Hats Off To Roy Harper

Hats Off To Roy Harper

11.23.05 (10:33 pm)   [edit]
How could I be such a fool? It's 28 fucking years old, but today I heard for the first time a KILLER Roy Harper album called Bullinamingvase, and it kicked my folk-rockin' ass. I can't say anything intelligent about it right now, Just find a copy and make it yours. Now.

Very, very good news today, which took one layer of shit off my head. I had every intention of spending Friday looking for a new job, but I wasn't looking forward to it. I can't live on what I'm making, but I've really started to like the people I work with, and the job itself is shit, but hardly anything to be bothered much by. Sometimes I even semi-enjoy it. I've asked about overtime, and went to the temp agency about outside work, but nothing has come of it.

Today, I talked to Bob about how shitty the picking area is. We work in packing and shipping, but I've picked from the shelves a few times, and it's often a disaster area. Constant things out of place, and it affects us when we spend two days waiting for shit to come down the line because nobody knows where it is, and it holds up our end. I'm not an organized person, but organizing someone else's shit is kinda fun, and a good way to focus my non-brain into something halfway enjoyable. I LIKE little shit like that.

I went to the supervisor with my idea. He's a nice enough guy, and I do like him, but he's not really one to bring new shit to. He more or less blew me off but told me to talk to the plant manager. Who I happen to like a hell of a lot So I went to him, and within 3 minutes I had what I need. Starting Monday, I'm working nine hour days. The first hour I'll be doing this cleanup shit, then back to my normal job. He talked as if he'd like to find out what my strengths are and put me permanently where I fit best. On top of all that, he said - but couldn't make promises and I won't hold my breath - that he'd look into getting me hired on permanently. That's a long shot the way this company works, but with him behind me, I feel a LOT better.

Even without the extra money per hour a regular hired-on job will bring, that five hours a week will pay the child support I start paying in the next week or two. It's really s small amount of money - I know guys paying as much in one week as I'm paying a month - but I don't have it. I make shit and am barely able to maintain the ridiculous lifestyle I have now, seeing Katie once a week on these four-hour round trips. So I'll still be in the same place, but I'll be taking care of that extra money simply by getting my ass out of bed a little earlier. The court and Sheryl were nice enough to hold this off for six months, and now I can do it. Perfect timing. Sheryl wasn't even asking for anything (and she makes far more than I probably ever will) but it's law, and anyway, I felt really weird walking into court with that on me, and insisted that I do my part to take care of my daughter. I will NOT be accused of not giving her my best. I've fucked up a lot of things, but I cannot fuck this up.

It might not last, and it might even get shot down by people higher up, but I think he's going to take care of me. And that feels good. He seems to actually think of me as being worth it, and I find that baffling given how erratic I feel my performance is. But nobody seems to care. I show up, I do the shit I'm told to do, there's no problems that can't be solved quickly. Good enough, I guess. It sure is an odd feeling to hear him call me a "valuable part" of the company, though. Of course, given how worthless most of these people are, I guess a goofball like me actually IS an asset. Fuckin' Christ. That's scary.

At the meeting today, he brought up how there's been reports of people having their food stolen from the breakroom refrigerator. Been going on a long time. (He's been there only six months.) I found this amusing since it was the first day I'd put mine in there. I always eat out or leave my cooler in the car. But today was our first snow of the year, and it was cold as fuck this morning, so I didn't want it to freeze. The damn lockers are so narrow I couldn't stick my cooler in there, so I took a chance in the breakroom.

He said, "This is just really low. If you are that hard up for food, come to me and I'll give you a couple bucks out of my pocket. Don't steal people's food."

So I went up to him afterwards. "Hey, I'm starving here. Give me a dollar!"

I can get away with that with this guy.

Later, I went to him and said, "I just got back from lunch and thought, you know, I haven't had a good steak dinner in months. Got a twenty?"

I'm pretty happy about this. That little bit is enough to keep me there longer. And keeping me there longer means lots of things. Like getting to watch Jenny walk by. God DAMN she's looking good. Her hair is darker now, and it looks great. I know she's been catching some extra shit lately (they had a stupid situation with checks a couple weeks ago that she had tried to fix, but she's the one getting blamed for it by some people) and the last two days she's showed it. Not the smile that made me fall insanely in soemthing-or-other four months ago. She was practically SCOWLING for two days solid, and it was really unattractive. I felt bad for her. So I told her today how much I appreciate her work, and managed to do it without looking like an idiot. She seems to have become inured to my bullshit, but she did seem to appreciate the effort. She deserves it. The poor girl has a job I'd never want in a million years, handling all us underpaid assholes.

Two days off. I need to be working it, my next check will be a fucking joke at a really bad time when I'm behind on things, but things are picking up just a tad, and fuck it, I need the time off. I've been running my ass off harder on the weekend than I do at work, and I come home from work fucking exhausted. The sleep apnea is still hitting me, and it's been hard to control my diet and get any exercise to work this fucking weight off to rid myself of that disorder. but I've felt a bit better this week. I've made an extra effort in the past month to drink far less, and I might even be able to stop altogether. It's necessary at this point. To be honest, I don't even regret the few months I spent self-medicating that way. It got me through a really horrible period. Other things might have been better for me, but that's what I had at the time. But you can't keep that shit up, and I have to be able to THINK. Not having control over my own goddamn brain is destryoing my will to live, and I'm fighting to get that back. It's slowly happened recently. I've always had this problem, but in the past five years it's been a huge issue just to remember basic shit that a goddamn COW can do. It's terrifying to feel your mind slipping like this. I've talked about it, but it's frustrated me that the people who are closest to me, who have had to endure the worst end of this shit, have been the ones who have shown the least understanding of what I've been trying to deal with. It's a goddamn illness. *I* haven't really understood it until recently. I finally have a grip on what is happening with my chemicals, and I'm finding ways of keeping them in line. It's not easy. But it's happening.

I'm doing nothing tomorrow. Not a goddamn thing. Not going up with family, because I'll see them Saturday when I go up with Katie and do the gig. Friday, I intend to do some local genealogy I haven't done much with yet from lack of time. I wish I had the cash for some documents, because the damn state health department downtown is only open four hours a day while I'm at work and I've got loads of birth and death records to look up (especially since the counties here give you less info on the things than the state does), but it's 8 bucks a copy and I don't have it. Oh well, maybe I'll go make a couple cheap copies of land records or something. I really enjoy this stuff, but I've had little chance to do it lately. If I do go anywhere tomorrow, it'll be back to a couple Quaker cemeteries I've meant to re-visit.

One of the families I'm researching is named Furnas. This is the Quaker family I've talked about who lived in the same county in Ohio I was in until March this year. I've found some fun tidbits about them. A Furnas cousin was the first ever passenger on an airplane when he went up with one of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. Another was the second governor of Nebraska and the man who started Arbor Day.

A couple weeks ago I had Katie in the Indianapolis Children's Museum, and in a display recreating local buildings from the 1890s, there was a sign for Furnas Ice Cream. I did a Google search. Sure enough, one of the Furnas families who moved from Ohio to the Indy area had a son who started an ice cream company that is now known as Borden's.

Little shit, but fun to find out.

OK, now that everyone has fallen asleep...

Friday. I'll find out Friday. Come to me, Amanda. Come to your Dougie-meister. Cum on feel the noize. Girls, fuck your boys.

(Barry White Voice)

Yeah, baby...feel the love...

(/Barry White Voice)

Now I'm making myself puke. Y'all have a great night.

Dougie