It seems my days off, with one memorable exception, all happen to land on beautiful weather days, this amid stormy weather patterns that last for days. Lucky me. Sunday is said to be mid-70s and sunny. Today and tomorrow are rain-soaked hellscapes. I took an extra anxiety med for today’s commute. I am no wuss about most things weather, but I really do hate being in the rain. My stash of umbrellas is showing its age. I pulled one from the closet today that I got as a freebie at a conference something like 25 years ago. It is a QUICKEN branded umbrella from what conference I do not recall but it was probably the one in Los Angeles, where I got so many of these promotional gifts that I had to ship them back in a large box versus taking them on the plane.

I was woken up at 4am by sounds of rain and a painful erection. I walked off the latter (a sight which has made some women laugh, but not this day, since thankfully no woman was present to look and laugh at my irritating tumescence) and tried to locate my phone to see what time it was. With the phone unfound my receding boner and I went to the kitchen as saw that it was 4am. Unable to find the phone I thought I’d be clever and use the Phone Finder app on my PC. I had to log in to a Microsoft account and when I did I was rewarded with a “server unreachable” screen that was no use whatsoever. The frustration aimed at that little irritant helped bring the boner down even further, to a comfortable nudist beach level of acceptable firmness. I finally dug the phone out from under a bunch of fresh-from-the-laundry sheets and blankets. It was completely dead, battery at 0%, so even if the Microsoft app was reachable I don’t think it would have found it. Could it? I don’t know, maybe there is some beacon in the phone that beacs even after the battery is done. Mission accomplished I plugged in the phone and went back to sleep with a considerably and dare I say happily deflated organ. I can’t believe I still get these blistering, painful hardons but I do. A doctor once joked about it, saying “That’s how you know everything still works.” But I explained further about the pain and how it sometimes feels priapic. He went into another room and returned with a concerned grimace. Evidently this was a possible symptom of… something. MS? I don’t think he ever articulated it but MS entered into the discussion. My boners were not the only factor but they contribute to me getting a fucking brain MRI, my first ever, to see if something neurological was causing these morning redwoods. Nothing was found. Nothing remarkable. That kind of offended me at first, but only as a joke. This brain is most remarkable, after all. It was amazing how analysts and technicians and neurologists could go through every slice of brain, every drop of fatty, every slight deviation and still have no idea what was going on inside that brain. It is more mysterious than any unidentified flying object or deep sea creature, and there is one right there in the head of everyone around you.

A plan for Sunday is to take the S74 bus from St. George to Bricktown Mall. It looks like a long journey, with a final destination that is not especially interesting to me. But the journey should be scenic. I think that is said to be the longest single bus route in the 5 boroughs but I could be wrong. Hey, I know, look it up… Hmm, MTA says the S78 from St. George to Bricktown is the longest. So I’ll take the 78, for bragging rights.

That was a lot of rain today, and will be through tomorrow. I am sitting next to an air conditioner vent that is not killer cold but it’s making me shiver a bit. You know this is the only place on earth where I do any writing anymore. I try to write at home but it’s just too sodden and familiar a place. This is a breakroom at my workplace, by the way. I get here an hour early and type type type while eating strawberries. It is a frenzy.