The Late Call

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Job Quest, Sad Mac, Happy Jake, and Booze

Before I get on with my ramblings I want to thank everyone for their words of support and encouragement yesterday. The interview went very well. The head of the department invited me to apply for the position. Which means, I'm in. Very strange if I may say so. It is the first time I have interviewed for a position that I hadn't applied for first. Applications in this department are only accepted by invitation. The application is essentially a pre-employment packet to confirm my education, experience, and lack of criminal record. This will most likely take four or so weeks to complete, and then I'm in. In the mean time the department head asked me to take two classes in order to fulfill what he believes would be the minimum standards to teach. Shouldn't be a problem.

Last year my iBook took a crap on me. Having neither the extra time or money to deal with it, I put it in the office closet for a later time. So, Monday I went to the Apple Store and was told that the minimum cost to repair it would be about $350. Yikes!!! Not wanting to commit to that kind of expense just yet, I returned home with the broken iBook in hand. Hours spent on the mac user bulletin boards and I discovered http://coreyarnold.org/ibook/.

With the help of this website, $7 worth of tools from Harbor Freight, and this two cent self adhesive piece of rubber my trusty iBook has found new life.

Thank you Cory you are a saviour.

After looking at my blog this week I decided to make a bit of a change. I realized that none of you probably care what the hell I read. To be honest, time has been in such short supply that I have not been reading nearly as much as I normally do. So fuck it! I scratched the book side bars and replaced it with something dear to my heart. Booze!!!

Now to set the record straight I really love wine. If I were to review wine I would most likely come off as quite pretentious. I love wine, I drink wine, I can usually tell a good wine from a bad wine. The fact is, I really don't know jack shit about the stuff. Maybe in the future I will give a wine review a shot. I'll call it the "Not so weekly Blood of Jesus".

Instead I decided review what I consider to be the

"Food of the Gods."

That's right. . .Beer! Love it and can't fathom living without it. I promise not be long winded. My reviews will be brief and to the point. So I offer to you,

"The Not So Weekly 6-Pack. A Liquid Gold Review."

A new look at an old problem.

Over the past year or so, I have had an issue with "friendship." I have found myself having to redefine what I believe friendship to be, convincing myself that my new concepts are valid, and put those ideas into action. The ideas of friendship that I believed in as a younger man, no longer seem to be valid as applied to my life and ideals today. Looking back, my relationships have been grossly imbalanced. People that I have consider friends have continually let me down. I discovered recently that I was committed to people / friends that weren't committing the same in return. So I had to ask myself if these people were really friends to begin with.

Let me begin by explaining to all of you that I have many acquaintances but very few close friends. I still tend to be more comfortable in small groups than I do in crowds. I tend to follow / join conversations rather than initiate them. It is comfortable for me, and I am happy that way.

As the years have gone by, I have lost touch with almost all of the people I new as a child and young man. To be honest, it was not due to my lack of trying. Every year or so I would call the few close friends from my past to catch up. The conversations were pleasant. We would say things like "we need to stay in touch" and "let’s get together soon." I knew all along that this was not going to happen. Year after year, I would initiate the calls and get none in return. I really was pathetic. I have been trying to hold onto bits of my past while life has been passing me by.

Several events have changed my thoughts and outlooks on friendships. The first major one has been the distance I have placed between my family and me. As a victim of abuse, this separation has given me a kind of new found strength. Secondly, by placing myself into comfortable situations, I have discovered people putting themselves out there and showing interest in me as a person. To be honest, this is scary. Establishing trust and learning about new people in intriguing and exciting. It is also daunting and intimidating. The third event came unexpectedly, just after New Years. A friend from high school called me on the phone. We had been playing phone tag for several weeks when he finally reached me on my cell phone. We talked for about twenty minutes. It was one of the most genuine talks I had had in a very long time. Life has really beaten him down, and it sounds like he in a very bad place in his life. He told me he is floundering and just can't seem to find a new direction. We discussed growing up in "Fuckerville". I sincerely thanked him for his friendship when we were young. He was really the only person that talked me up when the rest of the world was taking turns kicking me in the balls and beating me down. That’s what I told him, almost verbatim. He thanked me in return and said “That means a lot to hear, I wish I hadn't lost touch with you." Unlike past phony plastic phone calls, it felt genuine to hear "let’s get together." I discovered that he has a blog. I read it regularly. His blog was one of the inspirations to begin mine. Someday I will share this with him.

Jake

Misc. . . Thanks

Some time ago I listen to an interview of a musician. I don’t recall who it was, but I do remember one particular question. The interviewer asked the artist about the meaning of a particular song. The song writer would not answer the question as the interviewer had hoped, but rather gave the following explanation.

“It is not up to me to determine what this song is about or what it means. That is really up to the person that is listening to my music. I would be doing a greater disservice to my fans if I told them what this music should mean to them. It is their music, not mine; I mean really. If you want to know what was going on in my life when I wrote this, well that’s a different question all together.”

I have grown to appreciate this. Through out my life, music has been very important to me. Being an introvert as a child, music became an escape from a lot of the bad things going on around me. Music has meant different things to me at different stages in my life. Tonight I was on the treadmill in the gym and I had my ipod on. Now I have heard the song Gimme Shelter by the Stones hundreds and hundreds of times. Tonight though, a particular line struck a chord with me unlike any other time in the past.

“Oh, a storm is threat'ning

My very life today

If I don't get some shelter

Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away”

In the past I always thought of this song as some impassioned anti-war song. But tonight, these four lines took on a whole new meaning. I found myself relating the lyrics to how I feel in my life today. Emotionally, right now, there is a storm raging above me that seems to have no end. Shelter, closure, healing. . . I need something to make this hole in the middle of “me” disappear. For the future “me” to be the best I can, I need this. So Mick thanks for the song.

Music hasn’t been my only escape in life. Books, stories, movies, all are great means of escape. A couple chapters a night or a 100 minute flick have become great therapy. On a side note, lately I enjoy hearing great stories of other people parents/childhood. I guess my demented mind enjoys living vicariously through others. Shit, I should really see a therapist. Thanks for everything Mom. Was it worth it?

Several months ago I was in the grocery store. For reasons I still don’t understand, I struck up a conversation with this silver haired old woman. Her name is Bonnie. She has to be one of the nicest people that I have met recently. We really didn’t talk about much of anything important. It was just small talk bullshit kind of stuff. I was just impressed on how she carried herself and how genuinely kind and happy she was. Fast forward to yesterday. I’m in the grocery store, and who should I see? There was Bonnie. She smile at me said “hello Jake”, and gave me a hug. Christ, she remembered my name! It made me smile. Thank you Bonnie I really needed that.

Jake