harold_maude's journal

In order to prevent a complete melt down on my part the following is dedicated to my manager and all the other piss heads out there who don't give a fuck about anything but the bottom line, ie money money money.

What dreams and ambitions that true souls have
are smothered and burried
among the thorns that brainless senseless animals
in their tidy gorish grin stained face lay before our path
to confuse and delay common sense
and then with ponderous eyes demand explaination
and ignor the cries of the frustrated
who would change things and make the road easier to walk.
To those who laugh and with peevish tone
remind with constant finger shaking
that's the way the world is
to them I give this gift
no, a mere wish that upon their heads would fall
the weight of what I and others like me feel
when stopped and demanded of
so that in what we do we apear fools.
If that is the desired effect oh greedy man
then give me a jesters cape and crown
to act the fool and there I will sit
stuid and blank for your amusment
you have no understanding no common sense
you have no reason to give me
other than this is the way things are.
I know better. I know that it's not the way things are
all over, just here.
and why? Because you have no heart.
And money is your bed fellow. And by your hand
the worker weeps and dreams of escape.
You sit among your this's and that's
and wonder why no one stays. why there is no change.
I can tell you with no hesitation.
It's because of you.

I've just spent the last few minuets looking through all the titles of things I have written here.
I even stopped long enough to read parts and peices of them.
After writing the last journal entry and all the toughts I wondered if this was a re-occuring thing with me.
And I've come to the conclusion that it is.

I spend alot of time in a place of observation due to certian aspects of my life and so what I write about comes from that place.
I'm greatful for my journals. All of them, even the ones where I put the darkest and deepest pain in. They are precious to me even though at some point I will distroy them before I die.

I tend to see a persons journal kind of like a private shower.
Your completely naked, alone and the water and soap are washing away the crap of the world off your skin and out of your hair.
You feel clean afterwards.
A new chance to try to avoid dirt.
It never works because you have to take a shower again at some point, but for a very brief time, you feel really clean.
That's what writing in my journals does for me I think.
When my brain is on over load I write. The words and the pages are my brain's soap and water and when I'm done I can walk away and not think about it for at least a little while.

And that's a comforting thought.

Last night we watched "Donnie Darko". It's a unique movie to say the least and has raised again thoughts of time travel in my mind.

This coensides with the purchase of the second volume of the ancient secret of the flower of life which I bought yesterday.
I put the two things in the same arena of consideration for one reason, and that is that there are questions that seem to lead to other questions in my mind.

Time is fluid. The golen mean spiral moves forward and backwards at the same time.
Memory is retained at the cellular level and if something was suppose to occur according to cosmic plans than would it be possible to change it, re-wind events and make them what they were suppose to be?

My curiousity about the mysteries of the universe and the mind have been something that has been an on and off process for me for a very long time. And there are times when I feel a great sadness in my bones at the limitations of my phsical existance.
Not to mention a great deal of grief at the understanding that most people I cannot talk to about the things that lay deep in my thoughts.
It's almost as if I was born at the wrong time in history.
There are times when I would rather stay asleep for the rest of this bodies existance and live there.

My art, mostly abstract in nature, although there are familar objects often that show up in the work, would seem to be a reflection of somewhere else.

I wonder sometimes if I'm not just a little mad. If there is really such a thing as being mad. Maybe I slipped out of the stream I was in at the wrong time and then when it was done there was no way to reverse it and so I got stuck here at this time in history.

When I think about how strongly I feel people's emotions and how I can see pictures at times of what a person's soul looks like, the condition of it, and the times when I start talking to someone and things will come out of my mouth that make them get this look on their face like I'm exposing the deepest part of them and it scares them....maybe I got caught in some kind of spacial shift and ended up in this time with a view of the world that isn't suppose to happen.
Maybe not....
I don't know.

I don't understand how a person can go through most of their lives feeling like they are standing outside a big house with a view of inside and it's raining outside and no amount of pounding or screaming will get anyone's attention to open the door.
But that's been where I've existed for most of my life.
Sometimes I go through days in sort of a double vision existance.
Like I'm walking around in a shell. I can move inside the shell turn around in it while at the same time moving in a straight line.
Like I've detached from my physical structure.
Everything seems, on thoes days like a surreal world. Some colors are more vivid than others and things that people do seem almost cartoonish.

Maybe it's just how people like me, I'm sure there are other people in the world like me, view and live out their lives in the world.

If I could take off this skin
like a coat worn in winter
and feel whole
touch my real skin
and see my face
maybe then it would make sense
and I would feel whole.

If I could grab the strings
of dreams
and hold them close
maybe it would feel real
instead of just echos
I don't know...

I have no answers. Only more unanswerable questions.
Maybe I'll spend the rest of my life wandering. Looking for more of my tribe.
Someone that when I look in their eyes I'll know that they have walked through life just like me and nothing will have to be said because the understanding will be there.
A mirror inside someone else. Maybe then I will get to see what I look like underneath and be able to change what needs to be changed.

When your the one who takes care of things, who takes care of you when you are falling apart or sick?
The answer to that one I know, and the answer is:
No one.

You have to be your own caregiver. Your own comfort. You have to learn how to make it ok enough for yourself so you can sleep in peace and really rest.

More questions. Why am I destined to go through this life being there for other people and alone when I am in need?
I have no answer for that question.
Only a feeling like I'm in the wrong time in history.

Why do I understand so clearly and accept that it is my path in life to be walking in this frame work and over and over thoes in need in a way that have caused others to abandon them show up in my life confirms this?
I have no answer to that question.
I just know that is what is.

It doesn't bother me most of the time that I have to take care of things. It doesn't bother me most of the time. It's hard when it does bother me though, because it tears me apart then way down inside.
And the old ghosts come back to haunt me that make me feel like the only reason people want to be around me is for what I can do for them.
Sometimes thoes ghosts tell me that to the majority of the world I'm a disgusting object. And that it's only the gifts that have been given to me that give me any value.
When it gets so strong to the point of wanting to check out I have to push through until the want passes.

To be honest, most of the time it feels like I've spent most of my life walking around in a rain shrouded valley that occasionally gets moments of sunlight.
Maybe it's what and were all artists have lived. Maybe that's what defines an artist's world according to the universal ideal.
I don't know.

I don't have any answers. Just thoughts.

I don't understand something. If something can be changed so that things work better, why nothing is done.

It seems like the more difficult and more confusing things are the better people who run corporations like it.

Where I work there is a general lack of respect for some certian things that the head office requires but the managment where I work thinks are a waste of time, so they treat thoes things with no respect.

The people who end up being handed thoes tasks are often unaware they have to do them until the last minuet and there is no time to prepare for them.
Which has the effect of making the person doing them look like a fool.

The department that this occurs consistantly in is mine. I head the department but I have no control or say as to anything about my department. All decisions come from uppermanagement and every time I or anyone who has had anything to do with my department trys to express concern or the need for change we are generally laughed off and told it's the way things are.
Period.

I few months back as I was muddling through the so called training process, I requested time to prepare for certian things so that the person doing the presentation would be at least somewhat knowledgeable about what they were doing and talking about.

I was repremanded and told that what I was doing was playing games. I found out that every person who has had this job has experienced the exact same thing.

Among the complaints I had was were the supplies were stored. I respectfully requested that they be moved to a place of easier access. They were stored in the recieving area under a long shelve that you had to crawl under to get to.
I got yelled at and told to just deal with it, in so many words.

Finally we got a new district manager and something was said about the boxes and how it made the area seem unclean so to speak. Only then were the boxes moved upstairs where all the fixtures are kept. It's no longer in a place that's difficult to get to, but now it's in a place where they will inevidibly get put in some corner of a very large room behind alot of other things and it will again become an impossible situation.

But it's the way things are.

When I was hired I was told initally that I had 18 hours a week to complete all the things that had to do with my job. The reality is after I finish with the work list they give me I get about 4 to 8 hours a month to do the work in.

I finally had it on Sunday. I was given my work list and laid it aside and did the things that have to do with my job first.
I've decited that until I find another job the work sheet is last priority and my job and all that is required for me to do it right comes first. Management can go sit on some very large sticks.

I know when I write down on my work sheet why things arn't done I will get called into the office and asked to explain.
I'm tired of feeling like a trained monkey simply because the management cares only about how much money is being made.

I was told when I was hired that everyone trains for every job in the buisness because the most important thing is to be a good employee. If that's so then that would mean that every manager of the company did my job at one time or another.
But they haven't. I know because I have asked.

They can't understand why people don't take initive and do things that need to be done when they see them. I know why that happens. If the management doesn't give a rip or respect the people who work there and the jobs they do, why would anyone want to go out of their way to do any more than what they are told to do?

A few months ago a big mucky muck went around the country to every store. We were told they were comming. I was given extra hours as were several other people so that the store would be in perfect condition when this person came in. Things were hidden out of sight where they wouldn't be found and there was this general state of panic that went on for about 3 or 4 days.

What the top brass was interested in was how the customers were being treated. That was it. They didn't inspect anything. And they talked to the employees and watched to see how they treated people.
I kept basicly out of sight by management, I can only guess it was because they thought I might say something that would cause some kind of embarresment.
I find it hysterical that they went through all this non sense about how things looked when it didn't matter.
And I find it even funnier that what they were looking for is how I have treated customers from day one. Like they are humans instead of wallets with legs.

I was told that with this job comes lots of freedom. I was lied to. There is no freedom with this job. I run a department and have no say in anything about it. I was told I had the power to hire and fire people to work in my department. I was lied to. I don't have any say at all. I'm expect to find people to work in my department but it's management who hires them and fires them.

I've worked hard to do my best at this job, to give the department some dignity and get it up from the basement where it's been since this store opened, but what I've learned is that as long as the management doesn't respect it, and the people who work in it, nothing will change.

And I guess that's really the way things are.

When I'm all growd up
like the flowers
will I be content in the content of my life?

When I'm all growd up
like the rich people who have fancy houses
drive fancy cars
and are in debt up to their eyeballs
will I have arrived?

When I'm all growd up
and days are oh so short
will I remember so well
that it really is ok to color outside the lines?

Or will I forget.
And if I forget
will you slap me a few times
to wake me up?

Things I know:

that it's ok in some states to spit on the sidewalk.
while in others it's against the law.
That stupid has nothing to do with I.Q.
That predjuice makes strangers enemies.
That I like my eggs cooked everyway except as eggs benidict.
That I love the stars
that I hope I never get too old to play with toys
and not be embaressed
that it's a good thing to share chocolate with someone
and hugs are good too.
That money isn't everything
while being loved is a gift
and being able to love is an even bigger gift.
That I don't have any answers just points of view.
And sometimes in a single moment you can live a whole lifetime and that it's ok.

How's that for a brief moment in time?

This is the third day of an on going battle with a flu bug, and my head feels like it's got cotton and something else sloshing around in there.

I feel like I've been on a very long drunk, even though I haven't been drinking. Sleep is erratic because I keep dreaming I'm late and when I look at the clock I realize that I can sleep somemore.

When I woke up this morning my ear and part of my face were numb like I'd been given a shot of novacane, and I was very peaceful. My eyes were swollen and glassy and I reconized that I was running a fever.
I can't seem to shake it. I have been taking stuff to break it, but this one is stuborn.

I think there are mutated bugs in the air.

Anyway, as the view of myself in the mirror presented it's self and I stood there looking at what a strange creature I looked like I wondered what it would be like to have the features of your face mutate to what you were feeling like in side.

If you were depressed would you become different shades of blue depending on how depressed you were?
Or happy, what would happy look like as it changed a person's face?

Then I started thinking about how plugged up my ears were and how funny it would look if people who never really listened to anyone but themselves had corks in their ears.
It would be a sure way to tell if you really wanted to talk to someone or not.

And then my thoughts started going really weird. I started thinking about inlays on instruments and how cool it would be if you could build a box that depending on what inlay you put on the surface would determine the music that came out.

Then my thoughts went to how dark it was outside and I wondered if the sun was going to come out or if it was going to be weird out there today.

I checked my face again, and yep it was still numb.
I wasn't worried about it. Which is a little strange considering that it was numb.
I couldn't understand why I was so calm. Then it hit me. I'm too sick to be worried.
I don't have the energy to worry when I'm sick so it's ok.
I've had this floaty feeling all day and so it's ok.
I've been drinking lots and lots of water and I hope that helps to flush this out of my system.

I wonder what a person who was drinking a martini would do if the olives started screaming to be let out of the glass all of a sudden.

Or if when you went to put on socks they refused because it was so cramped and dark in your shoes.
I wonder if peoples feet get depressed durring the winter because they have to be in the dark all the time.
And the only time they get out is to either when the rest of the body is in the shower or tub or when they get stripped for bed unless a person wears socks to bed, then they only time they see daylight is when they go in the shower.

I wonder about alot of things. Usually from a strange perspective, although I'm very sure there are other people out there who look at things and wonder about things that are from a strange perspective as well.

I would love to be in a room full of people who disgussed strange perspectives and followed things to weird conclusions.
Nothing would be solved, but it would be fun.

Seems I've gone on a bit. so I'm going to stop for the moment and go blow my nose. Maybe my ears will unplug for a while.
That would be nice.