"i'm shedding my skin"

when you hear this, you need to envision me all buff, glistening like a WWE superstar, walking out of a curtain of smoke, slow-motion like. see it? yeah, you see it now. ok, so, i have been... changing.

point in case 1: the other morning EVERYONE was running late but me. i have a peeve of hating to be late (ok, so THAT isn't changing yet). TheElectrical1 completely overslept, and we had to wait on him. TheElectrical2 showed up about 5 minutes late, but then he said he had to wait for his breakfast to come before his car could leave. i snapped. I DON'T SNAP!!! i told him to get his ass in the car, and he can figure out breakfast when he gets to site like the rest of us. he knows we have a 7:30AM meeting that we have to make, and if he needs breakfast that bad, he can get it delivered to his room the night before. get in the car and get the hell on the road. his breakfast arrived in the middle of my 6:00AM rant, and they were soon on their way. i apologized to TheSiteLead when we got to site because i figured TheElectrical2 complained about me the whole way. he told me (and i paraphrase) "on the contrary, he's never been more quiet, thanks dude" followed by an appreciative fist bump.

point in case 2: i've been flirting. i'm sure i'm not doing it right, but i just keep unconsciously flirting with people. i mean, it's getting me nowhere right now because i have an uncanny ability to hit on engaged or married women (which could mean 1: they all SAY they are married or engaged because my flirtation skillz are so majorly atrophied, they are kind enough to lie than laugh; OR 2: i'm stuck in a country/culture/planet where most people my age are engaged or married by now). but still, it just happens. i know i'm not good, they smile out of pity or charity, but it's more than i ever really did before. 'tis a bit fun

point in case 3: i'm liking what i'm doing, and that's NOT being a field engineer. it's teaching. i have three trainees under me now, and teaching them what i know, and how to find out what i know is so... amazing. i think i have a more "house m.d." style of teaching than anything else. like, "here, go find out why this is overheating", and they don't even know what part i'm talking about, but i make them go anyways, they screw it up, and then i exasperatedly walk them through it... but with humor and lots of laughs. they SAY they appreciate what i do, but "trust no one", especially trainees looking for good reviews. still, it's fun, knowing something that i find simple that someone doesn't, and trying to impress upon them, either through repetition or a claw hammer, how logical it is... it's fulfilling. it's too bad there are lots of holidays coming up and after that most of them are going on to the real world. my... my, babies!!!!

point in case 4: i played the saxophone tonight. there is a resident musician at this hotel. there is ThePianoPlayer, TheWael, and TheSaxPlayer, i don't know his name. tonight i went to the italian restaurant by my lonesome (a playa needs some time to RECUPERATE!!!) TheSaxPlayer was there. he asked if i had any requests to which i drew a blank. hs asked if i liked frankie, i said, "i did it my way". he obliged. afterwards, we talked, i asked how long he'd played... since 1991, i said i played 4 years before high school, alto sax. he asked if i remembered anything, and i said the one song i remembered was "tequila", the first song i'd learned to play. he played another song then put on "tequila" and handed me the sax. at first i pushed it back at him. there wasn't a real crowd, maybe 3-4 tables, but then i said "fukk it" and grabbed the sax. this was larger than the sax i had, and he didn't give me the neck-strap so i had to rest it against my thigh which complicated things. i tried to catch up to the song while trying to recall how to make noise with the damn thing. after a few missed queues, i got it. i missed a note here and there, i forgot my left thumb for the higher octave, which made it sound like ass to start, but after two or three repetitions, i got it. my fingers flew around this one dumb song that i learned to play before i could read music. everyone laughed WITH me, not at me, no one really expects a random diner to be able to play sax. TheSaxPlayer got a laugh because all the waiters have tried to play and can't get a single sound out of it.

i sat down and finished dinner while he played tequila far better than i. i left, full of drink, full of food, and dare a say, a bit foolhardy. it was fun, and even the half-hearted applause of a few tables who'd seen something they hadn't expected made me smile.

but the high is always short-lived. i must now get my laundry together for tomorrow. to paraphrase ice-cube with about a 12 hour time lapse... "tonight was a good night"