"This is never easy." Why Don is always in the basement.

Thursday, May 11 turned out to be a momentous day.  For me anyway. Around 11:00, the HR person came to my office and asked me to come with her. That in itself seemed a little weird in that normally, she called or sent me an e-mail. Normally it pertained to someone's tardiness (not mine) or some issue with annual leave or sick time (sometimes mine).

This time it ended a 16 year association with my employer. I walked into the back conference room which has a long table with seating for at least 20 people. The president and CFO of the company sat together across from me and asked me to sit down. The HR person sat at the head of the table.

Clearly this did not look good.

The president said, "this is never easy."

That is the corporate equivalent of a parent saying, "this is going to hurt me, more than it's going to hurt you."

The HR person handed me a document which is confidential so I can't tell you anything about it. I will tell you that the title of the document is "General Release and Separation Agreement." In other words, scram.

I suggested that there could be a better way to sever this long standing relationship other than loading my personal possessions into a Banker's Box® and leaving forever.

These are the personal items that I took. 

This suggestion did not carry any weight whatsoever. This meeting did not include negotiation. Take the paper. See a lawyer if you'd like and get back to us with a signed agreement or don't.

Just don't come back. And give your phone to the IT person who will reset to its original setting and thereby deleting all contacts, pictures, notes or whatever else I had stored on that.

Confidentially and all.

I did insist on taking these paintings by Peggy Shearn. 

"So What"

"So What" is a painting based on phrase used by therapist that I saw 4 years ago. I was dreading the 2013 Housewares Show. Never a big fan of McCormick Place.

"Homage to Miro" (Currently on loan)

It has now been a month since the events of May 11. Long enough so that my friends and family have heard enough about it but not so long that I don't harbor a nagging question.

How did I not see it coming?

Several days after the event, I received a package with the balance of my "personal effects." Here is a video of what I had left behind.

Things I found while editing a Nanowrimo novel.

Nanowrimo is an organization that promotes writing a novel during the month of November. I have written four of these Nanowrimos.

"Chicago Sundries"

"Untitled Book about China" (Not to be confused with my unproduced screenplay, "Beijing Driving Academy.")

"EE"

"The Five Books of Krinsky" (which is available on Amazon.)

The Five Books is not doing all that well statistically.

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,758,975 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
• #1387 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Jewish
• #2864 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Religious & Inspirational > Jewish
• #22497 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature

On the other hand, it has an average 5 star review and sells for 2.99.

I am revising EE which I hope will be a cross between Kurt Vonnegut and "The Hunger Games." Especially "The Hunger Games." So remind me not to kill off my main characters in Book 1.

In the course of editing, I found a poem by Ben Jonson.  He was a contemporary of Shakespeare and probably hated Shakespeare's guts.

Here is a quote attributed to him. "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand".

While majoring in Comparative Literature of the University of California, I studied Ben Jonson. If Shakespeare is Michael Jordan than who is Ben Jonson.  Maybe Clyde Drexler. A Hall of Fame player, NBA and Olympian champion (on the Dream Team) no one talks about Clyde the Glide any more. 

So to, with Ben Jonson.                            

Ben Jonson

Clyde Drexler

This is the Ben Jonson poem I found in "EE."

My Picture Left in Scotland

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind,

    For else it could not be

               That she,

    Whom I adore so much, should so slight me

And cast my love behind.

I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,

       And every close did meet

       In sentence of as subtle feet,

       As hath the youngest He

That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.

       O, but my conscious fears,

               That fly my thoughts between,

               Tell me that she hath seen

       My hundred of gray hairs,

       Told seven and forty years

    Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace

    My mountain belly and my rocky face;

And all these through her eyes have stopp'd her ears.

What my character concluded from this poem, "Or in other words, I was too fat and old for her."

No Matter Where You Go, There You Go.

While trying to explain my current state of mind, quite naturally I did a google search and found this image.

Peggy is not down on her luck. And neither am I. But I did like the image but felt it was too confusing for FACEBOOK.

I also thought there would be an an R. Crumb image but alas.

It turns out this pic is from the Marvel Comic, "Buckaroo Banzai." The comic book adaptation of the Peter Weller classic. ( I never saw it but I like Peter Weller and the cast is pretty awesome).

And here's the clip....

Semi-Retired

From one of my Nanowrimo novels....

I am semi- retired. Which is an odd word. Are you tired again? Or have you gotten new tires? It's a yin and yang thing. I am somewhere in between. Somewhat tired, less endurance, more head shaking and other kinds of shaking.

More to come on that one. 

I filed for unemployment today and find that this clip is hysterical. Or maybe it's just me.