Year End Sale

   The rush is on to finish all the crap I started or have been working on or promised myself I would finish by the end of 2011. Well the clock waits for no man. I have some time this weekend to finish up a few things which is always my writing. I have a new manuscript to self edit before I attempt to find rejection from publishers and agents. On a positive note, I have a book contract that has been sitting on my coffee table for the last three weeks waiting to be mailed out. I just need a stamp.
   There are a lot of people out there running around trying to get their year end crap finished. Its like the ads on tv just before Christmas telling us how many days left. The reality is we have plenty of days to finish things and to give gifts. Just today I got a Christmas gift. Time is precious and we all die which adds pressure to the things we want to accomplish in our lives but the truth is we either have the time or we don't.

A day's labor

For the past sixty days or more, I have been lining up at 5:30 am to wait and see if I have a job for the day. We sign in and take a seat. The morning news is broadcast via antenna, going out every couple of minutes. Someone dips into a closet and comes out with all the fixings for bland coffee. I take seat and avoid eye contact.

I listen to the morning’s conversations. Spirits are somber at first. Later the conversations are spread between the football game last night and who is hiring for steady work. Any word of open jobs always climbs to the top of subject matter. I sit and listen, but never interested. I have had several jobs over the years and with the exception of a few days, never enjoyed any of them much.

“My cousin got hired on at DuPont.” One person says while three gather around. Questions are asked ‘how’ and ‘when’. I listen but to me it does not matter. It is not in my field.

Someone announces this is their last week at the labor center. Everyone smiles and congratulations are given. The routine work that takes them away is changing linens at a hotel. I was a bellman once and once I changed the linens. I hated it. The steady employed are happy to fold and fit sheets and I am honestly happy for them. It is just not me. I wait in line to haul construction trash.

I get my ticket. Its me and another guy named Leon, Morris, or Glenn. I give them a ride because they arrived by bus. I'm supposed to charge them four dollars but unless they offer I keep quiet. We are headed eight miles west to a mall. A new women’s retailer is remodeling.

We arrive in a cold mist. The 18 wheeler has the trailer open and pallet jack waiting. The mall does not allow construction to go on during operating hours outside the confines of the store itself. So we have to haul all pallets and cabinets before nine AM.  Once inside the store it is warm and dry. The windows are covered over and the doors locked. No one walking past will ever know anyone is inside sweating, straining backs to lift cabinets and shelves into place so when the store opens with a sale you can enter and pick out a third navy blue sweater it is at a convenient height. I haul trash out the back door, down the elevator and across a parking lot past your parked car and into a dumpster.

I have dined with celebrities and royalty. I graduated from a renowned university. Yesterday an old man while taking a complimentary soda because he had special tickets to a college basketball game name dropped. I told him I had no idea who “Frank” was. He told me it was my boss in a tone supposing I should care. In fact “Frank” was my boss for the day. Tomorrow it will be Dave or Jerry.

What entertains me the most about my day labor job is that during that basketball game I was able to walk up near court side and watch the game right along with the old guy who name dropped. While he paid for the entertainment I was being paid. To me it was the equalizer.

Happy Halloween on its way

Here we are five days into October and I’m overly excited. Halloween kicks off a series of holidays that last until February. The month ends with Syfy’s Ghost Hunters conducting a live investigation.  I haven’t missed it in three years.  This year I hope to watch it again. Some of the other cable channels like TCM and AMC kick off the month with horror movies throughout the month. My DVR is on overload. There is no other holiday, not even Christmas, which makes me feel like a kid like Halloween does.

Right now Im watching, It! Terror from beyond Space, courtesy TCM.  I can goes days watching black and white movies. Tuning into color hurts my eyes after awhile. I hope I never grow up, its too much fun otherwise.

Thanks Rod for my time in the Twilight Zone.

The TV projects only in black and white. For the day, hi def, spectra color and 1080 means nothing to me. I sit and watch the Twilight Zone marathon all day. I can’t resist. Cancel the New Years party because TwilightZone is on. People who know me know I won’t go. They are more than welcome to come over, but I’m not leaving unless your TV shows bright in late 1950’s images of another dimension.

2011 has so far produced two marathons. The Fourth of July, the most hallowed of national holidays was spent in front of a black and white television. Sure the commercials are in color, the only thing reminding me it is not 1959 and Rod Serling is not standing off to the left narrating to viewers of my impending doom. In all honesty it did happen one year. After seventeen consecutive hours of the Zone, I finally fell asleep at 2:30 am. Sometime around four I awoke to see Rod standing in my bedroom. He was holding a cigarette and talking to an audience. I sat up and said, “If you’re here, then that means I’m about to enter…” I shook my head and rolled over burying my face in the pillow. I could not finish the statement in case it was accurate. Had I unlocked the key to imagination or fallen into the space between light and shadow? I didn’t want to know.

So here I sit, fourteen hours in and I can’t stop. All the color, hi def 1080p hurts my eyes at this point. With each episode I take in the wisdom of the writer. I could rattle off my favorites like “Obsolete man” or “To Serve Man” and “I shot an Arrow” but I won’t go into why I like them. All I will say is that every year, sometimes twice a year, I get sucked in and can do nothing else but watch and listen. Many people think it is time wasted. I say if I’m not watching, that is time wasted.

Thanks Rod.

Slow acting ADD?

One year into my new job and I am comfortable. I’ve reached a level of knowledge that enables me to get through the day with few snags or challenges because I have seen it before. At eighteen months things begin to change. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the loss of a coworker. Maybe that lack of challenge is creeping in and I am bored. Maybe I have some kind of slow progressive ADD.  I like a steady pace but boredom is not what I am looking for. By two years into my job I am ready to leave. The fun is over and I want out. At this point I am so settled in it is difficult to envision me doing anything else. Six months goes by. Now at two and a half years I grow steadily angry with my condition. So I start looking for something new.

What does this say about me? Is such a thing as delayed ADD? (That’s what I call it)

I spent 7 years drifting through college, going one semester and not the next and years at part time student status. My major changed. First it was business because I wanted to open my own store but had no idea what I was going to sell. Then it was history, philosophy and finally religion, then back to history. I committed exactly two years and got the degree. Grad school hung on the horizon but I just spent two years committed to one discipline. I was thinking of religion again, but chose to write and work a job.

That job lasted four years. Two of which were exciting. The last two, though I had good times, was over all depressing. I gave up trying when the realization that it would take more effort and time then I was willing to put in. “This is not my career.” I kept telling myself. So I continued to write.

I’ve been casually writing now for some years. With multiple works published (Click here to see a few) I have achieved something. I haven’t quite categorized that success yet. I will say I have reached to two year mark in really trying to get my work out there. So now with no other job than to sit and write all those stories I struggled to get out while working a forty hour a week job and dealing with all of life’s others obstacles and I’ve barely written a thing.

I spend my time antiquing these days. Buying at auctions and trying to flip or quadruple what I buy. Studying catalogs and hitting up ebay to check going rates for 19^th century hand written receipts or old toys still in the box. I write on occasion.

Two years from now I could be back in school. I could be running a small business. I could…well it doesn’t matter because I have slow acting A D D.

Gym Class

One time in gym class, 11^th grade I think, I was singled out with another guy by the gym teacher, Ms. Palmer. We were to be the team captains and told to pick our teams for basketball. I didn’t think teachers could still do that but I went along with it.

I had first pick. I looked along the line up and selected my buddy Dave. He was a long haired stoner with little coordination but he was my friend. The other captain, a jock of sorts, immediately picked the big guy who was a lineman on our football team. I perused who was left and selected a well rounded Jewish girl. When I pointed and called her name she hesitated. “Me?” she asked with a pointed finger into her large chest. I nodded and looked over to the other captain. He let out air through his teeth like he had a valve stem in his mouth. So the baseball player was picked by the opposing team. I selected the nerd and he picked the girls basketball co-captain. I picked the “karate” expert with the home made dragon tattoo who was often seen in the corner practicing round house kicks. He got the track star on a team that went to state the year before. With each athlete selected for the opposing team the jeers and snickers grew. It went on like this until there was no one left.

The gym teacher looked the teams over and shook her head. She knew it was stacked and she knew why. My point was made.

As the two teams separated insults flew from out opponents. We were going to get clobbered they explained in their Neanderthal speech patterns. We huddled up and I made a great speech. Something about showing them who we really are and we could do this. I didn’t mean it; this was my own social experiment. Everyone stood around, none believing the dribble coming from my lips. Dave looked over at the other team formulating a real play and said, “Or we could just lose.”

Everyone’s head bobbed in agreement except white Bruce Lee who said he could take them all on, whatever that meant.

“What if we challenge them to a spelling bee?” I thought it was funny. The heavy girl, the first heavy one I picked, shook her head no.

“Half of them are in my AP English and AP calculus if you’re thinking that way.” She stated.

 I started in with winning one for the Gipper, but stopped myself. I looked them all over and said, “How much do you want to lose by?”

There were a few snickers and smiles as we turned to face certain death. The other team was already lined up on the court. They knew where to stand and what positions to play. We just kind of lined up with the karate kid in the back doing stretches and imaginary jump shots.

Ms. Palmer held the basketball in one hand and a whistle between her lips. I stood across from the other captain at center court. He crouched ready to jump. I had still had one hand in my pocket. Ms. Palmer looked each team over once more. She blew her whistle.

"Hold up a minute.” She put the basketball on the ground with one foot on top of it. “Switch it up guys.” She said pointing at a few select student athletes and those on my team. “You, you and you over there. You three over on this team.” She looked me in the eye and said “Nice try Mr. Wagner.” then the whistle blew.

I was never called to pick a team again. In fact the rest of the year Ms. Palmer selected the teams herself without team captains or student input.

Along the Way...

  Life happens along the way. When I was young I thought I could plan things and make them happen. Looking back I suppose I could have if I had just trusted and held on long enough for it to happen. But as it is life happened to me along the way. While I was out doing one thing, something else totally unexpected happened.

  This is the way life turns out. We look left then right and left again, thinking it is safe to cross. Well sometimes it just isn't safe and we need to scramble across like a live action Frogger. Problem is we all get squashed now and then.

  Along the road of life we can often find examples of life extinct.