So tired. So ready to sleep for days. Ready to relax. Ready to reach a calm that has been unknown to me for the last few months. But it doesn't look like it will end.
A lawyer, an accountant, and an insurance man... No, this is not a joke. This is my life. Each one wants you to use his services. You can't get any good advice. It turns out that nobody really knows exactly what is going on, we just glide a little bit through life, trusting other people to make some of the decisions for us because they know better, really they do. I've been telling people that I definitely trust my lawyer to set up the business. I trust that he can do his job. Would I trust him with my life? Probably not. So, what do I do? I am just going to hope that everything turns out OK and leave it at that.
I'm sure we'll be totally and utterly insured by the time we're done. I hate the insurance business. It's all based on fear. What if you break your hand and can't type any more? What if you trip and fall on the job? What if you blow up a reactor and kill someone? The insurance man actually said, "I can't imagine any insurance company wanting to insure you."
So, hopefully I'll have everything figured out by tax-year 03. I'll save my receipts and count my blessings. I asked for it and now I've got it. I am in the process of starting my own business. I am self-employed. This is risk. This is what I wanted.
Have I been slacking? No, I've been doing the many things that need to be done when you move. We are licensed. We will be furnished when everything gets delivered. We have a new car! We had a little problem with the movers but all that is fixed now. They couldn't fit all of our worldly belongings into the truck they brought so they had to make another trip up the next day.
Today was my first day of work at my new job. I had to go through some harshly boring training but I'm almost set up. I just have to look over some documents tomorrow and then, hopefully, they'll actually have me doing stuff. It doesn't matter too much what I'm doing because, hey, if they want to pay me to take silly quizzes, then let them.
Now we just have to finish unpacking.
I don't mean to distract from any rants - and far be it from me to offer another self-reference, but I have to add this snippet of truth, on the request of Kate (whose lap we'd all apparently like to sit on):
"Weebles wobble." Enough said.
-joe
So I could definitely fill a blog or two with rants about my festering anger with my old boss, the owner of the small consulting company at which I used to work. I can say I used to work there because yesterday was my last day. And even though I put in a bunch of overtime, I would never put it down on my timesheet because that would mean more money for him and I don't really want to give him any more money.
I could totally see myself just ripping into him on these pages, trying to explain how I feel so you, dear reader, would understand what I've been going through. You know what, I'm bigger than that. So, although my blood is still boiling (an expression which I never totally understood until I actually experienced it last week), I will refrain from spewing profanities through my fingertips.
I try to do right in my life. If someone doesn't agree with me, that's his problem, not mine. I am really excited about this whole new adventure and nobody could take that away from me. I'm nervous and excited. I trust that everything will work out, even if there is one bitter, selfish, misguided shell of a human out to get me.
I only hope I am able to show such restraint the next time I have to speak to that person on the phone.
As we prepare for our departure, and as I read this book filled with strange coincidences, and as my emotions are running high, I thought of a strange occurrence that I happened to witness.
One fine day, as the weather was getting warmer, I was walking to work in the morning. As I crossed Third Avenue (at 42nd Street), a man within the throng of people caught my eye. He had a surfboard under his arm and he was wearing a wetsuit. He was walking towards the west side and I was walking east. I thought about how funny this was and how I wished I had my camera to capture the man in the middle of rush hour walking with a surfboard among the businesspeople. Of course, actually having my camera would probably not have helped since it all happened so quickly, and yet the event is something out of the ordinary and as such, it stuck in my mind.
A few months later, as the weather was getting cooler, I was walking from work to catch the 6 train at Grand Central. As I crossed Third Avenue (at 42nd Street), the same man with the surfboard and wetsuit came towards me again. I'd like to think that he walked all the way to the west coast, had several killer days of surfing and then walked all the way back home. Actually, I can't think of a more logical explanation.
I know. I know. I should post. I think you'll just have to wait because these last few days have been real busy at work. Not to mention the fact that my old boss now has a personal vendetta against me.
Tune in next time for tales of indiscretion and unethical behavior. Good times. Good times.
It feels really, really good to know that someone reads your writing. And I bet that's true even if they don't necessarily like it.
Oh, yeah - Halloween really pisses me off.
-the old new joe