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kingtycoonAt the 20 year highschool reunion I won a t-shirt for having had the most jobs in 20 years. There was some trouble about whether these were all full-time jobs, but it’s true, I have had them. I was a pizza-man, a bookseller, a tutor, a ‘teacher’ a car salesman, a record store leader, a shoe salesman, a computer salesman, a truck dispatcher, a researcher, gas station attendant, telemarketer, IT guy and pornographer. I’m sure I’m missing some. Jobs… hah. Who even cares. Sometimes I like the weird, scary lull between jobs, the insecurity of it sharpens you up and makes you fierce and awake. Sometimes I like not worrying about finding a next and a best thing. I like, with the exception of the 4 years after the events of 2008 I’ve been on a steady incline moneywise, and that in the beginning I probably didn’t know anything and now I know a lot of things about a lot of different kinds of work. Cars? Sure, Retail – check, Computers – yep, logistics, real-estate, shoes all check. Sometimes at my job now I have to make a lot of use of tools and do a little light cabling in the ceilings. Some light cabling. It’s satisfying to have some kind of manual skills since – really I’ve not had good opportunities to get into useful trades (life is long though and there’s always something new to learn). I guess I ‘can’ drive a towmoter – a little, and a car – those are kind of skill-ish. I was kind of a Handyman, back when I was actually in HS – that was a full-time job but It was in what 92-93? I worked with my fresh-off-the-boat Uncle and he and I did maintenance and rehabbed buildings with my dad, that was back when he was strictly residential – he had that one 10 unit building that was under the train-tracks. I think at my 20 year reunion that maybe some of the people I went to HS with probably don’t know what section-8 means even still, but that I had an intimate working knowledge of it even back as a teenager. Mostly I replaced a lot of windows (bullet-holes!) and patched a lot of drywall (drug-punches!). We always had to call someone with more expertise to do electrical and plumbing – so I never did get to pick those up and I never did get called back by the trade unions to get to be an apprentice – mostly cause I didn’t know anyone there who would speak up for me, I guess. I like the adventure of learning it all, and being in a new place – places are weird – I wonder how much I know about the places in the city – because really I haven’t gone out of the city very much at all – I really like it here, a lot of times, and probably have seen portions of it that you just don’t see – the weird interconnected basements underneath storefronts, the weird crawlspaces behind multifamily housing units.
When I was in HS, I could never sleep – I used to lay in bed and try and instead of counting sheep I’d try really hard to remember every place I’d been in – well, every room. I say place and my distinction is that I mean the built environment, structures. Every house and business and factory. I imagine I’d stay up all night every night trying to do that now, and really it never did help me to sleep, but I like thinking about what a place is like and just how many there are and how different every one is.
The reunion was in Akron, at a restaurant I went to once long ago with LunaticConquest – I think she said it was her most favorite back then, it was fine, downtown Akron – full of strange buildings that I’ve been in from back when I was a pizza-man there. Once I delivered a pizza to the hotel room of the principal from Saved By The Bell – who was in town to judge the famous soap-box derby. Once I delivered a pizza to some people on the roof of the Mayflower building who were up there- I don’t know how appropriately, to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. That was a good job for a place-collector. I liked going into strangers houses and seeing how they live. Someone at my reunion had only the one job since High School, or only two or so. A lot of the people had families, longstanding families, working on their fourth or fifth child now. I’m jealous of that, family – it seems like a nice thing to have but maybe it’s just easy to want and hard to keep. I don’t know if it’s for me, I feel like if it is it’s more of a – it was, because it’s been a long time and I’m nearly out of time to get that done. I have a little, kind-of-family and one kid anyway and we get along famously, perfectly, most of the time, sometimes a little too well so that we just lay around and do nothing – but that’s actually a kind of something. It’s the odd person I’m comfortable enough with that I can just relax and live alongside without seeking distraction or diversions. There was another award for who’d lived in the most cities, and I didn’t try to get any attention about it because I’ve always been in CLV, but that means a lot of inner and outer ring suburbs, sub-cities and neighborhoods. I think I’ve had probably had about 16 different bedrooms in that time? All the places you lay your head.
Sometimes people are casually interested in change and compulsively want to switch things around. This is a circumstance I end up with in dating a lot, but I think I’m kind of justified in resisting change and altering my circumstances because whatever they are at the moment were probably harder to come by than is superficially obvious. I sure don’t want to go out and change the circumstances of my life – they’ll change enough and soon enough on their own. It’s hard getting settled. In the meantime there’s a constancy and consistency about memyselfandI in there, in the mix that’s gratifying.
Honestly I don’t have this kind of retrospective often and I’m not trying to compare my notes to the nice and goodly and truly pleasant people I went to highschool with – they’re all great and I wouldn’t speak about them with any detail on the internet, purely out of consideration for their circumstances whether they ask for or resist anonymity – that’s personal and not for me to say. I will tell you that I sat with my friend from long ago who won a t-shirt for having come the farthest – he lives in Tokyo. “What part?” I ask, thinking – maybe he just says Tokyo as shorthand for all of Japan? Maybe he’s in like- Yokohama or somewhere. “Downtown Tokyo.” So he came from there and I just think it’s funny to think about Downtown Tokyo.
After the reunion we go over to our other highschool friend’s house – and I remember how at the Prom this dude who’s in Japan now, my pal, and me – we went to the Prom kind of together? I think? And our other friends – who we went to hang out with at the Reunion after-party, they did the same thing, they got drunk in the Prom parking lot and refused to attend. We had a nice time by the fire in the yard, and I got all caught up with the men of my long acquaintance – another constant aspect of my history. I like that, I hope that I am good at being a friend and it is not just that I have gotten lucky and discovered purely good friends who remain indefinitely so just by accident, I hope that I deserve to have friends like these who are permanent.
I talk all night to the man from Downtown Tokyo, the Man from Downtown Akron, the Man who was once the King of Youngstown – it’s a little cathartic, and it’s very sweet to see the grown ass men that came from half-crazed youths and to talk not so much about the old things, in a sadsack way of dreary nostalgia, but about what is upcoming and what is happening now – that’s the best thing, I’ll tell you – that after this time there is common interest and common cause and still a great affection.
I guess this is sappy and a bit more sanguine than I intended, but whatever, I had a good night and saw them all. Slept on the couch and was envious of that couch and left early in the morning and was sorry to have to drive a car because of how the state is governed (how weird is that? That there’s 2-3 highways between Cleveland and Akron but only 1 bus and no trains at all).
At the reunion some people asked me what I would create or if I’d do a creative thing, I… can’t talk about the things I do in person, I can put them on the internet to be show-offy and to spare myself from the awkwardness of in-person-praise that embarrasses me, and in-person-interest that I never have an answer for, but I did say that I was thinking about the book I would write this year and I did think a lot about it, and am still. I’m almost ready to go ahead with it and begin, I think I’m going to write here, every day, or as often as possible just to get the cobwebs knocked off.
When I was in HS, I could never sleep – I used to lay in bed and try and instead of counting sheep I’d try really hard to remember every place I’d been in – well, every room. I say place and my distinction is that I mean the built environment, structures. Every house and business and factory. I imagine I’d stay up all night every night trying to do that now, and really it never did help me to sleep, but I like thinking about what a place is like and just how many there are and how different every one is.
The reunion was in Akron, at a restaurant I went to once long ago with LunaticConquest – I think she said it was her most favorite back then, it was fine, downtown Akron – full of strange buildings that I’ve been in from back when I was a pizza-man there. Once I delivered a pizza to the hotel room of the principal from Saved By The Bell – who was in town to judge the famous soap-box derby. Once I delivered a pizza to some people on the roof of the Mayflower building who were up there- I don’t know how appropriately, to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. That was a good job for a place-collector. I liked going into strangers houses and seeing how they live. Someone at my reunion had only the one job since High School, or only two or so. A lot of the people had families, longstanding families, working on their fourth or fifth child now. I’m jealous of that, family – it seems like a nice thing to have but maybe it’s just easy to want and hard to keep. I don’t know if it’s for me, I feel like if it is it’s more of a – it was, because it’s been a long time and I’m nearly out of time to get that done. I have a little, kind-of-family and one kid anyway and we get along famously, perfectly, most of the time, sometimes a little too well so that we just lay around and do nothing – but that’s actually a kind of something. It’s the odd person I’m comfortable enough with that I can just relax and live alongside without seeking distraction or diversions. There was another award for who’d lived in the most cities, and I didn’t try to get any attention about it because I’ve always been in CLV, but that means a lot of inner and outer ring suburbs, sub-cities and neighborhoods. I think I’ve had probably had about 16 different bedrooms in that time? All the places you lay your head.
Sometimes people are casually interested in change and compulsively want to switch things around. This is a circumstance I end up with in dating a lot, but I think I’m kind of justified in resisting change and altering my circumstances because whatever they are at the moment were probably harder to come by than is superficially obvious. I sure don’t want to go out and change the circumstances of my life – they’ll change enough and soon enough on their own. It’s hard getting settled. In the meantime there’s a constancy and consistency about memyselfandI in there, in the mix that’s gratifying.
Honestly I don’t have this kind of retrospective often and I’m not trying to compare my notes to the nice and goodly and truly pleasant people I went to highschool with – they’re all great and I wouldn’t speak about them with any detail on the internet, purely out of consideration for their circumstances whether they ask for or resist anonymity – that’s personal and not for me to say. I will tell you that I sat with my friend from long ago who won a t-shirt for having come the farthest – he lives in Tokyo. “What part?” I ask, thinking – maybe he just says Tokyo as shorthand for all of Japan? Maybe he’s in like- Yokohama or somewhere. “Downtown Tokyo.” So he came from there and I just think it’s funny to think about Downtown Tokyo.
After the reunion we go over to our other highschool friend’s house – and I remember how at the Prom this dude who’s in Japan now, my pal, and me – we went to the Prom kind of together? I think? And our other friends – who we went to hang out with at the Reunion after-party, they did the same thing, they got drunk in the Prom parking lot and refused to attend. We had a nice time by the fire in the yard, and I got all caught up with the men of my long acquaintance – another constant aspect of my history. I like that, I hope that I am good at being a friend and it is not just that I have gotten lucky and discovered purely good friends who remain indefinitely so just by accident, I hope that I deserve to have friends like these who are permanent.
I talk all night to the man from Downtown Tokyo, the Man from Downtown Akron, the Man who was once the King of Youngstown – it’s a little cathartic, and it’s very sweet to see the grown ass men that came from half-crazed youths and to talk not so much about the old things, in a sadsack way of dreary nostalgia, but about what is upcoming and what is happening now – that’s the best thing, I’ll tell you – that after this time there is common interest and common cause and still a great affection.
I guess this is sappy and a bit more sanguine than I intended, but whatever, I had a good night and saw them all. Slept on the couch and was envious of that couch and left early in the morning and was sorry to have to drive a car because of how the state is governed (how weird is that? That there’s 2-3 highways between Cleveland and Akron but only 1 bus and no trains at all).
At the reunion some people asked me what I would create or if I’d do a creative thing, I… can’t talk about the things I do in person, I can put them on the internet to be show-offy and to spare myself from the awkwardness of in-person-praise that embarrasses me, and in-person-interest that I never have an answer for, but I did say that I was thinking about the book I would write this year and I did think a lot about it, and am still. I’m almost ready to go ahead with it and begin, I think I’m going to write here, every day, or as often as possible just to get the cobwebs knocked off.
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Date: 2013-09-30 07:18 pm (UTC)I've personally not missed one of these - I didn't always get along with the people when we were children, but I like all of them as adults - I like everyone really, so it's easy - but I am glad I know all of them all the same. In the main though, my most-best friends are a couple of guys I know from High School, the stand at your wedding, execute your will type friends you know?
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Date: 2013-09-30 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-30 07:35 pm (UTC)