I Don't Believe In Destiny, or the Guiding Hand of Fate...

Okay, so that's not ENTIRELY true...

Sometimes fate doesn't just guide you. On occasion, fate can grab you by the cajones with all the subtlety and tact of a rabid pit bull and just yank you along the right path.

Case in point:
I started my Bachelor of Music Education degree in Septemer 1993. Marriage, kids, house, apathy, laziness - all factors that have slowed me along the way. Nonetheless, I have plugged away at it over the past 16 years. Now, all that remain are 3 classes, my student teaching...and 4 credits of private lessons. These are only offered at 1 credit per semester, which means that despite being able to finish my coursework in 1 year, I am a minimum of 2 years from my degree. It seems so daunting and far off.

I started taking private lessons my first semester at Wayne with Ron. Helluva player, fun to talk shop with, never one to pressure you, but insisted on improvement. A GREAT teacher. I took 4 semesters with him and passed each one. Not always with stellar grades, but enough to pass.

I took some time off school to start a family. When I returned, Ron had been replaced with Ken. Ken expected you to START at a minimum conservatory level, and if you weren't there, you weren't worth his time. I took 5 semesters with him and only passed once - when he didn't show up to my jury. This man became the gatekeeper of my degree. In order to finish, I needed to pass 4 semesters with him, and I couldn't. So, I decided to wait him out. His students were dwindling and sooner or later, the administration would notice. (see more on this in my original post from 9/06 HERE)

So, my obstacles for a long time were time, money, and my private lessons. Flash forward to this present day. Last month I watched the premier episode of Glee. I truly identified with the director character and between the odd parallels in the character's story and the inspirational music, I started thinking real hard about what I might have to do to finish my degree and start teaching.

Next, after not taking classes for 3 years and being rather consumed with other areas of my life that are exploding right now, I get a form letter last week from the WSU Music Department, inviting me to return to school and finish, complete with numbers to call to find out what I need to do. I'm sure they sent the same letter to several students, but it came just as the thought of returning and finishing my degree popped to the forefront of my mind.

Next, I get this new job at Starbucks. Not much money, but MUCH greater flexibility in the schedule to be able to fit in my student teaching durring normal school hours. Having had jobs that run 9-5 as my only available work time, and my primary income, that hasn't been much of a possibility at all.

Finally, I'm running into the warehouse today to talk with one of the guys about a customer's order, and who's sitting at the counter picking up supplies...but my old teacher, Ron. Apparently, he's now the primary trombone teacher at WSU. Ken is gone, and Ron's who I would be learning with. We start to talk about how close I am and that lessons are the longest part, taking a minimum of 2 years to complete. He suggests that there is precedent to double up the lessons to 2 credits per semester, getting me out in 1/2 the time.

Time and private lessons have been taken care of for me. Time for me to take the bull by the balls and get the money. I have to find $850 to pay off my old balance so I can register. I have a few days next week. I will be researching every grant, scholarship, and loan I can find to make this happen.

It's now within the realm of possibility (and I can't believe I am saying this) that I could have my degree by May. It depends on several factors and paying my balance this month, but that's the earliest I could have it.

My heart just sped up to about 120bmp just typing that. And I'm a band guy. I KNOW 120BPM!

In A One-Horse Runaway Sleigh!

The gifts are half-bought, the bills are mostly paid, and the financial well has run dry. This last paycheck was nice and hefty (relatively), but all of it went to the wolves at the door. It's not going to be a skimpy Christmas at the ol' Keiser house, but it's not going to be bountiful by any stretch. The kids are pretty well taken care of with only one or two (rather important) odds and ends to get, but I usually get Sonya something huge on her list every year. I've usually sold one of my instruments or used quartet gig money to get it, but I've been so busy, I haven't had time to hustle up a buyer or eBay any of the remaining, dwindling orchestra in my shed. As for quartet gigs, most of what we've done latley have been freebies. We have a paying gig this weekend, but that money's slated to fix the heat in my car, as is the unexpected money for the use of my picture of my French Fry costume from Flicker (see previous post).

This means tightening my financial belt and putting a padlock on my wallet until the next big paycheck comes in...Christmas Eve. Let me make this very plain - I HATE BUDGETS!!!! I don't go hog wild or make any big purchases. I do, however, nickle-and-dime myself to death. Between fast-food meals going from job-to-job, morning coffee, and the evil cigarettes, I can easily go through $50 a week in pretty damned unnecessary expenses without even thinking about it. This week, I have put my bank card in the dark recesses of my wallet (necessitating thoughtful, rather than reflexive use of it). This usually makes a BIG difference, as the additional 2 seconds it would take me to dig it out usually slay the "gotta have it" demons.

I don't spend recklessly. I buy clothes at Steve & Barry's and other purveyors of cheaply made, foreign crap, I compare price-per-ounce prices at the grocery store, I drool over impulse buys and walk on buy, I dig through clearance racks, and I usually only buy clothes of the barest function when absolutely necessary.

I do have a weakness for bottles of Diet Coke and comics, though. I usually "treat"myself to about $20 in comics a month and a Diet Coke in the car. I don't "treat myself" to things like iPhones, techno gadgets, new shoes or even a fance ice-scraper for the car. Still, these days, I have to watch every penny. Sonya is big on that and I often resent her when she suggests I reighn in my discretionary spending, as I don't think I do much. Thinking about it, though, the nickle-and-dime stuff has been addin up a lot.

So, my pre-New Year's resolution is to watch myself more (mostly out of sheer necessity). The bank card stays in the dark corner on my wallet, work on cash only whenever possible, and pause before adding wnything to my shopping cart.

God, I hate budgets...

Barbershop Convention Blues & Tina Fey: 7 Weeks ain't enough, and yet it is.

Once again, we're nearing late October and the Pioneer District's Fall Barbershop Harmony Convention. Unfortunately, it appears this one's not going to go at ALL like I had envisioned it 4 months ago.

My plan was to go up mid afternoon on Friday, compete with my quartet, make finals, compete with my chorus the next day, kick some ass at finals and maybe move up a spot or 2, and have an amazing night touring the hospitality rooms and singing tags in the lobby till all hours of the night. I'd built up a helluva weekend in my head.

Since then, the job hasn't turned out as profitable as I had hoped (still not BAD, but this economic apocalypse has slowed my sales growth a bit), our bass has been in Texas helping with disaster relief and is on call to do more at any minute, and Liam's Haunted Cub Scout Campout has been scheduled for the same weekend. Adding to the financial frustration, I just had to pay a $195 ticket for not having my current proof of insurance in my car and now a $200 "Driver Responsibility Fee" the state has started assessing to milk the average citizen for whatever they can get away with.

In order to make convention, I have to come up with gas money, food money, pay my society dues, arrange to sleep on someone's floor at the hotel, and coodinate child care for Courtney while Sonya and Liam are at the campout...but I haven't given up yet. It's not impossible. Difficult and improbable, but not impossible.

I wouldn't feel so bad about it, but our tenor section is a bit weak and we've already lost 2 of our front row. With all humility, having me missing hurts the presentation AND music scores. I truly don't expect my presence means the difference between winning and losing - Mt. Pleasant, Lansing, and Macomb have that to worry about. It would be nice to start building up our scores again, however, and set ourselves up as contenders again. We won 4 years ago. It's not out of the realm of possibility to do so again, but we need all the help we can get.

I'll keep exploring my options.

Meanwhile, on the campaign front...

When Sarah Palin entered the race, my first though was that she looks a bit like an older Tina Fey. For the past 3 weeks, Tina has made a return to Saturday Night Live to play the Alaskan Governor in opening sketches - absolutely BRILIANTLY! Just go Google it (NBC has managed to pull most of the clips from YouTube), and you'll see what I mean. The funniest sketch was her depiction of the CBS Interview with Katie Couric. It was absolutely hilarious in that, rather just picking a few catch phrases like so many of her predecessors (Dana Carvey's "Naa-Gaa-Daait" comes to mind), she quoted one of the Governor's lengthier responses nearly verbatim - and it was ROTF hilarious! That's funny and scary at the same time.

I'd love to see a lot more of Tina Fey as Palin, but God willing, SNL will only need her for another 4 weeks before Palin hops the first dogsled back to the tundra.

Plenty of other stuff to bore you with, but time's a wastin'. Gotta go earn my keep.

Cold Shower...

POSTPONED: Barbershop Convention Blues and Tina Fey-7 Weeks ain't enough, and yet it is.

Not figurative, but literal. We apparently neglected the gas bill, so they came and shut off the gas yesterday. Sonya's been sick, so she wasn't able to get to the door in time to hand the guy a check. So last night we had to grab some Little Caesar's and use the remaining hot water for a bath for Courtney. This left me to submerse myself in Arctic water this morning.

I haven't had a shower this miserable in 15 years. On drum corps tours, showers were like a box of chocolates - ya never know what yer gonna git. Usually, the schools have shut off the gas for the summer so they're ice cold. You get used to just praying for enough water pressure to actually rinse yourself off. Invigorating in late July, but in October - not so much. At this point in my life, I need a scalding shower just to loosen my joints in the morning.

Between the ice cold shower and frantic dash out the door to get the kids to school on time, and the fucktardedly basackwards traffic pattern the school parking lot creates, this is not starting off to be a good day.

To top it off, I'm greeted by my morning news radio announcers calling out the Financial Apocalypse. Great. Means my sales this week will be jack shit. I'm glad the debates last night didn't degrade into personal attacks and I commend both candidates for their restraint, but damnit. Someone needs to call out McCain for the Keating 5 Scandal and the S&L debaucle. This "deregulate then bailout" bullshit has to end. I'm used to being on the next-to-lowest rung of the financial ladder, but when that ladder's singing into quicksand and my shoes are getting wet, I get a bit pissed.

Oh, and that little "opinion meter" that CNN has of their focus group of Ohio undecideds - dat's da shizzle. Makes the debate MUCH more interesting.

The Sword of Damocles...

(Another unpublished draft from March of 2008.  Interesting to look back at how much has changed.)

Well, it's been a long time coming.

If you're a regular reader or a friend I've had occasion to vent to regarding my employment situation, you've likely heard me speak of my boss - the ancient owner of the store I work at who remembers when dirt was the newest thing. Well, it seems he's in the last throws of a myriad of ailments and is not expected to last much longer. It has always been assumed that when he goes, so goes the business, and that's just what, it seems, is being set up.

Without going into details that I haven't been thoroughly briefed on and have only heard 3rd party, it looks like I will likely be out of a job within the next 2-3 months. I've never had problems finding *A* job, but now with a wife, kids, mortgage, bills, etc., it's not gonna be easy to find something that'll fill this gap - especially in these times.

The last time I was hunting for a job, it was the end of the technology boom. The economy was riding high, the war hadn't started, the housing market hadn't gone into freefall, and America was still respected (anyone remember that far back?). That was about 5 years ago. Back then, all I had to do was walk into a place, fill out a one-page application, and I would have a job after 1 interview. Granted, I wasn't looking for high-paying, career-level positions, but I was young, friendly, enthusiastic, articulate, and intelligent. It used to be that I would never go for more than 2 weeks without a job. I'd have a reasonable savings built up, enjoy a week off, hunt the next week, and have a job by the end of that week. I NEVER worried abut being unemployed.

Now...I'm scared shitless.

I'm 33, no degree, experienced primarily in low-paying retail and service jobs, have a family to support, and the economy - especially in Michigan - is shot to Hell. What the hell do I do now? I don't have the money to finish my degree, a pile of bills mirroring Mt. Everest, and no real prospects for anything NEARING what I make here.

I have bitched about this job for years. There are a lot of things about this place I won't miss, to be sure, however there were several important and undeniable advantages to this job: VERY close to home, good pay, LOTS of downtime (followed by periods of sheer chaos), flexible hours (at least regarding leaving for emergencies), free repairs for my own instruments, and I've learned a TON about instrument repair, which will come in handy as a band director. I will NOT miss the incompetent management, absent-minded owner (though this method of his exiting is a bit more extreme that I would have wished on him), and the occasional megalomaniacal professional musician customer.

Still, I had fallen into a groove. I had become (relatively) comfortable here. I knew my job(s) and did them well. What now?

I can't take a job at another, similar store (if there IS such a thing) for anywhere NEAR what I was getting here, mostly because I have several job titles here. I could probably get a job as a repair tech at 1/2 the pay, but here I was also the shipping manager, web developer, graphic & ad designer, janitor - basically anything the rest of the folks here are too lazy, busy, or incompetent to do (usually the aforementioned asshat salesman's tasks).

To top it off, I had recently negotiated to get 2 weeks paid vacation from the owner. This happened about a month ago. He had refused to sign the paper I had written up outlining the agreement (80 hrs/yr., not to result in overtime, etc.), saying "my word is good enough!". Now it appears that the manager is planning not to give it to me. More hassling of the ailing boss and manager is clearly needed here.

On the bright side, I just conversed with my friend and former lead of my quartet, Brad, who is currently singing with the quartet at Henry Ford Greenfield Village. It seems that auditions are coming up. The pay's about what I get here and would be INFINITELY more fun than packing and servicing tubas. After getting a bit of info from him, I now have an audition set up for next Tuesday.

I don't expect much to come of it, really. I've heard the quartet (in a few different combinations), and while they're quite good, they seem to focus more on a pure choral sound than a traditional "barbershop" sound, turning it more into male quartet that sings barbershop songs than a "barbershop quartet" in the style I'm used to. This means there will likely be a hundred or so college-age vocal majors from all over, with ears and voices much better than my own, vying for the same 4 spots. Not great odds. I do have a few things they might not, however. Apparently they're in need of someone who can play the ukulele for a few of their tunes. How many college kids do you know that can play ukulele?! Who'da thunk my ukulele could help me get a job as a paid barbershopper?!

I'm hoping that between a shining recommendation from a current member (Brad), my more permanent proximity to the venue, my vast music and barbershopping experience, and the fact that I play ukulele, I might stand a snowball's chance at the gig. The schedule will probably be weird, but not wholly impossible.

Of course, if I DO get the job, technically, this may preclude me from competing with my own quartet. More than half of my income will be coming from singing, thus qualifying me as "professional" and not "amateur", as the rules stipulate. May have to do some research there.

So, in a matter of hours I have gone from towing-the-line usual life, to mild panic, to anger and frustration, to potential professional glee. God, I hate emotional roller coasters. Guess we'll just see how it all pans out.

Thank God I still have a couple months to quell the looming shitstorm this may stir up in my life.

Okay, that's all the whining for now.
Coming up Next, Coda Honor LIVE! and a chance to help a great cause.

End transmission...

Coda Honor on YouTube - DAAAAMN we're tight!

Lately, each time my quartet has gotten together, we've been ringing chords more and more. It seems that even when we don't have time to rehearse, we're improving. Maybe we're listening better, maybe we're relaxing more, maybe it's just dumb luck, but starting with our rehearsal about 3 weeks ago, this shit keeps getting more and more fun. We sang "Zippidy Doo-Dah" 3 weeks ago and sat on a good ol' barbershop 7th chord in the tag for what seemed like years until we finally ran out of breath, giggling with glee. It happened again at the next rehearsal, 2 weeks later.

Monday night we performed for our chorus at the chapter's guest night. Our bass, Big Dave, was running a bit late, so we went on second, after Singing with Dad, a quartet of 2 fathers and 2 sons from the Macomb chapter who had been singing together and competing forever. I was a bit reticent to follow such an experienced group, but figured this was OUR chapter and some inexperienced rookies, so no big deal.

One of the other chapter quartets had been singing through "Darkness on the Delta" on the break, so that one was off our list. The chorus had been bombarded with our rendition of "Underdog" in the past few weeks, what with the prep for the annual show, and "Rainbow Connection", though a signature song of ours we do well, has been a bit done to death for these guys. We decided on "If The Lord Be Willin'", a chorus song we do quite well, and our Fall contest ballad, "I'll Be Seeing You", which we haven't touched much on lately.

WOW! It must have been the comfort of being in a familiar setting and the near bathroom-style acoustics of the church basement the chorus rehearses in, but we RAAAAANG like never before! I had one of the guys in the chorus record it for me, and after several plays, I'm still amazed:

"I'll Be Seeing You"


"If The Lord Be Willin'"

And for those of you more interested in kitsch or for some morbid reason want see how white my legs can look in mid-winter, here's our performance of "Underdog" at the Detroit-Oakland chapter's annual show a few weeks ago. Please, no comments on the bad pompadour wig - I should have just sprayed my hair black...

"Underdog!"

Special thanks to Paul F. Perry, bass and arranger of The Blanks (from the TV show Scrubs) for the arrangement. Heck of a guy, whom I now owe a few beers. I wish I was that clever at arranging!

Now, the trick is to come up with the funds to get us all to contest this April. Registration is covered by some money for singing Valentines we helped Today's Special with, but gas, food, and lodging for the 3/4 of us in the quartet who are broke is another story. Gotta try and come up with about $350 or so for the 3 of us in the next 3 weeks.

...Time to start casing liquor stores and pricing ski masks.

Even Keel, But Not Improving Yet...

(From January 25th 2008)

HEY! Been a while! How the hell ya been?...GREAT to hear!

Now, shut up. I'm trying to type...

Seems that, unlike the housing market, my situation has bottomed out for now. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but not exactly hunky-dory, either. It just means that the piles of shit waiting in queue for the fan are each taking their turn. This week it was an unprecedented hangover, Liam being suspended from school (again), and the power getting shut off for non-payment.

Sunday night I stayed up a bit too late, drinking whiskey. Lately I've been trying whiskey, with mixed results. (my God, was that a pun?) I'm not usually much for hard liquor. I'm more of a beer-an-hour kind of guy. Given the chaotic nature of my life lately and the propensity for Murphy's Law to profile me, the timing of my experimentation with the Devil Water may have something to do with self-medicating. Well, lesson learned. Woke up on Monday still a bit buzzed and feeling like a pile of roasted shit, which has NEVER happened to me, to my recollection. I don't often drink to excess and usually confine myself to mild cocktails or beer. I tried to compose myself for work, but an hour into my shift, I realized it was just too much. I went home, intending on an hour's nap, which somehow turned into 3 1/2 hours.

I'm an hourly employee at Ye Olde Tuba Store, so 3.5 hours means a big hit to the ol' paycheck I couldn't afford. My only solace was that on Wednesday, I'd be driving one of the company vans to Indiana to pick up a mess of tuba cases. 4 hours minimum on the road each way meant a bit more time on the card, so hopefully I'd recover most of it, but it meant I blew my only chance at overtime in the past 5 years or so.

Monday night we get a call from Leigh, who's pipes had apparently burst in the cold. She may need some help to get the situation under control, and at least need to borrow our shower. Being our best friend and owing her a MILLION times over for rescuing us on Christmas Eve, I stayed home from chorus rehearsal to be available to either run to the hardware store for parts, watch the kids, or whatever else may need to be done to help our dear friend. We ended up not being needed for anything that night and couldn't get a hold of her to find that out until late, as she was out getting parts with her much-handier-than-I brother. I was a bit irked at missing chorus, but she was in mid-crisis and had MUCH bigger things to worry about! I was just glad she was able to get things under control. Her water's turned off until the final repairs can be done, so she's been borrowing our shower for the past few days. Fine with us! Just gives us a chance to see her all the more! :)

Tuesday, I get a call from Liam's school asking me to pick him up. That's NEVER a good thing. As I have no car, they would have to wait for Sonya to get him, while I sat and stewed at work over his behavior as of late. Apparently, he threw another fit for something wholly unimportant like his place in line, lashed out a bit, and was suspended for the remainder of the week. A bit of an overreaction by the school, in my opinion, to what was apparently him defying the teacher's order to miss music class for disobeying her and then pushing a chair in anger, resulting in it falling down the risers of the music room.

I'm VERY unimpressed with the school's increasing tendency to simply remove Liam when he acts out, rather than try some sort of in-house discipline like an in-house suspension or recess detention. This suspension basically reinforces the idea that if he doesn't like something at school, if he acts out, he gets several days off. This time, however, his time at home was much less pleasant. He's grounded to his room for the duration with no TV or computer, and permission to leave only for bathroom breaks, getting ready for bed, and chores. You take away the kid's TV and computer privileges and it hits home a lot more. Sonya's been printing out extra worksheets and assignments for him to do in his more idle time, as well. This suspension is NOT just time-off, and he's duly disappointed with it. It does frustrate me, though, that I'm not available more to help enforce it.

Wednesday, I'm picked up by the salesman to hit the road for Goshen, Indiana. We were to pick up 32 tuba cases and 16 tabletop xylophone cases from the case maker, a bright-eyed, chipper old guy named Delmas. Thankfully, the salesman was in the other van, so the only time I had to relate to him was at the beginning of the trip and when we loaded up the vans in Indiana. The first half of the trip was pleasantly uneventful. I borrowed Liam's MP3 player for the trip (as mine was lost in the Christmas Eve car crash) with a full 1GB of choice classic rock, jazz, funk, neuvo-swing, and 80's tunes, and plugged it into my FM transmitter. 4 hours of me, my music, and the road - ahh, bliss.

We get to Goshen and start to load when I get a call from the home phone. This is odd, because Sonya usually calls me from her cell. On the line is Liam, calmly relaying to me that the power company had shut off the juice and mom was really upset and on her cell, screaming at the power company. Apparently, we had somehow neglected to pay them since July, which I find rather hard to believe. I talk to Sonya and let her vent about the absolute jerk of a tech who came to shut us off and the runaround she got on the phone from the power company. I talk to Liam and thank him for being so calm and cooperative during this crisis (in a family crisis he keeps his cool - he doesn't get to watch a movie at bed time and he flips - go figure), and then get to loading the van, worrying the whole time about my wife and kids in a cold house. As a father, you can't help but think you've failed your family in a situation like that - especially when you're 4 hours away and can't really do anything about it.

Salesman needs to head to Elkhart for something, so I head back home solo. I get a call from Sonya a bit later. Thankfully, when all was said and done, Detroit Edison put us on a budget plan, waived the shut-off and reconnect fees, and got us turned back on before Sonya got home from picking Courtney up from school. They arrived from school to the sweet music of the furnace, trying desperately to catch up with 4 hours of falling indoor temperatures. Whew! I arrive home after being stuck for 2 1/2 hours in snowy, rush hour traffic from Ann Arbor to home, drop the van at work, and walk home in the dark and snow.

The nice thing about things "bottoming out" is that it can only get better from here (I hope, knock wood). I've been taking a great deal of comfort in the fact that I know that my family and I will never hit rock bottom. We'll only be as uncomfortable as my pride makes us. I've received a lot of offers to help in various ways from family and friends lately. While many offers I've declined (or at least gently discouraged), the offers in themselves truly warmed my heart, once again proving my mantra, "With true friends, you will NEVER hit rock bottom". I have so many good friends ready and willing to help my family and me at the drop of a hat, and rest assured, I'd do the same for any of them (you).

A HUGE thanks go out to Rachael Levy, Leigh McLaughlin, Barb Bertolini, Diana Schnuth, and especially Sonya's and my parents and siblings for all the help you've offered over the past few weeks!

While I always encourage anyone and everyone to comment on my blogs, please refrain from specific advice on this one. No "You shoulda done this...", please. I just needed to vent a bit, and give some background to my previous, enigmatic blog.

Well, it's gettin' late. Gotta get home to be ready to be picked-up by my co-worker for another full day of working both jobs.

Coming up next: Paul Wins the LOTTERY!!!

(I figure if I put that in print, maybe my chances for it will improve)

My Wife, the HEROINE!

Okay, ya know all that crap I had happen with the bank a few weeks ago, where they charged me $280 in fees over the course of a weekend? Well, crisis averted, thanks to the phoenomenal negotiating skills of...

(trumpet fanfare)

SUPER WIFE!!!

After two failed attempts by both of us to get the situation dealt with on the branch level, Sonya called up the Vice President of Customer Relations (or some such title) and got her to refund EVERY PENNY OF IT! We may yet have a Christmas!

God, I love this woman!

Insanity is just a stubbed toe away…

This week has been one of the most mentally stressful I can remember. It seems that everything has been piling up and crashing down at all at once. Nothing that has turned me into an emotional wreck, mind you. No major tragedies or things that have made me profoundly sad, just a pile of logistical nightmares that I've had to juggle that have had me on the brink of "postal".

First and foremost stresser – finances:

This always has me stressed when I think about it too much, but this week in particular. I use my debit card for everything. I almost NEVER carry cash anymore. I knew my account was getting a bit low, but I figured there was no need to panic until my card came back "declined" somewhere. I asked Sonya to stop by my work and pick up my check and deposit it for me on Friday, as I was heading to Monroe for the day and wouldn't be available. She didn't have time. Meanwhile, I used my card for necessities like lunch and gas, with no problems and no hint anything was wrong.

It seems, despite having turned this feature off SEVERAL times over the years, my bank has been extending me a "courtesy". My bank decided to spare me the "embarrassment" of having my card declined, so they continued to pay my charges – to the tune of a $5 per transfer from my saving when the checking went to zero and $21 service fee per transaction when the savings was exhausted. Yea. Thanks SO much for saving me the embarrassment and just CHARGING ME $280 OVER 3 DAYS WHILE THE BANK WAS CLOSED!!!

I go to the bank on Saturday to deposit my miniscule Blockbuster check (since my REAL paycheck from Custom Music was sitting locked up at the store for the weekend) and notice the big, fat minus after my balance even AFTER the deposit. I freak out a bit but figure we can survive the weekend and fix it Monday. Now, I'm all for honoring our veterans, but Bank Holidays fucking piss me off. Why is it the REST of the world keeps working and moving, but banks and federal services get the fucking day off!!!??? So, we have to survive on nothing till Tuesday.

Next stresser – work:

The reason I was in Monroe on Friday was to try my hand at a new job. My supervisor at Custom Music (the one I actually LIKE), Kevin, is starting a distributorship for a new line of band instruments. Good, quality stuff at reasonable prices, but he needs salesmen who can actually SELL to the retailers. I went down to his offices to make some cold calls and see if I couldn't set up a few meetings with some retailers in Ohio and get a few orders. I did pretty damned well, too. Set up 5 meetings my first day and planned 2 road trips to show samples. I was looking forward to this job perhaps slowly replacing my income at Custom Music. Not in any short timeframe, mind you, and I had no plans to just up and leave a steady income for the touch-and-go nature of commission. There was the opportunity for some extra Holiday cash though, selling at least the samples to the stores I visited while they test them out.

I get to work on Monday and the dipshit troll of an owner, Fred, comes in all fire and brimstone, yelling things about company loyalty and how Kevin is selling me nothing but empty promises. Never mind that Kevin isn't selling ANYTHING in direct competition to Fred, but Fred doesn't want me working for him. He gives me an ultimatum that if I work for Kevin, I don't work for Custom Music, giving up the primary source on income for my family.

I wanted to pummel the man with a tuba mouthpiece right then and there. I finally am given an opportunity to use my skills (sales) in a medium I know and understand (band instruments), and this megalomaniacal motherfucker tells me I can't. I can't just quit and go to the sales job because sales don't show big money until you build a client base. With bills piled high as the Great Wall and Christmas looming, that's way too many eggs in one basket.

ANOTHER stresser – family:

My mother has been struggling with her weight for years and is by all possible definitions, morbidly obese. She had a bout with congestive heart failure several years ago, but seemed to learn a lesson from it and was on the mend. She was losing weight for a time (or at least not GAINING weight), and was regaining some mobility.

Recently, however, she has been on a steady downward spiral of inactivity and overeating. She's gotten good at hiding it, but my sister is a bloodhound about it and busted her. Apparently, she called a neighbor to ask her to pick some of her diabetic supplies up from the drug store while my grandfather was in rehab, recovering from surgery. She then asked said neighbor to pick up 3 bags of Halloween candy, under the auspices that her grandchildren were coming over and she wanted to give them something for a belated Trick-or-Treat.

She only got one giant bag of candy, but ate the WHOLE BAG in one night. She also managed to eat about 6 servings of vegetable beef soup – also in one night.

Last night My sister and I staged an intervention, explaining to her exactly how all of this makes us feel and how it affects the rest of the family. I read her the riot act about using MY KIDS in a LIE to a well-intentioned neighbor, so she can defy her doctor, father, and all common sense and gorge herself on candy. I was absolutely livid. Promises were made, but more importantly, action plans were implemented where my sister and I can keep on her. Here's hoping.

The DE-stresser - quartet:

Originally, I had accidentally booked one of my road trips for the new sales job on the day of a quartet gig (serves me right for not using my planner). This had me a bit panicked at first, but then I got an e-mail from our bass that he couldn't make the gig anyway. Okay, so I have to cancel the gig, but at least I didn't have to call my clients to reschedule. I call the gal we booked with and she manages to reschedule the gig for a mutually workable time. Cool! We still get the gig an subsequent money!

Then I get forwarded an email for another gig…then another…then a phone call for another. In the span of four hours we went from having to cancel our only gig to suddenly having FOUR! At $65 a pop for each of us, suddenly the extra Christmas money was seeming a bit easier to come by.

Things continue to pile up, but some of the pieces are beginning to fall into place. I'm off to the bank to yell at them and get those service fees refunded and the "courtesy" feature disabled on our cards. I'll continue to play Tetris with the pieces of my life and attempt to stack all these pieces of my crazy life neatly, so, hopefully, I won't get overwhelmed by it all and can enjoy the Holidays this year.

Yea…and Fred Phelps might join the cast of Rent…

Coming up next: The Halloween Blog – FINALLY!