How much can I stand?

last week, my uncle became bedridden. more than just bedridden, he is no longer able to do anything at all for himself. including communicate. I can only imagine how this this type of existance would be, I know I for one would not want to go on five seconds in this state. I have no clue what comes next, nor how this will change my status in this apartment, I do not think things are going to improve, and I also think the time is coming when I will need to find another place to live. under NY Law, I should have been sent a new lease between 150 and 90 days ago. had this been done, I would surely have been safe, as He would have signed on no problem while he was in a coherent state. however as I was not sent a lease and his sudden departure from reality has made him renewing said lease impossible, I am left at the mercy of those in charge of his care. and THOSE people seem nearly as removed from reality as My Uncle,and seem to have little interest in HIM much less me. the only ones who seem to pay attention to him are the "care givers/lay personnel" who sit in his room and watch him sit in bed and sleep. a coherent conversation is out of the question, the man does not or cannot speak. I am waiting on hearing how the matter will be handled. and I pray that they will at the least attempt to follow what his wishes would have been regarding helping me. if not I am in possibly more trouble than I ever dreamed of and this , this has been weighing heavily on my mind since I saw him last week. since the last entry in this saga, I have had little luck in the employment category. I have begun taking "day work" as an extra on assorted Crime Shows that film in NYC, but the work is very limited and the pay is horrible though I must confess it gives me a tiny thrill to spot myself in scenes with Tom Selleck and Mariska Hargitay.. I also have worked a few hours here and there at a local store off the books. every tiny bit helps. I have begun seeing a therapist but the process is moving very slow and I will not suddenly "get better" overnight. there is so much going on in my world that I have much trouble focusing on what I would like to when I go there, and the finances never improve. it is impossible to function this way or make any head way.and the clock is closer than ever to running out for good on unemployument. as of today there is under a month left before it expires for good and forever ,  what the Hell am I going to do next?

so much has been going on..

I have been neglecting this blog. and for a number of reasons, but I really want to keep it going,
so it's back to the keyboard today. In the last entry, for those who recall, I was talking about my stepfather.Now I have already covered most of his sins, his violent temper, his excessive drinking, the fear I felt in the pit of my gut nearly every time he walked into the apartment.. His bizarre "arrangement" of taking over MY bedroom rather than sleeping with my mom. was a mystery for many years to me.Now, due to the passage of time, I cannot recall every detail of how it all went down, or even exactly the timing though I want to place this around 1985/86. but one day it ALL began to make a little more sense. Lord Vader had a DARK DARK secret. and I cannot confirm my suspicions about ALL of this, but these are the facts, make what you will of them. He had a daughter, with two young daughters and a 3rd child came later, a son. She, like his other 2 sons wanted next to nothing or as little as possible to do with him and lived in Middletown NY. over an hour away from us. nice enough people, and nobody would blame them for not wanting his crazy drunken ass visiting often. well THIS was the ultimate mind fuck for ME. the absolute FINAL moment when I asked myself HOW can Mom "overlook" what came next?. Lord Vader was accused. and spent over a year in JAIL for "touching" his,6, 7 or 8 year old granddaughter..( I could not tell you her age now, let alone back than, I have not seen these folks in 25 or more years). for well over a year if I recall, Mom went to "visit" His Majesty nearly every weekend. leaving me her ATM card and more freedom than any 20 something had any right to have. after the "incident" they both moved up to Middletown,. do I think he "did it"? nothing would shock me about him. he had many relationships prior to my Mom, and they all ended ugly. do I suspect he tried or even succeeded in abusing his daughter, and perhaps THAT was a big reason she moved so far away from him? I can see that as well and it is well known that sex abusers do NOT abuse once and only once it's a pattern, all I know is that they subsequently moved less than 20 minutes away from them and rarely saw them again for the rest of his life even at holidays, (and this went on for a good 7-8 years) He died a number of years later, and that story has a pretty funny punchline, I will save for another day.

13 Years is a long,long time ago,

and it FEELS like a Galaxy far, far away, and yet it somehow still feels like yesterday, I certainly will never forget it. it was the day I first boarded an LIRR train to Bethpage NY.,and began what became the most successful, stressful, fun, hellish, era of my Adult Life. it was the start of every change "for the better" after nearly 33 years of false starts, it was the start of the highest of highs I EVER had, and some of the lowest lows. and it is a time I will forever look back on with more affection than anger. no matter how much I hate to admit it. for the following 2 weeks, I would get up around 5AM, trek from my basement hole in The Bronx, all the way to Long Island and train for Sleepys. truth was I needed VERY little training, I had been training for them for the last 15 years, all I needed was some clue as to what I was expected to sell, and some basic info. my trainer was a FUN, larger than life guy named Paul Hubert. we bonded very fast, I also met the man who would become a daily, invaluable source of help, encouragement and support, Mike Noone. I often tell people that working at Sleepys was akin to "Charlie's Angels". 99% of your contact with upper management was via speakerphone! and Mike Noone was my "Charlie". there were a few others but I always called him 1st, he always was there to "pump me up". make me smile on a bad day, laugh with me, and he always fought for ME and made sure every problem was above ALL treated in a fair manner. I also had a great deal of help in the office from a guy named Matt Page. a fellow 007 fanatic! I felt like I landed on a Planet where people FINALLY after years and years GOT who I was!. and wanted ME to do well. and that was a big difference from EVERY place I had ever worked. I "connected" with these people as I had never before connected with a job. following "training" I worked for about 3 weeks in The Bronx. one day I was pulled, sent to Manhattan as  I had hoped, and that was that. I may feel the need this week to share a few more stories. I always get melancholy in early August. its also my late mom's Birthday in a few days. Sleepy's was the perfect place at the perfect time in my life. and with some AWESOME people I will always remember. there are days I CRINGE when some folks call me "Sleepys", and a few people in another circle of friends call me "mattressman". sometimes I want to shed those names not because I hate the time. but because it will always sting a little when I think of how things SHOULD have ended there.

"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.

3

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.

2nd Update, we catch a small break after all.

there are 4 media players on this computer.
what "Quicktime", "VLC Media", and "Windows Media" could NOT do, it would appear "Realplayer" CAN.
the files play in "Real", I am unable to determine if a little "choppiness" is a "true" issue or just the way it was shot,
some of this footage is reminiscent of "Blair Witch" and "Bourne Identity". but I think I can claim a small victory here.