02.29.00 - an extra day in february. may it bring us good will. why are bills not postponed by one day as a result? i'm actually doing fine. i met all of my financial goals from my aggressive college years. i was living free then, so my goals were more than modest. small dreams do satisfy. for the most part. regardless, it is payday.

02.28.00 - the family computer is working. mom sent me a note about going to Kaufman and having lunch with grandma at the feed store. the feed store is an ok for a town of 5 thousand burger and fries joint. grandma said that she likes her own cooking better. i do agree with that sentiment.
   we had the drizzling dysentery rain all weekend long. it finally let up today, though it looks like snow. it would be snow if this place were the midwest. i live on the north shore of the long island sound. actually, i live five miles north from the north shore of the long island sound. i wouldn't live on the coast, if i could for free. i'm land-locked mentally.

02.27.00 - it finally rained in Texas on Friday. my mother called me to let me know that the computer is 'busted' and that is why i have not been receiving any emails from the family. i wan't worried. i'm usually sent a good christian joke or an article that she read about how evil mccain is and how good bush is or how to prepare for the end of the world. life isn't that bad.
   when i was growing up, i feared one thing besides the lava pit that oozed under my bed: the all-powerful hedge of thorns. if you were to read the book of Hosea, you would find a reference to Hosea praying a hedge of thorns around his wayward wife, Gomer. The hedge of thorns gets you by preventing anything good from coming your way. only bad things would happen to you until you returned to godly ways or whatever demand the praying person cast your way. my mother wielded this spell against her children on a regular basis. i've come to realize, of course, that i do live a good and fulfilling life without christian fundamentalism. what a relief.
   my friend, kullervo, returned from Italy today. his trip was fantastic. he told me that italy would suit him fine. his suit is in the UK still. at least for another few days.

02.25.2000 - no convictions again. may god send his grace to comfort the grieving family.
    i spent the evening sitting for a friend's little angel while my friend and his wife headed out for a night on the town. it's very good to be reminded of life and innocence, to be reminded that there are things we must defend and protect, to discover that there exist principles by which we do live, to believe that there is hope.

02.22-25.2000 - i'm in a class this week to learn Visual Basic. Mr. Gates is staring at me. literally. he's up on the wall in the classroom...just where george w (the original) used to be hanging in elementary school classroom... and i'm trying to stare back, but it's so difficult to concentrate. the instructor would defend every bug ever discovered in any MS product. reminder that the blindly faithful are the brown men with the big bucks stuffed down the seat of their pants. kiss kiss kick ...but i should give the guy a break? perhaps. he has 8 kids and he's only 35. i grew up with the holy family dreams, but that's another story.

02.17.00 - work this week has been a little more than goal-oriented. we are preparing ourselves for the big picture which includes a major database conversion. my pressures are minimal and i do like it that way. typically, though, i do long for a challenge of a different sort. it is then that i plan my vacations. i'm not as freaking sore as i was yesterday, so i'm planning a hiking trip to northern new england. probably new hampshire. fewer mad-dashing skiiers than vermont.

02.16.2000 - i am so freaking sore that it's embarrassing. i can't believe how out of shape i've become in my almost 30s. shame on me. one! two! ugh, three! and walk to work from now on. it's only three miles...

02.14.2000 - ok. valentines day on my own. again. big whoop. i actually wasn't alone at all, but on a lovely MD80 flying four hours (five 'cause you have to count the hour waiting for that missing 'part') east, sitting next to a shifty 30ish young man who could not keep himself from blurting out the sacred words under his breath every 3-5 minutes. his breath was rather minty, so i tolerated that. but i didn't tolerate his hogging the seat separating arm rest and poking his elbow in my ribs every time he adjusted himself. he also had pokey knees that found themselves weirdly attracted to mine. so I asked him if he needed ointment for something and if so, then i'd ask someone for a squeeze so that he could be comfortable. then we took off. i'll remember his stare forever.
   i give myself an excuse for this behavior: i'm 5'10". he was more or less 5'7". shorter people (than me) with small shoulder width do not get to poke people in the ribs incessantly. i wouldn't let the little frenchman do it either (he had a HUGE briefcase that he needed a paper or two out of every half hour coming back from Paris).

02.12.2000 - because my uncle passed away i went to Texas and visited with family and friends and hauled feed and hay to our drought-stricken friends in the fields. i spent all day saturday driving a wonderful work truck -the kind that smells like shat and is covered in dust with ripped upholstery and windows that don't exactly work as they should. in the bed is what we call our spike, a poker actually with three prongs used to stab into a round bale of hay. the spike we own has a leaky hydrolic arm that you constantly have to raise up again so that you don't cause the drivers behind you to swerve in terror. at least when we're driving it on the highway no one feels the need to tailgate.

02.11.2000 - left work early to drive north past Hartford to take a flight home to Dallas. It is ok weather now, but we had a doozy earlier that won't be melting for quite a while. the airport had been closed earlier due to threats and they overbooked, though that wasn't a surprise. they were giving away vouchers, but this time it wasn't appropriate. i got on a completely packed flight and sat next to a young navy recruit. he'd just endured 6 weeks of basic training and was on his way to Ft. Worth to visit his family and friends, retrieve his truck and drive east two days to George for 'his long term challenge'. he had a smile and was hopeful. i complimented him on his efforts to find a way to support his son and girlfriend and wished him all the luck in the world. i do appreciate those who volunteer. sometimes i think that we should all serve. perhaps if we put in our two years of forced labor before we start acting spoiled and hateful towards those who end up where we should have been, we'd understand why Herman walks tall in his dress blue uniform.
   my dossier for my promotion packet for where i work was due today. i was able to get all of it done and turned in to the right people with two hours left before i had to leave for the airport. sweet relief, of course. the whole process wasn't anything but a reminder that we work hard and maybe every 3-4 years get the opportunity to prove that we work our asses off to a group of people who have the power to fire or rehire us based on how we look on paper. wish me luck.

02.10.2000 i stopped keeping up with my daily routine not related to work way back in April of 1999. i have a paper diary that became a comfort to me when my eyes were red and weary from staring at a computer both day and night. i got in different habits. but this online stuff provides a different perspective. i'm ready to return again to online words.

backbackbackback

dailies@leftonline.org


stop and return it

< reading 1998>

< working 1998-99>