Life

Here's how life works.

Carol is being rewarded for living a life in sync with who she really is. Sucks that she was forced into part time work before she planned on it, but she has the entire month of October off and then goes back to work on 10/29, working a job that she likes from 10 to 2 every day for excellent pay.

She is happy.

I am being punished for living a life completely out of sync with who I really am. Working two part time jobs, working six days a week including Friday and Saturday nights. I am perpetually exhausted. There is no recovering from a schedule like that.

Life will not leave you alone. If you make mistakes, if you take your eye off the ball, you are not allowed to just keep your head down and slink quietly towards the grave.  There is a price to pay. Life will crush you. It will taunt you. It will punish you.

Strangely, and in apparent contrast to my words, I am strangely numb to all this. I am not furious. I get up, I go to work, I come home. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Part of that is assuagement of guilt. Ever since Carol got sick I have felt guilt. She beat the shit out of cancer and kept working full time. While I would often work 2 days a week. I did not enjoy one day of "semi-retirement" after Carol got sick.

So at least right now I am pumping our coffers full of cash in self defense against aging and loss.

The voice in my head says "This needs to be leading towards something. I cannot keep this up for years and years." For perhaps the first time in my life I am thinking ahead.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Anyway the message is - be careful of life. It is not your friend.

Perspective

And Bob Cratchit excitedly says to his family on Christmas eve: "I'm to have the whole day off tomorrow."

I always thought that was such a sad situation. One day off from work and it was like a vacation to him.

I have always believed that everyone deserves a weekend. Going back to work after one day off is nothingness. Torture. Not fair. You NEED 2 days off in a row just to feel like a human being.

Of course the majority of Americans have been robbed of weekends. It is becoming a fanciful concept. A disappearing dream.

BUT

I am working my ass off right now. 6 days a week. Days and nights. But today.......due to the generosity of the City of Concord, I am home. Even though I am part time, even though I don't even work on Mondays, I get paid 4 hours for the Columbus Day holiday. They can't pay me overtime so I got today off with pay (my Wed hours being noon to 4:00).

I feel so relaxed today.

And last night I was excitedly thinking "I'm to have the whole day off tomorrow."

A Brilliant Sentence

I write differently than I talk.

Writing allows me creative license. Occasionally I talk the way I write but then people look askance at me. It doesn't work.

So I talk the way every one else does. Boring.

When I write I am truly me.

Given a blank page I cannot help myself. Even when writing emails at work.

On Monday I was filling in the boss about stuff at work (he wasn't in). Leaving him an email so he would be informed. This was around 4:15.

My last sentence was:

"Tomorrow at this time I will have a short whiskey in my hand as I listen to ocean waves softly whispering encouragement to my tortured psyche."

THAT is a motherfucking sentence. Could you write a sentence like that? You could not. I'm telling you right now. That sentence is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. If they only gave Pulitzers for individual sentences.

That sentence could be the basis for a story. A book. A movie. It is wide open with possibilities, and creates an instantaneous mood while simultaneously raising questions.

It makes you wonder. It piques your curiosity.

Now if only I could find a writer talented enough to DO something with it.

I Must Be Dead

I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Today is September 1. Spiritually, summer is dead. We will have more good weather, maybe a lot of it, but Labor Day Weekend is essentially a funeral for people who appreciate living easy.

And yet I feel nothing. I felt nothing on May 1, June 1, July 1, August 1.

Typically I spend the 7 months of winter grinding my teeth, head down, guzzling whiskey, killing small birds and eating their bones.

When May 1 rolls around I immediately begin worrying about how quickly summer will go by. As each month ticks off I become more agitated until October 1 rolls around and the small bird population in the neighborhood again begins to diminish.

2019 shattered that pattern. And, honestly, it is a much more peaceful way to live. Winter did shatter me as usual but I watched the good weather go by with no panic.

I don't know why. It's possible I have just given up on ever having the life I want. Also possible I am maturing, learning how to deal with life on its terms which, I now understand, it dictates and I follow.

Period.

I know the second possibility sounds like a fantasy, especially if you have known me all my life, but the truth is I am painfully aware of the small time I have left to live and it is beginning to have an impact on my thought processes. 

Case in point. I just landed a second part time job as of this past Friday. Not a shit job like I have been looking at for months. A real fucking job. $17.78/hour, working for the City of Concord. 20 hours/week. I will keep my job at the Capitol Center, working two days a week there and two and 1/2 days a week for the City. Plus whatever shows at the Capitol Center I can squeeze into my schedule without killing myself.

When I worked at the thrift store part time I was miserable because the job was so far beneath my capabilities. There are many days at the Cap Center when I feel the same way. I make myself miserable because I cannot accept the situation I am in.

Now I am taking on two part time jobs and looking forward to it. Because after three wasted years of semi-retirement I can finally contribute to our financial welfare in a meaningful way. Ever since Carol had her health problems I have felt like a shit. Now I want to work my ass off, pay off bills and build up savings so we don't have to live in terror ever single fucking day.

And maybe we can afford to have a little fun along the way.

So, yeah, maybe I am dead. In some ways I feel nothing, in other ways I am more accepting. No clue where this will lead.

Hopefully to a little happiness and pride for Carol and me.

We deserve it.

He KNOWS Me. He Fucking KNOWS Me.

"Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins."

Carlos Santana

David Bowie

I read a biography on David Bowie a couple of books ago.

Spectacular. The book and the man.

I had a lifelong respect for David Bowie because he experimented with life. His life.

He tried shit out. Tried shit on. Turns out he started doing this as a kid, a teenager. I did not know this.

At some point he decided that he wanted to make a living as an entertainer but was not sure exactly what kind of entertainer. So he started soaking up knowledge and experiences with music, theatre, dance, even mime. As he was doing that he was trying out different ways of dressing, including wearing dresses, makeup etc, changing hairstyles.

The consistent thing that came through in the book from old friends and family members was that Bowie was fearless. He did not give a shit what people thought about what he was doing and how he looked. And trust me, he took a lot of shit for the way he looked.

He caught my attention at first with his music. Hunky Dory came out in 1971 and had the song "Changes" on it. I LOVED that song. Still do. I felt like he was talking about my generation, people who were misunderstood, people who others did not even try to understand. I think critically the song is understood to be more about Bowie's attitude about change; changing himself and avoiding getting sucked into the rock 'n roll soul sucking machine.

When he came out with "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars" in 1972, THAT was when I said "Holy Shit - who is this guy?" Check out pictures of him at that time and you will know what I mean.

From that point on I was awed by the way he would periodically radically re-invent himself. His look and his music. Which is dangerous for a performer because the audience wants you to always stay the same. They are comfortable with their first impression of you.

He did not care. He would show up for a concert with a different look, a different attitude, different music and people would say "What the fuck is going on? I want to hear Changes?"

Honestly I did not collect the man's music. I have a Ziggy CD, the "Low"CD (1977) and the Earthing" CD (1997). Not because I don't like his music; more because I am easily distracted.

I will eventually get his last two albums, albums he recorded when he knew he was dying. They are mind blowing. I pulled into the parking lot of the Peterborough liquor store  to report to work on the morning of January 10, 2016 and just before I turned the radio off they announced that Bowie had died.

I was blown away. Had no idea he was sick. Not many people did. He kept it close and personal. I was blown away by how blown away I was. That's when I realized what an impact he had on my life.

The man was universally celebrated in the biography as being incredibly intelligent - he read and studied anything and everything. He was talented, fearless, creative, curious.

I got a kick out of the fact that most everybody described him as a gentleman. Treating people politely on a one on one basis. The personification of the English stereotype.

Interestingly enough, the author saved many of the negative comments for the very end of the book, placing them chronologically after Bowie died. All of a sudden I was reading comments talking about how he was not a gentleman, that he was selfish, that he used and did not care about others etc. They were like punches to the face. Kind of weird, but a good thing - nobody is ever a God in life except for me.

David Bowie laid out a blueprint for how to really live a life. Most people will not follow it. Most of us become oxen at some point in our life, wearing the yoke until we break down and disappear.

That is why the story of his life is so fascinating.

Great book. Great man.

Who Am I?

Currently I am reading a book - a physical book - about Adolph Hitler. I am also reading a book on my tablet about a serial killer.

Perhaps I should seek out more exposure to puppy dogs and sunshine.