Journal: 05/27/06

Memorial Day weekend is in full swing and with it I reminisce about the times when the long, three-day weekend meant something to me. It has been a long time since I’ve lived a normal work-life in a normal job. Running the front desk at a motel isn’t a "normal" job by any stretch of the imagination. There are no paid sick days, no paid vacations, and if you’re really good at dealing with snippy guests, then you don’t have a life at all. Getting one day off is begrudged if you are great at running a front desk, because the owners only see you as their money source. I’m great at running the front desk, dealing with uppity guests and extracting the best room rates possible, therefore, I always have to work the weekends and never get more than one day off a week. No paid vacation, no sick days and never a long, three-day weekend. I long for a real job again.

Economic Embargo Changes My Thinking

It doesn’t appear that yesterday’s rose-colored view of the weekend stayed with me for long. That’s part of the problem with thinking, you have to sit around and dwell on things even if you shouldn’t. But with the current troubles, I keep coming back to the "what to do, what to do," thing. Its like I have a crazed hamster on steroids running around my brain, seeking escape.

Unfortunately, I have no "escape" at the moment, all I seem capable of doing is plodding, lemming-like, to the brink. What the "brink" constitutes, I have no idea of knowing. Like the scientists at JPL who send the Mars Rovers on missions, they have no idea what will be on the other side of a crater, than I have of what will be on the other side of today.

It’s not just about the money, certainly, cash flow is important, but I have yet to be able to see beyond "today." That means I have no sight of what I’m going to do tomorrow except follow the well-trodden path I have taken over the last three years. "Where do I go from here?" I ask myself. If anything, the pressure of the economics has brought immediacy to my current situation that wouldn’t have happened any other way.

I guess I have to start thinking that this isn’t about Joann anymore. It’s about me and what I’m going to do the rest of my life. Without her. If I’m going to honor her with that I take care of myself, then I need to get started. Now, rather than later.