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.

well, i am gainfully employed. it's not the job i wanted (in fact, it's already one i'd turned down), but it is a job nonetheless. on the plus side, it will give me a full time position while still leaving a four day weekend. on the down side, i have to work thirteen hour days the other three. actually, that's fine by me. i won't say that i'm thrilled about the chance to sling java again, but i will admit to having missed the feeling of getting a good rhythym going on an espresso machine. the pay is better than most coffee jobs i've had, and the guy who owns the place understands that i'm not looking to work there forever, just until i get my footing for a job back in the booze biz.
rationalization aside, i need to be working. this nothing to do everyday but go to the park with jack while watching our money slowly dwindle is getting old.

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.

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.

days like this are a brain killer. there's no one here but me and the warehouse manager, and nothing in particular to do. i have a few bits of busywork that might keep me interested for a few minutes, but i need to save those things for a time that isn't friday afternoon.

i suppose i could continue searching house listings in tn, but after a while, they all start to look the same.

if the boss were actually here, he might cut me loose early, but since he's out and about, that isn't likely.

it's times like this that made drugs a lot more appealing.

so this week i am running the show as best i can in the office, as both of my bosses are in south america for the week. i hope they have a good time there, because i have a feeling it's going to be murder here. i have covered the office for a few days before, and it's usually quiet, but there will likely be at least four times this week when i am so stressed out that i threaten sales reps on the phone and/or let the frustration in my voice leak out when i'm on the phone with a customer (work enough customer service and you can say just about anything with a smile, just letting the bile trickle out the back of your head). anyway, if the week warrants, there will be updates.

jack had a pretty good weekend. we barbecued a little saturday, but did next to nothing else all weekend long. this is a very good thing, as the next several weekends will contain a trip to tennessee and a lesbian wedding among other things. i think every weekend between now and july is spoken for somehow or another.

enough for now. more when something exciting happens.

fuck bush.