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Finding A New Way

I had a couple of long drives in recent days that had me thinking about the journaling I've done over the last few years, and whether I should continue.

By the time I had completed my roundtrip to Philadelphia, I had decided I wasn't going to write anymore, and that I would "retire" from online journaling.

However, I sat on that for a couple of days, and had another drive home to think about what I wanted to do.

As those few of you who are reading this space know, I write nearly everyday in some capacity. I write and edit for my daily job. I do the same for my soccer website, and I do the same thing here.

I do think there can be a bit of burnout on occasion. I rarely lack inspiration to write about something. I just find that I don't have time to live (I wrote love by accident, but that could be true too) and write. I also think that there's such a thing as writing too much, to the point where I effectively hide in the online world instead of really experiencing life.

But in the rethinking of whether or not I should write, I decided that I should write, but try to steer in a bit of a different direction, so I think this is how I'm going to do it for the time being.

I think for awhile I've had too much of the focus on me. Yeah I know. It's my journal, and it's supposed to be about my own personal feelings, thoughts, etc. So, I've decided to do this. Rather than write all about me, I'm going to have theme weeks where I write about different things, though I may extend or contract those theme weeks depending on how successful I think they are. And if anyone has any suggestions for the themes, whether serious or silly, I'll try to write about those as well.

My first week, which I'll start tomorrow, I'm going to write about observations of people I've encountered--most of whom I haven't talked about at all, or very little, in this journal.

I hope this is going to be a bit of a fresh approach to my writing.

Welcome to the latest journey.

Sympathy For What?

At what point do you cut yourself off from someone who's having a problem at the expense of looking out for yourself?

My boss, in his own, I've-fallen-off-the-wagon sort of way, has forced me to think about this--again.

I called his house this am after finding out someone there had called me (turns out it was his sister, but I didn't know that). Anyway, I get put through to him, who at first had no idea why anyone at his place would have called me.

A few minutes into the conversation, he realizes it was his sister who called, and then said he'd be out of work until next Tuesday to deal with his "problem" and to have a family reunion this coming weekend.

Now, maybe someone with more knowledge of this can tell me. How can someone dry out in a few days and then be at what amounts to a party on the weekend? He's done this several times, sometimes for longer periods than others. It usually works in 3-4 month cycles.

In any case, I'm running the store until next Tuesday. It's a slow period, so it's not that I can't handle most of what's going on, but at what point can I stop being sympathetic? I am, but then again I'm not. I want him to be well, but I'm confident that his problem lies in a deeper and darker place than his drinking, but that's not a place for me to explore, nor a subject to broach.

I've talked myself out of looking for another job before now. I know I've written of wanting to leave before, and in my heart, I know this isn't the sort of work I want to do at his age.

I do think I'm going to talk to him first before making any decisions, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't go ahead and get my resume ready, a portfolio ready, and check out some job leads. He has questions he needs to answer for me, and I've avoided them in similar situations in the past because I didn't want to cast negativity upon it.

I know, though, that if I don't, I'm going to experience this same sense of frustration. He's big about giving notice for having time off, but I don't get more than a day's notice, and in this case, no notice, when he's going to take time off, particularly for an extended absence.

I want to know what's going to happen when he's all alone in his get-away house he'll be living in permanently beginning in September, and something like this happens. Who's going to tell me? There's a lot of issues he hasn't brought up with regard to us working from home. I'm sure I can handle my own end of things. Can he? He can't say this won't happen again. You can almost set a watch to it, but at the same time, no one can be around him 24/7 to keep him from drinking. And he needs more help than just to keep from drinking. I don't know what the deeper issues are.

One of the things I learned the hard way in previous work is to look out for yourself. It doesn't necessarily mean being selfish, but it does mean paying attention to how your work is affecting you. How are your surroundings affecting you? How are the people you spend time with affecting you? I guess it is being selfish. I haven't had a raise in a couple of years. My benefits have been reduced, and if two of us get sick, there is no business, no money, and a long stack of bills to pay.

Again, though, I have a plan to deal with the situation, and I'm not going to cast anymore worry upon it. What's in my control I'm going to do something about, and what isn't, well, I'll just pray for and let go of the worry.

Miles To Cross

I read an op-ed piece by Jonathan Hunley in the Free Lance-Star that struck me well. Since there's no link to that one, I'll give an excerpt to it, but to preface it, he was talking about acceptance of others being a policy that should stand for all time, first talking about a friend of his from the Philippines, and then this part later in the piece, where he talks about going to a different church than normal because he woke up late:

The absence of acceptance isn't limited to race, either.

It's still OK in the minds of many to belittle folks for their sexual orientation. . . .

There's nothing more wicked than preachers preaching hate. And that's what I heard. Oh, it was hidden under the veil of "love the sinner; hate the sin." But that wasn't the message--and that's nonsense anyway. That's a phrase conjured up by someone who wanted to feel better about his or her bigotry.

They don't raise us to be rude in Virginia, but I wanted to leave in the middle of the sermon. I made it to the final hymn, but then I hightailed it out of there.

Now, some people aren't going to like that I wrote the last few paragraphs, and that scared me so much that I almost didn't write them. If the congregants at the church I attended realize I was talking about their house of worship, they'll probably write nasty letters to the editor. . . .

But when John Ashcroft has hauled away American citizens because they don't look like me or him, that is something to get excited about.

And when I've got to dig up those Scriptures that say it's OK to sell your daughter into slavery to counter the ones typically used to put down homosexuals, that's something to get excited about too.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling some kind of white guilt. But I'm trying to be more accepting--and mindful--of everyone. Are you?

I cut a bit from the end because he took a tangent about his church switching hours to attend the other one, and also talked about his apology for not meaning to pick a fight while people might be reading the paper over cornflakes, as he put it.

I just thought he touched on something you don't read often on an editorial page.

Kim, to me, talked about something similar.

The problem that I see in common with the anit-gay marriage politics of many people in the church is not their effort to preserve the "ideal family" so much as their restricted definition of what an ideal family looks like. Meanwhile, what I see in common in the non-traditional families in the Bible is love. Jesus and His disciples looked nothing like a "normal" family, but they loved each other and (mostly) had each other's backs. Jesus' immediate family with Mary and Joseph was also characterized by love rather than normalcy. . . .

But like Jesus and His family, we love each other and our set-up works for us even if it wouldn't work for everyone (or anyone) else. Unfortunatley, most Christians find it easier to let go of the love (which would also be there in the ideal family) than to let go of structure that they consider ideal. They judge what they don't understand in a similar way that the Jewish people who "didn't get it" with Jesus and His family cast judgment. I stand by my conviction that familial love in any form (normal, single parent, gay, straight, etc) is better than a picture perfect family that has many hidden problems (alcoholism, adultery, abuse, emotional frigidity, etc). I stand by them firm enough to even be willing to post my thoughts about this subject again knowing full well I could get black-balled by the church or get my ass kicked by my more conservative friends. I'm just nauseaous from constantly seeing the message of love get cast aside because of the rules when that's the very stuff Jesus criticized the Pharisees for when He came 2004 years ago. Love overrides the rules.

She goes into greater depth here. A reminder that my excerpts can't possibly do justice to the quality of what she writes:

If we want to get really Biblical about marriage, we might as well let the non-believers continue to live in sin since they're going to hell anyway, right? Riiiiiiight. Yet somehow, this is the attitude the church seems to have taken towards homosexual relationships. We have no problem with heterosexual people defiling marriage, but when it comes to same sex couples, that's where we draw the line. If we're so open to every other non-Biblical practice in regards to marriage, why do we suddenly get self-righteous when it comes to homosexuals? . . .

Well put, by both of them. If the view is that gays aren't welcome in the church because they're living in sin (if that's the view those who defile in speech want to hold), then isn't that what we're all doing? Last I checked, in an informal survey of no one who walks inside a church, we're all sinners. Are we going to decide what "sins" we don't like, and thus can refuse those "sinners" admittance inside a church? What if we decided adulterers weren't welcome in church? What about those taking the Lord's name in vain?

Kim's right. "Love does override all rules."

Couldn't have said it any better.

separated but not divorced: rough draft

separated but not divorced
his wife and he made the split
now full of bitterness and remorse
neither has healed the rift

his wife and he made the split
his father, he once revered
neither has healed the rift
sailing waters neither can steer

his father, he once revered
their work--once full of ambition
sailing waters neither can steer
drowning in submission

their work--once full of ambition
full of bitterness and remorse
drowning in submission
separated but not divorced

Back At It

When too many things go on in life, some things get squeezed out a bit, and in my case, it's been writing in here.

I'm quite tired, not just in the physical sense, though that part is true.

I'm just tired all the way around. Fatigued about much of my life at the moment.

I do have more to say, so stay tuned.

Flirtation--An Update

If you remember not too long ago I wrote about one of the interns that I see every-so-often at soccer matches I cover.

I ran into her Wednesday night (and, I should add, I'll see her at another match Saturday).

I should explain the seating chart of the press box a bit. I have an assigned place up there in the back row, just to the right of the interns and team staff, as it turns out. A couple of my friends that also cover soccer sit just below me in the front row, and there's usually space I can go down and sit with them. However, there's one person who grates on me and I try to avoid sitting near that person, even if it means not sitting next to my friends. The other reason I stay in the back is usually because I'm left alone to watch the match and form my own conclusions.

Anyway, I saw her early on, so that was nice, as I hadn't seen her in a few weeks--a combination of me not being there and her not being there, as it turns out.

The match starts and there's an empty spot to my left, so guess who comes over to sit by me after awhile(Yeah, I'm not subtle, am I?)?

We actually chatted for about 10 minutes or so before she had to do intern stuff. Quite sweet, I think. Either she likes me or is just being extra friendly. Either way, it's nice for that kind of attention.

I ran into her again before the coaches came for their postgame press conference, as she was having problem with her digital audio recorder. I jokingly said something about being forgettable because the guy passing out the scoresheets totally didn't see me (even though he saw the guy two seats to my right). She said something about me being "far from forgettable."

Honestly, I don't know if that's being hit on or just extra friendly. I don't have a sense of that anymore, as it's been eons since I've dated anyone. I've had a couple of flirtations but that's all they turned out to be.

I'm willing to take it for whatever it is, though, and enjoy that.

I Think I Know Why That Is...

I think I'm word deprived because I'm writing even in my sleep it seems. I spent half-a-night writing some soccer articles, then yesterday I wrote another article about a talk Rep. William Jefferson gave at the Phoenix Hotel near Union Station. I'm sure I'll get no feedback about the latter article.

Maybe I just need to learn to write haikus instead of novels.

I Wanna Be Sedated

My headaches/toothaches have mostly gone away for now, but I'm still planning a dentist visit, though I'm thinking it'll be to one of those that practices sedation dentistry, that way I won't remember or feel any of it, and can get the work done with less visits.

Now comes the part where I find the money to pay for it, but I think it's important enough to do, so I'll find the way. If I go this route, too, I'll need to find someone to drive me to and from the appointment. I'm keeping the parents out of it, because they'll over-analyze everything, and cause me more stress than I really need about it. I can stress (pass) myself out on the medical/dental stuff all on my own.

Waking Up

I'm still waking up. Been sleep deprived lately. Now I'm word deprived at the moment.

The Lead Is Incorrect; Anyone Else?

I'm sure the writer of this article thought the lead was clever, but it's wrong. Now the headline is fine, but check out the lead:

If the answer is Ken Jennings and his record $920,960 so far in "Jeopardy!" winnings, the question must be how does he do it?

A curious mind, good memory and astute buzzer technique, said Jennings, a Utah software engineer who will make an unprecedented 29th appearance on the syndicated quiz show Monday night.

My rewrite:

If the answer is a curious mind, good memory and astute buzzer technique, the question must be how has Ken Jennings won a record $920,960 so far on Jeopardy?

Jennings, a Utah software engineer, will make an unprecedented 29th appearance on the syndicated quiz show Monday night.

I used the second paragraph to the story to show what I did with the rewrite.

The writer for the AP needs to brush up on his Jeopardy rules. Alex would have ruled that person's question incorrect.