J.P.

So when I get up in the morning and my mind is reviewing the things going on in my head I find myself very decisive and focused on what I want and how I’m feeling about any given topic. As the day progresses, I start to rationalise things a little bit and then I’m not as confident on my stance or decision.

That is something that I don’t like. I need to keep the early morning vibe going all day long.

Yesterday was my workforce reduction day; I took the opportunity to have lunch with my Dad, aunt and uncle at the family lumber yard. I hadn’t been up there in quite a while, it was good to see them all. Per the tradition I observed as a teenager working at the store, we had a lively discussion in the office as we ate our lunch. Yesterday’s topic was health care. We may sit on opposite sides of the aisle on a good number of topics, but we all agreed that the current health care system in the U.S. is broken at best and that the system seems to be working for no one outside of the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists in Washington.

Everyone still sits in the same seats that they have since the big remodel of 1987, I sat at my cousin’s seat in the corner. In the old days I would sit at my grandmother’s desk, but I thought I would change it up a little.

It is the 21st of May and I am sitting on the back patio looking at the beautiful starscape overhead. It is gorgeous out tonight; the air is warm and dry. It is perfect sleeping weather. Planes fly overhead like little specs of flashing colour amongst the abundance of stars. The sounds of the nearby Thruway echo in the still of the night.

Tomorrow afternoon begins the unofficial start of summer in these parts. There are activities planned for the weekend; hopefully the on-call pager will cooperate and allow me the luxury of participating. The only thing getting me through this on-call is that after I am done on Tuesday morning I am off-call until the latter half of July. This is a beautiful thing.

I am seriously considering sleeping in a sleeping bag on the back patio tonight. It is so perfect out here. This is why I love camping in a spot without a nearby disco beat; I can look up and enjoy the still of the night with a beautiful sky overhead. I find it all so calming.

My bachelor week has come to an end a day early and I couldn’t be happier. I have short “to do” list for the weekend; fix the battery on the Jeep, fix the lawn mower, call and/or visit my family, maybe watch planes land and take off at the local airport, practicing my airline photography in the process.

A lot of hooting and hollering has started up in the woods a bit south of here. It sounds like a bonfire in progress. Perhaps there’s an early graduation celebration going on. I hope they studied hard to get to where they are today. Or at least I hope they did the best they could.

A bunch of organised an office barbecue for tomorrow at work. More than half the office took the day off, the rest of us figured it was a good day to put the recent turmoil aside and get back to where we used to be mentally. The change of pace will be refreshing. I’m actually looking forward to work tomorrow; I haven’t said that in a while.

I have formulated new goals in my head. The challenges of life are on the path in front of me. I don’t find the feeling unpleasant.

So last night I was enjoying a pleasant conversation when the on-call cell phone rang. I tried to keep it together when this happened, because after all, I am now officially half-way through this extra-long on-call week (I get the holiday and everything!) so I did what I had to do to assemble the information I needed to tell the customer they were having a phone issue.

I called the customer to let him know that one of his phone lines was down when he started calling me every name in the book. Because I’m in a family friendly mood today I won’t even resort to the number of asterisks required to represent his potty speech but nonetheless there he was screaming at me and being a jerk. I explained the issue, he freaked out and then I apologised for calling him and hung up, because he didn’t want to be bothered.

Two minutes later the fine man called the answering service, screamed at the friendly, barely making minimum wage operator and had me paged. The operator was nearly in tears when she called. He wanted me to call back.

So I did. He proceeded to ask me why I called him back and started with the asterisks and other random symbols that would make a sailor blush. I apologised again for calling him and hung up.

This morning I let his sales representative know what had occurred last night, verbally outlining what I had already documented in the company’s database. He said that’s the way the guy is and I shouldn’t let it bother me.

Here’s the thing. It did bother me. It bothered me all night long. When I awoke this morning I wasn’t looking forward to going to work because quite frankly I had had enough.

Once upon a time I made a decision to go into radio. I wanted to program a radio station. I wanted to make it sound really good. I had no experience in the industry; all I had behind me was enthusiasm and a lot of music knowledge in my head. I bugged people and called people and made demo tapes until I got my foot in the door at a radio station. Once there, I had a pretty good career going in radio until the station I worked for was sold.

The one thing that led me to that career was motivation. I was so motivated to each that goal that I would do anything to achieve it. And I did!

I am feeling that motivation again today. I haven’t felt it in a long time, but I feel motivated to do something about the way I have been feeling lately.

So even though last night I wanted to hunt down the man that verbally berating me and make his existence really uncomfortable, today I almost want to shake his hand and thank him for spurring me in the ass to do something with my life. I work hard, and I love the group I work in, but I don’t deserve to be treated like that and I won’t be.

I am motivated again. I know what I want and I’m going to go after it. Along the way I’m going to smile and be enthusiastic. As I look at the calendar, the “Scheduled Time Off” courtesy of my company’s workforce reduction is affording me a lot of free time over the summer.

There are many adventures ahead for me and I am going to enjoy each one to it’s fullest.

Life is good and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

So after 40 years in this body I have discovered something very important. I wear my belt facing the wrong way.

This important tidbit of information has been pointed out to me twice in the past week.

I’ll admit it right here, I never knew there was a “boy” way and a “girl” way of wearing a belt. If I look down at my stomach, the whole affair is being held up by my belt with the flappy part pointing to the right. When I unbuckle my belt I use my left hand and then pull out my business with my right hand so I can do my thing in the can.

That’s the way that feels natural to me.

Today for the first time I reversed the direction of how I wore my belt. It was the first time in 40 years that the flappy thing faced the left as I looked down at my stomach. I had to unfasten my belt with my right and pull out my business with my left hand and then my aim was all messed up and I missed the can.

I’m not one of those guys that can swing it all around with no hands, being mostly Irish and all.

So for the next 40 years I’m going to have to work out a new arrangement with unfastening my belt and handling my business. It wasn’t too long ago that I switched from wearing my watch on my right wrist to wearing it on my left.

That was much easier.