Continuing my Argument

In today’s earlier post, I explained that some things have happened that I am enduring.  There are some things that I’m not going to cover.  I’m willing to just cut the items out, that happened over twenty years ago.  I won’t be discussing the issues like, the Federal Reserve, black lives matter (law abiding denial club), or things that are just out of my control.

So let me rewind to 2005.  I was dating a wonderful woman at the time and I was being toxic to our relationship.  I didn’t realize it, but the things that I had surrounded myself, with were things that distanced us more than what was needed.  I don’t ever usually pass up the chance to have friends that are in the gaming community.  Most of my friends are part and parcel of this. If you were to go through my social media, most of those people are based around the recreational pursuits.

We met through friends that liked to roll dice at the time.  She wasn’t really into it, but our mutual friends were happy that we were continuing to get closer.  Keep in mind, I had just been going through a period where I had studied Law Enforcement, and was getting burned out on the game which seemed to be rigged to favor minority females.  I’m not saying that women who are minorities aren’t suitable for public service–if they are qualified, by all means, wear the uniform.

I started looking at other opportunities.  My life seemed to be narrowing after I hit the age of thirty.  College was out, I was living with mom and dad, my GI Bill was exhausted…shit.

My mindset wasn’t healthy.  I’m trying to have fun, trying to ignore responsibilities.  Decatur, Illinois, was not helping me out.  As much as I wanted to be a cop in the city, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there.  I’m doing everything I can to start looking for a new place to land.  The dream of retiring in the city I was born in, was getting the chrome peeled off.  I continue to death spiral down, getting a job in security and having interests in the opposite direction of where the girlfriend lived.  I didn’t see that I was nuking my own happiness.

I guess I felt at the time, that I deserved better.   I couldn’t tell you why I felt this.  I just knew that I deserved some sort of job that would allow me to have independent thought.   I didn’t want to have someone that I was under their authority.  I don’t know why I was running from a belief system.  I was raised to be better than this.

But instead, I was going from work to home and back again, unhappy in numerous parts of my life.  2005 ended for me the same way that any other day would.  Actually, because it was a holiday, I got chewed out for not trying to take the day off, with the girlfriend.  I left the agriculture plant on the first of January, 2006, with my beeper going off like gangbusters.  I get more work.

At the time, I didn’t have much other choice, than to continue working and try to work as much as I could.  I did what I could, with what time I had–I was the on-call supervisor at the time.  

The local economy was tanking.  ADM was sending more jobs outside of the state, Caterpillar was doing the same.  Friends that I had made a decade before, were leaving the state with those jobs.  One reason why all of this was happening was that the powers-that-be north of I-80 (here we go with geographical bigotry), had hired Barack (current president of the nation) as our senator, in the year of 2004.

Some of you will see bias here, but there wasn’t any true opinion of him yet.  I was working too much to listen, to what he had to say.  He didn’t trip my red flags as of yet.   But the policies he was wanting to put in places; statewide and nationwide , were poisonous to the local economy.  Local democrats pointed at him, and laid part of the stresses that didn’t help late-Illinois Senator, Penny Severns in her final years.  That is a hell of a bombshell, come to think of it.

So I just accused the sitting POTUS of being partially responsible for a senators death.  Let me walk this back to you.  You all are aware that Obama was from Illinois.  But in the late nineties, he was allied with the unions, Committees of Correspondence (Illinois Commies), and everyone’s favorite bunch of rent-a-riot, ACORN.  These people formed what was the New Party.  They concentrated on turning the left-of-center into a more-angry, rabble-rousing bunch than what was usually the Railroad-heavy territory (while I have friends who worked in the rail transit, this group is known extensively for breaking kneecaps).

The New Party started it’s existence in making itself a tax-exempt entity.  Diverting funds from mainstream democrats across the state, it wasn’t long before power-hungry Barack Hussein Obama was involved with it.  Trevor Loudon did some real gumshoe work for us.  It looks like 1996, this was running, with all the chickens had come home to roost.

It was the following year that hometown hero, Penny Severns, really started to have her health deteriorate.  WAND-17  was the local Decatur station, and anytime Misses Severns had a statement or public appearance, they would have a microphone an arms-length away.

She passed in 1998.  Some of my friends talked later, thinking that when she departed, one of the real promises the city had, died with her.  At the time, I was not as politically awake, as I am now.   But having friends close to the situation, their discussions about the poison that swooped down to Macon County from Chicago…I can clearly see how the heartland of the state was so clearly thrown into a crisis-situation.

Argument

When you think you have life figured out, so many things are not going well in your head.  While it pays to be optimistic the majority of the time, you’re lying to yourself when you think that it can continue on indefinitely on a level track.  I have neglected this blog for too long, and when I saw myself slipping, I was content to carry on and not do much of anything while my life started this slow decline while I was living in Midland-Odessa.

So about September of last year, I was laid off at my oilfield job.  We saw this coming, and many of us were already looking for a new place to land.  It was at this time that I saw that no matter where I landed, I would have to work harder than I was already working.  While this sounds like something that can be easily overcome, in practice, it is hard to break habits-good or bad ones.  I was ready for a new challenge.

I’m not going to stand on here and make more excuses than I need to.  I’m trying to look through the oculus of my mind and see where exactly I went wrong, while maintaining a level and sane mind. It’s one thing to archive, it is another to wax nostalgic–blurring the lines is often easy to do.

So I started a new job. It wasn’t the best type of job, nor was it a job that I should have taken.  I say this, after finding out that in separating, I may need legal conflict to resolve the aftermath of it all.  I’m not looking forward to this, but at the time, I just wanted to find a job.  

As I’m typing this, Monday looks like I will be starting paperwork for a new vocation.  One not in trucking, not in oil.  This is a departure from the field that I thought I wanted to stay in.  The stance that I have had to mentally fix myself in, I’m beside myself wondering if this is some odd dream, or nightmare.  Hundreds of good people I know are having to do this, leave great middle-class jobs, temporarily and hope for the best, as the nation seems to implode and try to revert, or retard itself into socialism.  We aren’t willing to settle for less, but as the job market continues to tighten it’s descent into the death spiral, it is harder to see many of the options, that our way of life is so famous for making possible to the Everyman.

An Oilfield Worker’s Viewpoint of Hillary and other thoughts for his first post of 2015…

As last year ended, I thought, like many who are in the energy sector, that life was not getting any better.  I finally hit the second apex of my career.  This wasn’t a bad thing, nor was it unforseen.  I had been trying to learn a lot of things in a short span of time.  I had been altering my mindset to my job to be more beneficial to the company I worked for (as of this moment, I’m three years here and just now hitting a lull thanks to the economy).

Now things have changed, a lot in the fracking side of the well head have closed their doors.  A great deal of buildings in South Texas are shuttered.  A lot of guys like me are without steady work, or even a paycheck.  Thanks, globalists.

I’m still optimistic.  I’m still trying to get on top of the game, nail it down.  I have friends that are tthinking that there is plenty to do and money to make.  Being optimistic about life in general is an edge many fail to cultivate.  Lucky for me, my inner bully gets smashed quite often to it’s chagrin.  I like hearing it scream, my imaginary bully sounds a lot like a lovechild of the Obama family and Shrillary…

By the way, the bitch is back.  I’m not voting for her, nor do I think she needs to draw breath anymore.  How Christian of me, right?  Well, fuck her, and if you want to label me as a hypocrite, fuck you.  She’s travelling cross country in a van right now, probaby having some flashbacks to her college days of being a loser.  She will lose again, JUST LIKE SHE DID BEFORE.  This time, Barack isn’t going to do it.  This time, it could be a quadraplegic monkey of caucasian blood and a smile, and you have a winner.

Mainly because, men with a dick just don’t like Shrillary.  I guess people of taste in general, just don’t approve of her.  I read that the book tour she did wasn’t that successful, nor was the publisher really happy that the pleebs didn’t glom onto it like icing on a danish.  Hmm, maybe if she had a positive Charisma score, she could score something more than angry lesbians and apologist men.

Enough of her, between her and our muslim POTUS, I won’t turn on a television.  Not to watch any broadcasting.  Either of them could look a lot more attractive with six feet of dirt on them.

I still have hope for America.  I do because I live the dream, and it would sound sarcastic for someone who was jaded too much to the ups and downs of the industry.  But I came from literally nothing, because before I got into this, all I had accomplished was basic survival week-to-week.  Living under low wage jobs in an economically depressed area, it did wonders to discover the energy sector, and I promote this to any young kid that thinks college is a waste of paper.  

I promote the industry to anyone who will listen.  You can afford to live outside of debt here.  You can learn discipline and accomplish things here that used to be nationwide two generations ago.  And if America keeps making shitty decisions like Obama, Hillary, W, you have a shrinking potential to reach what you want, because the middle class gets squeezed by global mindsets, stupid practices in multicultural thinking, and general derision to anyone who would want to actually labor for a living.

I’m tired, I can’t swing a mallet like other professionals, but I will help you get this job completed and make our customer happy.  And sometimes we lose sight of that.  In the efforts to be followng the dance moves of a disembodied corporation, we forget that we must make our customers happy if we want a repeat performance.

That dovetails into sales, politics, and friendships; the entire notion where you can’t shit where you eat.  You know what you need to do, in order to have no shame when you look in the mirror.  You go about treating people like they are disposable, or they are only useful while they funnel resources into you, and your name is proceeded by a moan from others nearby.  Why would you want your last name to be synonymous with an adulterous sex act or shrieking like a tranny at the wig shop when your wig isn’t in stock?

Fin

For this year I accomplished…

I know it is a Year-End Update but here we go.

I lost my grandfather two months ago. He was the first grandfather I lost since I’ve been around. I’m still trying to figure out how to trudge through this. Between losing him and finding solid ground again, I’m a little out of sorts, to say the least.

I went back to what I sadly know as my home of origin for a few days. While it was nice to see it again, and I must say that I was hesitant to leave, it was great getting back to Texas.

I’m not as intelligent as I would like to be. I have had a lot of trial and error lessons in life. I’ve had more of those that are financially damning than I would like to admit to. I might speak English and have a Mid-western accent, but there are plenty of Rednecks that are magna cum laude and I am not. I’m not jealous of anyone for the life they lead. I just know I can freely admit my shortcomings.

This being said, I left Illinois years ago, and really, I left it on the best terms possible. Yes, friends and family were bittersweet I was out of their influence, I’d be alone. I would have my cousin to assist me with simple things while I got on my feet.

Exactly that happened. I did get on my feet. I did find a life for me here.

And now a pillar of my foundation from my childhood only exists in my memory. It sounds cliche but I can’t watch an Italian mobster film without getting teary-eyed. It’s not that my immediate family on my father’s side is all suits and ammo, it’s that we had get-togethers that make ice cream socials for hamlets and villages seem quaint by comparison. I really don’t have isolated memories of my grandfather, but more of large swaths of footage with forty people on average.

That sounds like nothing but when you seriously cram those folks into a backyard with a grill, picnic tables, lawn darts, and horseshoe pits, holy shit, I’m happy nobody got waxed on Fite Drive in Decatur. I know my hometown’s ICS does have a few hundred folks in it but I’m thinking that it was spread out and it looked like it was sparse.

So anyway, I get teary-eyed at the Godfather movies.

I also had a week of living like a tourist in San Antonio with my best friend while on vacation. If you’ve never had a friend who was like a sibling and you spent a lot of time together, you are missing what many young adults feel while in the military. I don’t think I could have done that week with many other folks in the history of man. I kept comparing it to when I brought a woman down from Illinois for an earlier vacation in 2014… Unless she’s exclusive to me and I’m partially responsible for her, I’m never doing that again.

Finally, work is seriously looking great. Not that I’m a good worker or a dedicated soul. I’m a lazy person by no stretch of the imagination. I will help you on physical labor or rouse others to get something moved, but let me say that I kinda like being in heart-attack country. If I was a fit person at 160 lbs, I would summon more responsibility and really, we have twenty year olds that orgasm when they swing a ten-pound malllet.

But work is fantastic. They know they can give me an assignment and when it’s updated later, it’s complete. Not in a stage of waiting, not in a stage of non-completion. And it’s nice to be decent enough at a vocation that I know within my specialization that the bosses needs will be met.

As the year closes, I’m getting my new home furnished in 2015. I’m setting up a vacation spot for my parents, so they don’t have to worry about anything. Just get here. Just arrive in San Antonio safely. I got this.

It’s New Years Eve. I’m listening to John Pinette’s I’m Starving, and a part of my soul is happy he made it to Heaven before me. I know he will scope out the best places to eat in the Ever After. Out of all the talent that left us this year, I will miss him the most.

Outside, I’m looking at sheets of ice on outdoor horizontal surfaces outside. I’m gonna finish my third book in 2015. It’s gonna be fun. 2014 was a character test, and it is over.

Wherever you are, I will see you soon.

Dominus Vobiscus

Mountains and Valleys

As I write this, I can say that I’m overwhelmed with the response from friends, both from life, and virtual, from other corners of the world. The death of my grand father hit me squarely, not in the aspect that I will not be seeing him on return trips into my home state. No, hearing the profound sadness in my father’s voice over the last few months, is what affected me the most.

I’m not usually someone who gets initially hit by any emotional high or low, I’m thinking more or less, I’m just being weathered to many things as my life has itself, encountered a paradime shift. Someone I know or have befriended through work (second family) has a child, or is going through a divorce, or some traumatic thing. I learned to listen better, and to at least a legitimate effort to give. Usually I just listen.

But hearing my father’s voice, who is usually a level voice of reason, now stricken with grief, it gives me a wealth of thoughts I was not ready for. I’m in my late 30’s and I’m just now losing the first of the people I grew up with as my grandparents (granted, my grandfather on my mother’s side was gone before I was born). I can only literally imagine, my father, had the same exact thoughts of his father once he hit his 30’s. “Oh, my dad was so smart! He told me of this so many years ago, and I didn’t listen to him! At least I remembered that he schooled me on this.”

Ad infinitum. My parents don’t wear capes but they were wonderful role models for a small-town boy growing up. I didn’t realize it for many years, but I idolize my dad.

I can only imagine he did the same for his father. And my dad, ever a wellspring of love and understanding, was there for him daily, with his sister, taking care of their father. He endured a lot of conflicting thoughts at the home, being asked by his dad to ‘take him home.’ And not being able to bring him to reason some times that, that just wasn’t possible anymore. This retirement village, this place, this is your home, now.

I need to have a break, or some sort of mental pause here, while I stretch and let the tears flow, so you can feel like it is the true forty seconds before I resume this posting.

I started this job and suddenly my time took on a new definition. A new love for those moments of solitude or quiet. First thing I do when I suddenly am not required by work to work, is to do a mental checklist. My parents receive a call from me many times through the week now, where before, it wasn’t so. “Have you called mom or dad today? It’s four in the morning, probably wait until later.”

I don’t know if it was a high-school friend’s passing that hammered it home to me, that the landscape of home was changing more rapidly than I would be comfortable with. Soon, it was the friendly insurance salesman that had helped my family for over twenty years. Then I started taking score of “who is left?”

People that I assumed would always be there in my little ‘burb of four hundred souls, suddenly had been gone for ten years. They had moved on to a comfortable retirement home or had strokes. They were wheeled out of their homes under sheets by volunteer paramedics, or they passed in a hospital when their body could not endure another fortnight. While I and many others, self-absorbed in adulthood, casually went about business.

I probably will not encounter a smell like my grandmother’s kitchen, ever again. The skillet-fried vegetables (medleys beginning with onions and green peppers) were just a small brick in the foundation of just ‘how a home should smell.’ In the years leading up to my grand parents leaving independent living, her recipes often were varied drastically. Either she had a wild hair-mentality on what we should eat, or worse, she was losing her memory.

These seemingly small things are very large things to my parents. For many years, my grandfather’s home was literally a hundred feet away from my parents. While the thought of “food roulette” probably wasn’t high on the list of upcoming events, the dawn of realization that the same “food roulette” was not going to be present, had to hurt.

Has to hurt.

Damn…

To my friends, again…I thank you, I can’t thank you enough. Your outpouring of love and strength and care, I want to layer this on…it means a lot to my family. If you see my Aunt Celeste, or if you see my father, let them know personally. If you have a moment, pray for them. They were the front line during this emotional LeMans, circling the track many times. They watched a man that was strong and stubborn in convictions, go from around two hundred pounds, and cancer took him to a buck-fifty.

My final memory of my grand father is when he was seated in his kitchen. Smoking a cigarette, unsure about his fool grandson, who was headed to a state far from home. He was sure of the words coming from his mouth, “are you sure you want to leave? Illinois isn’t that bad.”

Probably a statement that I will disagree with him on for many more moons before I put it to bed…

I wish I could give my parents that memory, my aunt, that memory. Let them see him how I remember him. Let them hear him, with that gravelly voice, pretty certain I would return to Illinois, tail tucked between my legs, asking to be home again. He was a strong father figure, I can’t imagine what it would have been like growing up under his roof. But I did, his eldest child put a lot of what was passed down, into practice.

I want to wrap this up, with how I manage to keep this in perspective. My faith allows me to envision a happy reunion, between my uncle and sisters, and my grand father. Typing about it, 1050 miles away from my parent’s driveway, is surreal. I can’t look at this as any other type of situation. I imagine, it’s real to me, as the mahogany desk I type on, that this event, happened minutes after the soul looked down on the weeping members of the family.

It might be construed as hope, or faith, or conviction. But I can not envision anything else being possible to happen. By and large, I have a dogma that requires me to use things like forgiveness. It’s the basis on how I was raised. It’s the cornerstone of my religion. Thus, his soul, would be enjoying the harvest of Heaven as I type this.

Maybe Up There, time passes differently. Maybe it’s only a few seconds between arrivals and hugs. The long seconds on our clocks mean nothing in the after life. But use those minutes well, down here. It’s the most powerful currency, you will ever trade in.

Samuel J. Lombardo
1928-2014
Rest in Peace, Grampa.

New Challenges

So as a note, it’s pretty much common knowledge around work that I’m not the largest fan of life below Interstate-10. Just a perception on how I was raised and how I want to live, how I want my world to look when I wake up, etc. In the last couple of months I’ve been doing interviews and job hunting around the state (because really nothing offers me life like it does here).

Odd how when you’re fed up with the people you work with, how just a few things happen and your perspective changes. I was in Odessa and going for a job interview, kinda like what I already do. It was mainly for logistics of hazardous things and for some odd reason (couldn’t tell you why) I really like that sort of work.

I was looking around at the town and the people and while I generally can’t stand the rural scenery of southern Texas, I have to say that I like it better down there than in Midland or Odessa on holiday. I’m sure if I was making the money I was offered for the job, I might feel different, but here goes.

You get paid a lot of money every two weeks to eat a bowl of shit. You have a cupboard full of spices, from everywhere that taste like anything. But when it comes down to it, you get paid to eat shit. Spiced shit, organic smelling or not, it’s still shit. Shit that if you didn’t have the job, you’d be like, “Woah, I couldn’t be paid enough to eat that shit.” And when you have it, it’s like you married the Bosnian beauty pageant queen from twenty years ago. Sure, you can see she used to be heavenly gorgeous, but she’s a little past that hump now, and if you can assist her getting around, you can proudly look at her old trophies, too.

I originally went to do this interview for a driving job. But as I walked around the location, I felt less and less secure about wanting to be here. The Texas Railroad Commission, who handles everything energy sector hazard spill-wise, would have a field day here. I’m not going to mention who I was interviewing with because this is one of those things that people show up and it looks like the movie, “OUTBREAK.”

Suddenly, I felt like my life working in South Texas wasn’t so bad. My job might not rock the way I want it to, but it wasn’t something of a crapshoot every commute into work. “Do I have a job today, or am I going to a place where they have a fresh chainfall on the door?”

And the more I drove around Odessa, I hit this mental hurdle that every one of the jobs that I applied for is one step away from this. In frack, some guy is using unlabeled jugs of what was Pinesol and some other chemical usually found in a junior-high chemistry set, mixing them like an alchemist from the 1200’s, “Just a little more vodka in this and I think we got ourselves a frack, boy!”

Fifty years ago, we were doing that, with lit cigarettes, over largely flammable chemical vats. This is just one of those things that hit me…I work in a more dangerous-than-usual field.

While I was not happy with things, largely it is something rooted in perspective. I’m happier in urban areas or in areas where I can not feel like I’m the only guy that enjoys a good panini with goat cheese. I’m not so happy in the areas close to the border where my lunch options are the taco factory or ramen.

Thankfully, when I returned to work, I had a discussion with my supervisors. I’m going to be challenged once again, I feel. Which is good. I shouldn’t get complacent or feel stagnant. But it depends on me. I almost have three years in here.

It sounds odd. At the moment I’m wholly content to do this. I know when I have time, I have to finish my third book. That’s my off-time priority. Resettling up north of Houston will happen before the year’s end, it looks like (unless I really spend too much time in Fredericksburg).

Update.

This blog sat in my file for a month while things were fin a state of flux. I’m now working out of Midland and got a substantial raise/promotion. From as far as I can tell, this is a big one. The bowl of shit was replaced with communal hot dogs with mac and cheese and every one of us up here seems to be enjoying the leftovers from the spice cabinet when we were all trying to stomach crow.

Searching for Americana, July’s Poop

I’m Bruce Lombardo and it’s my time again to take a squat at the mental bin. I frack, I sing in the shower, and I look at the spice aisle at the store the same way many of you surf for porn. I’m different than you until I get room temperature. By that time, I won’t care.

Okay. Last year, I made some statements about Islam, Allah, and Mohommed that some took offense to. Mainly people think you shouldn’t swear off one-seventh (so they say) of the worlds population–I say it’s much less.

So if it is one seventh of the world’s population, that’s fine. I hear you bleeding orifices of humanity talk about the Monday-hate all the time. What is so evil about me thinking that one seventh of the world’s population don’t deserve to have their head checked by violent means? Okay, if we converted them with peaceful discoveries (to them) about Christianity, Sikhism, Buddism, Hinduism, I think they would flock to it like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Case in point, fuck the hardcore Moslems. They’re turning what was going productively before Obama took office into a human cesspool, which is where most of my words will end up. They don’t want anything but bloodshed in his name and human sacrifice (which makes me think Planned Parenthood is an outreach program to soften up our numbers). This paragraph pertains to the current situation caused by ISIS in the Middle East.

Todays post isn’t even about human waste. You see how I tied that all together? Today’s post is about compassion!

I have to say that I feel sometimes that I have absolutely zero empathy. Nothing. Zip. Nada. I think that sometime that I’m impervious to a lot of what is going on, just because I have a hard time giving a shit.

The one time I actually get active is politics or law and religion. How’s that for a First Date Buzz Kill? At least for South Texas, it causes a lot of people to have their eyes glaze over. It’s sometimes really cool to watch, because it’s like the FUN MOSQUITO shoves their proboscis in them and instead of having a rollicking good time, the dead fish lay has taken control of the 76″ plasma screen for my attention to soak in.

I thought I had a new friend and somehow we hit this conversation about Illegals coming in the country and she got very pit-bullish on me. I’m sure my Great Grandfather of the Cherokee tribe would agree, coming across the land bridge, there wasn’t any asshole asking for papers.

I hate to break it to you. Here we have laws. And even if you want to show us your passed US Constitution test and you can speak English and pick any other language in the known world, there is a process that MUST BE FOLLOWED. Why can’t we honor the people that did it right, and then go spend our extra money at a casino as a courtesy nod to the American Indians who kept the real estate warm for us?

Never mind about the Ebola in Colorado, or the TB on the border, or whatever. Pelosi is there saying it’s secure and as a chaser Hamas is just a babysitters club (that rapes your babies, or thighs them…). If DHS could stop being a douchebag organization of law enforcement, you might have Border Patrol being reinforced for being able to CONTAIN THE PROBLEM FROTHING AT THE BORDER. I don’t get it.

I guess, if you want to test Obamacare, you have an epidemic hit the nation and see if the new healthcare can hold up to the enemy at the gates. I’m speaking literally on this one, or attempting to have a one-sided discussion as most blog posts are. You have the new-fangled health care which should be able to deal with it, I mean, if you saw the new cost versus what people were paying through private care (which covered people better, and most people believe this unless they truly think Sandra Fluke gives a ripping concern about their vagina), then you’d understand that the new program is the New Coke to the Old Private Care, Coke Classic.

I am happily removing those people from my affiliates on my social networking. It feels good to have a duel on Facebook or some other setting and exhaust them completely. If I didn’t think they weren’t worth saving, I wouldn’t talk to them. But some people can’t be saved. Some people were responsible at Nuremberg for actually killing Jews, too.

And when it comes to the situation in Israel, I think that seriously, if you are are anti-semetic, Fuck You. I don’t care if you are Mother Teresa. I don’t care if you are a Guru or some semi-spiritual being. If you don’t like Jews, Hebrew faith, I won’t really shed much of a tear for you. It’s a matter of belief. The same reason why you pray for blessings from government every 1st and 15th every month, is why I love the religion that I do.

Recently, Penelope Cruz and others have said horrible things about Israel just because it is easy to find pictures of dead kids in Gaza. I guess they don’t want my dollar. If you don’t want my money, then don’t hold your tongue when it comes to your hatred for Israel.

I have a lot of love for Israel. For those that don’t, go associate elsewhere, and don’t think I won’t verbally take you down in a conversation. I don’t really care about your opinion if you side with those I feel are their enemies. I pray to see an end to the violence, I just do not see it happening until the people who actively fire bullets at Israel are relocated to their graves.

I don’t mind being a hater. If that’s what I am, then I’m okay with it. After the last year of being primarily concerned with learning the ins and outs of my job, I kinda retreated into my head since then. I came to peace to who I was.

Then my friend died in late May. I found out from her sister, and for two whole days, I didn’t know how she perished. Because I did know her well enough, I thought she self-medicated herself to an early demise. She always had ‘chill-out pills’ at our work when things began to be stressful.

And while I sympathized with her sister profusely, I was really saddened about this for a couple of selfish reasons I don’t need to go into here. Yeah, I had a crush on her and let it be.

But my relief I had, when she had died in a motor accident. I felt like I had this horrible stone had been lifted from my shoulders because I knew that this was something spontaneous and it happened at possibly one of the best times in her life. She just had a baby boy, got remarried, things were looking up as far as they could.

I had a horrible shadow thought that maybe it wasn’t suckville and possibly she was one of the few people who doesn’t panic when things are going great. I wasn’t made aware of these blessings initially. I was just made aware she was gone. And things had remained the same as she had told me a year or so beforehand.

Well, I look like the asshole because I was happy she died in a less spontaneous/more gruesome way. The benefit was one of the children not coming in and finding her.

So I guess I should find some way to not be so apathetic to the needs of others.

…
Yeah. Let me contemplate this.

Have Patience

I hear that phrase way too often. I think in a previous incarnation or life, I was a Formula 1 racer. That guy that hated being considerate in traffic, or in a super market, that was me, years ago. That guy that fumes, “Next time I have to go to Louisiana, I’m taking the long way around Houston!”

Earlier this year, I was in a part of the state that I thought was made just for me. I know, it wasn’t, but my inner narcissist would tell you, indeed, it was. I’m not saying that I adore Crockett, or I love the land around Bryan and College Station, or that Hill Country between San Antonio and DFW isn’t where I can find sanctuary for my inner bonfire of rage. I’m just saying when I need to relax, I often make it to there to chill out and relax.

By relax, I mean, drive there and pretty much, not stop the car. Just zoom around along the main thoroughfares and act like an Italian in his sports car. I guess there are some stereotypes which do make it along the decades. The only thing I’m missing is the hot young blonde Parisian that is supposed to be traveling with me. That or the Schnauzer.

I really enjoy those parts of my new home state. It’s a great little place next to a great little place next to a great little place that makes wonderful pork sandwiches or bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers. It’s the small things in life that make you not want to commit yourself to the actual task of murdering people around you. Although I watched the movie, God Bless America…and I had to say that I have had dreams and fantasies of ripping Kanye West apart like a pit bull against a sheep while Kim watched and stupidly cheered the bloodshed, no matter who was bleeding. When I decide to go, I might be out like Frank.

So I’m enjoying life and everything is sunshine and roses and I shit rainbows and even my old friends from the liberal literary world are accepting me as a leading satirist on the right…

So two months ago, we headed back to Jourdanton and I realized just how much I can’t stand South Texas. Well, we didn’t go far. Kenedy, Karnes City, those places, they aren’t exactly civilization, either. I’m not one for one-horse towns and sadly I keep getting routed to these places that Anthony Bourdain would tell you are hell.

I tried, people, I tried to like some of the restaurants here. I think that I should just get a stack of Marie Calendar dishes for the freezer and be happy we have a half-Wally World here. Finding somewhere to eat that didn’t have ass-quality service, that would be nice. I don’t mean that the waitress has to have gigantic breasts trying to smother us all at the table. I mean she has to check up on us every five to ten minutes to see how we are doing and how quick she wants her tip.

It’s not rocket science.

And I know that the people that are working and living in South Texas, act primarily like poor rich kids, who have never had a challenge a day in their life that they couldn’t buy the solution to the puzzle. I get it. This area is filled with assholes and douchebags. I also read the word, Douchebag, as ‘single father’.

I shouldn’t have to wait longer than five minutes for an ice-cold beer in a mug. Unless I’m at PJ’s and I see their amateur brewing equipment off to the side, I’m not expecting the waitress to know much about beers and why it took her so damn long to return to my table. I expect a lot.

Like the challenge for a woman to wait to be married for the birth of her second child. I ask too much, down here, it seems. It’s like asking for a little more Parm for your nachos, people just look at you like you’re from another planet or something…

For Anyone Who Says They Can’t Find a Job

I’m sitting in the lobby of a hotel. Due to an agreement with work, I can’t really specify where I am and who for. I have a tendency to speak my mind about a variety of subjects that I might or might not know much about. From a corporate standpoint, it’s fine, I guess–if your vocabulary includes Political Correctness or Diversity.

You know exactly how I feel about such things.

So I need my laundry cleaned. It’s usually once a hitch where I can’t hold out any longer and I need to have it done. I usually find a laundromat or a local place to do it myself. It’s a nice practice to type while your clothing gathers suds.

Not so much where I am. Let me say that I am a city guy. I don’t really like to club or to have all the citystink that goes with urban areas. But what I have issues with is one-hotel towns in the patch that feel they are entitled to my silver.

I don’t appreciate shitty food at high prices. I don’t like local trollops that want to have my warm spray in their hoo-hoo for the sake of future paternity suits. I don’t like Chamber’s of Commerce which want to jack the prices up on travelers needs.

Let me just state that I do like 24 hour laundromats. I do like police that don’t overstep their bounds and invalidate their oaths. I do like having services being available. I’m not even asking for Romanian hookers.

But when we don’t have the most basic of needs, because the hotel coin laundry has been busted since your second born was walking, it makes you upset. I was here last year, and they didn’t have coin laundry.

What they do have, is an exclusive (excessive) service. For twenty dollars a load, you can have them clean and fold it for you (I always laugh when I hear someone try to impress me with folding services). Thanks to the new uniforms of my work, it’s usually three onesies and you add your soap. So I hand in my sea bag, estimating three loads of laundry.

I am pissed to be out more than forty for laundry. This is bollocks. This one-horse town pisses me off because no cellular service is better than one or two bars of reception. The community laundromat is across town and we aren’t allowed to drive the van ourselves to do store visits or get basic necessities or do laundry runs. Plus it doesn’t open until later, cutting into valuable sleep time.

As I’m contemplating this, furious at how incapable I am at doing simple things on my schedule. I’m also pissed at the level of give-a-shit the clerk has. He has no salesmanship. He has no courtesy. He’s a pimply, skinny, liberal, and his contempt for those that need his assistance is noteworthy here. And on the corporate line.

The clerk is counting change while I’m waiting to be helped. He isn’t acknowledging me. He isn’t asking me to be patient. The counter bell is two inches from my hand, and I’m fighting an aneurysm to not snatch it and beat it until the dinger rings against his medulla oblongata with a fountain of blood only Dexter could love.

Such violent thoughts.

So as I avert my eyes and avoid confrontation. Three more days and I’m down to one outfit. I can’t skimp. I need to get these washed. I give him my name and room number and sulk.

Until I changed out my Samsung for my new Apple product, I had a number of a woman who was not romantically interested in me, but wanted to friendzone me. She lived here in this one-horse town. Our last conversation being one that made me happy to be in the friend-zone.

And I guess I could interchange one for another or another. Anytime I’m south of I-37 my geographic snobbery kicks it up a notch. It doens’t matter if I’m in Laredo or Encinal or Three Rivers or Jourdanton. South of the I-37 border and you see me reaching for ear buds to down out the tejano.

I think about calling FZ-lady and seeing if she’d like to earn forty dollars. Then I think about it again. The possibility of sex is really low, the overhanging cloud of her moodiness is a constant. Sounds like this hotel earns my sixty dollars by default.

Searching for Americana, at Harmony’s Whimsy

So last month’s big surprise to me was that some people will lie to get what they want. Long story short, I got over it. And just because I can say I forgive her, it doesn’t mean that today’s ‘friend request’ on social networking will be answered by anything but a resounding, “no.”

On with it, and we are.

I’m Bruce Lombardo, and I’d like to tell you a little about me. I grew up in Central Illinois. I attended a Methodist religious environment. My parents are blue collar and we were close to Decatur, Illinois. After I graduated WLHS by the skin of my teeth, I served the nation in the USN.

Fast forward to 2011, and I’m moving back to Texas. I served close to where I lay my head at night. I struggle at first, ignoring the economy based around energy services. My family forgives me as long as I can figure a way out of this spot in life.

Once I go into the energy services, I discover exactly why I moved to Texas. I spent sixteen years out of the military in the state of Illinois, seeing only small increases in wages and sharp increases in cost of living. Here, I triple what I made in my home state easily.

This last month, I’ve tried to do what I can to gather myself economically from a poorly-thought out vacation. Finally I feel like my feet are on the ground properly. I had one last piece of work left from Illinois and when I saw that it wasn’t going to cut it, I felt like, “okay, it’s time to live your life, Bruce.”

And I feel like I am. While I’m working 140 hours or more in a two-week period, when I’m away from work I feel like I actually have an existence, which many friends envy. I have the nomadic lifestyle going on, town-to-town, hotel-to-hotel, then back on days off. I thank YHWH/God every time I get the chance to wake up.

What I am missing from my life is the romantic companionship, and I haven’t had anything serious for almost seven years. Even that was poorly thought-out and implemented. Now mind you, for ten years of my life, I dated two of the nicest women who are with someone else now–that’s how life works. The void of expectancy in their absence has me figuring out finally, that I won’t get that level of relationship, if I keep looking for them. I realized that I wasn’t going to find anyone worth keeping if I tried any degree to find her, myself. Those ‘special ones’ are never around when you’re randy or needy. It takes a special catalyst to generate that element in your life.

By that token, I wasn’t going to live the same life my parents have romantically and emotionally. They met and were married in four months, still married-in-love after four decades. To my knowledge, my father, before his forced retirement, only had a handful of nights not sleeping in his own bed next to his wife.

I’m not slated for that to happen in my youth. My twenties were spent like many people’s teen years and thirties were spent trying to figure out how to get blood from a rose (Illinois, again). As it is, I’m happily looking at another seven months and I turn forty.

Forty. Only in number and name does that actually hit me. I don’t have any kids which have sprouted horribly fast in front of me or in my absence. I don’t have nearly as many pains as others my age, but they are there (and will probably get worse if I gain more weight). That’s really the only thing I want to do is drop my size. My current lifestyle isn’t going to do anything for me but show me the tastiest barbecue joints before my John Candyism. So as much as I like what I do, some modification needs to be made. but forty. How in the hell did I resign sixteen years to mainly living with my parents and finally outside of Peoria, Illinois?

No, no. Let’s not diagram this. I don’t need Madden stepping in my head with Frank Caliendo doing the best impersonation ever on how I was comfortable having that life. In fact, while I really do miss some folks from my previous life, I don’t see myself flying up or driving up to see them on occasion sans family illness.

From my previous life, the only thing I want is another Schnauzer. Two, actually. Furry little bastards is what they really are. Opinionated furry little things that train you as an owner to behave ‘like this’ so they have a place to sleep at night. I shouldn’t put my wish list on here like this, but I don’t see you people writing my blogs.

Where does this put me?

I’m thinking as much as I honor and love my parents, I’m not living their life. I’m not going to have their life. I have to put my own feet in motion and have no expectations. And while I am far from home, I must say, that I’ve never felt more comfortable in my life. Things are in harmony when I glance around to see my progress.

Like those innocent moments where you can hear the music to your favorite song or piece starting. As I edit on book three further, I feel at times the music in my life, the anacrusis is right *there* under the mathematic theory of the clock. You can hear it when you are embraced by what is taking place. You can see the pieces in motion, falling into place.

That’s how this last ten days has felt. From stillness I have momentum.