Love to all.

The anti-drama of electronic triggers. Push a button here, things happen there. Less than a video game, with zero feedback. Insert {obsolete} before the word “tactile” in the next edition of your favorite dictionary. It’s all in the brain.

Push a button there, open floodgates here.

I left a voice mail on my brother’s phone - first contact in four years, letting him know that I sent him a letter, but that I didn’t know if he still lived at the same address. (He always said he was waiting until he could buy a 10,000 square foot house - yup, that’s correct - before he would move… and my Aunt thought that he did, in fact, do just that.) I also said that we missed him and would love to say hi. Never heard back.

I sent my parents an email during the CA fires, saying that if they needed to escape East, or needed anything at all, to just call me. They live in Santa Clarita, which was pretty much the center of the Buckweed Incident. Never heard back… although in their case, I didn’t really expect to.

Yesterday, Maggie was telling me how frustrating it was for her 19-year-old boss at work to say “no” when she asked if she could leave work early. She had volunteered to monitor a section our town’s main street, where kids were painting the store windows for Halloween. I should have just listened, and I DID listen, but what I was thinking was: 1) Well, now you know why I get frustrated when you would ask me to come home from work early a couple of times a month, 2) You shouldn’t have assumed it was canceled, and brought your shit with you in the car, 3) If you hate the job, quit. Now, I admit that there’s internal pressure here, too… when I know that Maggie needs to stuff done, I feel compelled to drop everything and come home. That’s my own problem, I know. I just sometimes think she doesn’t understand how unusual it is.

I’m going through a big adjustment period with my oldest. I can’t abide by sulking or backtalk, and it seems to be a major component of what he’s doing these days. I’m very bad at sitting at the dinner table while he skulks.

My company has hit a million dollar run-rate (sales, not gross profit), and I can’t quite pay myself yet. It’s weird to build something somewhat successful, and still not be able to make money. Right now, I can pay my employees, our health insurance, and 100% of our operating costs. It all is coming down to how long I can hold out as this thing grows. Pressure, pressure, pressure. One major suck factor is that the more stress I’m under, the more I feel like I can’t act in that happy way that keeps things growing. Catch-22.

Tomorrow, at 10am, Maggie and I are meeting with a financial advisor to begin the assessment process… can we afford to live where we live? Can we afford to move? Argh.

I need to try and get a decent night’s rest.

Love to all. Even you, John Harvey, Branch Manager.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Family, Work.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.