WHAT HAVE I BECOME?

I get up every morning and I get to work on time. We get projects...80 hours here, 24 hours there. We do the work, and in between I am learning a trade. I am learning to be an electrician. There have been fundamental changes in my life since I left the psychic wars, and even more since I joined the ranks of the local 520 of the IBEW. For so many years I was in the business of twisting ( or is it untwisting? ) minds, helping people to relearn what it was to be a "productive" member of "society". So much for that, right? Even at Hines Pool there was a human aspect to it eerily connected to my former craft. I was still dealing with people, and a lot of them were batshit crazy, my employer included. But the rules and the terrain had changed. The reasons for being nice had changed and I no longer had the benefit of a security room I could throw offenders in and lock the door until they agreed to cooperate with me, the living embodiment of "normal" whether they liked it or not. It was still give and take, but it was how much shit they were willing to take and still give us the money...a different kind of business entirely from my days as a social worker, but not really. It was still about money...large sums of money. Parents paid us to make their children right. The transition was difficult, but I was finally able to equate a kid who insisted on cutting herself with a polaris cleaner that insisted on cleaning the same spot of a pool bottom despite how many times I emptied the bag and cleaned out the screen. There's a kind of zen mentality to working with kids and there's one for making that polaris cleaner clean the whole pool. And once you get it down, everyones happy. The kid behaves and the pool is clean. I might not be explaining this very well, so let me clarify it by borrowing from my new trade...This shit doesn't work right, make it right.
And so it seems I am destined to make shit work right. I was very good at untwisting minds, until my own mind got so twisted up from doing it thet I couldn't do it anymore. I was pretty good at the pool nigga thing and especially good at the retail end of it. It was a balancing act, that but for the lack of balance of the owner, I could have danced down that fence to retirement. But I was derailed. And now I find myself in middle age learning a new craft...this shit doesn't work right, make it right. And that's what I try to do. And if you think about it, that's what I've been doing all along.
So I guess I have become myself....again.
Reinvention is redundant if you think about it.

On a lighter, less reflective note...We got a call from our friend Special K last night. It was really cool to connect a voice to someone we've been "bloggin' it" with for almost 2 years. That's right...in a couple of weeks, depthmarker turns 2 years old. Dammit! Anyway, she called late so I had a buzz , I was drunk, ok, I was fucking hammered and in bed when my phone rang and leapt out of bed to answer it. Back up...I forgot to mention that we had exchanged emails earlier regarding a call and I sent my cell #. I thought it might be her and I was right. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I recall a friendly conversation and some slurring on my part. I think I may have asked her to review our CD...several times, cause I'm stupid like that after more than a few screwdrivers.I told a story of armadillo hunting as a child...well, not hunting as much as chasing and pulling. It was cool. And that voice...not at all what I expected, not that I expected anything, but it was a Joplin-like voice...and not Scott.Anyhoo...I'll be looking forward to our next chat...but this time more with the chat and less with the vodka.