If you could work for anyone?

My first instinct to pick myself, immediately. Surely, it would be a total blast to run my own business--I adore coffee and can see myself making daily for a bevy of young college kids who wear very tight tshirts. Occasionally, I could cook the lattes with charming music of some garage band that didn't have enough experience to use swear words yet but knew how to use gel.

But then reality of this dream sets in. I would have to hire every person and then take up the untidy position of firing those who don't work out. I would have to handle all the advertisements, whoring myself to all the nearby college campuses. I could never really go to the beach. Sure, I could GO, but the whole time, I'd be stressing that my assistant manager remembered to tally the credit card bills and someone met the plumber coming in to fix the girls' john.

Still, ilike the idea of working for myself in the sense of writing. An author, even a magazine author has a bit of autonomy. I can make my own deadlines, play with my own creativity, and not have to worry about the employees. Occasionally, I'd have to meet with editors and agents, but overall, I would be the product, not the worker. My heart and brains would be the commodity, not my hands and voices.

That, for me, is the true working environment that I would love to be within.

That's the world of crime...

I love scary stories, always have. The fact of the matter was, my mother sensed my intelligence and risked it once by buying me my first Stephen King novel when I was in the sixth grade. She sensed my reading prowness, coupled it with juvenile purient interests and then bought the book at a garage sale.

I was hooked into the grotesque.

Kinda explains my first marriage, come to think of it.

Time passes and my tastes mature. I move up to Clive Barker and Robert McGammon. Then I see the movie "Silence of the Lambs" and have to review it for a newspaper I was working for. To make the story fuller, I went ahead and found Thomas Harris' text and expanded on the topic.

And I discovered that sometimes truth is, by far, scarier than fiction.

Also, scare-ily like my first marriage.

Today's writing topic is what famous unsolved crime would I like to know the answer of. Well, the fact is, like Sherlock Holmes, I've read as many books as I can about good old Jack the Ripper. So much so, I have even developed theories as to he might be, but have never realy followed up in the reality department.

But, just like every other serial killer prior to him, I wanted to know the ins and outs. I could never hurt a fly, yet, here was someone who could drap intestines around someone's neck. That was where the fera came from and my interests--what could make the average person follow through on such a thing and yet walk amoungst us afterwards?

I would love to know who Jack really, really is. But here's the trick, frankly. I wouldn't tell a soul. The murders are passed now, everyone would question the answer as it was anyways. But I would love to find the solution and then apply it to the facts. The why. The where. The reality.

But the mystery is part of Mr. Ripper's mystique and I can never destroy that. Sure, it might give decesdents of his history some closure.

*) As I elaborate, I would also do the same for Zodiac. His trail was so twisted, I just want to see the answer just for the closure. But would say little--but his issue was that, in my research, he is either deceased or was captured, since we've heard so little of him since the seventies.

That's my story.

If I could change one thing about myself??

Wait...one thing?

Okay, okay, okay. All of us are on a journey in our life. Here's the problem, no one actually tells us what that journey is. Are we supposed to save puppies? Are we supposed to date that one person so they become famous and use you as the source for that one performace on hatred?

No one freegin knows.

Religion gives some ideas on the path we need to take for some. I'll buy that. But ORGANIZED religion merely just asks for money and sells platitudes for the masses.

I mean, have you seen New Life Church?

So basically, the plan is up for grabs.

And frankly, with all my writing as of late working on a novel, I've discovered somethign that makes me more whole. I could literally do this for a living, believe it or not. Just sitting and writng has caused me to lose weight and reduce stress, not exactly what I would have expected. So, obviously, putting pen to paper has a purpose for my journey in some way.

But knowing that I am improved in some way through the act of writing also proves something else for me. That I am greatly flawed. That there is something that must be improved.

Now, I give you this. I learned this long ago. When I went into college, the amount of information was incredible. I was constantly in awe and overwhelmed by how much I didn't know and was there to learn. Proof that I wasn't perfect. Not in the least.

So, okay then. I know I need to be smarter. But I have that down pat. I am always reading and growing.

If you look back at the first thing I noticed that improved when I started writing a novel in the long term...it was the fact that my pants were looser, baggier and longer. I had not done more sit-ups, I had even been sitting more than ever before.

If there was something I could improve? I'd lose weight. I'd be thin and beautiful. I have a husband that loves me just the way I am...but he has the waist of a 16 year old boy. I'm fat, folks. And worse, I know it. I think about it when I'm not thinking about eating. I exercise, to be sure, but it's not working any more.

So?

Let's return to my journey. If I keep this weight, I'll still feel bad about myself when I ahve to ask about how much weight a specific ride can hold at Disneyland. When kids impresonate me by putting a pillow around their midriff.

And fat people die early. We know this.

Not big on the dying bit. Would rather finish the journey.

So, yeah, I need to change my body shape. I want to feel good about myself there. My brain is in order. My social life is actually vivrant.

Now the physical.

That's what I'd change.

Do We Make Our Own Luck?

Ijust received some terrible news. A dear friend of mine met someone, let that person housesit for them, and they robbed him blind. Took the car, took the DVD player, took money, took all the things that defined him in his environment. The guy is broken and I feel terrible about it. I wonder if I could have done or said something more to protect my colleague.

Grant you, I doubt it, but if you care about someone, you don't particular want them to suffer.

At the same time, I'm having a terrible time at my terrific job. I can narrow down my aggravations to one specific person (see Monday's input). Now this woman's involvement in my daily existence is nominal, not at all like taking my friend's life in a box and dumping on their pride. But still, it brought me to today's question...

...do we make our own luck?

In Chinese cultures, there's the I Ching. The philosophy is that your luck will influence everything around you. Literally, everything, like coins in your pocket. And if you take the time to flip those coins, you can actually get a reading on the amount of luck that is floating off your body.

Interesting thought.

But I cannot help that we do make our own luck. WHat if, and trust me, I really trust this dude and think he's awesome...but what if he some how influenced this bad luck? My older brother is a fucknut. And bad shit happens around him constantly. And he lives for it. He brings it down upon himself.

Like, for example, they outlawed pitbulls where he was living. So he went out and bought one and then had a hissy fit when the dog was taken away. He likes 'loose women' but when the call back, he gets mad and then they harrass him and show up at my mother's parties and on and on and on.

But he continues to insist that this is totally out of his control. That some how, it was the woman's fault she was so loose and then, when she wants to see him again, he cannot seem to understand that he called her.

The difference between my brother and my friend? I think my friend is cool. And my friend doesn't make fun of me constantly.

I look at myself. I almost think I'm exasperating these problems with my friend so I can be fired and then lose my job and then have to move to Florida. And my friend, I'm thinking, just thinking, since he never really had a steady partner/lover, that he looks down on himself enough to find someone that uses him. And steal everything.

Did he know this person would steal everything? No. I don't think he did. But he played up the positive to a point that even if his gut-feelings came into play, he had a difficult time to see it. We all know, you should let a stranger into your house, even if you aren't fucking them.

Now there's an axoim to this. There are big ticket items I still cannot explain. The Tsunami. Katrina. 9/11. THose victims had very little to do with that. They did not choose to be in that building at that time. They did not choose to go on that beach at that time.

But I'm starting to think, in some ways, we make more of our luck then we think. The question is...why don't we want more good luck? No, not dream of good luck. We all dream of the lottery. But really, really, create situations so that luck will come hurdling our way?

Something to ponder.

Now, to go help my friend so his luck can change. Any single people out there?

The U.S. Constitution

The Republicans and their fellow Right Wingers (I collectively all them "the Flat Earth Society) amuse me. Yeah, I know it's a matter of perspective. When they had their man in the White House, Emperor Bush, they kept their traps shut. It's almost as if they realized through 9/11, Katrina and the bank crashes that their puppet was not one of their better choices. They wouldn't even quote him. Instead, they blanketed everyone critical as unAmerican, as if free speech and free thought were not be expected.

Now we have Obama in Washington, it's amusing what they find fault with. He failed to get the Olympics to Chicago...they jumped on that. Of course, no one actually died from this failure, like invading the wrong nation for personal reasons, but they yelled. Then he follows up with getting a Nobel Peace prize. They screamed, "for what?" Since they couldn't seem to read the treaties the Swedes printed on the internet.

Obama wants to fix health care. Now he might be doing it correctly, with that I can understand. Sorta like having an F student trying fix education by punishing all the teachers who wouldn't pass him...in fact, Bush failed out of school and yet he was the one who tried to reform education, but that's not the point. Obama moves forward and the powerful insurance companies, who have had control of Washington for years via their lobbists and controlling interests in the GOP, panic. They send a wave through their followers, via the churches and internet and these tea parties show up.

Never mind that you have a choice with this new program. You don't have to be part, but if you can't help it, you'll have coverage...these people go to meetings and I just laugh, cause what do they yell?

You're taking away my constitutional rights?

Um, what? Might as well say we will have death panels as well.

Oh wait, they did say that too.

I'm still not seeing how giving you another choice is taking away your constitutional rights. I don't understand it at all.

But this is what I do understand about the Constitution. It's actually kinda new in the history of countries. That's kinda interesting. And we still need judges to interpret it, again and again. Now some countries, like South Africa, still vote on segments of it, repeatedly and then it goes before committees to make sure that it helps the greater good of the populace and no one is ever left out.

For me, this seems to be a good idea. And it works in theory. However, knowing our system and how it was bogged down by personal interests and heavy involvment of large corporations, it could very well never work out. But I wish people would sit down and say, "there is a group being marginalized, what is this so in a free nation?"

Then, the churches say, "well, their mere existence puts us at jeopardy."

The retort would be, "so would every murderer and adulterer. Who do you deal with their existence?"

The dialogue would begin.

If only, if only.

Why Bumper Stickers Don't Lie

Okay, I know I wanted to avoid this. I've doing my best to scream the praises of my current, brand-spanking new job, but there's someone I work with who is driving me nutzo. I mean, literally. Like I cannot function when they are around. And I don't mean like they are extremely hot or posed for covers of magazines or anything.

I mean, they are driving me crazy.

Now, I am aware that this is a difficult forum to air my greviences. I know future employers might stumble across this and go, "I won't hire him, he might whine about me...and he's really good about whining!"

I'm not whining about my employers. I'm taking that out of the equation right now. I truly love my new job and the people within it's confines. In honesty? My last job gets worse and worse the more I work there--because I realized I was in the dark ages and pissing in a garbage can when I was there. When I left my previous job, I figured it was burnout.

But when an old coworker's first sentence in a recent email says, "glad you left this filthy cesspool of an employer," I'm sad. I knew it was bad, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.

I'm having stress at my new job. And you know that bumper sticker: STRESS IS CAUSED WHEN THE BRAIN OVERRIDES THE BODY'S URGE TO STRANGLE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF SOMEONE WHO DESERVES IT.

Bingo.

This coworker is living in the dark ages. Now, I'm an author, through and through. I've loved the word "meddling." It's almost Dickensain.

Well, this person got this down.

They are hugely wealthy. And, now, having sent kids to Ivy League, she's returning to the work force. After 20 year absence. And she expects much to be the same as it was.

Things have changed. Like the fact that there are laws telling us how to work with each other.

And she doesn't do that. Instead, she writes my IEPs for me, and normally, I'd be fine with that...but I have to follow them! She then calls parents and tells them what a terrible job I'm doing. And then I have to meet with parents...especially parents I've been dealing with for some time and have, but now had, a decent relationship with....

I've spoken to her. The first time, I was nice. Since it happened again, i assumed the second time I would have to be more direct. Now we're onto the third time. I have to go over her head. Every time she opens her mouth, I have more work. I need to see someone above her.

And I can't drop it. I don't know why........

Commercials, or, Why I'm a Freak...

I fucking hate commercials. Now I need to point out, I'm referring to those galloping aggravations on television. I hate, hate, hate them. I am a man with usually a one track mind. It's why I'm having problems with writing my book this month. I hate having to break it up into daily, short, inputs. I want to sit down on Monday and type through until the bleeding tale is done.

Commercials turn me into a freak. Now, here's the further evidence I'm a freak.

Commercials do actually work. Even I, when entertained by a decent show or commercial, like the good ones they attached to a movie--I'm sucked right in. I cannot help thinking I'm trying to avoid them because I am such a sucker.

I keep thinking that I am not a slave to American buying machine. But look at me, I am all about commercialism. Cannot leave the house with a Mickey Mouse coporate logo. Starbuck's is fantastic. McDonald's chicken is decent!

Is there any escape?