2000-12-30 1 am
Meeting John
I did have a great experience at lunch today. When I was a little girl my dad and a man named Bob worked together for the same company. Their family and our family were fast friends and we would travel to Beaver, OK, and spend the night with them and they would come to our house in the Panhandle of Texas and spend the night with us. They had two daughter just like we had two girls but their oldest was eight years older than me and their youngest was probably five years older than me---big differences when you're little kids. My sister and I adored Debbie and Dee and loved getting to be around them.
As we grew up, Debbie married a Dallas Cowboy football player. I never met him but we followed his career as he went to play for the Patriots and then retired. When they lived in Dallas Debbie gave birth to a baby and shared a room at the hospital with Mrs. Roger Staubach who was also having a baby. Debbie's baby, John, is all grown up now.
A few years back my parents went to John's grandmother's funeral (following all this? the wife of the man my dad worked with died). My parents saw John, who they had met but I never had, and found out he was in radio in Iowa. He was thrilled to hear that I worked for ABC because he had a master's thesis in the works that involved ABC and he needed more input about the company. So John and I began e-mailing and talking on the phone.
Over the years (maybe three now) we have continued to e-mail as John moved to Houston and I moved to Austin and John gave up radio and his thesis and I left ABC. Finally today, I got to meet John.
John is 28 now and a super nice guy. Very tall and kind of cute. He has always had severe vision problems although he isn't blind. I remember hearing that he was playing football in junior high and we had no idea how he managed that. Now it is even more amazing to know that he works on computers and can read monitors and has done radio, all without much vision at all. He isn't able to drive and he reads by putting things right in front of his eyes, maybe three inches away. He is an amazing story of overcoming a disablity.
John and his friend Christian met Mark and I for lunch and we had a great conversation. The friend Christian was a really neat guy too and he and Mark hit is off talking about knives. He will soon be a new customer for Mark.
Later in the day the guys came to my studios and saw how we operate. I let John cut a few voice tracks to see how it works and he was hooked. If he didn't own a house in Houston I think he'd be finding a way to move to Austin and work with me. I think he would be very good at it. It was really fun to show off the studio to two guys who were really impressed and knew why they were impressed too---not just oohing and aahing over the pretty buttons.
Their visit delayed my work (but happily) and another conversation with a co-worker slowed me down later in the night but I'm sure both were good breaks for me that allowed me to get all the 13 shifts cut that I did today. I'm glad to be home and have 3 days ahead of me without worrying about work (too much--I always worry about work).
I'm working on my New Year's Resolutions. I always make them. They are never the kind that you can really quantify whether I have "kept them" or not, but I think it is good to have resolutions and I probably should make them measurable.
My number one goal for this year is to remain mentally healthy. I have improved so much in 2000 I want to continue that progress. With the good mental health I want to pursue better physical health again. I haven't felt up to it in the past two years, now I think I could manage it. I feel good about myself but I know I would be prouder (and so would my husband) if I were back to my thinner self.
My second goal, which goes hand in hand with the first is to rid myself of "toxic" people this year. There are co-workers who complain and groan and gripe and aggravate me to be near them. I am going to avoid them and not even try to make small talk with them because it always ends up as a complaint from them. Example: Last week I ran into a co-worker in the parking garage. I commented, just trying to be nice, that we had missed her at the company Christmas party. Her response was "oh, I hate those parties where everyone goes and gets drunk and acts stupid, I just hate that kind of party. I have never been to a company party since I've been here." A.) If she's never been, how does she know that that is the kind of party is is and B.) Doesn't it sound like she's saying that I was there getting drunk and stupid? It's that kind of person that you cannot win with so I will learn to just say hi and goodbye and not open the door for any comments whatsoever. Work is not the only place where there are toxic people. My aunt in Austin bothers me even though I don't see too much of her. It would be too hard to explain here why she bugs me but I'm going to try to minimize my contact with her. She is a shit magnet right now and I don't want to be around shit magnets.
Her family did add a piece of good gossip to our Christmas this week (I haven't even detailed my wonderful Christmas here yet have I---must go back and do that). Mark and Dad had to make a run by my aunt's house Christmas Eve night to drop off the grandmother. Cousin Susie was in town from Houston. Cousin Susie got married 15 months ago for the second time but we've already heard that it "wasn't working out." (his fault completely, of course) Mark calls after they leave the aunt's to report to those of us waiting here at home that he and Dad had just met---Susie's boyfriend. Yes, she's not divorced, not even officially separated, yet she brings a boyfriend home for Christmas. She's a slut and a shit magnet and I wish I could put posters up in bathrooms of bars all over Houston warning man to not allow this woman into their lives. After her first divorce I would have called up her ex-husband if had had any idea how to get in touch and I would have let him know that most of us in her extended family were completely in sympathy with him and I wanted him to know that he should consider himself lucky he got out of a life of HELL with her.
Enough soapbox. Glad to get some of my new year's resolutions down in writing.