Changes

 

I don't know what it's like not to work. I will soon find out. My work life has been a meandering road. I endured some uncomfortable situations and experienced unexpected highs. I had a laissez faire attitude toward work in my early twenties, likely because I possessed no skills other than the ability to type and a quick mind. A job was a job. If I hated my current one, I'd find another. They all paid little above minimum wage, so my gauge was whether I could tolerate it and the people who worked there (the deal-breaker was usually the people). I tried retail (and liked it); I tried secretarial (and despised it). I lucked into a hospital position that last eight glorious years; all in all my favorite all-time job.

In 1990 I tried desperately to secure a position with a health insurance company that'd decided to expand its operations to the far-flung prairie; sat on a stool in my garage and smoked and practiced answering interview questions. I hated my current position and was desperate to escape it. My only calling card was a knowledge of medical terminology gained during my years at St. Alexius. I knew nothing about processing insurance claims. They only hired me because one of their initial choices dropped out and I was first runner-up. During the three weeks I waited for a phone call, after I'd grown despondent, I silently accepted my woeful lot in life as a farm records secretary. When the call finally came, Mister Sun beamed through my plate glass window. I didn't know nor care what claim processing entailed; just that I'd been delivered. Somehow I knew this was where I belonged.

Thirty years later, I'm still in the medical insurance game. I went from claims examiner to assistant supervisor to supervisor to manager, backsliding at my next company to examiner and then upticking to trainer. When I accepted the job with my current employer, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was punching below my weight. But being a manager, honestly, simply meant juggling balls in the air. I thought I was a phenom, when in fact I was just "capable".

I've been a trainer for seventeen years. As one ages, they settle and make the most of the tableau offered. I made the most of it. As an extreme introvert, I'm amazed at how I managed to mentor people. I still don't quite understand it, but maybe that's one of the little things we accept with humility and tuck in our pocket.

Soon all that will end. I'm not certain I want it to. Why am I ambivalent about retiring? Isn't this what all of us yearns for? I think maybe I'm afraid of what comes next. Will my brain wither and die? I don't feel old. Shoot, I'm still writing my novel! Will I grow fat and plop myself in front of the TV all day? I need a plan. A goal. Sixty-five-year-olds can still have goals, you know. I don't feel a day over sixty.

I will let you know as soon as I know.

Thus the story continues...

There Are No Good Conservative Songwriters

 

Some dolt named Jason Isbell, who is apparently the "King of Americana Music" (I honestly have no idea who the idiot is) recently got into a Twitter tussle with someone who tweeted that they didn't like his progressive politics, and responded, “If it ever gets to be too much for you, there are a lot of great songwriters out there who agree with you politically. Oh wait, no there aren’t.”

I abhor making fun of the mentally challenged, but I will make an exception in this case. Let's begin with the absurd moniker of "King of Americana". Who crowned him? In my limited exposure to whatever the hell Americana is, I would exalt Dwight Yoakam (who is apparently no longer considered "country") to that title. And Dwight's politics are, yes, progressive, but he's no imbecile. There is no chance in hell Dwight would make a statement like that, because he knows better. Dwight knows that political bent has no bearing on songwriting prowess. In fact, political leanings have no bearing on creativity, period. I don't know (and don't care to know) what kind of songs this Isbell guy writes, but if you're in the country milieu, aren't you writing about heartbreak and about life's ups and downs? I didn't know that was solely the purview of liberals. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not, based on my reading of online political site comments; unless the songs are all about how much I hate Trump and the world is going to hell...because of Trump.

Sigh.

Tedious.

It's sad that some people's existences are so tiny that all they have to latch onto is hate. No, not sad -- pathetic.

I'm not going to enumerate all the superb conservative country songwriters, because Trigger compiled a comprehensive list here. My point in writing this post is that people need to get over themselves. I sometimes lurk on a (fiction) writer's forum and it's just as hateful as Jason Isbell. The prevailing opinion there (among writers who've had just as much success as me; meaning "none") is that conservatives are hayseeds who can barely read, much less write. The place oozes with condescension.

No wonder I pine for the days when music was just "music". Now we are forced to take sides. That's not what music is about. Music should be joyous. Music should be a respite; a little jewel we tuck inside our pockets. I don't want it to be ruined. I knew that Stephen Stills was a Hollywood Hills lefty, but I didn't care because I liked his music. I know what John Lennon was. Lennon is a god to me. 



Let's all calm down and stop hoisting our battle shields. 




 

Get Over It, People

 

I don't get political here, but come on, people! I truly don't understand all the hate -- all the angst that drives people insane. Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?

I saw a clip of some moron driving his van into a tent one political party had erected to register voters, because he "needed to make a statement", and I thought, what the hell? Is your life really that sad? Excuse me, but you are a loser.

I've been voting since 1976. Sometimes my candidate won; sometimes they didn't. Life went on. I managed to live a productive existence. I raised a family, worked a job, paid my bills. Dabbled in artistic endeavors. Sure, I wasn't crazy about some of the losers who were elected, but they weren't attacking me personally.

Maybe it's a twenty-first century phenomenon, that humans are so in tune to cable news that they abandon all sensibility. I refuse to live that life. (And please, just stop, cable news. If you truly care about people, you might want to catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and ask if this is a person you'd really want to know. Seriously, are ratings going to be the sum total of your life? Pathetic.)

Life can be bad, but it can also be grand. I would be lost without my husband. I love my grandsons. I love watching my sons blossom into dads and celebrating every milestone, just as I did with each of them. I cherish my friends; love laughing with them. My pets, Josie and Bob, are quirky and can be maddening, but our bed would be empty without them. I fold music inside my heart and never forget how fortunate I've been to experience it. My mind is constantly spinning with new, sometimes outlandish creative, bound to fail, schemes and plans.

I'm not about to steer my car into a crowd of innocent people.

I am truly flummoxed by all the hate.

How about, just live? There is magic in the world -- just open your eyes to it.

My Fleeting Music "Career"

I've sung a lot of songs in my life. Granted, most of them were to my reflection in the mirror, but it still counts. When I was a kid, around seven or eight years old, my heart's desire was to be a famous singer. I had no particular talent, but I sounded pretty good to myself in the backyard, performing atop the picnic table. I loved music with my whole heart and if I could only play piano, my career ambitions would be realized. Alas, my dad thought the accordion would be nifty, so off I toddled to lessons downtown. I don't recall having a voice in the ruling, nor any objections. Dad didn't make a lot of the decisions in our household, so when he did, he meant business. Admittedly I was curious about how to make music and if I could actually do it, but oom-pah-pah wasn't my first choice.

Dad's younger brother, always readying to copy whatever Dad did, swiftly enrolled both his kids in lessons, too. Thus I got to be admonished by my teacher, "Karen doesn't drag her basses like that." Accordion solos are supposed to be crisp. I preferred a longer, drawn-out, sound, so I chose not to snap those buttons like they were meant to be snapped. Or maybe I was simply lazy, lethargic; bored.

Our instructor, however, hit upon a great scheme ~ form a trio, Paul, Karen, and poor pathetic me. She broadened her horizons from simply accordion and assigned each of us our own instrument. Paul got to stick with the squeeze box, but Karen (the favorite) was taught some chords on acoustic guitar, and I was given a couple of brushes and tasked with swishing them across a snare drum. We commenced practice in the basement studio, then set off to entertain elderly residents in nursing homes. We were nine, ten, and eleven; so the shut-ins found us cute and strained from their wheelchairs to pinch our cheeks. Our confidence grew. We started to believe our own publicity.

We advanced to street fairs and downtown Crazy Days. Paul and Karen's mom sewed costumes for us ~ fringed black billowing skirts for Karen and me; matching western shirts for the three of us; dime store plastic cowboy hats. I think we may have even had faux-cowboy boots. I sadly can't recall what we called ourselves; maybe something like The Westernaires. Karen could tell me, but she's most likely not reading this.

It wasn't until we moved in 1964 to my bachelor uncle's establishment that we realized some return on our efforts. There, we made serious coin ~ playing just outside the bar for tips. Even then it was sort of a drag, having to change into our costumes after school and dragging out the caved-in snare drum; screwing it into its stand. But money was a motivator. If you're ten years old and can't get anything new without begging your mother for money, being an independent contractor was heaven. And tipsy patrons are exceedingly generous. Each of us toddled down to the local Woolworths and bought amber-tinted glass piggy banks and proceeded to fill them. We were rich!

I learned that performing the same song over and over, though, wasn't all performing was cracked up to be. Even then I could grow bored in a hurry. I wished we could change our repertoire, but without our accordion teacher in close proximity, the three of us were adrift.

My singular claim to fame was that I got to sing the opening verse of "Bye Bye Love". Seeing as how I was the weak link in the chain, I considered it a high honor. I still don't know how I obtained it.

Today whenever I hear The Everly Brothers and that guitar riff, I'm whisked off to those days; and I sing along with pride:

There goes my baby
With someone new
He sure looks happy
I sure am blue

Once upon a time, I was a world-renowned singer.

Winter On The High Plains

 Trying To Get Home From Work

 

It's no secret that I hate winter. What's to like? Ooh, the snow is so fun to play in! said no one. First of all, I don't play, unless one counts donning three layers of clothing, bundling up my dog and stealing down the icy front steps to do what it takes her all of five seconds to do as "play".

So why do I live in Minnesota? Why does anyone live anywhere? I don't have the means to take me wherever whimsy leads me; and I have a job. I grew up on the high plains (happily not in Minnesota), so I should be, and am, used to winter. I still haven't grown fond of it.

I surely don't want to move to tornado alley or hurricane-central, so everyone has their burdens to bear. It's just that winter is approximately six months long. When I was a kid I divided the twelve months of the year into four seasons. Kids are gullible. The truth is, spring and fall comprise one month each, summer is three months, tops. That leaves...yikes, actually seven months that are in actuality winter. So when October rolls around, I start watching the weather forecast, for all the good that does me, and laying out my winter wardrobe. It's always a smorgasbord of possibilities ~ snow, minus twenty-degree wind chills, ice, blustery gale-force winds; and generally a combination of one or two or three.

A typical work conversation goes like this:

"Has anyone seen an updated forecast?"

"I heard four to six inches."

"Really? Online, I saw six to ten!"

"I should ask for tomorrow off."

"I don't know. It should be okay driving in. I'm just worried about the drive home."

"You never know. It depends on what time it starts."

"I really should ask for tomorrow off."

I've had this exact same conversation approximately ten thousand two hundred and fifty-nine times.

If I have the luxury of requesting the day off, I take it. But that's not always possible. Sometimes I have actual responsibilities, believe it or not. A few years ago my husband drove me (or slid us) to work on ice-slickened roads because I had a training class of two people and what would they do if I didn't show up? Turns out both of my trainees called in due to weather, and we had risked death for no Godly reason.

And I submit that "weather forecasting" is a racket. Nobody wants to commit, because loathe as they are to admit it, they're just guessing. I did ask for today off, because my workplace is not in crisis mode, and the forecast calls for six to ten inches of snow. That means we'll maybe get three.

For an area that experiences multitudes of these events every winter, our TV weather people are oddly disinterested. Maybe they've been worn down by constantly being wrong; maybe "weather person" is the dregs of local news. Try to catch the latest forecast and one is greeted with what yesterday's temps and winds were. I'd respect them more if they simply shrugged and said, "Your guess is as good as mine."

The upside of a snowstorm is if one is able to anticipate it and gird for it, it can be relatively stress-free, snug, and excuse-ready (I can't do that. Don't you know there's a storm out there?) What one needs is plenty of comfort food, enough beverages of choice, a cozy blanket, cable or Netflix, a strong internet connection, a craft project or a good book. One must plan ahead. Just don't rely on your local meteorologist to forewarn you. They're too busy being hazed in the back office by the sports guy.

In the pantheon of songwriting, few songs have been penned about winter. The ones we're familiar with are mostly clinically depressing or are about cold graves. Winter is gloomy enough; I don't need to hear about someone gazing in the mirror as mascara-stained tears streak down their cheeks.

Leave it to Paul Simon, however, Here's one I actually like:



When I awake tomorrow morning, the snow will obscure my door stop. I'll pull on my snow boots, hat, down coat and gloves, velcro Josie's pink plaid coat around her tummy and head on out. When we return, I'll pour myself a cup of fresh-brewed Joe and anticipate a waffle-and-bacon breakfast; then pull the comforter around me and bless the fact that I'm warm and cozy inside, and that it's only Saturday. I have no place to be.

All in all, though, I'd trade a Minnesota winter for whatever you've got to offer.

Starting Anew In 2020

 

Like with most things, I'm a little off-kilter. Resolutions are supposed to start on January first -- everyone knows that, silly. I commenced my 2020 resolutions somewhere around mid-2019, but they still count. One might assume that as a person ages, they let it all hang out; give up, give in. I certainly thought that.

Alas, I spent a good number of years going where the winds took me. Life was a series of circumstances; little effort was required. What was gonna happen was gonna happen. It's not as if I was a passive observer. I could definitely step up when it counted ~ I raised my two boys to be upstanding, flourishing individuals (it worked). I had my professional career phase, in which I had the opportunity to apply everything common sense tells one is the means to uplifting people (it worked).

Now I'm kind of all about me.

Around May of 2019, I realized that being "obese", as doctors like to code their claims, was doing me nothing but harm. I no longer cared about how I looked, but how I felt. Climbing stairs caused my knees to creak. I slept like crap. I finally understood that losing weight wasn't a "diet", but a lifestyle. I love, love junk food. Give me a donut and you'll gain a new best friend. Unfortunately, enough finally became enough.

To date, I've lost thirty pounds, and I look pretty good, if I do say so. It's not easy. After eight months of deprivation, resentment surreptitiously comes a'knockin'. I took a diet vacation in the two weeks between Christmas and New Year's, and now I feel like a novice, fighting hunger pangs and battling to re-assume the program.

It's also interesting how eager people are to feed you when you are tussling with the devil on your shoulder. My cubicle neighbor is attending culinary school and likes to bring in delights to share with select persons. It's a fine line between assuaging someone's feelings and guarding one's hard-fought victories. I've settled upon taking two bites. It's a compromise.

My husband, who is a man and thus self-absorbed, enjoys picking up delicacies at the deli as a treat for me. I eat them, naturally, all the while mentally calculating how I'll need to make up for it the rest of the week.

Crafting:

I started doing counted cross-stitch in the eighties. I no longer remember if I came up with the idea on my own or if peer pressure caused my obsession. I was working at the hospital, and all the nurses (well, maybe not all, but most) were working on projects. This was what we did on the second shift. It's not that nothing happened during the evening hours, but the air was quieter.

I completed dozens of projects from 1980 to 1988, framing them all, giving some as gifts. I became a crafting master. Then I stopped. I don't remember why. I think life just got busier and I was no longer working odd shifts. Now some thirty years later, I've taken it up again, and it relaxes me just as it did back then. It's a strange phenomenon ~ it's really not the finished product that hooks one, but the "doing". Repetition? I can't explain it, but it works. It really works. I will keep on.

My first project back (in progress):

I want to finish a third April Tompkins novel; at least I think I do. Writing can be fun and it can be complete tedium. I've written so much of this follow-up novel that it would be sacrilege to not finish it. It could turn out to be a novella ~ time and imagination will tell. The good thing about writing is that one falls in love with her characters, even if no one else does. Discipline is an issue, though. A real writer would have completed the damn thing in a month. I've had this current project in progress for about a year. Obstinance will force me to finish it ~ I know me.

I'm still here ~ still kickin'. When I was a kid and I thought about the year 2020, I assumed I'd be a crotchety old lady digging her own grave. Turns out, like most things I assumed back then, that's not exactly right.

Here's to keepin' on.

Getting It Together

 

Humans are funny. They have an innate need for order, yet if they are like me they subjugate it until things get completely out of hand or a new year begins; whichever comes first.

As the world's ultimate procrastinator, my trigger is irritation. "Where the *#!! is that ____? I know I have it...somewhere. This is *@*#! ridiculous!" Then, "I need to get organized."

As 2019 drew to a close I began re-ordering my life. Now I'm on a mission. Beware: Once you start, you are incapable of stopping. Not only have I undertaken an overall tidying of my home, but it has extended to my little office cubicle. December at my workplace is so ridiculously busy that papers and notes scribbled on yellow legal pads get tossed into a pile, and I can barely concentrate on the current email question without mentally scanning the other fifty unread missives in my in-box. Actual cognitive thought is relegated to auto-pilot with double fingers crossed. Now that it's January and things have cooled, I've begun sifting through all my scribbles and categorizing them or jettisoning them, whichever seems appropriate at the time. Additionally, Clorox Wipes are awesome. Today I cleaned, rearranged, shredded, and categorized three months worth of detritus. Look at me now!

I want to preserve it for posterity! I wish I had "before" pictures.

For the remainder of the day, I was gleefully productive. Many things cause endorphins to be released -- exercise, alcohol (truly), chocolate, music (duh), even lavender. But I submit that organizing is a gigantic endorphin generator. I'm almost looking forward to returning to work on Monday simply to gaze at my handiwork.

Granted, it won't last, but I have seven months, tops, to maintain a semblance of neatness. After that, welcome to my cube, replacement!

The pending end of my work life is rather bittersweet. My first thought is, good luck; nobody will do my job better than me. My second thought is, do you appreciate me now? Funnily, I'll miss it, though. I'm feeling wistful. I'll get over it, no doubt.

Finally, getting it together is a wondrous feeling.