Fringe Lifer’s Report

In the eight or so months since August of '07 I've written a sh!tload of stuff. The items below were supposed to come out tail end of last year. REPEAT: TAIL END OF LAST YEAR. I'm putting up a watered down version of this entry today.

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Lord, let me not begin my days with “If she is lost to me—“
My nights end that way, and I already spend my days with two dead men
Who whisper...

"All that goes around…"

I don’t really need the space I’m using if I can’t overtly work there. I lost signage, was harassed. I also feel that my control over the space has been compromised. Someone had to do something despicable, and I’ve had to eat crow about my situation every time that someone crows about the business. I do not like it and I do not like being nagged.

Granted, all of this grief was a product of my decision, which was sound— at least I felt that way at the time. I could have made a bundle if I didn’t channel more funds back into the business (But not to do that was idiocy).

Of course, I am bolstering my position with arguments that are founded on mostly BS. (I’ve learned to recognize it over the years. I’m mildly surprised to see it in myself). Fact is I can still work in that area; it’ll just be more difficult, slightly more inconvenient. And yes, I’ll still have to deal with the presence of pushy, if well-meaning, people.

(Rueful admission: Mom was right. Signage in an area like that is important. It can do more work than marketing with flyers will; cause less grief for me. Okay digression ends).

The issue I face becomes— Slow income due to hobbled marketing plus increased effort to offset this vs. Really slow income based on word of mouth plus increased effort to offset that vs. Income Uncertainty Elsewhere.

I am therefore copping out. And now I have to decide where and with whom I will throw my lot.

How About the Culture Club?

It’s still gossamer. Assuming they let me back in, I am not going to grasp that slender thread until I know there’s a chance of it even partially supporting my undead weight.

I left for reasons that likely still exist, as lost as they are to five years of limbo. The word is still Let’s Wait & See. (Meaning I can’t depend on this any time soon)

Eleptember Seleven?

When last I checked I still had co-workers and students who missed me. Though it’s very likely that they’ve outgrown me.

I have two main concerns.

One—

I will be asked to take one for the team again. Many ones for the team, And I’ll do it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart—which means, gentle readers, that I will be doing these things with little or no complaint, even if the voice begins to crack or the eyes begin to water and go cross-eyed. What made it easy the last time I worked there are my natural desire to help, as well as the subject of...

Concern Item Two—

Corollarily, the most important reason for coming back— well, she doesn’t want to share the same space with me much less breathe the same air. I did half the taking for the team because it made her work easier, because it made her happy.

Assuming they let me back in on the wings of my old performance record, my students' loyalty and my aggregate friendships… do I really want to go back when it seems as if nothing I do except perhaps for a sudden and untimely demise will make her happy?

"If You Build It They Will Come?"

I left a job, and inevitably--because I can point to this event as the beginning of the end for us-- a girlfriend, on the strength of the faith a friend had in me. His dream seemed like a good dream to work with, something that promised a modest profit...

Mindanao, East Timor, Hell Bee?

I could of course set up shop somewhere else. It sounds ridiculous: I am running away from a challenge into a bigger challenge. Whatever happened to the Marcosian dictum of picking the fights you can win?