What my day is like (every day)

Every day is the same for me, except for when it isn't. That doesn't make sense, but this is how my day usually goes.

I wake up at around 6:50, even though I set my alarm for 7:25, but I usually don't get up until 7:45. I've done this for the last couple of months and I figure it will end up being my routine until I'm dead (in that case, I will wake up at never). This makes me very sad. I'm not a morning person, and it looks like I'm going to spend the next 50 years of my life waking up in the morning, waiting for the alarm to go off so I can hit the snooze four times before I finally crawl out of bed.

When I get up, I turn on the TV and put on either Channel 1 to get the weather or Sportscenter. I go into the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee and have a Entenmanns chocolate donut. I've been drinking coffee for awhile now and I'm pretty convinced that it does absolutely nothing for me make me need to go to the bathroom. Usually, I'm wide awake by the time the coffee is ready. I think I'm drinking coffee just because I've become addicted to it.

If I didn't take a shower the night before, I'll take a shower. Otherwise, I'll make a PB&J sandwich for breakfast and watch Sportscenter. Usually, I get up in time for one recap and Sportscenter's Top 10 plays of the Day. As far as I'm aware of, for the last month since basketball season started, Scott Van Pelt has said "That's levitation, Holmes" in tribute to Tenacious D whenever someone (usually LeBron James or Dwyane Wade) does a slam dunk. I'm a big fan of the D and I think Van Pelt is a pretty good anchor, but that's getting annoying.

When I'm done with my coffee and sandwich, I head out the door and walk to the train station. Sometimes I buy a newspaper at the deli right down the block from me, sometimes I don't. If I'm walking with my roommate, Manny, I'd get the News and give 50 cents to the cute girl who works there, and Manny will do the same exact thing every single time we walk out, he'll sigh to himself and say "She's fucking hot." And I'll put on my iPod and tune him out, because it's too early in the morning to listen to Manny.

On the train, I'll either read the paper, read a book, or fall asleep. Sometimes, I'll do all three. If I stay awake, I play my iPod on shuffle and secretly hope that certain songs play, like "The Canadian National Anthem", and if it does play, that will mean that I'm going to have a great day. It's probably easier to just play the song I want to hear, but it doesn't work that way. If I do that, that means that I won't have a great day. That probably makes no sense to anyone except for me, but I don't care.

I get off the train and walk to work. If I didn't get a newspaper before, I'll usually get one now. If I didn't have breakfast or coffee beforehand, I'll usually get one now. I try to put off actually going to work as much as possible. I'm technically supposed to be in at 9:00, but I usually don't get to my desk until 9:15 or 9:20. I have never ever been talked to about coming in late. In fact, the people who work right by me get in even later than I do. I don't think anyone cares or notices.

When I'm at work, I sign onto AIM, sign onto gmail, go on Google News, then I'll read those and get started on my work. I'll usually do work, at the same time maybe I'll talk to people online who IM me (I almost never ever initiate an IM conversation. I don't know why, I just don't.), or I'll surf the internet. My boss has all the computers under surveillance to make sure we "aren't wasting company time", whatever that means. I'm 95% convinced that the surveillance was installed because of me, because I feel like I browse the internet more than anyone ever. One of the people I work with said that I have a lot of guts, because sometimes I'll just sit around and read the newspaper, or I'll be on a message board while my boss is walking around talking to people about work, and I don't even try to pretend that I'm working when I'm not working. I've never really been yelled at about it, and I figure that as long as I do my work and from time to time seem a little proactive, they'll just leave me alone. That hasn't been hard, because I'm probably the best multitasker on the planet. I don't think I'm exaggerating, but I don't know how anyone else works. I can literally do a million things at once. I'm currently reading four different books at the same time (for the record, the books are Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klostermann, The Godfather's Revenge by Mark Winegardner, The Survivor by John F. Harris, and Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky). This is probably why I'm not really doing a great job, but I think just being able to juggle so many things and being able to do completely satisfactory and incredibly mediocre work just as much of an accomplishment. Which is why, now that I think of it, I'm probably not the best multitasker in the world. It's probably more efficient to not juggle so many things and do a good job than to juggle everything and do a mediocre job.

Around lunch, sometimes I'll go with my co-workers, but only if they go out for lunch before 12:15. Otherwise, I'm going to lunch at exactly 12:15. This is because I get hungry around 11:30 and I don't feel like waiting around. I'll usually get a sandwich and maybe a soup for lunch. One time, I went to my uncle's work which is a couple blocks away from me. Fun fact, I have a Jewish uncle. And I always tell people that my Jewish uncle is a Mets fan, or that my half-Jewish cousin is really good at baseball, and everyone always think I'm kidding because I guess that's something I would joke about, but I do have a half-Jewish cousin and a Jewish uncle and I had lunch with him a couple months ago. My Jewish uncle is a salesman for this lingerie company, or at least I think, because when I got there all he did was show me women's underwear and explain the different types, of which there are surprisingly many. Then he gave me a couple decks of playing cards with lingerie models and took me to lunch. On the way, he told me that I should have gone to see him a couple of weeks ago, because he used to work with this really hot girl who just left a week ago. We talked about his son, my cousin, and how he might be too small for football, and I ordered a baked ziti for lunch. We took the food back to his office, where his co-worker threatened to quit for reasons I don't remember and then stormed off. My uncle said this happens every other week and told me not to be worried. I told him that I wasn't.

If I'm not eating with anyone, I'll just walk around until my hour is up. Even when I have a lot of work to do, I never ever go back early. I feel like that's a bigger waste of time than walking around doing nothing.

In the afternoons, on a busy day, I'll spend the rest of the day working if it's really busy. Otherwise, I'll either write something for this, or I'll post on a message board while reading ESPN.com, or on an especially boring day I'll search for people I used to know on myspace even though I don't have a myspace account and therefore can't access pages that are blocked because they are private and only friends can see. One time, I found this kid I used to know back in grade school and was kind of friends with, and I found out that he had a kid. At first I thought he was kidding, so I kept checking back every couple weeks or so to see if the whole "Proud Parent" part in his profile was gone, but he never changed it. In fact, in his "About Me" section, he actually talks about having a son. That blew my mind, because ten years ago I used to ride bikes with this kid and we'd go to other people's houses and make their parents cook us food. I also had a good friend from back in the day who went to jail for stealing a car. I like to think I'm the only person from my class who grew up to be relatively normal.

So, one day, I had nothing to do at work, and I decided that buying a Nestle Crunch bar was the single most important thing I would do that day. The vending machine on my floor didn't have any Nestle Crunches, but I was determined to get one because when I set a goal or a task for myself, I usually try and accomplish it in a timely fashion. I knew there was a vending machine on the floor below me, but I didn't have the proper security clearances for that floor. I'm not sure about anyone else, but security in my building is really strict. Sometimes I think that the NSA has offices there, and they're the ones who made my boss tap all our computers in order to make sure we're "not wasting company time", which in NSA speak probably means "not planning to bomb people". I went down there anyway, because I had nothing to do, and I explained my situation to the hot receptionist, who actually called someone and got them to get me a Nestle Crunch. I'm not sure of her situation, but I don't think I've ever loved a woman more. Unfortunately, because she works on a different floor and that was the only time I've seen her, but I feel as if I've known her all my life. If I knew her name, I would totally stalk her on myspace.

Around 5, unless my boss suddenly comes down and gives me more work to do, I'm actively preparing to leave. I'd try to sneak out, but my boss made it a point to tell me to make sure to check in with him if he doesn't need me to do anything before I can leave. I think the NSA is making him do this, and I don't want them following me on GPS so I check and make sure I can leave before I actually leave.

If it's a nice night, I'll walk a couple extra blocks and take the subway at a different stop because I like walking around. Sometimes, I'll get dinner on the way home, sometimes I'll cook. If I cook, usually I just cook for myself because I don't like to share and then I'll save the leftovers for the next day or two. If I've had a tough day, I'll have a beer or jack and coke or screwdriver (depending on how tough the day was) along with the meal. Then I watch HBO on Demand or play MLB '06: The Show on PS2 (this is before I got the Wii, I imagine I'll replace this with Zelda for the next couple of months or so). A running joke between my roommates and I, other than making fun of Manny, is how dominant my character in MLB is and how much steroids he's been taking. I'm playing Career Mode, and my player named Sam Jackson (after the actor Samuel L. Jackson in case you couldn't tell) currently has 80 home runs, 177 RBIs, and a .505 batting average in the middle of September. Sam Jackson doesn't take steroids. Sam Jackson is steroids.

Also, inevitably, Tarik and I will make fun of Manny, usually by recounting the Serious/Gay/Stupid Manny storyline that is captivating the nation. I've made fun a lot of people in my day, and I've made fun of Manny a lot for as long as I've known him, but this is the most elaborate and multilayered joke I've ever been a part of. Tarik and I have had serious, deep conversations about the three different Mannys, while Manny is in the next room, completely unable to stop the tangents we go on. I'm kind of afraid to tell it to other people, because I don't think anyone else would get it. Just explaining how we got to the joke is a story in itself, then there's another story on top of the story. Maybe I'll tell it one day.

If I'm up to it, I'll go online and probably post here, and I'll check ESPN and CNN for the 1,000,000th time to see if anything else is new. I'm watching TV while reading one of the four books I'm juggling. On Mondays, I flip between Monday Night Football and RAW, on Thursdays I'll watch The Office. Otherwise, I just have the TV on just to have the TV on, or I'll watching a DVD. Around 10:30, if I need a haircut, I'll make it a point to get my haircut and take a shower before The Daily Show starts. If I don't need a haircut, I'll take a shower after The Colbert Report and then go to bed.

While I go to bed, I always have to have the TV on, and I always need to have on a movie that I can ignore. If I watch a movie I've never seen before, or if I watch Sportscenter, I'll end up staying awake because I'll want to know what happens next. So usually, this is a movie I've seen before, so I feel like I'm not missing anything when I eventually fall asleep.

Then I wake up around 6:50, even though I set my alarm for 7:25, but I usually don't get up until 7:45.