season-ticket holder

It’s always been a bit stalkerish in quality.

Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” blasts out of my speakers. The folks going to the beach music club across the street don’t seem to like it. Go figure. I’d guess at least a few of them were metalheads back in the day. When they were rebelling against their rich daddies and trying to be individuals.

Hell, it happens.

One day, I’ll be dead. And so will you. But somehow, I’m guessing, these words will still exist. And if not, at least I’m on microfiche.

Ha. That last little rhyme (sorta) made me smile. That’s always a good thing.

It’s strange to try and sit down and write when I really, really, really don’t want to.  It reminds me of those days back in 2006 when I just wrote to bleed. But then I wanted to. I wanted to cry in the wind, knowing that only a couple of people were looking, and they really weren’t all that interested.

My parents are getting ready to have their 48^th anniversary. My sister and her husband, their 20^th. My grandmother just turned 90.

Meanwhile, my sister is dating her “boyfriend” for the 12^th or 13^th year, minus that strange year when we lived together for a while for some months. That was a weird year.

Me? I’m on my sixth year of angst. It’s nowhere near the angst it was, but it still exists. I guess it always will. I lost a chance to be a dad. That was worse. Haunted is a good way to phrase it. Now I want to listen to the Pogues.

My mind works strange. Ha.

I read something today at work that made me cringe. It’s been a bit. I’m very glad that editors are editing the so-called editor now. He’s a stupid kid, and he’ll always be that. But maybe now that someone is (hopefully) correcting him again, like I tried unsuccessfully for three months before giving up (my biggest professional failure for sure), I’m hoping there’s a glimmer of hope. The other guy? Not at all. He’s a fanboi loser of the worst kind. What I was at 24, wearing my UVA shirts to ASU practices. But I learned, after being called out. And that’s the best thing that can happen to a young sports journalist. Of course, now I’m a grizzled sports journalist who hasn’t written a word for newspaper publication that got my name on it for quite some time now. But I’m applying for two jobs that will let me write again. Hopefully, I’ll at least get a nibble. I regret, somewhat, not taking the job I could have had in Bristol, Va. A great boss would have helped me get to where I should be. I have the chops, I’ve just not been pushed in so God damn long that they’ve become flabby and discolored. I’m ready to get off that pity-party wagon and start writing again. I try not to, but I still believe. In me. In it.

Beer makes me happy. Well, happier.

I miss conversations on barstools with friends. All of them live so damn far away. I’ve lived here in Morehead City for over two years now. I haven’t met a person I’d call a friend yet. The longest conversations I have with people here who aren’t visiting me are with my landlord’s secretary and the girl at Food Lion with the big nose and nice ass. She talked to me today. Said “She’ll be right with you.” I was in the “express lane” that had no cashier b/c she was bagging groceries for the butt and beak gal. I was just doing my look at the ceiling thing – yeah, I’d call it a “thing” – and I guess she recognized it. Hence the sentence to me. It’s good to be noticed.

I read today that child molestation is bad. Thanks for that.

I also heard on TV that if you are molested, you are a “lost soul.” I really wish people would think before just spouting off about things they probably have no clue about. I mean, I don’t know much, but what I do know, I know better than to just blanket call victims of abuse “lost souls.” Why? Because they survive and thrive many times. They aren’t lost. It’s the pederass that is lost.

Speaking of…why is everyone so quick to just say “kill the fucker!” or “I hope he gets gang-raped in prison!” about it. I mean, yeah, he deserves it, but fuck. I used to be full of so much anger and hatred too. But I learned how to just let that go. Do I hold on to some things still? Yes. But damn, why so much hate? Especially if you have no connection except maybe being a season-ticket holder?

ring...ring

Echoes are the first thing you notice walking into this once-proud room. Even if moccasins are being worn, footsteps are impossible to hide.

Friends and enemies alike are gone. Debates are few. Arguments, non-existent.

When a phone rings now, the person at the desk cringes. Because the person at the other end could be a few rooms away. With a stack of papers for you to sign. Sign away your last ditch effort at wanting to do something good. Something important. Something that matters. Eventually, the numbers will fall the right way. It has nothing to do with luck. Not how good or bad you are. Those days don’t exist anymore. Instead, you’re an item on a spreadsheet. When your worth becomes less than your cost, the knife it falls.

Unions concede wages now and consider it a big victory. Pensions are gone. That 401k match? Ha. We promise we’ll get it going again by the end of the next fiscal year. All the while the bonuses at the top of the food chain continue. $1.3 million here. $2.2 million there.

I never wanted to be at the top. I figure other than great white sharks, grizzly bears and maybe piranhas, I was in a pretty good place, why did I ever want to be a CEO or Executive Editor? Seemed like too much awfulness.

Now, I’m in a newsroom with very little news people in it. If you dare rock the boat, you’re labeled a trouble maker, a malcontent, or maybe even just an asshole. I’ve been called all three by editors in the past. All those editors are out of the business now. None of them were bought out. None of them seemed to care. They were fired. Simply put, for being bad at their jobs.

As I sit at my cubicle, waiting for what’s coming next, I think of the day I made a mistake in my career. The only one, really. I quit one job before I should have. That led to bad choices for quite a while. Not mistakes, because I was trying to do the right thing, just bad choices as they turned out.

The last job I had, the phone rang on a warm January day. I had come in to work early to get some stuff done ahead of time. Interviews were complete, story half written when I saw a co-worker get a call. He went into the HR office. Ten minutes or so later, he came out, head hung low with a cardboard box in his hand. Soon, he was gone. The scene repeated for another co-worker. The day of reckoning had finally come to this little place.

Finally, my phone rang. Ever since my first days on the job, I kind of expected that call. I was paid well for the first time in my life. And I was happy doing my job. A relationship had sputtered, sending me into an emotional hell, which cost the company money. And, never being the ass-kissing type, I didn’t make the right friends.

Ring. I picked it up on the first ring. My boss looked a me in horror. He’d brought me into this. Now, he had to watch me leave.

“Well, it’s been fun,” I said as I got up to go to the HR woman’s office.

“Sorry man,” my boss said. I didn’t believe him then, still don’t.

I walked in to the HR office. Where the HR head and the EE were sitting. I took off my ID badge and toss it on her desk.

“Where do I sign?” I asked with a smile.

“Thanks for making this easy,” the EE said.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I replied. “It’s the way of the beast now.”

“Sadly, it is,” he said. Not looking at me.

I felt a wave of euphoria come over me when I exited the building. Honestly, other than a few first kisses and a slow dance I hadn’t felt this good, this relieved, this happy since pushing the accelerator to begin my first solo cross-country drive in 1994.

Everything was a blank slate. Well, everything but my debt, which I wasn’t too worried about at the moment. What was next? Anything was possible.

So, that begs the question: why are you back in Eastern North Carolina, sitting and waiting for a phone call? I guess I wasn’t ready for the unknown. The change. The exit.

This time, however, I am. Seven months of toil, with one major rejection later, I know it’s time to say goodbye. To a lot of things. One by one I’ve tried working through them. Some I tossed aside. Others I made a shaky peace with. Lastly, that telephone call needs to come.

And I know it will. It’s just a matter of patiently waiting.

…