The Lies We Tell Ourselves

     I saw a boy I used to know yesterday.  I call them all little boys, even the ones who are older than me.  Everybody is little boys and girls in my world.

    It broke my heart, him standing there, skinny as a rail, grinding his teeth and sweating like the world is about to end.  It made me sick to my stomach for a second and then the pity washed over me. 

    You might think no one knows, but everyone who has been there knows, we don't even have to know what it is, we just know.  He's all strung out.  If he were anymore high he could have flown around the room.  

    I'm not judging him.  My heart is broken for him, his wife, all those kids, the world at large.

    I've been there. It's a tough road to travel.  

    I'm walking down other roads now.

    One thing everyone seems to always overlook and or forget with people who previously had drug problems is you can't trust everyone with money.  You can't give just anyone money.  Money drives people over the edge.  I've seen it over and over again. 

    I went to retrieve something that belonged to me from the building and he just happened to be there with three other people.  

    I was sad yet relieved it wasn't me standing there out of my mind.

    I remember that.  I remember thinking no one knew.  In a lot of instances no one did know, but that's not the point, the minute I laid eyes on him I knew he was messed up.

    Is anyone reaching out to him?  Is anyone offering him any support?  

    It made me glad to be single, to have my peace, my sanity, what little bit of that there actually is and to not have to deal with anyone else's bullshit.  I'm a full time job all by myself.  There's no sense in doing dumb shit to get myself all jacked up, like falling in love or something.

    I don't need anyone.  I do just fine by myself.

    I've got big plans.

Tough World

     Most of us weren't born rich, so there's a struggle in and of itself.  

    Not only do you have to survive from day to day, doing what needs to be done to live your life, you have to put up with all these assholes that just don't get it.

    Most people are so unhappy they want you to be just like them.  They are full of negativity, can never see the good in anything and they have advice for everyone, although their lives look like train wrecks.

    People who can't stand themselves can't stand you and how dare you look happy or do anything to make your life better!  Who do you think you are?

    This is where I am today.

    Social media is a nightmare and they've kicked me off so often, I just don't care anymore.  Those people could very well be the same people reporting me and getting me in trouble with the platform.

    Life used to be simpler, we had a pre-paid phone, we lived in a tent in the woods, it was not miserable the entire time.  Hell, I didn't have a phone half the time.  Randy  had six or seven phone numbers for me once.  I miss him, he's always on my mind.

    I don't watch tv, per say, Ridiculousness, while I'm on the stair climber.  I haven't watched the news in over 40 years.  I hate to be lied to, because the truth would be easier to stomach.  Negativity breeds negativity, so no news for me thanks.

    I don't need to be in the know about how horrible the world is.  I have a lot of things I'm working on in my own world and my world doesn't look like that.  

    Anyway, we all know it's a tough world.  

    Your perspective about that world is everything.

    I don't let people bully me, I say what I mean and mean what I say, I have untreated mental illness, so you really have to know me and be around me a good bit of the time, to know just how crazy I am.

    I love my life, it's my happy place and I get to choose what that looks like.  No one else gets to tell me what my life is supposed to be.

    Like I said I'm stepping away from social media and looking at other things.  Yesterday, I sat and read a few gardening books, because I'm planning to garden starting in the spring.  I have containers and seeds, with more seeds on the way.  I want to grow my own food, to save us money on produce and to grow enough to market what we can't eat.  

    In highschool, I was part of the FFA, worked for a couple of flower shops and a nursery when I graduated.  

    I bet there are a lot of people that don't remember and or know that about me.

    All the books, articles, studies show that gardening is good for you physically and mentally.  I need that in my life.  I have one plant, it's in my office, it's the same age as the dog, 5 years old.  When my cousin gave it to me, I thought it had died.  It's been transplanted 5 different times and today looks better than it ever has and I didn't put it out over the summer.

    My friend told me about giving it epsom salt.  

    I'm learning everything I can right this second and spent the afternoon watching people talk about their small sustainable farms that make upwards of $150,000 a year, without unnecessary equipment.  I have so many side hustle failures, I'd like something to go my way.  I know how to grow things, I always have.  Space is an issue.

    There's only asphalt where I live and I don't want to have to leave my garden behind if I do in fact decide to move.

    Container gardens need a little more attention, but it's something I'm investing my time in either way and I have better luck with containers.  I want to teach the grand children how to grow food, it's important.  

    Change is necessary and I'm making good changes.

    For instance it's 2:28 a.m. and I just got back from walking the dog 1942 steps just because we were up.  Nothing out of the ordinary for me, we're liable to walk at any given hour or minute.  It has to be done.

    What do you do in a tough world?  You unplug and begin softening it.  You start learning about gardens and planning to have one.  You start doing other things rather than sitting in front of a computer screen.  

    My world is tough without all the outside interference.

    I think I do pretty well, I'm sure there are those who would tell you otherwise, but the key is as long as I think I'm doing well, then I'm doing well.  The measurement of how well that should be is impossible to reach.

    I'm reorganizing everything about my life, to start the new chapter.  Planning a garden and growing my own food is a great part of my health journey.  I'm up for the challenge.

    I want to start a family tradition and this is going to be that tradition.  It's hard work but the pay off is extraordinary.  The world needs more farmers, more people who care about growing food and teaching others how to do it.  We've got to stop depending on others for our sustenance.

    I don't paint and or write all the time, I wish I did, it would make my life so much easier.  I have to find things to keep my hands and my mind busy.

    I'm excited as always, to be doing something new and I plan on it becoming a lifestyle for us.  We have to eat, growing food will take care of that.  

The Monster That Is Social Media

     I'm not on social media right now and that's a good thing.  We just had a shit show of an election, that is still not decided and will change the way we do things in America forever.

    I got put in facebook jail for another 30 days, so that put me in a place, where there's nothing that important to say and I can just write instead.  I'd really rather write, it's better for me.

    Social media is a monster!  It used to be fun and friendly, now it's trolls and shit heads, every body with a smart ass comment.  You can't write an amazing piece of social media without some jerk off coming along to throw their two cents in.

    I'm just over here living life and trying to figure out what to do next.  

    A move could be in my near future.  Who knows?  

    I'd like to think it's all good, because until something bad does happen it is all good.

    I get stuck in my head some times and I can't stop myself.

    I'm living with untreated mental illness and doing the best I can at a straight life.

    I started walking mid May and haven't even slowed down since.  I am now acheiving days way over ten thousand steps.

    I feel like a supermodel all the time.

    I've lost a solid 26 pounds, am currently hovering back and forth over 160, but that's fine.  I have a walk in closet full of 14's, I like them, they were chosen specifically for who I am today.

    I dress nice every day.  I don't have crappy lay around the house clothes.  All of my stuff is nice.

    I just now started wearing things again.  I didn't make it through the whole closet, because the weather is changing aging, but I haven't worn the same clothes twice in the entire amount of time I've been walking.  That's a hell of a lot of clothes.  

    I'm passing them around to the daught in laws for trades of what they can't wear, so I can sell them on Poshmark and Mercari.  I'm going to sell them by outfit as well.

    At first it used to frustrate me and piss me off, now it's just another day and no one is talking about anything new  I could go back a month from now and see some of the same stuff being talked about today.  My kid told me to check out Parlor.  I'm pretty much over it.  I'd rather write books and try hustling makeup and paintings.

    I've just been offered a painting project in a beauty salon.  I just quoted him the $700 and want him to buy my paint, because I can't use the paint I use at home.  I paint on a budget, this project requires a more expensive kind of the same paint.  

    That is going to keep me busy most nights for a while and I'm super excited about it.  She knows what she wants, they sort of know what they want and I've got to get them all together to discuss it because I can't go in there all willy nilly.

    She wants an eagle and a wonderful artist that's in my art group, does huge pieces, she just put an eagle on my page.  I can use that as a reference, but they never come out looking the way the picture I use to paint from looks.  LOL.  My style is pretty juvenile, I guess, but I'm getting better and better.  I already see myself in there, on the ladder, music playing on my little speaker and me doing my thing.  It's very exciting.

    I have friends in the comic book business, that rent storage from me when they get huge purchases and he had a guy ask him if I would do a mural.  That's paint job #2.  Being off social media is starting to pay off for me.  

    Hell yeah.

    I can dig it.

    Gotta sprout my wings.  This way I won't have to get a waitressing job just yet. 

    It would be great to start getting hired for paint projects in businesses all over town, that could very well take me to another place and level in life.  I can charge more and more as I go and make a great deal of money, if I'm wise.  I could even dream of being a full time artist that way.  

    I've been talking about a lot of things for a long long time now, some of them are manifesting finally.

    I'm about to get a lot of things done at my facility, I don't have to be chained to that desk any longer and people are about to meet the real me for the first time ever in this company.

    They just don't know who they are playing with.

    I'm writing today, because it feels so good to get it all out, to talk about it, to release it somewhere else.

    I didn't walk this morning, but I will before the day is over and it's way early in the morning.  A day of writing might just be what I need to get the old heart pumping again and to tell my stories.  

    I've got several books waiting in the wings.

    Nothing but time today.  That's such a beautiful thought.

    I'm working on the blog, because I can come back later and steal these writings for one of the books, so if you're reading this now, you could very well run across it again later if you ever find yourself in the midst of one of my books.

    I'm working on my and my own head this morning, not letting anyone else have that space, I need every inch of it for myself.  I've rented it out to enough people this week, time to sweep it out and change gears.

    If you really think about it, getting off social media is changing my energy and giving me more productive things to do and I like making money and painting.

   

When The Paranoia Sets In

    I live at my job.  I have lived there going on 7 years in March.  It's a very strange arrangement, to say the least.

    In the beginning I had a terrible boss.  I caught her out right lying to me, so I never believed anything she said.  She hassled me and harrassed me through phone calls and emails.  She never did it to my face so I could address and over time she mentally and emotionally jacked me up, non stop.  I even went to the shrink a couple of times to make sure I wasn't coming unglued or something.

    I remember sitting in my office looking at the traffic going by on the boulevard, thinking I should just run out there.

    I finally went and reported her.  I went to the state agency as well.  I still have a lawsuit if I want one.

    Anyway, they pull me into a meeting with the Vice President and Human Resources and I tell them the problems I've been having with this manager. I am a broken and wounded person in this meeting.  I can't control my emotions.  I don't trust them, I feel like they are out to get me.  This was the first five years, looking around, feeling like I should be packing and looking for a new job.

    She made me feel like I wasn't going to be allowed to stay from the moment I stepped into the apartment.

    This, in case you don't know messed me up in a way I still can't rid of when they start asking me questions.

    After being cussed out on my day off, more than once, for over a year, I started recording the phone conversations.  

    I got endlessly chewed out and insulted, told to shut up, not given the opportunity to even talk.

    I got chewed out and insulted back and forth through emails.

    She never did it to my face, always in that sly sneaky way that made me have panic attacks and absolute emotional break downs.

    I still suffer from a great deal of that emotion today.

    I started keeping emails too.  Back and forth not nice emails full of insults.

    I recorded the meeting with them and they did not like that.

    They pulled me into a meeting with her and she denied everything.  I also recorded that meeting as well.  

    Then I pulled the speaker out, and simply said, "This is how she manages me." and played the recordings.  She wanted to crawl underneath that table and looked absolutely horrified.

    I never spoke to her again after that meeting.  She left some lame ass voice mails but I never listened to them seriously, I only recorded them, for the record.

    They did NOT send anyone to paint my apartment and or carpet it.  I gave them the estimates.

    I received an email from his saying when I was ready.  I told her I'd moved everything but the futniture out of the house.  That was two years ago and some of that stuff is still in boxes today, for the simple fact I always feel like I'm going to have to leave.

    The damage has been done.

    I can't help it.  I have huge emotional turmoil when I start hearing from coporate about this job.

    My facility is the biggest one they have, 418 units.  It's been here 51 years.  My people are needy and do NOT follow instructions.

    One of my tenants has been here since the place opened and there were only two buildings to begin with.  There are 5 now.  They have NOT been taking of my place the entire time I've been here.  I've sent in estimate after estimate to the point people won't show up to give me estimates anymore.  Ive gotten cameras, a new parking lot, new roofs, butterfly bushes the landscaper killed and a sign that's so cheap it's faded more than the 20 year old one that came down.

    The place is downright embarrasing and I live here.

    They gave me another boss, the end of that year, same as they just did again.

    Apparantly, if you are anybody but me in this company you can keep your job for years on end and not do shit.  

    I just got a new boss and that kicked in all the "I'm gonna lose my damn job" feelings again.

    They came over to audit me for the first real time in all these years and I spent 72 hours killing myself to make sure the place was perfectly swept and lit.  What they were hoping was to catch me stealing storage from them.  They were hoping they would find units with stuff in them, not accounted for.  Not ever happening people, just stop.

    She revealed she's a snake in the grass as soon as she arrived in my office by tricking me into giving her the password to my wifi.  My daughter in law immediately changed the password as soon as they walked out of my office.  I can be nice and do this thing, but I know not to trust her, not to get close to her, not to tell her anything she doesn't need to know.

    I missed 5 locks.  It's not hard to do, 418 units, could have meant to have them cut in the past and forgot, just keep missing them along the way with all the other stuff that gets done.  She came to the office asking me if I wanted to go with her while they cut them, I told her no, go ahead, I'm doing this.

    The unit that did have stuff in it, the girl left, she had money, she had two units, they've been gone for quite some time and that was the only one.  People leave stuff all the time.  It doesn't have to be crappy stuff.  Hell, I've got a china cabinet as big as my entertainment center that someone left.  It's from the 60's curved wood front, cabinet lights up.  Took us over 2 hours to move them, the two of us.

    I'm not guilty of anything so why should I jump up and run along behind them like they are going to find something?  I keep pristine records, I bank more money every year I work here, I handle the business the way I was taught.

    I'm excited I won't have to handle their money anymore, my place can and will make more money if you take my heart out of the transaction.  Let them have that headache.  They are going to find out it's more work than they at first imagined and it's a huge pain in the ass.  My people are needy and are going to start blowing up their phones for months on ends.  Good for them.  I'm glad they want that headache.

    There is plenty of stuff to be done without having to handle the money.  There are people that need to be met up with, units that need to be swept and secured, light bulbs that have to be in working order, at my place, because I have electricity in my units.  I have bands and businesses here.

    If they think they are going to be able to fire me, they have lost their minds.

    I will request a meeting with the A brothers immediately.  Their attorneys know my attorneys and their attorneys don't want to hear from my attorneys.  Period.

    I've done my job to the best of my ability with little to zero real supervision.  I'm still here.

    The place has been struggling for two years, I've gotten tons of repeat business over that time and banked more money every year I've been here.  You can't fire an employee you've screwed with that does their job.

    I'm smarter than the average bear and believe in the power of the pen.

    I shot an email to the vice president of the company, tagging everyone else, telling them how excited I am about not having the responsiblity of taking payments.  Explained how that moves me into PR work and how I'm a great PR person.  I talk to everybody, I dress nice and I never meet a stranger.  Plus, there are other things that need to be taken care of besides the money, especially at my place.

    I closed the email with "As always willing to do anything that needs to be done to better the company and continue to be an asset.

    LOL.

    No one said a word back.

    Paper trail.

    I put the fact that I work for them and have no plans of leaving right back in their laps.  If they were planning to get rid of me, they are going to have to be real creative and or pay me to go away.  That's all there is to it.

    All of my communications with them are in writing, show me in the light of a willing and able employee.

    It's going to get interesting before it's over with.

    My friend JP, that's what we'll call him, popped in, while the boss and assistant were here.  He's my buddy, charming, is the tenant who has been there the entire time.  He knows more about their place than they do, because he's been there.  He talked me up, of course, but before he left they were just about taking their panties off for him and he's got a lunch date with the boss and her mother today at a local restaurant they all know one another from.

    This is what is going to happen.  She's goiing to go in there and get comfortable and she's going to tell him absolutely everything they have going on and he's going to get the inside line on what they hae plans on doing with me.

    He's going to let her talk.

    M is a big little town, if you piss off the wrong people, your business ventures can virtually dry up overnight and the A's own a shit ton of realty here, a lot of it sitting empty anyway, they can't afford to take too many more hits on their 25 million a year company.  200 thousand of that comes out of my place.  They could probably bring it up another 50 grand without me having to participate in money transactions and people's sob stories.

    They're setting it up for the money to go to a PO Box and or through the internet.  It won't even come to my office anymore.  I'm cool with that.

    I get new software Monday.

    It's a fire at will state, but you can't fire an employee who can sue you.  I have tattoos, they can't fire me for them, they hired me with them.  I showed up wearing shorts a great deal of the time, because the work is hot and dirty.  I dress nothing but business casual now.  I was dressed better than the boss and her assistant the other day.

    I have a tatoo on my face that has always been there, she though I had marked my face with my pen.  LOL.

    I'm not going without a fight.

    I'm not leaving until they pay me to.

    They gave my friend ten days to get out, one day after she had a car accident and broke her back.  She had to move in those ten days, period.

    They haven't figured out what they are going to do with me, yet.  I outlined what my job now looks like to them and told them how excited I am for that opportunity.  I've gone rogue.  

    Oh how I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation and I so hope she doesn't stand him up.  The universe is conspiring to help me and they loved the fact they didn't have to wear a mask in the restaurant.  

    We shall see, yes, we shall see.