Last week, our family took a mini-vacation to Las Vegas. One of the things we had planned to do was visit the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City and ride a steam train. When we got there, we saw a train full of school kids take off. We figured we'd be able to ride the next train out, but we found signs that said they really only do the train rides on Saturdays and Sundays. The station was completely abandoned until the train came back, so we had to create our own action.
When the train returned, the director told us that we likely had seen information on an outside website that they have no control over those. The bad thing was, and he didn't state this, we probably would have been able to ride that train if we had gotten there 15 minutes earlier.
And in case you didn't read to the bottom of yesterday's post, I'm taking a break from the blog. I'll be back before the end of the month, so please use this time to look at my older entries from 2 1/2 years ago.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Apartment #6: 4460 Cleveland Ave., San Diego, CA (1993)
This wound up being the fourth apartment I lived in during the previous 12 months. I never knew I could move around so much in the space of a year.
This wound up being an apartment I shared with a roommate. I'll write more about him sometime in the near future. With today's post, I'm just focusing on the apartment itself.
It was of a similar design as my previous apartment, especially on the outside. (Some would refer to it as a cookie cutter design.) The main difference was that this was a two-bedroom. It had two bathrooms, one of which was the en suite in my bedroom. The strange thing about the bathrooms was that mine had a shower stall and the other had a bathtub without a shower. My roommate had hooked up a showerhead that attached to the faucet in the bathtub.
The apartment also had a sliding glass door near the kitchen and was the only apartment on the ground floor to have this feature. The apartment above us had a balcony. I think the upstairs apartment on the other end also had a balcony, but I can't imagine needing that great a view of the alley. But that sliding glass door came in very handing when we were moving in the sleeper sofa.
My bedroom was surprisingly large, even more so than the bedroom in my previous apartment. I was actually paying more than half the rent because of the size of the room. This didn't bother me because it was still less than I was paying before for my own apartment. The living room area was also much larger. This was actually more suitable for a family of three than the one where I attempted to have that, but I couldn't afford a two-bedroom apartment. (Actually, I could have afforded it if someone were willing to share their welfare money, but that just was not going to happen.)
One of the nice things about the apartment was how closely it was located to the Hillcrest section of San Diego. If I got bored, I could just walk over there and hang out. The Ralphs grocery store was nearby, so I didn't have to drive to get my food. I could also walk north and find myself at the edge of Mission Valley. I could just sit there at night and watch all the activity of the traffic on I-8. (Without money or friends, I didn't have much to entertain myself with.)
The other residents were rather peaceful, but the younger one would tend to get somewhat loud on the weekends. I did have an issue one night when a friend of one of the neighbors parked their car right behind mine. I had to go to work late at night. (Yes, after I had gotten a job.) They figured that no one was going to need to move their car that late, so they just parked there. The irritating thing was that there was plenty of parking on the street, so they really had no reason to park in our lot and block the sidewalk. Fortunately, I was able to find the owner of the car and get to work.
There was an issue with a woman who lived in the apartment building next to ours. She appeared to be a single mother and there was always some kind of drama going on in her life. She was constantly yelling at her kid and there were always problems with her boyfriend. Sometimes, her neighbors would get involved in yelling at her and it just never seemed to stop sometimes. I recall hearing her end of a phone conversation in which it sounded like her boyfriend broke up with her. I could hear her loudly sobbing for about 15 minutes. The final day I was in the apartment, I could hear her yelling at her boyfriend. (I guess they got back together.) I went to the window and yelled, "Yee-hawwwww!" I found out later that the other residents of that building were taking her to court that day to get her evicted and that's why she was so upset. I never saw the woman, so I don't know what she looked like, but she did give me flashbacks from my previous life situation.
Because my roommate found a job that would have him travel across the country and I still hadn't gotten a job, I had to move out with one month's notice. I could not take the chance that I would be able to find a roommate for this apartment in a timely fashion, I knew I would have an easier time to find someone to move in with.
It was a very nice apartment and I hated to move out. I don't think I ever had another apartment that I liked as much as this one. It's too bad I only got to live there for three months.
And one more note: After tomorrow's post, I'll be taking another break for at least a couple of weeks. While I had planned to do new posts for three months in a row, an issue came up at work that will require most of my attention. Tomorrow's post will just be me sharing one of my YouTube videos and it seems like people typically don't read those or click on the embedded video.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
The surprising world of unemployment
Before I applied for unemployment, I had a lot of misconceptions about how it worked. Mostly what I knew was from what I saw on TV and movies, which likely had an accurate reflection of how unemployment used to work.
I had this image that I was going to have to show up at the unemployment office in Downtown San Diego once a week and my head bowed down in shame for not being able to find a job. I would have to tell the person behind the counter that I had tried looking for work in the previous week, give them the information of where I applied and wait for a couple of hours for them to cut me a check. This was a process I was not looking forward to, but knew it would be necessary if I wanted to pay rent, eat and buy gas to drive around looking for work.
I found out soon enough that I wasn't going to have to go through all that trouble. All I had to do was fill out a form every two weeks, mail it in, and I would get a check in the mail the next week. I also wasn't required to provide the names of the places where I had applied for work. That meant that I didn't really need to try to get a job. All I had to do was say I looked for work and they didn't seem to care whether or not I was telling the truth. I should point out that there's a worksheet on the back of the form to list potential employers, but if they don't put an "x" in the box on the front of the form, you don't have to fill it out. I certainly went many weeks without filling out an application.
But that wasn't as big an adjustment to make. The largest misunderstanding I had about unemployment was the amount of money I would be receiving. When full-timers got fired from the radio station in Clovis, NM, I was told that they would still receive a salary for unemployment for six months. I thought this meant that I would be getting my full regular salary during the time that I was unemployed. Since I no longer had dependents and would be paying about $100 a month less for rent because I was moving in with a roommate, I thought I would be able to catch up on all my bills and be debt-free before I absolutely needed to have a job. As usual, I was wrong. SO VERY WRONG!
When they told me I was going to get about $148 a week, I started freaking out. That would be less than $600 a month. It was about half of my regular take-home pay. My rent alone was going to take up half of that. I wasn't going to be able to pay all my bills. I was supposed to pay the IRS $600. Before I got fired, I had arranged to pay $200 a month. I had to call them up to arrange to change that amount to $50 a month. I also had an enormous credit card bill that went out of control from the people who used to live with me. My minimum payments were $200 a month. I had no idea what I was going to do.
This was probably the biggest inconvenience of unemployment, but it would be better than not getting any money at all. However, there were some minor inconveniences. The first was that phone interview I was supposed to take part in. I had scheduled it for a specific day after I had returned from my impromptu vacation. I was told that I needed to be by my phone between 10am and 12pm. I waited, waited and waited. I did not get the phone call until 11:55am. And all the interview consisted of was verifying all the information I had written down when I first applied for benefits. I had to wait two hours by the phone for this? On top of this, EVERY PERSON I talked to who went on unemployment around this period said they had the same thing happen, that they got the phone call only during the last 5 - 10 minutes of the two hour period they were told to wait. It made me wonder if they just figure out how many calls they have to make, and if it's not a lot, they just wait until the last possible minute to start calling people, hoping that many will just give up after waiting an hour and 45 minutes. When I had to apply for unemployment in 2009, I was glad I didn't have to go through that phone interview.
And a slightly more than minor inconvenience is the first unemployment check you receive. I have to admit that they put all over the paperwork that you only receive one week's worth of benefits on that first check, even though the form you filled out covered a two-week period. But it still doesn't prepare you for getting only half of what you were expecting. This was also the case in 2009. I would have rather they send out the first worksheet that covers only one week and make it clear that you won't get any money for that. After that, they send you the two-week form and you get the full amount with that. I was expecting $296 with that first check and planned to pay some bills. With only half the amount, I would have to be at least two weeks late on most of them. I would have rather try to put off those bills for one week and receive the full amount because requesting a two-week grace period was seriously asking too much from my creditors.
I was glad I had already put in my one-month notice on my apartment and made plans to find a roommate. I would have been in real trouble if I'd decided to stay put because I thought I was going to get my regular salary. That would have cost me at least an extra $200 before I realized that I needed to drastically cut my expenses.
I was fortunate that I only had to be on unemployment for about three months before I found some work. Since the two jobs I got were part-time, I was still able to receive unemployment for about another month before I made too much money at them to qualify for benefits anymore. The only bad thing was that, at the end, unemployment indicated that I still had about $1,200 left over for benefits that I wouldn't be receiving. My thought was that, if they were prepared to pay me that much for not working, why didn't they just go ahead and give me all that money anyway? I know that's not the way it works, but I'll bet everyone who's ever been on unemployment wishes it did work that way.
This experience made me not want to get on unemployment when I found myself laid off from a job I had eight years later. This happened in November of 2001. I did call the unemployment phone number. The recording that came on at the beginning said that unemployment benefits were set to increase after the first of the next year, but if I applied for benefits right away, I would only get the current rate. I decided to try to find some seasonal work to carry me through. Fortunately, that turned into a full-time job and I never had to apply for unemployment. I was glad. Even though I was barely making above minimum wage, I was still getting more than what I would have gotten if I was receiving unemployment.
I found that unemployment benefits do work when I'm in a bit of a pinch, but I'm always better off working.
I had this image that I was going to have to show up at the unemployment office in Downtown San Diego once a week and my head bowed down in shame for not being able to find a job. I would have to tell the person behind the counter that I had tried looking for work in the previous week, give them the information of where I applied and wait for a couple of hours for them to cut me a check. This was a process I was not looking forward to, but knew it would be necessary if I wanted to pay rent, eat and buy gas to drive around looking for work.
I found out soon enough that I wasn't going to have to go through all that trouble. All I had to do was fill out a form every two weeks, mail it in, and I would get a check in the mail the next week. I also wasn't required to provide the names of the places where I had applied for work. That meant that I didn't really need to try to get a job. All I had to do was say I looked for work and they didn't seem to care whether or not I was telling the truth. I should point out that there's a worksheet on the back of the form to list potential employers, but if they don't put an "x" in the box on the front of the form, you don't have to fill it out. I certainly went many weeks without filling out an application.
But that wasn't as big an adjustment to make. The largest misunderstanding I had about unemployment was the amount of money I would be receiving. When full-timers got fired from the radio station in Clovis, NM, I was told that they would still receive a salary for unemployment for six months. I thought this meant that I would be getting my full regular salary during the time that I was unemployed. Since I no longer had dependents and would be paying about $100 a month less for rent because I was moving in with a roommate, I thought I would be able to catch up on all my bills and be debt-free before I absolutely needed to have a job. As usual, I was wrong. SO VERY WRONG!
When they told me I was going to get about $148 a week, I started freaking out. That would be less than $600 a month. It was about half of my regular take-home pay. My rent alone was going to take up half of that. I wasn't going to be able to pay all my bills. I was supposed to pay the IRS $600. Before I got fired, I had arranged to pay $200 a month. I had to call them up to arrange to change that amount to $50 a month. I also had an enormous credit card bill that went out of control from the people who used to live with me. My minimum payments were $200 a month. I had no idea what I was going to do.
This was probably the biggest inconvenience of unemployment, but it would be better than not getting any money at all. However, there were some minor inconveniences. The first was that phone interview I was supposed to take part in. I had scheduled it for a specific day after I had returned from my impromptu vacation. I was told that I needed to be by my phone between 10am and 12pm. I waited, waited and waited. I did not get the phone call until 11:55am. And all the interview consisted of was verifying all the information I had written down when I first applied for benefits. I had to wait two hours by the phone for this? On top of this, EVERY PERSON I talked to who went on unemployment around this period said they had the same thing happen, that they got the phone call only during the last 5 - 10 minutes of the two hour period they were told to wait. It made me wonder if they just figure out how many calls they have to make, and if it's not a lot, they just wait until the last possible minute to start calling people, hoping that many will just give up after waiting an hour and 45 minutes. When I had to apply for unemployment in 2009, I was glad I didn't have to go through that phone interview.
And a slightly more than minor inconvenience is the first unemployment check you receive. I have to admit that they put all over the paperwork that you only receive one week's worth of benefits on that first check, even though the form you filled out covered a two-week period. But it still doesn't prepare you for getting only half of what you were expecting. This was also the case in 2009. I would have rather they send out the first worksheet that covers only one week and make it clear that you won't get any money for that. After that, they send you the two-week form and you get the full amount with that. I was expecting $296 with that first check and planned to pay some bills. With only half the amount, I would have to be at least two weeks late on most of them. I would have rather try to put off those bills for one week and receive the full amount because requesting a two-week grace period was seriously asking too much from my creditors.
I was glad I had already put in my one-month notice on my apartment and made plans to find a roommate. I would have been in real trouble if I'd decided to stay put because I thought I was going to get my regular salary. That would have cost me at least an extra $200 before I realized that I needed to drastically cut my expenses.
I was fortunate that I only had to be on unemployment for about three months before I found some work. Since the two jobs I got were part-time, I was still able to receive unemployment for about another month before I made too much money at them to qualify for benefits anymore. The only bad thing was that, at the end, unemployment indicated that I still had about $1,200 left over for benefits that I wouldn't be receiving. My thought was that, if they were prepared to pay me that much for not working, why didn't they just go ahead and give me all that money anyway? I know that's not the way it works, but I'll bet everyone who's ever been on unemployment wishes it did work that way.
This experience made me not want to get on unemployment when I found myself laid off from a job I had eight years later. This happened in November of 2001. I did call the unemployment phone number. The recording that came on at the beginning said that unemployment benefits were set to increase after the first of the next year, but if I applied for benefits right away, I would only get the current rate. I decided to try to find some seasonal work to carry me through. Fortunately, that turned into a full-time job and I never had to apply for unemployment. I was glad. Even though I was barely making above minimum wage, I was still getting more than what I would have gotten if I was receiving unemployment.
I found that unemployment benefits do work when I'm in a bit of a pinch, but I'm always better off working.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
What I did after getting fired
After the stunning revelation on 07/07/93 that I had lost my job at the Hillcrest Cinemas, I had to figure out what to do. The first thing I had to do was cash my final paycheck. Because of problems I'd had with a checking account when I lived in Clovis, NM, I never wanted a bank account again. So, instead of going to the Union Bank across the street, I went to the check-cashing place that was nearby. My final check was more than $1,000 and they charged a 10% fee to cash the check. It was worth it not to have to pay bank fees again (and I would have had to pay that much over time).
I drove home and just thought to myself for awhile. I decided I would take a vacation, go to Artesia, go to Denver and come back through Las Vegas. That would have made for a very good vacation and allowed me not to dwell so much on the loss of my job. I called up Dad and told him what happened. He said he would help through whatever I was going through. I tried calling Mom, but she was out of town. I figured I would talk to her once I got to Artesia.
I called the unemployment office next. They told me to come in the next day to apply for benefits. I figured on going there first thing in the morning and then leaving for Artesia as soon as I was finished.
That evening, I went over to the home of a former co-worker who had been fired just the week before. I told him what happened. "Welcome to the club." We talked for awhile before I went home. We said we would keep in touch with each other.
The next morning, I got up and packed my things. I wasn't planning to come back to the apartment after my business with the unemployment office. I drove downtown and went inside the building. There were quite a few people there, but nowhere near as many people in line at the welfare office when I went there. I had to wait for about an hour before they called my name. I handed them my paperwork. They had me choose a date for my phone interview. Someone would be calling me on a certain date and I needed to be there to answer the phone and talk to them for about five minutes. They tried to give me a date that would be about a week later, but I told the woman I needed more time because I was going out of town and hadn't figured out when I was going to return. She set a date for about two weeks later and gave me a two-hour time frame from 10am to 12pm in which I needed to wait for the call.
I left and drove to New Mexico. Since my last trip down, I determined that I didn't need to stay in a motel along the way and could save some money by sleeping in a rest stop alongside the road. I didn't bother to stop to see Kird in Alamogordo or Abed in Tularosa. I just kept driving until I got to Artesia. I went to Dad's house and hung around. While I was there, I called my answering machine to check for messages. At the time, I had changed my outgoing message to say, "Hi, I'm on permanent vacation. When I get back, I'll call you!" Mom left a message tell me she was back home and hoped I wasn't on permanent vacation. I went over to her house and rang her doorbell. When she answered, I said, "Yes, Mom. I'm on permanent vacation. I got fired from the theatre." She was disappointed.
All I did in Artesia was hang out with Mom and Dad for a few days. They both gave me some getting by money. Dad's wife Gred also bought me a few groceries. At one point, I went to see Chez' father and stepmother. Her father told me that Chez had a rough bus trip from San Diego. When the bus stopped at the McDonald's in Roswell, everyone was supposed to get off. However, Chez refused to leave the bus for fear that someone would see her and tell Road. On top of this, Chez had miscalculated the number of diapers she needed to bring on the bus. Joad soiled his diaper and SCREAMED for the next three hours. Also, Chez' sister Kiz had managed to regain custody of her three children. During the visit, I took a couple of photos of the parents with their 3-year-old daughter.
I drove up to Portales and saw Grandma Ogolon. I told her about what had happened with Chez. She didn't criticize, but she did tell me, "Now, you know I don't approve of you living with some woman without being married to her..." "Yeah, I know." "...and you know your Grandma Bend really wouldn't approve." "Yeah, I know that, too. But I'm not going to tell her."
I went to Ft. Sumner next and visited Grandma Bend. All I told her about was getting fired. I didn't go into the exact reasons, but she was also disappointed. (I found out later that Grandma Ogolon had called up Grandma Bend and told her I had been living with a woman and her child for a few months. However, Grandma Bend never mentioned this to me. But I know she gave a lot of grief to my Mom about it.)
My next stop was Denver. I stayed with a friend who used to work at the Mayan Theatre, but had gotten fired sometime before I had left for San Diego. He said I could stay with him a couple of days. I told him I couldn't pay him in money, but offered some of the groceries Dad and Gred bought me. He gladly accepted.
While in Denver, I went to the Mayan Theatre and saw my old manager, Mr. M. He recently had been promoted to the position of City Manager. He said he had recently found out about my dismissal when he asked the District Manager about me and was informed that I no longer worked for Landmark. He felt really bad and seemed to be frustrated that he couldn't do anything for me. Cynz also happened to be there at the time and was helping out in the office. I took a couple of photos of them before I left.
Most of the remainder of the time I was in Denver was spend hanging around with Knod. We went out to a party that night. I drove over to her house in Arvada. She and her cousin were going to do the driving. This would be weird for me because I was always used to driving Knod and her friends around because I was the only person they knew with a car. I had to leave the house to get something in my car, which I had parked about a half-block up the street. They told me they would be waiting for me in their car. When I came back, I saw a car with its headlights on in front of the house. I got in the back seat. The driver of the car turned around and said, "How are you doing?" It was an older man and his wife in the front seat. I said, "I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong car." I started to get out. While I was getting out, a young man went up to the woman's window and started talking to her. I went into the house.
Inside, Knod's cousin told me that her ex-boyfriend had just come by and was trying to get back together with her. I asked why they broke up, because Knod never explained that. She said, "He hit her." Suddenly, the young man I had seen at the car came in the front door. This was the ex-boyfriend. He was actually very friendly toward me, which surprised me. I guess he could tell I wasn't much competition for him. But he eventually left after seeing Knod again.
We went out and met a couple of Knod's friends who lived nearby. They were all coming to the party with us. It was a full car. The party we went to was actually just a couple of blocks from where I was staying with my friend. I figured that if something happened that Knod and her cousin didn't drive me back (which very well could have happened), I could easily go to my friend's, spend the night and take the bus to Arvada to retrieve my car. Fortunately, it didn't come to that.
AT the party we attended, it seemed like every five minutes, a different group of guys would come through the door and one of them would say, "Where's Knod?" Knod told me that one of those guys tried to kiss her. At one point, somebody said, "I'm going out for a walk. Who wants to go?" I volunteered and so did Knod's cousin. I just wanted to get out of the room because there were too many people there smoking pot. It quickly became apparent that I was a third wheel as Knod's cousin started holding hands with the guy. He asked me how old I was. I said, "28." He said, "Shouldn't you own a house by now?" I remembered how, when I was his age (19), I had expected my life to have gone a different direction by the time I was 28 and it simply did not go that way. Here I was. I hadn't gotten married, had a kid or owned a house. On top of that, I didn't have a job, so those things would be even further out of my reach. It's too bad I don't remember that guy's last name. It would be interesting to know where he ended up.
Everything worked out and we drove back to Arvada. One of the guys we picked up quickly kissed Knod on the lips as we dropped him. However, I know Knod was not interested in starting something up with him. Back at her house, I took some photos of Knod in her room and a couple with her and her cousin. It was about 3am as I drove back to my friend's house to spend one more night. I said goodbye to him the next day as I had to head back home.
Before leaving Denver, I took the film to 1-Hour MotoPhoto to have them developed. I went to Knod's house. She wasn't home, but her cousin was. I dropped off the photos and left. My next stop was going to be Las Vegas. Even though I was soon going to be flat broke, I wanted to do some gambling.
I went over to Circus Circus to see if they had any cheap rooms in their Manor Motor Lodge, but they were fully booked. I found the Motel 6 on Tropicana Blvd. and got a room there. During this trip to Vegas, I noticed a lot of construction going on. They were building this giant pyramid just down the street and I saw signs that the MGM Grand was building a brand new hotel nearby. Further up the strip, there was a new hotel there about to open called Treasure Island. I saw a location where they were accepting applications. I actually considered submitting an application and moving to Las Vegas, but I figured all the jobs they had available would have required me to dress up like a pirate to go to work, and that didn't really appeal to me. (Neither did having to join a union.)
While in Vegas, I actually managed to come out about $200 ahead. I was glad I stopped by and enjoy a little fun before my life was going to get a whole lot worse.
An interesting side note: A few months ago, I was lurking on the Facebook page of Chez' younger half-sister trying to find some information to write about during the last month. In addition to discovering that she's Facebook friends with Denz, she had posted one of the photos I took of her and her parents. I wonder if she knows who took it and the drama between me and her sister. I can only imagine that they aren't very close. I actually expected to pique her curiosity when I shared the photo and took credit for it. I definitely never heard from her, but she probably wondered who the heck was sharing her photo.
I drove home and just thought to myself for awhile. I decided I would take a vacation, go to Artesia, go to Denver and come back through Las Vegas. That would have made for a very good vacation and allowed me not to dwell so much on the loss of my job. I called up Dad and told him what happened. He said he would help through whatever I was going through. I tried calling Mom, but she was out of town. I figured I would talk to her once I got to Artesia.
I called the unemployment office next. They told me to come in the next day to apply for benefits. I figured on going there first thing in the morning and then leaving for Artesia as soon as I was finished.
That evening, I went over to the home of a former co-worker who had been fired just the week before. I told him what happened. "Welcome to the club." We talked for awhile before I went home. We said we would keep in touch with each other.
The next morning, I got up and packed my things. I wasn't planning to come back to the apartment after my business with the unemployment office. I drove downtown and went inside the building. There were quite a few people there, but nowhere near as many people in line at the welfare office when I went there. I had to wait for about an hour before they called my name. I handed them my paperwork. They had me choose a date for my phone interview. Someone would be calling me on a certain date and I needed to be there to answer the phone and talk to them for about five minutes. They tried to give me a date that would be about a week later, but I told the woman I needed more time because I was going out of town and hadn't figured out when I was going to return. She set a date for about two weeks later and gave me a two-hour time frame from 10am to 12pm in which I needed to wait for the call.
I left and drove to New Mexico. Since my last trip down, I determined that I didn't need to stay in a motel along the way and could save some money by sleeping in a rest stop alongside the road. I didn't bother to stop to see Kird in Alamogordo or Abed in Tularosa. I just kept driving until I got to Artesia. I went to Dad's house and hung around. While I was there, I called my answering machine to check for messages. At the time, I had changed my outgoing message to say, "Hi, I'm on permanent vacation. When I get back, I'll call you!" Mom left a message tell me she was back home and hoped I wasn't on permanent vacation. I went over to her house and rang her doorbell. When she answered, I said, "Yes, Mom. I'm on permanent vacation. I got fired from the theatre." She was disappointed.
All I did in Artesia was hang out with Mom and Dad for a few days. They both gave me some getting by money. Dad's wife Gred also bought me a few groceries. At one point, I went to see Chez' father and stepmother. Her father told me that Chez had a rough bus trip from San Diego. When the bus stopped at the McDonald's in Roswell, everyone was supposed to get off. However, Chez refused to leave the bus for fear that someone would see her and tell Road. On top of this, Chez had miscalculated the number of diapers she needed to bring on the bus. Joad soiled his diaper and SCREAMED for the next three hours. Also, Chez' sister Kiz had managed to regain custody of her three children. During the visit, I took a couple of photos of the parents with their 3-year-old daughter.
I drove up to Portales and saw Grandma Ogolon. I told her about what had happened with Chez. She didn't criticize, but she did tell me, "Now, you know I don't approve of you living with some woman without being married to her..." "Yeah, I know." "...and you know your Grandma Bend really wouldn't approve." "Yeah, I know that, too. But I'm not going to tell her."
I went to Ft. Sumner next and visited Grandma Bend. All I told her about was getting fired. I didn't go into the exact reasons, but she was also disappointed. (I found out later that Grandma Ogolon had called up Grandma Bend and told her I had been living with a woman and her child for a few months. However, Grandma Bend never mentioned this to me. But I know she gave a lot of grief to my Mom about it.)
My next stop was Denver. I stayed with a friend who used to work at the Mayan Theatre, but had gotten fired sometime before I had left for San Diego. He said I could stay with him a couple of days. I told him I couldn't pay him in money, but offered some of the groceries Dad and Gred bought me. He gladly accepted.
While in Denver, I went to the Mayan Theatre and saw my old manager, Mr. M. He recently had been promoted to the position of City Manager. He said he had recently found out about my dismissal when he asked the District Manager about me and was informed that I no longer worked for Landmark. He felt really bad and seemed to be frustrated that he couldn't do anything for me. Cynz also happened to be there at the time and was helping out in the office. I took a couple of photos of them before I left.
Most of the remainder of the time I was in Denver was spend hanging around with Knod. We went out to a party that night. I drove over to her house in Arvada. She and her cousin were going to do the driving. This would be weird for me because I was always used to driving Knod and her friends around because I was the only person they knew with a car. I had to leave the house to get something in my car, which I had parked about a half-block up the street. They told me they would be waiting for me in their car. When I came back, I saw a car with its headlights on in front of the house. I got in the back seat. The driver of the car turned around and said, "How are you doing?" It was an older man and his wife in the front seat. I said, "I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong car." I started to get out. While I was getting out, a young man went up to the woman's window and started talking to her. I went into the house.
Inside, Knod's cousin told me that her ex-boyfriend had just come by and was trying to get back together with her. I asked why they broke up, because Knod never explained that. She said, "He hit her." Suddenly, the young man I had seen at the car came in the front door. This was the ex-boyfriend. He was actually very friendly toward me, which surprised me. I guess he could tell I wasn't much competition for him. But he eventually left after seeing Knod again.
We went out and met a couple of Knod's friends who lived nearby. They were all coming to the party with us. It was a full car. The party we went to was actually just a couple of blocks from where I was staying with my friend. I figured that if something happened that Knod and her cousin didn't drive me back (which very well could have happened), I could easily go to my friend's, spend the night and take the bus to Arvada to retrieve my car. Fortunately, it didn't come to that.
AT the party we attended, it seemed like every five minutes, a different group of guys would come through the door and one of them would say, "Where's Knod?" Knod told me that one of those guys tried to kiss her. At one point, somebody said, "I'm going out for a walk. Who wants to go?" I volunteered and so did Knod's cousin. I just wanted to get out of the room because there were too many people there smoking pot. It quickly became apparent that I was a third wheel as Knod's cousin started holding hands with the guy. He asked me how old I was. I said, "28." He said, "Shouldn't you own a house by now?" I remembered how, when I was his age (19), I had expected my life to have gone a different direction by the time I was 28 and it simply did not go that way. Here I was. I hadn't gotten married, had a kid or owned a house. On top of that, I didn't have a job, so those things would be even further out of my reach. It's too bad I don't remember that guy's last name. It would be interesting to know where he ended up.
Everything worked out and we drove back to Arvada. One of the guys we picked up quickly kissed Knod on the lips as we dropped him. However, I know Knod was not interested in starting something up with him. Back at her house, I took some photos of Knod in her room and a couple with her and her cousin. It was about 3am as I drove back to my friend's house to spend one more night. I said goodbye to him the next day as I had to head back home.
Before leaving Denver, I took the film to 1-Hour MotoPhoto to have them developed. I went to Knod's house. She wasn't home, but her cousin was. I dropped off the photos and left. My next stop was going to be Las Vegas. Even though I was soon going to be flat broke, I wanted to do some gambling.
I went over to Circus Circus to see if they had any cheap rooms in their Manor Motor Lodge, but they were fully booked. I found the Motel 6 on Tropicana Blvd. and got a room there. During this trip to Vegas, I noticed a lot of construction going on. They were building this giant pyramid just down the street and I saw signs that the MGM Grand was building a brand new hotel nearby. Further up the strip, there was a new hotel there about to open called Treasure Island. I saw a location where they were accepting applications. I actually considered submitting an application and moving to Las Vegas, but I figured all the jobs they had available would have required me to dress up like a pirate to go to work, and that didn't really appeal to me. (Neither did having to join a union.)
While in Vegas, I actually managed to come out about $200 ahead. I was glad I stopped by and enjoy a little fun before my life was going to get a whole lot worse.
An interesting side note: A few months ago, I was lurking on the Facebook page of Chez' younger half-sister trying to find some information to write about during the last month. In addition to discovering that she's Facebook friends with Denz, she had posted one of the photos I took of her and her parents. I wonder if she knows who took it and the drama between me and her sister. I can only imagine that they aren't very close. I actually expected to pique her curiosity when I shared the photo and took credit for it. I definitely never heard from her, but she probably wondered who the heck was sharing her photo.
Monday, April 4, 2016
A couple of crazy crushes
Before I start my next descent into worthlessness, I thought I'd try to break up the cycle a little bit with the tales of two women, one on whom I had a crush and the other one, who had a crush on me. This all took place while I was still working at the Hillcrest Cinemas.
Let's start with Danz. She was the one of the few women in my life that I was 100% certain had a crush on me. She was an employee of the theatre and was hired in December of 1992. I started to get to know her at the Landmark Christmas party. She had come with her boyfriend.
About a month later, on a Saturday night, she saw me when she had started her shift. "Hi, Fayd!" She said it very excitedly. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. A couple of hours later, I was taking a deposit to the bank. She was smoking outside with the other nicotine addicts. She suddenly jumped up and volunteered to go with me to make the deposit. (We were required to have someone witness us putting the deposit in the bank's drop box across the street.) I told her that was okay, I already had someone else going with me. This seemed unusual, because no one ever volunteers to walk to the bank.
A little later on, she was standing next to an employee who was talking to me about the schedule. Danz chimed in, "Oh, I like the way you do the schedule!" This was the point in which I figured out what was going on. But I couldn't do anything about it, because I had just started living with Chez. Danz also still had her boyfriend. I found out later that they would get into frequent arguments. She knew my story and what was going on with Chez and I guess she thought I'd be a better match for her.
Just to make sure a message got sent to her, I had scheduled her for a closing shift. During the time we were waiting for the last movie to let out, I called Chez at home and talked to her for a little bit. I ended the call by telling her I loved her, knowing that Danz could very well hear my end of the conversation. But that may have been a moot point, because by that time, Danz no longer greeted me with the same amount of enthusiasm as before nor did she volunteer to walk with me to drop off a deposit.
But of course, even if I wasn't involved with Chez at the time, it still wouldn't have been a good idea to start something with her because she still had her boyfriend. (Otherwise, I totally would have.) A couple of months later, someone called and left a message on the theatre answering machine. It was a friend of hers and he said that she had injured her jaw and wouldn't be coming in to work. I completely misheard the message and actually thought she had broken her jaw. That would have been pretty serious. But after tell Anz this, I listened to the message again and heard the caller clearly state she had injured her jaw. She was okay and came back to work the next day, but I never did get the full story about how she got the injury.
Not long after that, she stopped coming to work. She didn't officially quit and we never knew what happened to her. You'd think I'd be able to find her on the Internet because she has a very unusual last name, but I guess she either never got a Facebook account or got married and doesn't list her maiden name. I did find her name in obituary notices as having died in 2003 at the age of 33. This would have been the correct age for her as she was in her early 20s in 1993, but one of the pronouns stated that the gender of this person was male. I couldn't find any other references to the death of this person, so I have no idea if she's dead or alive.
As for the woman I had a crush on, her name was Shaz. She was the girlfriend of one of our female employees. I had talked to her on the phone a couple of times when she called to talk to the employee. The employee frequently talked about the drama between her and the girlfriend.
I actually got to meet Shaz at the same Christmas party where I met Danz' boyfriend. I was rather taken aback by how attractive she was. I was expecting someone way more butch, but she was very feminine. The employee introduced us and she recognized my voice. She said she liked the sound of my voice on the phone. We talked for a little bit and it seemed like we were actually flirting with each other.
I saw Shaz again at least one other time at the theatre. We just talked a little bit then, but we didn't flirt so much. I still liked her a lot.
After Chez and Joad left San Diego, I thought I might try to give Shaz a shot just to see if there was a chance. I wrote a song about her. Even though I had gotten fired from the theatre, I decided to actually record this in a studio. I found a place that only charged about $20 an hour. This wasn't going to be anything fancy. I had programmed the track into my keyboard sequencer, plugged it into the board and rolled tape. I then double-tracked my vocals. It sounded really good. I was approached the employee to see if she would give her a tape of the song, along with my phone number.
The employee agreed to meet me at a bar near the theatre one night. We sat and talked for a while with her friends. The employee told me that when she first met me, she thought I was gay. I guess she figured it out after Chez moved in with me. We talked about what happened between me and Chez, and what happened between her and Shaz. While she said that Shaz would mention me from time to time, she didn't think I really had a shot with her. She was just doing this as a favor because she felt bad that I had gotten fired.
One day at the apartment, the phone rang and someone was leaving a message for my roommate. I could hear the message as the caller was leaving it. During the message, I heard the tone for call waiting. Someone else was trying to call, but I couldn't pick up the phone. I never knew who it was. Some time later, I asked the employee if Shaz ever said anything about the song. She said Shaz liked it, and tried to call me, but no one picked up the phone. I wondered if that was her trying to call. In the long run it didn't make a difference, because she was probably calling to tell me to buzz off.
I never did see Shaz again. And her name is pretty common, so I can't find her on-line, either.
And that's just the way some crushes go.
Let's start with Danz. She was the one of the few women in my life that I was 100% certain had a crush on me. She was an employee of the theatre and was hired in December of 1992. I started to get to know her at the Landmark Christmas party. She had come with her boyfriend.
About a month later, on a Saturday night, she saw me when she had started her shift. "Hi, Fayd!" She said it very excitedly. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. A couple of hours later, I was taking a deposit to the bank. She was smoking outside with the other nicotine addicts. She suddenly jumped up and volunteered to go with me to make the deposit. (We were required to have someone witness us putting the deposit in the bank's drop box across the street.) I told her that was okay, I already had someone else going with me. This seemed unusual, because no one ever volunteers to walk to the bank.
A little later on, she was standing next to an employee who was talking to me about the schedule. Danz chimed in, "Oh, I like the way you do the schedule!" This was the point in which I figured out what was going on. But I couldn't do anything about it, because I had just started living with Chez. Danz also still had her boyfriend. I found out later that they would get into frequent arguments. She knew my story and what was going on with Chez and I guess she thought I'd be a better match for her.
Just to make sure a message got sent to her, I had scheduled her for a closing shift. During the time we were waiting for the last movie to let out, I called Chez at home and talked to her for a little bit. I ended the call by telling her I loved her, knowing that Danz could very well hear my end of the conversation. But that may have been a moot point, because by that time, Danz no longer greeted me with the same amount of enthusiasm as before nor did she volunteer to walk with me to drop off a deposit.
But of course, even if I wasn't involved with Chez at the time, it still wouldn't have been a good idea to start something with her because she still had her boyfriend. (Otherwise, I totally would have.) A couple of months later, someone called and left a message on the theatre answering machine. It was a friend of hers and he said that she had injured her jaw and wouldn't be coming in to work. I completely misheard the message and actually thought she had broken her jaw. That would have been pretty serious. But after tell Anz this, I listened to the message again and heard the caller clearly state she had injured her jaw. She was okay and came back to work the next day, but I never did get the full story about how she got the injury.
Not long after that, she stopped coming to work. She didn't officially quit and we never knew what happened to her. You'd think I'd be able to find her on the Internet because she has a very unusual last name, but I guess she either never got a Facebook account or got married and doesn't list her maiden name. I did find her name in obituary notices as having died in 2003 at the age of 33. This would have been the correct age for her as she was in her early 20s in 1993, but one of the pronouns stated that the gender of this person was male. I couldn't find any other references to the death of this person, so I have no idea if she's dead or alive.
As for the woman I had a crush on, her name was Shaz. She was the girlfriend of one of our female employees. I had talked to her on the phone a couple of times when she called to talk to the employee. The employee frequently talked about the drama between her and the girlfriend.
I actually got to meet Shaz at the same Christmas party where I met Danz' boyfriend. I was rather taken aback by how attractive she was. I was expecting someone way more butch, but she was very feminine. The employee introduced us and she recognized my voice. She said she liked the sound of my voice on the phone. We talked for a little bit and it seemed like we were actually flirting with each other.
I saw Shaz again at least one other time at the theatre. We just talked a little bit then, but we didn't flirt so much. I still liked her a lot.
After Chez and Joad left San Diego, I thought I might try to give Shaz a shot just to see if there was a chance. I wrote a song about her. Even though I had gotten fired from the theatre, I decided to actually record this in a studio. I found a place that only charged about $20 an hour. This wasn't going to be anything fancy. I had programmed the track into my keyboard sequencer, plugged it into the board and rolled tape. I then double-tracked my vocals. It sounded really good. I was approached the employee to see if she would give her a tape of the song, along with my phone number.
The employee agreed to meet me at a bar near the theatre one night. We sat and talked for a while with her friends. The employee told me that when she first met me, she thought I was gay. I guess she figured it out after Chez moved in with me. We talked about what happened between me and Chez, and what happened between her and Shaz. While she said that Shaz would mention me from time to time, she didn't think I really had a shot with her. She was just doing this as a favor because she felt bad that I had gotten fired.
One day at the apartment, the phone rang and someone was leaving a message for my roommate. I could hear the message as the caller was leaving it. During the message, I heard the tone for call waiting. Someone else was trying to call, but I couldn't pick up the phone. I never knew who it was. Some time later, I asked the employee if Shaz ever said anything about the song. She said Shaz liked it, and tried to call me, but no one picked up the phone. I wondered if that was her trying to call. In the long run it didn't make a difference, because she was probably calling to tell me to buzz off.
I never did see Shaz again. And her name is pretty common, so I can't find her on-line, either.
And that's just the way some crushes go.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Pretend Marriage #1: Chez, Part 10 (The final part, kind of...)
After Chez and Joad left San Diego, they weren't completely out of my life. About a month later, I got fired from the Hillcrest Cinemas and decided to take a vacation. I brought the rest of Chez' stuff down with me so that I could give it to her. She had moved in with her mother and boyfriend in Clovis. She gave the address and directions on how to get there.
When I showed up at the mobile home park, there was a car in front of me. It was heading to the same house I was. I looked closely, and I could see Chez, Joad and her mother and boyfriend in the car. The boyfriend saw my vehicle following his in the rear view mirror and I could see him saying something to Chez. Chez looked at me and I could see her lips saying, "Son of a b****!" I don't know why she was upset. She knew I was coming up.
She had cut Joad's hair short. It was the first time she'd cut it since he was born. During the time that they were living with me, strangers thought Joad was a girl. I guess that finally got to Chez, so she decided to make him look more like his gender expectations. It had been more than a month, so he didn't act like he really recognized me. He wouldn't let me hold him.
I brought Chez' stuff in and she put it away in her room. I also had an order of business to attend to. After I'd gotten fired from the theatre, I went out that day and turned in my 30-day notice. I told them that Chez had moved out a month earlier and the deposit return needed to be made out to me. They said I needed her to sign a statement that the funds could be released only to me. I brought the statement for Chez to sign. She didn't give me much guff about it.
The whole time I was there, she was acting like we were still living together. She couldn't be nice and couldn't be appreciative about me bringing the rest of her stuff (months earlier than I originally anticipated). Chez' mother asked me to stay for dinner. The next thing I knew, the boyfriend took the VCR and went out the door. When he came back about an hour later, he had brought food from KFC. He had pawned the VCR to get the money for the chicken. I felt bad. If I'd known they were going to do that, I wouldn't have stuck around. (But there was a chance they were probably going to do that anyway and it looked like pawning the VCR was something they did on a regular basis.)
When I left, Chez didn't want to let me hug her goodbye. I expected as much.
This was not the last I saw of her. I would still see her several times over the next few years. Those will be the subjects of future posts, so she's not completely gone from this blog yet.
I know that for a period of time in the first half of this decade, she and Joad lived in Billings, MT. During this time, she had a MySpace account. There was a photo of her and a teenaged Joad together. He was considerably taller than her. He was probably about as tall as his father. She was wearing an oversized Tasmanian Devil t-shirt. What was most notable about her appearance were the dark circles underneath her eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in years. Somebody wrote a comment on the photo that these were the two biggest losers on MySpace. Just recently, I found more photos on that MySpace account. There are a couple of Joad graduating from high school, one of them with Chez. the other with a female classmate (and possible girlfriend). There were also two more photos of Chez, one that showed her watching the commencement and one of her with her significant other at the time.
I found that at some point in late 2009 or early 2010 (after he'd turned 18), Joad had gotten into some kind of trouble with the law in Roundup, MT, which is about 50 miles away from Billings. According to the City Court Report, he was charged with criminal mischief and received a deferred prosecution. I don't have any more details.
Since then, Chez has moved to Hibbing, MN. According to her Facebook profile, she went to The Academy of Hair, Skin and Nails. That means she now makes a living performing beauty treatments. Now, I thought Chez was cute, but I never in a million years would have expected her to go into this line of work. I should also note that the background for her profile features a Confederate flag. But I don't have access to any other photos on her account and her profile photo is that of a peacock. She used to have a LGBT symbol there, but changed it a couple of years ago. But she has no other photos of herself that I have access to.
But this is what gets me: I found out that she is Facebook friends with Road. WHAT? I mean, considering the kind of hell he put her through, I figured he'd be the last person she'd want seeing her progress on Family Farm. Now, I could understand it if Joad had a Facebook account and needed that connection with both his parents, but he doesn't have one, so she really doesn't have a reason to be friends with him.
As for Road, he now lives in Loco Hills, NM. I have no idea what he does, but he still looks like a stand-in for "Duck Dynasty." I know his father died a few years ago. I had hoped that the obituary would have listed where Joad was, but it just said he was survived by several grandchildren. I saw that Road had four brothers, so they probably all ran around and became deadbeat dads.
If I ever thought there was someone I could eternally sunshine out of my spotless mind, it would be Chez. However, if I had been able to do that, I wouldn't have had anything to write about for the last month. That's basically all the good that came out of it.
I still have a couple more disastrous relationships ahead of me, including one that sometimes took me to darker places than this one, but I don't regret a moment of it. However, that won't be coming up for awhile.