by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

I am convinced that hampsters in their cages have more of a life than I do. What are my days like? Well, I haul myself out of bed somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00am every morning so I can receive the granddaughter, who turns 3 this week, in time to feed her breakfast. As soon as she has eaten, I plunk her in the car and drive her to school (30-40 minutes round trip). Then I get about an hour to do whatever puttering around the house I can do in that time before I have to make the trip to her school to pick her up. She is a toddler program where her stay at school is only 2 hours a day. This is to prepare her for next year when she will be at school all day long. But I digress.

After picking her up, I get to either run errands or to come home where she gets her "welcome home" snack (to go with her school snack which she has just finished) and a dose of Disney. While she's watching The Wiggles, I get a chance to check my email and maybe do a quick blog entry. Then it is time to fix lunch, eat lunch and clean up after lunch. That eats up until 2pm-ish. Three days a week I now have to start getting myself ready for work which I leave for at 3:30pm. I then spend the next 8 hours (mol) at the beck and call of Barnes & Noble. My weekends are spent pretty much working as I normally am scheduled to work 7:00am - 3:30pm on Saturday and 1:30pm to close on Sunday.

When I'm not working or taking care of the granddaughter, I am either working around the house on one of the 10 projects I have running at any one time or I am here, at the keyboard, living in cyberspace. Notice there is not a lot of time spent hanging with my homies. Yeah, I know, inappropriate use of language there...OK, not a lot of time spent with friends. In fact, other than social friends from church (who I mainly see at church or at church functions) or people I know through my wife, I don't really have "go hang with" friends here in Joisey.

When I lived in Maine and was going to college, I had a bunch of friends I hung out with, but I've sorta lost touch with them over the years. Same goes for the smaller circle of friends I developed when we lived in Florida. When I moved north, they sorta receded into the past; I haven't been back to Florida since we moved north in 1991, so other than the people Judy keeps in touch with, I have no ties back there either. And, since moving back here to Joisey, I just haven't met anybody I would trust with my back in a fight. I have acquaintances here, not real friends. I have coworkers who I am fond of, but most of those coworkers are female and my kids ages (or younger) and my relationship with them is strictly work related. *sigh*

So, you can see why I say that I need to get a life. I need to find something to do which puts me in the presence of people who share some of my core values. And that is why I am thinking I need to get involved with local Democrat Party politics. Beginning in July, I will go to a more normal work schedule (where I only close [that means work until sometime around 11:30pm] two nights a week instead of four) which will open the time I have available to get involved with things like volunteer work. Besides, I don't have a great deal of extra cash, so, right now, I can't get involved with hobbies that require infusions of money.

I figure I have at least another 20 years of active involvement in things left before I start drooling on my walker. This gives me one more shot at making a life that makes a difference in this world. As it is now, all I have to show for my existence on this earth is my children. Now, they are not an inconsequential group of people, and, to that extent, I have helped make the world a better place because all of them are talented, smart people who are making this world a better place. However, now I want to do something on my own that impacts the world. I haven't done that in the past very much. I do know where the Dems hang in this town, though, so I think that, beginning this month, I'll start getting involved. Who knows, maybe somewhere along the way I'll also develop some real friendships...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005