Life and the day to day

Job interview tomorrow, so of course I can't sleep a wink.
Oddly I'm on a christmas music kick right now, not sure why I'm listening to it. Maybe it's my way of trying to make the year seem to be moving faster than it is. Who knows. Also been helping Babushka with her homework for collage. I remember why I hated school. Not that I was bad at it, I just hated it. I'm thinking of going for a late walk around. It's nice and peacful out there. I always loved the night. When no one else is around.
Never heard back from the job that I was sure was a shue in. Thats my luck. I had 2 1/2 years experiance at being an assistant manager in that kind of work, plus 6 years experiance in the mall they're in, plus 2 of my referances were people who were close to the manager. Yet I didn't get the job. Go figure.
Babushka is going to Colombia after the New year. Not sure how I feel about that. It's only 2 weeks, but I've heard some not nice stuff about the place and am not sure I'm comfortable with her being there, even if it is with a friend who lives there. Sometimes it's tuff being a paranoid person.
It's funny. Sometimes I can do such a good job of hiding the whole paranoid thing, as well as the phobia of crowds, that the people in my life don't realize how bad it gets. Same goes with the depression. After a lifetime of helping others with thier problems, I do my best not to show them mine. Even when they know I'm not doing good, when we get together I do a pretty good job of smiling and laughing that they assume I'm fine. Maybe it's my own fault.
Of course it doesn't help that half the time I make no sense to myself. Like, I don't want kids. At all. Yet I love spending time with my nephews and nices and I love seeing my friends who have children. In fact half the time when I see them I spend almost more time with the kids than I do with the adults. Go figure.
I think I'm going to grow the beard back. I had cut it down to a goat tee while in Canada, and was keeping it that way, but I hate showing off my etra chins so I think it's time to go back to the bushiness. Anyways, I ahte shaving and to keep up the Tee I have to shave about every other day. I swear if I didn't have to work I'd have the full beard and long hair back, not necessarily because I'd want it but just because I'm lazy when it comes to shaving and haircuts.
Also, the kids have a hard time because they're used to me looking like a wookie, so the beard is being brought back.
Anyways, Hope everyone's doing good. Peace.

Sometimes...

Sometimes it gets very hard to keep the smile on. To pretend that everythings ok and it'll all turn out for the best. To try and cheer everyone else up when all I want to do is give up myself. To be there for everyone except myself.
No call back on the job. Having to borrow money off of Babushka just so I have gas. Not sleeping right anymore, not that I ever really did. Feeling like I'm getting to the point where I don't have the energy to bother anymore. Feeling fat and old and stupid and useless and worthless.
This year needs to end.
And that right soon.

Fairs, Drinks, and the victory of Spam

Went to the Durham Fair this morning with Babushka and BM and his family. Had a blast, there's just something about the food you find at a fair that can't be beat. Also, it's fun going with someone who has kids since the little ones just give such a fresh perspective on the stuff. After about 5 1/2 hours though my back was jelly and we had to leave. Now I have to wait till next year for some of that food. Sigh.
I'm playing designated driver tomorrow night. I have to pick my Lil Sis and her hubby up at 2am from a concert. Should be interesting, it's been a long time since I last saw her drunk. Of course I'll be bringing my camera. Heh.
So after all this time of fighting it I finally had to turn on word verification for my comment section here on blog. I came home today and found 17 spam messeges had been left on my blog. The evil is that they leave them on old posts where your not likely to see them, but I have my comment set up to go straight to my AOL e-mail so I can just click on the link and delete them when they show up. But 17? C'mon thats getting rediculous! So While I do hate the word Verifictaion (Half the time on my slow old comp the letters don't show up at first and I have to hit the post button before they show) I just feel like I've run out of options. I won't make this a blogger only place, so instead I guess my readers will have to put up with verification. Sorry.

These Are The People In My Neighborhood: My Lil Sis

We met in collage back in 1992. She was dating the man who would become her hubby at the time. The problem was we became such good friends and spent so much time together that everyone thought we were more than just friends. Which we were, just not in the way folks thought. Even her man thought something was going on, till he got to know me better. So in order to stop having to tell people over and over that we were just friends we started to call each other family. She became my self-adopted Lil Sis and I her other Big Brother (she already has one Bro.). Time and again over the years whenever she had problems I came running. We spent hours on the phone and just as much time visiting and hanging out. No matter what was going on I was always there for her. What came as a shock to me was that whenever I had problems she would come running to my side too. I wasn't used to that. Not back then.

It's been a bumpy ride the last 14 years. Both of us have been through so much. She has had some really bad times. Another case of good people getting the shaft. I have helped her move more times than either of us can count. I was her hubbies best man at thier wedding. Wether it has been a ride, money, or just someone to hug, I have always done my best to help keep that smile on her face. Just as she has moved heaven and earth to help keep one on mine. Through relationship problems, through money problems, through family problems, through deaths and losses, we have stood next to each other. Despite several 'almost' moves out of state, she's still here.

We had both had a history of losing the people we cared about. But between us we've changed that. Now we both live knowing that no matter what happens, no matter how bad things may get, there is always someone in the world who will never let us be alone.

She is truly one of my Angels. And she will always be my Lil Sis.

A quick Political dip

Most of my regular readers know that I'm not big on politics. I've always used the quote that in this country we've come up with the perfect name for them: Poli (the latin word for Many) + Tics (an blood sucking disease carrying parasite). But I recently got sent this in an e-mail (thanks Midget) and in many ways I agree with it so I'm posting it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tonight, broadcasting live from above a desolate and still demolished Ground Zero, Keith Olbermann (reporter from MSNBC's Countdown) delivered a stirring eight minute commentary indicting the Bush Administration's shameful and tragic response to 9/11. The entire speech is worth watching and reading, so I'm posting the full text below.


Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.
Five years later this space is still empty.
Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country's wound is still open.
Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

Cottage critters and personal update

Here's some of the little guys I get to see/feed up in Canada.
Sorry I haven't been on much, the job search has kicked into high gear and is taking up most of my time. I'll try to stop by blogs later this week. Hope everyones doing good. Peace.

My Bro

So I was up till 3am last night with my Bro. He's come home due to his Dad not doing very good. While I hope Big B gets better, despite what the doctors are saying, it's still great to see Bro after all this time. He figures he's going to stay for about a month, which mean this'll be the most I've seen him since he left for bOregon 10 years ago. He says he's gotten sick of bOregon, so now I have a month to try and get him to move back east. I'm not necessarily saying back to old CT, but at least somewhere within driving distance ya know. Somewhere other than on the other side of the freaking continent. So keep your fingers crossed and lets see how good I am at convincing him.

A Look Back At Midget's Wedding

Midget and Amazonia
(Awwwwwwwwwwww)













Bald God and I
(No Midget, you can't tell him I put this up, I don't need him mad at me for nicknaming him Bald God)




Babushka and myself (Isn't she adorable?)



















Well, here's some pictures from Midget and Amazonia's wedding, which I was supposed to put up before I went on vacation. Sorry. It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad thier married (Lord knows the already acted like they were anyways). And yes, the preacher did pull out a step ladder for Midget to step on when he went to kiss the bride. (Love ya Midget!).