Journal: 06/01/06

June is here and with it, a sunny day that would have been good for pictures at the beach if I weren’t shackled to the front desk. Luckily, it was "Monterey sunny," where the temperature stays in the low sixties and the marine layer makes an appearance for a couple of hours before burning off in the afternoon. Days like this one are a big part of the reason I fight so hard to stay on the Monterey Peninsula. I didn’t even mind going to work today.

The Day Gets Off To a Rousing Start

I needed a haircut really bad. I hadn’t been to a barber (yes, I use a regular barber, a nice 79-year old Pilipino named Ray who cut hair in the Navy) for almost four months. Three months of barber abstinence is my usual time limit, but with all that went on in the last couple of months and the lack of money, four months of unruly, sprouting hair was beginning to seriously obstruct my vision, not to mention the annoyance of brushing it out of my face countless times a day. I don’t know how women with long hair put up with it.

I was desperate enough to get my hair bobbed, that last night I asked Bill if he still had his electric clippers and, if so, would be take a stab at cutting my hair. Not only was my mane out of control, but also I couldn’t see myself showing up for a job interview looking like a wild thing. During these financial troubles, preserving whatever credibility I have left is of the utmost importance. This haircut was important!

Bill had other ideas though. Overnight he grew feathers and, unknown to me, hatched an alternative plan. To hear him tell it, sometime during the night he balked at actually cutting the mess of hair I had grown. A slight trim, maybe, touching up errant hairs, okay, but not such an intimidating weed-whacking as I sorely needed.

I got up this morning at 10:30 AM ready for him to go at my hair, but he suggested that we go to my barber instead. He had taken $15.00 out of his account for the purpose, so to the barber we motored. I was ecstatic. Where I once envisioned an Iron Curtain sort of scalping, I was going to someone who I’ve used for over five years and trusted. I was willing to settle for a sheep shearing from Bill, it would have done the job, but I knew that my barber, Ray, would make me look presentable, no matter what.

I was right; Ray did his usual, diligent job on my head. Ray is used to the volume of my hair because I always go to him with tons of it. I don’t think he has ever had the occasion to simply "trim" my hair in all the time I’ve been seeing him. Afterward, I felt much better, money problems put aside for the moment and invigorated by knowing that I looked presentable as well as competent to any potential contributor to my income. I fairly swelled with confidence. This was a great and satisfying start to what I otherwise had expected to be a dull morning.

Journal: 05/31/06

After yesterday’s decision to find a second job, today I feel more at peace with myself. At least I have a direction to go in instead of sitting around wondering what to do next. The answer was obvious to any outsider, but it took me a long time to give up my pride and submit to the demands of fiscal reality. I know I can’t keep begging off the people I know, as limited a group as that is, and I have to start picking up some of the slack Joann left when she died. Although, Rose did bring me a couple of packs of cigarettes today so I won’t have to face that hurdle until Saturday.

Leaping Into the Writerly Life

In my newfound spirit of "direction," I finally settled on an approach to finishing one of my erstwhile books. I decided that my idea of combining the unedited book "The View from Snug Harbor" with the events in this blog is especially viable because Snug Harbor covers exactly the same period in time as the "flashback" pieces would if I turned About Dying into a book. At the moment, I still think that writing a book attached to an active blog is a great idea. Add to that the fact that both of the important pieces, the novel and the blog, are already written but need to be combined and intensely edited, this becomes an eminently workable idea.

This book idea is something I’ve been tossing around for some time without any real idea of where to start. However, it comes to me that the first step is to take all of the blog postings, which I have in MS Word format, one post per file, and combine them, top-down, oldest post to newest, into one new document. This new document, tentatively called "About Dying: The Complete Blog" would serve as the outline to the new book. From there, it is just a matter of cutting up Snug Harbor into the appropriate pieces and marrying them to events in the blogline. (Did I just coin a new term? Blogline: a web log used as an outline?).

The combined blog may have some other uses also. I could give it out to friends and relatives, or sell copies to those who want to read the blog from the top down. That’s for another time though.

This is something I can be very impassioned about doing. I’ve wanted to do something to memorialize Joann ever since she passed away and I can’t think of a better way to do it than by putting her battle into novel form. She and I had always thought that the blog would be for others to learn from as well as promoting my own sanity after she left the world. Right now might be just the time to make that happen. It’s a beautiful story anyway.

Journal: 05/30/06

For whatever reason, I slept fourteen hours last night. That’s a long time to be in the sack for me unless I’m down with the flu or something. I surmise that my nearing the end of available resources put a lot of pressure on me and I exhausted myself unduly. Still, I was up at my usual time this morning and embraced the day with uncommon vigor and optimism. Again, I don’t know where that change in attitude came from, probably all that extra sleep let my brain do a little more thorough housekeeping.

Finding a Second Job

With the great start to my morning, one new idea flooded my brain. It was a simple idea; yet one I had discarded because of my tenacious grip on keeping my schedule constant as a way of maintaining my emotional balance. Startlingly enough, this morning I knew that my attachment to my rigid schedule had to change if I were going to survive this monetary drought.

I’ve known for a long time that I would have to take up part of the slack from the loss of Joann’s monthly check. I also figured that I don’t qualify for any programs, except maybe disability, and I’m not sure I want to get involved there anyway. Just the fact that I’m not homeless with Bill creates a barrier to any help program I might apply to.

The only thing I know how to do is work for a living. The problem was that I already work for my home and couldn’t see any was around that. Upon reflection though, and fourteen hours of sleep, I decided that I could give up four hours in the morning before I go to work at the front desk. That would make for a thirteen or fourteen-hour day, but I could still get seven hours of sleep. Moreover, even at $7.00 an hour minimum, I would bring in enough in a five-day week to cover the basic bills, cigarettes and the occasional beer.

Maybe it’s just that I’m resigned to finding other ways to make do, but I can invest four hours a day that I otherwise sleep through. Bill can’t handle the additional cash load and I can’t quit smoking or taking nicotine lozenges, I have bills that have to be paid and a cold beer at night before bed is a ritual with me. It also keeps me from popping too many sleeping pills. Health wise, it wouldn’t kill me to get up earlier in the morning either.

Such a simple idea, so hard to tumble to. This afternoon I started looking at part-time jobs in the newspaper and on the web. The job market on the Monterey Peninsula is tight right now and will only get worse once the schools let out, but I have to begin somewhere. I also called the thesis processor at the Naval Postgraduate School to ask about thesis preparation work. I used to do a lot of editing for students there and hopefully they still allow off-site editors to post flyers in the hallway. Unfortunately, all I could do was leave a message, it being too late in the day.

Well, it’s a start anyway.

Journal: 05/29/06

There were many things I wanted to do today, as it is once again my day off. I thought about doing laundry and considered that I could do it on a day that I work, the laundry room being door to the front office. I debated about the energy it would take to make a trip to the jewelers and discuss my bill, deciding that the trip could wait until some morning before I go to work. Ditto for taking pictures of the newly renovated rooms at the motel for their web site. I still remember the words of caution from another resident motel manager from my past, pointing out to a front desk candidate for employment, that "two days off is a day off." There is a lot of truth in that sentiment, people with the normal Saturday-Sunday weekend spread actually spend one of those days doing all the work and errands they couldn’t do during the week, leaving only the second day as a true "day off." Having one day off really isn’t any downtime if you spend it running yourself ragged trying to get things accomplished that couldn’t be done during the standard workweek.

With that thought in mind, and realizing that between my work hours and Bill’s car, all of my mornings are left open, so I decided to treat my one day as if it were the second day. Thanks to my daily schedule, there isn’t anything I can’t accomplish by getting up one hour early a couple of times a week. Furthermore, I can do my laundry while I’m working my normal shifts. In a perverse way, I like the idea that I can get paid for doing my laundry.

So, I’m living my day off for myself, not doing chores and other stuff. During the week at the front desk, I never get any peace and quite to write in. The managers blare Indian music and TV shows all day long. The bane of the front desk isn’t the guests or the phones ringing, it’s the managers in the apartment behind the office. This one day I wanted to have quiet. I turned off the TV after Bill turned it on during breakfast and explained that this was to be a day of QUIET! I also wanted to get some writing done in the peace of the day, I’m a couple days behind in my blog postings and that makes my skin itchy. ‘Nuff said.

Downsizing My Personal Economy

I have started thinking about the things I really don’t need for the moment. Recognizing that I’m facing extended financial difficulties without any real cash flow, I’ve been going over the "need" and "do not need" list.

I need my cell phone. The cell phone number is what I give out to anyone with a potential job. I have had this number for years and am loathe to loose it, it resides on web sites, business cards, flyers, resumes, and is many other ways interwoven into the fabric of my life. The cell phone is a keeper.

Much as I love getting the daily newspaper in the morning, the motel front office also gets the paper and I can read it there, as I usually do anyway. Nix the newspaper. I have had a paid E-Fax account for a couple of years. The theory is that there would come a time when I would need that account to find a job. The motel also has a fax machine that I can use whenever I need to, I just can’t fax directly from my laptop. Kill the paid E-Fax account and go back to the free one by where I can still receive faxes. I also have fax software, so I can fax out using a phone line.

For years I have had an email account attached to my Outlook that costs $5.00 a month. I think I’m behind on payments anyway, so I might just as well close it. I use Hotmail for most of my email these days and can easily change Outlook email to the Hotmail account. I get mostly junk anyway.

I do have a website, though I’ve never done much with it and now it may be too late. The blogs I have are doing a fine job and I can get a free home page several different places. When the next payment is due, I think I’ll shut the website down.

Joann’s credit card will still be paid monthly. It is the one card that I can still use, even though there isn’t any money in the account. I can put money in the account as I need to, and when I have it, to cover the cell phone bill. I also have a PayPal account that doesn’t cost me anything so that will also stay. I won’t be able to use my Wells Fargo account until I pay of the large balance, so these two other accounts afford me a way of paying bills.

When all is said and done, I will have only the cell phone account to maintain, and two outside bills, my mailbox and a jewelry payment. Even that could be a tough haul in the future.

This too will pass. It could be worse, it could be a kidney stone.

Journal: 05/28/06

Yesterday was a busy day and I know I spent a lot of time kvetching about it, but it did me good. Today was a lot slower, the Memorial Day weekend crowd having been thinned by gas prices and the associated general inflation. What used to be a two-day road-trip and a long weekend has turned into a one-day trip to a close destination and more time at home trimming the hedges. Our full-house spurt was last night, today was much like any other Sunday, slow and easy, by comparison.

A Note About Late Postings

If you notice, Constant Reader, fluctuations in the posting of this blog, do not worry. I write these pages in real-time, but I don’t always get to editing and posting them for a day or two. My posting schedule is prey to my emotional balance and ability to focus. At times, though I write a day’s piece, I might not get around to editing it for a couple of days. My innate sense of perfection controls the editing process and though I do try to leave these entries as a stream-of-consciousness experience, I also have to make sure that I’m communicating the right content. Focusing on editing is a different process than just letting fly with the words and the editing effort requires a more alert writer than I am when I’m first putting the content down. Sometimes, it takes me a while to remember exactly what I was saying, especially if I drop a word or two.

Another aspect of daily blogging is that I’m not living a spectacularly interesting or complicated life. The day-to-day grind is just that, a grind. In order for me to keep coming up with a daily topical monologue, aside from the leading account of how boring my day was, takes a lot of creativity. After all these weeks, I have to actually get deeply in touch with myself to find material that doesn’t rehash something I’ve gone on about before. I do try to keep these postings interesting to my readers, but at times, I feel as though I’ve talked myself out.

If I don’t have a topic that jumps up and bites me, I have to come up with something creative and non-fiction. Though this has helped my get through my grieving process, by sifting through my internal garbage, it does take time. Though I write the daily grind piece every evening, I might not get to writing a topical piece until late at night, and the editing waits a day longer or more.

Lately, I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the state of my life and fell behind a few posts. I’m working to catch that up now and return to a more timely, daily posting schedule in future.

Thanks for being patient with me.

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.

Journal: 05/26/06

Memorial Day weekend officially starts today. This is a big weekend as it is the official start to the summer season, this is the time when barbeques are rolled out from garages, when stores offer reductions on their meat and bread products, because celebrating Memorial Day is about more than remembering the ones who have fallen during wars. It is about the entrance into summer, that period of time when children are let out of school so they can drive their parents nuts. Summer used to be about planting and harvesting, but those days are long gone. Now, it’s about vacations, the up-tic in great weather, the time of year when hard-working people can light up a few coals and create great steaks. After all, everyone needs to shed the cloak of winter.

Thanks to the price of gas this year, Memorial Day was off to a slow start. There wasn’t a lot of traffic today; most of our reservations are for tomorrow. Nevertheless, I could feel the spirit in the air. Memorial Day is the traditional significator of the summer season, as Labor Day in September is the official end of summer, regardless of solstices. Even though the motel wasn’t full today, something of a difference from last year, I expect it to be a busy day tomorrow.

Found Money

I decided to get into the spirit of the long weekend by not grousing about my poverty. There isn’t anything that is going to be a quick fix for the problem and the best I can do for myself over the three-day weekend is to kick back and relax a little. Good thoughts, innovative ideas, come to those who let their brains ponder.

In that spirit, a bit of unexpected brightness came into my life in the form of found money. I checked Joann’s credit card and found $27.00 still left on it. I pay the card anyway so I don’t have any issues about using it. I haven’t missed a payment yet.

With that in mind, I’m all set to have a nice holiday, even if it is a "holiday" in name only. I’ll be kvetching about that later.

Journal: 05/25/06

An early bedtime last night wasn’t a reality, though I did try hard to turn my brain off. The gray matter simply didn’t want to go to sleep until 4:00 AM this morning, probably the result of ruminating over yesterday’s trip to Salinas. Nevertheless, I did sleep until noon and put in a decent day at work without a beer breakfast, as I also managed to drink all of the beer in the apartment last night, and that scenario didn’t bode well for tonight. Luckily, late in the evening, a guest tipped me $5.00 and I could purchase tonight’s beer with that money. I’m in the literal mode of "hand to mouth" for the first time in over three years, and I really don’t like it. Of all the adjustments I’ve had to make since Joann’s passing, this isn’t the hardest, but it is the most inconvenient and probably will be longer term than I would like.

The New Poverty Lifestyle

It isn’t like I’ve never gone through periods of extreme poverty before, but a long time has passed since those days and I’ve grown accustom to a certain level of financial security. There was a time, in my spent youth, when being destitute was a way of life. One week I would be flush with cash, the next a down-at-heels seeker of the next cigarette. Not because I wasn’t working, in fact I made upwards of $1500.00 a week as an independent computer consultant or I wrote term papers during the slow periods between projects. No, it was the lifestyle I lived, mostly work and little, but intense, play. During the 70’s and 80’s, computer-people with new technologies were scarce commodities and the hours were long, albeit well paid. Partying was brief and intense.

Most of my adult life was spent in the mode of "I need to get this project completed or I can’t pay the bills." Procrastination due to perfectionism ran rampant. Every day was a battle between my preciseness and the need to meet deadlines, as well as eat. In the end though, if I wasn’t secure, I was at least not without options.

What I find myself in today is a time without options. At least not options I have explored or been creative about in some time. I suppose I’m still in shock over the events of the last couple of months and it is taking longer for me to break the surface of grief and get motivated than I realized. There are options out there, I just haven’t come to grips with them yet.

Life with Joann was a secure life, at least by my standards. Joann, Bill and I all performed our parts in our little micro-economy, but I need to get a grip on the fact that I’m going to have to take over part of her role. I just haven’t figured out how, yet. That will come though, I don’t have any fear that I can’t come through, albeit with some bottom-scraping along the way.

Meanwhile, Bill is doing more than he had to before and for that I am glad. He is keeping us in food and transportation while I keep us in our homes. I know I’m going to have to cancel some accounts and make different arrangements to pay the bills that I can, but I’ll get through it. I simply hate the idea of having to start over again.

In the end, this could be a whole lot worse—Bill and I could be homeless.