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Maybe I'll Be Fast As You
Jul. 29th, 2004 10:51 pm
Don (my boss) played Dwight Yoakam's This Time at work this afternoon because he is patently awesome.
Work was work was work; there's still a lot that's a mess, but I started culling old cookbooks from the Cooking section and managed to do a pretty decent job of it. Two bags from three shelves is quite a lot of old stuff about Jello molds that people aren't buying. Still, the Photography section continues to be in a shambles, despite improvements here and there, and I'm beginning to think it's my equivalent of a daughter who cares so little about fashion she goes out of her way to look (and smell) like an urchin. I wish I could somehow teach my offspring about the value of cleanliness withuot being a slave to mindless trends, but what's a mother (bookmonkey) to do?
Speaking of mothers, I talked to mine last night; every time I speak with her it's all that I can do not to sell off my stuff and move there *immediately*. I really think she's mellowed out enough where my deviant alternative lifestyle could be abided, and she really needs someone to get her out of the mess she's in...and maybe some companionship too. My sister is no help in either department, and she's intimated to me that I'm the only person who's lifted a finger to help her out of all the relatives she's called. She's behind on rent now (which has *somehow* ballooned to over $700), can't pay her cell phone bill, has trouble with gas and electric and just about every other bill she has. The city is still lagging behind on declaring her husband deceased so she can get his benefits (he's been missing for 10 years), her car is about to die, her yard is a mess, and she has chronic bronchitis that grew out of a punctured lung she suffered in a fall 18 months ago. How she's still *going* after all this time is beyond me. She's in a world of shit right now and there's very little I can do about it right now. Every time I think about it I want to panic and cry and hop on the next bus to Baltimore and get her out of this, but...I know that if I did that I wouldn't be able to go to Australia, or travel anywhere, or go to a monastery. There's this huge battle between being there for someone I love, devoting myself to her, and...living my life and helping as much as possible while doing so. I send her a good chunk of the extra money I have, and I call often, but...how much *good* is that doing?
I need to look at my options. I'm tempted to really push for her to move here; rent would be much, much lower, she'd be near me and living here is really easy. I think she'd really like being in Arkansas. But that would make leaving Fayetteville impossible for the next few years, even if I did travel for several months around the US and Australia. Besides, Baltimore is all she knows, and I'm not really sure she'd be ready to leave. She'd *need* me if she moved, absolutely without a doubt. I'm cool with that part, but my living space is about to be really up in the air next year, so...eh.
I love her. I just don't know what to do.
But, to change gears, the essay on the Fayetteville smoking ban is going all right. It's not good, by any stretch, but I'm going to finish it for posting here, and hopefully people can help me figure out how to make it better. One of the things I really want to do is get a bigger sense of humor about my writing. I know it's in me to let it go and not take things quite so seriously, but while I'm finding my own personal vein I come off as one of those really lame-ass third-rate country comedians; Bubba the Love Sponge or Roy D. Mercer. It's awful.
Work was work was work; there's still a lot that's a mess, but I started culling old cookbooks from the Cooking section and managed to do a pretty decent job of it. Two bags from three shelves is quite a lot of old stuff about Jello molds that people aren't buying. Still, the Photography section continues to be in a shambles, despite improvements here and there, and I'm beginning to think it's my equivalent of a daughter who cares so little about fashion she goes out of her way to look (and smell) like an urchin. I wish I could somehow teach my offspring about the value of cleanliness withuot being a slave to mindless trends, but what's a mother (bookmonkey) to do?
Speaking of mothers, I talked to mine last night; every time I speak with her it's all that I can do not to sell off my stuff and move there *immediately*. I really think she's mellowed out enough where my deviant alternative lifestyle could be abided, and she really needs someone to get her out of the mess she's in...and maybe some companionship too. My sister is no help in either department, and she's intimated to me that I'm the only person who's lifted a finger to help her out of all the relatives she's called. She's behind on rent now (which has *somehow* ballooned to over $700), can't pay her cell phone bill, has trouble with gas and electric and just about every other bill she has. The city is still lagging behind on declaring her husband deceased so she can get his benefits (he's been missing for 10 years), her car is about to die, her yard is a mess, and she has chronic bronchitis that grew out of a punctured lung she suffered in a fall 18 months ago. How she's still *going* after all this time is beyond me. She's in a world of shit right now and there's very little I can do about it right now. Every time I think about it I want to panic and cry and hop on the next bus to Baltimore and get her out of this, but...I know that if I did that I wouldn't be able to go to Australia, or travel anywhere, or go to a monastery. There's this huge battle between being there for someone I love, devoting myself to her, and...living my life and helping as much as possible while doing so. I send her a good chunk of the extra money I have, and I call often, but...how much *good* is that doing?
I need to look at my options. I'm tempted to really push for her to move here; rent would be much, much lower, she'd be near me and living here is really easy. I think she'd really like being in Arkansas. But that would make leaving Fayetteville impossible for the next few years, even if I did travel for several months around the US and Australia. Besides, Baltimore is all she knows, and I'm not really sure she'd be ready to leave. She'd *need* me if she moved, absolutely without a doubt. I'm cool with that part, but my living space is about to be really up in the air next year, so...eh.
I love her. I just don't know what to do.
But, to change gears, the essay on the Fayetteville smoking ban is going all right. It's not good, by any stretch, but I'm going to finish it for posting here, and hopefully people can help me figure out how to make it better. One of the things I really want to do is get a bigger sense of humor about my writing. I know it's in me to let it go and not take things quite so seriously, but while I'm finding my own personal vein I come off as one of those really lame-ass third-rate country comedians; Bubba the Love Sponge or Roy D. Mercer. It's awful.
