think seeing that made him feel a little better.

So far, he has only had one negative experience and has been working about three or four days a week. I told him he probably needs to talk to someone about disability if that is the avenue he wants to take, especially since he is in a position where he can accept or decline jobs on a case-by-case basis.

He is over 62, so he could take Social Security now, but he wants to put it off as long as possible. I keep telling him to take it and not look back, but for some reason he refuses to listen to my excellent financial planning advice.

The bigger problem, obviously, is that his work hours are now the same as mine.

I have very little alone time.

I miss my hour to myself!

I took a break from the gym.

I twisted my back when I was in OKC (don’t ask), and it wasn’t getting better. I took a few weeks off, and it was finally doing much better.

Then I fell up the stairs.

Because apparently falling down them would be too conventional.

I’m going back tomorrow, but I’m also going to try to cancel part of my membership. I know they’re going to give me the hard sell, but I potentially have only a couple of months before I’ll be gone for at least 45 days.  I don’t want to put the membership on hold. I would rather just cancel it and start back at the Y when I get home.

We’ll see how that conversation goes.

Overall, though, I’m feeling better than I have in a while. The scale isn’t showing much movement, but I need to change the batteries because I feel like I should have gained some weight.

I’m also getting some headaches, but I’m pretty sure they’re from the retainer forcing my jaw into its new alignment. The jaw itself is doing a lot better.

I did decide to test it last week with chicken-fried steak.

My jaw was not ready.

It sure was good, thoug