Coronavirus Is My Friend

Coronavirus has done for my life what I've been unable to do for 14 years.

Keep people the fuck away from me.

I started in customer service - tending bar - in 2006. Seemed like a brilliant move at the time. I love bars, I love being around drunken psychopaths. But I ended up working at an American Legion; no money in that.

I gradually drifted into true customer service jobs. You know, the kind that are demeaning and choke the life out of your soul.

First - NH State liquor stores. Again, good to be around booze. I'm comfortable in that environment. But customers suck. Sales reps suck. Liquor commission management sucks.

I began to slowly die.

Semi-retired (I hate that fucking phrase) in 2016. Took one month off - just one, after an entire lifetime of working for ungrateful, short-sighted motherfuckers. Got a part time job working in a thrift store. Told myself I was doing a good thing, working for a good organization.

I lie to myself all the time.

Couldn't get out of there fast enough. One year later I was working at the Capitol Center for the Arts. Been there for 3 years.

Soul sucking. Answering the same idiotic questions over and over again from an unlimited supply of mindless morons.

Last September I took on a second part time job; working for the city of Concord. Pays well but.......how bizarre, how bizarre. Fucking weird job. I won't get into details but it is strange. And still, the entire focus is waiting on schizophrenic subhumans.

Since September I have been slowly melting down. The combination of the two jobs is eating me up. Five days a week of sacrificing my ego and swallowing my pride to bring in a buck, in two completely different environments with two completely different sets of types of people.

Two Mondays. Monday is Monday. Wednesday is Monday.

My anger and frustration has been slowly building.  Whiskey input had increased to the point where I was hurting myself. Waking up with fucking headaches. I never get headaches from drinking whiskey.

The jobs were destroying me. Physically and mentally. Whiskey was destroying me.

I had no hope. You gotta have hope, you gotta see a light at the end of the tunnel. If you don't life will eat you up like cancer.

When coronavirus came along I was on my knees praying to be sent home. I did not know how much longer I could keep this up.

Now here I am. Home. City of Concord is essentially giving me a paid vacation - the job is too stupid to do at home. I hope they keep it coming. Cap Ctr is giving me six weeks working from home then everybody gets laid off.

I am catching my breath. I started exercising again. Dieting again. Writing again. Drinking less whiskey. My philosophy is to do healthy things and things that make me happy. Flush out my brain. Air out my soul.

I gotta create hope. Not sure how I am going to do that but the seed has been planted and has a little time to be nourished. I am hoping to hold on to these good habits when I am inevitably called back to the grind. I am hoping to develop a new perspective to help me deal with these jobs.

I do not want to go back to where I was. I don't think I can go back to where I was.

I hate that so many people are being hurt by this disease. These are the most bizarre times I have ever lived through which, for someone of my generation, is saying a lot.

On the other hand, if a few thousand people have to die to enable me to find peace of mind, it's a pretty fair tradeoff.