dust off the old blog. reoil it for the new season. stretch legs and work out the old finger speed, as it were.

child number three imminent. house bought. job good.

drinking often.

liberal, but quietly.

ok. good first day back.

another update for those not on my dispatch list (and if you want to be added to the more personal version of this blog, leave a comment or something so i can get your e-mail address).

as of october 1st (assuming my coffee boss allows my breach of good faith) i will be back in the wine business. it's best described as a junior sales postion, i guess, as it involves the most wear and tear on my vehicle that is possible in east tennessee, but it is still a job in the booze biz that i so enjoy.

jack is doing great, his little sister is progressing according to schedule, and the thedamned family is doing well, thanks for asking. we are finally fully connected to the outsine world, as the porn cottage is now wired for phone, cable, and internet (in that order), and we each have a cell phone number. we are gladly accepting donations to pay for same.

that's all for now, but i will try to keep up with the blogging a little more regularly from the home computer.

more tennessee updates

siouxs! accepted the job with blount county schools, so all that remains is the paperwork and actually starting her job. i had two good interviews, but have already been turned down by one of the companies (and yet, the next guy up on the totem pole wants to meet with me, which i'm taking as a good sign). me staying in the booze biz seems like a strong possibility; the question is now how long before i'm actually working. thanks to year round schooling, siouxs! will be working before month's end, but i may not have much to do until then either.

i have been posting some great run times since i got here. i cannot fathom why.

it looks like we will be living in blount county, close to mom. we are waiting to hear from my stepgrandmother (not really, but for the sake of simplification) about renting a house from her. siouxs! likes the look of it, and i think it looks like they shot porn there in the seventies, so everybody wins. i'm cool with living in blount, but only if we're not so deep in that it takes forty-five minutes to get to knoxvegas.

mroe tanasi chronicles as they occur.

first post post-move

we're living on the second floor of my grandmother's condo. it's nice that it's here and available for us, but it's been a rough week, and i think both siouxs! and i willd be better off in a place of our own. siouxs! has a pending job offer with the school district i would have been zoned for had i not gone to private school, and it's a pretty safe bet she's going to take it. the benefits are phenomenal, so that alone makes it a great choice, but also the fact that we'd be closer to my mom (and consequently, further from the rest of my family) makes it an attractive option. now, to find a place to live.
my job search is still going. i have a few promising leads, but as of this weekend, i'm expanding my search to more than just booze wholesalers. it seems like everyone in the business here stays on until death, so openings are rare. chalk one up to the good ol' boy network, of which i am not a part.
re-exploring knox vegas is eye-opening. we've seen million dollar houses, and we've seen thirty thousand dollar houses. there are kalamata olives in the grocery stores. there's at least two frisbee golf courses. there are neighborhoods i never knew existed, and vastly updated streets. my home town is all groweds-up.

more as i get around to it.

we're moving. it's long since decided. now, if only we could afford to move.

we have a savings account set up specifically for this purpose, but it looks like we're going to have to dip into it just to get out of town. getting all the bills payed off for the last time, renting a truck (and then gas), actually ahving a place to stay that isn't my grandmother's second floor of her condo (though that is sounding more and more like a possibility if my uncle isn't living there yet), these things all cost money. we're hoping to buy a house in tennessee, but at the moment we'll need to turn jack over as collateral.

in terms of buying a house, we couldn't pick a better time with the housing market in the gutter, but if we can't even get enough scratch together for a heavily discounted house, we're going to remain renters, something I had sincerely hoped to avoid.

but on the plus side, i'm going to be published on feathertale again. i guess they must not be that discriminating.

i told the bosses wednesday (administrative professionals day; they didn't catch the irony) about the impending move. they are being really cool about it, perhaps too cool. like, maybe they were feeling it was about time for this to be at an end as well. whatever the case, it's done. the last tie/out is now cut. the move is official.

i ran into an old high school friend on the interbot the other day, and started thinking about how many people i went to high school with are still/back in knox vegas. in a way, it's conforting, but also strange to be going back. i'll likely run into lots of people i knew, given time. considering i may be getting into sales, that's lots of people i'll be seeing every day.

can't straighten out my head right now. perhaps more over the weekend.

tomorrow is the day i give my two months notice. i'm giving them that much time so they can hire someone and i can do some of the training of said new hire. i am also doing it because the brashness of my younger days is behind me. i walked out of two jobs, sticking around to tell off the owner at one of them, and gave less than two weeks notice at others.

jack (and siouxs!) give me a new perspective on such things. though i would love to look back on my life and be able to say proudly that i did everything on my own terms, i have learned that the suppression of self is frequently the way to go. i smile and don't curse my bosses to high heaven because they are the best option i have for a recommendation at a new job. i like the busuness i am in a lot, just not particularly with this company, therefore, i must keep them happy to best utilize the contacts that are available. thankfully, their import company now has distribution in tennessee, so maybe i can make that transition. whatever the case (forgive my rambling), it is because of the need to keep a roof over jack and siouxs!'s heads that i swallow my pride and laugh at horrible jokes.

our big every other year tasting was this past weekend, and dear god, how much would i like to be working for a winery instead of a distributor... such level headed people on the whole, and they all drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot of pot. they also drink a lot of wine, but i could probably make that work too. i may not be able to tell you about the nuances, but i know good from bad from great and usually that's enough to cover a winemaker's ego.

gthedamned has been farily quiet lately, and for that, i apologize. i am covering the office by myself this week, so you may or may not see more posts than usual between now and friday.

the whole thedamned family took our thrice a year mandatory trip to tennessee last week, more for business than visiting. details about the move needed to be moved forward, houses needed to be looked at, interviews needed to be conducted, the passive tense needed to be used. siouxs! had a great interview, and feels confident that she will be offered a job; the question now is mostly where she will teach in knox vegas, next year. yours truly did not actually interview anywhere, but since i won't be signing a contract for the coming schoolyear, it isn't as urgent that i have a several month long head start. i did determine that, in addition to local distributors and other jobs in the booze biz, i will be sending my resume to both the bijou and the tennessee theater, just to get a little closer to the world i supposedly went to school to study.

we also had a lot of discussions about what our lives will actually be like after a move to my homeland. will we be able to deal with the stress of seeing my family all the time? will they be able to handle the fact that we/i don't go to church anymore, or that jack isn't baptized? how can we best deal with the racism that is not more prevalent, just more open? in st louis, relatively few people assume that because we're white, we're racists. in tennessee, my aunt doesn't consider the n word to be racist because "there's white ones too, so i'm not saying anything bad about black people."

what it's going to come down to is that we'll see my family a lot for the first few months, and my mom a lot whenever it isn't tax season. after that, once a week will be as much as we see anyone, much like it is here. we'll make some new friends (as i only have perhaps four in knoxville these days), become reacquainted with some old ones, and siouxs! will spend a lot of time on the phone to st louis.

i'm looking forward to the move, but i'm also scared to death. does that make sense? we're buying a house, so that's a time commitment that lasts longer than an apartment lease. i don't yet have any great job leads. jack may well start his schooling in a place that doesn't value education as much as we do. we may have another baby with a tennessee ssn.

relocating sounds almost antiseptic. uprooting gives a better idea of how this feels. even if we're going to a great place, it's still like being a live tree on a flatbed truck.

the move is now less than four months away. i am less than two months away from giving notice at work. in three days, we are going to tn for a "visit," scouting houses, jobs, etc. the whole thing seems unreal sometimes (now being one of them). i need to get working on my resume before we head down, i should probably talk to a mortgage company today about pre-approval, and god knows what else i've let go this long. at least siouxs! has a job interview. i want to look into jobs that would allow me to use my better qualities and the things i enjoy... writing, design, and such, but since i don't have a degree in said subjects, i really have to sell myself to make this work. i really don't want to work in the liquor store my mom is suggesting, though it would give me time to do other things i guess.

according to statcounter, my two blogs are in a dead heat for visitors in december. until today, i have posted on neither in december. i haven't been posting as regularly as i might otherwise due to the busy season at work and the fact that our computer at home is in jack's room, so no computer use after seven or so. note to self: when we move, the computer gets its own room.

i'm getting pretty excited about moving. i don't know how long we'll be able to stay in tennessee, but i need to have a change of scenery. st louis has been a good second home, and will always be familiar, but i miss home home. i want to reconnect with my family and some friends. i know things will be different than they are when we visit, but i long for the hills on the horizon. i can't wait to be able to go to the mountains when i want to again. i want to see jack's face when he sees a herd of whitetail in cades cove.

i'm scared to leave st louis, but i can't stay here forever. this will be a good change (seven-plus months and counting).

one thing of interest: on the way out of knox vegas this past weekend, i saw a billboard for a place called the pleasure palace or somesuch nonsense with pleasure in there. at the bottom they listed attractions

toys * lingerie * adult novelties * fireworks

it says something about a region's culture when the smell of gunpowder can be a turn-on.

more updates as soon as i feel like it.

the following is as direct a quote of my southern baptist grandmother as my drink and drug addled brain will allow. it was directed at my uncle, who is currently seperated from my aunt, his wife of the last twenty-five years.

"jxxxxx, you read these letters. then lxxx read them, then you read them together. we've got to get this thing worked out, buddy. you've got to poop or get off the pot. you two are making me nervous. you got my nerves all up.




i sold my big lawn mower."

that's my mamaw's idea of a transition. she would have made a great news anchor.

for a very predictable reason: outrage overload. i can't work up my mad anymore, as it's been overused since 2000. figure that this lapse is temporary... every time i think i'm all out of pissed off, the republikkkans go so far over the top that i start stockpiling bottles and kerosene again. also, when jack starts sleeping through the whole night, i might have a better chance of spewing some bile; anger is easier to back up when you're well rested.

we're taking a trip to knox vegas this coming weekend so jack can meet his hillfolk family. updates when we get back.

well, after an initial success, i'm now batting .333 with mcsweeney's. i have another piece submitted, so we'll see what happens.