"Green Acres is the place to be..."

for those reading this who may not be old enough to remember, there were a couple of very popular shows in the mid-60's /early 70's, that were set in a little town called "Hooterville". one was called" Petticoat Junction", the other was truly one of the strangest shows to come out of the Psychedelic 60's and it was known as "Green Acres". the series  was ostensibly about a Manhattan lawyer, (played by Eddie Albert) and his Glamorous Wife, (played by Eva Gabor), who buy a farm in the town and try to "go country"! Eddie is ALL about the idea, Eva loves him and is willing to give it a try for that reason but never really stops missing NYC. where the real comedy comes from however is the bizarre, almost surreal way the writers handle things ( breaking the 4th wall often, with many "in jokes") and the strange people around them, the sight of Eva Gabor in designer clothes wandering around a farm house that is falling apart as if nothing is "off", the writers had to have been smoking something powerful as Hell.!lol.  this is the best way I can describe the time I spent in Middletown, now SOME people may enjoy the sight of Cows and Horses in the yard across the street and driving 15 minutes to go ANY place, hey whatever "floats your boat". Me, I get itchy when I am more than an hour or so from Manhattan by Subway. I have lived my whole life for the most part in either Yonkers or The Bronx, and I LIKE it that way. I spent part of my childhood in White Plains as well but there are so many bad memories from there I try to block them out..now there are a number of reasons WHY my Mother and Her Husband went to live in this God Forsaken corner of NY State, ,ONE was the fact that his daughter lived there for MANY years.(this was how I first became aware of this place. through occasional visits). the other reason..is something of a major bomb I am not quite ready to "set off" on this page. when I do, it will shed a little more light on why I detest my stepfather as much as I do, many people might think a nasty, violent abusive alcoholic who was unrelentingly cruel and foul mouthed would be more than enough. and it would be in most cases. he has another skeleton. and it's DAMN ugly. I posted this entry to try to get "back in the swing" of writing after a short break..and to set-up a bit more about the time I spent between housing, before I move forward to the next chapter. I have a few interesting stories about my time in Middletown as well.. that I plan to cover in the next entry.

This is nothing new.

Not only is my current condition not new to me, it is very much a case of "Deja Vu". I have been here before, and in fact, it has been worse than this. MUCH worse. of course the last time, I endured a mess like this one, it did not last nearly as long, nor did things feel nearly as hopeless as they do as I sit here today typing this, but when I get one of my bouts of depression these days, I sometimes take comfort in thinking "As bad is this IS it HAS been worse". See, there was a period of about 6-8 weeks back in late 1988 or so when I literally was "homeless". at the time, I was not able to collect unemployment (this is another running "theme" in my life, what many people do not realize, is that if you are fired from a job, for breaking the rules, 9 of 10x, you will not qualify for Unemployment, you sometimes can appeal and win, it is a long drawn out process and can go either way depending on an Administrative Law Judge). one of the hardest parts of this blog for me is trying to recall the order in which some of the twists and turns of my mixed life took place,  with as many "soap opera" twists as I have gone through this is not easy. By the mid 80's My Mom and her Evil Master had moved to Middletown NY. His daughter lived up there. Middletown for me was pure Hell. and a place I  refused to go live. when they went there I decided to share a pretty pathetic apartment in Manhattan with a friend and co-worker. that did NOT last long at all. it took under 6 months before we were ready to kill each other. at the time , I was working at Bloomingdales on 59th street..and making next to nothing. we fought around the clock. to the point where I at one point decided to give up and try to go live with Mom as bad as it might be. and as far as it was from all the things that mattered. I quit Bloomingdales. problem was Evil Master would NOT allow this. so, AFTER I quit, and AFTER I had dragged all my stuff to Middletown I had NO place to go. in fact I was forced to HIDE the fact that I was up there. YUP. it was like some TWISTED episode of "3's Company". for several weeks, I lived in a Motel, tried to find a job, tried to exist in some nightmare town out of Green Acres, with no transit to speak of, and keep it ALL secret from HIM. of course he eventually found out. it all lead to a HUGE blow up. and I was sent back to my roommate. I returned to NYC, and went to Macy's this time, where the cycle began all over. not enough to live on. fighting and bickering with a guy who drove me insane,(more on him another day) in an apartment that I am almost certain would never pass an NYC inspection, and finally . the day I was locked out for the last time.for the next 6 weeks or so, I literally had NO place to go. I left everything non-essential in a mini storage by the West Side Highway/ and Mom, sent money every few days to Western Union. for weeks at a time I floated between various NYC YMCA's. an SRO on the Upper West Side off Broadway and 77 and for a few nights I even just.. walked ALL over the city. when I was thrown out, I HAD to quit Macy's. I did not know where the hell I was going to live so that job was the least of my problems. I NOW had a whole new set...and things were not getting much better this way.

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Update what's going on with the blog?

so a few people have been asking, what's going on,? it's been a while since I posted anything, the thing is..I never really know what I am going to post here until I start typing.
some times I am inclined to "spill my guts". other's I don't feel like "dealing" with the "dark stuff".
sometimes, I would rather hide from the scary reality of what my life has become and just watch dumbass 70's reruns on Antenna TV, and take a deep breath and try to convince myself "everything is going to be OK".
not long ago, a friend said to me "what do you want to be when you grow up?. figure that out and the money will follow",. it's been suggested I should get a student loan, maybe take some classes at NYU. I cannot imagine ANY lending institution giving ME a dime though I would certainly love to give that a whirl. that question came up again last night. someone asked me "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" well I will be 51 years old in 5 years. and I broke out into a sweat. I smiled and joked. "I don't know where I will be in 6 months let alone 5 years",  but that is all too true.  at least ONE person I know has told me over and over and over for well over 3 Years. "you will never work again". and I am starting to buy into this somewhat. I would LIKE to think I still have some value. that I AM capable of  being HIRED, and holding s job long term,. there really is nothing out there I am not willing to TRY. if given half a chance.I think back over the myriad of terrible choices I have made over the last 25 or so years and wish I could have done so many things differently. I should have taken EVERY NYC Civil Service Test when I was young enough. I should have had SO much more direction in my youth. I know it is fashionable for fuck-ups like myself to "blame the parents", but I never really had a lot of guidance when I was younger as to what I should pursue, maybe they thought I would "figure it out", but being an "only child" who often just wanted to be "left alone" I got my wish.I hated High School. I could not get out of it fast enough. I had no interest in my classes. my head was always "in the clouds". I never thought of where my life would go. Mother was always there for me, yet she was so busy being tortured and fighting with Lord Vader she was not the one to "help me find my way". Lord Vader was never in a good mood or sober long enough to help me figure out my future. I had almost NO friends. when you have nobody around you to even tell you where "the path" IS, you start to make shit up as you go along". and that is what I did. my earliest "jobs" were all in retail. my 1st was tailor made for me. I worked...in a Fotomat Booth.  remember those? I sat in a cubicle in a parking lot with a portable TV, and assorted books and waited for people to pick up and drop off film, I did inventory every week. and maintained the booth. mopping. cleaning windows and making night deposits every day.. and eating pizza.my 2nd, I moved up BIG time. I got to wear a tie and jacket! I sold electronics and cameras and luggage at JC Penny's.the cycle went on and on for years. 'get fired after a year or two pick another store". some were better than others, but I did them ALL, some more than once. I worked both Macy's and Bloomingdales in Manhattan as well as Bloomingdales in Westchester.. I worked for The Wiz on East 86th and it was the most FUN I ever had. if far from the income I needed. they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the result to change. I must have lost my  mind decades ago as it never dawned on me THIS was clearly NOT the road to financial stability and one day the party would end. from 1983 when I graduated High School straight up till August of 98 when I began working at Sleepy's I had over 20 jobs if I were to count EVERY one. some lasted a week. some a year and a half. some 2 years. NONE were very impressive. and now.. here we are.