sigh

I think my landlord is planning on making us move out. I guess one of the downfalls of renting from a guy instead of a company.  A company would let us live there as long as we wanted, provided of course we paid our rent and didn't disturb anyone.  My landlord on the other hand I think is under some pressure to give our apartment to his grand-daughter, a recent high school grad and slightly snotty little bitch.  She's been unhappy we moved in there from the beginning. More than that I just feel paranoid and having him lurking around is making me uneasy. Everything lately has been skirting the edges of the maelstrom and I'm just waiting for that one stray breeze or odd wave to push us over the edge.  I need FW to start working again, and she knows it. She feels terrible she's been out so long, I
don't really want her to go back to work, but we need the money now more than we need our health I guess. I'm going to try to get a night job, difficult with the long hours I work, at least on those 4 days I work my regular job. My littlest sister is getting married in a month and a half. It was set for fall but has been pushed forward due to pregnancy, probably the number one reason for proposal in my entire family. My older brother is the only sibling to marry without someone being pregnant.  The quick wedding is a little difficult for me right now, basically having no money or prospects for getting any is going to mean another bus trip to NJ, sleeping on someone's floor, bumming rides around town. This time is difficult my best buddy in NJ is leaving for Boot camp the day before the wedding, so I don't really have anywhere to stay. My brother whose sharing a house with my
mother would be my other choice (back when he had his own apt) but I haven't spent the night in my mothers house since she tossed me out as a teenager. We get along great, now. But even if FW doesn't understand I just feel weird asking to stay there. Oh well just feeling the weight of my world these past couple days. I need to stay busy, depression lurks around every corner, and I feel the grayness crowding in. More coffee is called for, then less time sitting up at night contemplating my life.

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Rambling

I was fighting to survive the bad choices I'd made earlier in life. My childhood sins came back to haunt me and I wasn't savvy enough to have a plan to avoid the repercussions. It was easier before I'd let some roots grow- no cares or worries. The dark clouds that chased me, creditors and heartbroken friends kept pace but couldn't overtake me, my eyes were always to the horizon, the next great adventure. Then a woman came into my life I couldn't shake free of, didn't want to honestly. She was as wild as I was and we partied and played the nights away, working this job and that just making it, but not really caring. Soon enough though we both started making more money, we had better hours and nicer things. True we spent the money as fast as it came in, but now we bought things for "the house" mementos of our lives together that collected dust and drew eyes from our guests until we
tired of them and tossed them out to replace it with other designs and artworks. The money was worse than most of the drugs we played with, there never seemed to be enough of it, and even though I was making twice what I'd started at I never had any extra, was always scraping bottom by the time the next check came along. I went looking for better jobs, opportunities, promotions, and I found them, I was working pretty hard though and It was taking a toll. I started enjoying sitting home nights, just watching old movies and swilling martinis. She was happy with that, unknown to me the seeds of domesticity had taken root in the desires of her heart, she only was waiting for me to catch up. She didn't want me to freak out when I realized how deep I was in to the domestic world so she followed along encouraging hobbies or activities that kept us together. We started going to farmers markets
on weekends and then to other festivals and events in the summer. I thought it was all good though, we drank beer and stumbled through the streets listening to bands laughing at the world. Ducked into back alleys to get a little high with our friends then giggled madly after we'd pulled the best sober impersonation in front of the passing officers. In truth though I was being saturated in healthy family activity, all around us fathers and wives towed smiling children around goggling at the sights and smells. We smiled at the cute ones, laughed at their antics, rolled our eyes at their tantrums.

Now I had a future, where before I'd always just floated there were goals on the horizons. I wanted to own my own house, I wanted a garage and a private room to work on my creations. Now those clouds were looming pretty heavy on me- I wasn't running from them anymore and they smirked at my hopes to have any sort of normal life now. No house for you they giggled into my ear. Snakelike whispers no new cars, you have bad credit. You have debt, you can't get out from under us.

Frustrated at each turn I had to give up my dreams, started playing the lottery and spent any free time dreaming of what I could do with the riches. The martinis grew more frequent, I had bills to pay and work to do, I had no time to play, no time to create. My free time was spent drinking and ignoring the crumbling shell I'd built around my happy carefree self. She and I fought now- screaming arguments about money, or things she or I'd bought. She thought I drank too much- I thought she lived a little too easy in the shelter I'd earned for us. I carried the burdens of my choices from youth and though she had never made those choices she was living with them, whether I recognized it or not. We struggle on though- it doesn't seem as fun now, but we've crossed the first hurdle of "big trouble" we stayed together through the crunch, the fights and recriminations. We have understanding
now, even if that doesn't put food on the table, when we're hungry we can hang onto each other, sate other types of hunger. Share our dreams of house and freedom, share our memories of the wild things we'd done less than 10 years ago and marvel at how fast we'd changed. But now I'm restless, unhappy with the path I've taken. The promotions and job hunting has landed me in a dead end no future job. Something that no college or formal education has led me too. Another thing that I can't go back and fix. It seems odd but all I seem to face anymore are consequences. I think anything new that comes along is tagged early by some action or inaction of mine and becomes indistinguishable from everything else.

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Starting another week

Wow, looks like I'm not laid off- but the month is still young. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Damn the man!

I spent almost the entire weekend in the hospital visiting my uncle & family-

One of my grandfathers brother, my favorite great uncle, finally succumbed to cancer and is in a hospice wing of the small town hospital.  It's really messed up- he's been a farmer since the 50's raising chickens and then cows then hybrid corn and soybeans.  Seems that all those years of being out in the sun have cost him- he has melanoma (skin cancer) but it's in his liver 5 or six large tumors that are literally eating him alive.  I love that old cranky man, but kept a brave face on when I first heard he was taken to the hospital- he'd been unable to move or speak for a few hours and his wife wasn't able to get any response from him- He was in and out of conscious while we sat in the small room the hospital provided for gtreiving families next to the "Death Room" or "Hospice Care and Grieving family suite". Every time though that he was aware he still knew who was in the room. He told me

"wisht I was sitting out there" he's funny.

It's a long running joke between us- for years every time I see him (almost every weekend I live about 5 miles away) he'd say "Wisht I was young like you" then he'd poke fun at me or FW for a little while- maybe show me a new clock he'd been working on.  No matter how late you stayed he'd always say "You don't have to run off" Funny growing up when I was much younger he's always say the same thing to everyone who stopped by- only back in the day he'd say "let me get this done then we can talk for real" and he'd go on with his chores whether it was milking or haying and when he got done, usually pretty late, he'd be ready to talk the night away regardless of him needing to be awake again at 4 or 5 the next morning to do it again.

He's only got a few more days to live- he's had nothing more than a few sips of broth or water over the last 2 weeks, his fall has been so fast, so much faster than even the doctor anticipated, but to see such a strong, hard working, lovable guy like that brought so low it seems like it's stretching on forever, all we can do is hope he can go ahead and let go of his body- but that stubborn old man just won't.  My grandfather was the same- they both just fought too hard their whole lives, and when cancer took them both they just didn't know how to lie down and just give in.

I guess this isn't the best way to start the day, but I'm realizing this is the first time I've been alone to think in days. 

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Another off-the network e-mail

More interesting yet puzzling developements at the office-

We have a rather large customer that purchases regularly 10 items from us. We were recently underbid by a different company for 3 of those items, these items earned us more than 100k in the last half of last year alone. The remaining items only earn us roughly 10k to 15k per quarter. So we still are earning 40k to 60k a year from their sales alone.  But when they told us that we had lost the bid for those 3 items someone in our (much smaller) sales department increased the cost of the remaining 7 items by 15 to 20%???!

I realize I am not one of our salesman, i don't even talk to purchasing agents on a regular basis, and yes it makes sense to try recoop some of the business we are no longer getting by adjusting our prices, but.....

Who the hell is running this?  All previous theories aside, does this help us increase our profits?  This doesn't even sound like they're trying to whittle us down to make us a division of another company because they're purposely alienating large purchase customers.  This isn't the first one either, someone else in my department had heard from a very disturbed customer whose pricing had gone up a significant percent between orders- with no discussion at all, only he was returning all of it and never speaking to our company again.

I just don't get it.

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Off the network e-mail

I had to send you a message off our e-mail server- incase "they" are watching- Yesterday (while I was out) the president of our company issued a memo first thing in the morning chopping our sales department in half- his hit list also included our facilities manager- several of our merchandising- purchasing dept and a couple position in our HR dept. not all the people on his list were fired however. Some of the people in merchandising will be allowed to apply for their jobs. I don't know if I'd want to. Everyone else except our facilities manager was escorted out of the building as soon as they got in.  The president continues his practice of sitting with each department for a week or so- taking notes quietly- his mind churning. No lucky guesses needed as to which departments he's sat with yet (customer service, inside sales, facilities) unfortunately he still has not come
near accounting, or accounts receivable, but then again he needs us, or we hope he does- the question now is how many of us does he need now?

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dry spell

Thank all of you for wondering where I was.. Unfortunately for me m Bosses in their infinite wisdom have deemed my own blogs as innapropriate material for the workplace, It seems to many people could come read something offensive over my shoulder and be uncomfortable.. bastards- so I have been given an executive warning, they will fire me if this innapropriate material continues- so I was forced to desist.. Unfortunately this is far too addicting so I had to set up my cpu at home and now I can e-mail my posts in and then read while away from work. I suppose I can understand their concern over the amount of time I might have spent online reading when I should have been working, but honestly- If my numbers were good ( which they were) they should leave well enough alone.

Bastardos....