A conversation between me, the owner of the nursing home and one of the directors.
“John isn’t here anymore”
“Who was John? Describe him to me.”
“He didn’t have any hair”
“So you are saying he was bald?”
“Well, yeah, and let’s just say he wasn’t attracted to any of the women here.”
“That’s because they are all old.”
Hi Mary, it’s me, Eddo of Posted Note. You know, your online crush? Well, I wrote you that long email and then I never sent it, or did I? I don’t know because I have a tendency to write long emails in my mind on the way home from someplace distant like Mom’s house or The Spaghetti Warehouse and I get really into the email in my head, so into it that I send it, mentally, and then later I think I actually sent it to you and then I wonder why you haven’t responded.
The last email I never sent went something like this…
Yo Mary J. What’s crackin other than your lips? I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, mostly after I just binged out on a bag of Cheetos and balanced it out with a 2 liter of Diet Coke. Remember when we used to do that, back in college, with nothing on but our footy pajamas and those fake wigs and the feather boas and your mom’s twister beads? Those were the days. We’d stay up late talking about the future, our future, and how we would one day rule the world with nothing more than a bag of penny candy and our mad wit. You’d laugh at my jokes and I’d laugh at your orange teeth. We would name ourselves from Dr. Seuss books, I would often be Pop from “Hop on Pop” and you always wanted to be a Star Bellied Sneetch or the Cat in the Hat. We’d paint our faces up like the Phantom of the Opera or Tammy Fay Baker and then dance like Chris Cross and Madonna. We’d be jumping and vogue-ing so fast and in such amazing synchronization that we were practically of one mind.
Then there was that time when we became too close, almost too intimate if that is possible. We had this symbiotic relationship that started to cannabalize itself like Starbucks would eventually do in the 21st Century. Was it you or me that started being selfish or was it both? I needed more of you, or did I need less? I can’t remember. I just know that we were like a flame that is brightest right before it burns out. We were like Acid Wash jeans back in the 80’s, or like Spud McKenzie or any other comparable item that was super hot and then suddenly wasn’t. Yep. That was us. But we were young and restless and stupid, but not too young. I mean, you were 42 and I was 27 and we had our whole lives ahead of us – or at least I had 50% of my life and you still had 33% left of yours, but who’s counting? The point is, what happened to us? Where did we go wrong? We had this energy, this connection from the moment we met, you remember, at the Walgreen’s checkout line. You were buying that Epilady and I had just paid for my Ritalin and we struck up a conversation about Moonstruck and Bruce Willis and then I mentioned New Kids on the Block and I did that double spin twist with a hip thrust. Then you copied my move and elaborated on it and then I continued on and we had a little dance off right there in the store but before we could pick a winner we got thrown out because you jumped up on the counter and started re-enacting a scene from Flashdance.
So here I am now, typing up this letter, but not sending it because it’s too late. You’ve moved on to your life of fame and singing and I’ve become an internationally known blogger and extremely eligible bachelor. It’s not the roles we dreamed of while in our Cheetos and Caffeine induced High, but it’s a life. It’s a living. We’ve made our beds, finally, lord knows we never did back then, but now we have to lie in them.
But remember Mary, when you are lying on your pillow at night and you feel like I am extremely close and that I could possibly be watching you, well, you feel that way because I am…. just kidding. oh, I wish I could see your chubby orange Cheeto crusted cheeks right now I would just die. No, I’m not watching you, I’m not writing you, I barely even think about you any more when I doodle your name in small script in notebooks and in the margins of books that I read or when I hear songs with your name in them, or when I am wearing my footed pajamas clutching a bag of Cheetos in the fetal position calling out your name.
No, I’m not thinking of you at all.
Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect it to Mary, but we’ll always have twister beads and Diet Coke and footed pajamas and excessive amounts of blue eye shadow and duets in the park at the top of our lungs and that is more than most people will ever have in a lifetime.
It seems to be a strange way of reaching out to people who are addicted to pornography, but perhaps it is working.
X3 or XXXChurch is a ministry that is reaching out to people addicted to pornography. In the above video I was a little surprised to see such an odd spectacle featuring Ron Jeremy and a host of other icons in their trade – Stryper, The Million Dollar Man, Greg Valentine, put on a show that was supposed to educate people about the problems of pornography and its addictive nature.
I’ve got mixed feelings on the video and wish they would have showed more of the heartfelt talk by The Million Dollar Man than the rest of the show that seemed poorly produced, in the end, I hope they do get their point across.
I found out about this group while reading a book called, “Click” which is a book about what people are searching for on the internet. Written by Hitwise manager of global media Bill Tancer, it is a really interesting read about how the world can be gauged by what we search for on the internet.
The XXXChurch is going to porn conventions and handing out Bibles with the words “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” on them. I’m actually on board with this because it promotes love and not hate. Christians should be loving when we are ministering to individuals no matter what their sin is, because we are all sinners and God does love all of us.
“Each of us must face adversity at different times in our lives and we must deal with it in our own way…” Wilbur Smith’s character Centaine De Thiry in his book, Power of the Sword.
Lay-offs are necessary. When a ship is sinking sometimes you have to throw a few people overboard in order to save the majority of the crew. I get it, I just don’t like being the one “Jonah’d” – I’d prefer to stay out of the ocean or the belly of a whale.
Yes, I got the axe. I was one of the 1600 people that got let go from TI on Tuesday. I loved my boss and my teammates, and TI is one of the best places to work, but I wasn’t happy there – I was comfortable.
It was sort of surreal yesterday being caught up in something that I had just seen the night before on the news. On Monday my boss got let go and I was devastated. I couldn’t believe it, if she could get cut, then I had a feeling I might get cut too.
Tuesday morning I showed up to work to a hallway filled with security and a cube farm full of whispers. I sat at my computer with a pounding heart and I opened up my email. The first message read, “Dick just got let go…” Dick was one of my newest team mates. We were all like prairie dogs poking our heads out listening, expectant, hopeful… scared.
“Eddie, can I talk to you?” Robin materialized in my cube like an apparition. Her face was ghostly pale . I pictured her as a much more attractive grim reaper – except her blade wasn’t a long scythe or sickle, but a warm smile that cut deep, slicing me slowly, but still leaving me scarred.
I chuckled. It was more a gasp from my lungs that had just been punctured, but at the last minute I decided to literally, for once in my life, laugh in the face of adversity.
As I walked down the hall it seemed that I was being marched to an execution chamber. People I’d worked with for almost 7 years looked away and wouldn’t meet my eyes. The eyes I did see were pooled with tears and sorrow.
“This has to be hard for you…” I said to Robin as she walked me to her office.
“You know, it is surprising” Robin said, her voice barely a whisper, “how people that show compassion during hard times.”
We made it to her office. The door was closed behind me. We talked about severance packages and expectations and an hour later I was in my Honda Pilot with all my office belongings securely stowed away in the back.
As I drove away the wintry gray day mirrored the gloomy pall that seemed to linger in the halls of TI.
I felt a bit of mania at the thought of “What now?” I was delirious. Like a long-time prisoner I was happy to be free from my chains and at the same time terrified of my freedom.
Later that day I got a few emails that were work related on my BlackBerry, “Eddie, I can’t make the 2:00 meeting, but I’ll have my data for you on the server.” It was R.S. and he was talking about the RCA project. What a snore fest I thought and felt relived that I no longer had to be burdened with that problem. I looked at my calendar and cancelled all the rest of my meetings. I sent out a farewell email to my friends and then I posted an update of my status on Facebook: I got laid off today, but don’t worry your pretty heads, God is in control.
After that, I got a near record number of comments, emails, and phone calls of support. It was awesome.
Day 2 of being jobless I had friends telling me of job openings at their work. Friends told me I could come to their houses for free meals and of course my parents said that I could always come back home.
Last night I went to bed not with a heavy heart filled with anxiety and dread, but with a contentment of knowing that my friends and family love me no matter what and I will never be hungry or homeless.
This lay off might be the best thing that has ever happened to me. If TI hadn’t laid me off I might have woken up 10 years from now still sitting in my drab cubicle, bored out of my mind, and regretting not taking a chance to do something better with my life.
So to everyone that has been supportive of me, I want to say thanks. Keep me in your prayers and check back in to Posted Note as I give daily updates on my progress.
I’ve been doing Weight Watchers all week. I went to my first meeting last night and weighed in at 365 pounds. That’s a lot for anyone and about 35 pounds heavier than I’ve been for the last 4-5 years. I wanted to get some help and so I decided Weight Watchers is the route I’d like to take.
I also started attending a new church and I’ve been trying out some of their resources: online devotionals, group classes, etc. I don’t feel like I fit in… yet… but where do I fit in these days?
I have to watch myself cautiously because I have a tendency to wallow in self pity at times when I’m alone for too long. I am a people person who constantly needs to be around people, but not necessarily involved with them. I love big parties and groups – being too intimate or too deep sometimes exhausts me. One-on-One is harder for me than I let on and after a whirlwind of events I do need my down time to recuperate.
More than anything this year I’m trying to learn how to live alone and be stable. Not to use money or food as a way of overcoming my despair or feeling bereft floating further out to sea while I watch everyone on shore moving on with their lives. I have to learn to let people live their lives without feeling like I am letting them go even though that is often times what I have to do.
What I am hoping for in 2009 is an opportunity to find my niche, to find where I belong once again. For so long I was a part of DBC, a part of a group of friends that lived in Denton and we shared a common focus. Now I’m not going to church consistently anywhere. I’m not involved in a Bible study, I don’t have a group of male buddies that I can go and watch sports with or have over to the house for a poker night. Don’t get me wrong, I have hundreds of friends, most of them don’t live in Plano though. My best buds live in Shang Hai, Japan, Kentucky, North Carolina, Dallas and Denton.
So this post isn’t a sad post about how awful my life is, in fact, it’s just me laying out the reality of my world and how I’d like to reshape it into something better. I hope to one day look back on this time of my life not as a low point, but as a time that I built a solid foundation of trust in the lord and happy times with friends no matter how far apart we are. It takes work and time and people don’t always meet my expectations or demands, but I’m learning to deal with that too.
So that’s it for me, I hope you have some goals you’ve mapped out for the rest of your life. And if you are ever hurting or lonely, just drop me a line.