Something in between ...

I have always known in my heart that I am not supposed to be poor. And I spent many years waiting for the cash to rain down on me. It took a long time to see ... it's not just a matter of fate ... a suitcase full of cash is NOT going to fall from the sky & land in my yard ... and the lottery numbers are not going to be on the ticket I hold in my hand.

I'm sure I wouldn't want to win the lottery anyway. Those sudden multi-millionaires always end up losing everything else they had that was good in their lives ... kind of in exchange for the cash. A cruel joke.

I don't want that.

I HAVE spent over 2 years in the same pair of sneakers. The only footwear I owned.

Watching TV - MTV Cribs - closets full of shit they'll wear once.

UGH.

I don't want that life either -- the life of excess. Wasteful.

Jury Duty ~ AKA ~ I doe wanna!

The dreaded summons. Jury duty. Oh, balls. I really feel that people should not be forced to serve jury duty. There should be a way to excuse yourself, at least a certain number of times in a lifetime. And, is it just me... or do they seem to pull the same people, over & over ... while others never get that wonderful little postcard.

So I get called to serve jury duty. As my granddaughter says: "I doe wanna!" So I do the 1 year extention thing. My year comes up this past November, & guess what ... I still doe wanna. So I oversleep, don’t feel great, call & try to get a human being at the court - impossible - they finally call me back that afternoon - I ask if they’re gonna arrest me - no the guy says, just come in sometime soon - come as a drop-in, just call the juror line (the recording) first ... we’ll count that.
So I do. I call almost 3 times a week. They never need jurors when I call. Then it’s Christmas vacation, the juror recording says the message will be updated in a month. OK.... so NOW they’ll probably arrest me...

I get a postcard that says HEY IDIOT you blew off jury duty ... you really shouldn’t do that ... Call this number & they’ll give you a new date. So I call. The woman with a thick hispanic (?) accent on the phone proceeds to have a bitch-fest on my ass, treating me like a moron, a child being scolded ... "jew better make chure jew show up for dis jury duty ..." I explained that I had been calling so I could do the drop-in thing like the court officer told me to, she yells: "Jew can’t do dat! (ok.... ??? ... whatever.) As she continued to briefly lecture me about what an irresponsible person I was, & how I shouldn’t fuck with them, I realize that this bitch held my fate in her hands ... so I had to say yessum, no ma’am... blah blah blah ... Then she realized, as she’s franticly typing away at her keyboard... that there really were no available dates for jurors (like I was saying) for another month +. "Here’s your new date. Jew make chure jew show up dis time!" Was the last thing she said to me.

It’s juvenile court, and my foster son has a case he’s been called in for - because this boy in middle school had been bullying him, and once the bully boy & his wonderful mother realized there were actual consequences, (kicked out of school & other legal issues ...) they decide to turn everything around & blame it all on the victims. So the bully boy & his wonderful mom, take MY foster son & another small, meek boy to court.

*So we the jurors are sitting in a group & we’re all told the basics about the case before the court that day. Then 1 at a time we get to stand up & say if we feel we should be excused & why. My turn comes. I ask to approach the bench. No, the judge says, whatever you have to say can be said in front of the court & jurors. I am biased in this case your honor. Why? He says. So I told him. "The little bastard bully boy is a liar & I know it for a fact because I saw the bruises that my foster son came home from school with after bully-boy decided to kick & push him." Then there was a collective sigh, bully-boy’s lawyer argued that I had single-handedly tainted the entire pool of jurors ... the judge agreed & told us all that we were dismissed.

As we left that day, all of my fellow jury poolees thanked me, patted me on the back - everyone was happy.

Jury duty bastards know better than to mess with me now! Guess I showed THEM! Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

So the truth is, The day before I’m supposed to go for jury duty, I call & the recording says we’re all excused. Which I figured might happen, because my foster son’s case had been dismissed - the bully boy has pled out. So yes, that whole last part, from the asterisk on, was a figment of my imagination & I’m good for another year. But that is an actual daydream I had ... ha. Funny little glimpses into my mind - it’s a dangerous place to visit.

PS I am sure that by blogging this, I'll end up as a grand juror when they call my # next time ... so I really hope you enjoyed this post.

matthew

My friend & ex-band mate Matthew is currently transitioning from VT to Eastern MA. He called, then stopped stopped in last week ... I hadn't seen him in years ... and asked to store some stuff here. Along with a few boxes & a couple of suitcases, Matthew left his guitar.

My love of music can be traced back to the first year of my life. It is written in my baby book. Proof positive. Eventually grabbing hold of a guitar at age 12, and learning some, and playing John Denver & dreaming of Donny Osmond ... the musical dreams fade but never really go away.

Then I am in my 30's. In love with a local musician. I am taught a bit more - I have access to this wonderful guitar. I learn.

Then a friend from work says "Hey! lets play ... I know a guy..." So Jay, Barb & Matthew form a band which had potential, but overall -- we sucked. The guys drank alcohol too much. Jay can't sing at all but insisted. We all wrote good songs, but Matthew has real songwriting ability... but his English skills are a bit ... different. I wanted to sing so badly that I couldn't hear myself singing slightly off key - ever - till now. I was never a great guitarist. I had to work really really hard, just to be able to pass as OK. Jayson had a girlfriend, Tabitha, who we referred to as Satan... she called 5 times every practice, to bitch at him for no apparent reason. He had the patience of a saint. Matt had drug issues & often times blew us off when it was time to load up the van & set up -- he'd show up just in time to sing in his drug-induced haze... he was still captivating.

PART 2 - MATTHEW EXPLAINS THE PAIN BEHIND THE SONG.

Matthew left the band many times. Rehab, joined the Navy, tramped around NYC to try acting ... rehab, rehab, rehab. Last week he calls & says he's not drinking, totally clean, not even smoking cigarettes. Has new songs. Come on over Matt! Play for me! (I love love love listening to this man sing - he has this voice that is so wonderful... it's hard to describe other than to say, I wish it was mine). But he too, is inflicted with shyness. Gotta let loose - gotta let go.

So he stops in. Drops stuff off to store here. And leaves his guitar.

I haven't played in a couple of years. Since I sold all of my stuff in order to fund other projects. God, it feels good holding that thing in my arms.

I do still love music.

sickos rambling thoughts

I’m starting to return, though not really right yet
lots of work pililng up & sleepless scrambled eggs for brains
exhausted body from constant coughing n not sleeping n trying to be normal
I always get this lung thing after getting a cold
the babies are both sick
dor has been my rock - again
nora trashed my office in 2 point 2 (she gets it from her mamma)
coughed so hard i tore a muscle or something right near the top of my ribcage & it HURTS if I cough unexpectedly & don't have time to prep myself / double over & hold onto it... man.
Only smoked 3 half-cigarettes yesterday, afraid to talk about quitting though I’m sure I will succeed THIS TIME
& even more afraid that comments like U CAN DO IT will have the opposite effect or maybe that's just another excuse.
Dammit, i just don’t want to talk about it. Assume I fail please. Then I won’t feel like such a failure when I fail again.
Blessings in disguise. Times like these, all u wish for is good health.
my mouse double clicks when i only tell it to single-click, which is very interesting when there are things u don’t want, behind other things u r trying to close. try it. try double clicking everything EVERYTHING that u normally would only single click. it’s crazy man... & I’m sure nora -- who is writing her name now btw -- is partially to blame, well, sort of ... i think her gooey toddler hands have infiltrated the safety & security of my mouses’ inner workings... so ya, technically it’s MY FAULT.
Emma got her 1st tooth! And 2 is coming, I’ve never seen so much drool & snot in my life.
I’ve had the fucking pleasure of spending an ungodly amount of time -- in & out of consciousness -- on the couch with the remote all to myself. News reporters - I will never understand that chosen path... and some dumb bitch old psychologist blaming Mrs. Spitzer for not paying enough attention ... she made me want to puke ... osama - er - I mean obama said "umm" 64 times in 10 minutes. Dyson makes the world’s best, and least affordable vacuum & he’s very interested in drying hands in public toilets & nobody knows his first name because it’s in cursive & none of us use that any longer. Cursive will be the lost language of our civilization. Someday they will unearth a manuscript, and spend a year trying to decipher the strange code...
oh shit
well - i will stop now. typing my rambling thoughts is probably not such a super idea.
this is reDICKulous

Quitting Smoking

I was in 7th grade. Mundy Zullo. Linda. Me. In the field across from their house. Cough, hack. Life-altering. Made me cool. Changed my world. Changed the world's view of me.

What an unbelievable gripping addiction tobacco is. A friend says to me, she can't believe the husband is still smoking -- his wife just died of lung cancer from smoking. I told her, it's not like that. It's not a choice.

It's like a noose with superglue.

I've been sick. Going to take advantage of the illness & the couch time & do the 'cut-down then quit' thing. Hmmm. So many reasons why I should.

Wish me luck.

Brushes With The Famous

Thanks to the Williamstown Theatre Festival, I've had TWO brushes with famous people. The first was when my daughter & I were stopped at a crosswalk by Williams College in Williamstown MA. Freakin Sara Gilbert (Darlene from Roseanne) crossed the street right in front of us! I saw her first, started slapping my daughter - saying LOOK - LOOK - LOOK - !!! She said "holy shit". And then it was over.

A few years later, I was having lunch in Williamstown & in walked Neil Patrick Harris from Doogie Howser MD & How I Met Your Mother. I gave him my business card, hoping for some kind of recognition or word of mouth ... instead, he & his buddies prank called my business line that same night. Too freakin funny.

New Office!

We're in our new space! Same building, just upstairs.

It's fantastic!

More space, completely organized, more windows = more natural light ... the walls are white, not brown like the old space. There's even a small exercise center in the next room! Treadmill, exercise bike, stair-stepper ... which is somewhat redundant since we're on the second floor now ;-)

I'm liking it - a lot.

Slightly sore from moving everything. It took a dozen trips just to get the cards up here. Finally got the last of the furniture in last night. Spent the morning organizing files & paperwork. All that's left is a bit of decorating / personalizing the space.

The biggest change is the way it makes me feel. (The Feng Shui energies are smiling on me since I no longer have my desk in a corner with my back to the door.) I feel energized & ready. And I've already noticed a difference. In the last 48 hours ... we've received a dozen catalog requests, (which is 3x our average) two new orders and a new Sales Rep!

Got a call from my birthmother too - it's been several years since we've seen each other - she & her husband (he's hilarious btw) are coming to visit next month! I'm sooo excited!

THE POST OFFICE NUKED MY COPYRIGHT MATERIALS

Every time I come out with new cards or magnets, I have to mail out my copyright claim - to the United States Copyright Office.

I send; 1) Their form. 2) Two copies of the works being copyrighted. 3) Payment.

They wrote to me today ...

THIS IS A QUOTE:

"Dear Customer: We recently received your copyright claim in the mail after it had been irradiated by the U.S. Postal Service to destroy bio-contaminants. The radiation level is strong enough to damage some materials beyond our ability to process them. This is the case with one or more of the items you sent."

--------------------

This is THE single, strangest letter I have EVER received.

So... Someone sneezed in the post office while my envelope was being processed, and it then became bio-contaminated, so they sent it to the bat-cave where Robin took the bat-laser-atomic-bio-blaster to it (ZzzaappP!!) so that no one would catch the cold germs.

I can't imagine it was from a bleeding paper-cut ... everyone at the post office who used to physically handle the mail, has been replaced by machines ...

OH! I KNOW!!! The package accidentally opened, they read the cards, and laughed so hard they pissed themselves! Pee is a bio-hazzard!

Yup, that's GOT to be what happened ...

nothing else makes sense.