Got this really odd mood that has come over me today.  Why? I don't, because I get more thoughtful and creative when I listen to music maybe. Because there are so many things going on that I have a lot on my mind, not sure. Probably just a little bit of everything all in one.
Thanksgiving is two days away, and it will be the first one Ive had without my mother in about 10 years, and even then I only skipped one when I was living in Omaha.
Things change, and I tell ya what, I don't feel like I will miss her this year, that's the odd thing. All the usual suspects will be coming to my place this year instead of OUR place (mom's and mine). She didn't want to make the trip down from Sac.  And I get the feeling its all going to be a lot more fun without her.  Yea, that sounded mean didn't it? But, she has gotten to the point that she judges me on EVERYTHING I do, don't do, or think or anything that I feel like maybe I will have more freedom to just be ME for a change, without worry.  Contemplating getting drunk this holiday too, haven't been drunk in years. But then, there is the fact that I have to work at 6AM the day after too.  Should be an interesting holiday if my sister doesn't get snowed in at home, I want to have fun with her and get goofy.
Other than that I've just been thinking about a lot of people I've known over the years.   Oddly, though, I don't keep in contact with almost any of them now.  Back of the mind I wonder if it was something I did to drive them away or...just time passed and we all just moved on.   Not spending a lot of time worrying about it though.  But thinking of some the people and things we did for fun is nice.
Work doesn't even bother me right now. I put in more time than I should, as always but its okay.
I somehow get the feeling that the coming year is going to have a lot of change involved in it. Probably a bit of both bad and good and a lot of adjustment on my part.  I don't usually do change very well.
I do see a lot of things that look promising about now too. Just a feeling really and I hope it lasts a long long time.

So it's Sunday night after a weekend that I'd rather forget. Except I got to see P yesterday. Never mind that while I was with him I spent almost $120 in the space of 2 hours.  I will live I guess, even though I couldn't really afford it.

For about 4 days now I've been in a lot of pain with my back and leg issues. The weather changed and a cold front came in. Now, no matter what I do, I'm in pain.  The meds don't cut it and if I tried stronger meds I wouldn't be able to work like I do now. So...pain until it decides to subside on its own I guess. Not much I can do except try to cope.

Work was irritating as hell this weekend, too many issues with too many stupid people and my lack of patience from being in pain didn't help at all.   All I can do is hope tomorrow is a better day all around.

I need to clean house before everyone comes over for Thanksgiving...but that's hard to do when I'm in pain. Going to have to hope I can get it all done in time.

I'd love to write more on the two short stories I have started but I just can't sit long enough right now and focus on fiction. So, some other time.

Random stuff...

So, I look at Bob a lot now. My brother gave him to me a week ago. He swims around his ten gallon tank all day and basically doesn't do a whole lot.. Oh the life. I would love to not have a whole lot to do for days on end, but then I'd probably get bored too, in like 2 days tops
Bob's day is highlighted at 6:30 in the morning.  I feed him then and he swims around excitedly. Goldfish really don't have much to do in a day. Mostly he swims back and forth and occasionally I hear a little blop as he hits the top of the water with his goofy looking fish mouth. At first I thought he was trying to escape or something, but I really doubt it. I mean, where would he go? Except to his death as he flops out onto the top of the dresser and then onto the carpet below.  Would I even notice right away? Doubtful, I get lost in work Every day and don't notice many things going on around me. Bob would be dead if he got out. But I often wonder; what does he think about all day long just swimming back and forth in that tank? He is the only fish in the tank, does he get lonely there all by himself? Or, is his thought process even evolved enough to think in terms of loneliness? Who knows what a goldfish thinks, or if it even thinks at all... No, I wouldn't want to be Bob after all.

I have seen a lot going on lately that bothers me. I mean at work mostly, so I really shouldn't go into details about these things.I only bring it up because I have come to the decision that it will be better for me to be ignorant of these things. People and things I object to, or want to understand more about...that's all fine but I have decided it might be better if I focus on my own job instead. Mind my own business really. So what if I think that my boss is being robbed by another employee, I can't prove it so...why say anything?  Ethically, I really do believe in looking out for things and saying something to my superior at work when I see things happen that are in my view wrong.  I guess that is the problem, its MY view and what I see as bad may not be so bad to another person, especially if I can't back it up with facts anyway.  So, leaving it a lone seems to be my best option here.  
I do feel that I have a strong moral sense of wanting to do what I feel is the right thing in any given situation.  But is my doing the right thing seen the same way by others?  Am I seen as meddling where I really don't belong instead of looking out for things?  I don't really know, and I think that, unless I want to face the answer, good or bad I should just back off and put on my dark shades and go about my own business instead.  So, that is what I have resolved to do about what is currently bothering me.
Maybe too, its a bit of self-preservation going. If I focus on my work and do as good a job as I can each day and stop looking at others, doesn't that show how serious I am about helping my company be the best it can be?  I think so. I could go and put lists of pros and cons and decide that way but I think in this case, I don't need to do that.  A lot of times that is a helpful way for me to decide on things but not needed this time around. I think it will be the right way in the long run,  that and I still sort of think that if something is wrong it will get figured out eventually and I won't have to be involved when it does. Not endangering me at all that way.  Doesn't mean I agree with it this way, or even like it but I still feel like its going to be the thing to do.

Maybe I worry too much about what other people think about me, but then, who doesn't want the approval of the people they spend everyday with?
I know I do want that approval, and that in the past, I have made it a hard thing with some of the people I work with.  I try to do what I see as the right thing but not everyone else sees what I do and say as the right thing too. Everyone is different. My problem I guess, is that while I am in the middle of something I don't always see how it can be a problem for someone else, reporting a problem or something done wrong at work for instance.   My view is that I want to have a problem corrected so I tell my boss about it.   My thought is that my co-workers see me as a snitch or something, that they are the ones who get into trouble for whatever it was that I told my boss about.  That wasn't what I was going for but it is often the end result. But then, if the boss discovers something wrong and I leave it alone..even knowing it was wrong...I get blamed for it just like everyone else when he sees it. If I saw the problem I don't want to be blamed for it and have it reflect negatively on me.  Most of the time when I see a problem, or something being done incorrectly, I know who is doing it. BUT that doesn't mean I give names when I discuss it with the boss. Maybe that is what others think, but I don't.  And when someone gets into trouble the person who was doing it wrong or whatever looks at me directly as the problem as to why they got into trouble or were reprimanded or whatever.  So what then, do I just let it go on until a customer sees it and discontinues using our services? Cal me crazy but I'd rather that not happen.  Keeps us all in a job if we look after things, regardless of consequences to others.
I've said before and will say again, I believe in treating others as I would like to be treated.  So if they perceive that I am treating them badly by reporting a problem that gets them into trouble, am I really doing the right thing?  I have my doubts but I also have my principals as well.  A strong sense of right and wrong and sometimes that over rides my need for approval by my peers. Good or bad, that's just the way it is.

Ok, I've talked that to death, you probably think, do what you want I don't care lol.   

Just one thing

I know, I already started one story back there someplace.... and I will get back to it again at some point but I'm in the mood to put down another idea I have now, tonight, for another story. So, that other goes on the back burner for a while. I already had an idea of what to do with it but lack the ambition for it at this point. Other ideas.
So, the idea this time was something like you see in that commercial about everyone going around doing something nice for one another, some insurance ad I think it is. Only this focuses in a bit more, and in my style not theirs.

Simple things...one good deed. My mom never told me if I did one good thing for someone every day I'd feel good about myself. She probably never thought about it, even when someone did something nice for her.  
Do you do nice things for people everyday? I mean, not just the person you're in love with, or your child who you love with all your heart and are supposed to take care of. But, the average person, whom you probably don't even know.  The old lady carrying groceries and trying to load them into her car all by herself. Would you stop and help her? Would you even notice her? 


Jake was walking down the street in his neighborhood, he had just gotten off the city bus, coming home from his friend's house. Headed home for dinner.  Walking down the sidewalk backpack slung over his left shoulder just whistling and watching his shadow as he walked. Wondering what was for dinner...
Next door to his place was a house where a single mom lived with her 5 year old son Alex. Jake didn't know them well. He had waved at Alex a time or two but the mother kept to herself a lot, didn't seem real friendly.  Jake approached their place now, his house just past it.  Alex sat on the front porch alone. It was nearing dark so it seemed odd to Jake that he would be outside by himself.  For a minute or so Jake kept walking, he looked at Alex, sitting there silently. Alex didn't even look up at him as he walked by. Was just staring at his dirty white sneakers and poking the cement of the front porch step with a small stick.  Jake was almost past their place to his when he decided to stop. 
"Hey Alex?"  he called over to the boy. 
"Where's your ma?"
As Jake looked and waited, Alex barely looked up at him but said nothing in response to the question.
His silence bothered Jake. Alex was usually an upbeat kid, and not usually quiet like this.  He began to wonder if something was wrong.  Jake stood there a moment longer and decided what to do.
"Alex?" he said as he turned and walked up the path to his neighbor's front steps. 
"What's going on buddy?" he said, "Where's your mom at?"
Alex looked up at him again and then stood up as he approached him now. Still didn't say anything.  All of the sudden Alex wrapped his arms around Jake and hugged him tightly.  Jake put his arm on Alex's back and asked him again what was wrong.  Jake hugged him a moment longer and then stopped and looked down at him.
Alex pointed at the house, "inside", was all he said.
Jake walked up to the front door and went inside, leaving Alex on the porch alone for a minute.   That was all it took, just a minute.  Inside he found Alex's mom laying face down on the floor. He called 911 and came back outside to Alex to wait for help. 
A short time later the police, and medical response had come and taken Alex's mother to the hospital and the police officers were ready to take Alex to someplace safe while his mother recovered from her heart attack. 
The officers told Jake it was a good thing he had stopped to help, the woman might not have survived if she didn't get help soon.  
Jake wondered how many people had walked by Alex sitting on that porch that evening and had not even noticed him sitting there alone, or saw him and had not even thought about it as they went by.

Dreams...

I don't know if dreams mean anything or not. They definitely are interesting though. I've had two recently that have been strange and I have been able to remember part if not all of them when I awoke.  That's different for me.  I've no idea why I dreamed what I did but I am going to put them down here to refer back to later.



The first one...
I am at an apartment where my mother lives having a conversation with her... I cannot remember what it was about but we got angry with each other. She got in her car and drove off. It was the same car she has now, old black ugly thing. Somehow I chase her, I was not in a car though.  She got onto a freeway and drove off.  I got as far as the freeway on ramp.   In the middle there was an upraised divider. I somehow ended up on that and was watching her drive away until her car was gone. I was up high above the cars and I could see them going by in both directions below me. I was there for a while and I began to wonder how I would get down.  I also worried that the highway patrol could see me there and I would be arrested but nothing seemed to happen. I began to feel like I was trapped there after a while, like I couldn't get down. And then I woke up.

The second one...
I am on the back patio of a friend, in their back yard. We are just standing around talking. I don't even know who the friend is or what we were talking about. Thirty feet or so away from me on this patio is a cat not quite full grown yet, maybe almost a year but still sort of looked like a kitten too. it was orange with white stripes. The orange was very bright orange though.  At first I just looked at it and went on talking to my friend.  Very quickly though, it began to rain, quick, heavy drops and it was a sudden downpour into a very heavy rainfall.  I looked over at the cat and it was suddenly very wet and pathetic looking and I told my friend I was going to go get the cat. It was drenched and being pummeled by the rainwater coming down.  It was staggering trying to walk towards me, struggling.   I started walking towards it and got about halfway there...and my alarm went off. It was time to wake up.