ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES

I have come to the conclusion that we are what we have become. That's all. You can look back and regret. You can look back and rejoice. I don't think any of the past matters unless you are willing to examine and realize what it has made of you now. The "future" is only what we may hope and strive for if we are willing to hope and strive for it. Perserverence is a possibility I suppose, but many aspects can interfere with the most dutiful hopes. hmmm, what the hell was that all about anyway? I have been in a slump of sorts. Not a slump that is preventing me per se, but one that has allowed me to sit back and relax little bit and just be. I don't want as much these days. These wants used to be tied to the desire to need more out of what I already have. What I already have has , on one hand become a bit stagnant, and is definetly only tied to "work". Home life takes on a completely different self and in that self, I could not be happier. The stagnation come...

Well after about a week of up and downs in computer land. All things seem to have been resolved. It all started when my X-technology system that I bought on half.com a few years ago decided to give up its hard drive soul (and let’s not try and say that this has had anything to do with not posting for eons, I just don’t have the motivation to keep up like a good little blogger). Two things came to mind. 1. Sadness, the thought of getting this bad boy running again included lots of money and lots of time and lots of cables and my wife freaking out cause she needs to check her e-bay business. 2. ELATION, this is it! It’s time for a new system! JOY! RAPTURE! GLEE! I was going to be forced to spend lots and lots of money that I don’t have. YEAH! So suffering is life right? And suffering is caused by desire, right? Well I was suffering for the desire for a new badass system that could finally take my video production to the next level. The SONY VAIO RC110G has answered my suffering and I wil...

This post has been comin' on for a month . I only hope I can convey what I am thinking. It's funny, a real writer would actually write something and work on it for a few weeks until it was right, but no, not me, just klick on the itunes radio and start the hunt and peck. post what may. ok? I have a post [each time you see these brackets I will tell you what I am listening to, The Meices just ended, now we have the Butthole Surfers, oh crap, short song, now its the Germs, We Must Bleed, mmmmm good.] sitting on the hard drive at work. I am not at work. I sit at home on my first night off after being on call all weekend. I have had too many beers to be comfortable tomorrow, not drunk, but feeling creative, and will have another. I started that post with a [Einstyrzende Neubauten - Morning Dew] a bit of a diatribe about two rich ladies doin their Mom's makeup and hair. They did not like how she looked when they started, felt that her neck looked weird. Well, it probably di...

So, I have been thinking a lot about how I really don't tell you very much about what I do, for this, I suppose I am sorry, but not that sorry. See, there are two things in play here. Firstly of all, I have like, two, maybe three loyal readers, and with as much as I post, those numbers are probably more like none, so this stupid blog is really just some sort of psychological masturbatory diary isn't it? No one has ever asked me to explain the embalming process, so I won't, ( I know how it works, and if I am the only one reading this thing, why should I care?). Secondly, I still have a really hard time breaking down the anonymity of the people I serve. I wish I could , and I could, quite easily if I didn't use names and if I embellished a bit and/or de-embellished slightly, but as I outlined before, I am the only one reading/writing this thing, so why would I. In some ways I do "out"” people but it is in a very vague way that only serves to get my opinion acr...

So I am kinda the defacto IT guy around the firm I work for. Pretty much means I am the one that is supposed to keep the "network" up and runnin. This entitlement also allows me to be the guy that sees most of the e-mail before anyone else and the one that sets the filters to keep the gawdamn spam at bay. Whilst being sick to death of the indidious spam one day, I hit a wall. I got one that just made me mad. So, instead of simply blocking and and filtering, I replied. The subsequent transmissions are posted below. I know, I know, you've read it all here before, but let's file this under "be careful who you might be offending, they could have something to teach you" file. Hello- I would like to personally invite you and your entire sales team to my latest seminar, Advanced Funeral Selling Skills: Understanding Buyer Behavior being held Tuesday, September 20, 2005, at Flanner & Buchanan’s world-famous Community Life Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. ...

Oh dear readers, thank you for being so patient with me. I do wish that I could update this silly manuscript with more punctuality, I really do, I promise, but that, alas, seems to be proving quite impossible. I sit here, dear readers, awaiting my colleague, so that we can ascertain the possibilities of a viewing of a man that went through his windshield. My colleague, who spoke with the man’s family yesterday, decided not to bring up some glaring details about these said, “possibilities”. Now, If it would have been me, after retaining said “family” upon the telephone I would have compassionately outlined in pure blunt truth about why it would be “difficult” to see their said loved one in his current condition. However, with some restorative measures and the simple yet magical act of the embalming ritual, viewing could not only have been possible, it would have been encouraged. My colleague, however, failed to outline some of these details and simply left it to calling the fam...

As if you have not figured out by this point, I am not a writer. I do not have a solid voice, nor do I retain the ability to keep up with a, whats that word I hear all the time that writers have, it’s not a habit, it’s a oh whatever, I don’t have it. A regimen? Maybe it is a habit. I have recently perused my prior rants thus far and have come to the conclusion that I have said plenty about certain topics. There will be no reason to further enlighten you upon my theories on the proper moral etiquette of the contemporary funeral director, (but I would imagine that based upon the very premise of this said, "blog" I will from time to time always come back to this general motive). I feel that it must branch out a bit though, there is no use in beating horses that are already dead. In fact, there are no reasons to beat horses at all! People ask me a lot about death. I know nothing of it. I only catch glimpses of the repercussions of it’s presence. I have never done i...

I have just decided that the keyboard/screen/chair configuration here at work is the most ergonomically debilitating system that has ever been conceived. I patiently await back-pain. So what’s new? I am into the fifth day of my seventeen-day run here. I am covering for a colleague that has chosen to better himself by attending a conference on pre-need sales. This conference should not hurt him in any way. It is the stuff of my personal nightmares but, as they say, to each his own. I have come to the conclusion that (and this does not really have anything to do with my colleagues sales predilections) I do not feel comfortable “earning” commissions on anything that I could “sell” as an undertaker. If I don’t actually do it, then it isn’t my money. I would imagine that I lose a lot of revenue for the company by sending the families directly to the monument company but darn it, if I am not cutting the stone and etching the dates and names into it, why should I get a sniff of that mo...

Now that I have this amazing power at home. I should really be able to post more, not that anyone reads this anyway. Let's talk about dysfunction shall we? Actually I don't want to talk about dysfunction. I would rather write about how sad I am about Dr. Hunter S. Thompson committing suicide this last weekend. He was my Hemingway and he went out just like him. I will miss the musings of this man. I really wonder what he had in the hopper about the current state of affairs. It' s probably what made him kill himself. "Sometimes A Great Notion" - Kesey, "Down The River" - Abbey, "Stranger In Strange Land"- Heinlein, all of these works have shaped me in ways that I can only vaguely understand. Thompson, I understand, he wrote from a place of balls-out blurred line reality that only the initiated can taste. When I went to see the film version of "fear and loathing", it made the hairs standup on the back of my neck, I knew that I could neve...

I find that because no one reads this thing that I have a hard time updating it. it has been so long. Lately, I have been pondering what I really do. Lately, I have decided that I am a middle man between you and what you are supposed to do when someone dies. You don't always know what to do and I don't always know what you need. Really, all I am is the guy that is willing to be bothered in the middle of the night, (besides the ones who are taking care of the loved one before they die) and the family with ( or not with ) the person that dies. I am the guy willing to undertake the responsibility of being bothered. Besides that fact, I am the only one legally allowed (at least in my state) to sell you a casket, cremate a body, sell you a pre-arranged/prefunded funeral. I also tend to keep up on the literature, read the books, and study the way people grieve. I am getting better at figuring out what you need. A few things that you need to understand: You could do this yourself if...