11.4.18

There is a lot going on right now and I am in a funk.

So today I wanted to discuss the thought of life being fair.

There is stuff that is going on in my family and it brings up some feelings that I just don’t know how to process.  I should be upset, but I’m not.  I really just don’t care about it.

Then I think of something that happened in the past and it makes me angrier.  The most undeserving people are often the ones who receive the most consideration.  And that just pisses me off to the core.

Until tomorrow…

Four

Write a bit about your drivers’ licence. How old were you, where did you get it? What kind of car did you drive?

Not applicable.  I haven’t had a driver’s license since my unexpected move in Norfolk.  Prior to that, I had one, but I hadn’t been behind the wheel since late 2012.  I barely passed the vision test when I renewed my license in 2009, before I was diagnosed with MS.

I really stopped driving, though, sometime in the summer of 2012.  I had a pickup truck drop its under-bed spare tire in front of me.  This really screwed up my car, and I was very scared when I got it back out of the shop.

When I tried again between Christmas and New Year’s in late-2012, I realized that I couldn’t see a red stoplight with a green tree in the background.

Probably, if I wanted to, I would qualify as legally-blind at this point.

I was also having real trouble working the clutch without toeing the brake.

I never owned a car with an automatic transmission;  I’m happy about that.

What does it mean to be a good friend?  What type of friend are you?

I’m contemplating this one, and I really don’t know.

I’m still on good terms with a few friends.  There’s others with whom I’d just never speak again.  Some of those are due to adoption of beliefs I find insane.  No, none of them has become a Scientologist, at least.  Those who are fascinated with politicians who are disguised bigots I don’t worry too much about.

A couple folks might avoid me because of something I did, but I think the vast majority probably don’t know how to deal with me.  No, I don’t have nearly the energy I used to.  I also don’t have the money to blow on frivolity.  I made mistakes trying to live a life I couldn’t afford, then they figured out WTF was wrong with me.

Maybe there’s never any reward, but at least I can still live with myself.

11.3.18

Bonding with strangers.

One of my sister in law’s coworkers came over for dinner with his wife.  I ended up making fast friends with them by sharing our mutual love of food and cooking.  We even traded Instagram account info, so we can keep up with each other’s culinary adventures.

I swear these will get longer and I will stop waiting until the last minute to write.

11.2.18

So I am late on this one.  There was a lot going on yesterday, and I ended up getting side tracked.  It did give me an idea about what to write about though.

How do you deal with difficult feelings?

There is something going on in my family right now, and I did not react to it the way a normal person would react to something like that.  After realizing that, I began to feel guilty.  Then I questioned why I felt so guilty.  So yeah, that is the where I am at.

How do I deal with difficult feelings, not very well.

Until tomorrow…

 

Three

Free-write

I drafted this a few months ago.  I’m trying to get out some of the stuff that’s stuck in my drafts queue.


I’ve complained, perhaps incessantly, about the stupidity that is LinkedIn.

Late last week, I got a suggestion that I connect with my father.

My dad died nearly eight years ago.

Words fail. Please, please, please shut off your email snooping, you all.
Yes, I’ve got emails dating back years and years; it doesn’t mean that I ever want (or can) speak to those people again.

Still, what’s happening, though, and why LinkedIn is a pond filled with just about only recruiters these days, is that companies are moving almost exclusively to having contract employees.

My new role, I get, at least, paid holidays, and time off. What do I not get? The sacrosanct health insurance, and any 401K match at all.

You know what, though, for most of my life, I’ve not had those things.

Older politicians ran on destruction of the “gig economy” not long ago, while people her age are working forever, and getting rich off reflated housing and equity markets.

So What?

I’m going to point out what I’ve had to deal with as one of the youngest Generation Xers. You will see it on my resume, which will be as long as it needs to be to cover my varied work history. It will not be a two-page Microsoft Word 97 document. Sorry.

To the arts major recruiters, consider your favorite author. How would his/her (yes, I know, that’s sys-gendered…..) works


I don’t know why I didn’t publish this back when I wrote it.  It does speak to the whole data mining.

How does government fix that?  It can’t.

I write this as I listen to a Libertarian take on the issue of birthright citizenship.

The more you read, and the more you think about things, the more your opinions change.

That makes me a bad person, I suppose.  Rachel Maddow might be able to whip up some tears about it.  *shrug*

Stuff in my sights at the moment:

Well, this.  I guess the idea is keep-it-big-but-regulate-the-fuck-out-of-it.  No.  Don’t do that.  If something’s too big, instead of forcing things, leave.  All you can do is take your attention and money away.

That, of course, is what I’m doing.

I’m also paying attention to the NFL, even if the fans, and the TV audiences have largely left.

Rams at the Saints tomorrow should be interesting.

Not a lot more to say, really.  I’m making prime rib for dinner for me, my wife, brother, and sister-in-law.  Similarly, I will declare that done when it’s done.  Like this entry.

So on to tomorrow.

Two

Just in to the prompts today.  The second prompts are harvested from someone on OD, who’s trying to sorta resurrect the old NoJoMo bits there.

I am writing because I’ve already hit my work target for the week, and am out of workable hours.  Maybe, though, Sunday, I’ll actually have a full day off for the first time in like two weeks.

So on to it….

Are you listed as an organ or bone marrow donor? Why or why not?

I was.  My disabled guy ID doesn’t show it anymore, though.

At the same time, like anybody would want my organs with the sheer amount of chemicals pumped into my body, I wonder if anyone’d want them.  If there was something on/in me to salvage, I guess someone could have it, but I’m having trouble figuring out what of me might be of any use.

My blood?  No, I ate British beef in the 1980s, so nobody will take that while I’m alive.

Hair?  Well, what of it’s still left, maybe.

How would you describe yourself to someone who had never met you?

This one is tough.

I’m a married guy in his late-thirties.  No kids.  Nerd.  Not much of a professional future left on account of my physical disability;  I have multiple sclerosis.  MS has taken most of my vision, and quite a bit of my mobility.

My father was a career Army officer, so I grew up all over the place;  I attended three high schools.  While I was in college, I started working in television, then radio.  I stayed in broadcasting for the better part of a decade.  I left radio in 2005 to try to pay off my college debts, in preparation for going to law school.

Instead, I met the girl I’d marry.  I got sick, and she stuck around.

And I got turned around while writing this.  The work I thought I was going to do tomorrow got quadrupled.  Oh well.  I like what I’m doing.

11.1.18

Has it really been a year already?

This year I am going to try something a little different.  I am going to try and come up with a topic on the day I am writing and not go with a premade list of prompts.  We are going to make this artisanal as possible.  (Yes, I am part of the millennial generation.  Deal.). It’s going to be very Mark-esque from “RENT’.  “From here on out, I write without a script, instead of my old shit.”

So today, I think I will tell whoever is reading this a little about this past year.  There have been many changes and most of them were unexpected.

We had a blizzard in Tidewater, something that hadn’t happened in I don’t even know how long.

The bigger news from that day was I received a tentative offer from a government job that I had only interviewed for the day before.  I have been with them since March and plan to stay with them until the foreseeable future.  I enjoy the work and I enjoy the company I keep in the office, mostly.

With this offer came one of the scariest changes of my life so far, moving away from home.  Tidewater had been home for almost 18 years of my life, so moving to northern VA was not something I looked forward to, especially not alone, which is what I had to do.  Eventually Sean followed and we are currently residing with is brother and his brother’s wife while we get our bearings up here.

I try to go home every couple weeks, but I know as winter comes, that will get harder and harder.  Still not sure what the holidays are going to entail and that is a first for me, because my parents used to be a 15 minute drive away.  Now it’s more like 4 – 5 hours.  I enjoy being on the road by myself.  I can think, sing, and just be myself and no one really cares as long as I maintain my speed.

I have started using my FitBit regularly and am seeing results with that.  Since August, I have dropped about 18 lbs.  I need to be more disciplined in my dinner ideas and my weekly workouts and then I think I will be able to create my ideal body, or at least something closer to it.

I think that is enough for now.  Until tomorrow…

 

 

One

Intro and what I’m doing. This marks the ninth straight year.

On the old OD site, this was kind of a thing.  Essentially, you write every single day of the month of November.

Much as I was back in the summer, I’m happy, which really does remove a reason to write.  That was even before I chose to remove myself from most social media.

There’s really just that much to get wound-up about.  I’m sure the DNC delegation of Facebook friends would disagree, but, again, I don’t care.

A longtime friend scored me a ticket to Shmoocon in January.  I’ve missed the past three.  It feels more than a little strange, but maybe I’ll get something more out of it this year.

So, back to what I’m doing, and why.  I mentioned the old OD site.  It’s been resurrected following its demise back in 2013.  I’d purchased a lifetime subscription, which they did honor after reanimation.  I had downloaded copies of what I’d written before it went dark, but there is a bit of an old friend feeling.

I’ve been horrible about writing, there, of course.  (And yes, I’ll be reposting this there, too.)  I guess the reanimation was right around the time I got removed from round two of being in the 1998-vintage icebox.  (Originally, I’d said “shitcanned,” but I wasn’t fired.  I was laid off because a guy not worth the C4 it’d take to blow him up didn’t like me doing things according to published regulation…)

As for why I do it?  It helps me focus the many thoughts sprinting through this scarred brain of mine.  Do I have something to say about everything?  No.  There’s things that nobody needs to know.  There’s other things that pretty much are my sole interest;  why bore people with them?

But it also puts me in the mood for holidaying.  Can I really relax myself enough to enjoy them, for a change, this year?  I’m hoping so.

So, on to it.  Happy NoJoMo.