Letter Never Sent

I was up late last night putting together a newsletter in PageMaker for a client. I don’t suppose it was absolutely necessary to have done by tomorrow but that’s what they wanted.They only gave me about 12 hours notice that they wanted it done, so I could’ve turned them down but I felt like taking on a challenge. Brother, it was rough.

I left directly from work around 6pm to go down to Dripping Springs to meet with them and I didn’t get home until 8:30 or so. I watched a little of “Mildred Pierce” during dinner with Jody. Then I got started around 9:45pm and stayed up working on it until 4am. I was exhausted when I finished. When I started I barely knew anything about PageMaker but it is easy to learn when you absolutely need to learn and the alternative is outing yourself as someone who promises but can’t deliver. That is terrifying. I remember once when I went to meet with someone to manage their server I made a really newbie mistake by chmod’ing the directory of one of their live websites without realizing that the chmod (file permissions settings) changes cascaded down into the files and subdirectories rendering the file permissions for all the files to the default settings. This made their website unviewable since the read permissions for general access were disabled by default. At first, I didn’t realize what I had done and thought I broke something. I had a sinking feeling of panic. While I was trying to figure out which unix commands would fix the problem the owner was sitting behind me watching what I was doing. If I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong I would have had to tell them that I rendered their website unviewable by messing around with something I didn’t have the know-how to mess around with.

Anyway, when I did finally go to bed I couldn’t sleep because I was having a hard time breathing due to some strange respiratory illness that came on all of the sudden yesterday. I went to lie down in my chair so I would be sitting upright since that seemed to help a little. I planned on calling in sick today since I only had a couple hours of sleep, but at 8:32am I woke up on my own and felt good enough to go to work. I plan on passing out around 7pm.

Today would have been my grandfather, Stanley Sivori‘s 82nd birthday. He was a neat man and always seemed to be in a good mood. He wore a St. Jude medal and loved to play cards. My family says I look more and more like him all the time. I don’t see it, but it’s a compliment nevertheless.

I feel like I’ve been so busy. I’m up to my ears in projects. Behind on a few of them, but gaining ground and even making a little filthy lucre here and there to supplement by Bob Cratchit salary. I love filthy lucre. I can’t seem to do anything I like without it. One thing I think about often is the fact that when I’m an old man it will be harder to find a job so I’d better get good at making a decent living and saving while I’m still young. While I’d like to believe I’ll have loved ones to look after me in my dotage, I know the reality is far less sentimental. I’m not too proud to do any job or any kind of work, I’m just aware that some day I may not be able to work. This week I did six hours of data entry for Sab, built the site for his new salon (which just opened Tuesday), and finished fixing my Dad’s computer. I’ve been a real hustler. This week I also had a phone interview with UT for this web design position. I don’t have a good feeling about it. I had a hard time giving a good phone interview while at work. If nothing comes of it, I’ll keep applying until I find something more challenging with better pay.

This morning the prettiest little yellow and black bird was sitting in my parking space when I pulled up. I didn’t get a close look at it before it flew away. Then as I was walking inside I spotted two hummingbirds chasing one another and I thought how fun that must be to buzz around like that and chase your friend in the cool morning.

I sold “Das Boot” two days ago. It was a car I bought from my Granny’s estate after she died. It belonged to her and she drove it regularly to go play cards and bingo (I even found an ink dobber under the seat once). “Das Boot” was an ’87 Ford Crown Victoria with a 5.0 liter V8 302. For all you non-car folks (and I number myself among you) this means it hauled balls. Large and in charge, “Das Boot” was more of a big-boned gal than a slim sporty thing. She moved like a freight train and was quick to respond when you gave her gas. She could jump up to highway speeds in no time flat, running like a thoroughbred. I used to loved peeling out in her and feeling our combined mass float along the highway at night. She had a bench seat of blood red velour and you could stretch out on it with your legs kicked out.

On hot days you could climb into the front seat and breathe in the remnants of my grandmother’s perfume haunting the car.

After a while, DB started causing more mechanical troubles than I wanted to deal with. Maybe that’s just an excuse for a love affair that ended. Instead of seeing what had drawn me to her in the first place, I started to see only how she held me back. She was rough and uncivilized, and I felt like I had to explain why I was with her. Ugly, gas-hungry, leaking oil, tempermental, and…old.

I moved on to another car but let DB linger on the street in front of my house not knowing exactly how to let her go. This week I cleaned her out and made her up. Various suitors came to look at her, poking and peering. I watched through the blinds when the new owner drove her away and out of my life forever.