Monday, July 28, 2008

Virginia Woolf, long hair, CPAP, and bowling

It's currently 10:57 according to my nifty little built in clock in Windows XP. You know, the one on the right hand side bottom of your computer screen. You looked, didn't you? Anyway. It's late (for me) tonight. I haven't been able to go to sleep at a decent time for quite a while. It eventually catches up with me and I fall asleep in the oddest of places.
That is not posed. I actually fell asleep that way. I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. It's a fun little condition where the stuff at the back of my throat cuts off the air flow. Basically I wake up about once a minute while I am sleeping. The cure, CPAP, or continuous positive air pressure. A little mask that I wear at night. Correction, I should wear at night. When I got this little machine and mask I was hoping for a Darth Vader variety. They didn't have one. It's really not bad to wear, just dries my nose out by morning. I don't wear it because it's awkward, and if I have to roll over for whatever reason, it is quite the ordeal to keep hoses in check. Where am I going with this?

I will have to make a sudden rail jump with my train of thought. I am 30 now. I have been alive in four (count em) decades. While I was alive in the disco era, I don't think they made bell bottom diapers. I have been thinking of high school a lot lately and what kind of person I was. I kind of like that person. I liked to have fun, and I was just a little odd. Ask my friends, they will testify. It seems somewhere between then and now I have lost a bit of that. I don't know how or where it happened. Could have been the streets of Quebec City, or maybe the calling floor of Convergys. Something snapped inside of me and I became serious--too serious. I did get married and that helped with my self esteem. But, I think that the stress of the last few years has caused a rift in the fabric of Mike. I think it was college that was part of this change. College by itself is stressful. I did that with a full-time job as well as a family. I'm not asking for any medals, just, I guess trying to get it all out. It's funny. People have said to me, you have changed. People who know me now, not then. You see, I have graduated from college (I guess it's university now) and I have one less stress in my life. The old Mike is starting to show through. I'm at this odd phase. People who know me now think I am becoming fun. People who knew me then will probably think I am too serious for Mike. It is something I am working on. Finding that perfect balance between silly and serious.

The first time my wife saw me it was "ward away evening" in our singles ward. I just bowled a strike and I ran up and down the lanes that our ward rented going "woo." My future wife's reaction? "What a dork." Every once in a while, I do something off the wall. She will give me that look, and I will say, "you knew going in how weird I am."

I'm balding now. I kept my hair long in high school, not mullet long, but the top was long and wavy. My hair rocked, but I was losing it back then. One day on my mission I noticed a mole on my forehead that I hadn't seen before. I was panicked. However it turned out to be one that has always been there, just covered up with hair. I threaten Aubrey that if I get an island of any kind it's all going off.

This whole post is starting to sound like a Virginia Woolf novel. That one usually kills with English teachers. We are a strange breed of nerd, English teachers. I'm proud to say that I have read the entire Harry Potter series in two months. What could be more nerdy? I know, showing off pictures of your kids.















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