The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Jack Steiner

Fear Of The Unknown

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They say part of how you master your fear is to name and identify it and this will cause it to lose some power.

Well I named my fear Go Fuck Yourself and am not sure if it took the edge off of GFY because it still feels pretty damn real to me.

Not surprised to say it because I can’t self-diagnose this with the sort of accuracy I would like to and given I am not seeing the doc for a couple of weeks I’ll have to live with the discomfort of not knowing.

Cuz what is going on with me may be normal and something that is easily treated but it also might not be that. Might be bigger and more complex and that uncertainty is what is eating away at me.

Been pretty good at managing it all for quite some time now but the time to do that is past which is why I am going to see the doc.

Better to find out what I am really dealing with and take away the power of the mystery, take away the fear of the unknown.

It might be horrible and it might be nothing but bad news but then again it might not be anything close to that extreme.

Could fall between the polarities and the nagging sense of what if won’t be something that wakes me up because I’ll know.

Dragged my feet long enough and now I am going to get answers.

Kind of funny to think about how I would have told people not to do what I have been doing and that it is better to suck it up and get answers than to bury their head in the sand.

Call it do as I say and not as I do.

Anyhoo, I am taking action so we’ll find out if the fear of the unknown deserves the credit I have given it or if I can evict it from my head.

Time will tell.

A Simple Request

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I am less than a million bucks short of an extra million which is my silly way of saying I am no where close to having a million bucks, let alone extra.

Don’t mistake that as me saying I am poor because I far from it and in a better position than I have been in a decade with prospects to significantly improve upon that.

But the past is never far enough away for me to forget where I was and how hard I fought to climb out of it in spite of others who tried to pull me back into the pit.

It is part of why I am exhausted because the endless battles can take a toll upon a fellow who is almost middle-aged.

Anyhoo, I have a simple request for the people who say they want my business–follow through on your promises.

You can probably apply that to other people in my life too. Don’t promise what you aren’t willing to give because I will hold you to it.

I am very hard to pin down because I don’t make promises easily, but if I do there is a pretty good chance I will turn the earth upside down trying to fulfill them.

Doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons or situations in which such things change because there are, but understand I will hold you accountable.

Which is no different than how I approach things because I hold me accountable.

It is a simple request, don’t overpromise and you won’t get a series of emails/phone calls when you fall short because I am that guy.


You Aggravated Me

I can neither confirm nor deny having thrown one of the 1,982,928 tumblers across the room when someone cut me off.

If you aren’t interested in hearing what I have to say you ought not to engage in conversation with me nor be concerned with my silence.

“You aggravated me” is as kind an expression as I have for explaining why I finally lost it. Doesn’t happen often, you really have to make an effort to get me there, but it is possible to do.

And once you do, well I don’t unwind quite so fast. Wish I did.

Should I Be Embarrassed?

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Back to follow up on Ten Years And Nine Months but unsure of whether to write about an uncomfortable situation.

Uncertain about whether it will bring clarity or irritation so I’ll tap upon the keyboard for a moment or two and see what comes of it.

Something happened which in theory I should have known was coming but knew nothing about and was caught off guard and am waiting to see how someone at a different level takes it.

In theory it’s a pretty good thing that I stumbled into through dumb luck and that might be how it is received and understood.

But it could be considered a misstep, this lack of awareness and it might reflect poorly.

I don’t think it should or it will because I have spoken about this in the past and laid out the groundwork that should protect me.

But should doesn’t mean will and I have mixed emotions and find this sort of unsettling.

I’ll roll with it and not show my card unless I have to, but the timing here is suspect in some ways so I am going to have to just roll with it and see what happens.

That’s what bothers me the most.


Impatient

It is hard to wait and see. Hard to accept I can’t do anything to impact this before tomorrow but that is the smart move…waiting.

If it goes as I hope no one will say anything about it and I’ll just be grateful for dumb luck and move on.

But, if they do speak of it in a negative way, well then I will do as I do to adjust and pivot.

That will be accepted or it won’t and I’ll have to live with the consequences. Should they ask I might quote Teddy and reiterate this is how I roll in some areas because I really do.

Better to try and fail than fail to try.

And so it goes.

Ten Years And Nine Months

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Spent a few minutes cleaning up this joint and wasn’t surprised to see there are some closets filled with the equivalent of cyberhoarding.

Dug into a few like the page that links to where I have guest posted and hell if I didn’t discover a half dozen or more dead links.

Yep, the fine people that asked me to share some of this mediocrity on their pages up and left the blogosphere.

Heck, I don’t know if they quit or moved online homes but the blogs are gone and so there is no point in my pointing anyone towards those spots anymore.

So I deleted broken and left some of the others which is how you got your headline because in the course of verifying what is still alive I saw comments that said they were made 561 weeks ago.

Other Places You Can Find Me

If you are curious you can click on the link above and tool on through some of the older stuff that still remains online.

Some of it points to the joint I first hung my hat on when I got into this which reminds me that I ought to go update that spot too so people know where to find me.

Have to ask SQ for her opinion on this because you know she has got one. And it will be fun to give her five details instead of the 25 she’ll want.

And now I am off to do some cleaning up there.

Still Dancing

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Still dancing in that fire and maybe the truth is I always have and the exception is when I haven’t been. Could be wrong, but it feels more right to me.

Maybe SQ knows, there is insight there no one else has for reasons no one needs to question because some things need to be accepted.

What happens in this life isn’t always based upon logic or reason and that becomes more evident to me each passing day.

Got a mix of melancholy and happiness with more emphasis on the latter than the former.

I suspect it is because I feel the end of one thing and the start of something new. Transitions are hard sometimes, but they are necessary.

And they aren’t necessarily bad things.

Heck, many times they are the good things, the harbinger of the better times.

Might seem strange to say it, but it works for me and that is good enough.

I feel the change coming and recognize the baby I thought I would see you one more time isn’t fire and rain but anticipation of a new spring.

A Letter To SQ

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When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old
April, come she will– Simon & Garfunkel
I told SQ that some things happen for reasons we cannot explain nor rationalize. Said the poets were right when they said truth is stranger than fiction and that song lyrics hold fragments of truth, but not all.
 
Soon we shall see what that means and learn if that which we hear and sense is based upon more than fragments of a time that once was or if that magic carpet ride has lasting magic.
 
It has been a long and winding road filled with more than a little pain and more than a little hope and a whole lot of life. 
 
Some would suggest it is not worth what it took and others would say there was no choice but to take the road not taken and to blaze our own trail.
 
But me I don’t say because I won’t focus on the past and the future is shrouded in mist and there is no purpose in trying to see what remains hidden.
 
Live in the present and stay in the moment because I know what will happen now and soon enough what the future holds and that is good enough for me.
 
Live in and with the mystery.