Cities Of The Dead: Live Oak Cemetery, Pass Christian, Mississippi

A historic and beautiful cemetery in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Situated across from a church and blocks from the Gulf Of Mexico... there is abundant evidence throughout the cemetery of Mother Nature's strength. Join me as I discover stunning iron work and unique resting places...

 

This Puppet's Final Tether...

 I just want to start this post by assuring any readers, that the last week at the office was as disorganized, chaotic, and dysfunctional as was possible. The icing on that fruitcake was the arrival of the movers who were refused by building management to move a single item. With one day left before the doors were locked, and it now being after the close of day on the next to last day, it was revealed that all of the emails requesting insurance affidavits from the movers had gone ignored by the puppet masters, and it was (again), left to the puppet to save the performance. Another blinding dance with use of common sense and the faintest hint of intellect to weave together the needs of murderers, and those who would be hired to murder us. My team and I, ushered into our final moments of normalcy, and asked to facilitate our own deaths; because as was so redundantly and succinctly conveyed, "this has not been handled ideally, and obviously there were opportunities to have done things in a different way, and I think there were some unfortunate breakdowns...". Please sever yourself and your team from your homes of eighteen years and clean up our mess; see yourself out; and don't you dare, fucking complain.

With that said... the story isn't exactly over. As it is, I am not "technically violating" the terms of my severance, because as of yet, I am not collecting my severance. Regardless, my captor has not been named.

On our final week, among scarred, faded and barren walls, I alone kept a normal schedule, allowing the others to arrive late and leave early if so desired. Our daily routines had already been adopted elsewhere, so our days were filled with collecting, packing, dismantling, pantomiming and emptying. With printers powered off, I was struck with the heaviness of a silence I hadn't heard in nearly two decades. It reinforced the sick feeling in my stomach, and it eliminated the hiding places for my thoughts. In those final days, I couldn't help but to revisit my life immediately pre-'this place', where I spent months trying to find a job after losing the previous one. The emasculating failure of my self; a moment in my past that broke me quite sufficiently. A wound significant enough to leave scars that my thoughts were again retracing. Now with the added weight of providing for more than just myself, and the financial expectations that living a family life brings, I felt that sickening darkness creeping about; barely masked by the few remnants of furniture our space held.

Somewhere between my tenth or eleventh YouTube video of the day, I decided to check my email... there were no shortage of people that hadn't been informed of our impending demise and they had questions I couldn't answer about a job I was no longer a party to. Among the mob of unwitting participants in ensuring I thought about my circumstance; was an email that required several readings. At first glance, it seemed to be misdirected, so I took a deep breath and polished off my investigative intuition and went about dissecting the evidence. It was sent by my boss directly to me; the greeting was personalized to me; it was filled with vague summations from which one could formulate erroneous conclusions (and will); and a response was needed immediately. This passed the smell test for legitimacy in how my boss operates: Forward along a convoluted, hastily written, unquestioned, collection of nonsense and ask me to make life-changing decisions immediately. This email seemingly offered a life line of four months; extending our puppet careers until the end of the year. Again, the details were vague, all I was given was a job description and the aforementioned timeline. 

I took it upon myself; doing otherwise would have been pointless; to reach out to the origin of this email and glean more information. Through that discussion, I approached my team about this opportunity and determined interest. Originally, it was more than half of us on this enticing hook. They had a whole host of questions I hadn't even pondered, so I dug further and further until I found a person with the answers we needed. She provided the details we needed, and worked quickly to get answers I knew my boss wouldn't even try to find. It felt like a bomb had been dropped into the quiet slumber of our slow deaths...suddenly my thoughts were racing with whether or not I should cut or save that final tether to "this company". What do they say, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"? How would I feel about this opportunity when the money from my severance dried up some time in November, and I could have still been working for another month? The churning abyss in my gut answered the question. The restrictions of this opportunity resulted in everyone but myself folding their hands. 

Today, a month and a week after we all said goodbye to one another, this new role finally kicked in to overdrive. It's real now. For weeks, it's been a battle to have enough work to fill a day. Stuck at my desk for hours; barely literate in a language and software alien to me; fumbling my way through what I can decipher and resolve. I have a new boss, a new team, a new office, and income through Christmas. I made the adult decision... whatever happens. My biggest fear was that I would fail at this and get myself fired and lose my severance; I mean, I am still terrified of that, but it seems much less likely. My new teammates are friendly and welcoming; they've also been gracious with their time and knowledge. After so many years of being on the other side of the business, I discover that the company I imagined I was a part of and gave maybe one fuck about me, was on the other side of the wall. These are the people in which the company's values were first witnessed and engraved into our culture. 

There's quite a bit of further "hilarity" I will share in coming posts. But here I am, still a puppet indebted to the same creators; but after 18 years, I have new handlers, and a new production to learn. My final tether; propping up my fractured ego; my bruised limbs; holding me in a dimming spotlight until the curtain falls one final time. I have no illusions that December will bring the end; there will be no more life lines. Even though we all look forward to putting 2020 well behind us, I am fully aware that 2021 will not arrive bearing relief; it's likely to hold as much death and despair as this year, but maybe we'll have a new president and senate; maybe we will have an end to the pandemic instead of it frightening arrival; and maybe I will find another job before I have burned through my severance.

Until the next... sleep well.

Listening to: Christian Death - "She Never Woke Up"

Cities Of The Dead: Cedar Rest Cemetery, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

 The final stop on this road trip through Mississippi; beautiful Bay St. Louis. One of my favorite places to visit for a day trip out of New Orleans. 

Cities Of The Dead: Lakeshore Cemetery, Hancock County, Mississippi

On the same road trip, we find this cemetery on the back roads, just as a rain shower begins. Formerly, the Garcia Family Cemetery, this was located in unincorporated Hancock County, Mississippi.

Cities Of The Dead: Oak Grove Cemetery, Slidell, Louisiana

As we leave Slidell, headed towards Mississippi on a small back road, we arrived upon this small cemetery. It was surrounded by woods, and was at a busy intersection. Still working out the kinks of recording...

Final Stop of a Eighteen Year Journey

It's pretty late on a Sunday night, I didn't think I'd be writing tonight, but I forgot to charge my electric razor, so here I am. I haven't written in awhile, truth is, I haven't done much of anything for the past month. At some point soon, I will do a deeper dive into what I'm about to share, but I'm going to be a bit brief for now.

Everything unfolded about a month ago, I was covering for a member of my staff, and not spending much time in my office, but during a lapse in workflow, I opened Outlook. Upon doing so, a series of cryptic emails began to trickle in... the first, from the CEO, the second from head of human resources, and then a third from the VP of Operations. It was the CEO's email that carried the most ominous tone, branch closures and the elimination of some positions. The successive emails did not provide any further details, but I managed to convince my manager to schedule a call with me and provide more detail. It was revealed that I and my staff would not have a job as of 15 August, 2020. The following day brought the official announcement... I wish to God I had recorded that moment; it was beyond surreal. Again, I'll provide more details at a later date.

Every day since has been a study in human psychology. People's natural inclinations in the face of losing their employment are... bizarre. I've had little time to internalize my own feelings over this situation, because suddenly I've been indoctrinated into a baffling reality where my staff want to take home every single item in our vacant office, regardless if it's bolted down or not. They've all but abandoned their desks in search of "treasure", and left me to navigate what they can take and what is to remain company property. Spats, pettiness, and greed have disemboweled the bond that held together a team long before I ever came to lead it. Who wants three truckloads of items from a company that is throwing them out after decades of service and after asking them to carry the company through the Covid crisis - apparently my team does.

While all of this is happening, we're expected to maintain our day to day. My boss has provided absolutely no guidance, but that's not a surprise. Thankfully, a coordinator arrived on-site and had the necessary information. It's been literal tons of trash and shredding, and my back is absolutely wrecked... but after a month, the entire office is a shell save our department; a sea of ghostly cubicles; and mountains of monitors and keyboards. Now that all the crap is gone, we have a month left, and I'm frightened and curious to know what will feed my staff until the end. I've run out of patience, so I don't even know how I will respond to their needs, whatever they are.

All of this has left me no desire in pursuing my own personal interests, I just want to get this over with. Seventeen years means nothing to my company, I am leaving in the midst of chaos into a terrifying environment, after being told how much I was appreciated for fulfilling my role as an essential employee. But I can't take it personally, it's all about money, and I haven't been happy about the people who manage me for a couple of years now. If you can't be transparent, honest, and treat people with respect, then you don't deserve to lead... and sadly, it's exactly these type of people that have eroded any appreciation or devotion I held towards my employer in recent years.

I don't know what's next, but I know I deserve better than I've had. I definitely will have more to say on the matter, but for now, I just need space from it, and from the things I do that are my distraction from it. Hopefully that makes sense.

Cities Of The Dead: Greenwood Cemetery, Slidell, Louisiana

On a very warm, June day, we visit Slidell, LA for our first real visit and find a very lovely historic downtown, good food, great antique stores, and this lovely cemetery. Does every semi large town have a Greenwood Cemetery?

Cities Of The Dead: Grace Cemetery, St Francisville, Louisiana

The video that started the channel; filmed just over a year ago on my first visit to St. Francisville, Louisiana. I recognized that it might be awhile before I'm able to go back, so I took advantage of the opportunity. The cemetery surrounds a historic church, perched atop a hill. Add in the ambiance of hundred-year-old oaks, and the sounds of summer in The South, and it made for a memorable visit.

No microphone, no selfie stick, and a lot edited out due to my thumb. I boosted the audio and filtered out some noise, and result was an "underwater effect". I'm afraid that continues for the next few videos until a microphone was obtained.

Cities Of The Dead

Last October, I started a channel on YouTube exploring cemeteries in New Orleans, and any others I encounter in The South. It just occurred to me that maybe I should be sharing those adventures here since it does fall in line with the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of the channel is to document the cemeteries, because they've been such a mesmerizing, fascinating, and educational part of my time in New Orleans. I don't know if I will be here forever, and if I'm not, I wanted to have documentation of these fascinating locations. There's is something unique about each and every one, so filming only the most well known leaves a huge gap in the story.

Anyway - I will catch up this blog with where I am at in the filming. But for now - here's the original, unlisted, intro. Featuring the music of Green Building.

Cities Of The Dead

Untitled & Unfinished

Put my head to the ground
I am black with disease
I will not make a sound
save the shattering of my knees

I am rattling this cage
In search of a heart
Failures from pen to page
before I fall apart

Scars run like lay lines
with notations of the cost
cataloging crimes
and the congregation lost

These corners drawing near
I seek the words for prayer
with limbs mired in fear
and my tongue stripped bare

Watched myself for hours
and withered away all hope
Wreathed tragedies into flowers
and fashioned a rope

Betrayed all that was self
and poisoned tomorrow
Gathered all my wealth
and my treasure was borrowed

Endearingly collected your keys
and forged an idiot's crown
Reigned with liars and thieves
Concerted wisdom to tear us down

Blanched and bleached form
Articulated with amber cranes and Aries' spit
Intellect abrasive and worn
Faculties inflamed 'neath eyes barely lit

Thoughts recall the breaking of much greater men
For whom, life offered no solace or graces
Shall I forgive this kingdom and accept the sin
or retreat into the mind's untethered spaces

An animated form with no self
no want, no worth, no soul
Brittle with coal-like health
awash in the failures of my human role.

Get in line with the rest of the World.

Being one of those people that is expected to go to a building and do a job for the past two months, I thought... rather naively, that the sacrifice non-medical essential employees were making was in essence, extending a fallen tree across a great, dark chasm... forming a bridge to safety. On the other end, when the world was normal, we had a path to reunite.

It seems however, all I've done, and many many more just like me, is put ourselves at risk, our families at risk, day after day while others could do what they from their homes. Someone made that choice for all of us. But we didn't build a bridge. We were, it feels, maybe the guinea pigs? Maybe the sacrificial lambs thrown at the virus to knock down it's momentum and keep the economy going? Where did all these people who propped up the bones of the Earth (America specifically) bring us to? A new reality where possibly 1 in 200 Americans will die for... trying to be normal (4 Months Ago Normal).

If you had told me on March 1 - "get us over this hump and on the other side, people are still going to die", I would not have prioritized my job over my family. There seems to be no honor, or reason or sense to what we've done. People all over the world, in all times, have lived with Death's shadow. My white, Heterosexual American privilege has granted me authority over Death (for the most part), allowing me to destroy my body at my own speed.

I thought I challenged Death to get us some where. I believed it was the safety of the greater populous. I thought my reality would be like it is today - driving empty roads to an empty building and turning on a few lights, printing a few hundred payrolls until we got the all clear.

I'm ranting, sorry - it just seems so pointless. People working fast-food, grocery stores, city staff, etc. .. many without hazard pay, almost none of them had a voice or a reasonable choice in the matter, so many have died... and we are opening the doors now and thank you very much; sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how the families of someone who died driving a bus, or checking out groceries must feel. Am I wrong in thinking those who have died as essential employees deserve a little more than a thank you? Are the cashiers of the world, the new world soldier? I can't believe anyone has such a lack of awareness that they can demand businesses reopen? Where is your soul or conscience? Can we trade out your loved ones for those that have died so you can reopen?

Trump exposed the levels of hate and bigotry in our society. C-19 has exposed the levels at which we will go for money.

Doing What I Said I Would Do, Like Every Good Boy Should

So, no dinner, though I am a little hungry. I think my stomach is trying to trick me into eating so I feel like hell again. I'm just gonna stick with this iced coffee, thank you very much. Let's just jump right into that... the undieting I am excelling at. I did manage to get below 290 and stay there for three or four weeks, primarily with a lot of salads, watching my bread intake, and not drinking any soda after lunch. All of those successes have quickly unraveled in the past two weeks and I am back up above 290. It's especially concerning right now, knowing, that if I did contract C-19 (I'm going with this) - that I would have a significantly difficult time. Sleep apnea, obesity, high blood pressure - it's just the kind of cocktail this virus is thirsty for. I did note in today's round of Smart People Speaking While an Orange Parrot Repeats Random Words, that perhaps injecting bleach or rubbing alcohol into the lungs of a sick person might just kill the virus in no time, like it does on a counter-top, you know? What have you got to lose? So, that's hopeful. I'm pretty sure we are about to turn the corner on all this people whining about dying stuff.

I'm feeling pretty sharp at the moment, so let's talk about this work situation. We are not going to name the "work", if you know me personally, you already know who "work" is. I guess a linear time line is best? I need to preface what I am about to share with an understanding that my perspective is from one employee, deemed essential by "work". I am a supervisor, but there's 5 layers of management between myself and the CEO - so I am not going to know everything there is to know and how that relates to me, I don't know what decisions have to be weighed and what factors are tipping the scales. "Work" is a publicly-traded company with investors, we also employ tens of thousands of employees all over the world. The dollar amounts at stake are in the billions - and my sliver in that pie chart requires an electron microscope. With all of that said - let's jump in.

My assessment is that "work" responded in kind with other businesses. As governors issued stay-at-home orders, "work" quickly moved 95% or more of its workforce to working from home. As this effort was in motion, "essential employees" were identified. That's me and my team, and others just like us all over the country, including our supervisors. News was at a fever pitch, and I was getting blown up by every staff member simultaneously, from the time I woke up to the time I put my head on the pillow. 10 PM texts about C-19 new stories were not uncommon. I recognize the fear, I have a family, I am concerned too, the one thing I for sure know is that I am an "essential employee" and thusly, so are you. As branch staff were in the process of transitioning to work-at-home, one of my couriers expressed the fears he had and his wife demanded to be addressed. They were absolutely legitimate concerns, he's in his 70s, has a heart-condition, and delivers payrolls to nursing homes, hospitals, hospices, etc. So, as with most things new to "work", I am the one presenting a case to Human Resources in seeking guidance. We come to the agreement, it is too dangerous for him to deliver and we pull him off the route. I secure back up for the route, and feel accomplished for all of a half-second. The barrage for email forwards, texts, printed new articles continues as the branch empties out until we are the only light left in a vast sea of dark, empty cubicles. People left their plants, their sweaters, family photos, the cup of coffee on their desk - but there's only us to navigate a ghostly abyss.

As you can imagine, this ramps up the anger, bitterness and vitriol shared among my team. I probably have an equal level of contempt at this point, but it's internalized and it's at the utter lack of care or realization that I too am human and am here with you and also may die for this effort to keep "work" remaining a thing that exists in the world. Yes, they did put that heavy-fucking burden on our shoulders. "Essential employees" were the survival line of "work", because without us, paychecks are not going to be delivered to people all over the world barely hanging on right now. And if we can't do that, we cease to exist. They parry that reality with little quips about how "work" cares about the health and safety of all it's employees and taking care of ourselves is of paramount importance. It's hard to justify one without sacrificing the other, right? I have (had) a staff of 5 people... I can't afford to have too many of them stay home because of a cough before I don't have the capability to get checks out the door. It leaves you feeling very confused about your own priorities, and I will argue vehemently, that the phrasing was intentional. If I asked HR - they would air on the side of, health first; if I asked a supervisor, you would get the kind of song and dance that our president is filthy with. Three days before our residency began at the haunted branch in the haunted business complex, those higher layers of management decided, this is a good time to talk directly to the "essential employees". Oddly, the call was prefaced by the comment, "I think you will really be happy about this." Why was it odd? Well, for 45-minutes, we watched and listened to a senior manager from the comfort of his kitchen, stocked with food, talk about "unprecedented times" and "critical foundation" and "appreciation", and then he rolled out that big nugget of thank you by announcing that lunch will be supplied to all "essential employees" every Wednesday. "Keep up the great work, we appreciate you." Oh for fuck's sake. It pissed me off - my staff was ready to burn the fucking building down and storm out. I don't remember if it was the same day or next day (leaning towards the latter), that an email came down announcing that hourly employees would be receiving a $2/hour bump for any hours worked in the office, retroactive to the beginning of March and good thru the end of April. "It's DEFINITELY NOT hazard pay, don't call it that, don't think it." They also sweetened the pot by having a daily raffle each day for a $25 gift card. (To date, my team has won $150). It was around this point that one of my staff members was having 'issues' and began calling off for days at a time. Now down two employees.

I'd like to interject a special note here. On this "perfect" phone call conference, this executive shared a long, told fib about "work". "We ("work") doesn't carry much debt so as a company we are in better shape than most to weather this event." Something to that effect. I have heard this countless times over the last 17 years. I always assumed it to be true. This year however, I stumbled upon articles outlining the high-risk "work" was involved in and how much debt "work" was carrying. It was alarming enough to prompt financial reporters to pen articles about it. So - let's just drop the pre-text. This executive, flaunting his perfect bag of Tostitos atop the fancy smart-fridge definitely knows that "work" is carrying a lot of debt. And I am forced to wonder what that "alarming risk" reporter-person reported on is like now, two months into this?

As one would imagine, my stress level reached new plateaus. Coincidentally, with extra money in-hand, my staff was suddenly much less worried about the world and their inevitable death by everything from the UPS driver to the water in the check insertion machine. Amazing what money does to quiet the injustices of the world. With the branch now closed, a whole host of procedures are sloppily thrown together to document payrolls that would have otherwise been picked up by clients but now need to be delivered. Our couriers are encountering shuttered businesses all over the state and calling us every 10 minutes for phone numbers. Absolute mayhem, and I have this person out of the office who proclaims to be suffering from pain but is willing to return. She does, allows herself to be worked up by the rest of the staff that all of her ailments are signs of C-19 because they read it on the internet, and she gets herself tested on the way home. Can you guess what happened? She evidently didn't. She's told to self-quarantine for 14 days. So fucking awesome. I am absolutely livid at my staff for doing that to her; at the situation; at my "work" - I could have punched a baby. You see, those people winning gift cards, had their tongues bit by $2/hr, getting free lunch every Wednesday are hourly employees. Myself and my supervisor - we are "salary-folk" and there's no incentives for us. In fact, the wording of the hourly employee incentive program is done in such a way to draw attention to the fact that we are omitted. So, let me ask you - is this reasonable? I am working longer hours, working harder and covering hourly staff that are, you know, self-quarantining, and I have to navigate the needs of couriers and clients and payroll specialists all day consistently. How am I at any less risk than an hourly employee? What's the nature of $2 /hour and gift card raffles? Is it simply to entice the employee to consider going to work instead of staying home because it's safer? Is it to say, you risking your life is worth two extra dollars an hour to "work"? What if, let's say, have a cough and a runny nose, but no fever, are you going to give up that extra money or stay home? HR says stay home.... "work" says - "Hey, there's money down here..." Whatever the rationale is, we will never know - but why doesn't it also apply to me? Why should I keep going to work and risking my safety, and the safety of my family? Because I'm a leader and leader's lead? I want to hear opinions from someone on the outside of this. Am I unreasonable or wrong to think that I also deserve equal incentives in being deemed an "essential employee"? Herein lies my daily internal struggle with patience and acceptance of my "work". I'm definitely having trust issues right now - I feel taken advantage of.

Back to our story.

My only remaining driver comes off the road to work in-house to cover Employee 2 that's out playing house. First day of his schedule - he shows up and is visibly not well. Two-hours in, I send him home. He's out for another day before returning, and during this - I am down to myself and two employees, fighting for my life not to have the office closed or our work sent away to another center. Ironically, while I am fighting to stay open, a much larger print center has to close down for two weeks, and we are left alone. Employee 3 returns but his status is questionable. We limped through the two weeks of Employee Two's self-quarantine, and I am prepared to have to adjust schedules to accommodate everyone for the amount of work we have. The timing is perfect, because a second, extremely large print center has to close, and I am ready to take some of their work. However, Employee 2 does not agree with the restrictions HR has put on her for returning, in fact, "IT'S BULLSHIT", so she quits an hour into her shift. Employee 3 then lets me know, he needs surgery and will need a week off for the recovery. Which brings us to today. About to wrap up another week... 7 weeks in to this new work reality, no incentives, no soothing calm, just hit after hit after hit.

Of course, I have blown up my manager in much the same fashion I was blown up by my staff. He does see things my way, it's not his fault that someone up the chain of command has "reasons" for treating us differently. It doesn't hurt any less. Seventeen years with this company, I have seen and been through a lot. This is the second time I have no idea what is on the horizon. I may get through all of this, having saved the company (their words, not mine), only to be told that I am no longer needed on the other end. Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass? When you needed me, you didn't even acknowledge me with the same level of respect as my staff, but now I am dispensable. That seems like a real possibility, because as has been demonstrated, "work" doesn't really care about me.

In an almost humorous effort to strut around the barnyard, "work" sent out a survey, titled, "Critical On-Site Employees". Four simple questions. "Oddly" enough, despite the title, the survey went to people who were working from home, because, they definitely would share the same thoughts as someone going to the office every day out in corona-world?! Everyone shared their opinions, good, bad, incoherent, and pointless. Some of us monitored this for the two weeks it was available, and continued voting on users typed responses... and noticed something peculiar. Responses that I would call "critical" were being shown about 1/20 as often as a "positive" response. In fact, one person voted 1600 times, and not only did the "critical" responses not move into the top responses despite voting for them, but of the 306 answers available, one answer still had not shown up. 306 Answers, 1600 Refreshes - the odds are that this person would have seen every answer. Obviously something was happening behind the scenes. We were being Ms. Marveled. What managed to be a top 5 answer, you wonder? "I get to come to work". That one stole the show.

Incentives may still yet come. My luck, it will come in the form of paid time off.. I have been maxed out at 200 hours for over a month. That is of zero value to me. We are not able to cash out PTO - so it does me no good.

We are likely to have these moments scarred into our memories for the rest of our lives. Some of us will face this over and over until vaccines are available. A lot of us will have PTSD. What I hope is that these weeks and months taught us something about ourselves. Me - I've learned that morality will usher me to the soapbox to stand-up for what I believe is right... but the love of family is a much stronger force. I won't jeopardize my ability to do my part in supporting the family to advocate the greater good. My "work" has probably identified and weighed the risk/reward just as I have, it knows my vulnerability, and recognizes that the world is suddenly unfamiliar and there sure are a lot of people out of work... you willing to risk your morality versus joining their ranks?

In a week's time - it will be only 3 of us to carry the load of a 6-person team (myself included). My boss, again, is itching to give our work away. I shut him down and refuse to discuss it. It's the only value I feel I have. If I give that away, it reinforces the hurt I feel about going to work everyday. I validate the opinion I have convinced myself of;  that "work"sees me as valueless. But if something happens to me, or my two remaining staff during that week, we're done. It will officially be too much for us to handle. It comes back full circle - somehow I am wearing all of the pressure of the company. I am fighting against my perceived injustice to support this company and it's clients and I cannot fail. I cannot get sick, I cannot stop, and "work" doesn't give two fucks that I am doing that. All they have demonstrated is that as long as it gets done... we have nothing else to discuss... you did your job. That's the kind of work ethic my dad raised me with... unfortunately, corporate greed doesn't reward or recognize work ethic any longer. Towing the line is a much more crucial quality.

I'm sure there's many details and nuances I have over-looked. If you find yourself reading this, I do want to hear your opinion about incentives. Should I expect anything, or is that unreasonable? It's quite late and I have another day to dig through. I hope you are well and safe. Sleep well and take care -

Listening to: Tropic Of Cancer - "Restless Idylls"

Going all SecureTeam10 on this blog...

I wonder if anyone who even stumbles upon this blog would understand that title? It feels like I just got back to writing; bringing reassurances that this will happen again regularly, and 3 or 4 posts in, silence. No great excuses, fatigue mostly. The free time I do have, I have been devoting to the video channel. I am putting so many hours into each video, between filming, editing, researching and then typing it all up, and trying to do that weekly for the one possible fan I have, it's exhausting. I do want to talk about that "fan", but that will have to be a subject for a future post. Maybe by then, it won't be mysterious or weird any longer.

So, Excuse # 1 - busy doing other thing.

Work has been, I don't know what to even call it at this point. After two months of this, I guess this is, as they say, "the new normal". But it still feels weird, it's pretty unpleasant and growing increasingly less pleasant; and every day it seems like I have some staffing challenge - so it's just unpleasant. I need a rest. I'm suffering from a "grass is greener..." mentality right now that is not based on a healthy reality. I'm just really tired and my mental state is not remotely close to the already unwell state it was in when I last wrote.

Excuse # 2 - "I'm so tired...." (do you hear Perry? I do...)

I'm going to write this evening, I'm at least committed to doing so by the end of the weekend. I need to talk about work, I need to write down all of my frustrations, anger, and confusion about what's going on at my job right now. Hopefully, I will gain some perspective. A healthy reminder that, of all of the "essential employees" in the world right now, I am probably at the least health risk of all of them. Unfortunately, I've not the energy or time to articulate all of my thoughts to blog, so it has to come later.

Excuse # 3 - No time, brain broke.

So, in recognition of all of my excuses, I offer this gift.

Morpheus... may I have the other pill, please...

I'm not even sure where to start this post or what to talk about. The idea of coming back to this blog was to give myself some self-evaluation, self-reflection, and to force the habit of writing to take hold. What I did not anticipate was an omnipresent threat to humanity showing up and the resulting expectations that I would daily navigate said threat for the sustainability of my employer.

I knew in January that something was up. The language being used in material surrounding COVID-19 was new. Even the jokes about the virus had a context that suggested something different was about to happen. Given this era we are now in where lying is a daily reality, I'm slowly teaching myself to listen for clues or tells. My wife and I discussed the potential risks we faced in a planned trip the first week of February. I am so deeply thankful we made that trip, more so every day as the world burns down around us.

So, as pandemics tend to go, the very best and the very worst of people step into the light. America, unfortunately, has little experience in dealing with "third world issues". That "China Disease" doesn't stand a chance in our highly-civilized, fast-food-fueled, American society. If Ebola or SARS or MERS taught us anything, it's that when a viral killer shows up in America, it will kill a handful of people and then someone (I guess it's Jesus?) intervenes and it goes away. Thankfully, some people in the Obama Administration (probably Atheists) understood how close we were to moving Max Brooks from fiction to reference material. As people die, we discover, you are only as powerful as the spitefulness with which you dismantle your predecessors task forces.

As death tolls rise, and cities begin to issue "stay at home" mandates, my employer prepares to respond. In a span of two weeks, what was a 10% work-from-home employee base swells to a 90% work-from-home employee base. One of my employees is high-risk and is a courier, so my first response was that I had to take him off the road. It was about that time the phrasing emerged, "essential employee", next year's top candidate for inclusion by Webster. That brave, dedicated person saving your life; that person serving you fast-food-fuel; and yours truly - printing checks for America are the essentials this new reality will throw ticker-tape parades for, via live stream from a broken and deserted town near you.

All of those people out there who think this is being handled, "perfectly" - there is no bottom to the depth of your inhumanity. Please, please tell me how the greatest nation on Earth is less equipped than South Korea to respond; or is less responsive to an impending crisis than most every other nation save a few? Why, after 1918, or Hurricane Sandy, or Hurricane Katrina, or the California Wildfires, or <insert name of disaster> has our response to sit on our hands and hope "the God" is a merciful god this year? I understand that preparation costs money, but negligence carries a price tag 10 x as high and comes with tragic loss of life. It's inexcusable that technology, and medicine, and research must have profit-motives, and right to life, and quality of life are best left to the philanthropists. We are watching every single day, our leader, devalue human life and make it the roadblock to economic success. "... then go ahead and die and decrease the surplus population!" All the while, we demonstrate to the despots of the world, just how prepared America is to deal with germ warfare.

Back in my world, my staff, quite on cue, blow me up constantly with every "end of the world" headline they can find. Are they scared? Maybe. Are they angry? Seemingly so. Once the office went dark, and we were the only lights on in a deserted building... I turned into a representation of the entity that was going to kill them and everyone they ever knew and loved. What a great feeling, because I'm not human or experiencing all of the same feelings they are, right? The Employer holds a teleconference with all of us "essential employees", and we all watch the VP broadcasting from the toilet paper fort he built in the dining room of his house, and for an hour he provides no encouragement, no incentives (save a corona lunch ordered in for the staff every Wednesday), no answers or horizons. It was absolutely fucking pointless and inflamed and already raging staff. Our feedback as supervisors was immediate, and within a day, hourly staff were given a $2/hour increase for the period of about two months. The supervisors who have had to manage all of this; doing right for their staff and advocating for them; navigating clients and payroll specialists and supervisors as we journey into uncharted waters; while facing all of the same risks... you can go fuck yourselves. Some of us dared to question this decision, and those who did, got wrath and threats. Our employer; who I want to call out so badly for this betrayal; has broke my spirit. The fog in my head is now mixed with anger and hurt... my faith in my employer is crushed, and I no longer trust that you care what happens to me.

Keep moving forward. Regardless of how I feel about my employer, there are people all over The South relying on me and my staff to keep printing payroll and getting them out to clients. I take pride in that. I am not saving lives, I am not in an environment making minimum wage and serving the public, but I am keeping someone fed and housed and supporting themselves and maybe supporting others. But I am growing tired... the noise in my head is thick, it won't allow me to relax, but every day it becomes denser. This is my day:

• "New Orleans is the leader of the world in COVID-19 growth"
• Go To Work
• Staff feeds each other's paranoia for 8 hours
• Wonder if we have enough groceries or supplies to get thru another day
• Maybe go to the store and find 1 of the 12 things I need
• Go home
• "Number of new cases doubled today"
• Take whatever I have to induce sleep
• Repeat

Yesterday, in the day-to-day syndrome, one of my staff allowed her peers to stoke her fears and trigger her anxieties to the point where she felt she needed to go get tested on her way home. She had no fever, so who knows how she managed to do that, and of course she was told to self-quarantine. Wonderful. In all of the years I've been in New Orleans with this staff, I have never been so fucking angry at them. I could barely talk this morning, and all I wanted to do was scream. I didn't... so that too is now in my head. All of that rage penned up in my skull. So, now I am short-handed and handling a crisis.

In that aforementioned lack of trust I now have in my employer - I am convinced that they could use this pandemic to close our center (for good) and have found a way to do so that eliminated a severance package, a stay bonus, and paying all of our vacation time. Maybe it's paranoia brought on by stress or fog - but I simply don't trust my company to do the right thing any more. My employee self-isolating is one nail shy of finishing that coffin. If she tests positive, or any of the rest of us have to do the same - in goes the final nail. If I weren't so exhausted, I'd be freaked out right now.

I keep reminding myself how fortunate I am to have a job to go to today. I am still bringing home money, so is my wife, and I recognize how lucky we are in that regard. Maybe my employer thinks I don't realize this and I am taking what I have for granted? Maybe, I am. Then I see people posting memes about how they are supporting our nation in this great time of need by watching Netflix - and my blood goes to nuclear. People are equating themselves to the men and women of WWII that went into the work force to create the goods needed in our fight against Fascism. Irony-aside, Trump-supporters, you binge-watching Duck Dynasty is not the same as the person going to work to every day to make the KAYSADILLAS you and your family love. That person feeding your pot-munchies is more akin to a soldier in a war, than the people who stayed behind to support their efforts. You are akin to neither... are you are more like The Pumpkin King; a draft dodger and type of person who likes to let everyone know about your achievements in doing nothing. So, if you could, light a tiki torch or two for the people who are risking their lives and the health of their families every day to make sure KAYSADILLAS are getting made.

If I die for my employer - the joke really is on me. How fucking typical that I sacrificed myself for someone who couldn't identify my corpse (unless it's wearing my photo ID badge). Please someone sue them for enough money that my son can go to the college of his choice, and my wife will never need a paycheck printed by a company that valued it's own sustainability over the lives of the people printing those checks.

Have you seen that Thai film, Shutter? The story of my most unwelcome guest.

If not, let me try to illustrate the plot point that's key to this post. You are feeling fatigued all of the time; all of your tension and stress seems to accumulate around your collar bone and shoulders; whispers about the bleakness of life drift into your skull whenever you pause; and if you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror or in a photo - you can make out the nefarious creature that has attached itself to you. In the film, it's a ghost... in my reality, it's depression and anxiety.

Those whispers; they are probably the most wicked of tools used to destroy yourself. So many lies, and such hateful comments about you, and about the people who love you (do they?) Your mind would have you think that the boat you are in is built for one, and is on the most turbulent of water, and this boat is fuck-full of holes that you are constantly patching with self-sacrifice, ruinous acceptance, self-destruction, and isolation. In 30 years, you'd expect to somehow perfect the craft of depression - make it a slave instead of a master. The most clever of our depressed peers turned it into a muse, or drowned it out with external adoration, but if nothing else, depression is perhaps the most patient of diseases. Where most people accept that life is a series of days with varying degrees of wonderful to horrible, a depressed person struggles to get to acceptable every day while taking note of all of the hurdles to get there. It's very much like a filter exists around the brain, and everything passing through is scrutinized, torn apart, or rejected.

Who is that person for me? My oldest recollections are from childhood. Likely as a result of a very transient life, I had no friends, and if I did - they'd be gone from my life within a year or two. So, isolation and alienation were an attractive host for this disease. Quite inexplicably, I also developed a seething anger for social injustices, especially racially motivated ones. Where that came form, I simply don't know - but even at 5, I knew what the racially derogatory terms were and they made me angry enough to lash out. Having my face slapped as hard as an adult could do while driving a car, was clue enough that I was playing in a sandbox built for one.

I would have expected to grow up distrusting others, but instead, the opposite happened. Absolute blind faith and trust in strangers. The romantic notion of developing a bond with someone that was without words or conditions was a theme I didn't even question. And that blinding idiocy crafted a teenager with addiction issues, many shattered illusions, and anger fueled by a lifetime (all 15-18 years of it) of betrayal and isolation. Spoiler Alert: some things become old hat. I did start writing as a teen; plagiarized at first; but accolades from those works filled me with perhaps my first glimpse of being appreciated or recognized for something. Ninth grade, after our hundredth move, and sixth move to another state, I had my very first moment of positive reinforcement. I'll be honest, it's the one and only reason why it matters to me to be good at writing, or more specifically, to be TOLD I am good at writing. This too... becomes old hat. I go off to school - having loathed school, and expected the rest of my life was going to meet me there. It was a no-show, but in it's place, familiar friends arrived and we spent my early twenties setting fire to my future.

This is a period that encapsulates the worst of my capabilities and introduces new extensions to my amassing vices. Being unable to keep anything meaningful in my life, I recognize that idolatry can serve as proof of normalcy and so, keepsakes of a happy life supplement actual living of a happy life. Receipts, if you will, that something good happened today. It seems innocent enough, perhaps notable, until of course you only have those pieces of paper and everything else has long since been incinerated. Each memory as painful as a razor to the skin, serving the same purpose... to make you feel something... even if it's how much you hate yourself. With nothing else to appreciate about yourself, depression becomes your vanity.

Anyone worth their weight in salt in navigating depression learns and masters the most pernicious skill. Find someone who cares about you, and put all your energy, resources, and time into endless expressions of your affection and leave no avenues open for self-reflection, self-interest, or self-identity. Maybe you can be roommates with this person, or even marry them... because in your mind, this is what it's going to take to unlock happiness. If you can find someone wanting to spend their life with you, all of it will have been worth it and life will be meaningful and fulfilling and fuck, it's going to be awesome to be happy every day! While bleaching away your self-identity, and abandoning your self-interests, and eroding the reality for your partner that you are even a person anymore... you also manage to exhaust whatever energy your partner has in propping up the life crafted for two but you've built for one. More razor blades for the scrap-book no one is there to see or cares to see. More Old Hat. Wisdoms, like: "no one else can love you until you are able to love yourself", resonate like passages from Revelations... "this life is fucked. Scorched earth and an act of god are needed to set this path right, and I don't have enough respect for him to even address him with a capital G". We shrink and shrink into ever decreasing holes while navigating life to "survive". Many are too tired to navigate. Much too many choose not to.

Depression is something unique for everyone. Yes there's commonalities, but the insidious thing about a disease like depression is that it has had your entire lifetime to study from, and knows every single thought, fear, act, desire you have ever had... and it's task is to simply use you and all your experiences as it's toolkit to destroy you. If you think about this in a religious context - it could very much seem like the devil or possession - only something so powerful could torture you so perfectly.

I've hesitated in writing about this, and I've tried to imagine what my teenage self would think reading this. With so many high-profile, respectable people having lost to depression, and having our families devastated by it, the effort to see a horizon seems unrealistic. So, it's important to not only discuss my fears of fighting depression, but also that I know there are solutions.

Medications do exist that help. And no - they don't turn you into a different person. You will not lose your uniqueness or bounce of walls in an exuberance of life, or become a zombie. There's different levels of depression, and only someone trained in diagnosing depression can prescribe the best course forward. For me, it was a low-dosage anxiety medication that simply quieted the self-doubt voices and allowed me to speak in front of groups of people at work... something I was never able to do prior. It had sexual side-effects, so I found something else that didn't and it worked extremely well for a lot of years, despite some very difficult times. This experience proved to me, it may take a little work, but medication can balance out your moods and help with the self-destructive characteristics of depression.

The one thing I haven't personally explored is therapy. I do know however, it has helped people I trust and love. The ability to freely express emotions and feelings to someone who doesn't have "a card in the game" can help clear a path to healing.

The art of defeating depression isn't one thing. The effort is to getting your mind to focus on constructive thoughts instead of destructive. You have to accept that depression is a disease, and it needs to be treated as any disease would. Do you think any less of Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain because we found out they struggled with depression? If their deaths have taught us anything, it's that the shame and stigma attached to admitting depression is a passe construct of a bygone era.

Not all depression leads to death. You, above anyone else, knows where your path is going. It's not my path, it's not Bourdain's path, it's not the path of the person you loved and lost while they traveled their path. Sometimes I have to fight to remind myself of my own values. I have no problem in looking at someone else and telling you what I admire about them. Looking inward is much harder, but much more important. I can do this:

• I'm reasonably intelligent despite being kicked out of college
• I know a little bit about a lot of things
• I have an obsessive amount of knowledge about Rozz Williams' career
• I'm on the right side of social equality
• I survive the worst days and sometimes find amazing days
• I have an aesthetic eye
• I've had 47 years of film, music and art to experience, and all of the emotions they've inspired
• I've shared joy with others
• I shared my life with a cat that lived for 21 years.

There's value in our moments on this Earth. If you've ever been to a wake, you know what I mean. Moments we take for granted become moments that mean the world to those left behind. Seeing the value of our lives, or the values in ourselves, isn't something were reminded to do. We often feel the pain of doing something wrong, sometimes the pain of doing something right, but much less are the moments where we are appreciated for doing something right.

Take stock in the values you find in yourself. Also know that your experiences carry as much value as anyone's. I'm writing this in recognition of my own struggles and my own values... and I am no more equipped to do that than you are. Recognize that depression is a disease that there are treatments for, and you deserve to be helped as much as anyone else. If you feel shame in admitting that, recognize that the shame was put upon you by someone or something else and you don't have to accept that. If it's a person doing that to you - remove yourself from that person.

Be well and I will be too...

• Suicide Prevention Lifeline -- 1-800-273-TALK
• Trevor HelpLine / Suicide Prevention for LGBTQ+ Teens -- 1-866-488-7386
• Crisis Text Line -- Text HOME to 741741
• Gay & Lesbian National Hotline -- 1-888-THE-GLNH (1-888-843-4564)
• IMAlive -- online crisis chat
• National Runaway Safeline -- 1-800-RUNAWAY (chat available on website)
• Teenline -- 310-855-4673 or text TEEN to 839863 (teens helping teens)

The Horizon Has Changed (Murderer Number Two)

Suddenly, there's a new a person at this party of killers. Someone add a Suspect Card for COVID-19, and an Item Card for Global Pandemic to my personal round of CLUE. Where will it happen?!

Anyway - the world is falling apart at the same time I am coming to terms with my life style choices, and my mortality. As stated, my horizon has changed. Both figuratively and literally. I've never been one that pondered old age, but I certainly never thought about being dead in my 50's either. A figurative shift in perspective has definitely taken place over the past year. Quite literally, when I look down at my feet, everything passed the stomach has disappeared. My perspective has shifted from nearly 6 feet, to about 2.5 feet to my stomach. It's depressing, demoralizing, and has contributed to the sinking of my self-worth.

In my life, I've always had very established plateaus regarding weight. For as long as I can remember, I always had what was referred to by most people as "baby fat". I just never could get a flat stomach even when I was in excellent shape. My work career, up until my current job, was generally, physical in nature. I remained for the most part, thin with a some stomach until my mid-20's. Then, I had perhaps my most physically-demanding job, and suddenly I had shoulders, and muscle tone, and jumped from 140 to ~180. I think most of that was muscle mass, because my stomach remained roundish but wasn't any larger. Then - I lost that job, and it took me some months to find another. In that time, my weight shifted from a healthy 180 to an unpleasant 180. It's in this period that the first suggestions that my sleep was abnormal were being uttered. I was 29. I don't know how long before this point I may have had abnormal sleep, this was simply the first time I was being included in the knowledge of it.

Additional Information: I just checked with my mum, and she told me that she doesn't remember me snoring ever. So... chicken (sleep apnea) likely came after egg (weight gain). So, in idiot's logic, if I lose all the eggs, so goes the chicken?!

So, in my 30s I established a new plateau, it was 229-238. Officially moving into the medically obese territory. I'm at the job that I am still with today (for now), and I had a lot of safeties in my life that resulted in a lot of complacency. Refusing to look at myself and instead I really refined my art of worrying about everyone else. If I treat everyone great, then they have to accept me in whatever condition I present myself. That's what I believed, it's a behavior I struggle with still. In my mid-30s,
I move to Orlando. The pace of my job went from completely manageable, to absolute madness. Everything around me became a source of stress: my job, my finances, my marriage, myself - I started drinking much more than I ever had before. What felt like 30 pounds of stress, had turned into 30 pounds of weight by the time I left Orlando. I'd also established a diagnosis of High-Blood Pressure, an Anxiety Disorder, and had Kidney Stones (twice). I was "off-the-rails" at this point... my body was in bad shape, my head was in worse shape, and I had developed an unreal-level of selfishness that was fed by years of worthlessness, betrayal, denial, and every bit of toxicity I could cling to.

Into lovely New Orleans... overweight (260), undiagnosed medical conditions on top of the known ones, depression, anxiety, utter fear - "I should start smoking!" My reasoning is at premium levels of stupid now. Our home is surrounded by cemeteries, but I don't see the irony of it. I again have other people to put all of my energy and focus on. There's so many new hurdles: new faces at work, new faces at home, wow, the school's are terrible and there seems to be a lot of crime, and wow - look at all these celebrations, and cemeteries. So many distractions... shuffle the cards, palm the one that has me on it. It's somewhere in this time frame that I lost my connection with memories of how it felt to be healthy, and to have clear thoughts.

Soon comes a series of cascading events... when I think about them now, it's hard to remember the good in-between. There has definitely been some magic... my marriage to Hannah, and the events surrounding it may be the best memories I will ever have; our adventures together; Ethan growing up and all of his successes and interests. All of that has kept me from complete darkness. For the past four-and-a-half years, I've been fighting a war against my body and my mind.

A broken ankle and knee during a business trip resulted in one of my most nightmarish and humiliating events and left me being stuck downstairs for over a month, and out of the office. My knee had given out hundreds of times, but I never managed to break an ankle and my kneecap. It was my weight that shattered my bones. Like I said, humiliating. Physical therapy was beneficial, followed by surgery, and more physical therapy. Motivated, oh so briefly to do better - and failed myself.

Having done absolute zero to correct my horrible diet, my weight reached it's next plateau, (~285), which navigated down and up until my gallbladder tried to kill me. I thought the kidney stones were excruciating, my experience with a gallbladder going haywire was days and days of misery that turned into weeks until I was admitted to the hospital and finally had it removed.

It's been post surgery that it feels like the terrible choices I make, result in terrible, cannot ignore, types of consequences. And here I am, just shy of 300 pounds. Every day, I am checking the scale - "is today the day?" So far, not yet. But I'm hovering right at that point. My body gave me signals one morning while standing in line at a Lowes - and it scared me. A bizarre shooting pain across my chest, and I was convinced that was the moment. Contemplating whether or not to alert this poor clerk in the garden center, and flashes of my wife and my son finding out...the ambulance ride, and memories of the humiliating moment when I broke my ankle. I went to the car and the sensation came 2 or 3 more times. I got home, maybe going in shock, and frantically searched YouTube and Google for the symptoms of a heart attack. I didn't have one, at least as far as I know. It was enough to convince me to put the cigarettes to bed. It took a couple of months, but I did finally quit in October 2019. Nearly five months ago as of this writing. Success at that convinced me I can take care of myself.

This past weekend, I made it through Saturday and Sunday without soda. In some regards - that's a miracle. I wanted to see what would happen. The scale seemed favorable to the idea. I'm also playing with a low-carb diet. I know you have to go all in until ketosis, so I am failing at that. But, I am eating much less fast food, fewer carbs, soda only til 12, and making a low-carb dinner for myself. My plan, as ill-conceived as it is, is to continue on this path until habits form, upon which I can build more discipline.

I want to lose 100 pounds. Can I do this? Is surgery my best or only option? Reality is, like the sleep apnea - my poor diet is going to kill me. Diabetes, stroke, heart attack - any number of ways. I want to be clear, I am not equating weight with health. I have acquired my weight through making unhealthy dietary choices, but even if I hadn't - it's my diet, the smoking, the low self-esteem, and complacency that are at the core of my poor health. If I didn't have high blood pressure, or sleep apnea, or paper maché knees, or a lack of energy - I wouldn't be talking about my weight. As I've added weight, and maintained an unhealthy diet, I've added a detrimental effect. I can exercise (yes I should), and maybe if I fell, I wouldn't break a bone... or I can lose the weight that will break the bone. For me, it's a path of least resistance. Maybe on the other end, is more energy and fewer things that will kill me?

My rationale is that every pound after 180 came with an added ill-effect. I know it's nonsense to think that going in reverse will make those ailments fall away. Again - it's not the weight, it's the diet. So - I am going to do everything I can to change my diet and hopefully lose a lot of weight.

I hope that anyone reading this doesn't take offense to my words. My experience is my own, and I don't assume that what is true for me is true for everyone. I don't believe weight and quality of health are connected. I also don't believe that what I consider to be unhealthy choices, are true for everyone.

With that said - on to the next...

How it is I'm Dying - in Much Too Many Words

Four-and-a-half years later. Here I am, what's left of me. 2015, that year that uplifted me and brought the greatest gifts, and then betrayed and broke me. These years since have set me on a path of illness, depression, and physical dependence, while also unraveling mysteries that have chased me since childhood. The milestone list is so long, that I don't know yet how to jump back in to consistent writing while expanding on all of the events, learning, and tragedies that fill the narrative. I don't even think I can remember everything, and I am only documenting this now because I am afraid it's going to be lost. My reality is, in this moment, I am very close to death... teasing with it nightly. Why it's come this far is solely by my own creation and negligence of self-worth. I'll explain all of that - and I will attempt to do so as quickly as I am able. I'm past the embarrassment of what I've become, and it's important to me to leave a record of how I got here so even in my absence, MY words fill the gaps. I'm not pretending to understand everything, I may not even have time to figure it all out, but I do have the experiences to share, so I shall.

Probably the best place to start is with the grim reaper that waits for me nightly. I don't believe it to be alone, it has several friends that I gladly invited to the party that is my life, but it's the one that, if left unchecked, WILL definitely kill me. Someone I work with, a little older than I am, told me a personal story that unlocked for me the answer to a mystery that I wasn't even aware I had written. Suddenly, I had clues/puzzle pieces fitting together in a flash of thought:

• Depression/Lack of Clear Thought
• Years of Complaints About How Loud I Snored
• Anecdotal Stories About How I Stop Breathing When I Sleep
• A Sense Of Levitating When I Sleep
• High Blood Pressure
• Difficulty Rationalizing
• Frightening Level of Anger at Tremendously Stupid Things
• A Level of Fatigue that has Reached a Point of being Unable to Stay Awake at Work.
• Weight Gain Despite No Change in Diet
• My New Fitbit Telling me I Slept for 1.5 Hours, When I Slept for 7 or More Hours.
• Paranoia
• Organs Failing
• Unexplained Skin Irritations/Chronic Hives
• Allergies Cropping Up Seemingly Overnight

My peer told a story that involved degenerating health in a whole host of ways brought on by a lack of sleep. A lack of sleep that was the direct result of having sleep apnea. This light bulb of knowledge was quickly followed by the light bulb of reality. If, I do indeed have sleep apnea - I've had it for a very long time, decades, and it's gone unchecked, and untreated. I was fully aware then and now that people die from sleep apnea-related problems regularly. Maybe even if they are being treated. I don't know, because I've yet to schedule a sleep study or get the ball rolling in any fashion despite the danger to myself and what my sudden death would do to my loved ones. Again - this is only one of several things lurking about that wishes me harm. I've carried this knowledge around for about three years now, and it's only been in the last year that my concerns have grown. Learning about what a real lack of sleep does to the body and mind over time is terrifying... and this is a sad reality for untreated sufferers of sleep apnea. You are getting about one-fifth or less of the sleep you think you are getting. It will slowly start to destroy you.

Here is some information from Healthline:

I've experienced everything on the chart except Adult Asthma. If I check that box - is the next one Death? What generally happens to sufferers, is that they stop breathing, they go into cardiac arrests, and they expire. It's pretty insidious in this fashion. The loud snoring usually means that you are sleeping alone; on the couch or in a spare bedroom, or you are simply just alone. No one is around when you stop breathing, or if they are, they are accustomed to it - and no one is aware you've gone into cardiac arrest. Frankly it's terrifying. It alienates you and then kills you - only there isn't a priest that can exorcise this demon. A lot of sufferers die in car accidents because of the sudden onset of the mind forcing you to sleep. It's this exactly that has been most alarming to me - at least once a day - my mind tries to force me to sleep. It's almost like what I've seen from people who suffer from Narcolepsy. It's sudden, it's hardly preventable, and it's fucking embarrassing. If I'm able to get to my feet and move around, I can defer the onset, but that's not always a reality.I am somebody that has a strong work-ethic, I believe in being at work, doing what's expected of you and I expect that of my team. The fact that I am having to deal with this is soul-crushing... and as fucked up as my logic is, it's embarrassment, not death that has motivated me to write about this and seek help.

I have a staff member out on medical leave right now, when he returns, I am going to start on the path to correct this. The friend that unlocked this mystery to me has told me what a world of difference it has been for him in getting treated. When you've gone so long without a full night of sleep (YEARS) - you don't even remember what it feels like to be rested. He's had clarity of thought, he wasn't even aware how lacking it was. He can drive a long distance without fear of nodding off. I don't know what other symptoms he had - but if I could erase the check marks out of half of my boxes, that would give me hope.

I have a lot of things to work on, this one is probably the most serious. It's probably at the root of a lot of the paths I find myself on, but I know with certainty, where this particular path ends if I don't turn around. I've always put the needs of others before my own, especially in health matters, and if I choose to keep that mindset, I am going to die. I may as well admit to killing myself. I obviously can't wait for Universal Healthcare - thank you store-bought Democrats.

It's important to state: I am not diagnosed by a sleep specialist, but I feel with 100% certainty this is what I have. At the very least, I need to know. If you are someone that is experiencing some of the same things that I listed above, please seek to have a sleep study done. Insurance companies in the U.S. tend to be skeptical because the equipment in treating sleep apnea can be costly, so they require a sleep study be done. Get the ball rolling. If you have been told your snoring is ridiculously loud, if you've been told you stop breathing at night, if you think your fitbit has lost it's fucking mind because you know you are getting more sleep than 1.5 hours a night - these are some of the red flags that you might have sleep apnea. I wish I would have had the tools to piece all this together years ago, but I ignored them as one-off situations from someone bitter because I disrupted their sleep.

I am the most procrastinating person you'll ever meet when it comes to self-worth. I am going to do this, you can do this too. I'm going to write about it here, and I'd love to hear that someone out there read this and is going to do the same. Take care and sleep well... I've said that so often to others with no idea how little sleep I was getting myself.