Journal

"So, I’ve gotta ask you this question," Jeffrey started.

"Okay," I replied.

"Why were you so willing to pay my way out of town? Was it just to get rid of me?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"Was it because you needed a break, or is this it?"

"No, this isn’t it. And there were two reasons. First, it’s been a living nightmare around here lately. I really need to rest and recuperate. Second…"

"So it’s all about me…" he interrupted.

"Wait a minute, you didn’t let me finish. Second, I felt you needed a break from everything around here too."

Our first phone call, earlier last night, had not gone well. It had left us each agitated. I was so angry that I couldn’t even write. I sat here for over an hour and could do nothing other than fume. Apparently he did the same.

He felt betrayed because I hadn’t told him yet that Jim had stepped back into the picture, and had even been here during one of his phone calls. Debbie told him in another call Tuesday afternoon.  Fifteen minutes of angry tirade ensued as I tried to explain I was going to tell him Monday night, but he had called late and the guards turned off the phones before I we could finish our conversation.

Towards the end of that first call, he scolded me for "putting thoughts in my [his] head" when I was speculating on the causes of all his anger lately. So I carefully worded the next part.

"Now I’m not putting thoughts in your head," I continued. "I’m merely commenting on the behavior I witnessed. It seemed like you were frustrated at not being able to control your own life. It also seemed like you were frustrated at not being able to control my life, Debbie’s life, your mother’s life, or anything else. It all poured out as anger 24 by seven for four weeks straight. You needed a cool-down."

"I’ve got one now," he sighed.

"Yep. And I don’t wanna hear any shit about it being my fault either."

"Uh huh," I agreed.

Choosing my words carefully again, I replied, "I was hurt and angry when you’d take your frustrations out on me."

"I never did that," he said defensively.

"You don’t know what a madman you were in your alcoholic blackouts. Like the time you jumped through the car window and beat me up while I was strapped down in the driver’s seat and couldn’t get away or defend myself. You broke my nose, remember?"

"Yeah," he replied sheepishly.

"And a week later when you wouldn’t let me out of the apartment? I was trying to avoid a fight and you wouldn’t let me out of the place so you could have a cool-down, because you wanted a fight so badly. Remember? That’s when I told you ‘A fighter lets his opponent walk away. A bully doesn’t, and keeps punching anyway.’ and you still wouldn’t let me leave."

I continued, "What about the time when you deliberately drove down the wrong side of the street and drove through red lights after picking me up from work? You did that to pick a fight with me then too, didn’t you?"

"I guess," he reluctantly acknowledged.

"I was fucking tired of you picking fights with me, accusing me of stealing or hiding your stuff. And worse yet, you accusing me of calling the police on you, and I was quite literally tired of you keeping me up all night three or four weeknights every week."

I was on a roll, "When you kept asking me if your freedom was worth $750 to me, I was thinking ‘Is my safety and sanity worth $750 plus a couple of hundred more for a bus ticket and spending money?’ The answer kept coming up ‘Yes.’"

"So yes, I wanted to get rid of you for a while, and yes, I think you needed it too. And although I thought it was wrong and it went against every remaining shred of morality I have left, I was prepared to flush $750 down the toilet by buying your bus ticket outta here. But always remember, it was for the both of us."

"And I wanted to get away from you too," he acknowledged.

"I’m not surprised," I replied

"And I wanted to get away from Debbie and Daphne and my mother, and the police … everyone."

"I know that. But also remember what I said about running away from your problems."

"Yeah," he replied. "No matter where I go, I can’t run away from myself."

"And isn’t that what the drinking and drugging was all about in the first place?" I asked.

"I guess so," he allowed.

Long pause.

"I love you," I offered.

Anyway, I’d forgotten to tell him, and you, about the raid. Mark told me this over the weekend, and Monday night he said they’re still talking about it. The city police were so desperate to find Jeffrey last week that they RAIDED THE FORUM looking for him.

Now this is hearsay. I haven’t talked with anyone who was actually there at the time, but what I hear is that they surrounded the place, then searched everywhere, including the basement, the walk-in cooler, the office, behind the bar, everywhere. And they IDed everyone in the place. Didn’t let anyone in or out while they did their thing.

Naturally Jeffrey roared at the whole thing. He’s also thinking the city police must be pretty sore because it took the State Troopers to bring him in. And that was only after pulling him over for equipment violations on the car.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been followed by the city police, and all the while they had probable cause to pull us over because of the equipment violations. And they never did. Actually, I think that’s what made Jeffrey so brazen the past couple of weeks. He certainly felt invincible. Until of course the Troopers pulled him over.

Fortunately the e-mail problem only affected one of the four e-mail servers. Still, that’s 1,100 people. And I’ll never understand why they have the print queues for over 500 printers on just one server. At least it was the intranet trouble rather than Internet trouble, and it was fixed by the end of the day.

Oh, way back in the early 70's when I took typing, they always said to use two spaces after a period.  Old habits die hard, and sometimes it causes odd formatting in your browser.  Since I usually write and edit in Word it's not a problem because it strips out the extra spaces as it converts the file to HTML.

Sooo, this is my cubie.  I still haven't gotten around to rearranging it so I look out the windows rather than have the sun to my back.  It involves moving the wall segment at the end of the desk, and moving the overhead storage bins.  Both are two person jobs, and I haven't found anyone to help.

The storage bins are empty, except for the one with my food.  See, tons of ramen noodles, Progresso soup, and candy bars.  It's a wonder I don't get "secretary spread".  The desk drawers are all empty too, except for this one with my money and cigarettes.  I got in the habit of keeping them here because with Danger-Boy around they'd disappear.

Oh, here's my photos, We Three, Willie and Jeff, Jeff and Bruce, and Willie. That's the ultrasound of Debbie's baby. Other than the Rules for Being Human and Lessons, my cubie is unadorned.   Except of course for my Gay Flag mousepad.

Lets see ... I've got three lines on my phone, one from the Automatic Call Distributor, where all the client calls come in, then there's my private line and what we call the "Batphone" which is where our technicians call in.  I don't like this headset as much as the one I have at home though.  And I wish I had a longer "leash".  There's a quick disconnect plug so I can roam around, (like to the bathroom or the coffee) without taking the headset off, but sometimes I need to confer with someone AND stay on the phone, but I can't get any further than one cube away.

The biggest problem with these phones is that when there are calls backed up in the queue and a customer hangs up, I get the next call instantly, even if I'm not ready for it.  It can be a pain sometimes.  If I'm lucky, I can hit the "Unavailable" button before the next call comes in.  Otherwise, I invariably get a new long drawn-out problem when I needed to do something about my last call. <sigh>

My PC is okay, it's a Dell 200MHz Pentium with 64MB of RAM, and a 17" monitor.   Since most of what I do isn't processor intensive, even a Pentium 200 is overkill.   I wish I had a 21" monitor though.  I have so many things open all at the same time, it's hard to fit enough of everything on the screen.

Well, we've been keeping up with the calls this afternoon.  In the two hours since I started this segment of the page, we've logged 15 calls, and what a variety, huh?   Forgotten passwords, no network access, how to use endnotes in Word, can't copy a file to the floppy in a locked-down machine, (not supposed to be able to,) e-mail issues, a department scheduling installation of all new PCs, tracking the progress of a couple of calls.

Then there's that outside tech support person working with Medical Records who wanted us to reboot a server to see IF that will solve the problem with her database.  Sure we reboot enterprise-level servers at the drop of a hat!  I don't think so.  Unless something "mission-critical" requires it, servers are not rebooted.  And even then it requires the consent and knowledge of every department using that server. Sheesh!

Finally a bit of a lull.  I've got a ramen in the nuke, and I'll back it up with a Snickers.

There are only two of us on the phones this afternoon, and the other guy is still in training.  Right now I've been on this call for 15 minutes and it looks like it'll be another 15 minutes anyway, and there are two calls in the queue.  Ooops, they hung up.  They'll call back.

On this call, we have a department or group level support person who knows just enough to be dangerous.  She rebuilt a 95 installation with the wrong video drivers.   Now she has the PC apart to see what kind of video card is in it.  Oh goody, she'll call back later.  Elapsed time, 21 minutes.

I still don't know why I'm so tense and on edge today.  It just isn't me (any more).  It's like someone put crystal meth in my orange juice or something.   I've been catching up on my sleep, I could still use an nice 12 hour night, but the seven or eight hours I've been getting is much more than I get when Jeffrey is around.

Ten minutes until the worst half-hour of the day.  4:30 to 5:00.  I'm the only one on phones.  It seems like I always get a long call at 4:55, and have to rush out to get my bus, which doesn't get here until 5:40.

Five calls in twenty minutes.  I'd better close this out now so I can get ready to go home.  I've got to check the network status and update the status line, and four or five other little things.

Catch ya at home.