So when you buy a round-trip ticket and are unable to take the first half because someone moves your schedule, Alaska Airlines cancels your whole itinerary. Which means you wake up this morning wondering why you haven't been reminded to check in. Which you discover is because your reservation has been cancelled. Which is because rather than spend $125 to cancel your entire itinerary and buy a new round-trip for $180, you bought a one-way for $60. Which makes Alaska Airlines mad. But not mad enough to not knuckle the fuck under and reinstate your reservation when you bitch to a 1st tier manager. So even though you're 20,000 miles a year on the damn airline, have 200,000 miles saved up, have the fucking credit card and the skylounge membership and even fucking own shares, Alaska Airlines feels perfectly okay making you hate them for $60 that they didn't even end up claiming. Customer Service at its finest.

Last weekend was "Grandparents' day" or some shit. I use Postagram for texting old people, so I sent pictures of my daughter to my parents. This prompted an email from my father, which I responded to immediately, and then I called twice, and have received neither email nor call since. I have not spoken to my father on the phone in nine months. I think I've called him a dozen times. My mother, for her part, called me and asked if my daughter was afraid of me, because I'm scary. She then said that she hopes she dies before her husband because the only insurance she has is Medicare. I observed that there were millions of millenials that would kill for Medicare and she was dubious. She then reiterated that she hoped she died before her husband because otherwise she'd have to come live with me. I told her she'd probably like the weather at my sister's house better.

My commute made the news last week. I had to loop back a mile because the path was blocked by the coroner. Once I found the article I'm not sure why the coroner was there as nobody died. On the one hand, I hate the bikers on that fucking path and I'm about 70% certain they deserved it. On the other hand, I am cognizant of the fact that twice a day I ride a bike through an area where people are shot for their bicycles. Either way, the upshot is the increased police scrutiny appears to have scared off the deranged guy who chases me with a pool cue sometimes.

I mixed live-to-tape Monday, which is why I couldn't get on my flight. Apparently I mixed for six and a half million viewers.

My contractor has called three times in the past six hours to get me to go look at linoleum samples.

I have a flight back at 8pm, but unless Alaska Airlines figures out some other way to fuck me, I get six entire days home next week. I will likely spend it terminating CAT5. I have successfully saved about nine thousand dollars by configuring my own business phone system. By the bye, if you get a chance to give V-Tech money, do it. Their tech support will say cool things like "yeah, that's probably because the reed switch is stuck. Open up the back of the phone and be careful that these two pieces don't fall out. Now pull back the membrane and blast it with canned air" for phones you bought used off eBay.

I have seven extensions and two direct dial numbers for a bedroom in Los Angeles that I'd rather not call. There may come a time when it will actually do someone some good, but at the end of the day we live in a cell phone culture so if not for state regulations I wouldn't have even had to have bothered with any of it.

You reach the point where you're struggling not because you hope to win, not because you hope the struggle will end, but because struggling is all you remember. You reach the point where the successes don't matter because they were planned, but the failures drive you crazy because they're yet another example of something you didn't plan for. Victory is hollow and defeat is inevitable.

And expensive.

Now I have to take a shower so I can look at linoleum samples. I'm looking forward to my birthday because I can buy shampoo with double points. Until then, Tresemme, bitchez.

These are the victories by which we mark our lives.