perhaps plateauing

even after all this time (referring to the time passed since the last entry here, not to suggest nothing worth recording happened, but just not recording the life in this fashion or blog), much is the same even as much changes... work continues to inspired smiles, some days more smiles, not a day of pure frustration yet (which is amazing if you knew how frustrating the previous job i had was)... wonderful people, imperfect but mostly trying... just sensing some avoidance from a couple or few who may know no other way, but hopefully they will learn to trust and be the family they all say they want to be... each day more progress, more rewards, more to learn and more connections and more respect... relatively complete autonomy, though some processes are happening without me because i don't know the process (because my boss has not had time to walk me through it) and my managers have been doing it without an administrator for a while and not knowing the process i am not able to effectively provide the leadership and structure and communications they all say they want, but they are being patient and so am i... so i am settling in and feel good about how i am being accepted and trusted...

meanwhile, changes in the rest of life... friends are in need and i am giving them my softball sundays for a few months... as if the universe knew i was giving up sunday afternoon softball and sunday morning softball is on hiatus and jackson and i were gonna enjoy football season for the first time without softball in six or seven years and the universe said no, you'd rather help friends in need...

and then there's the car... the same day the friends in need started being my sunday, the car reached a point where i rented a car (to help my friends) and since then, i've been renting a car every week... five weeks now... foolish expenditure that could have been a chunk of down payment on a car and time passes because i am working so many hours and have not had time to car shop offline except saturday and i have not wanted to do it on saturdays... the car i probably want is a few hour drive and jackson has been too busy too drive me there on saturdays anyway... i haven't wanted to ask anyone else to give me a day and drive a few hours and wait for me to car shop...

yeah, i procrastinate from time to time and it costs me money... hopefully by the next time i record life here in this blog i will not be paying a weekly rental and have a new car... if the apartment doesn't cost too much... yes, there is an apartment snafu... the current place wants a $150 increase when the lease is up in at the end of january... no way is this place worth that... so now we need to search for other places when i don't have much time to search for a car, so i did some online research and found a much better place for the same price they are asking... the cost of moving and deposite and pet fees are another six car payments, or more (close to $2000), but hey, it's a better place... so jackson wants to meet with the manager here to see if they will negotiate and we will do that one morning this week...

just like a soap opera, huh?...

wonder what will happen between now and the next record of a life...

wonder when that will be...

wonder why i am wondering... must be fatigue... or something i ate... good night world (moon too)...

another step forward

every day can be and lately, every day is another step forward... especially at work... and the best thing about it is the work does not feel like work because i love what i do even more than i loved what i used to do... and if you do what you love, it never feels like work... so i am putting in more hours each day and taking on more responsibility each day and taking care of more people each day and seeing more smiles and using my skills more each day and doing what i love to do more each day and even getting thank yous each day and it feels better than anything has for a long long time...

and i hope i am not premature in celebrating my good fortune because i'd like to be celebrating similar good fortune twenty years from now in good health doing what i love... heck, i hope to feel secure in the continued relationship with this organization next year and for the years to come... but it is, after all, today that matters most and today was a wonderful sense of moving forward and success...

this week i am focusing on buildings systems of communication and improving safety and security in the place... and i am working on building confidence in my directors and stability in my team... i am identifying bridges that need to be built between key directors and managers and identifying personality conflicts that need to be addressed... and the strongest and weakest links in the chain of leadership and communication that holds the organization together (the weakest links being the biggest risks) and keeps it moving forward improving care and services (the weakest links being obstacles to safe and positive improvements)...

it is wonderful to feel comfortable as an administrator... even as it absorbs most of my time and energy... hopefully i will continue to feel comfortable and productive and successful tomorrow :)

taking a brief breath

let the brain and body fall asleep early last night, the sun was still up at the time, and woke naturally a couple of hours ago... moved clothes from the washer to the dryer... then sat here and explored a bit... most of this month i have been away from the internet, the blogging, the facebook, the twitter (i did not realize that i ignored twitter since july... and nobody missed me, go figure... my online presence is so deeply incognito, so unintrusive, so invisible most of the time... occasionally on facebook i engage in conversations, but i do not keep in touch with anyone on any sort of frequent basis online anymore on any sites in any way... i miss those i used to call friends online... and in a strangely warm and genuinely meaningful way, treasure the few who occasionally reconnect with a few words for brief moments... even those i never actually met offline... life is like that, i suppose, we make of it what we want it to be and choose what matters to us in our minds)...

the new work life does not allow much free time for pondering anything these days as i am expanding my work connections, building working relationships and learning more systems each day... this week i started modifying some and creating new systems to provide needed structure for the management team, holding our first management meeting on monday to lay out the first steps for reorganization for them and yesterday i visited sister facilities in tampa, connecting with a senior DON (director of Nursing) there to enlist her help as a consultant for my DON who is very new to administrative nursing and needs to build her confidence, assertiveness, supervisory, and medical decision-making skills... nurses typically rely on doctors for most medical decisions, but a DON in an ICF must make many more decisions, including medical decision, than the average nurse... it's a learning curve that can take time, but it starts with active support and i helped set that up for her yesterday... then i had lunch and met with my counterpart at the tampa ICF... some questions answers, some war stories shared, and another bridge built...

so this morning i took a few hours to enjoy my time, the mostly silent stillness of night... it is a cool night, no air conditioner needed, patio door and windows open, lots of green life breathing fresh air into my lungs, and a quiet darkness under a twinkling sky...

into the office

first day free of the orientation tether, so now begins the on-the-job training which i sense will be as much up to me as anyone else as my supervisor does not have much time (who has time, anyway?)... explore, research, be responsible and all that cuz that is what good bosses are supposed to do... chill a little, don't be too excited, relax and be cool and confident and enjoy the experience... listen to people, respect everyone, choose each action carefully, take each step deliberately, though tread lightly and carefully and remember to smile...

make it a wonderful new day :)

a new life crawls into view

starting a two week orientation to be followed by a week or few of transfer-of-powers does not provide a clear demarcation of changing a life or lifestyle, though waking before the sunrise and putting on office clothes and driving in rush hour traffic to sit in a room and listen to others for nine hours yesterday for the first time in more than a year does make for a reasonable crossover from the life of leisurely semi-retirement to the rat race of the working life, so the new job starts here... cue the waterboys... or queue...



if you find a link to the song i referenced, let me know and it shall appear here
until then, we rely on three of the most important things in life
imagination, memory, and trust

job news

yes, it appear i will be working again in a few weeks... more to follow

i lied, sort of, but if you did not come back here for a few weeks, you wouldn't have noticed that nothing came until a few weeks after this entry and that is primarily because i am babbling elsewhere so here is some and here is more and if you click and read, you have the job news you were not waiting for (unless you did come back here to find out what more was to follow in which case, ooops, apologies, and thanks for your interest and patience)...

i shall update more often, especially if i know you are checking in on this record of a life... but even if noone is, it is meant to be a record of a life for me and anyone who might card anytime now or whenever so i ought to and hope to return more regularly without the distracting babble amd asides and such as this might be and simple put the daily events and thoughts and feeling about the experiences that can be recorded here to be the record of a life...

or something like that :)

hope it's not a broken record

this record of a life, that is... maybe that's why i am not actually jumping in a writing in this blog on a daily basis and staying over in the already flooded (and therein pretty well formed) (e)thereal with most of my daily writing... oddly, perhaps, (e)thereal was supposed to be a daily life blog with brief daily entries, something none of my other daily blogs was able to accomplish because, well, i tend to babble... i love babbling, but i figured a brief daily blog might actually be easier to read and there, actually read now and then... as you might notice if you visit, (e)thereal became a babbling blog, though the entries were somewhat shorter than previous blogs, there were many more of them, especially in recent years... so i still love babbling and the few readers who have followed me through the years (some of whom have become dear friends on and offline) apparently love babble too (or at least tolerate it)... i might have mentioned this and even linked the other blogs in a previous entry...

the life of leisure is coming to an end... the early retirement is coming to a conclusion... the extended vacation is reaching it's last days... and while softball is in gear wednesday, thursday, and twice on sundays (with practices frequently on saturdays... no word from the two friday leagues yet though), the working world is returning to the field of vision and the interview for the top job on the list (monetarily, at least) went very well last week (the vice president and i chatted for more than two and a half hours, which is usually a very good sign in an interview)... the telephone interview with human resources today was late and skimpy and redundant and i have to take some responsibility for that as i could have been more prepared to sell myself with snappy bullet points, but their hr recruiter seemed disorganized and minimally interested, sticking to the script and rushing through the interview (perhaps because she forgot - though she claimed her phones were acting up when i called a half hour after she was supposed to call me)... anyway, thursday there are a series of interviews at different sites with top level management and i am hopeful... meanwhile, resumes shall start going out daily this week cuz, as i might have said (and you might have noticed), the time for income production is quickly arriving... on the near horizon... relatively soon...

i can be quite repetitive ate times... redundant, even... hopefully this blog, if it ever actually becomes the brief daily life blog i have been toying with for years, will not be too repetitive as, even though i do love my word play, the last thing i want to do here is make a broken record of a life :)

what day is it?

locally, as in this particular life you are reading about, joe camel (go ahead, look up the reference if you don't know it) is suddenly not the most popular camel in media... if you don't know who (if we agree to call a camel a who) is the most popular camel, then you must not watch tv, which is probably most of the world, but for those of us who watch tv at least occasionally (or who find new amusing and potentially classic commercials on the web), you know what i mean... but just what does this have to do with this particular record of a life?... well, the camel's famous line became the go-to tension breaking phrase for the team all through the world series and now, it is the initial unifying joke in the fantasy football league that jackson and enjoy with other friends every year... jackson, by the way, is my beautiful roommate in case i have not introduced her... and there you have some actual life recorded here in this blog...

perhaps, eventually, this will become less slapstick asides vying for yet another bad reality tv show and more direct recording of life which would likely surprise all of us, but perhaps, to get there, this sort of occasional entry beginning is what is needed (how long has this beginning going on?... is this an aside?... well, aside or not, it's been going on since i started a new phase in life by leaving a desk and job and professional life i lived for more than eleven years which would be about a year and a quarter, that's how long, for what it's worth)...

we (our sunday morning softball team, in case you were distracted by the potential aside) did well for our first world series, finishing with a 3-5 record and just a -2 run differential... we were in it all the way, that is - no game got out of hand, we were not run ruled, and right until the last inning of each game we had reasonable chances to win... our biggest loss was by four runs and that was to the team that was booted out of the winner's bracket after a protest was upheld because they had players that should have been rated higher and belonged in the C division, which is cheating if their league knew what they were doing and they (the officers of the board of their league) are supposed to in order to qualify for the world series in the first play... we met them in the consolation bracket (cuz even cheaters get to play in the consolation bracket)... most important, we had much fun (and a little drama, but then, it was the gay softball world series, after all :)

there are so many reasons i love our sunday morning team... the openness and friendliness of the gay community is just part of it... even though jackson is taking a season off, she's still and always will be part of the team... my four or five other leagues are not nearly as organized and have no year-round camaraderie or traveling tournaments or world series... they have two senior ASA umpires for every game (other leagues have either only one umpire or have kids learning how to umpire with no ASA training at all)... we have sponsors to keep costs down and the other leagues are at least three times the cost per game... but best of all, the core of the team is family (by adoption, as in we adopted each other) and the love (and practices and after-parties) makes the softball all the more fun...

and next week, the fall softball season begins and hopefully i will have all five of my leagues up and playing withing two weeks, maybe even a sixth this season... yeah, i love my softball... there's a lot more to this life i am recording than softball and in other entries i'll likely babble on a bit about other stuff, but when i am asked what days is it, it's hump day once a week, but every day is a good day for softball :)

august of wind

stormy month, as usual, and i am still not recording life as i might have intended to do in this record of a life, though i am attempting to give the appearance of keeping in touch as i vaguely remember this blog exists as i mostly continue to ramble on in the last attempt at brief daily life blogging (as opposed to the babbling so natural to the writer in the brain in which i find myself in this life... see links prior entries for examples if you have simultaneous curiosity and patience and a love of words), though in this past month the river of words is presenting the appearance of drying up (which it does every now and then, like once or twice a decade, present the appearance, that is) as i have barely maintained daily contact with the written gardens (which is the euphemistic metaphoric name we call the piles of journals, diaries, spiral notebooks, and other hard copy writings and the vast web of words uploaded in many scores of places in cyberspace on the internet) as a visit to the babbling brevity of (e)thereal will show...

next week i head to washington dc for a softball world series as my sunday morning team played well enough to make it be one of the two teams representing orlando, florida in the D division (mostly recreational, though it's competitive at the top of any division), which is where i live in case i have not mentioned it before... wow, an actual sliver of actual real life recorded here in this record of a life... who knows, the record of a life just might start blowing through this place any day or week or month now... fun is what life is about, especially when enjoying time away from work, which is what i've been doing this year so far... shhhh, don't tell the budget director, he's sweating and hold his chest in the closet... i think he somehow got untied as i've been hearing banging on the door lately... ah, the scheduled return to the work force was for next month (at least the hard core job search is supposed to begin then), so it just might be time to stop slipping valium and quaaludes under the closet door and let the poor guy out...

record of a life, complete with metaphors, petaphors, and gigaphors, whatever they are :)

july in wait

july?... no, don't lie, i don't lie, you don't lie, all good children don't lie... halleluyah, aye?... even if most people do, but seriously, if you lie in wait for the next update in this blog, then i apologize for the time passing without entries (and for the punishing spanish accept playfulness of the title and start of this entry, for what apologies are worth in this format and context and mode of sharing, after all) and hope to update a bit more often... it is is all one long experiment in sharing writing and blogging, after all, in this blogging life for me, the writer of this and at least a hundred other blogs over the last decade and a half online (and longer offline), to simple record life as it flows, to write about it briefly in the first person as i experience it, to simply be a record of a life...

and so far the babbler, who has babbled on and on and on and (etc) for untold years, lifetimes, even, and actually is (the babbler, pay attention son) still running all over any semblance of or attempt at brevity and this blog has not really found it's voice as a daily or anywhere near daily record of a life, but there's always hope (we hope) and the mission we've accepted (without self-destructing anything anywhere) is to find a way to write a record of a life, so here we are and here it is, sorta...

in time, perhaps an actual mostly daily or more record of a life will appear where this mostly scattered smattering of excuses and reasons and silliness now appears, but until then, at least there is some continuance, some continuity, some sort of entry to maintain the appearance of promise, vigor, frivolity, and activity in the brain (what are we going to do tonight, Brain?) in this record of a life...

even if it is kinda on the level of Pinky, narf :)

june may be a bust (all over)

references to the song in the title not withstanding (for those who get it), june may or may not have busted out all over as this entry is yet another in the myriad of many random catch up entries (it's a process of sorts, ya know?... well, anyway or not, now you might know a bit more if you click on the links you just passed just and find any understanding in the explanatory notes and confessions of the entries written elsewhere in what was supposed to be a record of a life in brief entries long before this one every began, but that's sort of besides the point) and i may or may not remember any details of the month in question (and who is questions, exactly?... exactly)...

so this month is turning out much the same as last month (more fun than recalled here), but telling you to go read that is not fair from a blogging standpoint as it adds even more redundancy than the last entry added but if you really want to know and have not read the last entry, it's waiting there for you as are all the entries prior to the last entry and if i write last entry any more times many you will be curious enough to go read the last entry and then, while reading the last entry, you might ask yourself why am i reading the last entry? but have no fear, it's not really the last entry as there is this one too...

and if you are scratching your head and wondering how this can even slightly be considered a record of a life (or scratching your head or any other body part for any other reason), then you are not alone... i am about to go scratch the dog who is nuzzling and liking my knee in an attempt to motivate me to pet and scratch him... there has been lots of playing with the dog, that was left out of the last entry i think... so there, we have something new to add to this odd and irregular record of a life... time not wasted is time well spent, if you enjoy it... hope you did :)

may not remembered

i may (get it now?) not remember what i did in may, this being a bit of a catch up entry just cuz i want this blog to appear as though it is alive and, well, not dead (cuz kicking would probably be more than one entry a month), but life is going on and i did survive that illness so breath-takingly recorded in the previous entry (at least it will be the previous entry unless i stick another entry in after i upload this one, but then, time-stamps are relative, as is time, ya know?)... there was surely softball as there is almost always softball in this life (at least for the past six years or so) and the love of playing the gave is not diminishing... and there is tv as there is always tv (though i have lived without tv for a few years a few times in this life and i didn't miss it at the time) and these days i am catching up on the reruns of a few shows i missed when i lived without tv, among others... and there is lots of social life, though without romance or real intimacy, full of cards and games and sports bars and parties and assorted community activities... and there is more, but i am not remembering what at the moment...

this is a relatively poor record of a life, no doubt... try try again, narf :)

illness

perhaps illness should trigger a recording of life here, in which case the past week or two (or longer?) definitely qualifies... as mentioned in the previous records still rambling on as the primary daily (and recent considerations of others privacy may be the impetus for this new blog) and more, body thoughts that is the place for specific physical body thought (who'da thunk, aye?... well, it seems i am bringing the sarcastic self-mockery along for the moment, whatever the tone, demeanor, feel, style, and/or theme of this blog becomes)... in any case, sick puppy time... meaning me, not the dog... kidney stones, hemmorhoids, possible infection, possible flu bug, possible food poisoning, don't know is they were all related... that's what the past two weeks have been like in this body in this life, so it deserves to be recorded... it seems to have peaked over this weekend...

it did not stop me from playing softball, though it definitely slowed me and distracted me (though i went 3 for 3 sunday, i did not pitch and felt quite blech, blah, and weak)... it did not stop me from shopping for food and cooking up a decadent meaty pizza saturday morning, however i did throw half of it away in case food poisoning was a contributing factor... it did not stop me from jog/walking two nights in a row (wednesday and thursday), however i pushed myself out the door because i was feeling like crap and running used to be the way to cleanse the body and i did feel weak and crappy the second jog/walk... it did stop me from wanting to do anything else with people... and i did wish i had a nurse around, but my roommate was away for the weekend...

so it's been a rather long and lonely illness period that may be peaking as a huge stone passed within the passed hour and the hope for rejuvenation and regeration continues to attempt to bloom... and this is why there is a body blog, for the gorey physical details... and life goes on...

many records

you might start here if you want to browse some of the records of this life, for this blog has yet to find any sort of daily voice or clarity of purpose except to maybe briefly mark potential change moments, bigger than usual events, or something like that... but even if this becomes a daily blog that records a life (we don't want to presume it would be mine just yet, do we?), there are, if you are looking for me, other currently active records... there is body thoughts where i attempt to remember to record my attempts to remember to stay in touch with the physical body i attempt to inhabit... there is this blogging life (more like these blogging lives, but let's not quibble over a few hundred blogs) where i attempt to remember to record my attempts to record the developmental milestones and changes and growth of what i call the written gardens, the words i use to describe all of the writings and recordings i do for any purpose anywhere anytime... and there is (e)thereal which is the current daily blog which may be the bridge to this place as it is the latest attempt to hone and forge and edit and create some sort of blog-sharing that is not dominated by the babbler (as this entry is risking, in case you can't tell) that attempted to move from the previous babbler and dreamer (who, heavily influenced by suess and serf, among others, tends to babble in rhymes) dominated blogs (and you'll find more dating back to the last millenium in the mostly updated blog list as i have been attempting to communicate through the written word ever since i could hold a crayon and learned letters made words {or for even more detailed record of almost every entry i've written, at least since i started this incarnation of the table of contents, you might wander through the table of contents, cleverly named, no doubt}, if you are into history or just can't get enough of your fascination with my madness)... yeah, there are many records, and this one, well, for the record, this one will find it's way when it does...

how about you? :)

and the phone rang

yes, daylight caught up with me and that resume i sent last month finally surfaced on someone's desk and the phong rang requesting an interview... i will call back tomorrow to set up said interview... and very immediately i will gather the necessary equipment and motivation to shave this scraggly beard that has developed over the past month or so, get a hair cut, unpack a suit and tie and get it cleaned and pressed, and get my head right for the responsibility of this opportunity... dang it, and all that :)

i shall report on any progress or changes for our records, so no worries, you shall be informed...

you really ought to get a cushion for those pins and needles (snark :)

a reluctant nudge

while i am happily enjoying the carefree irresponsibility of not working (and not having income) this year, i was made aware of a relatively ideal position at a local institution that i would be a fool to ignore so as much as i did my best to ignore it all week, i did finally send a resume and we shall see what comes of it... hopefully it'll take a few months for the process to finalize (shhhh, i am having way too much fun to stop now lol lam :)

just for the record and all :)

relatively wonderful luxury

yes, the luxury of time away from the madness of the working world is so sweet, i just stopped by to record that fact and this fact too, that i am enjoying the time off so much i would not be able to express it compltely or adequately in words, but suffice to say - yay!...

i hope your life has a yay or two in it as well :)

taking a break

i decided to take a break from the rat race, the madcap working world, that is... no, i have not suddenly won the lottery or come into a vast fortune that allows for a comfortable retirement, i simply have the opportunity to pause in the money-mad race up to the top (as donovan once observed so astutely) and i am going to take it... maybe not for years like i did in the nineties, but for at least a few months and maybe longer... perhaps i will find enough time to head up north and bring down the stuff in storage this year (waiting for the snows to thaw up there would be wise)... this will be a very good thing, i think, no matter how much i might complain about life elsewhere lol lam :)

kit :)