Insomniacs Do It Better

Recently, I accepted a position at a Pneumatic distributor in the Valley. I have a nice corner office over looking a parking lot filled with flowering plum and pear trees. When the wind blows it almost looks like snow drifting past my window. Across the street from our building is the local municipal airport. This might sound pretty annoying, but it's really nice to take a moment during the day....look out the window and watch a little airplane take off on beams of sunlight. It's very inspiring. I have however, developed a great disdain of helicopters.

I work with a very unique group of people. When I say people, I mean men. I’m the only woman in our office. We have two Engineers, one a few years older than I who seems brilliant at his job and gets along well with everyone from his boss to the president of our company to the guys working in shipping. He’s a bit shy, but after running into each other half a dozen times during our lunch hour, we’ve become friendly. His boss, our Engineering Manager is an older gentleman who reminds me of Santa Claus, except he’s not very jolly. Our EM is a quiet man who has a way of making you feel as if you’re not smart enough to walk in the same hallway. He and I have been working pretty close together lately and I’ve come to admire him. The other day he asked me to compose a letter to our suppliers and I was excited about the task. Then I realized that no matter what I wrote, no matter how much time I poured my heart and soul into a letter about our Quality Management System, it was going to turn in to complete and utter crap. But I pulled myself up by my boot laces and started writing. Later that day, Santa walks into my office and says "that letter you wrote….very nicely done."

I was on cloud nine!

Our production/warehouse/shipping crew is made up of a handful of crazy kats! In no particular order I think of them as; Ziggy, Eminem, Elmer Fudd, Rasputin, and Steve Martin when he did the "Wild and Crazy guy…" bit. Their boss has to be the worlds 2nd biggest brown noser. Quite a collection, aren’t they?

Our inside sales staff is made up of a good ol’ boy, a semi-retired golf-addict, a guy that reminds me of DMX, and one of the more pompous men to ever draw breath. They are supervised by the worlds biggest, members only jacket wearing, small town, hick -boy, Californian, brown noser. I work very closely with this guy, we do get along. But had I met him in high school, I would have beaten him up and took his lunch money.

We all work under our President, who jokingly pokes fun at all of us. This man has the most brilliant business mind…he’s so full of ideas and ways to constantly improve the way we do business. He has a respect for family, and allows a flexibility that makes the 98% of his employees with children very greatful!

Hard as it may be to believe, those were all compliments. Now I’m getting to the heart of the matter.

There are two bathrooms in our office. Now I don’t mind sharing. I’m outnumbered 15 to 1. But I’ve just about had it with the little drops of "Gosh I wish it was water" surrounding the toilet.

…..there isn’t a single man in that office under 25. They should know better.

Last December, Brian and I took a trip to Castle Rock, WA and made a stop for lunch in the tiny town of Woodland. We came across this list in a local paper and I saved a copy meaning to post it here. I put the paper on my desk, meaning to get to it after the holiday, and then Christmas cards piled up, soccer registration forms, PTA meeting announcements...

You might be from Washington if….

1. You know the state flower (mildew).
2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.
3. You use the statement "sun break" and know what it means.
4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.
5. You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.
7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" signal.
8. You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it’s not a real mountain.
9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Vento’s.
10. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye.
11. You know how to pronounce, Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon and Willamette.
12. You consider swimming an indoor sport.
13. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, while only working 8 hour days.
14. You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.
15. You are not fazed by "Today’s forecast: showers followed by rain," and "Tomorrows forecast: rain followed by showers."
16. You cannot wait for a day with "showers and sun breaks."
17. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.
18. You can point to at least two volcanoes, even with cloud cover.
19. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear hiking boots and a parka.
20. You switch to sandals when the temperature gets above 60, but keep your socks on.
21. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.
22. You think people who own umbrellas are wimps or tourists.
23. You knew immediately that Frasiers’ view was fake!
24. You measure distance in hours.
25. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to use them.
26. You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.
27. You know the seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Raining, Road Construction, and Deer & Elk season.
28. You go to the coast (not to the shore or beach) to watch the storms (not to tan).

With the passing of Papa Mike, I’m moved to reflect on my own mortality. It’s strange, watching someone who was a second father to me die.

My parents will never receive a mother or father of the year award, but they deserve credit for not killing me as a newborn, preventing me from falling down the stairs as a toddler and keeping me from rolling any cars as a reckless teenager.

But we all have those times when we need a trusted adult to talk to and mom and dad are just a little to "square" for the job. That was my Papa Mike.

Papa Mike was my best friends father (see any journal entry where Jamie is mentioned!). He was the same age as my dad, had a similar job and a similar lifestyle. But for some reason, he was cooler than my dad….probably because he wasn’t my dad! I could talk to him about sex, drugs, alcohol…anything under the sun. I can’t say that he ever gave advice that stuck with me, but he did listen. And sometimes, a good listener is all we really need. Those afternoons sitting outside smoking a cigarette with Papa Mike meant a lot to me. He had the notion that if he gave advice, you weren’t likely to heed it anyway, so why not let you just figure it out for yourself?

While I was upset at his passing, I didn’t start crying until Friday night. At the service on Saturday, I completely lost it. When Brian and I arrived, Stairway to Heaven was playing overhead. It was the most appropriate song they could have played. We sat down and the tears started to flow. I listened to friends of his I’d never heard of, friends I’d never met and his youngest daughter speak about his life and what he meant to them. I found particular humor in Shelby’s sentiment that her father and his friends had made her who she was today. I looked through tears around the room and saw hard working men and women, most looking like the guys you see in biker bars….. and thought to myself….these guys made you into the femme lesbian that you are today? I think if Papa Mike had been inside my head and heard that, he would have laughed along with me.

(No offense to Shelby, I truly do think of her as a little sister…pain in the ass sometimes, but it doesn’t make me love her any less).

I plan to go visit the gravesite he shares with the wife that passed many years ago. I want to tell them both that I love their daughters and will do everything in my power to protect them. Thank them for the precious gift they have given me. As an adult, I can now truly appreciate how wonderful both of these women are. But from my own agenda, I want to make sure Papa Mike knows how important he was to me. I feel guilty for not being able to show my feelings, but I’m sure that over the last 15 years, he had me figured out well enough to know.

"Gonna let it rock/Let it roll/Let the Bible Belt come and/Save my soul/Hold on to sixteen as long as you can/Changes come around real soon/Make us women and men"

--JCM

I was going to start off with "A little ditty ..." but that’s been done, so I’ll have to come up with something of my own. This may not be the least bit entertaining or vaguely interesting to most of you, so go ahead and skip this entry.

Jeremy and Denise (clever hunh!) grew up in the typical suburb of the typical major city. Two friends from different backgrounds that found treasured camaraderie in one and other. Anytown Middle School was home to a cornucopia of students from various socio-economic levels. Within Denise’s group of friends, there were daughters of 6 figure salary Boeing engineers (back when Boeing was in this town, but that’s another story) to less than 30K per year mechanics. Some of them lived in 3 story, two car garage homes in nice neighborhoods while others lived in apartments and were lucky to have carports. Denise and her friends were blind to money, connections and race. They were friends for all of the right reasons – they truly enjoyed spending time with each other.

Jeremy and Denise met in this best of situations for young people. With so many differences between them, had they come of age anywhere other than where they were, chances are they wouldn’t have become close. Neither of them could have imagined that theirs would turn into a friendship to last a lifetime.

When you’re growing up in your parents’ home, you are voiceless in the decision making. Denise was unable to stop the decision made by her parents to leave Anytown USA for a big city to the north. It hurt Denise to leave her friends, Jeremy in particular.

Now when a story like this unfolds for most teenagers, they will have a tearful goodbye and promises to write letters often and take long bus rides for weekend visits. This wasn’t the case with Denise & Jeremy.

Their goodbye was as casual as the hello you give to the stranger you meet eyes with on the street. It was almost as if they knew it wasn’t really "goodbye" but rather "see you later."

High School came and the awkwardness of dawning adulthood. Learning to drive, dating, after school activities and football games on Friday nights. Denise and Jeremy, now miles apart did their best to keep in touch, but inevitably failed. Five years later, they are raising families of their own, flipping through pages in a yearbook when they catch a glimpse of a picture that takes them back to the memory of each other. Suddenly, they are possessed by a frantic need to find each other. By this time they have moved numerous times, married, divorced and left a most scattered of trails to follow. For whatever reason the Fates step in and offer some help. A week later these two are reunited on an airport gate (back when you could meet someone at a gate….yet another story) and share an embrace that says "My, I have missed you" and "Why did you go so far away" and a thousand other things they wish they could say, but cannot find the words.

Countless cups of coffee and bottles of beer later, Denise & Jeremy are saying goodbye once again. No matter what they have uncovered during their visit, they cannot abandon the lives they have back home. Two hearts are broken as they embrace and share a tearful good-bye.

The tides of change wash over them again and half a dozen years pass before they see each other. This time they face all of the promises they made on the last visit, and the realization that those promises have been broken. Children have been born and families created. The dreams of two middle school kids have been replaced by the play dates and after school activities of the next generation. Tearful good-byes once more, and a new promise. Continue being the best friends they possibly can.

Everyone finds himself or herself peeking over the fence and wondering what life is like on the other side. Happiness comes from a combination of knowing you’ve made the right decisions and hard work.

I’ve been neglecting my journal for a while. Not for any reason in particular, other than lack of inspiration.

Well boy am I inspired tonight!

I just completed a lovely little composition to my "sister-in-law" for lack of a better term that made my blood boil. I was enraged. There was smoke coming from the keyboard and when I had completed my masterpiece, I was spent.

I wont share it with you here….too many extremely gory details of a personal nature other than my own. I would however, like to share my title for this chef d'oeuvre:

The long and short of the situation is that my best friend had a child with my brother. The woman he is living with is helping raise my niece…..and doing a horrific job. I couldn’t stand by any longer without saying something. So I did. I was nasty, mean, but brutally honest. Here’s to hoping it helps.

That said, the reason I’m really writing tonight is to touch on a very sensitive subject near and dear to my heart. I love the way my ex boyfriend writes. I’ve long been a fan of his journal and while he’s been quiet lately, my breeze by tonight turned up quite the unexpected.

He wrote about a memory of our relationship that had me in tears. No joking or over-exaggerating. I cried. I wanted to pick up the phone and call him, tell him that it was the sweetest thing I’d ever read and the last thing I’d expect to find him inspired to write about. It was the hardest combination of emotions. I wanted to tell him it was beautiful and that I’m running out to buy the CD he mentioned tonight. But then I remembered my boyfriend, my son and the life that I’ve become a part of since my ex and I broke up. I thought about how following the path I was considering, while innocent and of the best intentions, would no doubt blow up in my face.

So I’m writing these feeling down in my own journal. Hoping he’ll read it, smile and know that I am very touched and proud to have known him. I truly enjoyed our relationship and consider it one of the highlights of my 26 years.