Precious Little…

…Time. 

Everybody wants money.  If you don’t think so, ask yourself if you would go to work if you didn’t get paid.  Me either.  Can you make too much money?  I don’t think it is something I will have to deal with so that’s a moot point.  Can you be satisfied with your pay?  Probably, but for me it comes down to the simple fact of paying the bills in an area with a cost of living that is far too high and a mortgage so far underwater that I need scuba gear (my only poor timing in real estate so far… and a bad one).

But money isn’t everything.  I left a damn good job at with a very good company at the peak of my career during the 90’s to follow a dream.  It was absolutely 110% worth it and I would not trade the experience for anything – no regrets.  Unfortunately, life’s little twists and turns resulted in a sharp left turn in the Master Plan of life to the road of Simply Making It.  It is better than that dirt road of Not Making it… but I digress.

What is it that I really wanted during my early, lucrative career, my rewarding self employment, and my current “they call it a non-profit for a reason” work history?  Time.

I see my work calendar as the space between time off.  I am fortunate in that I work in a place with a generous time off policy, so there is ample opportunity to take vacations or an extended weekend like I am taking right now.  The problem is how I spend that time.  It seems that I have mastered the art of doing nothing.  I could say that health issues force me to take it slower than I used to, but that is not the heart of the matter (no pun intended).  We live in a country where we are encouraged to (tragically, literally) work ourselves to death.  While I am not a death’s door, I am not exactly a kid anymore.  Every week, this takes its toll and I spend so much time just decompressing that I usually accomplish very little every weekend. 

Here I am at day 2 of a four day weekend.  Yesterday I played with my tech toys, read, listened to music, read, sent emails, sent texts, listened to music, played with tech toys… etc.  None of this is bad, but I have so much that needs to be done and right now, I have the time to do it.  There is that damned Puritanical Work Ethic again (Damn those bloody Puritans!).  It even seeps into our personal lives – not that I am doing anything about it other than feeling guilty.

Precious time.  Part of me feels that I should treat it like the precious commodity that it is.  Part of me thinks that maybe, I am.

Late

I hated you.  Hate is a strong and ugly word; one that I claim is not in my vocabulary, but there it is.  I didn’t want the hate.  I didn’t want the burden, I didn’t want anyone to have enough power over me to bring me to that point, but you did.

I loved you.  I thought I had found something honest and true and powerful and it would carry me through the rest of my life.  I was insanely in love and insanely naïve.  I believed every word you said and I had to guard it carefully because no one could know.  It rose to a fever pitch and just as abruptly, it ended.  Actually, that is wrong.  If it ended, I would have been spared years of pain, therapy, and having to tear my life apart so I could rebuild it.  In a single moment, you told me the words that made me realize I gambled on love and lost two people.  One of those people suffered a great deal and I will never be able to let that go, nor will I be able to tell them the truth.

I learned about alcoholic behavior from you.  Pull me close, push me away, pull me close, push me away… over and over.  I believed the midnight tales of possibility that vaporized in the morning light.  When I discovered the truth, that I was nothing more than a diversion but also a potential liability, I was furious.  On our last meeting your behavior was so appalling that I became physically ill.

I found some of the best and dearest friends through you.  They should have been lifetime friends, but through manipulation and lies, they are now lost to me as well.  Your undeniable charisma drew people close and your brilliance was blinding.  It is no surprise that so many were blind to the truth.  On that last meeting, I saw through clear eyes for the first time.  I looked around and saw the actor on the stage and all of the audience rapt with tears in their eyes.  Well played – as was I.

I read your obituary today.  A little late, it was from six months ago.  In all of that time, no one told me.  So it seems that I, your dirty little secret, is safe and is literally taken to the grave.  I protected you to the end.

I am angry, I grieve, I am disappointed in myself for carrying this unnecessary burden these last ten years.  It is such a confusion of emotions that I am not sure what it all means.  In the end, I suppose it turns out that it means nothing.   I have nothing left but emptiness where there was once something so strong.

No one really knows who lives here but you and God and me.  None of us are about to tell.

Goodbye.



We have seen Big Brother…

…and he is us.


I don’t consider myself to be paranoid, but I do believe in a measure of caution (usually). In the virtual world, the same rules should apply to the physical world – some do and some don’t. The way you behave in public should be the same way you behave on the internet. Unfortunately, I can be equally inappropriate in both places. Most of this is in an attempt at humor and often it goes wrong. Do not believe for a minute that hitting the delete button erases your indiscretions.


Facebook, YouTube, Flicker (or any other photo sites), Twitter, Foursquare, etc, etc, etc… we are putting ourselves out there. While in a perfect world these are fun, benign distractions, things can go terribly wrong.

I know two people who have lost their jobs from Facebook postings. I know (at least) one person who, if a certain YouTube video is discovered, would be in serious trouble – at very least, seriously embarrassed. While the narcissistic world of Twitter is generally too filled with meaningless trash to even notice, law enforcement is paying attention and making arrests of idiots who tweet their deeds and locations. Perhaps most disturbing is Foursquare. Aside from the obvious (?) fact that we really don’t care where you are every moment of the day, here is something to ponder. Physicians (or their minions) are tracking patient activity on Foursquare to see behavior patterns, i.e. the nightly barhopping you like to tell us all about.

All of this is avoidable… or is it? I just saw a posting where someone sent what they thought to be a discreetly handled letter about a very personal (and very embarrassing) matter and it wound up on the internet. Still avoidable? Probably… if you want to go off the social grid or if you are a boyscout choirboy priest… can’t find a good analogy, but you get my point, you can avoid it.

Will I change my behavior? I already have. Will I keep all of this in mind when I am roaming the virtual pathways? You bet. Will I ever sign up for Foursquare? I doubt it.

So the next time you complain on Facebook or any other social media about your job, family, friends… you have just given more power to Big Brother. Who, by the way, is you.