It's kinda weird. I started this diary by figuring out the title, knowing the situation that my family is in and the fact that we don't know where we're going on April 25th when we're supposed to be out of our duplex.
That was a couple of weeks ago but in the last few days I've come to realize that maybe all of this is too much for me. Maybe having no internet hook-up and living in a motel, or worse a shelter is the best thing that could happen to my sanity, to our sanity.
I'm confused right now. I am deeply depressed. I have a deep sense of despair, not just because of my particular situation but because of everything that is going on right now that tells me that we may truly be in some sort of end times...and I'm not a religious person, although I was raised that way. It really is all just too much and I invite you below the fold for my brief rant/story, if you have a few minutes.
So...long story short. Well...short compared to Moby Dick. Quick sentences(fuck grammatically correct), stream of consciousness. Here goes.
I am 42. I'll be 43 in July. Raised a white christian in a white middle-to-upper-middle-class suburb in the foothills north of Los Angeles, CA. Dad was and is a high school teacher. Used to teach electronics/TV repair shop classes...those are gone now and he teaches remedial math and basic computer stuff. He is an exceptional teacher with a stellar reputation and it is from him that I received a strong work ethic and a sense of what is right and wrong. Mom was a nurse, now a christian marriage and family counselor. Had to quit nursing around '77 due to heart problems, went to seminary to get her degree in psychology. I still remember helping her spell stuff while typing out school papers on her typewriter in the living room while giving her back rubs for her sore back and neck. Yeah, I was a young teenager helping my 40-something mom spell. Nothing wrong with that but therein lies the irony. The expression "Religion is the opiate of the masses" comes to mind right about now.
You see, it was around this time that my mother decided that since the God of her choosing told her to "lift up her hands" in worship services and to "speak in tongues" to show that she was filled with the "Holy Spirit" that it behooved the rest of her family to feel the same way, especially when it came to her children. After all, she could control them, or at least to the best of her ability. That attempt at control started in the form of declaring all things "of the world" as "satanic" and in my particular case that included everything that I was passionate about. Fantasy/horror novels by Stephen King and books such as "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey were "of the world" and "tools of the devil" that would not be tolerated. My hobby and natural inclination for magic tricks, especially card sleight-of-hand, was discouraged and ultimately dumped into the same pile of ripped-up garbage that was at one point deposited in the church dumpster as some sort of holy sacrifice to make sure they were disposed of properly. I still remember sitting on the living room floor as we "prayed together" while breaking cassette tapes and cutting up "evil" album covers. I'll never forget cutting around the witch on the cover of Black Sabbath's first album on purpose which, of course sent my mom into a rage. (Could one consider this a traumatic experience? The fact that I still remember so many details makes me wonder...but I digress.)
At age 14 I realized that I had a natural affinity for and love of music and that I was born to be a drummer. Admittedly my parents allowed this and my dad even took me to get my first used set (A Slingerland with a Ludwig/Leedy brass snare drum all for $200...man, what I wouldn't give to still have that.) However, any attempt to actually enter the world of music was continually downplayed and/or discouraged to concentrate on a "real" career, culminating in being grounded from my first real gig with my first real group at a local, highly advertised party that resulted in the whole band having to cancel and our inevitable prompt parting of ways. "Sorry dude, we can't have a drummer who has to keep listening to what 'church-lady' has to say about it."
Graduated high school in 1984, of course. I'm smart, no-brainer. Busted for cocaine in '86, got in the Navy in '87 on a drug waiver. Out in '89 after I decided it wasn't for me. I am definitely not an authoritarian personality-type. (Bless and keep safe our troops...I've just always marched to the beat of a different drummer) Spent 4 years back in my hometown couch-surfing and working as a gas station opening manager and bowling alley maintenance/janitorial graveyard warrior. Ended up in Santa Barbara after being convinced I needed some rehab. Too much whiskey and speed, not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately that was at a place run by another "Speaker of tongues" who believed that faith in god alone could cure teh dopers as well as it could cure teh gay and teh libruls and anything else that didn't subscribe to his narrow-minded, oppressive, authoritarian outlook. It was one of a few places on a short list that my mother came up with...go figure. (The man actually said to us at one point: "If God had wanted us to have oral sex he would have put our sex organs on our face." I kid you not.)
Met a girl there in May of 1994, hitched up for five years of roller-coaster rides the likes of which Six Flags could never come up with. Lots of watching her smoke an 1/8th of dirtweed just to get out of bed...not much else except some good experience in the fast-food industry that I can always fall back on and some seriously scary lessons in what Not to do when living with a manic-depressive with rapidly cycling bi-polar episodes. (I will never forget hiding all of the knives in the apartment under my mattress in the last month before finally getting the fuck away from her for good.)
Oh yeah...I forgot to mention, I am adopted. Yep, the person who is one of the objects of this bitter rant is not even my biological mother. That person located me sometime around 1999 and I actually went to Washington St. to live with her and my stepfather for a year...ya know, to get "re-acquainted". Of course I got a job and moved into an apartment...that's what I do. In fact, I excelled as a loading dock/order-pulling supervisor and was told by the son of the owner that I had a promising future with them. So what did this still-hoping-things-could-work-with-my-ex-like-an-idiot decide to do? Move back to the area I presently live in to "give it one last try". Man, was that fucking dumb, or what?
Turns out it wasn't so dumb because after trying in vain to pull my ex out of her rapid descent into insanity(the last time I saw her she was shooting heroin and weighted 90 lbs. soaking wet)I hid the knives, planned my escape, lived in a mission for a month and got a room in a boarding house. During this time I became a relay operator for the deaf community, a job I held for two years. The awesome part of this experience is that I met the present love-of-my-life(we met right around 9/11) and have subsequently brought into this world the most beautiful little girl a daddy could hope for...Starla Eve(like "Starry Eve), who will be five in July.
November, 2002...we both left that job for greener, less stressful pastures. She worked in a doctor's answering service, I did some landscaping. July, 2003...I started a job as a facility manager at a cultured marble factory manufacturing counter-tops for tract home developments. Starla born in July, 2004. May, 2006...job at cultured marble factory went away when the company pulled back to it's main facility 2 hours away. Thanks a lot bursting housing bubble. Spent a year unemployed/on & then off of unemployment compensation looking for new job after promised position at local co. got "un-promised". Finally landed a decent job as a product auditor in the Quality Dept. of a local box factory.
So, if you're still with me...here we are in the here and now. You see, I enjoyed being an auditor. It had structure but allowed enough independent judgment to satisfy my curiosity and keep me grounded in a team environment. I excelled...hell, I kicked ass. Of the nine auditors on all three shifts I was the only one who was always caught up on all of my daily spreadsheet reports, my procedural audits and got along with everyone in the manufacturing sector, the people who are supposed to hate the "Quality Geeks" who keep "telling them how to do their job". The best part was that I was starting to break through and get people to realize that it wasn't us vs. them but us with them and that you can't inspect for quality...you have to manufacture for it. A new Quality Dept. team leader was introduced to the mix...he fit right in. At least ten years my junior I actually looked forward to what he could teach me instead of resenting the fact that my boss was younger than me.
This is where the bitter rage starts to come out. Bear with me...I'm almost done.
After almost 16 months with this company I called in for the fourth time and was promptly terminated due to their attendance policy. Yep...that simple, that direct and that fucked-up. When I applied for unemployment I was denied, I appealed and was denied due to what they termed misconduct. Apparently calling in as instructed on a voice-mail line the first three times but deciding to directly contact my new supervisor twice on the night in question in order to hopefully be allowed to use a vacation day instead of a sick day was enough misconduct to put me and my family in the position we are in now.
That position is this: Bent over a barrel without any vaseline and definitely no dinner or wine beforehand. The attendance policy implemented by this company is so strict that one could be there 2 1/2 years and, as long as there is one day less than six months between each call-in, five can get you fired. The owner also said...I heard it with my own two lying ears...that if anyone attempts to start a union he will simply shut the doors. Isn't he sweet? Go figure...a unionized workplace would never have let them get away with this obvious travesty.
So here I am writing this, six months and five days since being told by a "small-business" that they will do whatever it takes to preserve their precious bottom line and the owner's "philanthropic concerns". (The plaques on the walls from local businesses would make a good progressive puke) No matter that another family is now a half of a step away from homelessness. The $689 a month in cash aid and $420 in footstamps we have received the last six months while I have looked for work constantly are obviously not nearly enough and now our landlords patience has run out, our car got repossessed last month and this week we are going to a local run-down motel to beg for a room in exchange for me doing whatever around the place...from running their little liquor/grocery store up front to checking in "guests"(Translation: transient speed-freaks) to folding laundry and cleaning rooms.
What's cool is that I am prepared. I have been through worse, I have seen worse and I have done worse. My wife and daughter, on the other hand have not. But my wife has been surprisingly open-minded and we are already discussing our preparations for life one step from the gutter.
(This is also getting sent to my brother-in-law and father who have decided not to help in any way even though they are capable of doing so. They prefer to call it "tough love"...known to reasonable progressives as tough shit. Of course, they are republicans and quite conservative in way too many ways...go figure. This might be the last communique they ever get from me but, that's the way the ball bounces. Hi Mikey...hi dad. Sorry I've alway been such a black-sheep. I guess it was my destiny.)
I guess that's the end of this rant/story. This is my GBCW (Goodbye Cruel World) diary for now because I really don't know where I'm going from here but I do know that I have to put my nose to the grindstone, get us back on our feet and make sure we are never put in this place again, Universe Willing.
I'm sure I'll be back by the time the primary wars are in full swing...definitely in time for the 2010 elections. This place has been a gawd-send to me. When I came to this site 2 1/2 years ago I was just starting to realize what I view as one of my purposes in this life...to help the little guy (and gal) wherever and whenever possible, however I have to. In fact, I would love to pursue a career in public service, union organizing...anything not motivated by profit but by a burning desire I have to help others, which in turn will help me infinitely. I owe no small measure of that to DailyKos, some cool links, some really cool people and a whole lot of hippie love.
In conclusion, keep the faith. Don't let the wingnutty bastards get you down. Don't ever stop fighting for justice and for the causes that will help the human race progress forward towards that time that we can only imagine right now...all the people, living life in peace. You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope one day you will join us, and the world will live as one. (Thank you John Lennon)...and thank you fellow Kossacks.
Ironically, I'd like to leave you with this from the bible: Matthew 5, verses 3-9...part of what is known as the Beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Take care and, as always...Peace ;-)>
Update 4:20 PTD...Wow! The rec list. And notice the time. Hmmmm. You guys and gals are simply awesome! The mojo, love and community spirit that is flowing over me right now is amazing. I will never leave this place. In about 30 minutes I'm gonna take a pause for the cause and watch Keith. I'll be back throughout the night to reply and talk as much as possible.
DailyKos Rocks!!! Democrats Rule and Obama is too cool. Thank you everyone. I love you.
Peace ;-)>