The Dog House, Episode 4: The
Phantom Biography
I began my last life-update with, "Life's been
pretty insane since July '98 or so," and I had hoped by now that things might
have calmed down some. Hah! I think I'm more stressed now than I have been
since my divorce . . . well, OK, probably not quite that bad. But anyway, here's the
scoop on Allan Grohe, aka, The Grodog, as he continues to go slowly mad (I'm counting
backward from the present to October/November this time, just to keep you on your toes):
- On Wednesday, March 18th, I met Zoe Elizabeth Mulkey for
the first time. She was born on Sunday the 14th (on the same day as my brother
Brian, just 22 years later), has dark reddish-brown hair, and beautiful blue eyes.
I'm a sucker for deep blue eyes. Her fingers are very long: Elizabeth is
already talking about her "future little piano player." :-) For her
part, Zoe was incredibly well-behaved the entire time I visited. Shawn and Elizabeth
are also both doing well, and we'll just have to wait to see how careful Ramsey, their
golden retriever, can learn to be around Zoe (Ramsey's normally a bit
excitable/overly-energetic).
I have not finished the "Before Firstborn" poem I began to write for Shawn and Elizabeth and
Zoe, and also for my cousin Denise Wilson and her husband Robert Jackson, but there's
still hope, since Denise won't give birth to their firstborn until June or so. I'll
keep you posted.
- Also on Wednesday, I applied for another job in Sprint: working in the VTAM and
Mainframe Network Support group, otherwise affectionately known as SSSNET to those of us
who work at the Helpdesk. I'm also considering a Leadership Rotation/Development
thing, but I'll have to apply for that.
I'm also continuing to look for jobs outside of Sprint,
at Hewitt (where my cousin Denise
works, at their Atlanta offices), Bishop
Eustace Prep (my old high school), and Wizards of the Coast. So, if you're
someone who might be interested in hiring a Knowledge Engineer, please
feel free to ask for my resume and contact me
with a nice $60,000+/year job offer. You'll get your money's worth.
- Since Chile in
October '98, and the writing for The Leaven throughout November, I
haven't done very much writing of any non-work related sort, save for Swords of the Middle Kingdom, and The Tao of Shaolin. Why I don't count
them as work I'm not quite sure anymore, especially since I've had a difficult time
dragging words from my bleeding fingers and burned-out brain. But I've diligently
done so, just much more slowly than I'm used to . . . . I did actually sit
down an begin to work on some new poems the
other day (sometime last week, I think, which would make it early March), so expect
additions in the near future (this season, if I'm lucky???).
- In middle-February I bought new glasses from Giorgio Armani after almost nuking
my old ones playing Racquetball. Yes, now I may even look a little fashionable,
believe it or not, and my good and dear friend Susan Deady (soon to be Burgett) thinks
that I need to work on my hair now, too. I think she might have crossed the
line :-) I also shaved my beard! I'll be putting up a new picture sometime
soon-ish, once I can convince my cohort-in-crime at black
dog imageworks to shoot, develop, and scan me.
- And, of perhaps even more import--perhaps close to the
level of the Old Ones Rising To Reclaim The Earth And Assume Their Rightful Rulership
Until The Sun Snuffs Out level of importance--is the fact that I'm out dating from
time-to-time. And have a social life. Pretty scary, eh? Likely one of
the signs of the looming apocalyse.
Anyway, I've been out and about with folks from Sprint a lot lately: drinking and
dancing and drinking at the Guacamole Grill, Fuzzy's South, and various and sundry other
locations not too far from work. If you're around on an early Friday evening, join
us. We're ubiquitous. These outings have played into my desire to finish the poem "Libation Bearers," a very old title I
thought up while attending Penn State
for my BA (Class of '91), in part due to the wonderful bartendress Jenny at the Guac
(along with the servers at Scruffy Murphy's in San Jose back in September
'98 [see previous Dog House]).
- I haven't done any travelling this year yet, so I think
it's time to begin getting out of town more often. So, I'm beginning to plot out a
Greek Mythology trip to the Mediterranean; two friends and I got the idea while at their
wedding last year (on the shore in New Jersey). The basic plan is to visit Crete,
Thera (aka Santorini), and perhaps Athens. Probably as a cruise. How
I'll afford this I have no idea, but it's the thought that counts, or so I've been told.
If you have any suggestions for cool vacation spots that
are out of the country, and near an ocean, preferably with ancient ruins, active
volcanoes, dolmens and stone circles, great night scenes, good sailing, and/or literary
sites in close proximity, please let me know!
- During the blurs that were January and February--much
like the blurred last half of 1998--I worked far too many hours: I'm much better off
than 4Q98, when I was pulling 65-hour weeks sometimes, but I'm still working about 48 to
50 hours per week. That doesn't sound like too much overtime (and since I'm salary,
of course, I'm not paid for the hours . . . . ), but when you add them up in the
aggregate, it not only sounds like a lot, but it is a lot. I know
because I recently had to account for my time to our management, so I pulled the figures
from our mainframe payroll system, and lo and behold, I found that I'd been working about
190 hours per month. That's almost a full extra week. Ick. All work and
no play makes Allan a dull boy, so I'm trying to have more fun and to work a bit less,
too.
- Also sometime in January, realizing that I was in fact
growing more insane as the winter weeks accumulated, I took my friend Doug up on his offer
to join the Thursday Night Dinner and TV Crowd. Regina and Gene
host, we all bring stuff to eat, and worship at the altar of Friends, Jesse, Frazier,
Veronica's Closet, ER, and such. (I like Cupid better, but it seems they moved it to
a non-Thursday night time slot, so it's a lost cause). Lately, of course, we've been
watching the NCAA Tournament, even though KU got knocked out too early. Sigh.
I don't think they've made it to the Final Four since I moved to Kansas . . . .
I'm not generally much of a TV person (especially since Babylon 5 completed its storyline in the Fall), but the
Thursday night crowd is quite cool, so I go as much (well, moreso, truthfully) for the
company as for the TV. They're all fun people, and Kevin and Angie have even
attended some of my parties. Doug and I are planning a Game Night (Speed Uno,
Settlers of Catan, RoboRally, Axis & Allies, Celebrities,
Probe, etc.) sometime in the fairly-immediate future, in order to
introduce all of our non-Thursday night friends to the Thrusday night friends, so I'll let
you know how that goes.
- Back in December, I spent Christmas with my cousin
Denise, her husband Robert, and Robert's family in Columbia, MO. I didn't end up
visiting with BioHazard Games
folks over that trip, at least I don't think we did (? my sense of time has been slowly
eroding since sometime in '96 or '97; everything seems to last much longer or shorter, or
to be out of proportion in length compared to how long X should last; very, very strange;
I'm naturally working on a poem about
this). Had a blast. Robert's family was awesome, and even gave me a few
Christmas gifts!
Everything before late December is pretty suspect in
terms of me actually recalling it well, so suffice to say that I had to recover in
November/December from being away so often in September/October, and that life was still
hell at that point. Not even very much lusting (from near or far) going on.
Sad, very sad.
You can also read my older
bio, still older bio, and yet-older life notes for less-current info, though I'm not
really sure why you'd want to.
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