Employment

Having a job and an income is a very good thing. While money isn't everything, it makes shopping easier. Without a job and without a stream of income, we have been extremely careful with expenditures. No going out to eat. No new clothing. No extras. Careful, careful, careful.

The job offer came through and the paper work arrived, was signed and faxed back to the sender. The job starts April 1, no joke. First he goes to Cleveland and then comes home to get his laundry done and then goes to Dallas.

There are places he will be visiting that I would find fun to visit as well. Instead, I have a dog. It would be more fun for him to have company on his travels and fun for me to see some new places. Instead, I will be tending to a moping dog.

When the kids were little and each trip was a major undertaking, like preparing for the storming of the beaches at Normandy, we had no pets. Then, when I was free, I got this stupid dog. Now I have the dog and would like to be able to pick up and go but can't because I would need advance planning. You know, like when they stormed the beaches at Normandy.

I don't really understand my motivation to get this dog. But I did. She was supposed to be a lap dog, but since she weighs more than fifty pounds, she is a little too much for my lap. She was a horrible puppy and destroyed two sofas, one loveseat, one dining room table, two dining room chairs, a deacon's bench, two rocking chairs, and ate the carpet. I don't know why she didn't end up dead with all that.

When she was a puppy, she was horribly ill and it cost a lot of money that we could have spent replacing furniture to cure her. And we did. She was one ice cube away from being even more expensive and admitted to doggie hospital. She recovered.

Then there are the myriad ear infections, another in progress right now. And allergies to grass, and surgery on her ear, and the cost of continual treats. I have saved all her vet papers and could add up the cost incurred, but that would just make me cry.

I am not sure why I still have a dog. She doesn't even come running to the door when I come home. She does that when anyone else comes to the house, but me … that's just too much trouble. She won't go outside unless I get my fat ass up out of the chair and walk to the back door so that someone else can open it up. But she won't just go out for someone else. Just me. Then, I'm special. Coming in the door? Not so much.

So, I have a dog that is neurotic, deathly afraid of wind and rain, lightening and thunder, and raised voices. I have a dog that ignores me unless it is meal time or she think she might get a treat from the top of the fridge. And because of this ideal pet, I can't travel the way I would like.

I'm not quite sure that this is a good trade off. I've heard that dogs, special among pets, are unconditional lovers. They adore their owners. They live for their owners. They worship at the altar of Owner. Not my dog. I wonder if she is doing something wrong, or if I am.

Fiction, Inc.

I'm most comfortable writing non-fiction. I'm not sure if it is because I don’t have to fabricate a story so much as put the relevant facts into some sort of tale. Or if it's because it is easier to report a story rather than create one.

At any rate, I've been writing for years. I wrote "news" items for a monthly magazine called Landen Living as the reporter from Montgomery Hills. There was little news to relate, but I managed to fill my allotted space with birthday and anniversary wishes and sporting events and milestones from the constituency.

Then I wrote up business proposals and even a book on how to run a system that my partner and I created in college. Again, dry factual stuff. I warned my classmates that programs needed to have an operator's manual, but they neglected to create one. The nearly 50 page booklet explained each and every step of the program we were giving a Luddite on campus.

For over two years now, I've been writing history essays for Really Good Quotes. I find events for each date of the year and tell the story about the events I choose. I then find a few quotes to highlight the essay. All neat and tidy. Just the facts, ma'am, just the fact. I feel like Joe Friday would like my stuff.

Then I started writing this fiction nonsense. I have Cassie and a host of characters moving about an unformed landscape. Amazing. I have created my characters and given them space to move in. But that isn't the most astounding part.

You see, I'm lazy. I know I'm lazy. I'm perfectly content with being lazy. It is easier to name my file first and then write the story because of my file structure on my computer. Since my stories are related, I reread what I wrote the previous day before taking up the tale again today.

If I name the file immediately, I have less clicking to do. It saves steps. At least it is supposed to save steps. It would definitely save steps if I only named them with the date. But instead, I have both date and title of the day's story as my title for the file.

And there is the problem. I read yesterday's story and think that I know where the story is going today. So I name the story and save the file. Then I write the story. You might think, that as the author, I have total control over what is going to happen. I thought it worked that way. It does not work that way. At least, not for me.

I begin typing and all of a sudden I find that things are not going the way I had anticipated. Instead of this happening, that happens. I thought that my plan would evolve into this set of events and all of a sudden I find that the story has veered down a fork in the road and isn't leading in the direction I had assumed it would go.

Then, because I was saving time and energy, I find myself with a story title that has absolutely nothing to do with the story I've just written. Things didn't go in the direction I had assumed they would go. The story took on a life of its own and moved down a path I didn't even know existed. And now, I have to do a lot more clicking to get rid of the old no longer useful title and re-title the tale with something that has some minor relevance to whatever I've just written.

I don't know where these ideas come from. Perhaps I just don't have the right idea about what I'm writing. I don't have any long range plans. I had a plan long ago, but I've given up on that. I can't even plan what I'm typing in a page and a half let alone what I will be typing for the next several weeks or even a few days.

I've heard that you should have an outline when you write fiction. I don't know if that would work for me in any way because I really have no idea where this story is taking me. Cassie apparently has her own ideas. So do George, Ooljie, Kisho, Hiro, Doston, Zastrill, Sten, Frau, and even High Lord Thorton. Ralph had ideas, and I had plans for Ralph. Too bad now, buster. All bets are off.

My new plan is going to be to write the dang story first and then name it. I may have a few more clicks, but it will save me time and energy in the long run. I sure wish I knew what was going to happen to Cassie. I find that I like her a little more each day and I hope that things work out for her.

What Is the Difference?

What makes a request from one person truly sound like a request, while the same request from someone else sounds like a demeaning order?

I have tried to figure that out for the last few weeks. It isn't the tone of voice, at least I don't think so. It's not saying "please" while making the request or a "thank you" after having fulfilled the request.

It seems to me to be an overall attitude. I believe that some people can make a request, forgetting the niceties of please and thank you and yet have it still come across as a request. There is a feeling or sense of gratitude even when it is unspoken.

Perhaps the difference lies in what is done in between the myriad requests. I believe it is in the attitude of the person making the request.

I was a nurse for over 20 years. I am now a volunteer in a hospital one day a week. Everyone I volunteer with knows that I used to be a nurse, but no longer practice. Nursing, like being Catholic, is something you don't just get over. You may no longer practice, but all the rules and regulations, all the information, are still floating around inside. You can't get past it.

I spent 12 years trying to anticipate the needs of those around me. It is what made me a really good OR nurse. I knew that Dr. A always looked at the x-ray reports as soon as the portable in-room x-ray marked a spot. And so, unlike my peers, I had the chart open for him to read the x-ray. It always made him smile. It made me smile, too. I was doing my job, and doing it well. It really is the little things that make the difference in job performance.

And so with volunteering, I try to anticipate the needs of the nurses. The longer I've been in one place, the easier it is to learn the routine and flow and be able to plan accordingly. It is simply what I do. Nurse A likes a copy of this while Nurse B doesn't. Therefore, I make a copy for Nurse A and don't for Nurse B. How easy is that?

Some days are more hectic than others. It's been that way since the dawn of time and is no different whether I'm a licensed nurse myself or the volunteer helping the other licensed nurses. There is a feeling of togetherness or divisiveness that permeates a room. The togetherness feeling fosters a sense of gratitude whether the magic words are spoken or not.

Perhaps it is an overall attitude. Complaining people, crabby people, whining people, tend to bring the mood of a room down. Even when they say please or thank you, it is with a sense of necessity and has nothing to do with the sincere appreciation of the endeavors of others to help make the day go more smoothly. And that, I believe, is the crux of the problem.

Some people are naturally willing to accept and give help and they tend to offer sincere hints at gratitude for help given in return. Crabby or complaining people tend to look for what went wrong, what is going wrong, or what will go wrong in the near or far future. To them, life is just one damn thing after the other and there is little appreciation or even notice of all the good that is going on around them.

And so, there are times when I feel like I have truly helped people who are involved in a demanding and stressful job. And then there are times when I feel like a subservient idiot who should be thankful that the world has allowed me to keep breathing. Amazingly enough, I do more, go more out of my way, and find more enjoyment in helping the former and spend less time in actually helping the latter. Making, I suppose, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the whiner.

Thank you for reading this.

Blog Entry

The blackness is closing in again. The edges have been dark for about a week or two now, but the edges are getting closer and closer together. I hate this black place; I know it is of my own making.

I don't know what made the dark come this time. I could probably think up lots of reasons. None of them would be true. The darkness comes from inside and works out, not the other way around. The reasons I could possibly list are all external and so of no consequence.

Today is another beautiful sunny day. The sky is clear blue – cerulean. I like that word. It's not like there is no liking or no pleasure, it is just that everything is shrouded in black. It's beautiful, but it doesn't matter.

When I get into this place, I wish everything would just stop. If I were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness right now, I would spurn all treatment. If I thought I was having a heart attack while sitting in my chair, I would continue to sit – and wait.

What keeps me from meeting total oblivion is that I'm ashamed what my funeral would be like. There were times past when a funeral would have been attending not only by the obligatory family, but by friends and co-workers.

And that is the crux of my problem. The reason for the bleak black hole of my current despair. I have no friends. A funeral would be attended by a handful of family and maybe some of Dick's golfing buddies, there to support him. Maybe.

I am so isolated. I am so lonely. I'm told that my family loves me, but I feel so unlovable that I find it ludicrous. My place seems to be filled by a hollow, shallow, old creature who is bitter and distant. I can play the part of wife, mother, grandmother, sister – but it feels empty. I do what I am supposed to do. I am fearful to ask for anything because I don't know how severely or casually (and I'm not sure which is worse) the request will be denied.

I have what most people would enjoy. Why can't I enjoy it? Perhaps because joy increases when shared and I don't have any way to share, probably it is because I don't have the joy to start with.

I've been in this place before. But I'm staying here more and more. I miss, desperately miss, everyone on the deck drinking coffee, eating Chex Mix, and watching the kids play. I hate sitting in my house day after day, alone and lonely. I wait for the email bell to ring, pretending that it means that someone cares, when it is usually one of the myriad mailings I sign up for and has nothing of any personal contact whatsoever.

I've joined some groups and see people in the group and then come back home to my isolation. I've been in solitary confinement now for four years and I'm still unsure of my crime.

The prison walls were built by me. I wish I could find the key to open the door. I simply hate my life and don't have enough imagination, strength, or will to change it.