Tag Archives: life

The long week ahead

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Today is Friday, and this is my last day off until next Saturday. I hate working long stretches. Hell, I hate working, period. No, let’s be positive. I have a job. It pays me a pathetic wage, but at least it’s in a currency that (still) has some intrinsic value attached to it. Tomorrow I’ll get off at a reasonable time, and I’m positive I hate working, period.

See? Who says I’m always negative? Silly people. Joking aside, I will have to work seven days, but then when I get off next Friday, I’ll be leaving immediately to Corpus Christi, a  mere 654 miles (1052 km) away. That’s in no way exhausting. I think I need a nap.

Next Saturday, the family is getting together to celebrate my Grandmother’s birthday, so in spite of my whining, it’s actually worth it. She’s my last grandparent still alive. It would be nice to see her while I still have the opportunity.

I think we take family for granted, especially when they are involved with our lives. We get used to their being there, stalwart and true, the rock upon which a family is founded. Once they pass, it’s amazing how quickly the family goes their separate ways, each becoming the patriarchs and matriarchs of their respective clans.

Just think about the history they have, our grandparents, and great-grandparents, if you are lucky enough to still have any yet living. What have they witnessed? What were their lives like before they settled down? What family history do they know that will go to the grave once they pass?

I don’t want to come across as depressed, but it’s just a thought that crossed my mind. It’s scary how fast time flies by, and it seems to speed up with each passing year. I swear, I still feel like I should be in my twenties, but that old man staring back at me in the mirror likes to remind me that I’m not. I hate you, old man!

No point worrying about what will happen. Instead, come next Saturday, we will celebrate what we still have. Yes, we have suffered heartbreaks, losing members of our family. It’s both a joy and a curse to belong to a large family. My grandmother had fourteen children, and has lived to bury three. It’s sad, but we have to continue living in the present.

 

Camp Nano – 2 days until it begins

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I didn’t mean to do it, but I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. Great plan! I don’t have a computer yet, so let’s sign up to write something. Brilliant! Fantastic! What the hell am I thinking!!!!!

Okay, it’s not really that bad. My goal is a very modest 10K words, a short story that has been brewing in my mind for several months. I want to write it down and get it out of my head. Really, it’s a simple exercise to get my brain focused on writing again. I’ve let my dream fall to the wayside this year. Shame on me.

I need a writing goal to motivate me again, something before the main event in November. I haven’t mentioned it in a long time, but I would like to be back in the DFW area by the time November hits. That’s been my goal every year since I came back to my hometown almost 2 years ago. I’ve accomplished a life goal in earing my degree, and I’m about done on my most recent personal goal. I think it’s time to look towards the future and make plans to get on with my life.

Which is a scary thing, if you ask me. Things in my life aren’t great, but they are stable. I desire a stable life, but not like this. I want more out of my life, and the only way to earn it is to upset my stability for the hope of something better. It’ll be a calculated risk, but one we all have to do on occasion to grow and to progress in life.

My truck is almost done. It’s insured now, and I lack a few minor repairs before I take it to get inspected. I should start working on my resume and begin to actively look for jobs again. I had considered going back to school to get my teaching certificate, but the longer I thought about it, the more I became convinced teaching  would be a mistake, at least for me.

So I’m a man with a degree and not much else, trying to find his way through life. Looking at my successes and my failures, the business world is not a good fit for me, but I have to ask, what is? Is writing my future? I’m not convinced I really have a talent for writing.

Nevertheless, my short-term goal is to write a short story next month, and to polish my resume. By the end of the year, I want to have a real job, my own place where I can live, and write, in peace. I don’t know what will happen, but I think it’s time to get my life back on track.

I guess only time will tell…

In the meantime…

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I hate having ideas with no way to do anything about them. I miss having a computer where I can type until I’ve run out of things to say, to create on a page a world that exist solely in the depths of my mind. Plus, keeping up my blog has been difficult.

I have no timetable as to when I will be able buy myself a new laptop, but I fear it will be quite a long time. I’m nearing the completion of my project, cleaning up a 93 Chevy pickup. When I’m done, I should have the money to begin saving up to buy my new toy, but one thing at a time.

In the meantime, I’ve resorted to using pen and paper to get my ideas downs. It’s not as quick, and many times more illegible than using a keyboard. As bad as it is, it’s better than nothing. At least it affords me the luxury of moving ideas out of my head and onto a more permanent format. It’s just so freaking slow!

I’m also glad that I have access to the important files of my now deceased computation machine. Thank you DropBox! All my works in progress are safe, ready for me to get busy on them all over again. I’m raring to go.

Patience is required of me. I will get things lined up all over again, and I will get back on track, though I’ve bitching about if for three years and it hasn’t happened yet. Just smile and it’ll get better.

Or maybe people have been lying to me about that…

A few more small steps towards life

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Work on my project is slow, but I’m happy to report there has been some progress. I’ve been working on a truck, a ’93 Chevy 1500 to be precise. It’s an old beat-up work truck in need of a little TLC, which my brothers have provided with yours truly providing some back-up. They have more expertise with cars in general, and I happily admit it.

We are now slowly putting the vehicle back together, though we might need to take off the hood and fenders to reinstall them since they are not lining up correctly That’s only a slight setback. Hope to have that corrected soon. Next, I need to have a windshield installed, which I’m hoping to have done next week. Also, the interior needs to be reinstalled.

Seems like a lot of work, and it is, but it’s not as much as it seems. I already have the registration for the vehicle, along with the license plates and registration sticker. As soon as the windshield is in place, I will finally take out insurance on it and have it inspected  then I will finally have a working vehicle to call my own. Oh, happy days!

Here’s the reason I can’t wait; I hate my job. I haven’t groused about my employment for a while, so here I go again. I find myself stuck in a job beneath my experience and educational level would seem to dictate. I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation and work my way up, but I realized I’m doing so only half-heartedly. I hate my job, and though it’s familiar and I can do great things for the company, I really don’t want to. Hence my reticence and my inability to move up.

I’m working for a management team that’s young and inexperienced, and if they had worked for me back when I was in a management position, I probably would have fired for incompetence. We have a store manager who cares nothing for his employees, refusing to build relationships with his hourly workers, assistants who are too busy imbibing from the well of power their new positions grant them. That amount of power is intoxicating, and having a store full of people who are subordinate to you, many who are eager to kiss up to get on your good graces, can easily make you believe in your non-existent infallibility.

Add to that many hourly supervisors who have been there so long they believe they are untouchable and treat everyone else with condescension. I’m truly amazed at the spectacle, and I wonder how the company manages to function with this level of dysfunction! If you thought Walmart was bad, my current employers are far worse.

But I offer this little nugget, is my perception fueled by my dislike for the industry as a whole or is it a fair assessment? I can’t answer that, but I suspect that it’s little of both. Maybe if I were a little more motivated and excited I could become someone there. What is clear, this is the first time I have been unable to impress my superiors and work my way up. The environment is toxic for me and I need out.

Which brings me back to my project. Once I am done, I will have the freedom to do what is necessary to get out of my current funk. The time I have spent here has been beneficial, affording me the opportunity to earn my Bachelor’s Degree last summer, and to get my health back, especially my mental and emotional health. Looking back, I can’t believe how bad I truly was!

So I’m back and better that I was before. Life is good, though there a few opportunities to improve my life which I will tackle soon. I would have said that it all depends on how quick I am getting the truck back together, but the truth is far more complex. The projects of the past couple of years, my truck, my parent’s house, and graduating college have been indispensable steps in my progress to find happiness. I have found some small measure off happiness, and I’m not letting a shitty job take that away.

The cardboard sign

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On my way to work yesterday, I happened upon a curious sign. I came across a panhandler on the side of the frontage road after I got off my exit. There, on the side of a busy intersection stood a relatively young man, with a beard and a wool a knit cap, holding a cardboard sign begging for money. What stood out to me was what he had written on the makeshift sign:

Ninjas kidnapped my wife. Need money for Kung Fu lessons.

I wish I would have had time to snap a picture of the guy and the sign, and I was tempted to spot him a few dollars just because the sign amused me. I didn’t give him anything, I was just tempted to do so. But the sign got me thinking about the improbability of the sign. What if his wife had really been abducted my ninjas, and what if he really needed to learn Kung Fu in order to save her?

It’s the ridiculousness of that thought that makes me want to laugh. There’s no way in hell his wife is being held hostage by a band of rogue ninjas, but the what if’s make me pause, if only for a moment.

When the light turned green, I continued on to my job, clocked in, and forgot about the panhandler at the intersection, but for a brief moment, it made me smile. I wonder if he’s homeless and begging to survive, if he’s mentally ill or otherwise incapable of holding down a job, or if he’s simply out there for the laughs. Now again, he gives me pause to think about the possibilities behind the cardboard sign.

I hope he is well.