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Hanging Out, Still Waiting.
March 9, 2010
It snowed here yesterday afternoon. Only for about five minutes and then hail wiped out most of anything that stuck. The local weather forecasters say it's going to do the same today and it did ever so briefly just as the sun was coming up, and even though I don't trust any of those people as far as I could physically throw them, it's pretty safe to say I won't be driving anywhere. Today's writing day but because the memory of trying to get home in Portland's unexpected late December blizzard is still fresh, I'm choosing to write from home today, which ought to ensure the day will be perfectly pleasant for man and beast alike.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
Yesterday I rewrote the beginning of something I'm working on for an April deadline. WS hated the original unfinished story and I've no doubt he'll hate this one too. My error is in asking him to read it before I've written the ending and that's hard not to do because I have the worst, absolute worst time figuring out endings to anything I write. Some part of my brain is convinced WS will spark something within me that'll make an ending obvious.
But of course, it never works that way, and I never seem to learn the lesson.
Half the bark mulching is done in the backyard with the other half happening sometime after the week's forecasted rain and after the remaining scheduled trees are cut down. Half the yard debris is gone already due to being able to cram more in the bin than expected, though we're still running about a full load ahead of pickup. I think we'll be caught up in early April and by then, our yards will be ready for summer enjoyment and I'll move on to finishing up painting indoors.
No news on WS' future job loss other than to say the big boss promises to be in town later this week. Not.Holding.Breath. Don't think it'll matter anyway. We're hashing over options; up to six different ones now, some fun and exciting, all terrifying as hell.
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Yesterday's exercise: .25 mile run at 13:00 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .20 walk at 18:00 minute mile at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 154.6.
Reading: Best American Short Stories - 2007. Again.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Whipping Into Shape.
March 6, 2010
On this soon-to-be warm and dry pre-spring Saturday, I hope to get half our backyard bark mulched while removing the rest of the fall leaves that tucked themselves very well under rhodies and azaleas. Today, WS will be removing additional trees from our back and side yards. This is in addition to the two he cut down last weekend. We already have enough yard debris bagged for the next three yard debris pick ups which in our neighborhood, is every other week. We’re going to be looking at stacks of branches and pieces of trunks for a long while, I think.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
I asked Mr. Dimmer if he wanted any of the wood for burning in his fireplace. He’s one of only three in our entire development who have a wood burning fireplace as opposed to the natural gas fireplaces the rest of the development preferred.
He said no which surprised me a little. He was all about burning anything he could get his hands on up until last year. Then he said his fireplace was out of commission. I must have looked confused because he said they had burned so much crap and food in it when they couldn’t afford garbage pickup for years, the flue was clogged. And whenever they tried to burn anything in it now (the flue is clogged and yet they still try to burn stuff??), it turns the wall and ceiling gray.
Official Dimmers Icon.
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Gee, now why would you suppose that would happen, hmm?
The Dimmers. It’s not just a clever name.
So anyway, our side yard will be stacked as tall as the fence with branches and cut tree trunks and heavy plastic bags containing spring clean up yard debris and yes, I won’t be able to bark mulch over there until everything’s gone which will most likely be sometime in May but damn, if the rest of the yard won’t look good!
And the whole thing will be done in perfect timing to worry about more important things, like whether we get to keep this place or have to sell and move to find jobs. If we have to sell and move, that’ll be the least ideal time to have to whip it into shape. But if we can stay, we can enjoy this place to the fullest, knowing the work outside, front and back, is done until fall.
Don’t even get me started on repainting the last room(s) in our house. That necessity is coming soon enough.
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Today's exercise: Day Off.
This morning's weigh-in: 155.8.
Reading: Nothing.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Not All Rainbows and Puppies Pooping Sprinkles.
March 4, 2010
Have you ever watched the NFL draft? Young men in suits sitting not so comfortably in auditorium seats too small for their muscular, athletic frames flanked by parents eager to see their cream-of-the-crop son rise above the grind they themselves struggle daily to keep up with.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
That's not too far and away of how we're felt waiting for word on whether WS would receive an official offer for relocation to Boise. Unlike those dreamy young men with visions of gold-plated Escalades, parties with Hef and shapely women hanging off each arm, WS doesn't want any part of the offer. To accept would likely be the final hole we'd never crawl out from.
So it'd be safe to say it's not all hope and eagerness, optimism and starry-eyed anticipation here.
I received an email the other day from someone I used to know who's kept up with my whining on this latest job drama and they said we ought to suck it up and "get the hell out of Dodge." "Because you go out of your way to view life negatively, you deserved to crash and burn," they said. They went on to say they were tired of seeing us come out of so many things "smelling like a rose" and "doing so well when [they’ve] struggled all along."
Well then. Haters, you gotta love 'em because well, you can't shoot 'em.
Who wouldn't love to come out "smelling like a rose?" Personally, I never saw it that way (big surprise, I know). Must be my blinders blocking the view.
That said, last week I was talking to someone after a writer's group meeting and we were both lamenting our perceived dire financial straits. And suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, my friend said, "But aside from all that, this really is a good life, a really, really good life."
I stopped for a moment and thought about that and I had to agree one hundred percent. My friend had summed it up perfectly.
Whatever the outcome, whatever our final choice, we'll begin again with new worries, new pain, new crashes and burns and perhaps even new adventures. I'll still whine and lament like always, trying to appear to suck it up but perhaps only fooling myself.
But whatever the conclusion, I'm sure I'll still agree that this is a really, really good life.
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Today's exercise: Nothing yet.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.6.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Stood Up.
March 3, 2010
A cold day here today with thick clouds and a healthy drop in temperatures from the 60’s (Fahrenheit) that teased us over the past weekend. The good thing is that next weekend is shaping up to be a repeat of the last. I’m hoping to continue the work of bark mulching, in the backyard this time, because boy, oh boy, does this back-breaking work ever clear out my mind. Like taking baths and showers help some writers, hard landscape labor floods my brain with ideas. Good thing I don’t mind the work so much.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
A mere trifle of job information trickled through last night. The division manager who called for our local office and plant to close was expected in town today, specifically to discuss WS’ possible relocation to Boise. Then the guy never showed up, never made it into town and doesn’t have plans to show up anytime soon.
Basically, WS got stood up like a bad prom date. I told him not to hold his breath. This manager has a past history of doing such. But he’s a division head manager so he can get away with it. Yeah, right.
On a semi-related topic: Okay, I have to ask. What’s with all the mobile homes and acres of trailer parks in the Santa Clara/Sunnyvale California area? Sure, they’re practically giving them away at 129K and under compared to half a million for a 500 square foot studio apartment/condo conversion. And yes, they can make them attractive inside, but ugh, the exteriors. And ugly, ugly trailer parks.
Wanna see how whack the for sale housing/condo market is in that area? Type Sunnyvale, CA into zillow.com. Then type in Palo Alto, CA. I’m sure the housing bubble burst there too, right? *wipes hand across forehead* Then what were the prices for tiny, dinky places before then??
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Today's exercise: .50 mile run at 13:30 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .50 walk at 18:00 minute mile at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: Forgot to weigh in. Again.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Dreaming of Calm.
March 2, 2010
The neighborhood flowering plum trees are blooming pink flowers, the only time these trees are pretty in my opinion. The multi-trunked trees have weak wood and often entire sections become infested with aphids and disease and snap easily in the east winds that howl down our streets. But they look nice now and I love when the petals blow loose in the breeze and create that dreamy look, like the magical land in the 1980’s movie, “Legend.” Yes, that fantasy one with Tom Cruise, Mia Sara and Tim Curry.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
Little-to-no news on WS’ job front. Yesterday he found out that three office positions were going to be kept here in our area and those would work from a small office location yet to be established; three jobs, three people, from the two hundred locally-held jobs. A year ago, there were about a thousand people. Two years ago, fifteen hundred. Ten years ago, just under six thousand.
Last week, twenty people were given relocation cost information, which is vastly different from being offered relocation packages. For only for a handful were the offers made official. Nothing else counts. The rest, the other fifteen, are being kept in limbo.
Day-to-day business is expected to go on as if nothing were amiss. I’m waiting for the cracks to appear.
I asked WS the other day, if he thought anyone at the office might do something rash and bring a weapon to work. He said no, but isn’t that what everyone says in such circumstances?
I’m not being paranoid here. Some people, his coworkers, are very upset and a number have been unhappy for a long time. Could you blame them? After twenty-three rounds of layoffs, the new division head suddenly decides to close one of the most productive offices in this branch of the company in an admitted power play move to show the San Diego office who’s really in charge. Workers are burnt out and worn out, not from doing any actual work (or each the work of three-five people) but from dodging the political gamers and now, having learned they’ve lost.
So yeah, I still think it was a legitimate question to ask and since asking it and hearing WS’ answer, I won’t think of it again. It sounds like relocation will begin next month. The managers are going first, to Boise, to acquaint themselves with the office and Boise employees, to smooth the transition for those who might follow.
Wouldn’t it be funny if no one else did?
That would be the easiest elimination of employees ever and wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what the company’s banking on to happen.
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Today's exercise: None yet.
This morning's weigh-in: Forgot to weigh in. Not worried.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Early Spring Yard Work.
March 1, 2010
While it wasn’t anywhere near as sunny or dry as the local weathermen forecasted, it was dry enough to get the vast majority of our spring yard work done, including removal of two of the three trees we’re taking down this year. I also bark-mulched the entire front yard and while February is way-way too soon to normally be doing such things, the early spring weather and the overload of other stuff we’ll be worrying about later this spring dictated bark-mulching be done now.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
And now, the front yard has been staged for potential sale of the house should it come down to that.
No new news on the job loss or relocation front. Just your typical hurry-up-and-wait scenario. We’ll take it today and spend the time taking our first deep breath in just over two weeks.
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Today's exercise: .10 mile run at 13:30 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .40 walk at 18:00 minute mile at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 159.2.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Cleaning Up Nothing.
February 26, 2010
Finishing yard cleanup this weekend. 3 trees to be cut down. Adding to garage sale list: Big plant pots. No more veggie growing; takes too much water and time that neither of us (meaning me) has. Keeping the bird houses for the time being but cleaning out our little storage shed of more unnecessary outdoorsy stuff.
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
Yesterday's job loss news: Those in high positions who claim they have important stuff to say often say little to nothing of importance at all. Listen up, they'll spout, but it's hard to find value in the noncommittal dribble coming from their mouths.
Such was the case yesterday when WS was supposed to find out about job relocation plans to Boise, what all that would entail and how much it would cost. He got a big dose of 'We don't know yet' and 'That information has yet to be determined.' He got a whole lot of basically nothing.
So why did the company HR head fly into town? To tell him and his coworkers 'We need to be discreet about what being shared because it's upsetting employees.'
No! You think? Whose fault is that?
Then, just this morning, word came down that supposedly, the cut off date for those being offered relocation packages has been extended a week. Speculation has it the reason behind this is because most employees aren't taking relocation, meaning, they're willing to lose their jobs beginning this July. People are willing to take their chances elsewhere. From what's being said, no one's confident in this company change. Not being upfront with the hard information hasn't helped the division manager's case one bit. A mass exodus is in the planning stages.
We also found out over half of WS' coworkers weren't offered relocation packages, and in fact, WS hasn't officially been offered a relocation package himself. The company just wants these people gone, preferably without having to pay them a cent more than need be. None of these people were offered retention bonuses. None will get severance pay. People are pissed.
""The town's drying up.
The company's going to move you here and dump you here
...to try to boost the economy.""
Making the whole matter worse, word's gotten back from the Boise office to our local office here on how bad working and living in Idaho really is.
"It's a very depressed market here in Boise, in every sector, not just in this company," it was said. "The town's drying up. The company's going to move you here and dump you here, in some kind of deal with the local government to try to boost the economy. Unless you've got a wad in the bank, you'll be stuck here for the rest of your life. Don't come if you can't handle that truth."
Wow, okay, but do you believe it?
Last night, WS and I did a little research and well, sad to say but it would appear that those people are right. The city's not doing well at all. And do you know how badly the Idaho real estate market has tanked since 2007? OUCH! I guess things will turn around eventually, but that's years out at best. Even Forbes magazine rated Boise one of the worst places to live if you want to make anything more than a hard-scrabble, living wage and that only the significantly lower cost of living compared to most cities of equal size is what's saving it from becoming a ghost town. I found it telling that this morning I saw no less than four commercials within a half an hour for REDC and auction.com advertising hundreds of foreclosed homes in Idaho to be sold this weekend 'at forced auction prices' at a big hotel in Portland.
Moving forward, the company would like their local employees here to return back to square one. WS' isn’t supposed to remember when the local office is closing up shop, he isn't supposed to worry about not having a job, theoretically anytime past this weekend, he isn't supposed to wonder if he will receive a relocation package, retention bonus, severance or even his unused vacation pay. He's been told its back to business as usual and if anything 'upsetting' crosses your desks, remember it's not personal, it's business. (What was I just saying last week?)
So WS and I won't add a retention bonus, severance or unused vacation pay figures to our ever-changing Option plans or budget. If he receives anything more than a pink slip and a security escort to the door, we'll consider it frosting on the cake.
But this is certain: We’re not moving to Boise, especially on some Johnny-Come-Lately division head's whim. We're not moving to some high desert city where job loss, unemployment lines and foreclosed homes are like so many dead fish clogging a shallow, muddy stream. You can cross this Option off the list.
Another certain thing: This is no worse than anything either of us has been through before. Together, we'll get through this and find a silver lining that fits us.
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Yesterday's exercise: None.
This morning's weigh-in: 155.0.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Under The Wheels.
February 25, 2010
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com:
The rain is back and that’s good. I feel we need a wash down like never before. The leaves of tulips, daffodils and other bulbs are up and the crocuses are already in bloom, as is one rhododendron (P.J.M.) in our back yard. Spring is here.
Today's the day WS finds out what the company he's worked for over the last eighteen years is willing to do to get him to move to Boise, where that office may or may not, depending on who you talk to, be in the very early stages of shutting down in similar fashion to what's happened here over the past five years. We suspect actual dollar amounts will still be withheld and I find this absolutely unbelievable at this point.
But here’s what we do know.
Shutting down this town's office and relocating a small portion of the professional workforce to Boise is being done on what employees have been told is a 'whim' of the new guy in charge, who just happens to live in Boise. Command struggle and territory grabbing tactics are at play between the long standing seat of the division, powerhouse San Diego, and little, old Boise, known up until very recently as the unwashed armpit of the entire company. Clearly, resentment has been building. Everything came to a head last year when San Diego stretched beyond its tolerable reach and bitch-slapped the top Boise office executive down to the unemployment line.
That's why all this is happening. The top Boise guy is holding a grudge and doesn't care if lives are crushed under his war wagon wheels. This is war and employees are expendable.
Regarding relocation terms for those 'privileged' few to be offered such, I'm not the only one who believes the level of unprofessionalism regarding the secrecy surrounding these terms resulting in the upheaval of so many lives outstrips anything seen in this neck of the woods since Tektronix left town over twenty years ago and single-handedly collapsed the local economy. We're not talking disgruntled factory workers here; all those were let go almost ten years ago and for the most part, our town has gotten over it. I'm referring to overly-intelligent, highly paid professionals.
""Boise's a cool town. The only trouble with it is
that once you step outside the city limits, you're in Idaho.
Something to think about.""
I'll probably get into trouble for that last statement. It sounds snobbish and elitist and let me be the first to agree with anyone who takes exception. This company hasn't had need of its factory or lower wage employees for a decade, since the component building was moved offshore to India and Singapore. WS and I both had friends who were affected negatively by that, and WS' department has been working under a reign of layoff fear and duress ever since.
But something changes in a town when a big corporation pulls up roots and leaves the state entirely. Sure, our ten remaining Starbucks locations might take a little hit on latte and scone purchases because a portion of their white collar customers won't be stopping by every morning on their way into the office. Engineer Experts and Masters might need to pull their kids out of private school, will buy or lease less Mercedes and BMWs, won't be able to justify shopping at Nordstrom's once a month.
Or maybe nothing will change, with the exception of those professionals moving elsewhere so they can continue more of the same lifestyle. Being a blue-collar worker almost my entire life, having come from the wrong side of the tracks yet finding myself, somehow, married to a white-collar worker, I gleefully embraced a few of these things. But if I've learned anything, it's that these high maintenance people have skewed views of living standards and for the most part, will demand that they continue to have such things available at their disposal. And they will go elsewhere if need be to get them.
Boise does not have such things. Oh sure, they have Starbucks; show me a state that doesn't. They have Mercedes and BMW dealerships and I'm sure they have something reportedly similar to Nordstrom. They have private schools and high-end nail and tanning salons. I hear they even have drive-thru Botox centers now.
But let me share something someone close to me and whom I respect said when she heard WS and I might have to relocate to Boise on someone else's whim. "Boise's a cool town. The only trouble with it is that once you step outside the city limits, you're in Idaho. Something to think about."
It's not so much that I don't want to live in Boise or in Idaho; I'm deeply saddened by how our local, depressed economy here is going to be affected. This is truly a great town, a great little city. But even optimistically, I eventually see it returning to its roots as a poor farming community; Goat Town as it was once called, only this time, without all the farms that have long since disappeared, and without all the goats either, unless you consider those as anyone who's still around. We don't think that’ll be us but it's still too early to know for certain. We'll know more later today.
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Yesterday's exercise: None.
This morning's weigh-in: 155.2.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
It's What You Can't See.
February 24, 2010
Cross-posted over at blogeois.livejournal.com
Today’s daily drama involves that mental health therapy WS was going to begin this week. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?
You might be half right – it’s not going to happen. But not on his account. The therapist’s office just called and cancelled his appointment. I hear stuff like this happens all the time, though rarely on a first visit. Kind of doesn’t speak well about the therapist in my opinion but it’s not mine to judge.
This can also happen, I’ve read, when a therapist or any service catches wind that their client might be out of a job soon, meaning they fear the possibility of troublesome paperwork looming in the future when dealing with workplace benefits that are spiraling toward extinguishment. WS’ therapist would have been paid for through his job benefits.
Tip to the wise: If you know you’re going to be laid off, don’t tell anyone. Not your doctor, your dentist, definitely not your banker, not even in passing to a waiter who’s running your credit or debit card to pay for your dinner. Anyone who has, however temporary access to your credit, could use that information against you. I’m not sure yet to whom and to what agency that information might be reported to. I’m trying to figure that out. It’s like going out to qualify for a house or car loan. They look at your credit, past and present and you provide them with information about your job. If you decide you need to be honest and tell them you’re about to get your pink slip, do you really think you’re going to get that loan?
Not likely. Apparently, this can also happen with your dentist or eye doctor or anyone else who might be somehow connected to your credit and/or the job benefits you use.
Now, just because I read this on the Internets, doesn’t make it true. Still, best to err on the side of caution, I say, especially right now. In the off chance the guy who makes our Subway sandwiches is reading this, I was kidding about celebrating WS’ upcoming job loss. But thanks for the extra tomato on our sandwiches!
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Yesterday's exercise: .50 mile run at 13:30 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .15 walk at 18:00 minute mile at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.2.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Is Two Better Than One? For Comments, Yes!
February 23, 2010
Way back in 1994, I started this journal. I’ve already admitted that it was under a different name than Blogeois and that I used a different forum. In 1996, I learned HTML and created my own journal page. Nope, none of that icky Blogger or BlogSpot stuff for me. I quickly ran into trouble. At the time, no one was doing free commenting service and I had no way to check my code against other platforms like Mac. It got very ugly, very quickly and I gave in to Blogger where I stayed for five years.
In 2001, I created Blogeois.com and again, thumbed my nose at Blogger, BlogSpot, Live Journal, Front Page, Typepad and WordPress because they just didn’t have the control I thought I wanted in a blog page. Most of them had some stuff I wanted, no one had everything I wanted. Like how to have your own header graphic. I like header graphics and it’s come to be the only thing I change (not including daily picture) thanks to advice JimBob once mentioned in a passing comment about having to reload the same icons every season because I was renaming them every season.
Silly, goofy me.
Well, I still want to have my own header graphic. And because I like to use tables in my HTML so that it looks like a blog with links and such on one side, I still can’t get the blog entries to be as wide as I’d like, resulting in terribly, terribly long-looking posts some days.
But with the end of Haloscan’s free commenting service last weekend and not happy with what else I’ve found out there to replace it, I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just bend again and create a Blogeois.com Live Journal page.
Confession time: One already exists. And just as soon as I can remember my password so I can start posting in there again, I’ll get rid of its new backup Live Journal page, Blogeois2.com. Now don’t mind me. I’m just tearing apart the library looking for my notes.
LATER UPDATE: Found it. For the time being, all posts here will be cross-posted to Blogeois.livejournal.com. Yes, it’s more work on this end but only marginally so. I don’t mind. Besides, commenting is open over there. Now go, comment away.
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Yesterday's exercise: .50 mile run at 13:38 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .10 walk at 20:00 minute mile at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.2.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Adjustments.
February 22, 2010
It was a great dry, sunny week. Unfortunately, the strong east winds kept the outdoor wind chill temperatures down into the 30’s despite the claims that it was close to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Now that sunny weather is coming to a close and we’re back to clouds and rain tomorrow. Even now, the sky outside is white with high cloud cover instead of the clear blue of last week.
Fine by me. We couldn’t find much joy it anyay. We’ve got bigger fish to fry to have bothered much with the weather.
That’s not to say we haven’t done a bit of spring clean up. A week before the job news, we finally retired our broken rakes and bought a de-thatching tool for the front yard. WS worked on the matted grass and I spread new grass seed. He’s clipped branches out back and cleaned out the last of the dead fall leaves. I sprayed 30-second cleaner on most of the cement walkways and am always gathering birch branches the wind knocks down. Beyond that, it’s too early to do much else and I’m not sure I’ll have the motivation by April anyway.
What I need is a serious attitude adjustment.
Still no news from the company about relocation packages or timelines. I still think this is all by design.
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Yesterday's exercise: Weekend off.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.6.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Comments welcome and encouraged or over on blogeois.livejournal.com
Bigger Debt. Our Fault? Partly.
February 21, 2010
Did you notice the credit card rule changes last week? I’d hoped not to pay it much attention but the week before did nothing but smear those rule changes in our faces.
I’ve mentioned that we carry a lot of credit card debt. No one’s fault but our own, one we take complete responsibility for, one we’ve been working hard for over a year to cut down to a more manageable size. However, those rule changes made it a whole lot harder to do that.
For reasons I can only speculate on, the powers that be gave the banks ample time to prepare for tougher regulations by not stopping them from upping their interest rates to ridiculous levels, even to those of us who have never been late on a payment and/or have always, ALWAYS paid more than the minimum due. Like us.
Ten days ago, the last couple of credit cards we carried balances on upped the low interest rates we enjoyed (definitely enjoyed too much) from 6 percent to close to thirty percent, because they could and because no one would stop them.
We complained. The patient men and women on the phone told us, in a nutshell, tough titty. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never been late on a single payment, doesn’t matter if you’ve always paid more than the minimum due, sometimes way over the minimum due. It’s not your personal debt we’re worried about; it’s the heavy debt most of our other customers carry that’s driving our interest rate changes. We’re afraid that they will default, all of them, so, sorry, but you good customers have to carry that burden by paying us more money to make up for that potential loss.
Yep, that’s what they told us, every last one of them. As a result and in one fell swoop, our personal credit card debt went from about 70K to 87K. We are so screwed, doubly so with WS’ job loss.
But there are still options. Nothing’s set in stone. The world is still one big adventure with slightly more scary edges. But with heads cleared after last week’s job loss news, we’re confident we’ve got options we can make work for us one way or the other.
Unrelated P.S. Note: Sorry about not being able to leave comments over the past few days. Haloscan commenting service has ceased operations. Comments can now be directly emailed to Blogeois.com using the coments link below
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Yesterday's exercise: Weekend off.
This morning's weigh-in: 159.0.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
No Longer an Employee, He's 'Headcount.'
February 19, 2010
Our master bedroom, almost pre-staged, for potential home sale photos.
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The specifics surrounding WS’ job relocation has gone a little like this: During one of yesterday's work conference calls, WS was told a decision on whether he’d be moving to Boise was needed ASAP. WS replied that he hadn’t been given any relocation information yet to be able to make an informed decision. He was then told the same thing he was told last Friday, that information would be sent to him. But that in the meantime, Human Resources needed an answer now.
WS restated that until he was sent relocation information, he couldn’t make a decision yet. Yes, yes, he was told, we’ll get you that information, but you must tell us now whether you plan to move to Boise or not. We need it for our headcount, they said.
With the patience of a saint, WS again said, in his gentle, diplomatic, yet firm way, that he’d need to read through the relocation paperwork and talk it over with his family (meaning me and my tendency to lean more toward a brash "WTF?" way) before making an educated and informed decision. Until the paperwork was sent to him, which it hadn’t, he couldn’t say one way or the other.
He wasn’t asked a third time. Decisions were needed by HR today.
Yesterday, Boise relocation offers were handed out to all married couples who both work at our local plant. There are several in this bucket, all engineers either in test or R and D (Research and Development). Except offers were only given to one member of each couple, excluding the other, leaving the couple to make a choice to split up – one following their job to another state effectively immediately while the other tries to stick it out here until the plant closes in October, or one remaining employed with the company in Boise and the other losing their job completely. Tacky move, in my opinion, but that’s what happened.
"WS got a call from a coworker who was understandably upset,
not by her own job loss, but from working alongside so many men
with eyes red-rimmed from crying."
Then, yesterday afternoon, the entire R and D department got their walking papers. No relocation offers, no severance. All their jobs end July 1st. End of story. The real awful part here is that a quarter of the test engineering department, where WS works, was involuntarily transferred to the R and D department just three weeks ago to make the quarter headcount numbers look good on paper. Then the decision came down yesterday to let the entire department go.
Last night, WS got a call from a coworker who was understandably upset, not by her own job loss, but from working alongside so many men with eyes red-rimmed from crying.
Research and Development is what invents and creates the product ideas the rest of the company builds and works on over the next year or so. Without R and D, there is no need for test engineers, unless all this is being generated offshore.
Unfortunately, that can’t be blamed because that venue isn’t ready yet. Boise’s engineers are training the offshore people though. Perhaps Boise knows it’s time is coming for layoffs, perhaps they don’t know. But for employees in our town’s plant, it’s just a plain old case of "Mow that we’re closing one of the plants, we’ve got too many of you."
So bye-bye to R and D, and additionally, by offering local employees Boise relocation packages that, perhaps intentionally, never arrive or that only apply to half a married engineering couple, headcount is further reduced and the numbers end up looking very, very good on paper.
Since I’ve been through all this exactly five years, one month and four days ago with the company I was laid off from, I have to wonder if the company WS still technically works for (for a remainder of time that’s anyone’s guess at this point) might not be setting themselves up to be bought by some other mega-huge corporation.
Been there, done that. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Not one bit. All that’s missing is the bigwig telling us not to take any of this personally.
WS says no. The company he’s still working a while longer for buys companies, not sets it’s self up to be bought by someone else.
Hmm, okay. If you say so.
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Yesterday's exercise: .50 mile run at 13:38 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 158.0.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
Decisions - Crashes and Dreams.
February 18, 2010
Our dining area looking into living room, almost pre-staged, for potential home sale photos.
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I had a dream the night before last about being in a plane crash. Lots of people dream of plane crashes but I rarely do. I can remember one once before and that’s about it. I’m quick to say that most likely I dreamed of being in a plane crash because of the high amount of stress WS and I are both going through at the moment around his upcoming job loss and the possibility of having to sell our home and move out of state, and I think that’s a valid reason. We deal with stress differently, WS and I; he gets an eye twitch that lasts for months and obsesses obsessively over everything obsessible thing. I yell and snap and walk around feeling angry for days and weeks. And I dream.
My dream was very vivid as they usually are when I feel my back is up against a wall. It was an Alaska Airline flight. I was sitting on the left side as viewed from the back of the plane looking toward the cockpit, a side I have never inhabited in real life simply because of the whims of the seating chart gods. I had an aisle seat and no one had the window seat next to me, both also firsts. The backs of the seats in front of me displayed that old, mosaic patterned print flyers of Alaska Airline would recognize in a heartbeat. Everything else around me was white.
Outside the sky was blue without clouds. Rolling hills defined the ground, not brown but not quite green either. A tall deciduous tree or two dotted the plain. I didn’t notice any homes or farm houses, roads or cars. Perhaps I was on my way to San Diego and was nearing the central California valley area.
But the plane crash I dreamt of being in wasn’t a full-blown, Oh-My-God plummet to earth, full of smoke and fire and explosive death kind of crash. I dreamed I sensed the plane gliding downward from cruising altitude and the pilot’s voice telling us to prepare for a hard landing. All around me, people began what people in life-threatening situations such as this do. They screamed and tore at themselves and others in what everyone believed were the last moments of each of their lives. They swore and swung fists and arms and shrieked at the top of their lungs. They stood and ran and blocked the aisles, clawed to clamor over one another, to get somewhere else, anywhere else other than in the long, tin cylinder we willingly, almost unconsciously loaded ourselves into an hour before.
"Why this change? Why now?
What does this mean? How can we survive?
What will happen moving forward from point of impact?"
I remained in my seat, buckled in because once I put on the seat belt, I leave it on for the duration of my flights and somehow, amid all the screaming and violence, I quietly watched out the small, square-ish window, not all that surprised that the position of the plane against the horizon didn’t show us pointed downward like a nose-heavy arrow falling straight to earth, but that the plane was gliding silently, level almost, without smoke and flame, down to some undetermined flat spot.
Somehow I knew we’d all survive, more intact than not. Some of us would be thankful, some of us perhaps ashamed of our last moment behavior and some of us maybe a little of both. I think I’d be in that last group though that neither surprises nor alarms me. Its how I deal with things; with a lot of initial crying, a bit of yelling and screaming and a whole lot of quiet self examination. Why this change? Why now? What does this mean? How can we survive? What will happen moving forward from point of impact?
Anyway, we haven’t made a one hundred percent decision on what we’re going to do yet regarding WS’ job loss and potential move out of state just so he can keep it for a while longer, but I’m done with my crying bit, finished my yelling and screaming. WS’ eye tick is still going strong but he’s not obsessing as badly as he was just a few days ago. And we’ve done the vast majority of the quiet self examination.
The specifics haven’t been given to WS yet on what costs we would need to absorb with moving elsewhere and what the company might pitch in with, or even the hard timeline on when a move would need to occur. But we think we’ve come up with our decision. Scary times loom ahead. That much is certain. The question is: Can I ease this transition from a full-on crash into a slow, easy glide.
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Today's exercise: Day off. 1 sub sandwich and 5 pieces of chocolate consumed.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.6.
Reading: Grants Pass - a short story, post-apocalyptic anthology.
The Brown Stuff Hits The Proverbial Fan.
February 16, 2010
Our library, almost pre-staged, for potential home sale photos.
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My trip to the convention over the past weekend was warm and wonderfully full of win and I met a lot of people, published Science Fiction authors mainly like Larry Niven and C.J. Cherryh, whom I never would have mingled with before taking up writing.
And then I came home and my world fell apart and I spent the next 30 hours crying almost nonstop. WS has lost the battle to keep his job. They are closing the office and plant in our city.
Technically, WS still has a job until the end of October, but only if he doesn’t find something else first and if he does, well, he doesn’t get a little something called a ‘retention bonus’ to the tune of X dollars. They won’t tell us yet how much X equals. Could be a hundred bucks, could be five thousand bucks or more. But after October 31st, he’ll be out of work. This is a given. I’m calling it Option A. Option A is somewhat linked to Option D but stick with me for a while here first while we touch on Options B and C.
Option B is to relocate to the next nearest office which is in Boise, Idaho where I’m sure the lifestyle is very good from what I’m told. The company will even pay a small portion of the moving costs, they say. But the summer heat would most probably stir up a number of hearty MS exacerbations for WS like the inability to walk, talk or see because that’s what happens to people with MS who can’t be in summer heat for longer than ten or fifteen minutes, for the entire summer.
The hitch in this option is that the offer to relocate to Boise might have been pulled off the table because of WS’ snake of a boss who, hypothetically and out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, asked if WS had ever thought of moving to Boise. WS answered with something along the lines of "Doubtful, but I’d keep that option open if I had to." The snake boss then ran straight to the Division head and told him WS wasn’t interested in Boise. His name was removed from some list that was secretly being compiled.
WS isn’t and neither am I interested in moving to Boise, unless that’s the only way to keep his job which is the corner WS was painted into last Friday while I was living it up, blissfully unaware, in Pasco, Washington.
We won’t know if Boise might still be an option until later this week or the next. Something about having to have a super-secret, absolute final headcount last Friday in order to get the money together for relocation costs. Adding another head would throw the figures off and this company has never been too hip on redoing figures. Never.
Later today he heard that if the Boise offer was still open, he’d lose his current insurance benefits and have to apply for a different kind of work insurance that the Boise office uses…which may or may not have a pre-existing health condition clause written into it. We don’t know yet. The paperwork and legal wording in the policy is unbelievably confusing to decipher at best, when the paperwork can be accessed online at all. WS’ MS medication costs $1000 a month. Out of pocket expense to us right now is about $60. If such a pre-existing condition clause exists in this new insurance policy, they won’t insure WS and we’ll officially take the first step toward pre-existing medical condition bankruptcy.
"...the corner WS was painted into last Friday
while I was living it up, blissfully unaware, in Pasco, Washington."
Moving along we have Option C: If we pay for relocating ourselves entirely out of our own pocket, we could move to San Diego and WS ‘might’ be able to get a job with the office headquarters. Technically, his boss works out of the San Diego office but there are no guarantees and they are having attrition and layoff problems of their own. The good thing is that the insurance benefits would remain the same, but since we all know how bloody expensive it is to live in San Diego, I think that Option C is pretty much closed.
Options B and C will require us to sell the home we love and go back to apartment living. Having five cats will undoubtedly throw a wrench into that plan. Renting a house might be an idea, similarly to what we did before we built this house, but we’ll have to hide a few initially and only own up to having two or three depending on rental restrictions. We can live with that, hell, I’ve done that all my adult life.
Option D is the scariest of all, in my opinion but the one I’d most prefer: Staying put and WS finding a job locally. The wrenches here are that there are no jobs in this technology job-depressed area and certainly not anything that pays his current salary of 90K a year. And then there’s that whole issue with WS having MS and having to qualify for new insurance benefits of which up to 75 percent of all carriers won’t insure. Almost all that will insure MS patients have a dollar-figure cap on how much they will insure up to – usually around 1 million dollars. At $1000 a month for medication, you can see that the costs will rack up pretty quickly with that kind of plan.
But it’s better than nothing for a few years, right? Or we could apply for COBRA and be raped for $1600 a month plus medication out of pocket costs. And that’s just for him. My pre-existing condition is that I’m a woman. Don’t laugh. Some insurance carriers have actually started to write this into the policies. Fifty-two percent of the population is going to start to have fun with that one in a few years.
So, there you have it.
Option A: WS stays at his job until the end on October 31st. Then he looks for work, we apply for COBRA insurance (only good for 18 months at outrageous costs) and we hope not to lose everything shortly thereafter.
Option B: Sell our home and everything, move to Boise to keep his job if the offer is still open and potentially lose insurance benefits. Try to keep him cool in the summer and learn to drive in winter snow. Hide two or three cats somewhere occasionally and learn to live in a smaller, yet cheaper environment. I guess I should mention here that the Boise office has already begun to shut down buildings similarly to how things started going south here about five years ago. More than likely, shutting down Boise may just be a matter of time.
Option C: Sell our home and everything, move to San Diego in hopes of keeping his job and get used to paying twice as much as our mortgage is now for a quarter or less of the space but keep benefits. Ditto on the cat hiding.
Option D: Forego some undefined retention bonus, find a new job now, cash out our measly retirement account to supplement the salary cut, potentially lose insurance benefits but keep our home and everything and hope not to lose it all.
What do you think?
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Today's exercise: Day off. 1 sub sandwich and 3 pieces of chocolate consumed.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.4.
Reading: Nothing.
Leaving Before the Sock Revolt.
February 9, 2010
I’m getting ready to head out to Pasco, Washington, to one of my favorite conventions (that feeling might change if the people in charge keep assigning me to panels the subjects of which I know not one thing about – like asteroids and quantum physics; do you think they’re trying to tell me something?).
Naturally, I’m uber prepared to leave having packed last night and carefully timing today’s activities before driving off. And just as naturally, things have decided to test my patience.
I left instructions for WS, who doesn’t like conventions or travel in the least and doesn’t go, to fill the bird and squirrel feeder when they empty while I’m gone. He’s very good at this, usually, unless his work conference calls start piling up like they steadily have been since, oh, last November. Then this morning, we discovered that for some reason, with less than two hours before I leave town, we’re out of birdseed. No idea how that happened, though flying pig syndrome might be to blame – the Starlings are back.
WS is foregoing a somewhat boring meeting this morning to race to the bird food store, located about ten miles away, that conveniently doesn’t open until an hour before I’m scheduled to depart to get a load of seed to carry us through the weekend. Meanwhile, the birds are dive-bombing our windows with poop to get our attention. When did this start happening? I’m thinking some birds with attitudes might need to be culled from the teat soon.
Socks are another issue. Apparently, they have a mind of their own; the right ones being quiet, mellow and quite conservative while the left ones being loud, boisterous, daring and perhaps a bit liberal.
Last night, with plenty of time, I did laundry. No biggie, would have done it anyway. Except when I took it from the dryer, each pair of socks was missing its match. That might happen to the rest of the world, but not here, no sir-ree Bob. I’m sure I’m just anal about such things but I don’t leave clothes lying around to get misplaced or lost. Just doesn’t happen. I’m careful, to a fault, I’m sure.
So, after a while of looking, I discovered that somehow they, surely the left socks because the rights like things to remain constant and routine, ended up between the washer and the wall, a place I have never in my life lost clothing, but nonetheless, there they were, plotting to take over the world, no doubt, meaning that I’d have to do a whole ‘nother load of nothing but four rebellious socks. A waste of electricity and water and soap but I needed those socks because they were black and I only own four pairs of black socks and I’m wearing mostly black all weekend long at the convention in Pasco. No, I wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of wearing white socks with black attire. Besides, the white ones would revolt and mysteriously come up with holes in the heels, I’m certain. They’re not as meek and safe as one would think.
Or maybe that’s just what happens in my house.
Anyway, time to pack and wait for WS to return and get those flying pigs fed. Have a good weekend and keep an eye on your socks.
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Today's exercise: Day off plus four hours of driving.
This morning's weigh-in: 157.6.
Reading: America's Best Fantay, edited by the Vandermeer's.
Just Some Peace and Quiet.
February 9, 2010
The past week has been overly filled with writing and yard work. Yes, we’ve had a bit of sunshine and dry weather and I sure as heck-fire aren’t gonna let it go to waste.
As of 2 p.m. today, I had already finished laundry, ran a mile, wrote a little on two separate stories, answered a butt-load of email, gathered maps and manuscripts, notes and notebooks to take to the convention I’m heading to Thursday morning and organized them enough to make a person’s head spin, or at the very least, make me smile because I like being organized that way. I’ve already practiced my reading aloud because I’ll be doing a bit of that at the convention and I need to practice, practice, practice to say my own name out loud some days.
And I’m waiting for WS to come home from work where he’s been for a few hours today after working from home nearly every day for the past month since he now has a boss that works in Boise and no one really needs to be in the office much anymore. In fact, rumor has it the ‘office’ is going to soon be converted into a ‘on-demand’ meeting place and quiet space kind of building without a cubicle in sight and all employees who have proven they can work from home and actually get work done, can do so and choose to only go into the meeting center to meet face-to-face when warranted or to work if their home isn’t quiet enough to do so. No one will even have personal spaces or even desks anymore.
Welcome to the changing face of software technology. So glad we built this place to have several different quiet spots in which to work. Too bad it’s so open, whenever WS has a conference call, which is three to four times a day, every day, I can hear him throughout the house. If I’m to get any writing done at all, quality writing that will make us some money, we’re going to have to set up some ground rules with rotating working areas so we both can have a quiet place in which to work.
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Today's exercise: .40 mile run at 13:38 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .85 mile walked at 20 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 156.4.
Reading: America's Best Fantay, edited by the Vandermeer's.
I'm a Writer, Not a Reader.
February 1, 2010
I’m going through the stuff I’ve written over the past three two years looking for something to read at an out-of-town convention I’ll be attending in mid-February.
I swore I’d never read at this kind of event again after, in front of a room full of listeners, I missed hearing the timekeeper call time. She finally had to smack the table with her palm to get me to stop going on and on. I had become enraptured with my own goofy words. How embarrassing.
But it’s all part of toughing the author’s skin, something a writer simply will not do to be without so what the hell, right?
As I said, I’m going through my finished stories looking for something that’s no more than five minutes long when read aloud and I wonder when it was that my work started including adult content and swear words. I don’t have a problem with either; I tend to write gritty, urban situations with characters that are down-to-earth and as real as your oddball, next door neighbor. Not that I'd know anything about those kinds of people.
"The topic just doesn’t interest me in the least
and most writers and authors get it wrong anyway."
Let me clearly state here and now that I don’t write sex. The topic just doesn’t interest me in the least and most writers and authors get it wrong anyway. I’ve since learned that readers of such don’t care if it’s written wrong. These people are often closet-fans of Penthouse forum in which all men are irresistible bruisers regardless of their bad breath, bad hygiene, pencil-necks and thick glasses and all women sit home doing little more than playing with their own ta-ta’s because, you know, that's reality.
As for this convention event, over the years I’ve noticed more and more of the listening audience have brought their children into the room with them. Can’t be reading along and at a crucial, pivotal point, use the word, 'hell' or 'shit' for effect with a group of three to thirteen-year olds sitting next to mom and dad, now can I? I’d have that timekeeper slapping the table again in a heartbeat. But then again, I’d be sure not to go over my time limit either.
Decisions, decisions.
I’ve selected a portion of a piece I worked on two years ago but never finished. Not finishing work is a bad, bad thing in the writing world so let’s not dwell on that. I read this bit two years ago at a different venue and got mixed reviews on it. Since it’s not finished and in rough form meaning it'll change considerably by the time I finish it, I’ll post it here for your entertainment. Just think of someone reading it aloud or better yet, read it aloud yourself to see how long it takes you to get through it. As always, comments are appreciated.
"Dead branches swayed before an orange haze like finger bones flexing against the sun. That view alone should have triggered an internal alarm but didn’t. The birches once flush with apple-green buds and bursting with the sounds of one last spring, were scorched and bare. The opportunity to finish my study of the birds had passed and for Lily’s sake, I hoped I had enough.
With one hand, I shielded my eyes against the glare pouring through the smeared glass. The other I draped over the edge of the damp sofa where I laid and my fingers brushed against something soft. I peered over the plaid Herculon cushion and groaned in agony as idle joints and muscles ground against themselves as if made of sandpaper.
My gaze fell upon the flattened sprawl of Lily’s cat. It was hard to distinguish what was fur and what was mold. I couldn’t remember when I'd last fed the poor thing, not that that should ever have been my job. For me, the tragedy wasn’t the loss of companionship. It was the loss of meat.
I fell back and stared at the fly-speckled ceiling. Had I lain here long enough for seasons to end and a cat to starve to death? Or was this the result of a life once spent wholly within my own universe but now used up with waiting and wallowing in apathy?
A rhythmic thumping rattled a window on the second floor and my thoughts turned to the obligation marriage had dealt me. She was practicing. I’d need courage before checking on her but I’d have to find a reason to peel myself off the sweat-soaked couch first.
#
She told me to take her higher and who was I not to oblige her? No one ever had, she claimed. She’d told the story so many times I could recite it to the word.
"All my life, all I ever wanted was a leg up, help in making something of myself," she said. "To go higher than anyone else I know. Then I met my first husband, Huey, God rest his soul and his measly six-dollar bank account."
She’d go on for hours if allowed, ripping into the integrity of men she had known. After Huey came Arthur, Bill and Ray. At the sixth or seventh telling, I tuned out the sound of that Southern, high-pitched voice drawling from between puckered, fat-squeezed lips and if she’d changed the sequence of events one bit, I neither noticed nor cared. But just between us, I often dreamt of soaring in slow, lazy circles seeking updrafts whipped by earth’s fiery tornados below.
Not that I was the one who wanted to fly.
It was the birds that drove me down the same path as those who came before me, that being the path to utter bat-shit insanity. But in the end, the birds brought me hope. Lily had hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes and made from everything imaginable. Paper Mache birds hung in every room; each windowsill was adorned with a ceramic sparrow or wooden finch. Southern windows housed tissue cardinals; northern windows were black with wrought iron wrens. Glittery eyes accused my every move in every room, in front of the television, in front of the refrigerator where birds were carved from squash with curled carrot wings.
In the john, I’d discovered some were prone to float and had to be weighed down while others sank in the streaked bowl like a rock. Elsewhere, stacks were wrapped in thin, crinkly paper that had to be sent for from overseas and packed away because, frankly, enough was enough.
I hated every last one of them and if she noticed how often her birds disappeared, she never said a word, and that was fine by me.
Lily brought the notion of flight into my world. I wasn’t looking for anything of the kind. I already had a life, thank you very much, dull and bland, a grounded one I had worked long and hard at to achieve. I didn’t need anyone mucking it up. She had baggage. Show me someone who doesn’t. Back then I was more interested in creating new and improved baggage than listening to old stuff brought aboard by someone else. It was years before I ever said thank you or showed an ounce of appreciation and I was terribly proud of never having said those words every woman longs to hear: "Let me help you with that."
Even the time that horrible, pale creature crawled out from the can of beans I’d pried opened for dinner, I stood aghast and did nothing. My Lily not so much as batted an eye, threw a dishrag over the thing, and whipped it out into the garage where she ended its screeching with a heavy cement owl she may have kept handy for just such an event.
She did everything for me and not once did I notice her efforts in keeping life’s unpleasant moments from becoming bothersome. It was all about me, you know.
After that, after throwing out every can of beans in the house amid much sorrow because I love the ease of beans straight from the can, my feelings toward her shifted to something resembling, dare I say, fondness. I began to understand the depth of her devotion. I should have guessed, what with her collection and all, at how dedicated she could be. And because I’m not too big a man to own up to my faults, I cast about looking for a way to make up for all my cold fish years.
But that wasn’t what Lily wanted.
She had taken to lying down some time back. I’m not sure of the year. She said it was to ease her knees and to catch her breath. Her interest in her birds waned. About the same time, mine peaked. Who knew a Post War sketch of a preening peacock could be worth so much? It wasn’t long before I was studying, researching the value of each and in the process, I left my job and forgot about what Lily would say when she discovered her collection gone. Whereas I never wanted to become part of her sad story about men who done her wrong, when I came to my senses, after I sold the last bird, I figured not only would I be added to the list, I’d have moved far and away ahead of Arthur, Bill and Ray.
"Bring the birds," she’d wheeze from our upstairs bedroom, the one we used to share. "The birds are my children.""
Thanks for reading.
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Today's exercise: 1 mile run at 15:00 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .25 mile walked at 20 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline.
This morning's weigh-in: 158.0.
Reading: America's Best Fantay, edited by the Vandermeer's.
I'm the Minefield. He's the Eggshells.
January 29, 2010
I’ve been writing like the wind this week and then came crashing back down to earth yesterday and didn’t do much of anything worth while other than have yet another long talk with WS. Twenty years of talking with him on every subject known to man has done nothing to alleviate his angry attitude or boost his confidence or self esteem, and while I know I shouldn’t have tried to help him in the first place, I rarely run from a challenge. Didn’t twenty years ago, didn’t until a few hours ago.
Next month he looks for help elsewhere. I just hope they don’t convince him medication is the only way. But I know he’d prefer a magic bullet. He always has.
When I was a child, my report cards from grades 1 through 3 took strong note that I lacked Self Control. My parents took glee in doling out punishment for that. It took well into adulthood before I realized what I think my early teachers were talking about.
We had so many rules growing up it was hard to keep track of them all, but we must – couldn’t talk unless talked to, couldn’t go outside unless given permission, which was hard to do when we weren’t allowed to ask, couldn’t watch TV, ever (I sneaked watching a lot so I didn’t grow up completely ignorant of the world – just mostly), wasn’t allowed to read newspapers or listen to the news or the radio and especially not music. Wasn’t allowed to have hair longer than two inches (yes, even us girls) and certainly not parted in the middle. Wasn’t allowed to wear pants or shorts or sandals tennis shoes or carry a purse or own anything that resembled anything a ‘hippy’ might think of wearing. My father was angry and terrified of change, especially in the changing world of the late 1960’s.
So I guess I talked a lot early on in grade school and couldn’t pay much attention in class. Might have been all the concussions and black outs. Turned out I wasn’t punished at home because of ‘lack of self control’ but because my parents were afraid I would tell someone what they were doing to us kids at home. Didn’t matter when I did start talking about that. No one believed it.
But I did learn what I consider self control. Oh sure, I still speak my mind most of the time and I stand up to bullies even when it’s not my fight. I tend to drive a little faster than I should sometimes but I don’t shoplift or steal or take credit for stuff I didn’t do. I try very hard never to lie and succeed with that most of the time. And I don’t let stuff that happened forty years ago or forty minutes ago or any time in between eat me alive every waking moment of the day.
Yes, the stuff I went through as a child and as an adult has shaped and molded me into what you know and see here today but that stuff isn’t a constant loop that I allow to run over and over and over and over and over in my mind unchecked and without brakes until I’ve driven myself half mad and essentially ruined relationships over it. That destructive loop is just that, destructive, and is certainly not my ‘comfort zone.’ But just because it isn’t for me, doesn’t mean others can’t embrace it if they choose.
That’s not for me to straighten out. I gave it a shot, longer than most probably would have. It’s like when someone warned me over and over that his mother would never, in a million years, accept me and that I’d save myself a world of grief if I’d realize that and give up. Finally, after years of trying, I finally got the message. Same thing. I tried. I failed. It’s out of my hands.
Confession time: Plans called for this journal to come to an end at the end of March of this year. That won't happen now. The cost wasn’t the problem but it was angst-ridden for WS. Blogeois.com has and will always be an outlet for my innermost thoughts. It’s my blog, no one else’s (but you’re more than welcome to go start your own if you haven’t already!). Of his own admission, WS used this blog as a gauge, not of what’s going on here when he’s not around but how happy or unhappy I am in the life he feels he’s responsible for creating for me.
I don’t know where that came from. I didn’t think it was his job to make me happy. Hey, if it happens, great! But it’s not his job. Furthermore, I’ve insisted often that if this blog bothers him so much, we need to reevaluate the boundaries, meaning if he doesn’t want me mentioning him, I absolutely won’t. I am more than capable of censoring myself; in fact, did it for years. But he insists I don’t change a thing and asks that I speak my mind here, says he wants me to have this outlet…and so he keeps measuring himself, aiming for that pie-in-the-sky diamond he’ll never reach…because it wasn’t there to begin with.
What’s the saying? Oy vey!
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Yesterday's exercise: 1 mile run at 15:00 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .15 mile walked at 20 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline.
Yesterday morning's weigh-in: 159.8.
Reading: Nothing.
The BIG Printing Project - Part 2.
January 23, 2010
In sixteen years of online journaling, I took three breaks, each lasting about three months. The first one back in 1998, because WS was an angry, young man who wasn’t too fond of my sharing our lives with the world, in 2000 when we found out WS had MS and I was too angry to speak, not to mention type (I singlehandedly built a brick, side patio by hand instead as a vent for my rage), and two summers ago I took a break when I needed to get away from everything related to writing.
I often posted while I was working. I often posted angry. I definitely posted while dripping with snarky sarcasm. I worked from home for six years, four years under conditions now deemed illegal by Internet employer/employee business standards. Back then, there were no rules for how long an employee could be made to work in a single day, no such thing as days off or overtime or holiday pay, sick days or even vacation.
I only posted drunk once and quickly discovered that just doesn’t work for me. I keep alcohol and my keyboard very far apart. I think that’s a good rule and I think the ghost of Ernest Hemingway would agree with me.
I wrote up journal entries days, sometime weeks in advance but later only posted half of them, the other half going beyond their expiration date and seeming pointless after the fact. Some of those were written in the throes of insomnia, some during relationship difficulties, some out of blinding anger, most out of fear of life that had gone awry and drifted far from perfect.
"There’s an old adage...that says a writer
needs to have written a million words
...before they are qualified to start actually writing."
From 1994 to present, I’ve written:
1994 – 4,599 words, 1995 – 4,197 words, 1996 – 1,561 words, 1997 – 4,660 words, 1998 – 1,705 words, 1999 – 10,818 words, 2000 – 37,928 words, 2001 – 47, 399 words, 2002 – 87,960 words, 2003 – 152,376 words, 2004 – 152,435 words, 2005 – 172,686 words, 2006 – 140,798 words, 2007 – 103,642 words, 2008 – 47,012 words, 2009 – 88,695 words and 2010 – 6,454 words thus far for a grand total of 1,064,825 words.
This doesn’t include stories, novels, outlines or anything I may or may not have posted elsewhere on another blog, should one exist. It also doesn’t include day planner entries or hand written notes from conventions and café visits, volumes of which I have created.
That’s a lot of writing, and yet, it doesn’t seem like that much. There’s an old adage, a myth perhaps, in the writing community that says a writer needs to have written a million words (some say a million words of crap) before they are qualified to start actually writing. Is it a coincidence that not too long, in writer’s years, after I passed the one million mark, I sold my first short story? Perhaps but I think not. Still, it makes for a cozy fireside anecdote.
Still, while I’m patting myself on my own back here, I don’t write every day. And I should. If someone were to write one hundred words a day, every day, for 365 days; surely most bloggers journal entries are longer than one hundred words, you’d have a novel-sized amount of writing in a year. That’s impressive and yet it’s just one hundred words a day, every day. Not only is that impressive, it’s powerful.
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Yesterday's exercise: 1 mile run at 13:38 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline. .25 mile walked at 20 minute mile pace at 4.0 incline.
Yesterday morning's weigh-in: 158.6.
Reading: Talebones, Issue #39, Winter 2009, Final Edition.
The BIG Printing Project - Part 1.
January 21, 2010
Today I began a project I’ve been trying to get done since 1994, the year I began journaling online: I’m finally printing out, almost in its entirety, my journal from the saved, year-by-year Word documents I use to create each with. It’s quite the undertaking but I’ve got enough paper and hopefully, enough black ink in the printer. Using a slightly smaller font than I’d really prefer, each year contains between three and four hundred pages, printed front and back, in one of my favorite fonts, Viner Hand. I feel so accomplished for some reason, perhaps it’s for keeping this crap all this time.
Back in 1994, I was known by a different name and I was using a different forum by way of our own local BBS transferred to an Internet version. I didn’t see anything wrong with sharing the most intimate details of my life with the world. I mean, who knew me? No one and that was just fine by me.
In 1994, we had some emotional vampire neighbors who also just happened to work with WS. WS was in the midst of fully embracing the corporate world and I railed against that every bit as much as I do now. Later that same year, I had sinus surgery which amounted to my collapsed sinus cavities, brought on by two decades of severe parental abuse, rotor-rooted out and then packed full of cotton batting and nylon stays to heal for thirty days. There were some pretty gross moments. What better story to share with the world?
In 1996, I had major breast reduction surgery as recommended by my doctor. I came through it with flying colors only to experience a rather scary ‘leak’ at home. I think I was doing a play-by-play journal entry at that point, including cleanup off the bathroom drywall. Lucky for the world, I didn’t own a camera back then.
"...reading some of this stuff makes me cringe.
I don’t know how you longtime readers put up with it."
In 1999, WS decided he wanted to buy a house. It was a completely out of the blue idea, one I absolutely did not want anything to do with. Up until about 2001 and already in the place for two years, I complained about it a lot, but also had gotten myself a good job to help WS pay for it. However, most of my complaining was in never-ending rants against my then boss, MsNoManagementSkills. All those complaints continued until, well, last month, I think. But no, really, I used to complain about her every single day, multiple times a day sometimes. Jeesh, reading some of this stuff makes me cringe. I don’t know how you longtime readers put up with it.
In 2002, WS’s car was totaled by a young woman who basically ran a stop sign and for the first time ever, we ended up with two new cars out of the mess. We’d always been a one-car family up until then. Because I was able to, I actively put my car through the car show circuit and did quite well for three and a half years. Today, it sits in the garage, under a fancy car cover, waiting for 2012 and its ten year anniversary to come out and test the car show waters for perhaps another three and half years, depending on whether the economy allows that to happen. So far, that doesn’t look promising.
In 2003, MsNoManagementSkills divorced FatHead and moved right down the street from us into a rental house "in order to keep an eye on us" she told our coworkers. It was a miserable time. We didn’t go out front of our house for almost two years other than to mow the lawn and we did that in record time.
In late 2004, I had major surgery to remove two sizable ovarian tumors (21 lbs. and 5 lbs.). I named them, the tumors, Emil and Hubert, because that’s how I roll. If you hadn’t noticed over the years, I name everything.
In early 2005, WS and I were laid off when the small company we worked for was bought out by Yahoo. The stock options they had to pay us in the deal have kept me from absolutely, positively needing a job for the past five years. We put some of that money into a retirement account (that for the most part, was eaten by the recent economy), paid off our cars, finished furnishing our house, learned the art of writing and gone into debt like most everyone else; all things I posted about. Thank you for reading me during all that.
The printing job is half done and the second of two huge binders is almost full. Part 2 of this entry, including yearly word counts, coming up on Saturday.
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Yesterday's exercise: Day off to run errands.
Yesterday morning's weigh-in: 159.8.
Reading: The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
Housing Values.
January 19, 2010
Another house in our neighborhood has gone up for sale. Today we discovered the sale price. It’s low. They, a family of eight or nine, maybe its ten now, just want out. The job market here, most notably in the tech field where the head of that household works, sucks badly with promises of getting much worse before it’ll get better. WS, working in the same industry, isn’t sure of where we’ll be in a year or two. All I know is that no positive spin, no looking through rose-tinted glasses, no choosing to only look at the good news is going to make me believe that we personally aren’t going to take a major hit within three years. Major hit. We might be in the same boat someday…minus the kids, of course.
But in the meantime, we go on, we all go on because nothing gets accomplished if we just sit and cry, not to say we shouldn’t do just that if we need to, to get it out of our systems. I think that family sees the writing on the wall, and with six or seven kids already under their belts and more planned, they’re probably a good three years past when they should have sold and moved on. We’re all in that boat. Gawd knows they would have gotten a flat hundred thousand more for their place had they sold then.
Another house down the street has been up on the market since last summer. Multiple houses around them have sold and in one case, resold yet again. Obviously, those people aren’t in a rush. I hear they are renting it out to a rich relative while they pick back up their old lives in Hawaii.
"I've been in the place
Stunning would fit the description
Half a million dollars stunning? Uh, no."
Around the corner, the Italian family (not actually Italian but so much in love with Italy, they had expensive, imported Italian tile, wood, stone and wallpaper installed throughout their house) still haven’t found a buyer for their house after three years. Money talks, and even though they say they’re 'motivated to sell' in order to move closer to their church, that’s only true if someone’s willing to pay their asking price, one that’s head and shoulders over anything this neighborhood has ever been worth. I've been in the place. Stunning would fit the description. Half a million dollars stunning? Uh, no.
I’ll confess here and now that in the recent past, I visited zillow.com and looked up the current market values for homes I’ve lived in since I was a wee tot. I’m happy to report that I live in the highest market valued house of the bunch. That’s really not saying much but every little bit of self-congratulations helps today.
The home of my childhood, a 700 square foot brick shoebox built in 1959 with no insulation, air conditioning or standard code-quality electric or natural gas lines and in a cockroach-infested town has somehow been converted into a duplex with enough parking on the dead lawn for eight vehicles or three SUVs. We survivors sold it in 1987 as part of my mother’s estate for $53K. Today, almost 25 years later, zillow.com says it’s worth $72K. It really was a dump. Sounds like it still is. I almost wish I could afford to buy it outright and have it bulldozed to the ground. The earth would then be sprinkled, liberally, with salt every year for the next twenty-seven, one for each year I lived in that state (of fear).
The house I lived in during my brief first marriage is going for $75K. It really wasn’t much better, and if I could buy that old house, located on a corner lot of a sizable intersection, I’d bulldoze it and built a park on it. For the record, I never received a penny from its sale during or after the divorce. But I got my bed back after years of roughing it in a hole-y sleeping bag on an apartment floor. I guess that’s calling it even. The Ex now lives in a half million dollar home in Colorado, and also just for the record, it definitely would not have been worth it to stick with that self-centered bastard.
$84K value-wise for the house of the stalker I lived with for three years. I didn’t own any actual stake in that home but did sink a couple thousand from my inheritance in improvements and from zillow’s street view, the outside improvements are still in use. The stalker died a few years ago, vastly improving my life, and the house sold. Looks like it’s finally well-loved.
"I almost wish I could afford to buy it outright
and have it bulldozed to the ground."
The abandoned car junkyard/meth house my sister reportedly calls home in Phoenix is valued at $58K amongst a broken down neighborhood of the same. I can’t even fathom owning a house in which the current monthly payments are under three hundred dollars. I wonder if they have trouble coming up with that amount. I have no doubt my sister isn’t contributing a red cent. I’ve said for years that the entire area ought to be nuked. Nothing good has ever nor will ever come out of there.
Three of the apartment buildings I lived in before meeting WS have gone into foreclosure. Two of those had converted to condominiums beforehand. One of those has been incorporated into a grand, fake-lake area with houses I'm sure were one million and up just a year ago. Gosh, I loved that apartment.
My old roommate’s condo, a dinky property I would have helped purchase had I wanted to live a lie, is currently valued at $141K. Hard to believe considering the place is upstairs at the top of a very, very long staircase with no elevator, at 600 square feet with no designated parking spot. Oh, he’s got a garage of sorts but he uses it for…well, that’s best not mentioned. The condo’s in a good, desirable neighborhood or at least, used to be. Last month it was valued at $150K. Then again, housing prices in the desert southwest are really going through the wringer if you hadn’t heard.
I like zillow.com though I’ve read that their values are on the high side of the reality scale. No worries. We’re not selling, yet if at all if we can help it. It’s simply a nice place to visit if one is looking for cheap entertainment.
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Yesterday's exercise: .50 mile run at 13.38 mile pace, followed by .50 mile walk at 18.10 mile pace – both at level 4 incline.
Yesterday morning's weigh-in: 160.2.
Reading: The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
Writing When I Don't Wanna (with bonus example!).
January 17, 2010
So I’ve said that Tuesdays are writing days for me. Sometimes I get out of the house to write, to a café in downtown Portland to write with some writer/author friends of mine, other times I stay home and write. It all depends on whether I have transportation or not. There’s more of the not than the having the transportation to go but I’m okay with that. Going to Portland once a week just to write gets expensive very quickly.
If Tuesday’s are writing days for me, then Wednesday’s are anti-writing days. I don’t know if I’m so intensely into the whole writing experience on Tuesdays that come Wednesday, I’m so burnt out, I can barely think straight or what, but since I’ve been keeping track, officially as of December 1st, every Wednesday is just a dud day for me. I’m lucky if I can squeak out a blog entry. Usually not even that. I fall asleep if I read more than a chapter or a few pages of anything. I just don’t seem to have it in me to get anything much on paper, and by much, I’m talking two dozen words or less.
I used to really beat myself up over that. A writer writes and that’s certainly what I’d like to consider myself as primarily. So write, damn it, is how the mental conversation used to loop endlessly. Never one for a lack of words, you’d think I wouldn’t have a problem and yeah, I guess if anyone bought endless blather about nothing, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about. But until I wake up one morning transposed into the body of Stephen King or Paris Hilton (shudders, shudders), both of whom could have published their grocery lists scratched out on used toilet paper, endless blather isn’t gonna cut it for me.
"I keep in mind my mantra of writing faster than my fear,
and specifically keep out of my mind,
"This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid.""
The worst parts of these Wednesdays are the feelings of wanting to write, not to mention the need to write whether for assignment or not, and not being able to find the words to do so. I consider this true writer’s block, something I rarely suffer from, thought when I do, it’s usually around some kind of timed writing assignment which my mind automatically sees as a test and for as long as I remember, I’ve always frozen up on tests. I really need to train myself better on this, but ugh!
That’s when I have to pull out the big guns, the most rudimentary writing of all using the most basic of all English sentences. Remember, I can and will always go back and make them better later when my brain is engaged. I’m talking about 1st grade reading sentences (or is it kindergarten or before nowadays?) like "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run." Writing out a story like this gives a writer something to work with later on and is definitely better than having nothing to start with.
Using this method, let me show you how I put this to work, using a scenario like this: I may need to write a story about flying unicorns and a talking dolphin. First, I try not to laugh, shake my head or flat out refuse. Gawd, I hate stories with flying unicorns and talking dolphins. I keep in mind my mantra of writing faster than my fear, and specifically keep out of my mind, "This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid."
"There are so many places one could go with such things
...and so many reasons why not to."
I’d have no idea where to go with such subject matters and if this were a Wednesday anti-writing day, my brain couldn’t care less if the flying unicorns stabbed the talking dolphin to death who was probably blathered on too much about clichéd flying unicorns in the first place. Good for them.
I’d start with names because I’m a character-oriented writer foremost and these kinds of people seem to like names. On a normal writing day, I’d name flying unicorn number 1 Lance and flying unicorn number 2 Pierce (he’s French) and then I’d let the story run.
Bonus example below (for all of you who scrolled down to this part only):
Lance and Pierce are enjoying a perfectly wonderful golden day of flight in the warm afternoon sun (though later they’ll go back and stab the hell out of the word 'perfectly' because –ly words are bad, bad, bad in writing) when talking dolphin number 1 whose name is Bob starts complaining about the unicorn poop plopping down from the heavens (Okay, tell me you wouldn’t complain about such a thing.).
If it were a Wednesday, the day after a writer-intense Tuesday, all I would be able to muster would be something like this:
Bob won’t shut up. Lance and Pierce are tired of Bob. L & P put an end to Bob and fly off in search of rainbows. The end.
See how easy/difficult this whole writing thing can be? Later, said as though I would ever do such a thing, I'd go back and fill in the story describing the day (how warm, how wonderful, how golden?) and the unicorns (in all their unicorn-yness) and their relationship (are they friends, lovers, siblings?). I could add dialog and a bit of backstory, though not too much - best to keep it somewhat vague and stick with the action, and perhaps an ongoing feud with the dolphins. Is Bob jealous? Is he one of those 'get out of my yard' types? Is he secretly in love with Lance? Or just he just hate poop in general? There are so many places one could go with such things...and so many reasons why not to.
Certainly, I don’t do this often. But on those really off days, yep, now you know that I’m hacking out simple sentences…about anything other than flying unicorns and talking dolphins.
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Yesterday's exercise: .40 mile run at 13.38 mile pace, followed by .60 mile walk at 18.10 mile pace – both at level 4 incline.
Yesterday morning's weigh-in: 159.8.
Reading: The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
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