Tuesday, January 31, 2017

A Simple Madness

It is another morning and the routine starts again. The madness of the rat race that depletes the poet's pen. A quest for paper wealth that leads to moral bankrupycy. An addiction to consumption that destroys humanity. And the cow cries moo and the horse just sighs and the pig and what do we do with our big eyes destroy the Earth pray to the skies pretending we are right and wise. As if a smile is adequate disguise. As if we do not know we live in lies.

Yup, another morning and I woke with the alarm on time and took a hot shower and stumbles into rhyme as I just sat down here to release the reflection and prapare myself for more meaningless rejection as that seems to be the way humans want it to be in this reality... it never made sense to me.

Thank goodness for a friend who understands so I don't feel so alone. This never lasts... waking with enough time to write a few words, that is. Especially when I do not like the job. I'll be waking at the last moment and rushing out the door any day now, but today, again, I have a few moments (fewer than yesterday).

I thank J for caring enough to motivate me to send more words to her and to the universe.

So I send her and you and everything eveywhere another smile and thank you for any positive energy you might send out too as the bittersweet irony of a life of pain that keeps some of you home is that you do not have to spend most of your time pretending some paper-pushing quest for money is not insane. While I imagine some part of you wishes you could be out in the world much more, a very sensible part of you understands you would not enjoy being immersed in the madness as it is more than enough just to glance at the news now and then to turn the stomach and pound sorrow into the mind.

Yes, so I wrote this upon waking...

It is another morning and the routine starts again.
The madness of the rat race that depletes the poet's pen.
A quest for paper wealth that leads to moral bankruptcy.
An addiction to consumption that destroys humanity.

And the cow cries moo and the horse just sighs
and the pig and what do we do with our big eyes
destroy the Earth, pray to the skies
pretending we are right and wise.

As if a smile is adequate disguise.
As if we do not know we live in lies.

Yup, it is another morning and I woke with the alarm on time and took a hot shower and stumbles into rhyme as I just sat down here to release the reflection and prepare myself for more meaningless rejection as that seems to be the way humans want it to be in this reality... it never made sense to me. While more entries await in the pipeline, this entry is here to start today with a smile and hopefully keep me from succumbing to the madness. Reminders are good. :)

Time to make the donuts?... Time to go insane again. lol. lam...

Luckily the babbler still inspires my smile :)

As I wrote to J just a few moments ago, as the words sing my hope for everyone too...

I send you hope for more comfort and less pain.
May peaceful painless thoughts embrace you
as love refills your brain with a soothing refrain,
This is my wish for everyone too.

Hug. :)

Monday, January 30, 2017

It Was A Monday

I seem to be writing more to J than in this blog file (this blog file being where most words go most of the time and eventually they become entries in this or any of the 100+ blogs I started over the years). There is just less time now that I am working.

So what time is it? Time for sleep, but first, a bit of catching up on the day. I returned here earlier from work, changed, and went right back out to the supermarket to get my prescription filled. I got some food, a meatball sub from Wawa. Ate half, then to the softball fields (I went 3 for 3, but the rest of the team didn't hit well so we lost 13-10 so we have two wins and one loss on the season so far) and then, back here. I finished the meatball sub and that was dinner. The new job would not be so unpleasant if it paid enough, except the workplace is hard to believe.

Work was an amazing waste of time. The guy "supervising" me does not seem to want me to get anything done and yet he is not getting his work done because he is constantly trying to train me and then he complains that he is not getting his work done.
I still have nothing to work with.

Two full days and I still do not have a computer (a data analyst without a computer is just a stupid situation). I don't have an email address so the loan officers have no way to send me the information I need to do what I am being asked to do even if I had a computer. So they are printing out paper which means I can't help them enter the data they need to enter. We spent the entire day until 6pm trying to load the software on someone else's computer under someone else's account, which is ridiculously insecure from a data standpoint. Their CFO/CTO is in japan and no one has a clue about technology. I still can't even punch in so I don't even know how they are tracking the time they are going to pay me for.

It was worse than that. Just have to laugh.

Still hoping the more serious Safety Officer job calls this week. That office is just too dysfunctional to take seriously, which is sad, since three friends work there, including the boss. They will be very disappointed if I leave. I must not self-sacrifice.

So now I am slowly unwinding and telling my brain it does not get any more babble time tonight because I really need to get sleep. I turned on the internet and am distracting myself watching Bones on Hulu. Sometimes the familiar voices and story lines help me nod off.

Nite nite. :)

Entries Await

There are several entries in scribbles and scraps around here and I do not know when I will make time to coalesce the scattered thoughts into babbling entries they are becoming, but here we are again in what may be as close to real time (remember RealTimeTM, do ya?) as we get these days in this blog time environment and I shall update the latest news in whatever way it comes out as I sort of watch the final episode of Beyond and while eating a meatball pasta concoction and writing a letter to J and playing some Solitaire game that comes with Windows 10 and considering softball options and distracting myself from a seething loneliness that permeates almost ever conscious thought passing through the cranial capacitor in this life all the while deeply pondering the possibility and ramifications of the possible career decisions and paths that might be presented tomorrow or the next day or any day now.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

The TV reminds me of how stupid humans can be with their closed minds, pipe dreams, irrational desires, disregard for logic, selfish prejudices, insecure greed, and arrogant fear that forces most humans to try to control everything without addressing the simple fact that very few things, if anything can be controlled.

The game allows me to focus on numbers and cards and leave everything else on hold in my mind.

The softball reminds me that I am still alive and can interact with others in this world.

The everything else on hold includes everything else.

The things we do for love.

And to survive.

The babbler has been bottled up for at least a few days
if you know anything about me then you know that doesn't play
there are too many synapses firing in the brain day and night
to put a cork in the flow of the simple words I write

the babbler keeps the brain from overloading
the babble keeps the mind from exploding
you would not like the manic madness
or the depressive sadness
that comes when too much is repressed
confusion has to be addressed
for life becomes a waste of time
in a world without babbling rhyme
life would be a crime
so the babbler is given this time
the babbler must take his time

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

everybody now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

one more time now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

and one big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

like that?

one more big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

now doesn't the world make much more sense
when we are laughing and not so tense?
next time your mind starts feeling dense
just let this song relive the suspense

and if you give yourself half a chance
you will remember how to dance
let your babbler release everything
you may even find you want to sing

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

everybody now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

one more time now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

and one big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

like that?

one more big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

the babbler keeps the brain from overloading
the babble keeps the mind from exploding
you would not like the manic madness
or the depressive sadness
that comes when too much is repressed
confusion has to be addressed
for life becomes a waste of time
in a world without babbling rhyme
life would be a crime
so the babbler is given this time
the babbler must take his time

still have something on your mind?
well I don't want to be unkind
so here's your chance to just unwind
you never know what you might find

ready?

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

everybody now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

one more time now

blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh
blah blah blah blah blah
ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh

and one big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

like that?

one more big
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

want to release all your deep thoughts again?

Yes, the world makes much more sense now. I am leaving life on hold for the moment and just moving through time and space with a smile on my face. Waiting for a decision from another place. just say ahhhhh and find... a state of grace. I'll be back when something specific coaleses.

Make life fun, no matter what.

Narf :)

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Until Death And I Part

The fool that I am will continue babbling until death and I part. It is a simple madness as I have written many times. The method to my madness is simple, repeating things in as many different ways as possible until the perfect phrasing to express what is on my mind (or being felt) as accurately as possible. Since perfection is an ideal that may never be reached, the writing must continue. Simple. Madness. Fun.

It's something to do. whatever you do with your time in this life, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy babbling. There is hope in the babbling, hope it will lead to communication and amusement and entertainment and all of our dreams (or perhaps these dreams.

It comes and goes. I have no idea why it comes or goes or where it goes when it is not here, but sometimes it is here and other times it is not here. Unexpectedly, though sometimes with some warning, it just comes and goes.

Whatever it is.

Yes, so you see there is madness in the method as well (or perhaps you don't see, but it's there nonetheless. Sometimes I miss it too. Maybe you will care enough to find it and point it out to me.

This entry could have been epic. In fact, it still might be epic someday. Stay tuned. There is so much depth beyond the surface of each of us, we barely get to scratching before it is time to go. Most people seem to stop trying long before they know it. It may be a pack mentality or simply fear. Maybe you are what you fear. Or pack.

Life goes on.

Narf :)

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Messes

Yeah, so somewhere in this mess of entries this entry was written, or at least started, and at the time it was being written in real time and where we were in that real time space lead me to think about how we sometimes stumble into business organizational messes (organizational psychology is a whole world of messes) without realizing it (I used to live there and somehow survived) in spite of the human penchant for focusing on the monsters they create in the vast unknown that drive them to choose to do some monstrous things to each other in this known world.

What?

I started the new job yesterday even before the hiring paperwork went into their hands and explored the software they want me to learn and teach to others and more importantly, convince the others to actually use the software properly after they tried to get the others to use the software for two years. I did learn, after I finally had a bit of time with their database, that I was hired as a Data Analyst. Looking up the average salary I see I am well below it even if I reach the goals they set for their staff in two months.

Friday I discovered the biggest obstacle. The guy I am supposed to answer to arrived late and interrupted my exploration of the software to "train" me in the software even though during the interview he admitted he barely knows how to use the software. He proved he did not know how to use it by talking for four hours and did not teach me as much as I learned in less that thirty minutes on my own.

The owner explained to me that he did not hire me to do data entry and wanted me to look at the big picture, while this guy wanted me to count lines of customers by hand because he couldn't figure out how to run a report or use any other means to count the customers. The biggest problem this company has is a lack of vision of a process to reach their goals. This guy, who apparently failed for some time, does not seem to realize I was hired to do it. He wants me to do it in the way that lead to his failures. He then left at 3pm for the day and I explored the software and created a pivot table in Excel that produced the answer to the first question both of them asked.

Then we come to the process obstacle. One of the fundamental laws of data management is garbage in, garbage out.

With the participants in the data gathering not cooperating for the last two years, the data is completely unreliable so the numbers I am generating are just as unreliable no matter how well I manipulate them to meet the owner's needs.

I sense I will be repeating simple questions a lot in this job.

Probably in these entries too.

Narf. :)

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Business Analyst? (Mixed Feelings)

I was falling asleep after I ate many hours ago. What did I eat? Five Sabrett hot dogs made push-cart style. Actually, seven because I broke them up because the buns were shorter than the dogs. Yes, so I ate seven dogs on short buns. Seven Short dogs with specially prepared to my taste (added ingredients: a pack of Stevie/sugar, butter spread, ketchup, and a bit of onion soup mix {the exact measurements were not measured, so that level of the details is left for your imagination} microwaved for about 25-30 minutes on 30% power stirred twice during the microwaving) Sabrett red onion s on top. And chocolate milk.

Waking the next morning groggy with low metabolism and no motivation to start the day, I wonder how much of it is the prospect of giving up the life of retirement and how much is giving up so much of the life of retirement. Tomorrow I start a new job. I suppose we can call the position Business Analyst. It is with a very small and informal company a friend started that offers assistance to realtors and people eligible for reverse mortgages. He has three or four of his family working for him. It is not lost on my that I've been watching the TV show The Office for the last few days and the experience of interviewing twice this week was eerily similar to the show. I should probably not tell him about this blog, huh? lol :)

So instead of sleeping, I wrote about this new job and the interview/office experience to J last night after 3am after watching more of The Office and then a CBS show or two (yes, I was falling asleep many hours before but still away so let's see what the groggy brain thought last night, m'ok?) and shall read and expand on that here and now in this entry. But first, perhaps this text I just this minute sent to Jackson can sum it up in a nutshell (or closer to 140 characters):

Lol. Bless your liver lol. Today is my last day of life of leisure and I am a bit wonky about it. Wonky in a this case is brought on by extreme relief (income), some happiness (potential), some dissatisfaction (1 week vacation a year and $10 an hour and no health insurance and a long term commitment), and a whole lot of trepidation. Like I want to celebrate but feel like it's kind of a funeral lol. Thank you for helping me explain that lol lam. I feel much better now. πŸ€“πŸ‘€πŸ€£πŸ˜‡πŸŒ


Or perhaps this one:

Definitely time for work and income. The wonky is the compensation and commitment to friends. It is the universe laughing at my willingness to give more than I get once again and I am laughing at the irony πŸ€£πŸ‘€πŸ˜œπŸ˜ΆπŸ˜³ lol lam πŸ€“πŸ€‘


Ok, so what did I write to J and how can I further explain the dirt, drama, and details...

I feel torn, but happy. After two interviews during which the boss and I both expressing reluctance (we'll get to that) and the assistant boss (who I will technically report to) selling me hard and redundantly (almost desperately) on taking the job (because either he does not want to do it due to the pay it offers or because he really does not understand how and I am pretty sure it is both as the boss said they've been not reaching their goal for a long time), they offered me the job. I accepted. Mixed feelings. Very mixed feelings. But it is income and I shall explore the offer and the mixed feelings now.

Let's start with the income, which is the most important aspect for me for the moment. $10 an hour would be low for the mindless data entry position that I thought was available when I first heard about the job from another friend who works there (I regularly play cards and games with two of the people working there out of the ten or so people working there). Thing is, it is not simple data entry. The boss, who we shall call Michael for the blog, wants someone to analyze his small business and use ACT, a contact management software, to make his business work more efficiently with the goal (or his dream) of turning it into a national multi-million dollar mortgage and lending corporation in a few years.

Yes, all that for $10 an hour.

They both tried to explain how "incentives" could put me close to $40K a year, but the assistant boss (let's call him Dwight for this blog) could not explain the offer compensation clearly so he asked Michael to explain it and it was still not very clear because I do not think it was thought out too well outside of Michael's head. He read from a piece of paper with a whole lot of numbers scribbled all over it in a rather random-looking format. If I was signing a contract or committment the details would have needed to be worked out much more clearly and typed out in neat columns, but I glanced at the scribbles from upside down as they were trying to read from it and decided it did not matter, $10 an hour is better than $0 an hour, so I took the job.

What I heard was $10 an hour with as much overtime as I want and incentives that could bring me to almost $40K if I make their business much more successful by analyzing their business model well enough to present a system/process to his loan officers and make it work the way they want it to work without direct authority over anyone (in other words, through Dwight with Michael as his boss). Anyone blinking wide-eyed understands. Anyone laughing understands me.

Anyway, he usual contract fee or salary for the lowest level of that type of job (Software Implementation) is a lot more than I'll be getting, like three to four times more (at least 2.5 times more to start), but desperate times call for desperate measures and I will at least be getting some income so I accepted.

I am actually starting today but they don't know it. I am researching their business (which I can't find on the internet so establishing a web presence is my first strong recommendation... unfortunately, I will need to make my recommendations happen so I am not just an analyst/consultant, which means I should be compensated even more than the links above suggest, but let's work through those grumbles, see the job as a challenge, and negotiate for more compensation later, mok?) and other similar businesses (Michael told me they were the only one, but perhaps he did not do much research and it will come as a shock to him that there are many, nine right here in town accredited by the BBB... or perhaps he was just selling me on taking the job).

The business Michael started is reverse mortgages for seniors. At 62 years old, there is a government program and reading reading about it I see it is managed by HUD through which a person who owns a home can get a loan, which amounts to a line of credit, for the equity in their home. Or... If a 62 or older person does not have a home, they can buy a home at about half price through an FHA government loan and not be responsible for any payments until after they die (in which case their heirs pay off the house or the government/lender pays off the the house and can re-sell it). Hopefully that is what it is because it is my first attempt to understand the reverse mortgage business and my job is to make it work for this company.

Isn't the business world amazing? lol.

Shhhh, this is serious business, no laughing. Actually, the biggest plus about the job is the casual friendly atmosphere at the office and the relatively unlimited potential of starting a business on the ground floor IF Michael is willing to share (and if not, it's great experience I can sell to another business with more severe requirements for compensation and benefits so it is as if I am just starting out in a new career and that opportunity is the amazing part as I doubt any other business would hire me for this job... it's good to have friends starting a new business).

So at least that is my understanding of the two products or programs this business offers at this point in time based on a three minute explanation and about an hour of my own internet research. It is relatively new as far as financial mortgage products go. Helen, who has worked in the mortgage industry for many years, does not know the workings of reverse mortgages because she's not worked for a company that offers it) and they are just starting up (actually they started up a year or two ago and offered me a sales (loan officer) position and I did not want to do sales and it was too unstable for me to consider... but not that they are more established and have a sales team and need an analyst to make it better and I am nearing desperation... yeah, circumstances change), so I am getting in close to the ground floor and if the owner's dream comes true I will turn him into a multi-millionaire (or billionaire) lender and he'll pay me six figures (or millions) in a few years.

Dream big or go home.

Meanwhile, the mixed feelings are because there is no health insurance... and $10 an hour... and I punch a time clock... and one week of vacation a year... few holidays... not sure about sick days... not even sure if they have an human resources person or how well they follow labor laws if they follow labor laws.

A major step down in salary and the first time I am punching a time clock in... actually, I don't think I ever punched a time clock. Also one week off a year? That will not work at all for the long run. But it is income.

Also, from my own personal personality perspective, since I know the owner and a couple of the people working for him, I will feel really bad if another job comes along and I leave, but he's got to understand that I need more than $10 an hour and I need health insurance and time off and benefits. He did mention something about a 401k plan, so they must be a bit more of an actual business than the presentation/interview suggested. Ultimately, the "irons I have in the fire" so to speak, are a bunch of state jobs have great benefits, higher salaries, and a whole lot more vacation, holiday, and sick time off. Unfortunately, agism is my biggest obstacle there.

So I am torn, but happy (and hearing Alanis {Morissette} and maybe a little Sheryl {Crow [or is that me eating crow] too} and Natalie? (Imbruglia} and who knows what else as well... Harry, Elton, Billy, Justin, Jackson, Dan, Pink, Floyd, Who?... come save me too lol lam). He knows he is getting a bargain and was honest when he said he really needs me to come on board and help him develop his business. If I was more stable, I'd have said no unless guaranteed more $, at least twice as much, but... it is income.

So I shall celebrate and hope I can do what Dwight has not been able to do to make Michael's dream come true to do in the two years or so that they've been running their company. They have a dozen or so people working for them, so they may actually make real money, but Michael has big dreams and do not appear to have the management skills to optimize the business to make the dreams come true. That's what they want me to do.

I've got some studying to do in order to make his dream come true... so I am working on learning about the business, the local market and competition and whatever I can find on the internet.

So ultimately this is good news for a homeless guy who is living for free in a friend's house but still wants to eat and be clean and live among the normal humans. Also, car, phone, and storage payments. And being a softball addict is not free.

The bottom line is I get some regular income, even if there is no job security and all the other missing pieces (yes, specifically {and hopefully briefly} not stable, no job security, no health insurance, almost no benefits or vacation, not enough to pay rent or securely sign a lease or live independently, but enough to keep the car and pay for the storage and phone and food and softball and such and such).

We shall see how it goes as the weeks pass.

Realistically, it's a gamble. It is also income, so yay.

Now you know what I know about the new job. :)

Thanks to J, I was able to figure all this out (because I forced myself to think about all this because she asked about the interview and new job) so I feel much better about everything now. Thank you J, for caring and hoping and sending great energy.

That's about when I went to sleep. I must go through my storage unit right now and find work clothes and then find room for them to stay clean here at The Maharaja's place. I fill out the application and actually start the job tomorrow morning.

Oh, and on a rather important side note, we have hot water again. I did not count how many days we went without it, but it may have been a week. I finally told The Maharaja I would play for the plumbing repairs needed (there are several) and he called the plumber almost immediately. I paid the plumber $402 to fix the hot water in the bathroom and the kitchen sink leak. The Maharaja was very happy with that. I am very happy about that. It felt so good to take a hot shower , I completely overlooked the $ stress.

There are still entries in the pipeline that will be uploaded (and perhaps lost) at earlier dates than this one, in case it matters. All in all though, the wonderful life continues to amaze and surprise and whatever. Hopefully you are more amused than confused and enjoying the ride.

So good day or night and have a wonderful tomorrow :)

Narf :)

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Maybe the 24th?

Losing track of the calendar
forgetting what I came here for
trying to recall my last shower
days before this final hour

world is turning
bodies burning
hearts are yearning
child is learning

maybe if we sleep for another hundred years
we will find a cure for all of these tears
the world is not as complex as it appears
it all comes down to a few simple fears

time is turning
bodies burning
hearts are yearning
child is learning

Maybe someday I'll come back to that rhyme and figure out what I did with the time that seems to be lost somewhere, I don't know... it is a . . . part of the show. With . . . being a three syllable word describing this part of the show.

So what are we doing here? Simple as it appears. Just hoping somebody cares. Just wishing someone would share. Is losing track of time really such a crime?

Well, this is being written on the morning of a job interview (diving into the details of the life this blog is supposed to be about... I mean, after all, did you think it was all fun and games and rhymes and general cynical pessimistic depressive thoughts?... ahem, let's clear out collective throats and get dwn to the business of the dirt, drama, and details of this life I loosely call mine, m'ok?) when the money's running out and the rent is due and the car payment is falling into arrears and it really seems like nobody cares. Can we pull another miracle out of this air?

Underarms burn. Anus itches. And the groin is getting there too bitches.

The last cold shower was a few days ago...

Hmmmm, am I going to get on with the usual babble or is this creative distraction of rhyming obscurity going to continue so we don't know what is real and what is creative play and such and such or something like that... is that really a question?

Ok, start again...

This morning I washed at the sink with paper towels and ivory soap and warm water. The clean rinse is the hardest part. Waiting too. No more hot showers. I have an interview in less than two hours. Time to pay $10 for a gym membership, maybe that is exactly what I need. Exercise and hot showers. Exercise and hot showers. Exercise and hot showers. If I repeat it enough maybe it will happen and repeat again every day. Exercise is repetition, after all. Exercise and hot showers. That is what the body needs. Exercise and hot showers.

I shall upload the last few days another time as I do not want to be late for this interview. Tinman hooked me up with his boss in his office. Some sort of data entry job for $10 an hour. Better than nothing. It will pay for the car and the hot showers at the gym. It will pay for food. It will pay for the storage and phone. It will pay for the car to be services and insurance in March. It will not pay the rent though. Maybe $300 a week after taxes and deductions. More than one week for the car. More than two weeks for insurance. A week for the storage and the gym. A week for the phone and food. At least insurance is just twice a year since there are not five weeks in a month. So I need another job to pay the rent, but I'll take this one if it's offered. I can still clean and service the car and drive for Uber or some other delivery service in the evenings.

I will fix The plumbing problem here with my first paycheck if I get the job. Counting the eggs as chickens gives a little more hope than not having anything to count at all. Maybe then I can stay a little longer. I have not paid rent since I got here in the first week of November. Whatever day it is, that is a long time to be a guest in someone's home. He calls me roommie. Such a wonderful guy. The Maharaja may be almost as generous as I am. Though I would be offering money and more by now with much reassurance of continued hospitality. Been there, done that, over and over. From the beginning. It is the emotional and psychological reassurance that boosts the spirit and renews the hope when everything seems hopeless. I need to ask for that and I am not always sure how. Will you be asking me to leave today?

every morning I wake up
wondering if today is the day
The day time runs out on his hospitality
The day time runs out on his generosity
How can I know, what can I say?
Will you be asking me to leave today?

Not too many people can handle that much direct honesty. Especially not when the person asking may have no where else to go but the street or his car. I should start getting dressed, I suppose. The interview is about 20 minutes away with current traffic and traffic will likely double in the next hour so I will leave myself almost an hour to get there and it is 7:40am now. 9am interview. Business casual, Tinman said. A shirt and dress pants are hanging next to me. The same shirt I've worn to a dozen interviews in the past few months. The body and shirt match, neither are shower-fresh. I don't think either smell though. The nose can be fooled by prolonged proximity though. The armpits still burn though. The weight gained back likely has my sugar levels over the Diabetes II line so the fungus is among us once again. This place is a whole lot cleaner than it was when I got here, but it is still infested in the walls and under the sink and keeping it from becoming visible in the bathroom is a daily constant cleaning process. I buy the chemicals and do the cleaning, it's the least I can do. The Maharaja appreciates it.

Sitting all day doing data entry will require a lot of shifting in the chair to prevent the hemorrhoids or fissures or lesions or whatever from flaring up and fungus from growing. Must drop the weight again. Must get that gym membership and use it for hot showers. There is a $10 gym right next to the workplace. If I get this job. Time to get dressed and head out. Soon.

Whatever the date, this could be a very good day. All I need to do is get past the depressing thoughts about getting stuck at a dead end job that won't pay the rent. I can sleep in the car and shower at the gym and store my clothes at the storage place, though the storage place is at least 40 minutes from the job and gym, so driving there daily would not be wise. I could stop there on Sundays or Mondays when I play softball and keep a week's worth of clean clothes in the car. A few weeks. I'll need to clean out the trunk if I start driving for Uber. Softball stuff and waters fill it now. Where there is a will there is a way.

As long as one keeps hoping, there is always hope. There is always hope as long as one keeps hoping. And since I hope there is always hope, then there is always hope because I am always hoping that there is always hope.

Hence, my theme... There is always hope (I hope).

I am laughing and much more upbeat and positive than this entry might suggest. Your perspective affects your reading, and everything, so I hope you find the smiling humors in the words. I let it out into words and walk away a happier camper. It's the process, ya know?

Are we having fun yet? LOL

Narf :)

Monday, January 23, 2017

Old Times, Or Something Like That

This entry was written weeks ago and just sat in the blog file getting nudged further and further down by more hurried entries because life changed from stress and leisure to stress and working, the stress remaining constant because I gave away too much in this life and have no way of paying for a place to live or any of the things most people call normal and take for granted in this culture. Much of the stress comes from the cultural taboo on homelessness and even more from the laws against living on and with the land the way all living beings do on this planet, except humans. I really despise much of the modern world and the arrogance and cruelty with which modern humans treat everything, including each other.

Anyway, Rasputin called recently and that got me to thinking about old times (and the previous blog too) and the people who used to be mentioned a lot more in this blog. Rasputin, you may recall, moved into my two bedroom apartment after the first roommate I had in that apartment moved out. That was the first apartment I had after returning more permanently to Orlando after my foray with love and family in Canada.

I got a call from Precious recently as well. A little after Resputin moved into that apartment, his daughter, Precious, moved in and we moved to a three bedroom place (that was the place destroyed by the hurricane season of 2004. Charlie made a direct him. We survived and moved to another building in the same community. Precious still lives around here, in fact, right across the door from that first apartment . Coincidence is amusing.

I hear from Precious fairly regularly. I am her second dad and the closest family she has in Orlando. She has a boyfriend and they seem to get along well. She knows I would drop anything if she was in trouble cuz that's what family does. Her drifting away was expected, she was my adopted child. I still pay for her phone as a birthday gift (that did not seem nearly so extravagant a gift when I had much more income lol). We had dinner for her birthday in December, so her calling because she unexpectedly needed a ride from the airport was not a surprise. She's back in school and finishing her degree.

Rasputin's call was the first time I heard from him in a couple of years. He's in Tucson delivering pizzas for Papa Johns and says he makes $15 an hour. I must look into that if Friday does not come up with an offer.

No new interviews set up. I sent a few resumes out this week. No word from the case worker about the colonoscopy. I have been hearing from another case worker who has left a message about health care. He thinks I might qualify for VA health care (which I know from being in the industry can be a nightmare) so I am not as excited as I ought to be I suppose). I must call him back and find out more, I am trying not to drive much to save gas money. the care also is well past due it's service schedule and it desperately is due for the $70 oil change which I might do and likely due for it's 25,000 mile servicing which is a lot more and I simply will not do until I have income. The tires will need replacing this year as well, hopefully not too soon. March is insurance month. I hope the savings is not gone but I am looking at April as the first missed car payment so I will wait until Friday and if I do not get an offer, I will check Uber, Pizza places, and other more temporary jobs for $8-$10 an hour.

Enought thoughts of money.

We had a 35 degree night here last week. Nights have been hitting the 40s a few times as well. For this area, that's pretty much winter at it's coldest. It does mean wearing more clothes and therein washing more clothes which means spending more money, so I'mm be happy when winter is over even though part of me loves the change. If I was not so close to the bottom of my savings (and I did not have car payments and had indoor laundry), I'd be enjoying it much more.

It's 55 degrees right now and the sun should be up in an hour. If I eat I'll probably get sleepy (a sure sign my sugar levels are up and I am into Type 2 diabetes again, dangit), but I am hungry. I am definitely stalled, in case you did not notice. It is not as easy to laugh at myself when I am this unmotivated and apathetic. I shall eat, but not as much as most meals lately. I shall find some amusements on the internet.

This Dirt, Drama, and Details blog is my primary outlet for distraction and hope these days after the letters to J. Internet TV and youtube help in their way, but they can backfire. I link the fun I find there in the DDD blog. Two Youtubers, Emma Blackery (emmablackery) and Natalie Tran (communitychannel) amuse me most these days. Cosmic shows on Hulu as well. And some regular series, like the CBS lineup I use as family. Though much of the closest imaginary TV family has gone away (ironically, the same time Jackson has and they were her regular shows too... sigh).

So very sincerely and seriously, I thank J for being J. She's been a blog friend since early in this century and is always there no matter how long goes by between letters. If I learned nothing else in the past decade, I learned that I should not supplant her with anyone as I did when I was living with Jackson. She offers an emotional maturity that makes her caring consistent and real. If I end up on the street, I am confident that I will find my way to a library to continue emailing. If I find a job and move and find a new roommate or friend or even fall in love, I would be a fool not to continue our correspondence. Even when I don't have time for this many words or for blogging and creative writing (and subtle hints and links to check out my other blogs lol lam) and letters if life gets really busy again, I want to keep in touch with J.

Remind me that I want to in case I ever forget. :)

There are so many people I could remember (Z0tl comes to mind... I wish he'd keep in touch) for better or worse (who mentioned Toronto?), but I shall smile and let myself wander off to wherever now. It is finally time to upload this entry.

Keep in touch.

Narf :)

Saturday, January 21, 2017

For Whatever Reason

Before we get this entry started, for reasons that elude me as this entry was started ages ago, or at least last month, I provide this a little reminder that privacy is an illusion, perhaps as some sort of public service. And since I let some social conscience pop out, here's a bit of a political statement. Now before we get our dander in a huff n puff or panties in a bunch a munch, let it be known that this is more than simply a filler entry for the date without one (whatever does that mean, surely it's been here all along and flows right out of the last one and into the next one, especially in the edited version put together by the publishers after I sailed off the another plane, right?), let's get on with it.

What?

So I listened to the President's Farewell Speech in it's entirety and it was ok, but weak. It's still one of the best speeches I've heard recently on unity and the mindset of truth that we need to embrace. It wasn't until the last five minutes of his speech that he hit upon some depth of reality in the few lines about getting off the internet and talking to each other again. You don't vote or make the world a better place by posting on Facebook, after all.

He was not nearly as challenging as we need our leader to be. He did not challenge us to see and accept that connection between the divisions of hate that radiate on the net and on our streets are based in fear. He did not challenge the haters to admit their fears - and shout the truth about that fear. Fear makes us weak. Fear makes you weak. Challenge us to be strong. Challenge us to unite under the ideals upon which this country was founded. Challenge us to not hide behind our fears, but to overcome them. Tell us how that is done. Through conversation with those we fear. Through conversation with those we consider our enemy. Through finding the common ground we all have as human beings. That is how to surive. That is how to prospoer. That is how to keep this country great.

The President got closer to this message as he closed his speeck, so I'd upgrade it from ok to good.

The partisanship is killing this country. On Wednesday, January 4th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation giving Congress the power to kill dozens of recently enacted rules in one fell swoop, as Republicans charged ahead on their campaign to strip down federal regulations and oppose anything the Democrats do. Will the Democrats be as stupidly obstructionist and oppositional when they are the minority? We can only hope not, but then, there is not that much difference.

So I changed the world by posting this somewhere:

Partisanship is destroying this country and giving other countries power to manipulate us - just as our government has influenced other countries for years. Both major parties are so close to the middle it is not easy to tell them apart on economic issues. The small steps Obama took in last minute are tiny moves that Democrats did not do when they had power. If they wanted to do it, they would have pushed for these rules over the last eight years. Both parties are Corporate owned.


Somewhere along the way I moved on and found a video I shall label origin and symbols for whatever reason. labels and titles are symbols too and sometimes they are important reflections of what is to come. Someday maybe I'll find the magica online experience that brings love back into this life and what a wonderful world that will be.

Here are some other websites and videos to check out in your spare time and here's a list of here's the list of albums in one of the videos (I have no clue if I linked this one, but it's a list of albums anyway).
green day - american idiot
busted - busted
busted - a present for everyone
avril lavigne - let go
blink-182 - blink-182
good charlotte - the young and the hopeless
my chemical romance - three cheers for sweet revenge
paramore - riot!
the white stripes - elephant
placebo - battle for the sun
twenty one pilots - vessel
twenty one pilots - blurryface

Friday, January 20, 2017

Blogging Memories and Dreams (aye?)

As you may have noticed, I am babbling a bit lately. Perhaps a lot. You don't see the half of it as most days I am also writing a bit of babble to J as well as the dual blog entries here and in the briefer daily as well as other rhymes and prose in other blogs and places, not to mention resume tweaks and carefully crafted cover letters (carefully crafted to fail, apparently). I certainly have the time. So this higher peak of babbling may be expected, though I am not peaking in sheer number of entries primarily because I have this babbling blog.

Reaching back to the records that google-blogger keep, that peak came in the (e)thereal blog (where brevity was attempted so one of these babbling entries might have been four or five entries there, which might be cheating, but who's counting?... oh, we are... ahem) during the last period of leisurely life when I had a whole lot more savings and a whole lot less stress (and I believe I was living alone for part of it as Jackson moved to another state for about six months before moving back down here with me again).

Yes, let's reminisce some more about memories and dreams since the previous entry did not do that quite enough (what distractions?). There was a time of uploads so frequent that blogger blocked me on more than one occasion. I believe they have some limit on entries per day and my account was certainly pouring entries into many blogs. That particular peak came durng the winter of 2012-13 and started in September of 2012. We were recording more than 2000 page views a month (one month we hit 5000 views) and by December when we hit a record, I believe for any single month of writing since I first started writing (though there were months of several hundred rhymes, songs, and other stuff before the blogging became the predominant writing form in the written gardens and if you really want to know, well, come on over and let's figure it out together) and the heavy flow of entries continued through 2013 as January nudged October out of the number two spot it had just attained. Four of the five months that topped 200 entries were in this period.

What? Are you fascinated yet?

Yes, so that period was the peak of a 13 month 100+ entry a month year spaning from July 2012 through July 2013 making 2012 and 2013 the two most prolific years of entry uploading in the modern blog era (and there were some blogathons in the previous decade that required an entry every 30 minutes for at least 24 hours). I wonder sometimes just what has changed over the decades and how has the writing (and me and us) evolved (or devolved) and revolved over the years (ready to review? {like anyone has time... but oh how I wish we would... even if you weren't Shopgirl} lol lam). Online daily blogging, from the behinning and through the years... 199?... 2001...2001...2002...2004... 2006...2008...2012...2016...2016... (and so many are left out) and through the hills along the way.

Oh, am I writing an abstract this blogging life entry?

Then there were the side blogs, not always daily and not based on daily life, but running along side the dailys for a specific reason/topic or as a creative outlet for the prose or rhymes that sought a different perspective... 199?...2002...20052006...2007...2008...2009...2011...20122012...2012...2012...2016...2016... and still so many others for so many reasons from introducing myself through words or music or images to pure flights of fantasy.

After a bit of wandering and digging into archives, I just uploaded my old Myspace blog and showed that all I learned about web design did not change my go-to 90's format when I am rambling and in a hurry to get words online. Maybe I'll use blogger to redesign the blog one of these days, but at least for now, a whole lot of entries deleted by the myspace corporation are now back online and available for your reading pleasure. I want to make time to read more of it. The little I read brought me all sorts of smiles and I liked some of the rhymes (you, know, lyrical metered stuff musicians use to create songs). The influence of music that was prevalent there in those days was evident in the blog entries.

I very much welcome your input and feedback and anything you wish to share, ya know? :)

This is the sort of thing that happens when I have a lot of time to do anything I please (and not much money to get out of the house). Even with a lot of money, I still would devote an exorbitant amount of time to babbling because I love to babble. I mean, imagine an abandoned diary... you know about my abandonment issues, right?. Perhaps it's egocentric (not quite Michael from The Office though), but it's part of me so deal with it. I might even create a youtube channel (though my face face would probably not sell well there, I mean, no youthful sex appeal and a flabby double chin is not a good youtube combination. Ah, dreams of fame and fortune are for other people. I'll just live those vicariously through some people who get millions of views. Speaking of millions, if I was a millionaire, I would take more showers. In fact, I did when I was.

Oh no, money thoughts. Let's leave them for another time.

Thank you.

Narf :)

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Memories and Dreams (Just Labels)

Just to do something different today (probably out of some of the quiet hopes and dreams that still live, like hardwood embers in an old fire), I looked at the layout of the previous daily blog (you know, the one with almost seven thousand entries) and realized there were corrections to be made to the right side bar (I mean, in case someone actually stumbles by to read and finds incentive to want to read more, know more, and reach out to me), so I updated some of the information in the right side bar of that previous daily blog.

Almost seven thousand snippets (with some babbles) of this life I loosely call mine deserves to be up to date in case anyone comes by. History, after all, deserves a little attention.

That's when I remembered that I used to put "labels" on each blog entry once upon a time. It was very early in that previous daily blog that I stopped rather suddenly one weekend many years ago as this song was buzzing around my brain (though I am not sure why I stopped the tags and I suspect the primary reason was rushing to get the words uploaded).

These daily blogs are about recording the show, this life, for me and you and anyone who cares and history and posterity (we can explore the differences another time), after all. Another of the quiet hopes and dreams is that all these words and other sundries that I have uploaded in this lifetime might have some value and meaning to readers past, present, or in the future and that is why I return now and then, as long as I am still alive and writing, to explore and dust the websites I no longer upload to in the present.

For whatever reason, I stopped using the "labels" feature with this entry and perhaps it holds some clues as to why I stopped. I apparently came to some realizations and made some decisions about doing some things that would occupy time and perhaps one of the things I chose to stop doing to make more time for other things was labeling entries. The extra few minutes of pondering which labels to use out may have been more symbolic than anything else, but it is a possible reason the labels stopped so abruptly.

I believe I had just moved in with Jackson (or was it the year before and we had just moved, well I am certain I had just moved) so moving to a new space may have played a role. I was still taking care of Precious (Rasputin moved out of state and she was not ready to live completely on her own). Oh so many choices I made that brought me to today. I was a whole lot more active in socializing too. Also working a whole lot of hours. I was also trying to focus more on health and exercise and other self-discipline. Allocating brain power and time to labeling each entry simply became a much lower priority for many reasons.

Ultimately, the labels were a new toy to play with way back when the previous daily blog started and I apparently relegated the toy to the later, when I have more time shelf and never got back to it. So for one reason or another (boredom, quiet hopes and dreams, memories, loneliness), I start to play with that "labels" toy and we shall see just how long it holds my interest (there are many thousands of entries that were not labelled way back when I paused).

Ok, so that took all of a half dozen entries and I am bored with the labeling. Seems today is much like those days I stopped labeling (ah, perhaps there are more clues in the blog entries from way back then... ready, set, go! lol lam :)

Well, that was disappointing.

Narf. :)

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Simple Days, Simple Child (Reflecting on Honesty)

A large part of my days are simple. Many would consider what I do empty. Relaxing, watching TV, listening to music, cleaning and house-stuff, wandering the internet, babbling about whatever comes to mind. I enjoy it so much that last week I decided not to go play cards as I usually do on Tuesdays. No one called to check on me, alas. I still love my time with myself.

I wrote this entry last week. I did not upload it. No wonder why, changing habits is not easy. It may have been part of a letter to J, or maybe not. I don't recall and don't feel like looking it up. That might distract me and delay this entry even longer. Did you miss me?

I post this entry now, here, to confront myself with the reality of the things I must do to continue surviving in this culture, not to mention staying alive.

Oh the drama... will the dirt and details arrive soon? :)

I must do laundry tomorrow (which is today, actually) and I must get out to get my hair cut before Friday as I am shaggy and not what a "Safety Officer" should look like in this area. Southern conservative cool. Interview Friday, today is Wednesday, I think. Whatever the time-date stamp might say, it is 6am and I have been up all night, getting laundry done will probably need to start with sunrise (it's outside the house and dark - no lighting - and the shed is not clean enough to fumble through in the dark so I will wait for daylight and hope I am still awake enough to get some done). I'll also need to be quiet as The Maharaja will likely be asleep until at least 10am and maybe later. He doesn't get home until sunrise sometimes. I also must remember Wednesdays are the low ebb of my spirt/hope/happiness cycle which seems to be quite weekly as my routine is quite unchanging in recent months. Preparing for all the obstacles, especially the ones in my head, might actually get the laundry done.

I am hungry too. But I have been eating way too much pasta of late and putting on the weight I lost in September and October and that is depressing and unhealthy and stupid and yet, the will power is caving into the emotional stresses. Pasta is cheap. I must restrict the budget until I have income. I can get back to taking the supplements though. I foolishly stopped taking the supplements (and even forget the blood pressure med a few times) so add it all up to suicidal behavior and it points to more than stress or procrastination, it points to to apathy and perhaps, directly at depression. It would be nice if my supposed best friend who is a licensed therapist might notice these suicidal tendencies. Her not caring to notice adds to the dark clouds I have slid under in the past couple of months. Yes I know, friendships change and best friends move on, but do friends really disappear when someone is sinking? Apparently. I refer you to the title of this entry. Reflecting on honesty, remember? I don't highlight these thoughts in a paragraph of it's own, kind of hoping it gets lost in all the babble. Did you notice? I still feel my child-light of hope and joy shining deep down, but it's really dark and sad on the surface all around me.

Somehow this letting go video reverbs in my brain.

And Honesty.


It is good to have a friend who listens (or reads) and who cares enough to respond to all my babblings. Thank you J, for your listening and responding and caring and understanding means so much more than I can say. J keeps me hopeful that there are other people like her in the world and I will find a friend who listens and cares like her nearby someday.

Ok, I feel exposure coming on.

Writing to J has helped me a lot. I know my honesty pushes people away and J accepts honesty well. The next eight paragraphs come from a letter to J with some expansion as the pondering deepened upon the reflection that comes from re-reading it as part of this entry.

The most important person in life for me for the past decade may be upset and move further away if she ever reads this, but I must process my confusion and hurt. The words are betrayal and abandonment, the two most painful experiences in this life. It often happens when people complicate things too much. When like when a male and female are such close friends that the world assumes they are in sexual or romantic relationship. I am a simple child who does not care much what the world thinks of me. Only the opinions of a very few I trust and choose as family matter to me. My emotional boundaries were clearly formed before I even knew what emotions were. Instinct taught me to protect myself from the fears others empower and the complex confusion and judgments those fears create. I do not empower fears so I do not empower others unless I consciously choose to empower others. I wish she could do the same. I hope this helps more than it hurts, but it's gonna hurt like hell (hold on).

When trust dies, especially when unconditional trust dies, no matter what label we put on a relationship, it hurts almost as much as the actual death. The only family I've ever known was adopted family. I do not know the bond of biological family. This is something few who know the bond of biological family can understand. When I adopt, I give my unconditional trust as completely as I am able and people do not seem to respect or understand (or want) the bond I form. Most people do not ever put their whole heart (and soul and life) in someone else's hands. That is the only way I know how to love when I adopt family.

Hope for the best, but I must be honest with myself and work through this.

It is tough to accept the loss of family or a "BFF", but tougher still when the realization that she may never have actually been a friend rises for attention from the subconscious and gains validity in the brain. The heart wants to bury the thought screaming "don't believe it" but evidence builds up over time and ignoring it is self-destructive. I know, I've self-destructed this way all through this life. So did I let the proximity of shared living space and her financial and emotional dependence on me convince me she was a friend who really cared about me and understood me? Her actions suggest she was just using me. Worse, she knew my most powerful pain and the biggest challenge in this life has been abandonment.

She knows how to hurt me most.

This is why so few reach this deep, so few are adopted.

Anyone reading this or previous personal babblings knows how to hurt me most, but only those I empower with unconditional trust can hurt me most. Unconditional trust gives someone the opportunity to betray and abandon. It is a choice I make to give someone that power.

She said the words, she promised she would never abandon me as family and friends have in the past. I accepted her word (just as I accepted her word that I should buy the car because she promised in February 2014 to start actually paying her half of the living expenses. I looked at her and said I would not be able to pay all the rent/expenses and the car and she assured me... She knows I would not have bought the car without her promise. I asked for reassurance on that promise several times before finally buying the car. She did not and drained my savings in other ways as well. I help people with money when I adopt them as family, my fault. She even repeatedly said she wanted to "pay me back" a little every month after she moved out).

Words. Sigh.

But as scary as living on the street is... and as painful as the betrayal of promises can be... the abandonment hurts the most. Even if it was not during a year when I am financially unstable and looking at homelessness and struggling with a whole lot (am I worth caring about and remembering?... to me, yes... to most others, not so much, alas, sigh, blah), shutting me out of her life as she has is exactly the way to hurt me most and she promised that would never happen. I remember he sitting on the couch and saying those words.

She did not live up to them so far.

My theme (not quite a song), there's always hope (I hope) echos through me now.

Or something like that.

So ok, I vent and vent (and vent and process and vent) and I do that to find the right words to process enough to find as much stable ground, understanding, and closure as possible. As long as there is hope (and there is always hope as long as we live), there is no complete closure (so wound bleed until we die) unless we turn our brains off (and then we die, even if we are still breathing). At least I can reach for and maybe find the understanding of choices. I've been, in my home babbles and in letters to J, evaluating what actually happened during the past year so I can clarify as much as possible what actually happened, what hurts, and why it hurts. I think the paragraphs above may have finally brought out the words to clarify the two most painful choices she made and actions she's taken.

Maybe I can rest the subject now... and let it be.

When I'm deep inside of me, don't be too concerned.

Self-doubt. It is sometimes the loudest voice inside, but also the voice that triggers the loudest laughter because I know what I can do and what I've been through in this life and I know my failures are my failures of my choices and not failures of my abilities. When it comes to choosing whom to give unconditional trust, I can not trust my own judgment.

I choose to trust "too much" and that is suicide in a professional career in our capitalistic culture. I choose to test people who come close to me and that is destructive to relationships in our superficial pretentious social culture. I sometimes choose to give up and vegetate and that is self-destructive. It is not my ability I doubt, it is my will to continue to believe there is a reason and purpose to run the rat race and achieve what this culture calls success.

Do I still want to be the happy idiot? I don't know. Why.

There is deeper self-doubt that comes from that lonely child inside who was never love unconditionally and never experienced shared unconditional trust. The voice asking why mothers and fathers abandoned me is still seeking an answer. The voice asking, like the little duck in the book of the same title, "Are You My Mother" is still wanting someone to be the parent or sibling I never knew. It seems to me that our culture judges that as wrong.

Unconditional love and trust. Does it exist? Did it ever?

I don't doubt my choice to be true to my ideals and beliefs though. I don't doubt that my way is the only right way for me. I don't doubt that honesty and sharing is the only way for humanity to survive. I don't doubt myself. I doubt my ability or willingness to fit in to this culture.

To bond with humans as they are today. To overcome the obvious evidence that people can not be trusted to be completely honest and aware because they are not completely honest and aware of themselves because they empower their fears more than their love.

Yet I am here and only believe in one ideal higher than all others.

Honest love.

Honesty without harm.

I live for the glorious quest, for what humans appear to consider the impossible dream...

Unconditional trust.

I give and share and accept that once again, I am left alone again and again, always hoping to find that one person who understands that honesty and sharing is the way to survive in peace.

So how are you?

As long as one keeps hoping,
there is always hope.
There is always hope
as long as one keeps hoping.

And since I hope there is always hope,
then there is always hope
because I am always hoping
that there is always hope.

And since I hope (and hope I hope)
there is always hope.

I hope I hope forever
so there is always hope

Narf :)

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

I Avoid Facebook

Yes, like the plague. I avoid Facebook for a lot of reasons. personally, it feels really shitty to see a whole lot of people who are labelled "friends" posting superficiality day after day. Facebook seems to bring out the worst in people - or perhaps it just reflects a species and culture addicted to drama and negativity. The evidence that Facebook manipulates you is everywhere, but you, like everyone else, have been trained to overlook such practices in your everyday life. Do you even know how you are controlled? Queue Robert Klein.

Who are you?

So the story trending is about a whole lot of dead animals, which we could interpret as people caring about animals and expressing sadness about their loss, but it is just another tragedy and that is what humans are addicted to, tragedy, drama, violence, and death. The more horrible the incident, the more people are attracted to it like traffic slowing down to try to see if there are dead bodies at a car accident. Go ahead, tell me you never slowed down to look.

Ridiculing people, laughing at people, and revelling in the drama of their livs is another negativity people are attracted to. A story with 42K people talking about it is Did Lindsay Lohan Convert to islam?. Seriously? Right up there is Tonya Harding. This is what so many thousands of people want to talk about at 11:00 AM on a Tuesday?

Facebook has this policy about real names. When you look up your own name on Facebook and filter to 2015 (or just look up your name), you never know what might come up lol. So much for legal names, Facebook. If you want me to use my "real name" then why did you give it to other people? Oh, because it is their real name too? Perhaps that is why we choose nicknames, to have a distinct unique (and fun) identify for our friends.

History repeats and when the control freaks take over, logic goes out the window.

After all that bullshit about then wanting real names to insure honesty and the integrity of their site and reduce exploitation, my ID is #100011453465210. Never believe a large corporation claiming to be looking out for your interests. They instituted the "legal name" requirement simply to find out more about you so they can target advertisements and make more money selling your identity and interests to people who want to take your money and control you.

But seriously, this is why I avoid Facebook.

Still, I maintain an account to maintain contact with people who communicate primarily through Facebook. I have no clue how the Facebook algorithms work, but this example shows they seem to select my "friends" that appear on my page differently with each log in. I have no idea what the mutual friends mean, since both of the images are from my account and page. These algorithms choose our identities and friends (and influence how we think by selecting specific content for us) too often on Facebook, one of the major flaws that keep me away. As if the real potential of suddenly being eliminated from existence was not enough.


If I did not have so many offline teams and groups who use Facebook to communicate regularly, I would probably post even less than I do on my account "wall" (my few posts are public and a couple of people who tag me set their tags to public but most do not so you have to add me to see all the posts if you want to see all the posts). I lost much interest in the whole concept of Facebook when they blocked the account I had for ten years.

Losing all the photos and posts and contacts there was a huge pain in offline life as well because so many depend on the site. It was like losing a phone and all contacts and having no way to reconnect with many - more than a thousand people just eliminated from my communications simply because Facebook said so).

So much lost, but I do love my teams...


You can find my responses to that as I created a page and a group under my original Facebook name, Bugs Webbot, in case anyone ever searched. The few who cared, did.

I was maintaining pages that I used as file cabinets for the reading and viewing and listening I do online. Sort of like my many many blogs, each with a theme and purpose. Almost two dozen were blocked when the original account was blocked. I re-created some of them and you can find a bit of babble about The Facebook Pages here in this babbling blog.

Hey, there can be much fun had on FB as there can be much fun to be had online, but I see Facebook much like AOL was. A closed and carefully controlled online portal that has much potential, but way too many ulterior motives to be trusted as the primary place to start wandering the web. many people may rather have someone else tell them where to look and what to think, but that follower mentality is not for me.

So I avoid Facebook.

Maybe someday they will bring Bugs Webbot back from the dead and I will enjoy reviewing ten years of memories and reconnecting with many online contacts, but for now, in case you are looking for me there and wondering why i do not respond, I avoid Facebook.



Monday, January 16, 2017

Remembering Softball, Cards, and Rest

After the tournament was over I checked in on Tinman who is temporarily blind and headed to his place to see some friends who gathered there for card games and support. We played blackjack and someone read the cards to him. I gave him a couple of contact numbers for services for veterans and for the blind and hopefully the two people primarily caring for him will help him find more help. It was a good evening for support and fun.

Most of today I rested, though the body wanted more softball. The holiday cancelled the Monday night game, so I headed to meet Jackson at a bowling alley where she was pre-bowling for her league. I watched her bowl and then we went to a local pizza restaurant I'd been wanting to try for a long time because the owners were originally from my home town, Canarsie, where pizza was the best (isn't that always the case? lol). The pizza was delicious and I will be back. Jackson and I chatted and laughed and touched on why she has avoided me all year and hopefully she will resolve her obstacles because it hurts and she doesn't seem to want to hurt me or avoid me or herself nearly as much as she does. She treated for the pizza and I hope she is budgeting ok and has the support she needs. We did not talk about that. After pizza we stopped into a bulk food store and I bought some chocolate. Doh.

I thought about softball as we reminisced a bit (I miss my softball buddy and best friend). So I will distract myself with memories of softball.

Remembering the 2016 World Series for the NAGAAA league (the national league our Sunday teams is part of) was a fiasco due to daily rain that washed out most games, presented poor playing conditions, changed the rules of play to 30 minute 1-pitch games, and played havoc with the scheduling. The tournament was supposed to start on Tuesday morning, but instead did not get started mid-day Thursday and that was rained out after a few hours. This was our schedule (the actual times were running at least two hours later than posted... yes, we were playing back-to-back softball at 3:00 am).

D21 ORL Hung Jurors 10, AUS Battle Wolves 8 Thur 11:05am - Kri #3
D40 LA Softball Cartel 3, ORL Hung Jurors 2 Fri 3:30pm - Kri #6
D67 ORL Hung Jurors 7, KNOX Good Times 6 Fri 8:45pm - Kri #2
D85 ORL Hung Jurors 17, LB Posse 1 Fri 10:30pm - Kri #9
D93 ORL Hung Jurors 12, CBUS Fu3I 11 Fri 11:40pm - Kri #10
D102 SEA Atomic 7, ORL Hung Jurors 6 Sat 12:50am - Kri #6

D106 SEA Atomic 15, TC Perfect Storm 8 Sat 1:25am - Kri #6
D110 DC Titans 13, SEA Atomic 9 Sat 7:50am - Kri #3

Our biggest obstacles were nerves and age. Most of the team had never been to the World Series before so they felt a lot of pressure. The rain and waiting for days made that worse. Then the 30 minute 1-pitch format really through off their bats as no one was used to playing in that rushed format. Umpires were testy and rushing all the teams, which took a lot of the fun out of it. Everyone had their tolerance tested by the rains. That's why our bats didn't finally wake up until the third game on Friday night. Adrenaline pumped and defense improved, and then, after a few games, age took over. Four of our players were over 50 and two of them no longer had any adrenaline or energy left. Errors cost us five runs in the game we lost 7-6 and that was our exit from the two-game elimination tournament.

The tournament leaders could not be faulted for the rains, but rains dominated and altered play and outcomes dramatically. Some teams simply left after a couple of days of no play and no end to the rain in the forecasts. It must have been a nightmare for the people running the tournament as hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent and millions of dollars in revenue for the city was affected.

Anyway, that series showed the obsessive dedication many of us who play softball have for the game.

I included the Seattle Atomic, the team that knocked us out of the tournament (we finished 13th out of 59 teams) because that would have been our schedule has we not burnt out and list to them by one run). They finished the night close to 4 am playing softball for 12 hours, the last five hours without much break, and had to be back playing at 7:50 am. A few of our players simply would not have been able to be there for the morning game due to their body limits. The Atomic finished 7th overall and the DC Titans who beat them on 3 hours sleep finished 2nd overall. Youth shined in this tournament. it was all rather ridiculous (due to the rains) and mostly fun, but the worst part was that there was no time to talk to people, make memories, or enjoy the fun.

The 2017 World Series is in Portland, Oregon and we very much hope to qualify and very much wish for no rain. :)

Off to sleep now, to dream, to rest, to dream.

narf :)

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Softball For The Win

We are the Champions. Back-to-Back Championships which makes it even sweeter. The tournament director challenged us to try for a three-peat because no one has ever done that before. Of course he also does not want us to defect to Las Vegas as most of the country does because it is a bigger and better tournament. We can't afford the trip, so we have not been. Our big expensive trip every year is the World Series (more on that later).

So we had to beat the three teams who came in first, second, and third to in the Ft Lauderdale to win the Orlando Championship. We beat the team that won Ft. Lauderdale twice, including the round robin win. It was a great feeling and much fun.

The first game of the day was the Winner's Bracket Championship. Win it, and we were guaranteed at least 2nd place because we were in the Championship Game. A loss would have meant we would have had to win three games to win it all. Look up 2-Game Elimination tournaments format if you want to know more details about how tournaments work. Or just ask me.

We were ready and beat the team that came in second in Ft. Lauderdale soundly. I believe the score was 13-4 and a few defensive changes by head coach (who was coaching his first game of this tournament as he was playing with his upper division team until this game but they were knocked out yesterday) cost us runs and gave the other team a chance to come back. Anyway, we won and I processed the poor coaching move and moved on. We were in the Championship game.

We waited for that team to play the third place Launderdale finishers and they lost that game too in a squeaker so the finals were set. Two Orlando teams. The team we had to play, Onslaught, had beaten us in the regular season and were definitely the most improved team in our division. They have a great pitcher, great bats, and good fielding. We had to bring our A game and we did.

We won 4-3. The difference was defense. A few really spectacular plays saved the game in the final two innings as they were creeping back with a run in the first and two more in the fifth after we opened up with three in the first and one more in the second. We played seven innings. We won three, tied three, and lost one. We did it, Back-2-Back Orlando Meltdown Champions.

So it was a great tournament. We had much fun and came together even more as a team on the field. No one hung out after the two days though. They all go their own ways, mostly socializing in couples or going out to clubs with the club crowd. It would be great if we all bonded off the field too, but I am happy we are tightening up on the field as it is fun to play well as a team and not have too many outside pick-up players.

Yay for softball. I want more. I should summaries more immediately after games as memories are in the details.

Narf. :)

Saturday, January 14, 2017

For The Love Of Softball

Yes, another softball tournament is underway and yes, it is still getting better and more fun. So far today we played six games. The first three were round robin games that only count in terms of placing us in a seeding order for the actual tournament. We finished 2-1 in round robin which gave us the 5th seed, a great place to start a tournament.

Alas, my Friday night and Saturday afternoon teams are not taking the field this season. I have feelers out for Friday night with a few teams and for Saturday I will likely wake early to play in the seniors pick-up game. It is the winter season so some teams do take the season off, so it is not too much of a surprise, but I shall miss it especially now when I have too much time on my hands and really need more exercise. I will just have to actually do exercise then, m'ok?

Ah, the subtle obvious inspires another smile, laugh, and giggling groan. A griggle, in technical terms.

Anyway, we played a local team for the first round robin game and won big, though the scores and summaries (or details, for that matter) are not maintained online and memory is not specific enough to recall everything. I believe the final was 13-1 or 13-0. The second round robin game was against the winners of the Ft. Lauderdale tournament and we beat them 6-2. The third round robin game was a loss by a run or two, I believe 10-8, though most of the runs were on errors due to players out of position. We finished round robin with the 5th seed overall.

Unfortunately, we get a poor turnout for our local Orlando tournament because it is the same weekend as the biggest tournament of the year (sometimes attracting even more teams than the league World Series which has more prestige, but strict qualification rules). Many of us keep suggesting we change the weekend of our tournament, but the tournament director does not want to do that.

Anyway, we moved into tournament play seeded 5th, which is a very good place to be. It means we likely will be home team for most of the tournament until we meet one of the top four seeds. Seeding doesn't say much about the strength of a team as many teams do not play their best players a lot during the roubd robin both the rest them and also to give the players who usually sub more playing time. We let our subs play, but we all play as we had 12 players so all 12 bat and we alternate in the field. As I said, he reason we lost the third round robin game is we had players out of position and they made errors giving up 8 runs. The important thing is they got to play.

We went 3-0 for the tournament so far, stepping up to play big when we needed it. I forget the first couple of games for now, but we had to play teams that did well in previous tournaments. One of the most recent tournaments was in Ft Lauderdale and we had to beat the winner of that tournament in our second tournament game. We won by one run. Our third tournament game was against a travel team (travel teams are usually very good as they spend a lot of money travelling to tournaments and play a lot of softball, so they know tournament rules, tricks, pressures, and generally have an advantage of experience and better player selection). We beat them by a run as well which surprised most of the teams out there.

Tomorrow we will play the second play Ft. Lauderdale team to try to get into the winner's bracket final. We might see either of those tough teams again win or lose the first game tomorrow as they are both still in it.

So sleep now and dream of softball.

Narf :)

Friday, January 13, 2017

Memories and Distractions On Youtube

Sometimes I miss NYC enough to remember



A lot of people, young and not so young, need to hear this so I decided to include the link again because this blog's reach is so far and wide and vast and all. Seriously though, I promise to be here online in some way or shape or form as long as I am capable of sending something to the internet cuz I know we can go the distance no matter what happens, it's been worse or something like that. Shifting shades of hues to blues (and to another person and reference and time), all hail Miss Toronto, the demon killer of purest hearts. Memories keep us safe...

and alone.

So I let the wicked witch of the net distract me with biting humor and dramatic honesty (or at least drama) for a while, knowing I would never divulge her secret unless she really wanted me to. Some would suggest this is the real Onision. Since he married the girl and is still married to her, that would tend to lend credence to this view (what view?). Once upon a time he created this site, so? Maybe we forget that conflict and drama is what sells in our public media. Ever watch the news? Would he sell and make money on youtube without the drama drama drama?

...and messing with pronouns, I mean, what's a gender anyway? la la la.

Who's asking? Honesty is a warm gun too. Still, the one that got away may be the most challenging truth of all to admit. Maybe. Sometimes, though, it is not dishonesty but simply true that one has no idea why some links are included or, for instance, why her Instagram is untitledandnamed and her twitter is luxury_blank, whomever she might be. da?

Tell you what. For various reasons and some not apparent even to me, I shall fill this paragraph by name dropping many random youtube celebrities just for the continuity of flow and such. Maybe it'll be a song lyric someday. Start with smosh and jenna marbles and you get (drumroll please) smooshed marbles (who lost theirs?). Now that we've set the dial tone to serious irreverence (what nonsense?... just because you don't understand it does't make it nonsense ya know?... well, maybe you don't). In any case, continuing as if you do (in case it matters), then came kristin who manages to juggle banana's in her spare time (I knew a male kristin once, but gender is such a fickle flounder) ever searching for the infamous singingbanana for reasons of her own. Then the mightycarmods dance with hughthomas in the superwog while philipwang holds joeygraceffa on the skitbox. Fruit would be flattered to be called a poor man's annaakana (or natalie tran) regardless of gender because jodiefox is right, she'll never make a mean joke (but she has been known to use the f word, for fuck's sake (or emma blackery's, for that matter). I miss laci green, in fact, and don't even know lounamaroun but there's nothing personal in the ramble that the finebrothers couldn't fix. I was once in love with amy (oh wow), not amiyamato, but the last I heard she was married to gracehelbig, though that might have just be a sloppy rumour, or seconds. Can we really find the truth at veritasium or will it just be another weggie (or wengie, for that matter (ask max, I suppose) because we can sum it all up laughing with wongfuproductions and rowen on lamingtonstreet cha cha cha.

What?

Yeah, so that was a fun and frolicking few hours wandering the web through youtube and I don't get a dime for all the clicking (so feel free to send donations to the address on the right and when I get a job and do't have all this time on my hands I'll return the favor... what would you like on your pizza?). Maybe it's time for Hulu or something else. With all these video and music choices on the web, why would anyone pay for cable ever again? (maybe if it ws commercial free a fee would be reasonable but $100+ a month and still piled on with ever so repetitive redundant commercials?... it is the country we live in... greed out of control... no wonder I'm not on youtube, I could never talk as fast as I babble).

I will be going to bed now as the big softball tournament starts early tomorrow morning. Feel free to come out and cheer on the champions (we were last year's champions and are going to do our best to repeat). Next time, who knows who or what will be linked. Maybe I'll even remember to talk about the dirt, drama, and details of this life I loosely call mine.

Narf. :)