Terminalcoffee discussion

What routines (er...obsessions?) sustain you?

1) I must have a diet coke on the way to work in the morning. I'm lost without it. LOST, I tell you. I don't know if I'm capable of driving on the highway without diet coke before noon.

2) I have two table fountains in my office. Both must be on when I'm at work. I usually burn candles, too. My students mock me. I deserve it.

3) I buy the NY Times every Friday morning. I read the local paper every day. I'm a newspaper whore.

4) During the summer/fall I fairly religiously attend the farmers market every Saturday morning.

5) When I return to Chicago I must eat at the Taco and Burrito House.

That's it for now...I'm sure I'm missing some. You?

@2) you're a regular Anton LaVey of the classroom.

I'm not very good at routines, I inevitably end up breaking them everytime. Maybe that's my routine.

Did someone say routine? Order? Organization?

1) When I get in my car and hit the recycle button on the air (allergies) I have to hit the rear defrost as well. Most of the time there is nothing to defrost, but if the A/C and Recycle lights are on, I need all three to be on...it makes me feel better.

2) I get ready in the exact same order every morning for work...or I'll be horribly, horribly late.

3) I smoke two cigarettes, every day, on my way home from work. It keeps me from killing people. If I forget my smokes at home, I have to stop at the Lucky Dog and get a new pack, even if I have a full one waiting for me at home. No, I don't smoke all day until I leave work (usually...unless I'm grumpy, then once in a while I'll go out during the day.)

4) I will only use one stall in the bathroom at work. I don't know why...I don't like the other one.

5) I can't drive without my doors locked.

I could go on, but I have to go do this certification thingy on one of the boys' computers.

I can't go to bed without picking out my clothes for the next day (except on weekends).

Starbucks every weekday morning, even if I'm running late.

That's about it!

4) I will only use one stall in the bathroom at work. I don't know why...I don't like the other one.

I do this too. I don't know what it is about the other stalls, they just don't seem trustworthy.

One of my biggest routines is to keep the exact same things in my pockets every day. There will always be a pen, a lighter (I don't smoke cigarettes) and $1.35 in my pocket. Why? I have no idea but I've done it at least since I was a teenager.

You people are weird.

:P

$1.35? Can there be more? Do you ever use the lighter? Ever? Do people ask to use your lighter and you let them and then they put them in their own pocket and your heart starts beating faster and faster until there's a lull in the conversation so you can ask for it back?

I must have the same local sports talk show on, 7-10 a.m., M-F, to get any work done. If it's preempted or off-air, it freaks me out, and I can't concentrate.

I had the same thing with my classical music station, Kirk. I listened to Canada's Radio 2 throughout the day. I loved the format and the hosts. Plus, my workplace is generally eerily silent, so it was comforting.

Then they changed all the programming, and my world was thrown for a loop. After a long search, I have settled on a new station. Still circling it warily deciding if I can commit to possibly having my world broken again!

I always brush my teeth before I wash my face in the morning, I have very particular machines I use at the gym (the stairmaster just in the middle, not the right or left, thank you), We always light candles whenever we play a board game, We always go grocery shopping at 11:30 on Saturday morning.

My step mother is a lighter thief! You have to watch her close, or she'll make off with your lighter without you even realizing she touched it.

6) When I play Solitaire on my computer I always play the Vegas style where it keeps track of your winnings. I can't stop unless I am in the positive (not as easy as it sounds). It's a self imposed rule, but I still do it...every time.

7) On the Solitaire lines, I have a program that has hundreds of ways to play Solitaire on it. I don't play it anymore, because I can't move on to the next way to play until I beat the one before it on the list. I can't seem to beat the one that I am at now. It pissed me off and now I don't play it. Logically I know that I could just move on, but I don't.

Questions for Logan and Kelly:

1. Logan...first off, all of Sarah's questions. Second, does the $1.35 have to be in a certain set of coins/bills? For example, does it have to be one dollar, one quarter, and one dime?

2. Kelly...what happens if your ideal stairmaster is taken?

I do use the lighter, just not for cigarettes. Plus, it's always good for when people ask you for a light. I like talking with strangers while waiting for the bus and sharing a light is a good way to start a conversation. I always run into the most interesting people this way.

The $1.35 is for the bus. It doesn't matter what sort of coinage makes up the money, as long as I have enough to make it onto the bus. I don't always know that I'm going to need mass transit, but I like to be prepared just in case.

I hate lighter thieves, but I've grown to accept them. I figure that I've acquired so many lighters that aren't mine that it's only fair to let some filter back into circulation.

Logan: 1.35 used to buy you a ticket on the DC Metro. So that would've been useful until this year, anyway!

RA: I go to one of my other machines, and keep a possessive eye the one that's being used, and make a mad dash for it as soon as the other person is off. And by "mad dash" I mean I try to be casual and look around like I'm considering other machines before choosing that one... yeah..

It always takes me way more than 3 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop. I don't know how that hoot-owl does it!

I figure that I've acquired so many lighters that aren't mine that it's only fair to let some filter back into circulation.

I'm that way with pens.

I like to make a mug of tea when I get home, and tidy up the kitchen while the kettle heats up.

Oh, no...pens can come, but they cannot leave!

I can use a match, I cannot use a pencil...

- When I'm playing Tetris on my phone, I won't stop playing until I've scored a tetris.

- I only stop reading at the end of a chapter, which really sucks when I can't wait to find out how the next chapter starts and I have to be somewhere.

- I HAVE to get in at least 15 minutes of cuddle time with my dog in the morning... He runs into my room when he hears me stirring and jumps up on the bed and then he'll sidle up next to me so I can rub his belly and his ears and scratch his back... and every once in a while, he gives me light kissies on my nose. I'm in a horrible, no good mood when I oversleep and don't have time for our morning cuddle.

I'm the same way, Amelia. I can not use pencils, not even the mechanical pencils. It has to be all ink, all the time.

I write too hard for the mechanical pencils, I just break the tip every letter or two...aggravating!

I'm always on the quest for the perfect pen.

Uniball Visions with the fine tip- not the micro. Perfect ink to page ratio, at least for me.

That's funny Amelia, because i tried using a mechinical pencil for the first time in years today. I literally couldn't get through one letter without the tip breaking off.

Now for a routine... Whenever I get home I have to take my belongings out of my pockets. I can't stand having things in my pockets indoors. Even when I go to a friends house, I'll take everything out but my wallet.

I always had to use a pencil if I was doing math. Doing math in pencil pleases me. I love it. (I miss math. Too bad I could not get calculus!)

The pen I use regularly is the Pilot G2 b/c I like the ink and the way it writes and it has refills, so it's less expensive. (And that's another good thing I do for the environment, right?) BUT, if money weren't an issue, I would always buy the Pilot Precise V5 (which doesn't have a refill). I fucking LOVE those pens!

Confession: I steal pens from waiters and waitresses if they (the pens) write well. (Not if they are like "good" pens, like the ones people give you as a gift or something. But a Pilot G2 of Precise? That bitch is MINE! And I tip well anyway, so they can afford a new pen.)

Aaaaa! aaaaa! Logan! That tip is probably going towards rent and the heating bill, and that pen is probably a sacred good luck object for the waiter. I used to only give out crappy pens to customers for this very reason, and would save my nice pen for writing down their order. Yet every now and then necessity would require me to give away my nice pen and I'd think "That Logan looks like a nice, honest young man, he'd never rip me off. I'll trust him with my Pilot G2." I can't believe you, pen thief!

Ummm, Sally, I think I'm the pen thief around here...

(And I did the same thing with good pens and crap pens when I was waitressing. Smart!)

Right, Mindy. So sorry Logan, for any undue mental anguish this might have caused you.

I'd like to blame it on the green icons but lets just chalk this embarrassment up to the way the whole day has gone.

*hands Sally a really good pen*

Go journal with it. That always makes me feel better.

:)

*Pins Mindy down and draws a mustache on her face with the new good pen*

That always makes me feel better.

Bwahahah! Glad I could help, Sally!

(Actually, being pinned down makes me feel quite good, but I bet that was a Sharpie. That shit's never coming off!)

Ugh! I waited tables and bartended for 15 years and can tell you it SUCKS when people steal your pens! I fucking HATE that. If you tip well, then YOU can afford to go buy the god damn pen.

Yeah, what's up with that... I used to go through a box of pens everytime I would work! It was occasionally tempting to jump over the bar and chase my pen down... but then I might be overwhelmed with the urge to insert into the thiefs eye first (or an overinflated balloon of silicone, as the case may be).

And I'm sure they didn't mean it.

Phew! For a moment there I thought an angry mob of pitchfork-wielding peasants were going to be storming my gates in search of stolen pens. I'm glad the crisis was averted.

Yeah, Logan, it was just averted to ME!

C'mon y'all, I worked for tips most of my adult life, but I understood that the lure of a good pen is hard to resist. It's probably a reflex over which we have very little control, so we serving types just gotta not bring our good pens to work.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if there is some irresistable urge about pens for some of us. Because every pen in our agency ends up migrating back to my office somehow. (OK, not somehow. I take them, but I really don't do it consciously.) Whenever the office manager out front gets low on pens, she just comes back to my office and rounds up all the ones I've transported.

*My name is Mindy, and I have a pen problem.*

As I said recently in a breakfast thread I
1. always have oatmeal and tea in the morning. The rhythm of cooking both awakens and soothes me.

2. I listen to NPR when driving to school, and KCSU when driving home.

3. I have to read before turning out the light.

4. In the shower I shampoo, soap, then condition. Always.

5. I have to have the keys in my hand when I go out any door.

I've been turning off NPR in the morning on the way to work lately, unless I'm going late and catch the 6:50AM business news. I like the silence.

I have a relatively new routine in that I make tea when I arrive at work...I like it...very calming.

i have routines for almost everything, but because i don't think it is good for me to have that many routines i am obsessed with breaking them. when that happens i always feel very good about myself.

Oh, when I worked at a salon and listened to music and chatter all day long there was nothing as wonderful as sweet silence in the car ride home.

I make tea and oatmeal when I get to work, and then I look at the boxes of weeded books that have been sent to me by the branch libraries.

Jackie "the Librarian" wrote: "I make tea and oatmeal when I get to work, and then I look at the boxes of weeded books that have been sent to me by the branch libraries."


You must have the best job ever. I worked at a public library for about a year during junior high and really ruined myself for every job that came afterwards.

I can't complain, Clark. :)

I get up one hour before I have to, to drink coffee and read ONLY. No internet, no radio, no TV. At 4:45P I feed the cats, then shower, then do make up, then iron scrubs, feed dogs if it's Thursady, then do hair, then run around gathering cell, book, smokes, etc. Must leave house at 6:05P at the latest but it's usually more like 6:10P. I have one ciggie during my 12 miles on Rt 460, no ciggy during the 6 miles on 85, and 2 ciggies on I-95--one at the Rt 10 exchange and one just as I cross the James River right before m exit. There is no cell phone chat during my inbound commute. I listen to radio and talk out loud to myself only.

ANY disruption in this routine will cause me to become very confused and disorganized.

The days of the week when I don't work, I am very mellow and spontaneous (translation: lazy).

I religously carry around paper or $bills of some sort to do origami on my down time (also origami helps me focus and brightens other peoples day) and my "pokewalker" its a tamogatchi and a pedometer cross for pokemon.
I am a pokemon nerd btw--> www.serebii.net/index2.shtml

also I always wear pants (not shorts) and my favorite jacket

Wow Dario I love the Oragami time killer/stress reliever. That is very cool. What a great hobby. I don't do anything near that cool. Although you can categorize me as cross stitch nerd, I specialize in birth announcements, people love them, they are elaborate and very time consuming and I enjoying having a craft while I spend time with my 'boobtube' addiction. Now i just need an aphgan over my lap while I stitch away in my bent wood rocker - geesh what a dork I am :( haha

Thanks for all the origami praise try here

Thanks for all the origami praise try here

sorry can't get the link to work

Here you go, Dario:

origami-instructions.com

:)

i thought origami was a dirty word. like something from the kama sutra

no its not a dirty word.
Thanks for the site its one of the 2 I use, the other is the one I can't find. But thanks for your help :)