EdgeofGloria

I spent Christmas Eve doing some last minute shopping with a friend. Id’ stopped by her house to drop off her gift, and she made a comment about having to get a gift. I said she’d better hurry, because it was five to three. She asked if I wanted to come along, and we spent a pleasant couple hours looking at stuff. I got home and put everything away and I got ready to go for a walk with Daphne. Then there was a knock on my door. A truck was parked in the driveway and I figured it was a neighbor. No, it was a scraggly looking guy who gave me an ornament. “It’s a light for your tree,” he said. I took it, reluctantly. Never mind that you can’t see my tree from the front windows. He asked me if I’d seen something out at Village at Coventry, and I said no. While he was talking nonsense, I discreetly locked the screen door. He left, and I waited to see if he would visit any of my other neighbors. No. He backed down the driveway and drove off. Nothing happened. I’ve got a rather run-of-the-mil...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEaBIvP65cA

People are extremely pissed off about the political situation in the United States. Democrats hate the Republicans, Republicans hate the Democrats. Listen up people—you will be much happier once you face the facts: America is fucked. NAFTA has destroyed the manufacturing sector. Globalization of business means you will not have a job if someone overseas can do it cheaper. And make no mistake about it: they can, and they will. Millions of Chinese will work six or seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day, for 60 cents an hour. There’s no way we can compete with that. I would not be surprised if the teaching profession is outsourced—give each kid his own computer in school and have the lesson taught by someone in India. Security guards? They’ll be replaced by codes punched on a keypad, or by door cards and cameras. Low-paid technicians around the world are reading your ultra scan results. My advice is learn to do something that has to be done here. Learn to mop. Be a carpenter. Become a surge...

I know I haven’t written lately. Not that anyone actually reads this blog, but I’m realizing some things about myself. I haven’t liked people for years, but more importantly, I don’t know how to handle the shittier ones. You know the ones—subtle put-downs, flat-out condescension, aim for your heart nasty remarks. I deal with that at one of my jobs. It gets kind of annoying, because of course, if I treated these people the same way they treat me, I’d be written up, or fired. I never learned how to stand up for myself, or be assertive, without going all serial killer bitch on someone. I either get walked all over, or people threaten to call the cops on me. It’s never a happy medium. I’m shocked when people are rude to me. Then, while my jaw is still on the floor, these bitches/bastards walk away, leaving me to wonder what the hell just happened. I’ve been getting annoyed at work, and I’ve been letting it show. The same story—having to do a task, but needing a co-worker to help me. Everyo...

The following is an article I wrote for a 'zine I published years ago and decided to put on the web. From time to time, I will put these up. Sorry I haven't written in a while. My life got super-crazy in late May, and work was frustrating and atressful. Things have settled down a bit. Some thoughts on September 11, 2001 Oh my God, what have they done to the town I loved so well? from the Irish folk song, "The Town I loved so well" It was just another day for me. I got up in the afternoon (give me a break, I work nights) and went to the bank. While waiting for my business to be transacted, I saw someone walk by with a stack of newspapers. I saw the headline was huge, but couldn't actually read it. After I was finished at the bank, I walked over to the newspaper display. The morning paper had some mundane headline. "What's going on?" I thought. The elderly greeter pointed out a stack of afternoon papers on the table. And that's when it stopped bei...

You like it! You really like it! The Souder video has had the most hits of any of my videos! Thanks for watching!

I realize it's been a while. But work has been insane. INSANE! But I've still got my creative juices flowing. Thank you, Mark Souder, for making LOTS of people happy today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sase4MCjo_0 Made a video about the tumor I had on my shoulder.

Before I made my first delivery today, one of our customers who comes in every single morning said he refuses to shop at Meijer, because every time a new location opens up, demonstrators are out in front of the store saying Meijer isn't union, the pay is low and so forth. The customer said, "unions are communist." A co-worker said, "unions once had their place in this country, but not anymore." This customer, probably a contractor, has a job that allows him to shop every single day. No doubt he bills the customer for this time. No doubt he probably has a set schedule to his days, either working eight hours a day, or perhaps 10, but I'm guessing there's a quitting hour for him, and he decides that. My co-worker probably got a 15 minute break two hours after she clocked in; probably took her hour lunch about four hours after she clocked in. She might have eaten during that hour; she might have run a few errands, grabbing a bite to eat while driving, or per...

I'm not optimistic about any decent health care reform going through this weekend. I'm thinking this way for a couple of reasons. One, the health insurance industry makes too much money and is in the business of making it, not helping you with your health expenses. Two, doctors are not really in the business of making you well; they are concerned about getting you dependent on medicine. How many of you have been given "samples" when you confront the doctor with a problem? There never seems to be any concrete search for the actual problem. Years ago, I had a rash on my hands (primarily my right hand) that never seemed to go away. I went to the doctor, and he said it could be one of several hundred things causing it. He prescribed a steroid-based ointment that was $95 a tube. It worked, but once I ran out, the rash returned. I was convinced the rash was caused by something internal. By chance, I came across a magazine article about candida; I read it and it sure sounded...

I still can't get used to Daylight Savings Time. But I'll move my clock ahead anyway. Years ago, I'd refuse to adjust the clock on the VCR, showing "Indiana time" all year round. I'm still in my "don't give a shit mood." I've been running more red lights lately, and basically sometimes refusing to do things people ask me to do. It's fun to say "no" which is probably why I really like teaching. If my students don't do the work, I can flunk them and my boss backs me up. Not so much in my other job, where people can insult me and I still have to be pleasant. FUCK THAT!

I'm in a "don't give a shit" mood. Today, some guy yelled that I'd run a red light. Really? Really and truly? Gee, I was in the middle of the intersection, and I had to wait until the fucking light turned red before I could go. Stupid old asshole jackass. Also, the computers keep fucking up at work; not showing all the supposed deliveries for the day, so sometimes we'll end up with a last-minute delivery that never shows up on the delivery boards that we can access. It's frustrating. Very frustrating. I'm not caring about a lot of stuff anymore, but in a way, it's liberating. Hopefully this new attitude will help in more than just one way.

Got a lot done today, then came home and sorted through mail from the past month or so. I was so tired last night, I went to be at 9:30. It was an 11 hour day without lunch, but I did manage to feed myself, then go to bed. I hear all this talk about maintaining a healthy balance between work, family and whatever else is going on in one's life, but in my world, there is no balance. I keep wondering if I will die early if I keep on working three jobs and neglecting my body. I'm going to stop right now, because if I continue, I'll be plunging into a depressing missive about my life.

I walked into Dollar General after work today and saw a headline saying that Allen County leads the state in chlamydia cases. We're the fattest, most smokingest and now the nastiest in terms of social diseases. I burst out laughing in the store, because if something is bad or unhealthy, we are all over it like white on rice.

I have two addictions taking up my time--Facebook and YouTube. I got high speed Internet access (wireless) about a month ago and I am more than hooked. I'm looking at all sorts of shit on YouTube--plane crash videos, music videos, people squeezing giant cysts and pimples (now I don't feel so bad about my skin problems) women suffering from anorexia, Parry Gripp videos...unreal. Then there's Facebook. A great tool for keeping in touch with people you don't necessarily want to talk to (!) but it can be a time waster as well. I don't play FarmVille or any of those other games. I like video games and I played a few on the Playstation2 when I was off recovering from my surgery, but my time is short, and I have to make the most of it. If I have free time, I spend it sleeping, eating, writing, doing creative stuff or going online. Speaking of creative stuff, I finished the parody music video I was working on. I feel my life is going to be changing again. It's just a hu...

Went to karaoke last night and was subjected to “Single Ladies” which I’d heard for the first time a few days ago. This is proof that the craft of songwriting has fallen into the toilet. If I never hear the words, “if you liked it, you shoulda put a ring on it” again I will be perfectly happy. It seemed like 50 percent of the song consisted of those words repeated over and over. I was just on YouTube, and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance has the nonsensical refrain, “la la, uuum la la, gaga uuum ba ba” or whatever the hell it is. The song sort of reminded me of karaoke last night; there was a woman who basically was looking at the lyrics but the sounds she made were along the lines of “glarh, blah errrgh ummm rearh arch wah wah.” I know those aren’t the lyrics to “Johnny B. Goode.”

Why am I watching The Bachelor? Sometimes I think I SHOULD pay for cable.

The Swiss seem to have their shit together. They stay out of conflicts and generally seem like they care about things. I'm sure there are some things they don't do well, but looking around at the incompetency I see running rampant in nearly every area that I have to deal with in my life (work, customer service, doctors/hospitals) I'd like to live in Switzerland for a while and appreciate the difference. That being said, there was something on the national news tonight about modeling the U.S. health care system after the one the Swiss have. Sure, it has flaws and it's expensive. A big part of the roadblock is that everyone thinks nationalized health care will be perfect, but it won't. Even I realize that. But the Swiss realize it too. The report said their health care system was like a Rolex. In case you don't know, Rolex is a very expensive, high quality watch. Health care CAN be done right. But what I don't understand is why lots of people here are so gloom...

So Rush Limbaugh left the Hawaii hospital where he went for chest pains and said, "there is nothing wrong with the U.S. health care system." Well, of course he would say that! If you have insurance or can AFFORD health care, you would think there is nothing wrong...as long as YOU can get the care you need. And the smug assholes who DO have insurance point fingers at the uninsured, telling them all they need to do is find a job that offers health insurance. Good luck with that. The jobs that are out there are either part time (which don't offer insurance) or are "independent contractor" positions, which don't offer insurance either. I would LOVE to just take away health care from the "haves" for a year or two, then enjoy watching the reactions of people like my brother and sister in law, or my hypocritical co-worker who is against socialized medicine but is perfectly okay with Medicaid taking care of his girlfriend's pregnancy expenses when some...