Bliss

Five beers and an unhurried conversation with my wife - I am totally fulfilled. I am a lucky man.

I think I hear my son waking up... back to reality.

Septic Stress

We went to sleep last night listening to an odd warbling sound outside our window. It was like frogs, which are common here, but constant, a frog that never takes a breath. Not common.

With my ability to talk myself into anything, I assured myself that it was a chorus of frogs, and lulled myself to sleep. Waking to the same chirping song, I realized it was our septic alarm. Now, I'm concerned. We just had the septic guy out for a look, and it cost $125. I don't even know what to check, and you can't just let shit like this go. I don't know whom to consult. I went to check the cap on the sand filter (whose alarm was going off), and I can't even open the thing to begin to contemplate its mysteries, because some sadistic bastard has skulked away with the allen wrench set that usually sits in my toolbox.

So, you add up:

• broken technology I can't fathom
• unknown but certain costs on a budget that surpassed the red zone long ago
• lost items that shouldn't oughtta be lost

... and you have ample ingredients for a rage-tinged panic attack on Tommy's part.

Antidote? Talk about it, and quickly, before it takes root and floods the rest of the morning with unreasonable desperation and fear of the unknown. Luckily, my wife caught me kicking my way through the house, and I was able to unload on her in the space of forty seconds and two sentences all of the above concerns, and I immediately felt better.

The septic tank is still fucked to whatever degree it's fucked, but I am scheduled to spend the next 6 hours attached at the hip with my wife and daughter, and this narrowly-averted shitty mood is just what we don't need.

Get a job

I am working my way back towards gainful employment. Once a little snag with my driving privilege clears up, I'll be fully on the make for a paying gig.

Hopefully, I will be able to form a healthier relationship with my next employer than my last, but that's up to me. Last time 'round, I so closely associated the job with survival that I got to a place where every single bump in the road went straight to my central nervous system, and stress was manufactured by the metric ton. I simply could not let things go. I shudder to recall that state of being. Yeck. Having not had a regular job for what, 18 months now, I realize that there's no threat from one single job, manager or workplace worth twisting your nuts up in a bunch for. If I can practice this realization, I just might be free to enjoy myself at the next gig. And when Tommy's having fun, it's really something...

Which leads me to my next point

There's something else - since I am back to looking for a new job, I am faced with the internal conundrum of choosing jobs that look like shit, but might pay a little better, or jobs that interest me. Hell, most days I'd be happy for a shot at either one individually. It ties into self-confidence in the same way the above paragraphs tie into a sense of survival. My self-worth, for some reason, hovers just above the toilet when scanning employment ads, making any good-paying job seem beyond what I deserve. This is also not a healthy state of mind, and I need to move past it. Let's have some affirmations, shall we?

You're a good person, and you deserve good things. Great things, even. Insist upon them.
Money follows happiness - find a job you might like, and riches will follow.

Continuing education?

Just for the Hell of it, here are available online classes at San Joaquin Delta College next semester:

• ART 001B Art History: Europe from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century
• BIM 043 Records Management in Public Agencies
• BUS 008 Introduction to The American Legal System
• BUS 020 Introduction to Business
• BUS 026 Economics of Business
• BUS 037 Human Behavior in Organizations
• BUS 060 Small Business Management
• BUS 067 Introduction to Personal Finance
• BUS 094B Essential Topics for Small Business
• CSA 035 Multimedia Presentations
• ENG 044D Creative Writing: Play and Screen Writing
• ENG 044B Creative Writing: Style
• MUSIC 004 Exploring Music

I hope to choose one or two from the mix. Who knows what life will look like by mid-August?

Got my new hard drive

I got my new laptop hard drive. Now, it's just a matter of the heady task of installing the new drive, and hoping that a) all goes well, and b) it restores this old clunker to its former glory.