The Return of the Smoke-Free Pagan

Ladies and Germs, It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that THE Michael has decided to resume posting to his Blog, an act I assure you has not been initiated without some serious consideration for the effect it shall have upon this august publication. I fully realize the extent to which the quality of this Blog has risen since I stopped mucking it up with posts, but the purpose of a blog, after all, is to be mucked up, most importantly at the hands of it's author. I mean, I COULD, I suppose, bring someone else in to muck with it, perhaps improving the content tenfold merely by having someone else other than THE Michael going on and on about how his father didn't love him and his wife worships the ground he rakes and tills, but you know, it's the FLAVOR of my writings that really lends "Thoughts" its' evocative, profound, and deeply disturbed arrangement of vowels and syllables that makes it so easy to read, and just as easily, avoid like the plague. So, without further ado, (not that I ever had the slightest idea what the hell an "ado" is to begin with) I return you to your regularly scheduled dose of These Thoughts Escape Me, now in progress...........

.......and so I told him he could kiss my......oh......are we back? Ahem......OK, Hello, welcome back, my faithful! As you all know, I have been on a posting sabbatical for awhile now, and I am amazed at how easy it was to not have to assign a full 12 and one half minutes of each day to this insidious task. No, really, it DID seem as though my plate was full and I just wanted to not have to worry about getting something posted to the blog simply to avoid having one of my readers call 911 and tell them that one of their favorite bloggers was missing and that they suspect it may have been a murder/suicide or that I fell and broke my hip or something. Now, come on, be serious! My hips are pretty damn strong and I don't fall on them just because I'm over fifty! Besides, I have been without a cigarette for almost a month now and I didn't want anyone to witness me sobbing hysterically or morphing into a fundamentalist something or another just because my body was being deprived of it's nicotine for the first time in something like thirty years. Aside from not getting any sleep and dreaming really weird shit when I did manage to fall asleep, this quit-smoking medication has actually worked for me, well, at least so far. Now for the bad news. I gained five pounds. This CANNOT stand! I REFUSE to buy new jeans just because my waist is getting hard to cram into them. Hell, these pants are only about three or four years old; I can get another three or four good years out of them. So, in order to return my metabolism to it's former NUCLEAR rate, I have decided to start smoking again.

Just kidding.

But I guess I have to actually find more PHYSICAL shit to do now to burn calories, something I used to not have to worry about much, no matter how much junk I ate. This really sucks and is so cosmically unfair I am going to be unhappy about it.

So, other than ridding my self of one vice, I suppose you guys are wondering what's been happening around the 'Hold since I last posted. Well, since you asked.......

THE Wife is one shot short of completing her lubricant injections in her knee. How she can just sit there and let some maniac stick a damn needle in her knee without so much as a whiff of laughing gas is beyond me. She denies vehemently being a masochist but I think otherwise. Also, a friend of hers recommended her highly to her own employers, an optical shop, and she is interviewing for a job there now. Finally, she just might land some employment which gets her off her feet before she becomes TOTALLY disabled! It's one of those "9 to 5" type jobs, too, which is nice.

Meanwhile, back at the OK corral, otherwise known as the Critical Care Unit, where I have been ungainfully employed for something like 11 years now, we finally have a new director, which is bringing to an end the relative peace and tranquility we have enjoyed not having a boss to constantly screw things up. I was actually getting used to the feeling of not getting written up for something stupid every three months (like clock-work), but now I really have to get back in that frame of mind that says "You are a total fuck-up, lucky even to have a job, and there's nothing like being written up for no real reason other than a made-up one to remind you of that." Besides, I got my first real raise since I've been employed here since there wasn't a Director to interfere with it, so I guess I can kiss another one goodbye. Oh well, so what. I'm the best fucking PCT this unit ever has had and ever will have and they know it, I know it, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. Except that Momma always said that "life is like a box of chocolates......."

Well, I have decided to avoid addressing the latest occurrences on my return to blogging as not to dampen the enthusiasm with which you will certainly greet my return. Besides, it's gotten to the point that what's been happening lately is hardly shocking to anyone who has been paying attention anyway. After all, isn't this the generation that hardly blinks in the midsts of genocide, mass shootings, poison pet food, global warming, etc, because, frankly, it's all getting rather old? Yep, folks, we have actually gotten USED to this shit, and it takes something actually SHOCKING in it's sheer shockingness and magnitude to really bother us anymore, unless, of course, we happen to actually BE getting shot at, starved, sent to war, or warmed over by some really weird weather. We have our SUV's, and our conspicuous consumption.......what more do we need?

Anyway, I am happy to be back. And, while I am at it, I would like to welcome Amber, one of my favorite people, back to the fold. She swore she'd never do it again, but I knew she would, one day. That's cause I'm THE Michael, and I'm always right, only because this is the world according to ME. At least as far as I am aware of. Ya never know..........