Coming to Town

This is what happens when you forget to push the button on the dishwasher before you go to bed.  This is not my usual coffee mug, but it is o.k.  I have backups for my five identical favorites.  It is an indication, though, of. . . something.  I've not been in my "routine" for awhile now.  I've been a party boy.  For two days in a row, I've eaten only hamburgers and French fries.  I should feel awful, I assume, but I do not.  For my evening meals, I've only had "bites."  Those burgers at lunch seem to do. 

I met with some of my gang from the factory for lunch yesterday, and it was good fun.  I miss them.  They gave me balance.  I need one foot in the "cerebral" world and one in the other.  My personality has been shaped by these two forces by and large.  I can be rough and crude with my gymroids, but I need a counterweight, too.  So yesterday was very "above the board," all sweetness and light.  They've been enjoying my C.S. Advent Calendar, they said.  Can't quit watching some of them.  

"Is that how you spend your time now," my old college roommate said snidely.  

"Yup.  I told Ali that my brain was rotting since I left the factory, and she said, it's o.k.  You don't need it anymore.  I think she's right."

She, though not old enough to retire, came into some money and left the factory, too.  

My old roommate's wife loves to run around with her phone and take pictures.  One of my old pals wrote later when she posted them to the group, "Is THAT what I look like?!"

I always look like shit in those photos, and I wrote back, "That is just what we look like to other people."  

Why, though?  Why do I always look so bad in those photographs?

Tonight my foot is in the other trough.  It is gymroid night.  Fortunately, we meet early.  And tonight the crowd will be mixed and larger.  For reasons alien to me, the girl gymroids want to be included, too.  The married boys are excited.  Me?  I expect an earlier than usual exit.  I get nervous in a crowd.  

As you've guessed, I'm sure, I haven't been taking any photographs, so you get what you get.  Illustration.  BUT. . . I have been working.  Last night I scoured my computer for Xmas files.  I found some, but my problem was that I keep forgetting how to do things in the editing.  Last night, it took me a frustrated hour to re-learn how to fade a song at the end of the video.  I kept doing it wrong over and over again.  So, instead of a series of my brief Christmas clips over the years which is what I hoped for, we get one of the earliest glimpses of little C.S.  Watching it over and over again last night as I edited it, I had to wonder, "Is that really me?"  But it has to be.  And this is the entire clip.  My dad wasn't wasting film on me, that's for sure.  

Because I'm using a copyrighted song, even though I'm "not for profit," the video is "blocked in some territories."  If you live in one of those places, you can watch this instead (link).  There is not audio with this one and the video is of a higher quality, too.  Why you would want to, though. . . .  

How old am I in this?  Three at most, right?  Two, probably, and three quarters as my birthday would be in two months.  I wasn't really a slow child.  I cut the video speed in half to stretch it out a bit from 12 to 25 seconds.  So. . . don't go casting aspersions.  

I remember that hat and coat.  

After I figured out how to fade the music and had posted the videos, I sat on the couch for the evening's last drink.  I didn't want to watch t.v.  I put on my Premium YouTube music mix.  Dope Lemon came up. I closed my eyes and drifted for a long time.  When I got up to go to bed, it was half past midnight.  

And I forgot to push the button on the dishwasher.  

I'll leave you with one of the AI things that everybody at lunch yesterday agreed with great zest was "creepy."  

"It looks like that crystal ball in "The Wizard of Oz."

"Yea, but as bad as it looks, I still look better than I did in those phone pictures you took!"