Entries

Pretend it didn’t happen.

Submitted entry: I want my son to grow up feeling comfortable outside the corporate consumerist culture. All I need to find is a nice little New England village to raise him in and a good business to support us while we do it. That’s an example of what Kitey and her friends call Ccosmics (sic). I had to stop and ask Sage for a good definition: Okay - “a Ccosmic is a fortune cookie, a social commentary, an inside joke, an outside joke, and something indefinable” says Sage. Most of them are a sentence or two, often incisive, insightful, incendiary, inflammatory, interesting and indescribable. But they’re a wonderful mode to write in when you’re trying to put your finger on something and are in the right mood. Sort of a Zen version of freewriting. I came up with that one towards the end of the funk I was in a few weeks ago when I realized that I am here because I know I’m uncomfortable outside the corporate environment and I’m uncomfortable outside the corporate (and school) environment because that’s not how I grew up. And so I’m here to make it more likely that Paul will be able to be comfortable in many situations. That he won’t require the social rewards of praise from bosses and teachers, raises, attaboys and other assorted insincere (or even sincere) dreck that I have been craving since I left the working world. And it starts as soon as one gets to school. Look at your 2nd grade daughter’s spelling tests. Find one that she got a C- on and find another that’s an A. What’s the difference? The A paper gets a sticker, gold star or a simple “Great Job!” on it while the C- paper doesn’t have anything but the grade (and perhaps, as my teachers often were wont to do, a “poor” or a frowny face). This constant good boy/bad boy results in my case in someone who feels disappointed that there’s no gold star for getting a box of wood, no quarterly bonus for sweeping the floor and no dinner out with the boss for hauling water. In that sense I feel quite unprepared for the real world of taking care of ones’ self. That’s not to say that I don’t think praise is a good thing or rewards for that matter - simply that indiscriminate and often insincere use of them has made me jaded. I even notice that attitude pervading how I feel about the site when I’m not mindful of it. I often feel disappointed when I don’t get email after putting up a journal entry or new section or the like. And why should that be? I truly did not start this journal as a forum for people to see what a great job I’m doing and for them to tell me all about it. However, it is changing. For example, these days I’m working on installing Linux on the laptop and making quite a lot of headway. And I have no reason why I’m doing it except that I want to do it and it sounds like fun. And it’s moving along quite nicely and I’m having lots of fun going from short term goal (rebuild the kernel, get the mouse to work, make the sound happen, make the network card work (still working on that one) but having no long term goal or reason for doing it. And frankly it’s been one of the most fun things I’ve done in years.

I think much of that feeling also comes from not having a particularly close or supportive family. as well. This realization came to me a few nights ago in a dream I found interesting. I was at the Dogstarr Cafe - a coffeehouse/restaurant next door to The Morning Call the newspaper I worked for before moving here. I was in line to order something and ran into my old boss. I asked him if he had anything for me to do there (I think I was going back to work there) and he said “Of course, I try to always keep a place open for you.” Then he disappeared and I realized that I was not really ready for it. I have grown a sort of bushy beard, my hair, formerly cut short (with the clippers even on the sides) is now down between my shoulder blades, and I no longer own any suits (the three I owned for that job I used first as packing material to get our stuff here and then donated them to charity.). So I walked down the hall to ask one of Sage’s relatives if I could borrow a dress shirt of his.

It became clear to me as I thought about this dream the next day that in many ways I (and I bet lots of others) saw my company as a sort of surrogate extended family. In my case I believe that there wasn’t much difference in the way my family operated than a company. There was little physical affection, no discussion of difficult issues (unless they impacted budget or long term family (corporate) goals). Interpersonal issues were equally taboo at home as at work. The only difference was that work was more predictable. I always knew, for instance that my boss was sober (though other people I might not always be sure of).

So that gave me some insight as to possibly part of why I felt like going back to work after the Florida trip (for a family reunion and visit to a friend). I missed my “family”. Pretty funny, huh?

Had an interesting experience a couple of days ago. We all went to Springfield to the library and at the end, while Sage checked out books, I took Paul to the restroom to pee. As we walked in there was a person in the first stall, the second stall was left open (taken by a man in a suit soon to be mentioned) and we took the end stall. Just as we finished we heard a scream from the first stall while the person in it banged angrily on the wall. Paul got a bit nervous and asked “That person doing, Daddy?” - I said I wasn’t sure and started to go just as the man in the suit got out of his stall. Then as we were leaving the person in the first stall said “help” in a slightly calmer voice. When the three of us, Paul, me and suit got outside suit turned to me with a scared expression his face asking “What was that all about?” So Paul and I left to find Sage. As we told Sage the story it occurred to me that were it not for hearing the person talk after Suit came out it could have easily been Suit and wouldn’t that have been interesting? Then another interesting thing happened. I remembered that the person in the first stall had brown shoes on and I started looking at the men with brown shoes looking for the person from the bathroom. I realized that I was looking at some people with brown shoes and thinking “Not him, too clean cut” or the like until I caught myself. Very interesting, I thought, I had an image of how the person looked based on how he dressed, looked and even walked that had nothing to do with reality. Trippy, huh? Incidentally, it wasn’t until later that it occurred to me that I didn’t have to actually be the person to go back in there to offer help (frankly I was scared - especially when Paul and I were both there) - we could have asked someone else - a library worker, for example and I regret not having done that. Another conditioning - if something happens outside the realm of the usual, pretend it didn’t happen.

I did something a few days ago that I haven’t done in literally years. I reviewed and cleaned up my resume to submit to an employer. Don’t worry, though. It isn’t what you think. It’s for the writing job that’s coming up. I have no plans to actually go anywhere. Well, at least not for business. We’re hoping that this next job will fund another road trip north for the winter (who else would go north for the winter but us?) and also another trip to Florida in the spring.

In other news, the wood stove is installed, and as you’d expect, it’s now about 80 degrees outside. But regardless it’s all done. I do want to beef up the gasketing on the door so that it seals better (and will thereby run longer at night) but that’s coming later.

So that’s the long and short of it all. I’m going to end it here for now and get a bit of writing done on the travel article before the paying work takes up too much of my free time.

Saying Yes and No

We all had a hand in it…