what could possibly happen next?

2005-02-03

You got me, it just started spewing out

What happened? It sure seemed like this week was gonna be chok full of drama. It just failed to materialize. The Alabama situation is stable. Work is stable. I'm stable. I'm pretty tired also.

I have been working hard this week. I got my wages statement from work. This is the first year that I made less money than I had made in the previous year. I'm a commission sales rep so I take that kind of personally. I should. I let up last year. I've been doing the same job for 12 years. Not the same company but the same job. I just finished my 3rd year with my present employer. It's a little scary to see yourself slip like that. The truth is, in my job, that the only thing that matters is that final paycheck. I'm not teaching kids or inventing cures for cancer. It's what I like about my job. It's absolute unessentialness.

Basically, I'm a money machine. I go to work in the morning with nothing. Not even a guarantee that I'm going to walk out of there with money. That's right, folks. No draw. That's because I'm really good at what I do. I get paid more cents on the dollar than anyone else in my business. Why? Mostly, a lot of luck. I got in with these guys when we were working from where I now sleep and am typing. The den of the owner's house. They were willing to pay a higher percentage to attract workers.

I had started my own company about a month before 9/11. I was living with Anna in Bonita, and the company that I had been working for had gone under. Actually, the owner had run it into the ground by not working, gambling, and charging people's credit cards and not sending them the product. He sold his company to another dumbass (lol, yes I was sold) that wanted to pay me even less than what thief#1 had been paying me. I said screw the both of them and started my place.

After 9/11 the country really sank into a collective depression (have we ever really recovered?) and me into my own personal one. I had a hard time trying to motivate myself to work. I think it's one of the few times that I hated what I do for the very reason that I have grown to love it. It's nothingness. I had a hard time calling people up and selling them bullshit when the whole country was just truly, truly sad. Lots of guys in my line of work made a killing selling patriotic things. The whole idea just sickened me. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Plus, with all the craziness at Anna's (ah, these were wild times, 66ohm and Anna's band, Boxxx were both starting out and practicing at the house) I decided that it would probably be better to work for someone else.

It's hard to work by yourself doing what I do. I know a lot of you will probably laugh when I say this, but as far as my job goes, I'm one of the most disciplined and organized guys that I know. Clean or loaded. Sober or drunk. Just not alone. I think the main reason is that if you start to struggle you have now way of knowing if it's you. You start to think that absolutely NO one in the world is buying. If you are thinking that as a salesman you might as well go back to digging ditches or flipping burgers. You're done.

I called Gene up just to see what was going on. He was the vice president of the company that I had originally started doing this for back in 1992. They had folded up shop about a year before and he was telling me about his new company that he was running out of his house. He told me the deal and it sounded good to me. I wouldn't make as much money as I did working for myself but I also wouldn't have to fuck with the accounting, the data entry, the shipping, the dealing with the vendors, and the customer service that goes along with owning your own business. If you've never done it, it's a pain in the ass. Good money, but I really value my time more.

What any of that had to do with why I am working harder this year I haven't a clue. Why do I keep going off on these tangents? Probably my little demons (drugs, alcohol and age) are catching up with me. Oh well. Sue me.

If you want to know the truth I'm throwing myself into work because it keeps my mind off of other things. I'm trying hard not to get swallowed up by the things that I have been running from. I'm afraid that if I stop, all the feelings that I have been numbing myself to will crush me. I've slowed down once or twice this year and I could feel them nipping at my heels. OK, I've even actually stopped and let them knock me to the ground. Fuck that. I don't want to be one of those people that can't stop crying. I've been there and have no desire to go back.

I know that doing drugs, drinking, gambling, whoring and working oneself to death is probably not what the doctor would prescribe. It's not the healthy alternative. I also know that I can't keep it up forever. I'm realistic. Eventually, I'm going to have to deal with all my bullshit issues, unless I happen to accidentally kill myself in the pursuit of my personal prescription for numbness.

That doesn't mean that I don't feel anything. I love and hate with the same passion that I always have. If not more so. I'm not running from those two. It's the other ones. You know, grief, remorse, guilt. Those are the motherfuckers that I'm avoiding. Those are the asskickers. The ones that make me wake up sobbing in my sleep. That if I entertain them in my mind paralyze me. I've become very adept at numbing myself from them. Perhaps too good for my own good. I think it's just that survival instinct. I think I would like a shot of whiskey. Maybe a little line. Definitely some sex. I'm laying off the gambling for awhile. I'm not feeling lucky. I do feel fortunate. Hard to believe, huh?