Finally, some good news! I found a job!

It doesn't pay as much as I would like, however, it is income sufficient to support myself and family. I am thankful for this. It is also a production type position, so no slacking off during "work-at-home" days to post here.

I am thankful, to my God, my family, my Masonic brothers and my friends for their support, tangible and intangible, throughout this ordeal.

The product I am assembling is supposed to take about 2.5 hours from parts to product. I have assembled four so far. Two under supervision, and two without. I assembled #4 in 3 hours 45 minutes, which is way ahead of the learning curve for the other assemblers. I guess the skills needed to mass-produce Space Marines does translate into real-world skills!

I am doing something I don't normally do. I am writing a post and I am going to let it sit for a day before posting it.

I need time to let someone else consider their reactions, and to make sure of where I am emotionally coming from when I write these words. I am currently standing at a point where I know I have to make a stand. This is literally a "Put Up or Shut Up" moments, and I refuse to shut up. Stay tuned. This ride is about to go off the tracks.

If you have ever been with me when I go into a store, you have seen me do this almost every time. When a salesperson asks me what I'm looking for, I reply, "I'm looking for a bag of $20's about this big" while I hold my hands about a foot apart. I usually mortify anyone with me, especially my wife.

I'm not going to do that anymore, but not for the reason you think. Because, you see, I really want something else. I want to be productive. I took a severe blow today. I was told that for the next forty-seven days (or until I get a job and that first paycheck), I will have to live off a pack or two a Ramen a day, a serving of rice every two or three days, and water.

My family will eat better than I will because I will starve before I let them go hungry. Suffice it to say someone "recalculated" my benefits at the food stamp office, and decided to cut the food stamps for my wife and I by 76% from $347/month to $84. They will go back up come early November if I am still unemployed, but the fact that my food budget is cut right as my unemployment benefits are ending really, really hurts.

Back to my original point: If someone were to walk up to me and offer me a large sum of cash with no strings attached, I would probably decline the offer. Not because I don't need the money, but because I would rather earn my way through life than depend on the largesse of others, especially the government.

For those of you who have been unemployed for an extended period of time will understand me when I say, "You work harder while being unemployed than you did at any job." You have to resourceful, tenacious and assertive. The resources to help you are scattered, hard to find and difficult to navigate. You also lack any kind of schedule, which throws your life into even greater chaos than just not knowing where the next $20 for food or gas for the car is coming from. The constant uncertainty, panic and stress drains you.

The knowledge that your spouse and children will go hungry if you do not succeed drives you to desperation. And, no, I can't get "just any job." I am not going to go into my finances, you will have to take my word for it. I can't make basic survival expenses, let alone enough to pay my debts until I make at least what I had in my last job. Please pray. Not for me because I will persevere and succeed in my quest. Pray that you never have to face what I am facing, and make the choices I am having to make.

I have a couple of dogs and a bunch of birds. I derive great happiness from all of them. I found this and I wanted to share:

I Rescued A Human Today by Janine Allen
Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.
I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn’t be afraid. As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn’t want her to know that I hadn’t been walked today. Sometimes the overworked shelter keepers get too busy and I didn’t want her to think poorly of them.
As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn’t feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone’s life.
She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well.
Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms.
I would promise to keep her safe.
I would promise to always be by her side.
I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.
I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven’t walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.
I rescued a human today.

The love from a pet is truly unconditional. If you can, adopt a shelter pet. A person who willfully and maliciously hurts an animal has earned my total contempt. I have had multiple dogs in my life that I have held while I let them go. I can only hope they are waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ZcQvYh_3Atw

I have been very frustrated over the past couple of weeks. Multiple issues have prevented me from meeting my families needs. This has made me angry, and that is not the way I want to be remembered. So, I did what is called "Pay It Forward." I typed up and printed out the letter below, then handed it to the Assistant Store Manager of my local Lowe's.

To the Manager and Crew of Lowe’s Store [9999]: Over the past couple of months, I have had to undertake several complex home projects and plan for even more. Every time I have come to Lowe’s to obtain the necessary tools and materials to perform these projects. I have never been disappointed over choosing Lowe’s. Every time I asked a crew member about something, they repeatedly demonstrated professionalism, a deep level of knowledge, courtesy and respect to me. They stopped whatever they were doing to assist me in getting what I needed, sometimes enlisting the aid of as many other crew members as necessary. I want you to know that I greatly appreciate all of the help and assistance that this store has provided for me. Every crew member I have encountered at Lowe’s [9999] has been nothing short of wonderfully pleasant to deal with and has gone above and beyond the bare minimum I see in other businesses. In a world where all of the negative things a company does gets a lot of publicity, I want all of you to know that I will let your chain of command at Lowe’s and everyone I know what a great job Lowe’s [9999] is doing.  

We all expect the worst of things in any encounter we have. It's human nature. I however, choose to ignore this and expect the best of people in every encounter I have. I always try to leave people better than how I found them. If everybody tried to do this, the world would be a better place. Pay it forward every chance you get.

Since the moment it was made public that Robin Williams had died, accolades has come from a lot of people. 99% of them talk about how happy he was, the high-energy and comedic genius he was. Robin Williams was something else, something that very few people saw. He was a tortured soul. I didn’t know Robin personally, so I can’t speak for or about him. What he went through I understand though, because I have experienced something similar. When someone is that high energy, that level of funny, there is generally something going on behind the mask.

Because when you hit highs like Robin did, there are lows just as deep to go with them. It pains me to write this, because it brings up my own memories of when I was at my lowest. I remember having a loaded gun in my mouth, as I laid in the master bedroom of my emptied house that was days away from foreclosure. I remember walking out into traffic, not caring if I was hit or not (I was. I broke my wrist and leg). Or standing on a chair, noose around my neck in a little outbuilding at the house I was renting that I had barred the door shut. The police and my wife were outside, trying to talk to me. In each case, I was overwhelmed with physical and emotional pain too great to bear. I didn’t want to die, I just saw no other way to stop the pain. I just wanted to stop the pain. I felt trapped, scared and alone. My mental perception and reasoning had decreased to the point that I saw no other options.

Reading articles about what was going on with him in the days up to his passing, I found that his finances were depleted. Two expensive divorces and a drop in income was forcing him to sell off places that he held dear. He no longer rated to star in big movies, he was down to supporting characters in sequels, and was working on a TV series that was cancelled to provide a basic income. He was also recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

So Robin, at the age of 63, saw his life slipping into twilight. The diagnosis of Parkinson’s and its inevitable decline and result opened the door enough for the depression to whisper in his ear, “It’s time.”

Depression kills. There is no other way to say it. If you have a friend or family member with depression, don’t say “get over it.” You wouldn’t say something like that if they had cancer. Ask them what they want and need. Then LISTEN. Listen with the intent to understand, not with the intent to respond. If you have depression, get help and support. I know you don’t want to, do it anyway. I beat it, I believe you can as well.

The level of politeness and courteousness in this country has dropped into negative numbers.

Without going into too many details, I am trying to obtain products or services from two different businesses. In both cases, the apathy of the businesses is nothing short of appalling. In each case, something wasn't filled out correctly in paperwork I submitted to them. In both cases, they made zero effort to contact me to let me know of the holdup, waiting for me to call them so they could tell me there was a holdup in the processing of my paperwork.

This makes me angry beyond belief. I suppose it's because they know I don't have a choice in the matter (I have to interact with them) that contributes to their "I don't give a f*ck" attitude. I am making a major effort to keep calm. I am polite with them, however their apathy is seriously affecting the health and well being of my family. I do not wish for anyone to have violence visited upon them. However, I hope they find themselves in a similar situation 10 times the number of what they cause.

Maybe the association will make a connection in their hearts, and they will help, not hinder others.

Forty-five years ago today, Neil Armstrong set foot on another world. From the Lift-Off until touchdown on the moon, it took them 102 hours and 45 minutes to get there.

I remember my parents waking me up for Neil actually stepping out of the lander. I lived in Ohio at the time, so it was almost 11:00pm our time. I was only 8 years old, so I didn't fully understand the magnitude of what was happening. I'm glad I got to see it.

  Here is a picture of how it looks today, from Lunar orbit:

I'm just all kinds of warm and fuzzy on the inside right now. During breaks while studying my Project Management course, I was on FB trading jabs with a friend of a friend, This FOAF, whom I will name Lisa to not identify her, had a wonderful idea to tax soft drinks so as to provide additional revenue to help a local municipality solve its financial distress.

I started off by saying that people will buy less of a product or service if you tax them more. It is a consistent failing of any level of government to ass-u-me that the rate of consumption for a product or service will remain constant if you tax it more. The government then budgets for that income at that level and spends accordingly. When (not if) the consumption drops, the actual numbers fall short of the projections, thus adding to whatever deficit the city was trying to address. I also pointed out that raising taxes on things is a method governments use to modify our behavior and limiting our choices, which ultimately limits freedom.

Then Lisa got into her real reason, which is sodas (plus alcohol and tobacco) makes us unhealthy. She started alluding to all of the health benefits and healthcare savings from less diabetes, less obesity and so on. I told her, "The hardest thing someone can do is watch another do something wrong and not interfere." I then asked her, "What or who gives you the authority or power to limit my choices and freedoms?" How does it directly affect her how much soda I consume? It does not matter if I consume multiple 2-liters a day, or none at all.

I then explained about the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) and how it was the only Amendment that has been repealed. I stated that if people want something that is highly taxed or out-and-out against the law, they will still find a way to obtain it. Same thing with drugs. Her response was to delete all of the comments and later the entire post, ending the discussion. I love pissing people off with facts. Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.

The Liberal belief and core tenet that people aren't smart enough, or have the willpower to make the "correct" choices (in her eyes and those of her fellow Liberals) is how freedom is lost, in that death of a thousand cuts. Guess what, Liberals... IT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS WHAT I DO. I don't give a rats ass if you think sodas, alcohol, tobacco or Big Macs are good for me or not. If I can afford it, it's none of your business if I set my homes thermostat to 50 degrees in the Summer or 92 degrees in the Winter. As long as I am not directly hurting another person, you best keep your nose out of my business, lest I cut it off.

Today is Towel Day, two weeks after the anniversary of the passing of Douglas Adams, the author of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. It is related, thusly:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so readily on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.) —Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

So, in your travels today, carry a towel with you can be a frood who knows where his towel is.

I found this article while cruising the Internet, and I need to share it. This Is Why Poor People's Bad Choices Make Perfect Sense.

It is a disjointed essay from a woman who has a husband, a couple of kids, two jobs and is trying to get a degree. She gets by on less than 3 hours of sleep most nights. Beaten down by life, she still struggles. When she stops moving from sheer exhaustion, she picks herself up and takes one more step. I commend her.

This family has very limited choices, and she makes the best of them. You can't plan for retirement, next year or even next month in a situation like this. All you can do is try and survive to the end of the day, and hope there is enough in you to get back up when the alarm clock goes off again. Too many people are living like this. And that breaks my heart.

These are the people that deserve help and support. 3-4 jobs in a two adult home and they have too much month left at the end of the money. I do not know what decisions or circumstances got this family in the situation they are in, but from what I see, she is doing everything she can to make tomorrow better than today.

My own situation right now is not good. I am struggling to keep food in our mouths and the lights on. I know I will miss the house payment in a week or so. The credit cards go unused and unpaid. The medical debts I have run into the multiple thousands of dollars. I hope I can have enough money to keep the car insured, gas in it and keep it from getting repossessed.

The only reason I haven't started the bankruptcy process is I have applied to a program that will pay my house note for up to three years as long as I am unemployed or underemployed. And I see my situation as being a lot better than the situation the articles author is in. I have hope that I can improve my situation, I don't see her having the same hope in her situation. That doesn't stop her from trying though.

I have long said there is a big difference between "broke" and "poor." Broke is a temporary situation where you are experiencing a cash flow crisis. Times are tight, but you are working towards making your situation better, and you look forward to the time when you no longer have that cash flow crisis. Poor is a defeatist mindset that can be very easy to get into where you think, "Nothing I do will make a difference, so why even try?"

This author and I have the same problem, we are both broke. We are not poor. I know how she feels. Beaten down to the point where you can't see past your next step, you still take that step and try to lift your head up enough to see that there is a positive end to your struggles. Masonry taught me to treat everybody equally, to not look with disdain on the poor or envy on the great. My current situation has driven this point home with great relish, and I hate relish.

You do not know how that person got to where they are. You have no idea what they have been through. They may have faced and beaten challenges that you could not survive. Too many people are barely surviving. They made a small mistake years ago that changed the entire direction of their life. Or change was forced upon them. Just remember to always try. If you fall eight times, stand up nine. As long as you are broke and not poor, things can and will get better. Never compare yourself to other people, instead compare yourself to who you were yesterday. As long as you are better today than what you were yesterday, be proud of that.

Let me tell you about my Mother.

Amanda was born in 1923, so far up in the back hills of Appalachian Pennsylvania that they had to pipe in sunshine. When I visited family there with her in the 70's, they still had the "two-shorts-and-a-long" kind of party telephone lines. Mom never spoke too much about her childhood or growing up. The last of about a dozen children, her mother died when my mom was 6 years old. As soon as she could, Amanda left home. I know she settled in Arizona for a while, because that is where she enlisted for the Army in WWII.

Yes, my mother really did wear combat boots. She was actually sworn in on the radio, a big thing in those days. I might still have the picture of her being sworn in. She served her time at a POW camp, in Illinois I believe. She "made Corporal several times" because she would make the rank, then do something stupid (like losing the company bicycle) and getting busted back to Private for it. After the war, Amanda ended up in Cleveland, Ohio. I don't know how or why. It was there that she met my Dad.

They married in June of 1947 and settled down in the Suburbs of Cleveland to raise a family. My mother had "female problems" as they were described back then, and they decided to adopt my sister in 1952. I know my mom had at least two miscarriages before I finally came along and successfully popped out. They also fostered children all through the 50's, right up until I was about 3 years old or so. I don't remember any of that.

I proved no less than a total terror to my Mother. She had to keep me on a harness and a leash once I could walk. It didn't stop me, I could get out of it in seconds. I would hide in the clothing racks at Sears/JC Penneys, never more than 10 feet from her while the entire store staff would be mobilized to find me.

I'm pretty sure I got my sense of humor from my Mom. One day, she saw her neighbor planting tulip bulbs, and said with a straight face, "Joy, those tulips will grow to China before they sprout, you put them in upside down!" She said it so convincingly that Joy dug them all up just to turn them over "right side up."

Amanda was a stabilizing force in my life. On the frequent occasions I attracted the attention and ire of the school administration, my Mother would quickly show up to find out what was going on. If I was in the right and innocent (of those particular charges) she came down on them like a B-52 strike. If it was my fault, she would make sure I would receive an appropriate punishment from the school, then deliver her own brand of "Justice" before Dad got home.

Amanda was very proud when I decided to join the Navy. She wrote to me constantly, and we talked by phone every week, no matter if I was in San Diego or Sasebo, Japan. After I left home, Amanda's smoking started to catch up with her. She smoked Pall Malls for many, many years, and she starting having strokes.

Amanda had a will like a hurricane, you could not stop or blunt it. She kept coming back. Then there was the cancers. about 1997 or 98, she had a radical mastectomy performed on her. That Friday after I got off from work, I grabbed my son and we hopped in the car and drove twelve hours from Tennessee to Ohio so I could spend a day or so with her. It wasn't long enough, and it was the last time I saw her.

Between the strokes and the cancer, the cumulative damage started affecting her personality. She believed my Dad was having girlfriends over in his bedroom downstairs while she was in the bedroom upstairs. One night, she got up, went to the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife. My Dad woke up at this commotion thankfully before she killed him, because that was what she was intending on doing. My Dad had her moved to a nursing home the next morning. Every day she was there, my Dad was there as well.

As is all our inevitable fate, my mother transitioned from this life into the next one in the early morning hours of July 10th, 2001 after a massive stroke. My sister was there, I was locked in a hospital dealing with my own demons. In the twelve years she has been gone, I still miss her, every day. When I am at my lowest, when I think I can no further and I am ready to give it all up, I can feel her arms wrap around me and she gives me a hug. That love encourages me to pick my burdens up and try again. If your Mom is still with you, hug her. Keep her "short on pocket change and long on hugs" like she used to do for you. There will a long time she won't be here, treasure her while she is with you.

Things happen for a reason. They will happen in the sequence they need to happen in order to bring about the desired result. You will likely never know all of the particulars involved, but you know what? That's okay.

People need to learn to accept and be thankful for gifts like these and keep doing the right things for the right reasons. Some months back, was growing frustrated in my job. I started looking for a lateral move into another area that I liked to do. At that time I was also helping a friend and experienced a traumatic event while helping them. The good news is everyone survived, no one was seriously hurt.

In February, I was laid off. Another traumatic event. I would have rather been repeatedly kicked in my privates than go through the pain, anguish and helplessness that I have been going through since then. Fast forward to this past week. I have been unemployed for two months now, and despite multiple applications, I have had at most two follow-up inquiries. One of the types of positions I have been applying for 99% of the time requires a certification. I have practical experience doing this kind of work, but that doesn't get past the online bots who filter the applications. I learned of an exam prep class starting up next month that will give me the needed hours and knowledge to sit for the first-level exam.

Just one small problem. It will cost me about $1,000 to attend the class and then sit for the exam. I don't have that kind of money, and I wasn't seeing any way I could get that money in time. I anticipate back money from Unemployment, however I don't see that getting to me before Memorial Day, which would be too late to sign up for the class. With my hat in my hand, I explained my situation to one of my Masonic brothers. I told him, "I don't have the cash for this. If I can attend this class, pass the exam and get the certification, I become employable again, with a pay level at least 20% what I was making before." I humbly asked him for help. He said "Yes" without hesitation.

That hurt me to do that. An almost physical pain, certainly deep in my soul. His willingness to help helped raise my spirits. Not 30 minutes after that exchange, I received a call. I was told the good news that I would receive money from that prior traumatic event. Enough to not only pay for the exam and the class, but a bit more on top of that, enough for me to pay a bill or two this month and some other essential things. And it will get here in time.

I can't tell you how I feel right now. Thankful, humble, blessed, these are but shadows of the true level of love and appreciation I have for my God. All I did was ask. It took some traumatic events and a bit of time for everything to fall into place for this chance. God has put the ball back into my court. This is still not a given. There is a lot of effort I have to put forth to attend the class, study, learn and then pass the test. I will not let Him, my family or myself down. I will do this.

I'm sorry for not posting more, either of news analysis or my goings on, but my fast-cycling has been acting up. I have been having manic episodes and when I do, productivity drops to zero. Nothing to worry about, I've set myself up in here so even if I hit a Manic 10 there is nobody to hurt and no permanent damage can be done to anything.

I have been going to the stop-n-rob next door (Memphis slang for 'Convenience store') and impulsively buying a lot of Pepsi and other high sugar foods, knowing that it can bring on or exacerbate a manic swing. Impulse control has been really difficult of late. Like I said, measures are in place to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. The worst I can do is bounce off the walls, screaming and crying.

Now that all of the excitement of the holidays are over, hopefully I will settle back into a Depressed 3 or 4 and work from there.

Wish me luck.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a solid sign that relations are improving between me and my family. My wife called, and in an excited voice she says, "Mark! Mark! It's our son!" And I start thinking OMG, what happened, is he all right, and she continues, "He wants to build a particle accelerator!"

It turns out that my 14 year old son is interested in particle physics, so my wife bought him a DVD set of Stephen Hawking and his PBS mini-series about it. There is one part about a teenager in Memphis, TN who built a particle accelerator out of junk parts. My son now wants to meet this other guy and build one of his own accelerators.

So, my wife extracts a promise from me not to take him to any junkyards or parts warehouses where he could get the materials to assemble such a monstrosity.

When my wife can joke about such things with me, it means that she doesn't feel endangered by having contact with me. She has always loved me, but cannot trust me due to my erratic behavior. Limited contact under certain circumstances is okay right now, but it is on a case-by-case basis and always under review.

It's the best I can hope for. I'll take whatever I can get. Any contact time with the family under good conditions is good times for me.

In fact, I have a family outing with them in a couple of hours. Some lunch and a little grocery shopping. Who knows, it might take me to a Zero or even a Manic 1.

I am reluctant to go into Rush Limbaugh's life at all, let alone his addiction and subsequent problems. But this story just kind of leapt out at me.

Geraldo Rivera and Susan Estrich have come to the defense of Rush and his being persecuted by the local DA in Palm Beach County.

This is so unusual that the Devil himself must be turning up the thermostat.

Estrich contends the real issue is that "a lot of people are mad at Rush Limbaugh because they think he is a hypocrite."

She continued: "Well you may or may not agree on that, but the last time I checked hypocrisy is not a federal or state offense. And I don't think that is a basis on which we should prosecute people."

Rush made one comment on drug users in 1993, long before he had back problems and years of untreatable pain. Even so, Rush was talking about the people who voluntarily choose to use drugs. His usage was based on a need to get rid of intolerable pain. I myself ruptured my L5S1 disk a few years ago and luckily the surgery was a complete success and I had no further pain. I can imagine myself hooked on opiates to get rid of the pain if I had to live with it. To live with the pain would take a Superman that I don't think anyone is.

I have a very good friend who is a recluse like me. He is one of my few regular readers. My family and I gave him one of our spare computers for Christmas a couple of years ago and it fits his needs perfectly, even though it's about 5 generations behind the current bleeding edge. He's running stable on Win 98 and has no plans to upgrade hardware or software.

Any how, I came across this article at Slashdot, Windows 98 Phased Out.

I wanted to give him (and anybody else who uses Win 98) a heads up to get whatever patches and updates there are before Bill pulls them.

My mother had a tradition of eating sauerkraut for good luck to start the new year.

To me, eating sauerkraut was just about #1 on my do-not-do list. If I ate sauerkraut to start the year, that was the worst thing that could happen. From a start like that, things could only get better.I am going to do what I normally do for New Years: Sleep through it. It's no big thing for me any more.If you're partying tonight, take care, use a designated driver and watch out for the amateur drunks.

While I am felling better than yesterday, it's not by much. Getting to have lunch with my family yesterday and do some shopping with them helped with my mood. My family still loves me. We are apart because of my condition and lack of emotional control. That's it. If I could handle normal stress, If I could be a positive asset for my wife and her struggles, I would be home today. But that's not going to happen for a long time, if ever.

This time of year has been very rough with me ever since I got sick. Most of my hospitalizations have been in the winter months. My wife thinks I have Seasonal Affective Disorder on top of everything else.

I'll shoot for a 7 tomorrow to start off the new year.

No, I don't have the flu, but rather peaking at 9.5. The only reason I got out of bed this morning was to feed my birds. I got really bad like this last year around Christmas too. The time of year when you're supposed to be the happiest I'm at my lowest ebb.

It really sucks not being with your family, knowing that if you do spend more than a few minutes with them, you get out of control and become a danger to everybody around you. It really sucks to know that they need your help and you are unable to give it to them.

I'm going to crawl back under the covers and call in sick. Maybe something this afternoon.

The family emergency (leaking hot water tank) is being fixed as we speak, and things are getting patched up between me and the wife. Her troubles are still there, but there is nothing I can do to help with that.

I forced myself to get out the last two entries, but now I really have to go into the closet. There is much gnashing of teeth and wailing going on this side of the screen. I need the darkness to quiet down and regain control of myself.

Later.

Wow. I made it through with only one tech support call, very little screaming and no bloodshed. I got the major programs reinstalled, now the minor stuff will take place over the next week to a month. It'll be a good indication of what I actually use. Instead of having to worry about squeezing out a little more disk space, I have a whole 6 gig (out of a 10 gig drive) free. I use a laptop, so it isn't easy to just upgrade the hard drive.

Phew. This was one job I was really dreading. I'm glad it turned out to be a molehill.

Well, the family had a emergency at 2:00 am this morning, necessitating me walking up and taking care of it temporarily until the landlord can fix it. Between last night and this morning, several conversations ensued between my wife and I, and I found out her condition has taken a turn for the worse in several regards.

I am totally useless to her, considering that I have no transportation to help and I cannot handle my own life, let alone support her in her hour of need. That's what tears me up inside, not being able to be there. If I were there, I would quickly build up from the pressure and explode, becoming violent and out of control.

It might suck to be me, but it sucks a lot more to be my wife. Not only is her medical condition serious, her husband is more of a liability than an asset. The only person she can lean on is our son, and he has his own set of problems.

If anybody can help, it would be greatly appreciated. A miracle would really come in handy about now.

Take a time out from opening your presents, and remember those less fortunate than you, especially those men and women who are serving overseas away from their families.

Remember the reason for the season, the birth of Christ.

Give your family members an extra hug for me, please.

I've been peaking at about 8 on my depression scale all day today. I have not been interested in anything at all today. Right now I'm pigging out on chili dogs and M&M's.

It's bad not being able to be with your family, especially when they are within walking distance. Not being able to see them hurts deeply, even when there are severe problems that exist between you and them.

So today has sucked, and tomorrow will be a complete waste for me. Except for feeding the birds, I may not get out of bed. Some Christmas.

Do me a favor, when you and your family is opening presents tonight or tomorrow, give them an extra hug for me.