The Big Return

Yeah, so here I am again. In what will possibly make up to three(3) people happy, Stray Bullets is back on the air. And as you can imagine, after a nine month absence which also happened to be the busiest and eventful nine months of my life, there is a whole lot of catching up to do with y'all. I won't try to eat the whole elephant with this one post, though, like I might have tried to do in the past, but I guess I can hit the highlights. Here we go.

Amy and I worked out. When we last spoke, she and I had just gotten together, and here we are all this time later still together, and not only that ... we got married. Yes. I'm married to Amy. That happened back on June 5th, and there are a whole lot of stories to be told related to that, which I'll get to some other time. But my lovelife is good and stable for the first time in ... well .... ever.

I'm also a step-dad to a really cute almost 4 year old named Allison. That's going very well, too.

Still at the same job.

Still working on the same book, but seeing as I more or less shelved it for a year (or longer due to the laptop issue), you should be happy that I'm working on it at all again.

Ok, I'm a little rusty at this blogging stuff after such a long layoff. Let's call it good for now, huh?

You see, there's this girl ....

I was going to write out the whole story for y'all here, but as it's a really long and complicated story, and I'm tired, and I don't have the four hours I would need to do it full justice, and I still have to do a little e-mail after ... I'm just going to hit the highlights and get everyone up to date on the situation. Now, this may be the post where I alienate some of my audience (those I haven't already, that is), and depending on how this all goes it may be my last blog post for a little while. Seeing as I haven't seemed to have the time or inclination to regularly update this thing since like September, I doubt you'll be missing much. But for those few of you interested in reading, let's carry on.

Long story short, I have a girlfriend again. Her name is Amy. You might remember her from the 65 or so blog posts during the last year in which she was a featured character. Yes, it's that girl. The same Amy who told me about 12 months ago that she liked me. The same Amy I had a crush on that drove me crackers. The same Amy who spent a night on my couch while I struggled with trying to do the right thing. The same Amy who I've been sweet on ever since, and unbeknownst to me, continued to like me all along.

She and I are going out. There's a whole story to this, and it's a good story, too, one I could probably use as part of a book later on down the road.

But I'm not going to do it here.

I'm just going to say that it's been great so far. I don't know if it'll last two weeks or two months or two years, but I'm going to enjoy it while it's here. If anyone doesn't like it, or doesn't agree with it, or is for whatever reason mad at me because of it, well I'm sorry. But I'm going to see this one through.

And with that, Stray Bullets is closed for now. Toodles.

No Longer a Dry County

Tonight ended a dry streak that has been going on since the dawn of time. To put it another way, I have a sex life again for the first time in eight years. And it is with who you think it is. And it was worth the wait. Good god, was it worth the wait. On the subject of something that I was starting to believe would never again occur in my lifetime, it was frikking amazing ...



all seven times.



There, Brit. How do YOU like it for a god damned change.






(full story tomorrow.)

Virgorama

In 1952, renowned modern composer John Cage created the infamous "4'33"." It's a "song" that consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of pure silence. Recently a San Francisco performance artist, Jonathon Keats, did a remix of that tune and made it available as a ring-tone. I'd love for you to be inspired by those two geniuses in the coming week, Virgo. It'll be an excellent time for you to come to a perfect stop, fill yourself with stillness, and bask in the healing power of undiluted nothingness.

Sadly, I don't see this happening for a little while.

It's the Same Old Thing as Yesterday

So last night I was feeling the pressure. As things tend to do with me, it built to a crisis point where all I could feel was the weight of the world on my shoulders, crushing me underneath it. And while I can't say today that the weight of things or the pressure is all the way off of me, I have gotten to the point where I can start to plan and counterplan and devise how I'm going to go about tackling the problem, for good if that's possible.

Two weeks ago Cooter and Amy broke up. This is their third break-up just since I've known him, but this time it's pretty serious, and there's a very good chance that they are done and over. Now, it's those two we're talkin about, so who the fuck really knows if it'll ever really be done and over with, but just the same ... it seems pretty final this time around.

People who were around reading this blog last winter surely already have a guess where this is headed, and guess what? You're right! It was pretty quiet on the Amy front for the first week and a half of the split. She moved back up to her mom's house up on the mountain, and I didn't hear from her. I knew inevitably that I would, but I didn't know when. Meanwhile, I heard most of Cooter's side of things, because I work with him, but because I don't work right next to him anymore, I only got sketchy details -- she left, took kid, very angry. I did the sympathetic listener thing that I always do, while trying to share the benefit of my experience with relationships gone off the rails, and he listened to that (and to advice from others) about as well as he ever does, which is not at all.

And then came Saturday. She called. I talked to her. And she's coming after me. Oh yeah. She's coming after me, no doubt about it, no beating around the bush, and she's bringing her A-game along with her. Now, we can go through all the arguments about how this could become a huge disaster that'll lead to a whole lot of fighting and violence and anger and hatred, but nevermind. I know. I know. I know. I do know this.

Yeah, she does have that effect on me. She always has. You know, the Becky Effect. The thing that causes me to lose perspective and my common sense. Any intellectual thought about right or wrong goes out the window, and it's not just a lust thing. And don't make any mistake, there is lust in my soul for that girl. I thought it was gone, because I didn't know she was even still interested in me, but it was lurking. I beat it back before. I could probably do it again. But it's hard. So hard.

Because I'm talking to the both of them, I'm in the unenviable position of knowing more about the situation than either one of them, so every day I walk a tightrope of functional neutrality. They're getting into a custody battle over Allison, and it's set to get ugly -- real ugly. I know things that are going to happen, things that one or the other do not know about, and at some point the shit is going hit the fan, and when it does I don't want to be within 100 miles. So maybe I'll be in Massachusetts that weekend. Meanwhile, I'm in my own sort of custody battle with the both of them. They both want equal time, and it's driving me crazy, man. One or the other or both calls me every day. Sigh.... And if you don't already know which side of things I'm way more sympathetic to then you just haven't been paying attention to the blog for the last eleven months.

Today at work I was wound up. Last night I was crashing under the stress, but today I channelled it into straight hostility, mostly for Matt's and Jim's entertainment, due to a unprecedented ruthlessnes with my sarcastic remarks. I just decided to be angry, and I made sure Cooter realized I was angry due to being completely frikking stressed from the two of them. They are making me nuts.

And she isn't making it easy on me. To borrow a phrase from my best friend, she just puts it right out there. There is a very clear invitation right there on the table on a silver platter. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've spent most of a year imagining it, though, and thinking about all the horrible things I want to do to that girl. And in case you don't remember, it's been a very very long time for me. Jen and I never got to that point, and she was my first girlfriend in a godforsaken long time.

At the end of that conversation we decided that we are in fact going out. Yes, we are boyfriend/girlfriend just like that, lickety split, no beating around the bush. I was *so* nervous that I almost fucked the whole thing up, but yeah. I have a girlfriend again, and it's Amy, the girl I've had this horrifying crush on that y'all have been reading about. It's everything I wanted ... and I'm scared to death. I don't want to screw this up. I screw it up, I might as well just retire forever to a life of loneliness and isolation.

I'm not going to screw it up. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

Let's do it.

There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today

Oh, I'm stressed. God damn am I stressed out. And it was all starting to go so well again, too. I don't have the time to discuss it all right now, but it involves some old business (within the timespan of this blog, not the OLD old stuff) that's really bugging me. I'll get into it tomorrow.

:(


Oh, and computers FUCKING SUCK. Except for this laptop. This laptop is great.

































Bleh.

I Can Haz Weekend?

So you're aware that we had an election a couple of weeks ago, of course, and that this Obama guy won it. Because he is to be our next president, my Place of Employment has gone batshit crazy. Everywhere there are Chicken Littles running about proclaiming the sky is falling, which is to say, these people believe that Obama is going to come and shut us down ... or at least the parts of us that make semi-automatic weaponry, and I am part of one of those parts of us. As a consequence, orders for the guns in my line have gone through the roof, into the sky, up past the clouds, and are currently circling the moon.

Since the election orders have been placed for approximately 16,000 of the rifles that I happen to work on. We sold 6000 in one day alone. That's a lot of firepower being let out into the world, but of course ... we have to make most of them first. To accomplish this, the Powers That Be (who are among the Chicken Littles already mentioned) have bumped up our daily numbers. We were at 125, which we were easily making back when I was on bolt-fit. Now they want between 250 and 300 every day from now until infinity until the madness dies down.

Yeah, and we haven't done that. On our best day ever since I've worked there we did 220, and we were hauling ass, man. I bolt-fit my little heart out, and at the time ther was a second bolt-fitter (I believe it was Brad). Now I'm on trigger housings, which I'm pretty good at, yes, but it's really hectic keeping up with the sub-assemblies for even the numbers we're making. I'm supposed to get another person over there to build those subs, but so far it's only been here and there. Bolt-fit, with Cooter over there, is also struggling.

And so we're getting a lot of overtime. I've been working six day weeks (five 10 hour days and 5 hours Saturdays) for what now seems like years, even though it's really only been maybe a month or so. And I'm tired. By Thursday I've totally lost track of where I am in the week and have to stop and figure out what actual day it is. It feels like I've been there every day since sometime in September without break. The weekends fly by, and I don't get nearly anything I want to do accomplished.

But the machine shop is having a hard time keeping ahead of us. They've had some problems, and we've been stuck waiting for parts, and so on. So they're working mandatory Saturdays (8 hours last week, 10 this week). the PTB decided to shut us down and save what barrels are ready for Monday. So today I worked an 8 hour day building up triggers and mag-latches, and hammer struts, and doing miscellaneous other things. Jim and Brad worked, too, doing similar. Cooter wasn't there. If he doesn't *have* to work, he doesn't work. There are reasons that I often hold him in contempt, and this is one of them.

And we're off tomorrow. I have a full weekend to myself, to do whatever I want. So in preparation for the big push next week, you might think I'd want to take it easy and rest up, and the truth is I am pretty exhausted. But no ... I'm going to empty the fuel tanks. Everything that I've had to push back, everything that I've wanted to do -- it's all on the docket. I'm going to cram as much stuff in here as humanly possible, including a good chunk of writing time, and I'm going to live life to the fullest.

Because as things look, I might not get too many more weekends like this for a good long time.

Virgorama

For many people, 10:30 a.m. is the single best time of day to come up with fresh insights and new ideas. But that won't exactly be true for you in the coming week. I mean, 10:30 will be a time when you're likely to be really smart, but then so will 11:30, 1:05, 2:37, 3:46, and 4:20. For that matter, 6:35 may also bring a gush of high intelligence, as well as 7:27, 8:19, and the last ten minutes before bedtime. What I'm trying to tell you, Virgo, is that you're in a phase when being brilliant should come pretty naturally.

In support of this supposed brilliance, Stray Bullets returns to your local stations tomorrow afternoon.


yes, really.

Triggered

So at work I'm doing a new gig. I was a bolt-fitter for a solid year, and while that is one of the hardest jobs on the line, I will say that I enjoyed my time over there. Of course, I was really frikken awesome at it, so that helps. It started out me and Brad, then me and Cooter, and then just me doing it alone. That was hard, but with my work ethic I toughed it out and could make the numbers by myself.

A few weeks ago they moved Brad over to work on Mergie's line and Cassie took a job in the office, leaving just the four of us (me, Cooter, Jim, and Fred). And with just the four of us on the line the numbers became very very hard to hit, and we have consistently not made the numbers over the past few weeks. Well, they raised us from 125 to 150, too, so there's that.

Meanwhile, Fred has been hurting. He has a herniated disk, which he's going to have operated on, but in the meantime he's had some pretty hard days in there. He finally called the doctor because his leg was just killing him (it's connected to the back problem), and the doc told him to stay home. His operation is on November the 4th, so he's going to be out for at least the next nine weeks or so.

Fred did final build, which along with bolt-fit can be a pretty grueling job. Jim knows how to do that, so he shifted over there. And he recommended me to Barney for learning how to build trigger-housings. That and final build are the only remaining things on the line I don't know, and I was a little trepidacious about going over there. I'm so used to being competant and awesome that I didn't want to drag down the line by being slow.

I have worked on housings a little bit before. Christy showed me how to do them once, but she put it together in about 22 seconds while showing me, and yeah .... not so helpful. Then Amanda showed me a little bit weeks later. Then Jim showed me a little bit a few months ago (he's been working on getting me there for a while). But it didn't all click until last Thursday when I finally got a few hours to work on them.

Housings are complicated. There's 19 different pieces that make them up. Many of those are sub-assemblies, like hammer struts, triggers, and mag-latches that are sub-assembled before the housing is made, but during the course of the job I do all those, too. Even with all that, putting a housing together is comprised of eleven parts in a sequence, and it took me several shots at it before I could remember how to do it in what order. Suffice to say, I was pretty slow.

But I picked up speed. I spent all this week making them, and by the end of the day today I was able to do a little more than twenty of them an hour. The assembly part isn't that hard; it's just tricky at first. The real hard part is keeping up with the three sub-assemblies. It really really sucks when you run out of triggers and have to stop and make some up so that you can get back to putting the housing together. At various times both Jim and Barney have stopped by and done some up for me so I could keep going, but eventually I should be able to get it all myself.

I am trying so hard. By the end of today I was completely wiped out. I do think, however, that I've acquited myself well at that station. I will not fail.

As a side-effect of my moving to housings, Cooter got stuck with bolt-fit. That's kind of funny for me because 1) he sucks at it, and 2) he *hates* it. When it was him and me over there both doing it, it was mostly me. I was doing five guns for every one that he did, and that kinda pissed me off. Now I get to be amused by it.

Take that, you little fucker.

Virgorama

If you and I were members of the French Resistance during the German occupation of our country in World War II, I'd want you to serve as the communication hub for our community. With understated ferocity, you would gather data about what's going on behind the scenes. You'd be precise and economical in relaying messages between your comrades and allies, accurately representing the information people entrusted you with. You would be alert without being overwrought, and discerning without getting distracted by inefficient rage. In that dire setting, Virgo, I bet you'd be indispensable. I challenge you to bring those same skills to bear in the relatively benign circumstances you're now in the midst of. Halloween costume suggestion: French Resistance leader.

Viva la resistance~!

The Story of Jade

So I've had car trouble. It all started with the incident on the highway, in which I had to have my poor car towed back to Newport, which set off a chain reaction of money issues, of which I've almost made it out the other side. But I don't know how much longer I can hang onto this car. She's showing her age. I might have to trade her in.

Two weeks ago I took her in for inspection. I was already running late, because the sticker expired in September, so the pressure was on. I took her to the local place where she got fixed after the towing. Going in, I knew she wasn't in perfect shape, but still hoped for the best. And she failed. The girl at the counter came back with a whole list of what they failed her for, and then priced out the fixes for me:

-- Both front tires; below wear bars; have secondary rubber showing. $73 each.
-- Exhaust manifold cracked; spring bolt and flange at I pipe rusted. $535 for the manifold; if have to replace the bolt and flange $635.
-- Rust hole in front of right rear tire. $70-$105.
-- Unsecure and broken right front bumper. $70-$105.

Which comes to a grand total of between $748 on the low end and $918 on the high end. And I'm already pushed to the limit of what my money can do for me right now, and that's a lot of fucking money right there even in the best of times. So I left there deflated and depressed, came home and did nothing. I think I took a nap.

And then I didn't do anything about the car for two weeks, except plot and plan. I discussed it all with Cooter, who is something of an amateur car-phile. I discussed the possibility that I might give her up for something else, and he's looking around for me to see what's out there in used car land. And he looked at the car, too. He agreed one of the tires isn't in the best of shape (they never are with my cars), but otherwise didn't see what they saw. He couldn't find the crack in the exhaust or anything. Now, yeah, consider the source, but this is the one area where he has a pretty good head on his shoulders. He also taped up the front bumper for me, which was cracked pretty good from me hitting a snow bank last year while trying to navigate into my parking spot out back.

And he said he knew a guy who could probably inspect it.

I wasn't sure I wanted to get into some black market inspection deal, but at the same time I'm out there driving on a bad sticker, and last year I got stopped for the sticker, and the year before that, too, so I gave it much thought.

Yesterday I went to see the guy. Cooter was supposed to set up the appointment for me. He's like, "Just call him." I was like, "What am I supposed to say? Hey, my car flunked inspection and my friend told me you'll pass it for me anyway." Yeah, I can't do that. So yesterday Cooter called me and said he could get me in. I didn't know where the place was, so he was going to come along. When I got there, though, he sent Amy with me instead. I was a little pissed. Not that I don't like Amy, because I do, but it was the feeling that he was letting me down. And I don't know the guy either, and he does, so it was like what the fuck. Luckily, Amy knows him, too.

So we get there and the guy is all right, maybe a little grumpy, and I was a little uncomfortable, thinking that this guy is looking at me and doesn't know me and why the fuck should he do anything for me. But he looked the car over, thought the tires were fine, gave a glance at the rust hole, looked at the tape on the bumper, and never looked under the hood at all .... and passed me. So I have a good sticker again, which means I have some time to play with as far as looking around for a replacement car. When I got Jade in the first place I was dealing from a place of complete desperation, because Bessie was almost dead, and that's a bad place to be dealing from.

On the drive back Amy told me that when I went back out to get the car he asked her about me and if I was a good guy that wouldn't screw him over, and she backed me up. So she did me a solid there. If I'd gone alone, I might not have the sticker.

Yup. I owe her one.

Virgorama

When the planet Uranus comes into play, as it is now, it's a good time to initiate experiments that will expedite the arrival of future blessings. Pushing beyond comforting habits, you thrive by going in quest of bracing truths, unfashionable beauty, and wild justice. The symbolic nature of Saturn is different. It invites you to creatively limit and discipline yourself so that fate isn't forced to limit and discipline you in unpleasant ways. It so happens, Virgo, that Uranus and Saturn are now poised in opposition to each other. Will they work at cross-purposes, spawning a sticky mess? Or is there a way for you to get them to work together? More than you imagine, you have the power to affect how they interact in your personal sphere.

And we're back to having to decipher the arcane meaning of the weekly horoscope. I'll have to noodle this one.

*****

Yeah, so today kinda got away from me. There will be posts tomorrow instead.

Honest to Eris

Ok, I have like seven full posts I want to write for this thing, and it's no longer a case of being bored with Stray Bullets. It's totally a time and energy thing right now.

Work has been pretty brutal.

I'm more than a little stressed out for various reasons.

And I've been tired as hell.

Nevertheless, tomorrow I'm going to try and get this thing back on track. I'll do as many of those posts as I can get out before I pass out (like I did earlier, which is why I missed your call. Who? The one person I *know* is going to read this tonight), and we'll just see how it goes. Deal?

Deal.

Antisocial

I realize I've been antisocial lately. It isn't because I don't like anyone, it isn't because I'm pissy and in a bad mood, it isn't because I'm bitter and blah blah blah. I've just been really busy and distracted with other things. Really. That's why.

Although, I have been ducking Dan's calls the last few days for reasons of my own. He's putting the pressure on me to come down again, and while that's fun, it sucks up my entire weekend. It isn't like I can just go over, hang out for a few hours, and then go back to whatever I was doing. It's a long trip down there, so a quickie visit is just kind of dumb. Plus, if I don't stay to the last possible minute I can stay before going back, he acts all insulted and such. I like him, he's a good guy and all, but sheesh. That's annoying.

Plus, I'm tired of the Amanda thing. They had some static, she went back to her cocktease ways (well, she is a Crafts, and that's what they do, and I tried to warn him), and while he claims that he's "over her" and wants to only use her as a kind of fucktoy (as charming as that is), I don't believe it. She has her claws in him, and he still likes her like that, and I can tell. I can always tell. So when I do talk to him, he steers the conversation mostly towards the Amanda thing, and while I do have some comments to make on that--and I'm probably a lot more of a hardass on the subject than he expects--I get bored by that. I try to steer the conversation towards my own life here and there, but it never sticks. Many of my friends are this way, as it happens. If we aren't talking about them, they aren't listening. So thank goodness for Guin, who is one of the few people out there not like that.

Plus, I worked like 55 hours this week, and I need a goddam break. If I go down there I've used up the whole weekend, I haven't written, or done any of my own things, and then it's right back to work again. Yes, I write during the week, too, but I need weekend time. I can't committ to every weekend to anybody (unless you're the Gwen Stacy I'm looking for, in which case I'm willing to be a little more flexible).

It isn't just him, though. I've pretty much frozen Amanda out altogether. And the last few days I've been blowing off Cooter and Amy, too. I'm just tired of them and their dysfunction. He's been better at work, but once work is over I just don't want to deal with him. And I've almost given up on waiting for the two of them to break up, and I'll never get a shot to do a better job at the boyfriend thing than he ever could. And if she comes over, even though I do so enjoy her company, I'm just going to be all wound up about it all again.

And I've spotted Jen's number on my caller ID lately, too, and I haven't called her back.

I have looked for that certain someone on AIM here and there, and admittedly I've been going to bed earlier, so that makes connecting difficult, but that's the one person I don't want to duck.

I've just been overworked and overstressed (there's more, but that's next post), and blah. I just need some time alone.

Back to the hardass thing. Yeah. Some of the things I say to him are pretty brutal, as far as my assessment of the Amanda deal goes, but screw it. He needs to hear it, and there's no point in sugarcoating it. Back when we used to hang out all the time it was different, sure, and chicks like her would bend either of us around their fingers at will, but I'm not in my twenties anymore, I've grown up a lot in the meantime, and the same old bullshit just doesn't impress me the way it used to. Say what you will about Jen, but at least she a) didn't screw me over that I know of, and b) was the catalyst for intensive positive change in my life. The crush I have on Amy is less defensible considering she's with a friend of mine, but she's never screwed me over either.

Maybe other people need to grow up a little, too.

Virgorama

"If you could ask everyone you met one question, what would it be?" A reader named Ty Sassaman emailed me with that query. As I thought about what my response would be, I considered questions like "What's the one thing you most want to accomplish before you die many years from now?" or "What could you do to bring more intelligence into the way you love?" But ultimately I decided on "What is your soul's code?" How about you, Virgo? What would be your prime question? I suggest that in the coming days you ask it of everyone you encounter. You're in a phase in your astrological cycle when focused curiosity is a kind of superpower.

I don't know what that question would be .... yet.

*****

There will be new posts tomorrow. This I promise. I have a few things I want to talk about.

Readjustment

So I didn't even realize to what degree the death of my old laptop had crippled me. That was back in May, and without it I haven't gotten any serious work done since. I tried and tried and tried again to get something done on this damn computer, but it never worked out, for whatever reason. But now that I have a shiny new (well, used, but new to me) laptop I am back in the game. Of course, there has been a period of readjustment.

I like it. I like it a lot. All told, the new one is probably a better laptop than my old one was. It boots up faster, seems to run better, and that makes everything smoother. And if there's anything I like, it's when things go smooth. So much in my life right now is the opposite of smooth, so this purchase working out seems all the more like a major victory.

It's a little different, though, from my old laptop and from this thing, so there's a learning curve involved. I can't, for instance, hit the 'right shift' or 'enter' keys yet without looking at them, because neither of them are where I expect them to be. And the mouse is a little hard to get used to. The old one had the little roller ball in the middle, and this one is a pad near the front, so I have a hard time controlling it like I want to. If that's all I have to adjust to, though, I think this is going to be a fruitful partnership.

So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Guin and M for making this available to me at such a good price. I owe you both bigtime.

The hardest part, naturally, was getting the files I wanted off of this and onto a disk. This is because my brain is not wired to do things like that easily. The first disk got fucked up somehow in the formatting, then I figured out my error and the second disk went as easy as pie. Loading them into the 'top was no problem at all.

And now we're back in business.

And I've been working oh so very hard.

It feels really good to be working again.

Really good.