Intro to Whatever This Is

I'm going to start by saying I don't know what this is. I've always had an itch for writing, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. I had an opportunity to scratch that itch for a short while when I was making "Hot Off the Press", a company newsletter for Camso, the business that I have been working for for about 17 years now. *Isn't it weird that you can say that sentence in your head and it sounds just fine (well, in my head, anyway), but when you are actually staring at the text, seeing the words "for for" standing back to back, it just doesn't look right? **I think in asides, btw. Often asides to asides even, with several offshoot thoughts coming from each aside that can be broken down further until I'm having 42 conversations in my head at the same time, all the while completely losing track of the original thought. That's when I lose people in conversation, too, I think.

Anywho...

I have this itch. I want to write. I don't know if I've ever had an inkling of what that would look like, though. A book? A blog? That newsletter they eventually stopped paying me to create? *Unfortunately, I couldn't get the managers or anyone from the shop floor to submit anything any more (the lazy bums), so it was mostly all coming from me. And what was coming from me eventually got stranger and stranger and completely unrelated to the company. People were reading it, but it no longer truly served the purpose of providing information to its employees about the happenings within the workplace. Eh... I had a good run.

I have this weird fantasy that I will leave behind some weird legacy... a journal, a blog, something... that people will notice postmortem (post my mortem of course, not their mortem; they won't be able to read anything post their mortem), and it will be suddenly recognized as a hidden gem, sadly unappreciated while I'm still alive to appreciate the appreciation. Much like many now-famous artists who lived their lives in anonymous poverty, only to have their works sell for millions after they can no longer spend any of it. *Pretty grandiose of me to compare myself to the likes of Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, and Galileo, right? Well, this is my... whatever this is... and you can't exactly stop me can you? I may not exude much confidence off the page, but here... well, I can be or do anything I want, can't I? Nya nya!

I'm not exactly cultured. I haven't travelled too far, never left the U.S. (except for Canada, but they're right next door to me so they don't count). I only have a high school diploma to brag about. But I've got ideas, man! Well, not ideas, exactly. Thoughts, maybe. I have thoughts, dammit! I live in what we call the north country. It's way up in northern NY, right up against the Canadian border. I'm surrounded by hicks, rednecks, racists, homophobes, xenophobes... you name it. If there is a group of people who are afraid of anyone not fitting into their description of "normal", we got 'em. My zip code has a 94% white population. We do have a state college here, though. So we do have a slightly diverse population certain times of the year, but they're mostly drunk and only come out at night.

My life experiences have been largely limited due to skirting the poverty line most of my young adult existence. I grew up around here, but I have lived for short stints in Virginia, North Carolina, and in the fine state of Washington, where I stubbornly continued my economically challenged lifestyle. I credit this state of existence to a lack of direction, confidence, and motivation. When I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I was working at a comic book warehouse, and assistant managing a movie theater at the mall. On a whim, I decided to consolidate and apply for one better paying job at a snowmobile track factory where a couple of ex-coworkers recently gained new employment. It was going to be a big increase in pay (almost a whole dollar!) at the time, so it was scary. (Why scary, you ask? Well, it would be a step up. Was I worth it? Would they just reject me? Wasn't I supposed to just scrape by? I feared change, though I desired it greatly.) Having worked an average of over 60 hours a week between the two jobs, I still didn't have any spending money. Luckily, I didn't have much free time to spend any, so it was all working out rather well, I guess, right? Despite being in charge of several employees, catering to customers, making sure the movies ran on time, and carrying thousands of dollars to a bank every night for the theater, I was only making $8.50/hr there. That has always irked me, even today.

Fortunately, I was able to say good bye to both jobs and started working at the factory, where at $9.37/hr I was now making more than I've ever made in my life. Plus time and a half for anything over 40 hours! I decided to keep working the same number of hours for a while, taking home buko bucks on payday. Before I knew it, I was eating at a restaurant every few weeks! Which was good, because the smelly pile of dirty dishes in my sink was evidence that making dinner at home (and, specifically, the cleanup afterward) was not my forte.

Nearly two decades later (Holy shit! Has it really been that long?!), I'm still working in that factory, apparently having made a career out of it. I think I'm still afraid to reach out for something better. Though, admittedly, circumstances are certainly different nowadays. I've got a family now. My job provides at least half of the income that keeps us afloat, provides the health insurance for all of us, and provides much of the distress in my life. All necessary for a well balanced existence. At this point in my life, changing jobs means risking that security. Not just me to worry about these days. And, honestly, I make decent money in this area for a bloke with only a high school diploma. I can't imagine starting over again somewhere else, despite my desire for change.

But, I've got big ideas! Well... thoughts, anyway. Big thoughts. Yuge thoughts! Believe me. People are talking. The incredible men and women who we're talking about. Millions and billions of them. They're all saying I got such tremendously huge thoughts. Bigger than they've ever seen! You'll see. *Is this a convincing Trump impression? We've been working on it. It's tremendous. It's gonna be big. Believe me.