Well I got no chance of losing

this time

This is a continuation of a post I did back in August - a post that referenced a new job being like a woman that a male pursues - often elusively and unsuccessfully, as was the case at that time. I was in love, I wanted her too much - maybe she sensed it - maybe she was just stringing me along and it didn't make a difference one way or another - but as the story goes, I was rejected - and after what has now happened - maybe it was for the best. You see - I wasn't ready for her - I did want her too much - and maybe if I had gotten what I was looking for, I would have lost my head and ended up in a mental ASSylum or another shrink's office.

So - this time around - when another "woman" appeared as a prospect - I was very cautious, very suspicious, very non-chalant. I didn't believe it, even when it technically looked promising because there were already scalding burn marks on my ass that made it somewhat painful to sit down. So even when she was going to impress me with a wine and dine all expenses trip to Colorado, I still thought - yeah right, I will believe it when I see it. Maybe it is the time of year when my seasonal depression takes over, when it really is hard to get excited about much of anything.

So as the story goes, I found myself in Denver on Wednesday night, like an outlaw on the run from the mean old lady who has fronted my paycheck for the last 18 years, sneaking behind her back to check out the latest temptation. As I tend to freak out about just anything I can, I neurotically checked weather.com to realize that a massive snow front was coming in, and the idea of driving 35 miles on a dark road (E470 - now a toll road) at night to my hotel was a little intimidating, so I checked every day to find what appeared to be a little flurry building up to a "heavy snow" front, and questioning my timing of the whole thing - but knowing I had to do it, I braved it out there. Luckily, no pressing calls came up from work as I technically did not have the day off until Thursday and the delayed flight left at 2:25 that Wednesday. My low sleep that week kept me pretty tired, so that I slept twice on the plane, to find out that the storm had socked it to Denver but left town that afternoon. Upon arriving, I did find it left plenty of snow and ice on the road, ice that almost sent my flying onto my face in the Hertz parking lot, searching for the elusive car that did not really exist in the stall they said it did, so that while doing the Denver ice walk shuffle to avoid another fall, caring a heavy old suitcase with wheels too low to be effective, and a guitar and briefcase in the other hand, I seriously wondered what the hell I was doing there. I just kept hoping during the 3/4 hour or so drive back to the hotel I would not have to find out what insurance coverage would cover a banged up Ford Taurus from a snow spinout. (I only had one wrong turn of the airport that left me cursing since I didn't quite get that right turn the Hertz lady told me about after she closed my open car trunk at the gate out - so much snow and ice out there I didn't even see or know it was open). But the familiar sounds of Spearhead (see my lighter post a few down) kept me company, particularly a line about "even though I'm far from home I'm not alone" and somehow I miraculously made it to the Courtyard without a spinout or crash. Driving like a little old lady terrified of the ice probably helped me there.

So I got in, ate a salad a little too spicy for my liking downstairs, had enough energy to muster out my "Today" song staring out to the snow filled lot from my 4th floor room - and then was tired enough to sleep in two hour increments throughout the night. On the plane and in the bed I was so damn tired I didn't even care about the interview, I just wanted to sleep and get the hell back home. Had a little swim in the morning at the hotel pool, probably big enough to fit two versions of Shaq lying head to head, had a frantic attempt to iron out my suitcase wrinkled suit, and then with ice and snow all over the windshield and parking lot, stumbled out from the hotel and made it to my destination right at the nick of time, doing the snow shuffle through the lot in another attempt to not show up there with ice and snow smeared all over my suit after falling.

And when I got there in the waiting room, I realized something. At my last interview "date" my heart was pounding like an engine in the lobby waiting, but at this one - I really just didn't care. I was in the perfect take it or leave it state of mind, because I was too tired to care. I just thought - let the chips fall where they may - I don't have any energy left to care. And though the interview was done in a pretty nice way, it ended with the same old "we'll let you know in two weeks or more" the way the last one had and I thought - I KNEW IT - I got the boot again! I just thought once you hear that line at the end of an interview, it is the kiss of death - because if they really want you - they will let you know sooner.

So - a little diversion from the story later - after ending up at the airport, I was very surprised to hear not 5 hours later that yes - they did indeed want me to work there - the price was right - and two days later, it is still hard for me to now believe it - but as of January 8 - I will no longer be working with my employer of 18 years, and will be starting anew with what appears to be a much more stable and respectable employer. Maybe it just means I can't trust my own intuition, and if I believe it is going down I am my own worst anticipating enemy, but once I stop caring and to a certain degree trying, that is the right frame of mind to let the Tao work itself out and really make it happen. It worked this time. So I guess I needed my ass to be burned the first time around to be ready for acceptance during the second go round. I broke the news to my present company, and although the boss was taken aback on one level, I don't think he was entirely shocked on another - I agreed to give him the time he needed to try to find someone else - after all - they have paid my way for the last 18 years and even if it had pretty much gone south as of late, I didn't want to leave on bad terms. Who knows - I may need to come crawling back like a dog with its tail between its legs if I can't make it here, although I really have a hard time believing that. I know I can do it - I will do whatever it takes to make this work and damn it - I will!

Somehow setting a thought process in motion - with the right will and determination behind, seems to make it happen - in a way I can't explain. I just believe that - just like I believed when I had it out with my boss last April that even after caving in to his demands, I knew that when I "sent it out the universe" and put it out in writing to him that I would be looking elsewhere if I wasn't respected, that the power of my word would make it happen, someway, somehow, in a way I can't even really understand myself. I did the same with a girlfriend from hell before I met my wife - told her if I didn't get what I wanted from her, I would find it somewhere else - and sure enough I met Victoria five months later, and when my ex then tried to come back a year later - sorry babe - too late - you're "out of time" like the Stones song says. I don't know how I do this, but there is a power to one's word and maybe because I live and die by my words, in writing these writings and my songs (new CD will be on the way soon once I arrange the final tracks and ship it off to my Montana buddy) there is some mysterious crazy way that I summon up the forces of the universe and make it happen. Or - maybe one big synchronistic coincidence, but what fun is that to see it that way? I like the mystic approach better.

So the moral of the story for me here - is once you lose your head over something, the battle is already lost - but when you keep it in place, you have a fighting chance. How you go into it is a lot more important than the end result itself, and coveting the prize before you get it is on par with pre-mature ejaculation. Maybe what I mean with one of my writings when I wrote:

I know it's not so much if it happens, more important how.