M.I.A.

Well, I have finally found a few minutes to sit down and write out a blog. The past few months have been a blur. I made plans to go back to Hawaii and get my M.A. in Military and Diplomacy Studies, but things happen and that plan has changed, considerably! It doesn't bother as much as I thought it would because in the process of getting everything ready for the trip, I made a lot of calls and sent a lot of e-mails to my "so-called" Hawaii friends and/or contacts. I did get some positive results, but from a very limited amount of people. The rest were pretending, or acting like they cared but that facade was easy to read, guess I learned something from Kenneth Burke after all. The motivation was there was nothing to gain from helping me find an apartment, which was the main reason I contacted everyone I ever met out there. There are even some people that have left the island and won't bother returning my calls, and a couple of them actually live in the Chicago area.

I have realized that Honolulu has a high turnaround of people, therefore it is easy to put people out of mind if they are out of sight. I say, Good Riddance, those are people I do not need in my life. The negativity from that situation bothered me at first, but now I am on a new path and I like it.

I have started my M.A. in History as of last week. I went to my first classes, and they were alright, nothing to write home about. My grades for this semester will be based on a few papers, no exams. It is a breeze. I have already formulated a topic of study for my Ancient Greece "major" paper, it will involve Aristotle's rhetoric as a method of persuasion. Do you notice the link between my other degree and this one??? Good, because that is what I am going to do for the next two years. I am going to pound these texts out, do some great writing and get going on this academia thing.

I didn't get those teaching gigs due to low enrollment. The classes of the person who would have been my boss did not fill up, so he ended up swallowing up (I call it stealing) the film history classes I was supposed to teach. Ah well, this is the profession I chose, therefore I got to get used to the disappointments of low enrollment and asshole chair-people.

I did think I would have gotten more done this summer in the academic part of my life, but it flew by with the job I have. I was going to leave the job before Hawaii, but since I am not going to the islands anymore I can keep it until October. It is pretty nice because a few of the other drivers quit, which has given me more hours as of late. A few weeks ago, it had slowed down to me just working 10 hours a week, which was tough on the wallet. Anyway, I am back to working 10-15 hour days, plus going to school, so things are moving rather nicely.

I moved out of my father's house and I am currently renting a nice little casa in western suburbs. It is nice out here because cigarettes, gas, and booze are not taxed like they are in the city, or at least not as high. We all know you can't run from the tax-man. I pay 450 in rent my utilities. I moved what stuff I had, my parents gave me a few things to fill the place, and I bought a 10 dollar 1960s couch from goodwill. The thing is in mint condition and I think it is worth something being a relic of the cold war era when people put plastic on their couches/sofas. It is gold, with a nice wood frame. It has the circular pillows that act as armrests but can be used as a neck pillow also. It is vintage, and maybe one day I can find out if it is worth more than 10 bucks. The name of the couch maker is Benny Studios and it was in Chicago, but this company doesn't exist anymore, and even google cant find anything related. So I will just enjoy its comfort on my ass and maybe one day I will make a handsome profit from it.

As for the rest of my new place, it has some downsides. The neighbor's are really close and they hang outside my backdoor on their porches. I call it "The Pub," and I know that should be a good thing for someone like me but it isn't. I have been trying to quit smoking, there has been some success, and I have cut down my drinking considerably over the past few weeks. Having these guys congregate in the back smoking, cigs, weed, and whatever else, plus drinking becomes a bit tiresome. I can't leave my kitchen window open because of the smoke blowing into my house.

I got to know the people, my neighbors to the right are Deadheads, so we have that in common, my other neighbors across the back sidewalk live in two units but are part of the same family. The patriarch, Jerry, who is a total asshat by the way, owns his unit, and his son Dave rents the unit next door. There are so many people coming and going that I don't know who is who. They are definitely a country/city folk. In other words, they are very country or hillbilly-ish, but they are from this area, which may be far west of Chicago, but not boonies far. So, I would venture to say that Jerry's influence (he used to be an OTR truck driver) has had something to do with this situation. Jerry used to be cool with me, but I think I have intimidated him. There is definitely an alpha struggle happening in the back of my house, and I believe Jerry (original Alpha) is losing his power to other men trying to control the back stairs. Anyway, I don't care, and maybe that is another thing that bothers him. I don't know what is up, I just know he doesn't talk to me anymore, but he did when I first moved here a month ago. I am sure there will be plenty more to write about, but the parking situation here is another blog.

I don't really have much else to report on at the moment. I am just going through the motions and trying to figure out a good plan. I know my book is done, and should be out in stores next month or November. Other than that I have just isolated myself from mostly everyone I talk too, and I am enjoying the silence and solitude for the moment. I will let you know if that changes...

Thanks for stopping by...