I’m in a pretty black mood right now, for no one good reason, just lots of little ones.
First off, my biggest customer is telling me he can’t commit to anything past the first quarter. Because, of course, no sane bidness man can predict what the Lightworker and his Chicago Machine cronies are going to do with & to the American economy. One possible bright spot, though — if the Obammy 2009 version of We Piddle Around happens, they’ll be in the catbird seat, and I might get to come along for a little bit of the ride. So, therefore, I’ve got to work on expanding the Tiny Bidness, and that means taking small projects that don’t pay much, with margins cut to the bone. Fun City, kids.
Second off, my daughter and her family are going through some hard times. The story is thus: my first ex-wife left her rummy husband in Iowa & moved back to Texas in September and landed in my kid’s household (she’s her mother, so it seemed the right thing to do, even though there are vastly more appropriate places to stay with the rest of her family, but as per usual, no offers were forthcoming.) Mini-Me (my daughter) went to the wall for her mom, cleared out a private space for her, fed her, found her a job, straightened out a few problems for her. It was a big upheaval for Mini-Me, but she ended up genuinely happy that her mother was back close to the kids, and was able to give her a hand occasionally. Well, my ex invited her alkie stiff Iowa husband down for the holidays, and like day follows night, she’s moving back to him and Iowa. Might already be gone. This has had a negative effect on my daughter, feeling like she’s been rejected. She’s almost certainly taking it too personally. But arrangements had made and mountains moved to make it all work, and now it’s been wiped out. She’s pretty blue about the whole mess. It doesn’t help that I’m stuck in San Antonio, clinging to a shaky economy and trying to get my loose shit together.
Third off, my mother is kinda panicky about the economy and her retirement fund. It’s taken a pretty bad hit, as has everyone’s, but it wasn’t enormous to begin with. Once again, it’s impossible to know which way to jump with Changie McHopeypants & gummint agencies about to start taxing cow farts. I have absolutely no advice for her, same as I have absolutely no advice for myself.
Last off, my love-life is pretty much non-existent. Too much time has to be spent on bidness matters that don’t pay anybody anything, but are long-term-ish and simply have to be done. Planning, planning, planning, thinking, thinking, thinking, researching, researching, researching. And after 12 hours of that every stinking day, I feel a right need to de-compress with a few beers at the Bitter Old Man Bar. Which means pretty much no time for chasing skirts, or attending to them in the way they want and deserve, should I defy the odds and catch one. OK, it’s extremely bad form to whine about your love life on the internets, and I probably should delete this whole paragraph, but probably won’t.
So, that’s the shitty part. I’m an optimist, though, and there are some seriously good things happening to me, and I’ll do everything I can to maximize that. I know how to do it, or I think I do, anyway — it’s really just genning up the energy to do it. I’ve got some great opportunity with the product bidness that if I can eke out a few more nickels to fund it, I strongly believe it’ll be off to the races. I’ve picked up some great networks and contacts over the last year that I can leverage for the integration business. That two weeks of training this month effed up my holiday schedule, but it should, at a minimum, put me in a position that I can exploit, for a little while, anyway. I’m also thinking of ways I can get out of the city again and into some farm living — nothing too far from the airports, but away from the traffic, police, retards, mutants and zombies that make up life in the city AND with some space to shoot my guns, work on my trucks, see the stars, and take a piss off the back porch. Lord only knows where that will take me, but all of Texas is open to me, I reckon - maybe even part of Louisiana, as I hear the food is good over there. As long as there’s an airport close to hand. I’m also going to make the time to find a church home, a failing of mine for way too long. I don’t need a lot of the frippery of most organized religions, but I do need to feel more close to God, and that starts at a church. I really just want to find one that’s not a rock concert on Sunday morning, but I think the organ-choir-pews I grew up with is no more. It’s funny — the solemnity I scoffed at 30 years ago is precisely what I seek now — I understand the joy of that now. Late life lesson, I guess.
As far as tonight goes, I’ll probably have a few pops down the road, skedaddle round about 7 or 8, and get tucked into the LaZBoy with a book and a bottle of Bulleit’s, hopefully sawing logs when we tick over. If you’re headed out tonight, watch out for the police…the drunks are less of a danger to you than the coppers, in my humble opinion. There are plenty who dispute that, of course, and I ain’t gonna argue it — there’s a large truth spoken when we professional drinkers call this Amateur Night.
And that’s kind of that, kiddo — the State of The Fat Guy at the close of aught-eight. May you fill your nut flush on the turn, may you finally net that elusive eight-pound bass, may you always ride fast and shoot straight, and most of all, may the Lord bless and keep you and yours.
Ach — so much navel-gazing — my apologies — might start drinking now.
