Tower of Books

I'm sitting on the floor in front of a heavily stocked book case. Several weeks ago I managed to read a few short stories. Now I want to try going thru something I've read before and enjoyed. Testing the water. Looking across the shelves and the few small stacks on the floor and I'm scared. Stupid I known but I haven't finished a book in...two years? Three? Some are sitting that I've never opened, little adventures my mind won't let me take. I'm hoping how some things in the past have healed themselves that maybe this has too. "The Stand" keeps catching my eye, but that's 1500 pages. The first time I devoured that in a week. Now it seems overwhelming. Of all the things I've lost from this disease this is the one that hurts the most. I have a book in my lap now (not the stand)...wish me luck.

*Update* I finished "Blaze" by Stephen King on 11/6. Book was great, ending sucked. I've started a new one!

Forty Hours

Service may vary according to my mood and your attitude. Sunday night and I can't sleep. Weekends are too short. Knots in my stomach. I hate my job. What I hate is having to answer for others mistakes and 'why do I have to pay for that? Gimme gimme'. Part of me misses tech support. Sometimes I tech calls anyway out of boredom. When you call customer service being nasty and demanding for no reason will not get you anywhere. If you have a real problem I will fix it to the best my company will allow. If you are eligible for free stuff, you can have it. Makes my job easier to not have to argue with you. We can't withhold your freebies anymore than I can charge you extra for having to deal with you (someday I will figure out a way to do that). There are little things we can do that we are not obligated to. Friday a guy called to compliment the tech that came out, he was a sweetheart in a sea of jerks. So, I gave him some of that free stuff just for being nice. The same stuff that most assholes would be unappreciative of... it meant the world to him. If you don't like our service, it's too expensive or the competition has promised you the moon, freedom of choice is a wonderful thing.

Sleep Tight...

This is not something I should feel embarrassed about, but I do. There was no cause or prevention I was aware of, I didn't even know the damn things really existed. We've all heard that saying from when we were kids 'sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite'. Along with Santa Claus is real and the monster in your closet isn't. So when my son informed me we have bed bugs about 18 months ago I thought he was joking. He had brought them home from his dads. I did what the internet said and encased his bed. Those little fuckers are everywhere. After my own mattress encasement got holes poked in it by the bed frame, I lost it. One morning I had 50 bites on one arm just between my elbow and wrist. I was ready to sleep in the bathtub. Instead we called Terminix (yes I will use them by name because their bed bug freezing treatment is a JOKE). They 'treated' our entire upstairs only, after telling us to move all of out belongings downstairs. Fuckers, that just infested the downstairs. An hour after said 'treatment' I was moving my bed only to find more bugs. It did reduce them significantly, but only until the next batch of eggs hatched. That was august. In march I moved out. Leaving behind anything that couldn't fit in the washer/dryer or be thoroughly inspected (left the tv's, dressers, beds, couch etc). In my mind it was worth it. I'm still terrified I missed one bug, one egg. Something was overlooked. Every itch has the potential to be followed by the signature three raised bumps. I itch constantly, although I've not had a bite in two months. There's no way to explain the mental toll this took, the embarrassment, the insomnia and the physical pain involved with these worthless insects. At this point I hope they're gone and I hope both the physical and mental scars will fade. Something that was said to me a long time ago keeps occurring to me. "Most people get rid of 1/3 of their stuff when they move, so three moves equals a fire." One infestation of bed bugs equals a fire.

Writing

I don't like not writing here. I like to feel frustration, anger, happiness and have it all come out into notepad. Whether I post it here or not. Obviously those emotions have not ceased to exist. Maybe, I'm not dealing with them or I've found a different outlet. Maybe there's no outlet at all. For the most part I'm happy, but even the shiny new life I have is not without tarnish. For the things my brain no longer lets me deal with I guess I just set them aside. Its easier. Writing was how I got things out. As I sit here now I'm thinking I need to re-evaluate where things are going instead. Not wanting to be one of those people that holds things in, I need to figure this out. This shouldn't be something else that's broken, the line of emotion that ran thru my fingers. These lines are the first I've typed since my last post. Nothing was hidden away. Even as I type this, it feels like deja-vu, familiar and foreign all at once. So let me work on this a little while and I'll see if I can still do it.

Well there was two things I wrote for the company he works for. They wanted to start a blog, with vague descriptions of what they were expecting, I put this up for them.

I'll be back soon.