06-30-21: too funny, i just looked back and noticed that most of yesterday's post is gone, not sure if it was due to some internet problems we were having or if i was distracted when i got up and forgot to save... whatevs, i'm sure it was brilliant though, Hah! But today is a new day which also happens to be the last day of our lunar calendar for June, so i only have this last day if i were to make the most of this month, so far so good, today's PUA payment was auto deposited into our bnk account while i was actually sleeping, and then when i woke up our cable/internet were shut off for being past due, so i was able to speedily/efficiently utilize that payment to restore our communication with the outside world so to speak... now thats making the most of this last day... now i need to shift my attention to car insurance which is also past due, thats a phone call to make a bit later today, tomorrow there will be rent, but the VA disability pays for a good chunk of that, and then i think wife gets paid this friday, hopefully insurance can wait another day or two for payment, hopefully they are more reasonable than the butthole from unitil that i had the misfortune of speaking with earlier this month, she wasn't reasonable and failed to mention that there are programs to help with respiratory challenged folks, she was not playing nice with others, she was a metaphorical bitch of sorts, she was basically unitil's version of a female attack dog hence the use of the word bitch, and really didn't like me calling her out when i later explained why they will not be shutting our power off which she had more or less promised that they were going to do unless we paid them a shit-ton of money overnight... she triggered me in a way where i was going to consider the technician whose responsibility it would be to attempt to shut the power off as an enemy combatant, trigger a ptsd vet into considering someone as an enemy combatant and see what type of consequences your actions have, fvcking moron... hopefully car insurance has a reasonable person on the other end of the phone today, compromised attack dogs have a place in someone people's lives but in mine i'm just fine being your huckleberry... i'd rather not but i'm quite a capable person that isn't intimidated by threatening assholes, oh boy, maybe i need to medicate... it's probably not an ideal time time to send my blood pressure readings off to the VA either... breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, slowly, easy, repeat... easy, easy... still not helping, i'm going to medicate.  --  ct

06-30-21 later: too funny again, well sort of... that is to say that while i was ranting about unitil's attack dog that i had previous experience with i didn't realize that they were about to shut us off... again... seems that they had not taken notice of the medical form that i had faxed multiple times and had fax report to indicate date/time stamp and successful transmission of such faxes, and the dr.s office was supposed to do it themselves too, it seems that someone on their side forgot to take notice of those faxes... sending those sorts of things should involve follow-up by us customers, there shouldn't be an assumption that technical or human error could prohibit the receipt of such important documents... i used to know and understand that but somewhere along the line i forgot that but today none of that really mattered... today i did not speak with an attack dog from their pool of billing folks... today i ended up speaking with a person that was reasonable... it reminds me again from mt own days of providing customer support that you cannot judge an organization based on one person or one encounter, well unless they try to kill you perhaps, but besides that it's incredibly unprofessional for a representative of an organization to use unreasonable and manipulative dominancy and dehumanizing tactics to ask for payment, especially if the person on the other end of the phone is a ptsd combat veteran that doesn't appreciate bullies or their tactics, please utilize the skills of non-assholes as customer service peoples, it's not hard, that other gal is probably a decent attorney of some sorts that is in delinquent accounts now but today none of that mattered... today there was a person whose name is about as cool as they get, a person that i'm calling a guy because they sounded like a guy but although their name was very cool it didn't lend to one gender or another and i guess thats a big thing these days so i don't care what color or religion or creed or sexuality or hair color you posess, just know that i really appreciated the service rendered by a person named Tron today... what did i tell you about his name, right, coolest ever, anyway none of that matters because the person that sounded like a male and whom i kept calling SIR out of respect not gender dominance or whatever, but man that person helped me/family today by being a reasonable person that offered they type of sound mind that a customer could only hope would be on the other end of the phone when they call, you conducted yourself professionally and humanely both at the same time Sir, brilliant, you represented yourself and Unitil very well today, good on you Tron, you brought humanity back to the face of your company once more... that gal that i dealt with at the beginning of the month is a she-devil that left a very poor taste in my mouth after speaking with her, in fact i was ready to harm someone because of the way that she conducted herself and triggered me... anyway i can't judge her solely on once experience that might of have been a particularly bad day for her... anyway, good for you Tron, way to restore a better image of your employer, an image that one of your colleagues nearly destroyed, well done dude!  --  ct

06-29-21: whaddup Tuesday, we started off on the wrong foot so to speak, but i'm willing to extend some grace to you with the hope of a better finish... and all of that just means that i had another nasty night's sleep, not unexpected and still not appreciated .

06-28-21: first few hours of horizontalness were terrible last night, but after a brief pee break the rest of the morning offered almost four hours of adequate sleep, thats about par for my course. i have a video call with a guy who is going to try to find me a job through the VA's resources... frankly i don't know if i'm even employable at the moment, some folks have paid me a little bit when i've helped them with some things and thats perfect for now, the American and Mass Taxpayers are paying me for the misfortune that a nasty little microbe had caused to my former almost steady employment... but former almost steady employment was not a sustainable form of employment for many reasons but mostly because of the toll that it had taken on my body and emotional health, so i couldn't keep doing it much longer anyway, so just as covid accelerated the presumed expiration dates of millions of folks with underlying health conditions, that particular germ also accelerated the presumed expiration date of my gimpy right shoulder, left elbow and wrist, right hip, and a fragile emotional state... and so really covid was both a blessing and a curse to me on a sort of personal level, it's made finding employment a complicated matter for me, the blessing is still being understood and realized but part of it is that the American and Mass Taxpayers have been sort of crowd-funding this weird transition period of my life and that has been through many legislative bills that were passed to help fund the pandemic unemployment assistance which began helping me and immediate family with financial assistance for the past so many months, another blessing has been getting off of several medications that weren't really helping the root source of some underlying problems but at some point in my life they were helping with some sort of symptoms, so sorting through the medications that i was taking and figuring out which one's were actually helping or hindering my current and future self, not the old self that just wanted to take a pill so i could keep repeating unhealthy things in my life and expecting better results, nope. i suppose another blessing is that i am learning to write on my own, for myself, not to influence the sale of something, or to walk someone through their technical misfortunes, or to offer SOP or step by step instructions, no... none of that, i'm just learning how to write because i want to and not because someone else was paying me to do it for them, so i got this crummy little website up and running and am populating it with extremely biased yet free-thinking content on a regular basis all the while i am applying that same principle to some book-worthy stories which i trust will help with some financial assistance in the next year or two... but with that said i don't know how employable i really am right now, there are still too many emotionally triggered and emboldened knuckleheads running rampant in many parts of society that i just want to punch in their raging heads, i don't always posses the ability to play nicely with others and especially the arrogant or hypocrites... i suppose future employers should request a statement of some sorts from me if they would prefer that i don't become the huckleberry that their elitist employees require, don't consider hiring me if you are afraid of hearing what you might need to hear to get better, please don't even consider me if you hope to change me into the sort of person that is OK with compromising my ethical standards, they are a bit higher than they used to be... i am quite adaptable and observant and capable of doing many things above average but please don't be like a silly naive love-blinded romantic that believes that they can change their prospective souse at their core... i took too many jobs that would pay me to show up and perform but were only willing to pay me to 'stay in my lane' so to speak, or to only do exactly what they want to pay me to do... so really they were paying me for twenty or thirty percent of me to show up and perform at twenty or thirty percent ability, they never wanted one hundred percent of me and it seems that now i might be incapable of being a nice little boy that will shut up and play well with others, in fact many times i utilize medication in order to play well in large groups of others, i am overly distracted by increased stimuli and that tends to drain me of the grace that i should be offering to others so sometimes i am distracted by people in the institution that need help and so maybe i want to tell noisy arrogant compromised people to shut the fvck up instead of offering the best of me that might be required to shake them out of their false-reality... and so i do that now through writing, and so i think this is my jam now and so like i said, I don't know how employable i really am... i can probably produce the sorts of results that employers require or desire but i'm afraid that i can become incredibly distracted sometimes, and the more compromised arrogant egos that i am surrounded by the greater the chance of me becoming distracted and turning into the spanking that their parents never gave them... so if i have to sign some kind of waiver to keep from doing that you will be paying me a shit-ton of money in return for my results and professionalism, and the cannabis that i will have to consume in order to keep my end of the bargain... cool, cool... and i'm still not employed but at least i got that off of me chest, aye... good talk then... there is coffee in the kitchen which requires some drinking right about now and i am just the man for that job... BTW,  still praying in regards to possible survivors in the florida condo collapse... -- ct

06-26-21: t'was a rather chill day today, i'm glad, i had minimal sleep lastnight and barometric fluctuations gave me a nasty sinus/pressure headache for part of the day, but a couple of hours of laying on the couch in the living room of our empty home with a bit of dozing mixed in between, which was broken a time or two by noisy motor cycles and a couple of VM handled phone calls... well the headache is gone, family is all back home, the chicken casserole was extraordinary, and that was accompanied by a little Sip of Sunshine... feeling much better thank you... also noticed that part of my back had finally stretched out today, my mobility is much improved and i am no longer grimacing with spasms... sweeeet... today began before the early birds and with an unprovoked headache but seems to be finishing much better thank you... time brings an end to misery but the wait fvcking sucks man, it seriously and actually does, really... pain requires hope and patience and even embracement for healing sometimes, and many times i'm about completely out of all of the above, but today blood flows through muscles which have missed it greatly and i feel fine, life is good today, it's simple and chill and absolutely the right day at the right time... i love you saturday, last night's sleep sucked quite badly but you proved yourself to be a fine ending of our week... me and you are good saturday, it took awhile but we're good.

A Conversation might be a bit longer than expected if i'm going to make the second book a second part to the first one instead of it getting it's own thing, but part of me thinks that it would alienate a certain amount of potential readers and so i was expected to make it a follow up book, but really they are both small books, so maybe booklets are more like it... they are both part of an allegorically written series of stories about some intimate conversations between a mother and child, and then follow up conversations with some other folks to be revealed at later dates, but now i'm thinking of combining them all into one decent sized book with multiple 'parts', time will tell, but maybe i should keep taking original route and make them all short booklets that each tell part of a larger story, i dunno but time will tell, and i've changed it so many times already that i might need to take another break and pray and be patient and stuff, maybe, probably, OK, yes, thats what i should do, but then again i might knock it out the next night that i have a terrible sleep and decide to embrace it and get up in the wee hours, lots of good thoughts happen during those hours, those shitty hours that i wish i were sleeping.  --  ct

06-25-21: i just binge-watched a bunch of season one episodes of The Chosen, it's absolutely brilliant so far. if you profess yourself as some Christian variant and have read through scripture you might agree with my one word analysis 'brilliant', or you may think that my analysis is just another example of why i am not credible, but whatever... but one of the things that i appreciate is how the actor that is playing Jesus is tolerant of the ignorance of his earliest 'students' even after they begin to 'follow' him. i like how he separates human nature and ignorance from downright sin, i more or less self-identify with the character Simon, and so i am the stinking hot mess that jesus's ministry would require another generation for him to keep snapping me out of my human nature... jesus wouldn't have been executed at the young age of thirty-seven if i were actually simon-peter and there were no difference from being imperfect with a humble peaceful ego or a wretched 'sinner' that is blinded of the wretchedness in their own heart by an ego gone astray that refuse the teachings of the worlds most humble teacher that ever lived... if i were the real simon of the year 37 a.d. jesus may have required an additional 20 years of ministry to turn this simon into the real Peter, and if that were the case then the creators of the chosen would have material for several more seasons... the transformation that the real simon makes into the person that is later known as peter is awesome and historically noted and i hope to see more of that in the episodes that follow, i think i'm on episode six or seven maybe.

I sort of didn't want to do that, i didn't want to get too immersed in anything related to my faith before i finish the first book that i'm finishing, i didn't want to get distracted by other peoples works and it doesn't seem to be the case, so another reason that the chosen is brilliant, it hasn't challenged my opinion of my faith in anyway that's stiring me up emotionally, so it hasn't distracted me in that way, so brilliant yet again... yeah, i like that show now.

I tweaked my back again, smack-dab in the middle left-side, i can't seem to stretch it out for a few days with a bit of spasms and it's bugging me pretty good about now, thankfully toady's wet weather has kept me from working outside and further aggravating it, we got the last remaining six by six by eight beams to use as a border around the patio that i had started on and i didn't do my back any favors loading and unloading them yesterday but i really want to get the next step or two done asap, so i'm thankful for today's wet weather, nature and us require that stuff you know, just not in huge doses please and thank you.  --  ct

06-24-21: praying for the survivors that may still be trapped in the condo collapse in Surfside, FL... i can't even imagine my apartment collapsing without warning when you are asleep at 1:30 am, i can't fathom that happening. i can imagine myself at my age and physical condition trying to pull myself out of it afterward, but the horror of the initial disaster is difficult to contemplate. one bystander spent time talking with a ten year old that was trapped, i can't imagine myself as a ten year old trying to figure out where i am and what just happened to me, and where is my mother, the kid he was talking had a mother in the apartment too at the time of the collapse but they couldn't hear her at all while the bystander was hanging around with the boy until the pros came to do their thing... the boy and his mother could both probably use a bit of prayer at the moment, i hope you will too even if you aren't the praying type... if anything it will give you time to let your humanity side out and think about folks that are seeing a bad one right about now.

I think of the initial trauma that the boy experienced, the feeling of utter helplessness during an incredibly stressful situation... those sorts of things can take a lifetime for some people to come to peace with.

I think of the continued trauma that he may experience as pain becomes a normal part of life while physical wounds are treated and as therapies begin, what types of wounds happen in a disaster like this anyhow, the building weighed tons and was about ten stories or so tall, the further that heavy things fall the worse damage, so there may be amputations, brain injuries, crushed or broken bones, there could have been fires involved from gas and electric so possibly burns.

I think of the trauma of loosing loved one's and coping with the reality that you will never get to say goodbye, there is a terrible sensation of having 'unfinished business' when there is no real closure to losing something so special and with no warning... and if the ten year old boy only had his mother as family and no other loving folks to step in and be a parent to him he will enter into a system that will try to help him cope and try to provide the things that he needs, but that is a life changing thing in itself, foster care and adoption, some folks very close to our family understand this very well.

I guess there are many difficult things that come about from a disaster, many that none of us really even comprehend, and so the only prayer that i can offer for this young ten year old boy is that he is more resilient than most and learns to appreciate humanity as people step forward to assist in his healing process, humanity isn't as bad as we think sometimes... lastly, i would be interested in learning about the boy's religious thoughts or beliefs and if they change or grow as he heals from his wounds... please do your thing Lord because i don't even know how to begin, i know a thing or two about the shittiness of trauma... sometimes all you know is that you need help but you don't really know what help you even need or who to ask for it, so i also pray that those won't be difficult for him, that he will be able to communicate better than most... honest communication is important in any healing process you know.  --  ct

06-23-21: 72 and sunny and i'm still in the house... didn't write yesterday, no poison ivy to speak of yet, my back is a bit nasty today, but i have much to do today and so anti inflammatory is on the menu once again. i was reading some info on self publishing e-books on amazon most of the morning, i might do that first and see if it generates enough interest to make print easy and rational. i don't want to do the traditional sort of publishing thing with real actual publishing companies, i am not connected and have no background really, so perhaps a start on amazon/kindle might be the thing for me... the gentleman whose website i was reading earlier made it sound like it's the opportunities that come from a successful book is where authors make their money, almost none of those opportunities that he outlined were the sorts of things that i desire though, i just want to write while i still can and support our family from that, not interested in the fanfare but thats what many folks desire and so those are the sorts of things that get outlined, at least the guy is sobering enough to discourage folks from setting grand expectations, good for you Sir.  --  ct

06-22-21: Tuesday ... yeah man, I like Tuesdays, usually... but this particular tuesday should reveal the extent of my body's reaction to all of the poison ivy that i basically played around in yesterday. I took some small trees down for the neighbor yesterday and while doing so i took notice of how vibrant and healthy the ivy looked... hopefully last night's shower and laundry took care of most of it, and if not, well we already have a trip to the pharmacy planned for my daughter's vaccine today, and the pharmacy folks are usually good at stocking histamine blockers and even oil removal products, but time will tell, time and tuesday will tell if im gonna be scratching for the next week or so. I think most military veterans and current warriors understand that suck is a part of life, we understand that suck happens, and we've had plenty of sucky environments and chores to do in our past present and future, but now is sort of the calm before the suck... the suck is easier to embrace once it's been identified and understood... you know the soiled diaper is going to smell so you simply prepare for a foul endeavor... well right now i'm pretty certain that i will have some poison ivy, it just hasn't been identified yet... and i'm sure that i'm in for some sucky itchy scratchiness, i'm waiting in a patient anticipation for the suck to begin and yet i just see a bunch of red marks, no itchy yet, i've begun to prepare for the suck in which to embrace, and yet there is no suck yet, just the anticipation ... man i hate poison ivy, but it's nature and stuff so whatever.

I have important phone calls to make today, and important drives to make today, and always family type of house chores everyday, but my hope is to bust out another chapter at some point today... Beauty and Strong are coming along nicely, i just have some tweaking to do with both of them... but i think that Funny is next, funny will be a hilarious character in which you will never get to witness their humor, none of it, so she's a humorless funny person, that's almost funny in itself... but i think that Funny is next, and hopefully i can bring her to life today through a chapter's worth of creative writing, both time and tuesday will tell even if i never do.  --  ct

06-20-21: happy fathers day, also known as sunday june twentieth in the year of our lord 2021, aka Sunday Sunday Sunday!!! and aka The Next Day, or the day after yesterday, whatever you prefer to call it may you have a happy one... i'm off to a good start, i had an adequate night's sleep and i nailed the cream to sugar ratio in my first mug of coffee, the house is still quiet and filled with sleepy heads and i'm still stoked that i'm writing on a laptop again and not hunched over the couch on the big PC.

06-20-21 a bit more later: bowling was fun, but im sure that i strained at least a few muscles somewhere... i was trying to take it easy a bit and actually try to knock over the pins... and then someone noticed that the auto score thing also tracked miles per hour for each ball that we roll, and then thats when the game within the game begins... what do you mean 27.2 mph?! my new goal is 45 mph or i'll die trying!!! well i don't know that i ever got higher than 30 mph but my score and aim improved as i started blasting the balls down the alley, i probably slipped a disc or two, strained several muscles in my back somewhere, and then is my gimpy throwing shoulder, that's not gonna feel too great tomorrow... but man was it it fun. And now it's 11:43 pm and a great time for an adult to lay down and go to sleep except i took a brief nap between 7 tah 8:pm and had a helluva time trying to wake back up from it... and now finally at eleven pm i am once again awake and coherent... but really i'm gonna write a bit more of A Conversation... the venue takes place at a busy maternity ward and the conversation is between a new born baby and their mother, for now... i'm debating whether or not to have the conversation extend to father as well or if that's another story in itself, but time will tell, and i have other babies as characters to introduce to the story as well, and i don't know if each baby is a separate chapter, or all part of the first chapter, time will tell.  --  ct

06-20-21 just a wee bit later: So far A Conversation includes the following characters, the main character/baby, Mother, Nurse, Beauty, and Strong, and i think that each new character/baby gets their own short chapter, or they could really just be sub-chapters, i still dunno and might need the help of a pro to figure that out... but the next characters are on deck and i'm starting to get a decent flow for each new one now... i think. i'll probably put some more of a sample out on one of these pages hidden somewhere in the next week or so, but theoretically i could finish rough draft sooner than that, time will tell.  --  ct

06-19-21: what up saturday, my name is chris and its a pleasure to meet you... friday didn't go as planned but was a nice day, its refreshing to have the time and unbusiness to be able to do unplanned and unexpected things, and then icing on the cake when the weather is so gorgeous as its been. Anyway, back to you Saturday, your shaping up to be a real beauty yourself, and i'm looking forward to taking in and making the most of what you have to offer, well without morally compromising ourselves i mean... visiting extended family to celebrate another graduation, three graduations the same year for my wife's side of the family, one graduation for three out of their four siblings, and the fourth sibling will have her graduation celebration in about eight or nine years, it was a pleasure to visit with my wife's oldest sibling and niece a few times while they were on the east coast visiting her parents siblings and friends, so that particular niece has potential to graduate earlier than most folks, i don't know if her parents comprehend/understand all of her gifts yet and how to work with them yet but if they can learn to work with her behaviors while channeling and not stifling her gifts while letting her be the little girl that she is, well then you could see what gifted children are capable of... time will tell.

I keep forgetting that i have a heart for future generations and many times when we visit with extended family on either side of our family i feel more obligated to chat with the people of my generation but really i enjoy learning more about the younger generations and who they are becoming as individuals, i find younger generations refreshing become they aren't quite as narrow-sighted egotists that most folks my own age are by now... and then i appreciate spending a great portion of time with the older generation as well, i appreciate listening to their perspectives with the added wisdom that their age should offer... my brother inlaws father inlaw is a guy from the older generation that i appreciate, he seems to live a simple lifestyle and also appreciates family god and country, and he is also an army veteran, so anyway, i hope he will be there today and we have an opportunity to chat, and i have no clue what his grand daughter's plans are for after graduation and i'm helping to celebrate it today, good grief.  --  ct

06-18-21 later: met some lovely people today and spent way longer at the party than expected, but thats a sign of having a good time i guess. despite the warmer weather today was still glorious, but i suspect that i acquired a bit of a sunburn, par for the course i suppose. my belly is still happy from the good eats and now im back in my comfort zone... which happens to be at home with a tasty beer and open laptop and a tv currently displaying aqua man, im not into aqua man but the sip of sunshine is doing my some justice and i feel comfortable behind the keyboard for a short while. writing sucked tremendously when i got hurt and busy at the same time earlier this spring but im feeling home again hunting and hitting my way through the keystrokes, i hope to bust out another chapter on A Conversation either tonight or tomorrow, they aren't terribly long really so i don't want to make it sound like im doing a hard thing quickly, but part of the challenge has been how many levels deep to go, in other words there is this song from Old Dominion with the repetitive line 'but that's a song for another time', and it speaks a bit to the point of having a story within a story and that's been my challenge lately, how many stories within the story do i go and to what depth do i take with each story... when it's done you will see what i mean because its not always easy for me to articulate a challenge or an obstacle when im going through it, but its easy to say how much it sucked after the fact... but so far none of it really sucks, it just feels like a learning curve that will have to be met, but anywho... i hope to bust out another chapter tonight, i think i know most of it already, i just have to work through it and be patient... being patient isn't my jam really, in fact i hate being patient sometimes, but patience is necessary because only time tells the full story, well that and a bunch of other important things too i suppose, but man do i hate patience sometimes... interesting fact, my daughters middle names are Joy and Grace... perhaps if we had a third her middle name would have been patience and maybe i wouldn't have such an issue with her/it sometimes... patience and i have a love/hate relationship, it's always my fault and never her's so she's much smarter than me, in our competitive relationship patience always kicks my white-arse, patience is much more in tune with what's going on around me, patience has perfect timing that i typically strive unsuccessfully for... patience has perfect situational awareness that i lack, patience makes things look easy when i tend to clumsily force things to go my way... patience has a beauty which most people would try to copy and follow, yet fail... and patience... only time and patience will reveal the truth, and bigger and greater stories... patience can be difficult to comprehend at times yet is always asking us nicely to please wait... patience sounds impossible unfathomable incomprehensible and even mythical, but patience never lets us down... patience isn't a game but timing can be, patience demands our attention yet most ignore her, many dismiss her and demand the opposite, those who coexist and appreciate patience will notice and welcome her brilliance, some know that only patience reveals the truth... an unhealthy ego is patience's biggest foe, the demanding ego mocks patience and calls her a fool, the unbalanced ego denies the existence of patience... and yet she is there, and she waits, and she nicely asks us to do the same.

I'm not sure how to work her character into the book, because she might be a story for another time, but Patience is a rock star in the story of my life, but the love hate relationship continues because patience is difficult to be tamed or subdued, and impossible to replace, she is far too simply complicated to be mastered... Patience.  --  ct

06-18-21: happy friday, its supposed to be about ten degrees warmer today than the last two days, nice, but the last two days were perfect, the last two days were the type of weather that folks in the northeast long for, 72 and sunny with a light breeze, C'mon now, thats NH perfection... but i can live with eighties, i'll just wear shorts and drink more water... I'll be sure to drink plenty of water as i teach my son how to move dirt. we got to get this darn patio done before its too cold outside to enjoy it and today seems like the day to get this next step done, this big step that torqued my back earlier in the spring... my son missed PT yesterday with the Marine Poolies, but today there will be digging and sweating and shoveling and sweating and picking and sweating... there is something about packed dirt loaded with rocks and roots that can humble a guy that doesn't know how to pace themselves, and i are that guy so maybe the son can show me how to do it right today, i sure hope so because finishing the patio comes before fixing my car and we got to get that car moving again, like soon soon. wife is up and about now so lets see whats up for today... peace.  --  ct

06-18-21 later: i just made a couple of updates to this and this previous articles, but really it was just to acknowledge that i am happy to hear that Juneteenth is now a national holiday, i'd like to say its about damn time but really i'm just glad that it's real now

06-16-21: the last couple of days began overcast or rainy, looks nice out this morning. i helped some new friends with some electrical assistance yesterday, it was mostly enjoyable until i got back home and remembered what it feels like when you work with your hands over your head most of the day, and if your not too sure what that feels like... pain... not too bad though, just enough to let me know that i am old and unconditioned, reality check, I am those two things, i can't do anything about getting old but maybe i can try to work on reconditioning one of these days. Wife's morning alarm just sounded off, it's her birthday today... i think we are having some BBQ for her special dinner tonight, so i don't have to think about any dinner prep, her blessing spread to the rest of the family. i was a bit upset with her yesterday, but ultimately it was hilarious... when i picked her up from work we went to the grocery store to pick up some items for dinner, it was also during the hardest rain that i have experienced in a huge while. we get to the store and she doesn't want to leave the car because of how hard it was raining, but the parking spot 20 ft from the door of Market Basket was ideal for me to get in and get out without too much water damage, i typically park a bit of a distance from the entrances to stores so older folks and people with kids and handicapped folks can have access to the close parking, but not yesterday, during yesterday's deluge i was all about selfish me and getting close to the doorway. At some point between the time i entered the grocery store and the time i had exited my lovely wife had sent me a text, one which i would read hours later after we got back home... it was a thoughtful yet unhelpful text, it was deemed unhelpful because i never knew that she had sent it until she had told me so... but anyways, i'm done picking up our items and i am growing impatient by the number of people standing at the front of the store watching the incredibly heavy rain and waiting until it eased up before they would exit the store or go to their automobiles... C'mon people its rain, its just water, lets go clear out, nothing to see here, were the thoughts flooding my head... and after navigating around all of those people i walked out of the store to prove to the rest of the bystanders that a little rain wouldn't melt them, outta my way i'm on a mission to deliver the rest of supper home to my kids... but when i go to the exact spot where i had parked the car it was no where to be found, no, it wasn't a mirage from the deluge that was pounding away at me... no, wife and car are gone and im about wetter than ten MF'ers... just me in my own little world full of exceedingly hard/driving rain, just circling around like Mary Tyler Moore at the opening of her show back in the 70's, except i wasn't smiling in delight that i was working in a big city... no, i was wondering why the car isn't right where i left it... and how could the perfectly parked car be totally missing from right where i left it... and after two minutes that felt more like thirty, as the grocery bags began to fill with rain water, and right after i told the guy next to my who was wondering why i was just standing in the pouring rain 'my wife moved the car somewhere', a few more seconds after i told him that i saw the car parked in a spot that my thoughtful wife assumed would be a much dryer place for me to get back into the car... and after i walked all the way over there and finally got in the car she asked if i had received her text... NOPE... I DID NOT, i seriously didn't hear my phone make any noise to suggest that i had a text nor did i feel the vibrate that should also have alerted me to her thoughtful text... Anyhow, a couple of hours later and a fresh change of dry clothes i was able to chuckle about it, i wished that it hadn't taken two hours to lighten-up enough to have appreciated the humor that was hidden under my frustration, i'm sure if anyone that was at the front of the grocery store watched my two minutes of blinding ignorance found the humor much quicker than it took me... if anyone of those bystanders got a chuckle out of my frustration it was well worth it... most folks that i know are overdue for a good laugh... if you saw my soaking sorry ass yesterday afternoon i would have provided you with a smile at the very least, hopefully a good belly laugh, though... and although it's seemingly impossible i'm afraid that i might still be a little damp somewhere... perhaps if i stand up and bend over my belly button will reveal the rest of yesterday's rain.  -- ct

06-16-21 later: This is sort of my current message to humanity... that is always subject to change because i am strange like that, and several additional ways as well... right. But warning, I stole the background image, you can find the original here, which i found by searching for Crayola Colors of the World, it's crayola's crayon and magic marker collections that are based on various skin tones, the products are brilliant and i wish they were invented back when crayons were invented and i was young and the galaxy was still forming, but anyway, enough about them because im too tired and lazy to expand further... so here is my message to humanity for this day, and all days really, because it's important:

06-13-21: good news is that i woke up after the birds this morning, bad news is that it wasn't much later than the birds, there might be a nap in store for me at some point today. i made some good progress on a writing project yesterday, chapter two just flew by but the recent changes to structure might have me go back and rewrite soon, this writing thing isnt always easy as it should be, especially when working on multiple projects, but i liken it to selling annual subscriptions to database full of published content... each potential customer was considered a new project more or less, each customer has their own story, and each story required its own individual attention, the more open projects the more difficult it came to manage and give each project all of the attention that they require or deserve, long-term customers were far easier to work with but trying to grow an emerging market required a special type of sales professional which i had proved that i am not... i was not that special type of sales professional because i am not a sales professional, i'm working on another writing project, it's based on my resume, it will be more humorous than A Conversation... i wrote that to say that someday you might read what i mean when i say that i have worked in various sales positions in the past but i am not a sales professional, but that topic requires more attention than im willing to give it at this moment... talk about side-tracked, but learning to write regularly as an actual career change would probably be easier if i were focusing on one thing/project at a time... but then again that's sort of how i approach too many things in life, self-inflicted measures of difficulty, good grief.

I broke my TV news fast again, i appreciate many of the personalities on fox news channel and i appreciate the guys on the early weekend show, Pete and Will and now Rachel, i have critical thinking of rachel from past yet recent displays of ignorance but i'll still watch the show, everyone is imperfect, and i'm certainly no exception. i got to tell you that i still hold judgement on fox news after learning more they way they treated females there during the bill ayers era, so i pay more attention to the female personalities on the network and consider what types of obstacles there might still be in their culture, i can still appreciate rachel despite her imperfectness but she can be a bit too much for me, that's all. I appreciate Jillian that's usually on in the m-f spot during this early a.m. time, she doesn't seem to try to overly assert a narrative or use emotionalism or cheesy manipulative tactics when she interviews people, she actually lets people answer their own truthful way, she's like a good ballast of sorts for the stronger personalities, i would appreciate someone with more of jillian's ego to start my morning coffee with, maybe thats my problem, maybe i just miss jillian over the weekend, ha. i appreciate will in this morning spot, he seems to be good at his craft, he's sort of a newer guy too and i haven't read anything about him but he has a keen eye on people's behavior and thats something that interests me too, and then it's hard not to like pete, i'm partial to a veteran's perspective and pete's ego is always appreciated in an industry where that's a rare commodity.

Sunday will be in full swing pretty soon, but i'm still enjoying the peacefulness of solitude, except for the knucklehead with the noisy-ass bike that drove by twice, there is nothing normal about his motorcycle, you have to purposely try to make something that noisy, you have acheived your moronic goal of making a noisy thing three times louder than anyone else ever has, i hope your deaf-ass exudes with the pride that one must feel after such great achievements, jerk, at least you didn't have external speakers like some others like to use to crank up loud enough so they can hear shitty music over their noise machines, so thank you for that much, good grief. i think the hardcore environmentalists could have swung me over decades ago if they told me how quiet electric vehicles are and that they would greatly reduce noise pollution, you would have me fighting for your every cause several years ago... living on a main street in newton, nh is not the place for a guy like me, its actually not good for my emotional and physical health anymore, otherwise this place is great, but the noise pollution and speedy drivers have just about chased me out of town.... by the way, did i mention that much of the proceeds from my books will help relocate us to a new dwelling, my impatience says that i wish we were moving today, but the timing will be executed at an unknown date soon enough. I wish i could hire the Rainey family on Homestead Rescue to help find the right location and help get us started. it might just be that i will find more meaning in living a more simple and sustainable life away from the distractions of a busy city or town... where we live next is still a mystery but for now we need to learn to live a life that is less dependent on driving to a local store every day or so. There is another show that i like on tv, naked and afraid, right now they are showing a new season that has clusters of the show's regulars working together for longer duration of time. this season they have Gary back on, he has an interesting personality that many folks find to be challenging from time to time, but he is wise and those same folks need him from time to time, but my point about gary is that he has a motto that almost feels anti-american to a degree... 'Consume as Little as Possible', and the biggest challenge that i see to my wife and i--and hopefully our offspring as well--moving to more of a homestead environment after being raised in city life for over fifty years will be the adoption of gary's wisdom. it's too easy to walk or drive to a store to buy anything that our budgets will allow but everything that we purchase already consumed someone else's time and energy, our time to earn the money to purchase, then we hopefully consume the product, and responsibly dispose of or recycle the packaging and any other waste left behind from the products that we consume, there is more to extrapolate from gary's motto, but i appreciate his message to humanity, it's a noble one, and i think our family's attitude toward consumption in every facet of it's meaning will be our greatest challenge to our move, i can go full on survival mode for as long as it takes to adapt to a new environment but i am not my wife and three kids, so their challenges will be different than mine... the funny thing is that i don't always respond favorably to change or transition but i'm looking forward to the change of residence and lifestyle like you wouldn't believe... and i am trusting in the god of my religious preference that the move will come before i brake down and roast a noisy motorcycle driver with a flamethrower, it would be better for humanity if we could move before something like that happens, my story might have a happier ending. -- ct

06-09-21 a bit more later: i did what i wasn't going to do and read a bit of news... this article speaks of a self-labeled progressive democrat that simply raised the notion that the covid germs could also have been inadvertently released from from a laboratory, the story speaks to how he was labeled a right-wing conspiracy weirdo... if the stinking germ came from a lab it's a different level of bad for sure, but my biggest gripe is china's inaction in warning the world what was coming it's way instead of trying to cover it up or sweep it under the rug or blame it on the usa instead of being a responsible world citizen, fine, you are a super power already, now start behaving as a responsible one, the entire fact that they let the virus run freely instead of self quarantining is essentially spreading and committing biological warfare on the entire planet, so read the article if you are interested, but its just demonstrating how political operatives politicized the real science from the beginning, thats all it is to me anyway.  --  ct

06-09-21 later: it seems that im also lazy and efficient with battling a sink full of dishes, i go hard with hot soapy splashy water until i hit an encrusted one, then it's time to soak it and let time and science do the heavy lifting, soak that sucker and it's time to move on for a bit... lazy or efficient, work smarter not harder, write better and probably less cussing, but many times scrapping with a sink full of dishes requires a bit of cussing, i hate dirty dishes.  --  ct

06-09-21: good question... if you were trying to ask how i/someone that is christian can comfortably use so many swears, curse words, foul language or whatever you want to call it so freely, well i did not grow up in a perfect little home where those amongst us spoke with perfectly articulated and grammatically correct language, swearing was more or less a lazy but effective way of communicating with emphasis, thats all really... when i swear when writing it is an indicator of how upsetting something that i am writing about is to me at that particular moment in time. swearing allows me to be lazy as its a passionate way to communicate using less words to articulate the same message... i don't really swear that much at all in everyday life, and when i do im usually just a bit upset, but i am a regular imperfect person before i am a christian so my apologies if you feel that i am letting you down because of occasional foul language... maybe toughen up a little and get some skin thick enough to handle my atrocious vocabulary, i'd like to end it with a foul word or two in response (sorry, not really) but instead i will simply say... toughen up a bit if thats what's required for you to navigate through the difficult and dysfunctional world that we live in, my friend... but to answer your question, really its mostly because i'm using lazy words to communicate. I swear more when writing then i do any other time because i'm writing in the harsh way that i am thinking at the time of writing... and i also write in a fashion that our trending 'cancel culture' demands, i'm just not afraid to say that i'm an imperfect person that can be a real jerk on occasion, I know that and i write as unashamed and imperfect as i am.

06-08-21: it seems that unitil is a bit more cooperative today, it seems that having high blood pressure and having a remotely connected device to monitor that daily is the thing that is buying us a little time with the folks whose job it is to work with people that are having difficulty keeping up with bills. if you have no money to pay them they shut you off but if the VA sends me this pain in the neck device, well then the bill collectors are willing to place nice... no need to call the police to protect the people that were going to shut off power, no reason to go hulk angry on anyone that is trying to harm us even if he was just doing it inadvertently... you harm people when they cannot afford to replace the food that goes rancid in the refrigerator, you harm people when they cannot turn on air conditioners in musty old homes when its over ninety degrees out again for the fourth straight day in the northeast usa, you harm people when they cannot communicate with any devices especially during the last week of school... and you harm your own technician when you expect him to disconnect the power of a home of a ptsd combat veteran under the circumstances written above... so first of all unitil... F-you for triggering me yesterday, and second of all it shouldn't take a special medical circumstance to be a bit more patient and to do the right thing... fvcking morons... and second of all my next residence will rely on the sun's energy, not yours... and lastly, you get your f-ing money as soon as i can come up with it, i promise... every penny of it, and i may throw in a few copies of my first book as a show of respect and gratitude, but right now i'm still a bit angry with you all.

... Now that the nastiness is out of the way i can attest to the compassionate side of humanity after speaking with a nice lady from Catholic Charities yesterday, and another nice lady from SNHS this morning, and then another amazing person from the Veterans Crisis Line today... there really is regular nice people in this world, not everyone is Katie from unitil... actually katie is probably an amazing person too if i got to know her a little better under more convenient circumstances, but right now she is still she-devil, but not much longer, I'm just about back to a healthy state of mind... tomorrow you will probably just be katie, not she-devil katie... tomorrow is another day with the potential for greatness but yesterday and today just plain sucked. That Alves lady from the va was a pleasure to speak with, it's her actual job to keep veterans from jumping off of a cliff, what a rewarding job to know that you are actually saving people's lives and sanity... i have a shit-ton of respect for her in the short while that we spoke, no ego to have to work around, speaking to me as an equal not down to a different level, not using cheesy sales speak when offering suggestions, and asking questions the right way and rewording when obviously necessary... she's the real deal, and i'm thankful to have spoken with her and looking forward to the action items that we put together. but she also helped me realize that i haven't been writing as much as i was even just a few weeks ago when i explained that writing is a bit of a coping tool. it seems/feels like as my life gets busier i shut down from the things that actually important and focus on whatever it is that needs to happen... mission oriented, turn off distractions to accomplish the mission, but 'distractions' are actually the things in life that are supposed to be priorities... most people would tell me that right now are finances are what's really priority because of our current financial state but taking a shitty job just to pay bills is not what my mental state requires at this moment, most shitty jobs are filled with ego-centric assh0les that only give a sh!t about themselves and their own personal mission, and those are the people that bother me the most right now, maybe when my sole and ego are in a better place i can dwell amongst those types of folks again but now i just want to punch them in the mouth. since writing is actually a non-paying job i am actually working right now, but i'm the only A-hole that i am working with at the moment and my blood pressure is down from this morning so no one requires a punch in the mouth or a kick in the head, lucky me.

06-07-21: i fully intend to pick up where i left off the other day, so my apologies, and thank you for bringing it up, but i was triggered in such a way that i am somewhat ashamed of. our electric supplier has given us very short notice that they intend to shut off our electric service tomorrow, nice, thats the way that today seemed to go, it didn't seem to go the way that a reasonable acting organization goes about collecting debt owed, it seemed that there was a direct line drawn in the sand as to their demands and where service ends, and we dont have access to the type of money that they currently require so service will end tomorrow as early as 8:am... so she said... she also said that they would require a minimum of fourteen hundred and something dollars to keep things kosher for the time being... OK, well thats impossible at the moment but maybe we can get the ball rolling when we get another sizable paycheck in about ten days... no... it needs to be tomorrow... so there is a line drawn in the sand... no fourteen hundred and seventy dollars no air conditioners or any other electric service tomorrow... well what reasonable physical harm do you intend to subject the poor fella that is supposed to come out tomorrow to disconnect our service... the nice fella that handed me the disconnection paper this morning doesn't appear to be the type of human that can withstand the force that i will take to prevent him from doing his simple job... im pretty sure that he will retire tomorrow after he tries to do his job, im pretty sure that unless he brings the avengers and the guardians of the galaxy and james bourne and cool hand luke and a sh!tload of special operators to help him complete his mission it will still not go very well for him... the poor guy just wants to do his job but a line has bee drawn in the sand and i have been triggered by a sassy collections professional that doesn't seem to care about the welfare of the engineer whose job it is to cut off our power during a heatwave... you have set your colleague up to be an enemy combatant so goo fvcking luck tomorrow, please be more reasonable tomorrow than you were today because that nice man that handed me those shut off papers tomorrow does not want to meet the person that i will be tomorrow, a line has been drawn in the sand and i don't always play well with others and anyone that attempts to disconnect the electric power to our home tomorrow is an enemy... sorry dude, tomorrow could be a bad one, tomorrow could be the day that you are driven to drink, or the day that you finally retire, but it will not be a pleasant day... good fvcking luck to ya mate, and eat yourself a good nutritious breakfast before you attempt to do anyones dirty work, your colleague Katie drew a line and the sand and i can't sh!t out about fifteen hundred bucks overnight, and i have little patience for people that choose to communicate through threats... i'm severely close to being mister nice guy... i'll pay you back every penny that i owe you but that will require you being reasonable... otherwise you have declared war this afternoon and i am happy to accommodate such activities, they keep my skills sharp dont ya know.  --  ct

06-05-21: communication is something that i don't think that ive ever formerly studied, other than reading and writing in high school, maybe thats why ive been thinking about it so much lately... more specifically ive been thinking about the various ways that people communicate, and if you go back far enough to infants you will understand how much crying is a form of communication... new parents are responsible to begin learning a new language whether they know it or not, a new parent must learn what their babies are trying to communicate through their various types of crying. An observant new parent that might not be battling severe sleep deprivation as well as extreme hormonal changes might be able to tell when their babies are hungry or tired or soiled a diaper or cold or hot or sick or uncomfortable or frustrated, whether the new parent understands it or not they need to begin learning a new language in order to communicate with another person that doesn't speak their same language... and the faster new parents learn this new language the easier life gets for parents and baby. If a baby is tired or hungry or has a soiled diaper they have ways to communicate that to parents, and then if a baby is frustrated or hurting or uncomfortable or wants something out of reach they might use different cries to try to communicate. I know a set of identical twins that explained how they had learned to communicate with one another from a very early age and in a way that only they knew how to understand, twin-speak is the term that one of them used, i can only imagine a couple of one to two year old twins trying to navigate life together and using their own instincts, hands, and sounds to talk to one another in their own unique language. I've always seemed to have difficulty learning new languages, but some folks pick them up easy and can speak read and write in many languages, man i envy folks that can do that... but what if there weren't any languages at all, and what if everyone had to rely on twin-speak, how well would people communicate with one another... i kind of liken it to a Tower of Babel where everyone is saying something but no one knows what the other person is communicating.

06-02-21: Greetings June, where did you come from and what did you do with May? May was a busy bit of a blur, and i spent most of it in pain, so good riddance to ya, and glad that my back is almost back to being a nice back. I probably do this every year, i'm anxious to start on outdoor projects in the spring, i overdo it and strain a bunch of muscles in my back neck and shoulder regions, and then pretty much broke for a month or so after that... yeah, this year is probably typical for me. i'm still working on a patio and then my broken car needs fixing after that and i suppose i'll have another paying job before long too, but hopefully i will have worked through the aches and pains by then, my son is enlisting in the usmc soon and one of their favorite mottos is that 'pain is weakness leaving the body' and i believe there is truth to that... when you are in your twenties, but when you are in your fifties pain is simply a way of life, to a degree, although i might get to trying some yoga soon, maybe that will help, i don't think it could hurt, much.

Anyway, i'm happy to report that im writing on a laptop finally, i don't want to tell you what i had to do to get this thing to behave again, but a fifty dollar SSD HHD and some critical thinking skills later and this old thing is humming along again, that means that i can put away the big tower and monitor that i've been using in the living room, and now only hog up a smaller footprint. This laptop used to be my brother inlaw's, then he recycled it to my oldest daughter who got a couple of good years out of it before she bought a new one, and now it has a new HHD absent of the bit-locker that screwed up her data transfer a few months ago... brother inlaw works in financial industry and his IT folks bit-locked the old hard drive and we didn't know about that until after the trouble began, but now this baby looks new and is behaving the way that a good Windows ten machine ought to behave, good old dell i3 machine.

It's just past five now and the early birds are quieting down a bit, they were rocking by four, and now chilling a bit after their morning worm bug and insect buffet... those little birds get me out of bed with too much regularity these days, they really now how to get a guy moving at three-forty, god hasn't told them about my preferred sleeping schedule yet, but that's OK, i kind of like listening to those little aviators greeting each other... i wonder will those little birds fatten up when the cicadas bust out pretty soon, maybe they chub up a bit and have to flap twice as fast to get their new body-weight aloft, they might be like my chubby little self trying to get back into shape after my winter hibernation right before i tear up my back in the spring... poor little fat birds... but im looking forward to hearing the cicadas when they finally bust out of the ground, they have the most unique sound, sort of like how the little frog (peepers) have a sound all of their own, the peepers let you know when its spring and the cicadas let you know when it's summer... and five-thirty a.m. tells me that i'm done writing for now, and i require a second cup of coffee... good day to ya mate.  --  ct