Friday, August 31, 2012

398, of course my way of keeping track is confusing!

What is the date? 8/30/2012

Order, there is only chaos and confusion, no order! Bits and pieces, house guests. I don't think they know I don't have my own bathroom. If I had a house with a situation such as this, I would have at least installed a toilet in the basement. Here I am not covered as a tenant, I have no rights except, shut up and pay the rent, pay your  share of the utilities and 1/2 of the utilities of my house guests! I haven't figured out how to subtract what they use. Would it be safe to subtract 1or 2 days from the utilities to make up for his guests? I've considered that. I have to go and research these issues. I just feel used, violated and without rights.



I feel trapped in my basement room. I feel violated, like when my van was stolen. My privacy has been compromised by my landlord. This is why tenants rights groups formed, because landlords feel all the rights belong to them, they own it, they built it! I'm not sure if it is safe to even write about my feelings. My landlord told me last night that he is having yet another house guest. He doesn't tell me for how long, just that a friend of his is coming to spend the night. I feel trapped. His house guests have privileges that   leave me in a bad space. I don't know, but suspect he tells them to help themselves to whatever. I am uncomfortable and suspect I will have to look for a form of a rental agreement that gives me some specific rights.

Well, his guest comes and there are 3 of them, an adult and two older children. I am feeling frustrated because my whole routine is disrupted by his guests. 1 bathroom house, which really doesn't support 4 people well.

And then there is the use of the utilities, the sharing of food which I don't normally do. What does he tell them, help yourself to anything you want? And this after that BBQ he had just this last weekend. This guy reminds me of a Politician which is scary to me. Of course I have to put up or shut up.

Someone has been taking a shower now for 10 minutes which I find to be rather long and disturbing because I have things to do including taking a shower, use the toilet and this is just one person so far. It is almost 9:00 am and now I am on their schedule. My bad! I should have done what I had to do before they got up and left the house, because it is so uncomfortable to me! My privacy is invaded by people I don't know, who don't know me. Just as I am getting ready to go upstair and check it out, the one person gets out of the shower, another person goes in. I am stuck, being held hostage in the place I pay rent to. The second person has been in the shower for 15 minutes. 15 minutes in my time line is how much time it takes me to shower, dress, eat and leave. Now I am trapped.

I'm sure it would not be real to ask my land lord to tell his guests that I have rights, it would be unheard of for him to put them second or even me on an equal plain with them. These are his old friends that he is doing a favor for and they are like family to him. Family runs deep with all of us, but with him it is like, don't mess with my family, food or property. A Republican in Democrats clothing!

I just had to vent this, feeling really put out. My sister suggested back several months ago I draw up a rental agreement with my landlord. I suggested it to him and he just doesn't think that it is important. From my stand point, this is his house and he does what he wants, but really doesn't know how to or what is fair to his tenant or doesn't care!


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

404 as I walk back wards I face forwards

Webster's Dictionary defines what insurance is intended to be, but leaves the door open for the insurance company to modify what it is exactly that they do. Now a days they certainly fill every loop hole so that the insurance you purchase from them is little more than a payment for them to find additional ways for them not to pay you if you file a claim. Insurance to me is like paying rent. You pay them money and when you need something extra, they claim that is not in the contract or they don't have the money. It is all a racket, I know this because my father worked for an insurance company. He was a statistician/secretary-treasurer of a small company that insured doctors and would tell the family often how disgusted he was at the rip off of clients by the company he worked for. That is a pretty narrow view, but I trusted my dad on some things and this was one of them. It has stuck with me from that time on.

5-20-2004

I'm working at FedEx at Oakland Airport Hub. I get up at about 1:30am and get ready for work. I am listening to KPFA and they are playing the blues, Jimi Hendrix or Buddy Guy- Red House.

I took on two more jobs at Dream Builders yesterday, the forklift and pruning the bushes at another property in West Oakland. I pruned these bushes before, but not to the foreman#1's liking. Apparently I cut them back to sharply. I talked to  foreman #2 about it and then to foreman #1 who said he didn't have time to do the job. Foreman #1 has a lot of experience with plants. So we talked about what I should do and I think I now know more of what he wants and then foreman #1 says, if there is any more problems, they will grow back. It is like hair, the growth will help cover up the mistakes. We all have different levels of acceptance.

Foreman #1 and I like each other and have a better understanding of where each of us is coming from. He was in the hospital some years before and that is when we actually talked about our perceptions. He admitted to me he thought that I was judging him. I thought that was way off base and told him. It was about sobriety. After that we also had another talk and got to know each other better. Part of my problem is low self esteem and stunted social growth do to my alcoholism. He had problems with alcohol to and I had a program and he didn't. He thought I was watching him waiting for a bad move. In that talk we had I told him, I was having enough problems with myself to worry about what he was doing! After that the fear we each had of each other we got along pretty darn well.

This Sat. Malcolm X Festival at San Antonio Part. It was a mixed announcement and I didin't hear it  all.  I should check further into it. Still listening to KPFA and I really like this station. Most of the people working there are volunteers. Volunteerism is really what saves this country, a bunch of people pitching in to fulfill a common need.


Life, what an experience. Sometimes I feel so alone, but I am not, there are millions of human beings all around. We are connected by our experiences. Life is an incredible experience and I am lucky and blessed to be alive! So many things becoming clear to me. One of those is my mortality and as human beings we get hung up in our day to day lives and forget how precious our whole experience is!

{That's it all I have time for this evening. Another installment will happen soon}

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

403 as the future looms, the past beckons!

Continuing onward from 2003-2004 my 54th year. Numerically it is all linked, addition or subtraction. How hard is that to put our minds around. 

The stiffness in my hands and fingers, the stiffness with the lack of getting out and lightening up, my diet. 

Diet is a big buzzword in our society and seem s to have taken on a new leap into acceptance this year. Many of us baby boomers have turned 50 by now, some closer to 60 than others. 

What really got my attention yesterday was the moment and I went to get the new stereo that I had decided to purchase, I could see it well. I doesn't matter what you have, because weh it is your time to die, you are not taking spit with you.  We will leave our bodies and we don't know what comes next if anything. I tend to have different experiences with what I think comes next, first one idea then when that seems far fetched another and nothing comes next. 

Yes, age  is catching up to me.

I have been going to KPF in the mornings answering the phones during their fund drives. I remember when my father pledged to KQED back in the 1950's. He pledged $5 and got a mink skinned hat and gave it to me. Of course, all my friends at the time had coon skin hats and when I got mink it was difficult to fit in. My mink skin hat was my favorite pet, even though it was dead and had no soul or life. I have a rabbit skin I purchased and use it to help me sleep in the day time because of my late night job at FedEx. I put that rabbit pelt on my face and it is warm and comforting. I think of the rabbit that once occupied this skin and fur and with that is a certain sadness that animals have to die for some humans. We shouldn't be killing animals or treating them badly! Of course, that is somewhat off the path of the subject of KPFA and donating time and energy to the radio station because they are an active part of the community keeping the airwaves open and not taking corporate sponsorship which can deaden the truth. That small experience with KQED was never understood by me. I didn't really understand much about society since I was continually battling against my own feelings leaving me in a chaotic state most of the time. 

I am getting ready for my work week. Had the last two Fridays off. Wow, that was something! The extra time off gave me the rest I needed and still feel I need. 

I've got an application for New United Motors down in Fremont. I've had some trouble with some of waht they want me to sign off on. They ask for my age and something else that will come to me later. It irritates me taht I have to check up on a company that I am considering working for. Are they violating my basic rights? Carla, my downstairs neighbor says that the reason she doesn't get he teaching jobs she applies for is ageism. I believe it is definitately true for some jobs and not others. I say that the schools that pass her over are missing out on an artist who has been working at her art her whole life and is going to miss that part of her experiences to pass along to other aspiring artists. I can now see how much of a problem it is ageism and how much it affects our culture, how we turn away from those that came before us looking for newer and less experienced so what, we can mold them into what society thinks their roles should be? It sucks. 

The other part of the application that I couldn't remember is they ask an applicant to allow by signing  to give full disclosure from the previous employers how many absent days they have had. Of course, it doesn't distinguish between legitimate days off and phony days off. These are the kinds of abuses that corporations like to be allowed to do. They don't want some government agency telling them what kind of information they can ask of their prospects. Some of it violates our rights and shouldn't be allowed. 

Off onto my life's challenge of ADHD. It is like cases of other known issues different for each individual. Look at me for instance, I didn't get myself tested until I was 50 years old. I noticed issues with work at UAL that I was having trouble understanding some basic mechanical explanations for the way parts went together. I needed answers and at the time it was job related and I wanted to do my job the best I could. I had never been able to put a name on what it is that makes me the way I am. I had never been able to and of course, it has been difficult to let others in on my secret and get them to even consider that there is a reason for my behavior. They just seemed to continue to treat me as a weird individual or continue to thnk of me as should behave like others or themselves. They are unable to put on my shoes and see life from my perspective, yet they want me to do that for them. Double standard is the way it has always been concerning my issues and conformity. Imagine what my world is like, continuing chaos and confusion. That what it is like, not being able to organize my thoughts into a meaningful plan that I can follow. It is part of why I had so much trouble in school. And if it seems like i keep repeating myself, it is because I do repeat myself. I often have little knowledge of what I say, my ability to put any order of what I said in my own head gets lost inside and I can't retrieve it most of the time, hence Chaos and Confusion. No, I am not deaf, blind our unable to speak, but my communication skills have been limited. I am not physically challenged and have been able to pass minimal testing sometimes even better than non standardized situations. Structures work well for me to a point. The free thinking or non structured environment is my downfall. 





Chapter 399

I have just come to the idea of how I am separating my current writings from my past writings that I am editing and copying to blogger. I started at chapter 400 and have been adding up for writings I am adding from the past and now am writing something from the present and just came to think I would subtract from Chapter 400 one at a time for current entries. If this makes no sense to you that is ok.  you might think "Why in the Hell would anyone do such a silly thing?" Well, it is how I go. It is about discovery. Are we explorers and leaders or are we all going to go along with an established routine that is predictable and boring? Of course as time passes, I may discover another way to do this and make the changes. After all, I am at the sink where this drip continues through the moments.I may find a washer and replace it or just let the water drip, drip, drip into a receptacle that drains into the garden, cistern is what they are called.

Part of my challenges with organization comes from the way I think. I have been working on understanding and incorporating my process of thinking and actions with introspection and have come to the conclusion that I don't need to do it as others do, but need to do all things the way they work for me. This is not to say, I will not adhere to structures already set up such as laws of the land or laws of the road or working situations and standards. How I do things has matured with my age.

When I do actions that involve others I can adhere and must adhere to the rules and laws that control my actions and those of others. When I drive my bus, I follow a route with times and turns and pick ups and drop off's and must, to complete the job in an orderly way, consistently and I do it well. I am just saying, if I am writing or thinking about something that affects only me or you may interact with me through reading what I write,  then it is because of the way I think that I am writing in a rather confusing way.  You the reader are either going to find a way to read it and it is my hope I can convey what I mean in such a way that will keep you interested or you are going to say, Forget this person, I can't follow that line or his line of that confusion.

But it is this confusion that I have been living with all my life and the attempts to organize my thoughts have fallen each and every time, so I have worked hard at allowing myself my own thought patterns and conforming to established patterns when dealing with others.

I have read some about writing and something that I am unable to do it put the whole writing effort together in my head and then put it into the medium. I write stream of consciousness for the most part, but have discovered that when I am copying my past writings, editing to make more sense.

When I was trying to quit smoking so long ago I kept changing brands, smoking, not smoking changing brands etc. Now, I am trying to continue to drink coffee, which btw I quit all caffeine in 1992-1998 six years. I like coffee, but am having issues with it being satisfying. I have tried coffees away from home that are satisfying me. So what is up with me and coffee? I like it, but my body is changing and I am not getting the same satisfaction. I am not getting a caffeine kick, and the coffee I keep changing and trying is not giving me the same satisfaction. I think I am going to have to quit drinking coffee and I am fighting against what my body is telling me. It this is the case, then I am going to have to find a different place to put my energy or focus more on where I get my energy from which is not from drinks. When I quit drinking caffeine back in 1992 it was a willing decision to see how I felt decaffeinated. I liked how I felt. I never went back to drinking anything but coffee. No sodas! So, here I am today, the 28th of Aug. reflecting on this past summer and what my plans were and how they have either come about or have not yet been realized. One thing for sure though, the cycle of work and school is just about started and I will be on someone else's time schedule. I have adapted to it before and will do so again, though this time I am feeling a little different about it.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Chapter 402, Me and Em!

{still 2004}

I'm getting older and his is the way my life has gone. I am putting it down into words because it has been hard for me most of my life to communicate in the usual accepted forms of communication. At 53 going on 54 the end of this month, the 31st. Being born nearly exactly in the middle of the century has had it's good and bad points and living as I do, on the edge of society in most of my life. As I age, which was where I started with this page, I do it slowly. I've aged very slowly because society has always misunderstood my behavior and instead of going for the best in me, they have always kept me in the worst light. {now 2012 as I copy this, maybe I am wrong here, maybe it was I all along who felt out of place, who never felt accepted, never felt as though I have belonged in the past I suffered from very low self esteem}

I can see how misunderstood many of us are and I feel for them too. I feel that we as a society really fail our peers. We put them into categories to make them easier to think about, that is the ones who aren't  in the main stream except to say they have challenges that are not adequately addressed by this society. Until we start putting the emphasis on our social concerns we will always have unaddressed large-scale welfare issues.

The early morning gave me the impression that it is going to rain today. It is way warmer than the arctic   chill that we were putting up with yesterday. I was agitated as I made my way out on my errands. The number of people seemed like they were all trying to cram a lot of living into a couple of short cloudy days trying to put off the inevitable coing of the next work week. Of course the work week has it's pluses in that we can think of an escape because we certainly don't want to think about all the social injustices except whether Bill Gates is making another billion dollars or why he doesn't fund the war in Iraq that our president dragged us into because of that false representation of the facts of the matters. Fear, that is what our society is running on and sooner or later that fear is going to mature into something really bad! Then all those who are worrying about the future and trying not to think about the present will realize their own worst nightmares.

So what did we get? My dad, my aging, society, fear and undisciplined writing style. It seem sto follow me since my whole life has been rather undisciplined. My focus waxes and wanes like the ever changing moon. My main point of existence is about getting closer to nature in the Bay Area. I am considering buying a boat and living on it as a sneak aboard at Berkeley Marina. Also, getting a job that pays a living wage, something that will keep me from being to stressed out trying to make ends meet.

Chapter 401 The Past As Seen From the Present and other such nonsense

9:42 pm October 12, 1987

the Thunder is Clattering in the distance and echoing off the buildings. I can see stars from my porch and some fog.

The air is real still and it will probably rain.


undated, but probably early 2009

A Lightening Bolt of Love, here, then gone in an instant!

U told me I've always had strength. I'm finding it now because I need it.

I need to be strong to ride on top of my feelings, our feeling come......

Writing has almost always been a release. Writing, journaling has always allowed me to be buoyant and rise about the process and release my apprehensions I might feel. Right now, this moment in time, this small pin head of time that folds and stretches out for us but is not even a speck of dust in the big picture is very uncomfortable.

It is uncomfortable because the feelings we shared, the distance is in real time. I know something of the way I'm feeling. You have told me many words, ideas validated my feelings telling me you feel similarly and to have struggled with how you feel. Now Creator and some time has allowed our feelings to seek their own level of strength, find a niche to live in. They are still here in us, but not all on the surface like they were for 30 days. We know they are there, they feel apart of us.

Lover, together we have walked through doorways that previously have been closed. I find an incredible challenge dealing with.....


You may feel a larger bunch of feelings that are overwhelming. You have opened a door to me and told me about the courage you believe I have. You have encouraged me to express to you all that I am feeling. Sometimes words are not accurate. I mean you no harm, or disrespect. You have revealed more of yourself to me and I am grateful that you have. You told me all the feelings we have expressed are real. I am glad of that because I am feeling a little confused by our downturn of communication. I know that you don't have the technology available to you and I do. I suspect you may have reached a point where you are over loaded with your emotional and physical pain, have had to take a step back. I have done this to hoping to let time percolate feelings the way it does.

We can go beyond what our past barriers were. What we think as our limitations will fall to the side. I can feel that now. I will be patient, you have told me I am and I know I am with others more than myself.

Life is easier when I have a structure, a foundation that I have been building that I can rely on. The trick of life is not to lose sight of the big picture. We each face different challenges. We have what we have got. What has brought us to where we are. For me it is that connection I feel with a source of the greater good, that powerful energy that connects all life on this planet and perhaps beyond.

Miscellaneous Chaos {part of the deception}

01-30-2006

{11 months before I leave for Portland. I don't think I know I am leaving yet because I have left work, to take a test at SBC for work. If I get the work, not going to leave. Hind sights..}

Waiting in the SBC staffing center to take the test. I should have left work earlier. Here 15 minutes early, but we are waiting. I paid $8 for parking up Webster @ Douglas Parking Lot. $8 a day, $40 a week or $160 a month. They must get some kind of break for signing up for a month at a time.

12:21 and no one but test participants in sight. I wish I had eaten lunch, it may have helped quell my nervousness. It was easy to get in, don't sweat it another first. Chris says he didn't pass the first time. All I can do is the best I can. Would make a nice Birthday gift though. I am attempting to stay calm, gazing at my P&W hat with the 2 UAL pins, Otis pin and no nuke pin on it. I'm 56 tomorrow and attempting to get a new career started with a company that I may have a chance to become a permanent employee. They are letting us in at 12:45. I suspect it was on of the test participants opening the door for the late person. To many details that don't concern me.

A person came to look at ID's and I wasn't on the list, but neither were some others. I'm not particularly surprised.

I was reading an article about Jerry Brown Mayor of Oakland in Sunday's Chronicle. It was saying how in 7 years he had not accomplished all he had hoped for. A citizen was talking about crime in the flats and how more police are needed. Jerry is now running for State Attorney General. Oh boy!

It is now 1:10 pm and people are wandering in. I find this to be disturbing because other testings I have been to, they lock the doors and if you aren't on time, you don't get in and it was requested when I called about taking the test that I show up 15 minutes early.

It is now 1:15 and the test has still not begun yet. I expected more organization, but surprises never cease. 1:25pm they are now calling people who filled out the applications incorrectly or incompletely. Now they are giving instructions about parking which I was told about on the phone. Now the facilitator is explaining the jobs they are trying to fill. The test crew is short handed today and it is now 1:45pm. She is going to review our TMT sheets questions. It is frustrating because she is doing this one participant at a time. It is now 1:55 pm. She is putting my TMT to the side. She is trying to determine which is us needs to take the test.

I don't have any recollection of having taken this test and don't know what the results may have been. I am now in Portland Oregon which tells me I took the test and what, failed. I don't know. I probably got distracted, as I know I did. Got a hold of someone from my past and everything else became less important. I made plans to move somewhere around July of 2006. 

As late as Aug. 2006 I was still looking for work in SF Bay Area, but running into schemers etc. 

December 18, 2006
The feelings I am getting are overwhelming and depressing. Just scraping the surface of what needs to happen as far as maintenance and Little Willies talents are being exploited by the landlord, the crazy man, the boss. Actually, he has to suppress most of his talent in order to work for this character! Sometimes my life seems so illusive, hard to get a grip on.


Sometime in early 2004

I'm aging. I am getting older inside. As strange a statement this might seem from a man going into his 54 year on the planet, it is true for me.

I've just taken a sip of my morning coffee and it is excellent. That is a feat since my last French press took a spinning dive from my stove top, first hitting the handle of one of my two cast iron fry pans, sometimes known as skillets. I knocked the handle with my elbow, setting it to spin and hitting the skillet. Although I heard the resounding clang of the pan and essentially felt I knew what was coming, I continued to to walk away, letting the freshly pressed contents spill down the face of the 1940's or 1950's Wedgewood Range and oven and then crash as the glass pitcher of the coffee maker; and continued to bounce it's way down the face of the stove. A stove that has seen untold kitchen tragedies over its long tenure as an appliance in servitude of us human beings. It has even seen time in a cave of a warehouse waiting for someone like me who had a nostalgic streak in them for a stove that had some character and closely matched his fathers middle name. The spelling is different, my pops being Wedgwood. the difference is the stoves are one and the Fine china is Wedgwood. Something to do with past relatives.

My father was an interesting character. Apparently, many of us Clyde's are interesting characters! I have found this to be true of myself too. Back to my pops, I didn't know much about him though for various reason and only learned about him, that he was a human being only when he had a stroke in the mid 1970's. I learned lots about him as a person from his clients at a bar in Santa Cruz, CA. It was called the Seaside Cavern and was much like it's name, a cave. It was dark and smelled of stale air, stale alcohol. It was painted green outside, maybe to emulate its place in nature, to make one think of walking into a secret hideaway. On the inside it was dark like a cave. It had dark stained wood, much of the stain coming from the smoke of countless cigarettes, cigars and pipes that were being smoked by patrons and the owner alike. Sometimes the smoke was so thick in there it was hard to see across the room. When looking out the entry door one evening I thought the fog had come in, but discovered it was clear as crystal outside. I drove by it as recently as 2012 and it is a Little Cesar's Pizza shop. The Seaside belonged to a dying group of bars in Santa Cruz. There was the Eastside over on Soquel Ave. The Asti over on Pacific Ave. and the Seaside Cavern. These were all bars that were dying and after having some success in previous decades.

When my father bought the Seaside in the early 1970's it was owned by a couple of semi retired guys, one a truck driver and the other a commercial fisherman. The fisherman's name was Bobby Fazio. Bobby always wore a maroon jump suit with short sleeves. He had dark brown wavy hair and was about 50 back then. Bobby was a wheeler dealer, always had some guy coming by the bar when he was working to show him something, sell him a fish etc. People would come to the side door to the left of the bar down a driveway where he parked his pickup truck. He was the only one who parked there. That was made very clear to me right from the get go by Jim. Bobby had a problem with alcohol and new much more about his problem than I was yet to find out about mine.  The other guy was Jim was probably about 65 or so and I don't recollect his last name but can describe him. He was big, over 6 feet, had a big barrel chest, a stern face like he didn't approve, but mostly kept his opinions to himself. He almost always wore plaid short sleeve cotton shirts, was married, drove a big Buick Electra and seemed to view me as the spoiled kid I was. He taught me the bar business pretty well. He brought his wife in occasionally an aging blond and they were making the circuit of bars including the Asti, the Eastside and the Seaside and Pasatiempo Inn among others. They were almost certainly Republicans, although we didn't talk about politics. Those guys were a couple of characters and my dad fit right in with them. Kept them on after he bought the bar from them. My dad had expressed to me in the past he wanted a bar for a long time. He had looked at others over a period of time but the sellers often lied about their books and their income. My dad was a statistician and really smart with numbers and could look at the businesses books and work the figures in his head and tell you what he didn't like about the figures posted that the money didn't add up. It must have had some attraction to buy that old tired place. He never shared his thoughts about that place or if he did, I was not in my body at the time.

Joseph Wedgwood Clyde was a genius. My aunt Ralda thinks that the two Clyde brothers were of equal intelligence. My Uncle Joseph John Clyde Jr. My uncle told me before he passed that when the family lived in Oakland and were attending high school he and my dad would walk home from school, stop at the library on the way home and check out a book and then stop by the grocery store and each get a beer. I guess the person in the grocery would sell to them because that is just the way it was and they were only getting one. Then they would walk the rest of the way home, take off their shirts, sit in the back yard in the sun and drink their beers and read their book. The books were finished about the time the beer was all finished. They read a book a day. Both of them had problems with alcohol up into their 50's or so, my dad past then. My uncle went to AA for a good stretch and thought he had a handle on it. {My sisters know more than I. }