My Love... 'Cuz I'm All About the Love!

For the past 2 weeks I've been in a pissy mood once I've gotten into the
office.  Things go wrong and I'm sick of it.  It feels sometimes like
my head is just going to blow apart and splatter all over the office.  And
today should've been exactly the same again.  Whiner was away with the boss
training all day (I went through the training back in January) and we had some
of My Kids covering.  Sadly, 2 of the kids were sick today (well, one sick
and the other broke some ribs in a hockey game last night) and there was no one
around for coverage --except me, but that meant working at least a 15-hour shift
which has been pooh-poohed by management since I was forced into doing 4 of
those one week back in the spring.  We get time-and-a-half overtime 20
minutes after our shift ends and after 3 hours we get double-time, so the extra
8 hours in one day just ain't a good thing.  What really sucks for me is
that I have to take the overtime as "time off" and I barely fit in my
vacation days as it is.  I have 32-plus vacation days to take this year and
another 35 OT days.  So, over 67 days to take, which works out to be almost
13 and a half weeks.  If only I had some money, I could go somewhere!!

I worked the full day today anyway and as I write this, I have another 4 hours
to go tonight.  Crazy.

Even crazier is that I had no problem coming into work when one of My Kids
called at 6:23 this morning and have been in a generally happy mood all
day.  No one was expecting that, but then I wasn't expecting to run into My
First Love on Saturday either. And, yes, it's put me in a good mood.

It's partial shock that's put me in this mood, but also the flood of great
memories from our past.  All these memories are starting to come back to
me.  The last movie we watched together was Beauty and the Beast.  She
wore a Marilyn Monroe costume one Halloween and I thought she'd cut her hair
really short for Monroe look.  The Halloween party we broke up at (we broke
up a few times), she was wearing a vampire's costume and sat in the kitchen with
my best friend and drank beer for a few hours.  that was one of the last
night's he and I spoke as well as he was going out with her best friend and I
decided I didn't want much to do with any of them anymore.  Her name was
Nicole and she had a lock on the outside of her bedroom door.  She had a
Mickey Mouse alarm clock that everyone wanted to smash with a baseball bat because
it was so annoying.  Her sister's name was Karen and the first time I met
her she passed out in her bathroom and it took 4 of us to carry her out into the
hallway so we could pee in private.  I had to shift her nightgown so we
weren't staring at her panties as we moved her.  That was 14 years ago.

Karen's boyfriend was a guy named Jay and he was best friends with a guy named
Brad and Brad was brother to one of my close friends, Sean.  Jay married a
girl named Christine and she had once asked me to marry her.  I couldn't
remember her name until this weekend.  Jay was a heavy breather. 
Christine had a friend named Kathy whom I took to McDonald's for dinner one
night and didn't see her again until she pinched my butt at the ferry terminal
when I was on my way to Victoria in 1990 for the night I discovered about
Brenda's best friend having a crush on me.  Kathy reached out of a car
window to pinch me and the guy driving that car was named Mark.  His band's
name was Jesus Krysler and last week I couldn't remember his name.  He had
a white tuxedo and always wore a green bow tie with white polka-dots whenever he
wore the tux.  The first time I met Mark he did a drum solo for a
"gong show" type party back in 1986.  He won.

I can't remember when I started seeing my next girlfriend, though.

But I'm in a good mood now and people find it strange.  I had to tell them
why, of course.  Can't just leave them wondering why the sudden mood
swing....

And word's gotten around quickly, of course.  I'm in a good mood 'cause I
got to see an old flame and we hit it off.  Again.  One guy asked me
outright: "So, when was the last time you emailed her?"

I smiled and said, "Half an hour ago."

"Man, that's why I love you."

"Of course!" I replied, "I'm all about the love."