found a job, whew

Wow, what's going on here??  I go nearly a whole year not writing in my blog, and then write 3 posts today.  
It's a unique time.  I'm not working, but I'm not unemployed.  I have things to do, but I feel like writing.  I don't feel guilt as I sometimes do sitting down and writing.  The job I used to have was so entangling, so encompassing, that it followed me home and I had to work at things at home as well as at my job.  I felt guilty writing then, b/c there was so much to do for work even when I was home !!! 
That's over with. 
If I sit down and write, I don't have to feel bad that I'm supposed to be looking for a job.  
So, 8/18/2015 will go down in history as the most blogs in 1 day.  Yay!!!! 

I had an increasingly bad situation where I worked at the law firm I was with.  I had worked with them under 2 years. The situation was progressively worse and then all of the sudden it ended. I found myself in an argument with the managing partner who accused me of making mistakes on purpose.  That wasn't the case.  The powers that be at that law firm just had no idea how much work was given & what the implication was when they just piled lots of work on me.  If you give too much work, mistakes will be made; it's that simple.  So, that was it.

I sent out resumes from various sources. There was encouragement, because I had interviews.  I had an interview way up in the northern city limit of Chicago.  It was not easy to get to.  I transposed the numbers of the address and broke a cardinal rule and was late.

I kept cool; I displayed enthusiasm which is one of the things the experts encourage.  Clearly, it was genuine.  I needed a job, they were offering a paralegal, and I felt I would do well for them.  The interviewer and my future boss had a good exchange.  She was nice, she was candid.  I gave a lot of energy, earnestness, insights into concerns she had that necessitated hiring a paralegal.

The interview ended about an hour later.  The traffic and remoteness from my place are factors.  This is the 1st time that it will take me 2 hours to go from my condo to my workplace.  It will take 2 trains and a bus ride to get there.  I'm taking the challenge very seriously.  I'm going to practice it this Thursday and Friday mornings to see what exactly will make it hard, what could help me make it easier.

There is absolutely no way in hell that I will drive from my home to work.  The exception will be on light traffic days like the day before Christmas, the day after New Years Day, days surrounding the holidays and holidays when the clinic I work at will be open, maybe Columbus Day.  
Otherwise, there is no way I will drive my car to work.  The car is 11 years old; it only has 75,000 miles on it, but I would quickly have it go past 100,000 miles in a few short months.  It just seems like you start running into a lot of expensive problems after the car goes past 100,000 miles.  I want my car to last 5 years.  I don't see that happening if I drive it to work everyday.

I feel happy that I found a job within 1 month of leaving my last job.  Last time I was unemployed, I didn't find a decent job for a year and a half.  I knew if it took that long this time, I would be financially ruined. It was downright scary.  But I kept reading what the experts were saying, send out resumes, send out quality cover letters with the resumes, and talk to people in your network.  
I wondered at times if I was doing enough to find a job.  Thank God, whatever I did in the early part of August worked ! !

The First Love

Do you remember the first time you fell in love, even if you were younger than 16? They apparently call it puppy love, but I don't think it should necessarily be scorned or forbidden. It's just that certain aspects of love should wait.  The priests and ministers state you should wait until your married.  The trend is for the 1st child to be born later and later these days, yet many  (most??)  don't wait for marriage to have _______.

Does a son or daughter not love one or both of their parents?  Isn't it possible that there's an immature but sometimes intense love for someone, for 2 kids to love each other?

When I was in middle school and high school, maybe even earlier than that, I was in the same classes as this girl.  We went to the same CCD; we went to the same church sometimes.  It was pretty amazing.....some weeks I would see her every day of the week - 5 days of school, CCD on Saturday & Church on Sunday.  She was not only nice looking, but she had a great personality.  She was very athletic starter in 3 sports, was editor of the Annual Staff, was on the Forensics team with me where we both made history at our high school for being the 1st 2 people in Forensics to  compete at State level all 4 years of high school.

We spent a lot of time together.  We had some good talks.  & at certain points of middle school (even earlier than middle school) and high school, I was in love with her.  I wasn't obnoxious about it, when she had boyfriends, I didn't try to steal her away, but she knew what I thought about her.  She didn't feel the same way.  Oh well.
 It worked out for the best.  I didn't get along with 1 of her older sisters.  As nice as my friend was, that's how taciturn, haughty and mean her sister was. That would have been a problem had we dated or hypothetically gotten serious.  Years later, when I wrote all these reasons down of why I was glad I married my ex (years and years before the divorce, of course!)  one of the 1st reasons I was glad to be with my wife was that I had a great relationship with her sister.  Her sister was ALWAYS nice to me, and we never had any problems.
My old friend from decades past not only had a not-so-great sister, but an obnoxious, smart-alec cousin who people nicknamed "Smiley".   He was one of those jerks that acted the same way after high school as he did during high school.  So, years after we both graduated high school he would STILL  remind me that I loved his cousin.  I swore after that if I ever saw him again, I would punch him in the face repeatedly if he ever brought up the subject again.  I was a bigger than him & had experience in fights in my 20s even though he was older than me.  But that was just it, in high school, he was 3 yrs. older than me and could domineer and talk crap to me.  I wanted the opportunity to really show him how much times changed.  
But with more age, and more wisdom, I stopped thinking that way, and decided fighting him wouldn't prove much.  It's probably not even the best way to tell him as clear as possible "DON'T DO THAT!" which would have been the whole purpose of hitting him.


So many things happened after graduating high school:.........graduating college, figuring out my career, getting married, being the father of 3 kids, reconnecting with old friends from high school on Facebook, going through cancer and still fighting depression.....

Here's a big irony.  In 1990, my best friend, Frank died.  In fact, it was 25 years ago on August 15 !  The irony is that I saw Frank more recently, than the last time I saw my first love which was just under 30 yrs ago.  She didn't join Facebook; we didn't reconnect.
That's fine; that's her perogative.  One thing I was curious about was.....if we hadn't seen each other in 30 years, did she look different.  Did she look a lot different??
So, early this summer, I went to Google Images and looked her up.  Wow, there she was.  I saw pictures of her as recent as 5 years ago. Yes, she changed; just like we all changed. You knew what blew me away?? It wasn't even her; it was her husband.  I couldn't believe how little he changed.  He just added a mustache since I last saw him, and that's it !   He looks young ! 
This old friend & I  were friends; we were never, ever lovers.  The relationship affected the way I approached women thereafter.  I would be nice to women, and I had lots of women over the years who were friends of mine.  It certainly affected college. Her reaction to me being in love with her  & what happened between us affected my approach, b/c I was bound and determined never again to be so overt or to never, ever "chase" a woman.   I just figured chasing would never win the woman over, and would just lead to heartache.  I never wanted to feel bad again (but I did in 2002 & 2003, & I already told that story).   It made the time in college really bereft of girlfriends; sometimes you have to "apply yourself", use some charm.  There was only 1 person I could really say was my girlfriend in college and even that didn't seem to go very far.
It was all for the best.  She married a good guy.  I wasn't ready to be married in my 20s.  I had to get more mature and less callow.  I had to work on my manners.  I developed job skills and became an excellent paralegal.
Best of all, I fell in love with my truelove in 2010.  Being in  a loving relationship has been taken care of ever since........

that's not us back then, by the way.  I only kissed her once, and that was at the end of our high school graduation when graduates come together and say goodbye

LinkedIn really annoys me sometimes

Linked In has become vital to some businesses, to people looking for jobs (like I was until Monday  when I scored one :) !)  So, I've used it to my advantage at times.

But, it's also gotten me in trouble and it can get others in trouble easily here's why.  This happened in the past, and it almost  happened a few minutes ago.  Linked In will make a suggestion about someone who ought to be  your connection.  In the process of saying "Yes, that's a good idea, I want them to be my friend/connection,"  LinkedIn will import all your contacts from places like Yahoo or wherever and ask every single, solitary person on there if they want to join you on Linked In.
So, a few years ago, I had 1 of my "flintier, high-strung" associates get an email by me through LinkedIn.
He got all upset and gave me a nasty e-mail.

Now, we can say, my associate over-reacted; we might even argue that he was being a jerk.  But I also hold LinkedIn responsible, b/c they shouldn't make it so easy to import contacts you have NO INTENTION OF CONTACTING !   They SHOULD make it much more clear that they are going to contact  all the people in your Address Book !  & is it that good of an idea that they do that in the first place?  Shouldn't they make that not so easy to do??
The fact that they don't do that is a poor reflection on such a high-powered, well-known, renowned website and organization.

I went to a party

I don't go to parties too often.   Most of the time, I think it costs too much, and I'm spending money I don't have.The other thing is my friends don't throw parties; they're about my age and people in their 50s don't have weddings and don't party like it's "1999".     But, there was a very nice guy in my club that invited me and his friends, neighbors, a musician, a band (!!) and about 100 people.  So, this afternoon, I went eager for a good time.
I had a very good time.   I was smiling, the food was good, my girlfriend was at my side happy, too.
At the end of the party, the host actually played with a very good band he hired to play at his party. (Host is the 3rd from left from the 4 you see)

 There was a guy that I know and spent some time with who attended.  He's actually the cousin of the host. We'll call him Karl. Karl has a "song & dance" about how he was once rich but got screwed out of money and was conned & lost 90% of it.  In actuality, he doesn't work except very sporadically.  He's just turned 50 and STILL lives w/ his parents.  I said he works sporadically, NEVER a steady job.  Here's one example.  He was hired to be a baseball UMPIRE in a league.  You know why he stopped umpiring ?  He was told to stop umpiring b/c he was seducing women right in the middle of the damn game !! No kidding.  I think what happened was it was a co-ed league, and he would either be talking all this stuff to a female catcher or female batter  and then call balls & strikes !  Can you imagine?  Unreal !   He also collects aluminum cans, but obviously if you aren't doing that on a massive scale & he ISN'T, you make pennies per week.....LITERALLY
Oh, and he also gambles.  He's actually lost tons of money gambling at slot machines in a matter of hours. He actually told my kids once that his job was gambling & then he makes money.  Thank God they were smart enough to know that was wrong.
He got up and sang 3 songs while the band was on break.  To his credit, he sounded good. He can carry a tune.....oh bummer,....most singers (especially the ones singing in the shower or to the radio in their cars) don't make much, if any, $$.
Keith had a girlfriend that was with him.  She clearly liked him for his sense of humor.  I've seen many women fall for guys who were funny.  About a decade ago, there was a co-worker who ticks off about 9 faults her date had. So, I'm like, "Annie, why do you go out with him??????"
"HE'S FUNNY !!!!"
"Oh ok.....I guess I'll go back to work.  Hope it all works out for you, Annie"
So, there she was tonight.......Keith's girlfriend Jane.  Very nice looking....she made me think of the lyric "sweet, sweet Jane!".  What's going to happen to Jane? What's going to happen to Karl & Jane???  Karl had an on-again, off-again relationship with another woman.  You know why it ended?  She logically got very tired of seeing Karl lose $100s and $100s  week after week and wondering what he should do, and hitting her up for money when they went out to eat.  She was a nice person.  She worked not far from where I once worked as a legal secretary.
Jane is a nice person, too.  Karl is nice, but so behind, so unbelievably Immature, asks such stupid sophomoric ?s like a 12 year old would making a stupid adolescent attempt to be funny.  He got my girlfriend very pissed off, because he had the nerve to ask her about our sex life and how often we kiss.  But sweet, sweet Jane is right.  Karl is funny.  She already knows he gambles but apparently (and this is early in the relationship) she saw him make money.  He would make money if he pulled the handle at the right time.  So 2 weeks ago, she prompted him when to pull the lever, and he repeatedly won.  Yipee.  Karl triumphantly called her "my GOOD LUCK CHARM !!!!"   We all should be happy for Karl and sweet, sweet Jane (the hard working medical assistant that takes care of Alzheimer patients).  Ummmmm, ooooops  Karl and Jane had to admit that last night, she was with him and he  gambled  and lost money. More of that to come, Honey.

Jane is a good person, she's only a few years younger than me and still very nice looking.  She takes care of the mentally ill, Alzheimers patients, autistic kids & young adults.  & when they get upset with most of the workers at her medical center, they don't get mad at Sweet Jane, b/c SHE takes the time to listen and understand and empathize with them?    She's going to be REQUIRED to show a lot of empathy with Karl.
She walked up to me later during the party to say goodbye.  She said it was nice meeting me, and she hoped to see me soon.

Oh really??? Me??? Your kidding, aren't you (I silently thought) ??  Yeah, I got some issues too.  While I'm throwing rocks, criticizing Karl, I better think about how I could improve.  Here I was at this very happy party and when I walked into our host's really awesome house, I felt the happiness melt away like hot butter.  He had this wonderful huge house based on a thriving craftsman business, and here I am with just a paralegal career.  Yes, I like helping people, but it's slowly swallowing most of my life each and every day.  If I'm not drowning in work, I'm away from work thinking about how odious the place; now that's an exaggeration, but I do spend too much time thinking about that law firm away from work !  So, I walked out of my host's palace, & I brood about how I should send more resumes out and get a better job.
Then I correctly, figuratively kicked myself. What the hell am I supposed to do?? Whip out my damn smartphone and send out the resumes from there? Ask to borrow the host's fuckin desktop computer??   What happened to all the tried and true wisdom about living in the moment.  What the hell am I doing all pensive & feeling bad about a palacelike house among a group of happy people at a happy party????

So, I stopped. It's a party, listen to the band play rock n roll, enjoy the music, don't worry about sweet, sweet Jane, don't scorn Karl,
Stopping being depressed over a troublesome future.
Start being thankful for your good, well-meaning kids, start being blissful for being with an awesome girlfriend.
Take her by the hand and sing along to the lyrics the band is playing, because after all, you like the song and know the words ! 
Well, I did some of that, not all,  I'm not quire light enough and a little too Dark to feel blissful at a fun, happy party.
But when it was over, I walked over to the host and gave a very heartfelt, sincere, "Thank you" for inviting me to such a nice, posh party.  That doesn't happen very often. Ummmmm when was the last time I was at a fun, posh party???.......ummm about 8 years ago.  Oh, yeah, you damn well better thank the host !!

Well, I left the party with my girlfriend.  Patricia thanked me for taking her.  OMG, Dear !! I wouldn't have it any other way !!!! My God, you are 1 of only about 10 people that keep me going and make me happy!!!!  & your thanking me??