Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: writing

  • To Change: A Rose By Any Other Name

    To Change: A Rose By Any Other Name

    One of my supervisors (and friend) at the office wants me to stop using the word change when talking about modifying procedures. He’s well intentioned. People see the word and roll their eyes or sigh in frustration at the status quo being updated once again.

    It’s not really a concern for me, I can use a thesaurus and find other useful creative words that mean the same thing as the dreaded word… but I don’t think it’ll make a difference. People are fearful of the concept of things being done different and of challenging themselves more than they are the use of a word in a communication.  (more…)

  • A Future at DC Entertainment

    A Future at DC Entertainment

    Saturday mornings as a kid some of my fondest memories include watching Challenge of the Superfriends each week – I was captivated by those and other cartoons including Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, Batman and Robin and others… but the first comic book I ever remember reading was … well probably Archie, my mom loved those… and then Casper, Wendy, Richie Rich… good stuff that I liked as a kid… The first one with real super heroes was a beat up copy of an X-Men book and they were visiting Kazar in the savage land… not even sure what issue that was but I was very interested.

    It wasn’t until I was a teen and had a little pocket change that I was able to buy my own comic books and I found some at a little store in Whitehall, WI… back then they were maybe 75 cents a piece and I bought up all the ones I thought I would like. It was right in the middle of Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1985 and I was very lost… there were heroes in these books I’d never heard of before like Blue Beetle, Vigilante, Harbinger, and more… who were these people and what was going on. In Whitehall it was difficult to get back issues and I struggled to figure out what was happening. In the middle of that series Supergirl sacrificed herself to save Superman in a heroic gesture… Superman’s grief in that moment and pages after are what initially drew me to love the guy… Marv Wolfman and George Perez captured a feeling that I had inside me in that book, they transported me from Earth-Prime (that’s the Earth we all live on) to Earth-2 and the antimatter universe.. I was drawn in and loved it… (more…)

  • An Origin of Fear

    When I was a lad growing up in Wisconsin I heard about the dentist – I don’t recall if I heard about it from my big sister or from the kids at school. They made it sound like the most unimaginable horror (they said it was a scary place with a mean man) one could encounter. A part of my wondered why we had to go to these places at all, it hardly seemed fair, what did we do to deserve such a thing?

    What really stuck out in my mind was “The worst part is the needle they stick you with”.  My developing mind took that into consideration and I decided I’d avoid the worst part by just refusing to let them stick me with the needle. My logic was flawless – to avoid the worst part just refuse it. No one explained to me at that time that they were injecting a numbing agent into me so I wouldn’t feel the pain – and no one was going to convince me of that now, I know they’re just mean.

    So there I was at the dentist refusing the needle that would hurt me. The dentist was flabbergasted – I just wouldn’t let him near me with it. He tried to reason with me but I wouldn’t have any of it, I knew it was a ploy. The dentist, in all his adult wisdom thought I’d change my mind as soon as the drilling started, seems logical right?

    But I was living in fear, sure this hurt but the fear of the pain of the needle the “worst part” had me hang in there. I was in agony, no tears though…. this was a victory. When the dentist finished he told my mother I sat through things he’d seen grown man cry about with Novocaine – she didn’t understand why either and as a child it was hard to explain my logic to adults (they never seemed to understand).

    Every visit to the dentist was the same – I’d refuse their needle and I’d get mad at them when they’d even put that peppermint cottontail in my mouth – I knew what that meant. Eventually the dentist got to know me and just didn’t even try. No screaming, no crying… just hold on tight to those arm rests and be ready to rip them out if need be. Isn’t it amazing what a kids brain can do?

    When I was an adult, after years of going through that kind of pain regularly, I decided it wasn’t worth it at all. Alcohol was more important than the dentist at that point anyway, who cares what my teeth look like? That was until one wisdom tooth rotted and had to be pulled out – I still refused the Novocaine and the dentist thought I was nuts (new dentist) and I likely was.. but I made it through that too. (that guy pulled out that tooth with a pliers, I swear he did)

    All this led to when I was living in DC and broke a tooth – I was pretty frightened at this point of the dentist and I’d talk about it at meetings and my body temperature would rise when I’d start to even think about going. A member of the program suggested a good dentist and I took a chance… this dentist was very calm, kind and convinced me to try the Novocaine… but not before I had several anxiety attacks could I be convinced. (it helped that he was pretty to look at too).

    I’ve gotten better at this dentist thing. I have to constantly remind myself to lower my shoulders (they’re up to my ears), breathe and concentrate on something, anything else. I can sometimes meditate at the dentist, just calmly take myself out of the situation and truly relax… it’s crazy.

    This Thursday morning I’m heading back to the dentist, I need two crowns (old fillings are cracking and breaking my teeth). So I’ll go and remember all my tricks and let them give me anything they want for the pain… and I honestly think I’ll likely be at work after it’s done.

    I’m not living in that fear anymore – I’m free of it. (although the co-worker who had a root canal and developed an infection last week kind of freaks me out…but I can get through that too…

  • I Wake

    I wake

    There is no weariness in me

    No remnants of terror from a nightmare

    I simply wake

    convinced I’ve slept well into the morn

    my eyes open to darkness

    the distant digital clock blinks at me that it’s a little after four

    I rise and go closer, my eyes play tricks without my glasses

    almost midnight when I closed my eyes, I should be weary

    no pressure on my bladder, no urge to release

    I force myself to go, perhaps that’s why I woke

    common enough these days

    returning to bed I can sense sleep on the edges

    it taunts me, entices me and I long for it

    stretching towards it I grasp and wrestle

    sleep would be ideal, I don’t have to work tomorrow

    dream tinged bubbles of reality flash before my eyes

    visions of the day that was and the work week to be

    fragments of  books merge with real life worries

    I spend minutes that pass like hours contemplating thoughts

    frustrated I toss and turn

    laying on my back I breathe, slowly in and out

    slowly in and out – count 1, 2, 3 exhale and think “out”

    focus only on the breathing, stay focused, but

    the bubbles return again, demanding to be observed, contemplated

    still no weariness and sleeps seems to have slipped past the horizon

    I wake and enjoy the silence – better than the struggle to sleep

  • Put the "fun" in Funerals

    I’ve been thinking about funerals lately – near death experiences by a couple of folks have put dying in my rotating thought patterns. Then I start thinking about wills and cremation and making sure there is a gold coin in my mouth before I’m burned – just in case I end up at the river Styx and need to pay Charon, being stuck on this side of the river would be rather boring I’d think.

    Who’s funerals do I have to attend? Seems an odd question doesn’t it? There must be some kind of etiquette that tells me  the ones I have to go to. Obviously close family, but not the bible thumping crazy aunt – unless she’s come into a fortune and me getting a chunk of it is dependent on attending the morbid death ritual – and even then, probably not. Co-workers (current job or all the others? Fellow AAs (maybe just the ones that weren’t annoying)? Certainly former sponsors, certain ex bosses and a lover or two…

    I figure that I had to make my own rules for this kind of thing and decided that if I would invite them to my own wedding – not for gifts, but because I actually enjoy their company – then I’d be willing to put up with a funeral. Granted, I have no intention of getting married, much to selfish to give up my free time, but if I were and wanted to invite some people – those are the people that I’d miss if they were dead – most likely… maybe… I guess (more…)

  • The New Old Job

    A friend was reading the blog recently and tonight asked if I had gotten a new job in education, he had heard me talk about my job in an insurance agency but didn’t see it anywhere on the blog… I really hadn’t realized that I forgot to write about it. Technically I wrote about interviewing for the new old job back in the post Job Hunting – that’s right I somehow passed their personality test! woo hoo!!!

    The job is at an insurance agency, I wasn’t sure then what that meant but I was pretty sure it was your typical office job. Most of the places you interview at tell you the same things “this is a hard job” “we expect you to show up on time” “we need good workers that follow all the rules” and then make you watch videos from the mid 80s staring all the best shoulder pad clothes a person could hope to see at once… Fortunately I didn’t have to watch any of those videos for this job.

    First let me say I’ve been working in offices for 20 odd years, I’m good at it, people really like me and are amazed at the work I can produce – not trying to pat myself on the back here, that’s what employers have told me. But in all honesty these jobs have bored me – almost every day at those jobs I found I had enough time to do the job adequately in under 5 hours and spend the rest of the day doing whatever I might want to do – Facebook, solitaire and mine craft (back in the early Windows days) or whatever, it wasn’t a challenge at all. What I’ve found at my new job, and I’ve told them – is not having any free time at all, my day is spent getting the work done and as a result my days just fly by. I love that I love that so much. I’m challenged. Now that sounds awful doesn’t it? No time to relax or goof around? Well I still manage to stick my tongue out at my supervisor for no reason, talk to my cube mate about shopping or hear about a coworkers wife. It’s just that the isn’t just entering a bunch of data and waiting for more, or sending out the invoices and then leaving early – my days are full and it’s a good thing. (more…)

  • One Year Later

    A year ago tomorrow I moved to Phoenix from Washington DC., can’t believe it’s been a year already, time just seems to have flown by.

    I feel at home here… it’s not the weather… ok, it’s partly the weather…  They turned on the AC in my apartment complex this week and just a week or so ago turned off the heat as it was too hot … yeah, I don’t miss winter in DC or WI. IMG_3331 (more…)

  • Job Hunting

    Job hunting can be challenging, entertaining and frustrating all at the same time.

    I’ve had, what I think, are a few good interviews in the past week. I say that and remember interviewing at Children’s Hospital in DC back in 2000 – when I got to the interview it occurred to me that I had forgotten to wear my belt. I spent the entire interview obsessing about that so much that afterword I couldn’t tell if I had done a good job at the interview or not – I did get the job and it wasn’t until months later that I shared with them how nervous I was, simply because of the missing belt.

    I’ve been told by interviewers that I interview quite well, I have good anecdotal stories, fast thought out answers to difficult questions and I try to engage them in conversations. They even tell me I’m quite friendly and don’t come off as nervous (underneath, let me assure you I’m a bit nervous). I spend time before interviews now reviewing potential questions an employer may ask – and I rehearse examples from my past that give them an idea of what I think they’re looking for. I come prepared with questions that I want to ask, and I have quite a few in case any of those questions are answered during the interview process – they almost always ask after the interview “Do you have any questions for us?” even if you’ve actively engaged in the interview and asked questions during it – so be prepared.

    I’ve been bringing a nice folder along with me to each interview. It carries not only extra copies of my résumé and references but somewhere I can take notes, a sticky note or two and an extra pen. You never know what you might need, I don’t want to walk in with a backpack full of stuff, but I want to be sure they know I’m prepared for any thing. I also make sure I know the names of the people I interview with and afterwards I support the Post Office by sending them a nice Thank You card.

    After a successful interview I was sent some assessments to gauge if I really can work with the software it lists on my résumé. It’s almost like this new relationship you’re about to embark on and they already are questioning what you’ve said you’re capable of. If I can’t work with the software I certainly wouldn’t put it on my résumé, but I imagine some folks do that kind of thing. The assessment gives you a version of software and asks you some pretty simple questions (I guess that’s my opinion) like how to copy, draw borders, insert a table, open a picture… Back in the late 90s or early 00s I became MOUS certified in MS Access and it looked really great on a résumé, but that test was more about simple Microsoft procedures than it was about actually creating databases (still I think it helped me land a job or two). I usually do these tests well, but usually the versions they are using are older than the software I’m using and unfamiliar to me now – this is why I score 93 and 95% and am disappointed.Unknown

    Then comes the personality tests, this is something I’m not to sure about when it comes time to them sending these around. The one I received in my email recently advised me that I could use Internet Explorer or Netscape to take the exam. Netscape? really? Fortunately for me it worked fine in Safari on the iMac. There are several different versions of these tests that I’ve taken but they all basically want to gauge what type of person you are and if you’ll be a good fit in the company. Sometimes they will ask the same question in a different way a question or two down the exam. Ask-The-Right-Questions--300x300The one I recently filled out asked in three different ways if I enjoyed spending time at the bar, which makes me wonder what types of employees they’ve had before. 🙂 The questions can be hard to answer, they expect you to answer honestly but the questions are phrased to trick you into answering specific ways. “I have never told a lie” for example, never ever? or “I enjoy being alone” well sometimes that’s the case, but other times I enjoy the company of others. I’m not a fan of these assessments, I can see why they might be beneficial but they could also screen out a great candidate.

    Then we have the waiting game. I’ve waited to hear back about an interview many different time periods – once I finally received an email six months after the interview, it was a “no” but at least it was an answer. The job market is full of other people, probably as qualified as you are, if not more so and it can take recruiters a while to go through all the prospects. I heard recently that a position I interviewed for had over 250 resumes, I was one of ten chosen for the interview process and there is a chance I could make it to the second interview process, we’ll see.

    There are many opportunities out there. Some of them aren’t for me, but I have to be willing to work towards the one I want and that means studying, preparing, researching, testing and assessing until I land it.

    Off I go, time to do more searching!

  • Loss of Words

    I went to see the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Friday night even after a friend had commented on Facebook about being disappointed with it. See, I’m a fan of the genre, I’m a fan of the book and three that came after – I could recall many of the parts that made up the Lord of the Rings trilogy but found I couldn’t for the Hobbit, that partially explains why my friend Rob was disappointed but I enjoyed the movie.

    When I was watching the dwarves and Bilbo on the mountain – I found myself thinking of Flint Fireforge from the Dragonlance series and I got a little misty thinking about when he passed on and Tasslehoff’s tears… yet, knowing I read the Hobbit you’d think I could recall all the details of that, but I cannot. I remember Smaug, I remember there being dwarves, a spider and maybe some elves… but that’s about the extent of it. When I think of Dragonlance, I can recall intimate details and feelings about Raistlin and his brothers relationship, knowing how Tanis Half-Elven was torn between the ageless elf and the sultry Kitara… Maybe I loved that series more? I don’t know, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy stayed with me longer.

    As I was thinking on it I think of all those books I read when I was younger and how they seemingly changed my life:

    A Brave New World

    1984

    Flowers for Algernon

    Way of the Peaceful Warrior

    A ton of stories from Jack London

    A Clockwork Orange

    You know, I can’t recall details of those books, I have a memory of how much they meant to me at the time and how into them I was, but they didn’t stick. I remember a line from Way of the Peaceful Warrior “we only sell fruit juice here and don’t call me Pop” and I recall being truly frightened reading A Clockwork Orange… but I don’t really have any details, I can’t quote them or reference them with any authority as they’re gone.

    I have them on my Kindle, I bought all these books because I used to own them and I wanted them to be a part of my collection again. And I might have to reread them again, to see if the magic is still there – if they grab me and take me to the world the author wanted me to experience with them, to see if I still get frightened during or if this time 1984 scares me more.

    I don’t have memories of people from the late 70s to 80s either, they’re just gone. There are people from two different high schools that I’m supposed to know and I can’t seem to place them, they seem oddly familiar but they’re just not inside my head anymore. Kind of weird really. I pretend, it’s easy on Facebook to pretend I remember, but I don’t… There come times though when I run into them in real life and then the pretending go well, cause I can’t lie about it… happened a few years ago when I was visiting a friend I do remember and two of our high school mates showed up, but I couldn’t recall them and I should have been able to, and it’s happened since and will likely happen again. Part of why I stay in touch with some many people from past jobs is I’m afraid if I don’t I won’t be able to remember them – it could happen.

    Anyway, I’m looking forward to rereading these stories and going to another world with the authors.

  • Start and Stop

    “My mother was born in the psychiatric unit…”

    IMG_2889

    That’s how I always planned to start my book. It’s true… we think… and I like truth. Also it really kind of makes things seem like they happened for reasons. Some of the things that happened probably didn’t have to happen at all, but they happened nonetheless. But I wonder if I were a reader reading that first sentence would I then expect to find a book about my mother? Cause it wouldn’t be about her that much, it would be about my experiences. I find though that it helps to have backstory for your own experiences to strengthen the validity of the story.

    –

    I wrote a lot more of this and expanded a bit on mothers aunts and siblings… and then I kept running into things that I didn’t want to say here … partly because I didn’t want to suddenly argue with her born again christian brother and sister and partly because I wanted to be sure my stories were accurate. That means I have to collaborate with someone and that’ll be fun, but it also means that this story will have to be told somewhere else and I’m alright with that.

    I’m in a writing mood I guess, I’ve got thoughts running rampant in my head and have written quite a lot in the last few days… a few posts I cannot post yet due to surprises that are in store for others that I can’t share now… don’t you just hate a tease? But after next Wednesday those will start to appear.

    I’ll continue the story of my mother, myself and growing up… and maybe once in a while I’ll post a snippet of that here for your amusement or shock or what have you, depending on the situation. I never thought the story was all that but others have consistently told me it is so we’ll get it out there and deal with debate after the fact.