Dwelling in the past

Hey, another entry!

So, I’m going thru a lot of papers and shit. I have about 8 boxes of paper shit to go thru, more accurately to pare down. I have to shred all kinds of old bank account shit, old job shit, etc. But some of it I want to save. There are receipts to some incredible or fun times. I’ll be throwing away shit work memos and keep notes from the people I enjoyed working with.

Just in time for Christmas, I came across a folder that has a some cards I got from that old quaint postal service. They’re mostly from relatives. But the other ones from friends are strange and random. This was all before myspace and Facebook, but I was getting online. A couple were from people I wrote online. A few were from people I worked with. I had some crushes on girls across the country, from chat or some posting board that I never met. The city of Neon was probably the biggest chance I had to meet these web pals, because everyone wants to go there, far more than where I live now. And now I want to find out where all my other cards are. They’re in a folder or box or something.

People want to go to Fisherman’s wharf, or Winchester Mystery House, maybe. Do people even want to go to Santa Cruz beach and boardwalk? It’s something I would recommend that hasn’t completely sold out, changed ownerships to a corporation. There’s still a small, local feel there, their gradual changes from roadside attraction kitch are slower than most of the attractions in the bay area.

I keep thinking about what I was in the past, supposedly when I was happier. And when I think about past jobs I had, I inevitably think of being on the edge of panic. That the real me would be ratted out. That on occasion it did. Every job or every class or group of people I had to exist with for a period of time involves people I got close to and then had a falling out with. And of course now I have time to wonder how much of an asshole I am. And that’s the thing, when everything is going great, you’re a rock star and the world is to be trashed like a hotel room in England in the 70’s. But when it all comes crashing down, you have minute by minute, day by day to over think why things went wrong. And things went wrong in more detail. It’s why I at least try to find the good things that happened going thru boxes of my stuff.

The sad truth when I look back on my life is perception. When I’m “on,” people come out and friends or acquaintances are plentiful and I feel like a shallow party character. And then I have to listen to some asshole that tells me to be myself and that fucks everything up. I start asking people about their bullshit. I become a referee ro a Sheriff that has to correct people. With every job, I put up with so much shit with the understanding that when I need a certain day off or have one request that it gets done. And of course it doesn’t and I debate and throw down the “no more favors” gauntlet.

I see all kinds of shit on the news about theft and criminals. One of the biggest bitches in life is when a criminal basically gets away with something. They’re already gone. So the authorities or the victim now has to spend a lot of time looking for this asshole and treating 99% of everyone as suspect. And then the victim has to go thru a process of proving the criminal is at fault, most likely when they were off stealing other shit for months. And the authorities say there’s nothing we can do, or they basically say, “yeah we know, but you can’t prove that,” or some other bullshit like “well they have been known to steal and we’re working on it.” This is exactly how every job I have ever had has played out. And this is what makes me hate any job I’ve ever had when I’ve been there for a couple of years, magically almost to the date. I get burnout right around that time and a mantra locks into my head “it’s always going to be like this?” “There’s NOTHNG I can do to get one thing that I want?” And I get resentful and I’m stupid enough to believe at that point that the job owes me something. These are the thoughts that have been going thru my head thru the second half of this year when I sit in that lobby, waiting to speak to a figurehead of a Manager.

And I go over weather or not I’m getting stuck in the past now. Basically, I can’t get much done without a job or money, so this IS the time I have to assess this stuff. Old people do this in retirement, but I have a slight advantage of having fuller capacity of my body and memory. So this is something of a halftime of my life where I can make plans for once I get back into the work force and Party Guy takes over with another social period.

Because I’m going to, having been feeling like I’m in a “useless funk” for over 5 months.