2012 rolled by with one lousy blog post. Well, it wasn't lousy. It was kind of funny. But it makes me think--whatever happened to my desire to write.
I have this novel (which is still available through createspace.com, thank you) and I think I did a pretty good job on it. Sometimes I think I said all I really wanted to say in that book. It's a good story, if I do say so myself, but I don't feel like it should be the last word on my life.
A lot has happened since my last blog entry. In July I lost my job. Nine years with the company and they decided my job performance just wasn't good enough. Still trying to figure out why that happened. I felt like I was going nowhere there anyhow--hadn't had a raise in four years.
In August, my dad passed away. He was 88 and died of liver cancer. He ran a barber shop in Columbus for 56 years. It's closed now and has been cleaned out down to the tonic case. My mom has been left with a lot of work to do and a lot of old racetrack tickets. The racetrack was where Dad was happiest, if you could have called him happy. And it was where I was happiest for quite a few years. Money is too precious to me now. I can't believe now how much I used to bet on horses back when I was working for the Racing Form. And dogs, and blackjack, and...
Then, in September, I was hired as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. It's much better paying than my previous job, and also a lot more work. It's not your father's Postal Service. The clock is everything there. Get the mail out and be back by five. The carriers are very supportive and I've learned a lot from them, though. I was supposed to have a 90-day evaluation, but the manager said the other day that I'm "past that now," whatever that means, so I'm assuming that I'm good. Having a job situation so up in the air has really made me live life one day at a time. Each day that I still have a job seems like a bonus to me now. It does make me wonder what might have happened had I worked half this hard on any of the other jobs I've had in my life.
So, here I am. Jamie isn't feeling well and went to bed early and I'm listening to Grant Green playing "A Day in the Life" on YouTube. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday evening, I guess.
So why do we blog? I look through other people's blogs and there seems to be so much repetition. Someone's photographs here, some teenager who can't stand life anymore there. How much is really worth wading through? I remember when blogs were new and seemed more interesting. When I first got a computer, it was so neat to go anywhere in this thing we call cyberspace and discover new people. Of course, there are some people you wish you'd never discovered.
Perhaps Facebook is the reason why I haven't blogged. Whenever I have an opinion that I want to share, I can just do it more directly over there. But there are times when it's just me and Grant Green and my dog scratching in the background when I just want to let loose and solo. I was always fascinated by the way Jack Kerouac wrote--first thought, best thought. Then again, it resulted in some inconsistent writing.
Maybe I should try blogging more. If nothing else, it's fun to look at your thoughts in print and try to figure them out. So you may hear more from me, maybe not.
All I know is that I've got a lot of mail to carry in the morning with my seven years of college. You can see me walking through Homewood or Point Breeze or Shadyside in all kinds of weather. And maybe I'll see you. It might help to live in Pittsburgh, though.
