When you wanna get away...
The Quad Cities...sounded like a good idea. Tired of fighting the crappy printers and cutters I threw in the towel, called in saying I wasn't coming in and then head down the road. Clear my head.
Had to stop in Lowden to visit Ben Shear's grave. Hard to believe that he's been gone for almost three years. I remembered him as that shy kid who wanted to dance with some little girl at Russ and Karla's wedding. Surprised that Ben and Matthew turned out to be good kids despite their overbearing mom. I never did like Karla all that much and even less after the divorce. The hag continued to take Russ back to court for the slightest things. The last one got thrown out of court, Debbie says she'd like to sue Karla back for harrassment. Once a year I do drive out to Lowden to pay a visit to Ben's grave. He was a good kid, went out to arizona to work in a mine and ended up losing his life in a freak accident. He was only 21.
The Quad Cities: where the hell did all this fucking road construction come from? Had to do a double detour in getting to FYE, and then over to Co Op Records. I tend to think that Co Op tends to pad the prices on the budget stuff. I don't go in there all that much but I do today and found a Pink Floyd I didn't have.
Did a little walk on the riverwalk trail from Bettendorf to Davenport and back to the car. It's a five mile walk both ways. But I needed the time to walk and think about things, about what life after retiring from bargain hunting. And trying not to lose my mind over life. And things I shouldn't be worrying over. And perhaps thinking I spend too much time on the net, too much time at work playing a meaningless video game that I get obsessed over. And printers that suck.
Martin Daniels keeps telling me that not only I'm digging my own grave but also throwing dirt over myself in the process. Steve Murphy, the day senior says regardless on how much work you do or when the printers and cutters break down you still get paid the same per hour per day. It don't matter; just do the best you can with what you got. They can't yell at you when you working but they will if they catch you playing too many video games.
The obsession, that what got to me back in 82, when I blew my paycheck on video games at Lindale and had nothing to show for. With the net, the obsession is over having top score and then trying to keep it. Martin said what difference does it make? You get top score for a while and then it's back to start, you can't keep it forever. I suppose he's gotta point.
It seems that I do take it personal when life throws shit my way but I'm not the only one. When we get flooding rains, everybody in that part of the state gets it too. Some get it worse than others, think it's bad, what about the people that lost their homes as they crashed into Lake Delhi when the dam failed. Or those who lost everything in the flood of 2008. Water in the basement is no big deal. My best friend had a fire in his house 2 years ago. Things can be worse.
Much worse.
Martin is not the only one that tells me that I am my own worst enemy and I know that. He also said that for the last four years I've been so damn uptight that nobody wants to hang with me. There are things in life you cannot control, you can't control the summer heat and floods or winter snows or ice, you can't control high gas prices, you have to adjust and do what you can. Everybody is suffering. You can't control the fools in Washington or what Rush Dumbass or Sean Hannity feeds to the world. They're going to do their own thing and people are going to heed their call. You can't control cable tv and the crap reality shows, all you can do is shut the tv off. If the bills are paid on time, if you can afford to eat out, if you can still come and go then you're doing a lot better than most folk. Problem is your more killing yourself than the world is to you. You have a girlfriend that loves you for who you are, which is more than the last few that you tried to settle down with. Is it so much to get the last word in, when there's a disagreement? Eventually, the last word that you don't want to hear is goodbye. And nobody wants to hear that....
Point taken. So after coming back to the car, I ended up going to Big Lots and do some grocery shopping and stock up on some cheap soup, then went to Los Acadea (I misspelled the last name, it's on the corner of Brady/Kimberly) and had a burrito/enchinada dinner, it was okay but the salsa was excellent. And then stopped at the World's Largest Truck Stop and hung out there for a while and got a choclate malt and took the long way home.
But it also reminded me that I have a long way to go before I come to terms with myself. Wether or not I will be a success remains to be seen.
