Here's something new.....last Monday after we were done counting money, Joe of Becky and Joe Schmidt at St. Agnes informed me of mandatory background checks coming this Fall for anyone affiliated with the Catholic Church beyond just going to Mass.....ick. This means that realistically I can no longer volunteer and furthermore, I run the risk of being rejected/treated like a leper/17th Class citizen for incidents that are now over 30 years old. (It's amazing to me, but next February 1st? WILL BE 30 YEARS SINCE I WAS RELEASED FROM PROBATION, can you believe it?)
Honestly, I had a feeling that something like this might one day be coming as I've heard prior to last Monday of issues with people not being able to volunteer - including at churches - due to background checks. It's just now that I have come to like going to Mass and I do believe that there is a power greater than myself out there - God, if you will - and now I may find myself shunned and excluded and that's really depressing, especially since I'm middle aged now and since so much time has passed since I had these issues.
I will send Becky a text sometime before Mass tomorrow morning and just say that some thing's come up and I can't make it and then I will talk to Father Glenn on Tuesday, who will likely treat my kindly to my face and let's see how I'm treated after that. I noticed today that Joe R. sat quite a bit away from my Mom and I and my take is that I may get the cold shoulder from those who were formerly warm to me. At least Harry and Karen behind us in church are safe - they are not involved and don't seem to be very social with many people in the church so they are likely safe going forward. Social approval really does not matter to me that much but like anyone else, I'm not thrilled to be rejected. But if I am rejected for something that happened 30 years ago, am I in the right place to even begin with? Think about it.
I've been down since this happened. I went to Mass on Friday morning hoping to talk to Father Glenn but it was Father Brad presiding over Mass so I just went to Mass and then went home. I'll wait until Tuesday. Tomorrow I'm slated to go to Best Buy with Mom and then to Navy Federal Credit Union, where I will take out my secret shopping money to buy her goodies in Mexico on our upcoming trip on down to Mexico. And maybe then lunch at Panera and then to work on the house for a bit. The next few days after that I really do need to be working on the house so that I can have parts of it done before we actually do go to Mexico.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. But I won't give up on God - just on people. I remember something that clerk at Arco said to me - Jesse - this past Friday when we were talking of how he and Alex worked together for over ten years and then Alex just deleted his number like that - (something I find very depressing truth be told) - he said that going forward he's learned to trust God but not to trust people and I believe this is truly dead on, I really do. People for me over the course of my lifetime have been very problematic and now that society treats me like a leper over things that happened over 30 years ago, how thrilled should I realistically be to be part of such a society, anyway? Seriously. I've spent all this time looking for and hoping for loopholes when maybe the answer all along was to minimize my contact with society to begin with. And it's true that in my life position, little of society applies to me, anyway. Society won't let me work, so a career is off the table. No one would want to date me, I am undateable for better or worse, so relationships are off the table, too. I never learned how to drive and at this point I don't even care to. I just don't need to responsibility and stress and bills that a car would bring to my life - so even a car is off the table. Much of what society espouses is off the table for me - though I am starting to wonder if maybe I am lucky in a way for this. I will never divorce nor will I ever have kids - so I can't get screwed over in Family Court nor hurt by a child blowing me off like I wish I had not done so brutally to my own Father - though he indeed did have numerous issues and I will pay until my grave for his lack of teaching me what I needed to know to function as a male in this society.
Sex seems to be off the table too as every time I've ever tried it's been a fiasco - at least I won't get HIV then or any other STD....a silver lining in that dark cloud. I can remember back in May of 2009, sitting in that hotel bed in that hotel in Williams, Arizona, completely emotionally numb as I was unable to connect with Johnny Begay who I believe then blocked my number when I tried to reach him later. I was completely and totally numb and felt nothing as I am usually numb in life these days. I've just put up with too much BS, too much judgment, too much insanity, too much rejection. I've been screwed over and hurt too much and I can't help it that now my wish is to be more reclusive and to have less overall to do with society. For me, society is kind of like that cunt Mrs. Archambauldt (sp?) in 8th grade at Madison Number #1 years ago - "Don't you have any friends that are boys?" or something like that, with the insinuation of sexual orientation hanging in the air, very thick and cloying though it was not directly said. Today I'd record and report her ass and download her to social media - that did not exist back then. But society to me is often painful just like that.
All I really have to offer is my story and I think if I am rejected from church I will take this as a sign to go forward online with my story.....maybe I can help a person or two out there from making the same mistakes that I have, or maybe I can provide some guidance and at least online moral support for someone out there in a similar situation. It's worth a try, and realistically, at this point, what do I have to lose? It's amazing to me that twenty years ago - remember? - I was limping from shitty job to shitty job and making due at that tiny studio at the Warren House. That year sucked - 1999 - I was going to take Phoenix Food and Beverage by storm and it didn't work out quite that way, did it? All I can say is that I was extremely grateful to get out of the Warren House the following April, even though the place I went to - Bullfrog, Utah, was another Warren House of the soul. Let's see.....twenty years ago. By this time I had quit UHAUL (a job that would not have worked for me anyway, I just don't do office work well, period) and also I had been (mercifully) fired from that shitty job at Red Devil. I think right now I was still at that nightmarish JB's but was about to flee to Old Spaghetti Factory, a place I sure did not last long at. And then I got hired at another awful job, night auditor at the then Hilton Garden Inn on Central and McDowell, now an Embassy Suites. It was a horrible year for me, personally, though I'm told that the economy overall was doing well that year. It sure was not for me! I remember that 9/11 had not happened yet and I went to the airport once to apply for serving work and never heard back - remember that cunt who interviewed me said, Booze and tips when I wrote on my application I wanted Base and tips? I wish I'd never applied there and I wish I'd never wasted my time there. And the Warren House? I was so glad to get out of there - I remember how that one cunt made fun of me for being gay? Today I'd report her and try to get her evicted based on that - but back then I didn't have the courage to do so nor had society changed as much as it has since then to allow me the right to make some phone calls and address such issues. I was glad when she was evicted, that's for sure.
I can remember one day going outside my studio and seeing a syringe on the ground and it was like being in a Pedro Almodovar movie - just too bizarre. And the circus of managers they had coming and going non-stop? I do not miss that place one iota, no I sure do not. I'm guessing today I could not get in, though. Warren House has gone through changes - most of the Phoenix properties have been sold off and the few that still are owned by Warren House have tidied up, raised their rents, and likely are doing tenant background checks now. Remember the drugs that were being sold back in the day? I'm so glad I got out of that place!!! Now that tiny unit I had is over $500 a month and the place is called North on 24th and it even has it's own website. My mother's position no longer exists and now they contract out to Merry Maids for their cleaning. Good thing Mom left when she did - the timing was literally impeccable, just like our timing of leaving Salzburg in 2015 was impeccable.
Something I can remember from 1999. I remember how miserable I was at JB's - and now that JB's has been bulldozed and is now a McDonald's with the upscaling of that strip mall - a place that holds a little part of my past history as when I was 17, my first retail job was at the Athletic Shoe Factory towards the end of that strip mall. Can you believe I actually worked there for $3.35/hr. and now minimum wage in Arizona is $11 an hour and is headed to $12 an hour this January 1st? This just does not seem possible but regardless it's true. I remember looking out the windows at that place and wishing for something better to enter my life. I remember that one customer who was rude to me as there was some small black thing in his glass and when I re poured his water, it was still there. I remember that one cunt talking about my being gay like she had some kind of right to - ugggggggggh. I didn't know then what I know about women today but that was just not cool. I remember having to walk over there on Sundays in the heat and what a nightmare that was and I remember having to walk home in the heat and what a nightmare that was. I remember walking along the treed part of Pinchot Avenue to get home and telling myself that next year I'd be working on Mackinaw Island in Michigan where there are real trees and lots of them. I never did make it to Mackinaw Island and now background checks plus the possibility of panic attacks stop me from even applying. That and the likelihood that they use applicant tracking software anyway which would auto screen me out due to the length of time that I have not worked.
It's coming up on six and a half years since I last waited a table and I don't miss it one bit. That day in Dutch John, Utah with my first panic attack and that officer telling me I'd almost been tasered and arrested even though I'd done nothing illegal or wrong? Very fucking scary. That right there turned me off ever working in a similar place again out in the middle of nowhere. I'm now kind of glad that I had another panic attack the following day - all I had to do was to go to the cafe and order something and BOOM, it set in on me. I'm glad I got out of there. That situation would not have gone well for me and I'm glad I got out with minimal damage. Interesting that as I returned, I found Mom to have inherited John Kuo's 1/3 of his stocks and to be worth a million dollars, out of nowhere. Just amazing. I can still remember sitting and waiting at the Salt Lake City Airport for my flight back to Phoenix and how it was nice and cool in Salt Lake City and in the 90's in Phoenix. And I went to Food City that afternoon and the look on Jessica's face when she saw me.....it is just like yesterday even though quite a bit of time has passed since then.
Just took a break from blogging and went to Mystery Shop Forum and there I found an entry in regards to KSS Mystery Shop Scheduling.....it seems as if I can kiss the Navy Federal Credit Union shops goodbye as Ryan apparently is no longer there. How fast things change these days! I just did a shop for him September 28th and I responded to his email regarding the Navy Federal Credit Union phone shop on the way to Yuma on the shuttle on down. I had been in the back of my mind counting on that NFCU shop money but it seems to be a done deal at this point and also, so does mystery shopping, essentially. I am no longer welcome to shop at some MSC's. and not only that, there are way fewer shops available these days and many clients have given up on their mystery shopping programs. It's depressing as it never paid all that well but it did give me something to do and I was able to get around town and keep a bit occupied and at least make a little cash. I particularly miss bank and credit union shops and I also miss cell phone shops as they tended to be so easy. And some of the food shops were great, too, such as Cafe Zupas, another shop I really miss. And with Ryan gone I likely will not be getting other KSS shops, and I just went to the KSS board to look and there were no NFCU shops listed. That shopping program may be a done deal at this point, and though I am sorry to see it go, I am also glad that I managed to snag NFCU membership out of the deal. That was one cool perk that I truly appreciate. So, like so many other things, it seems like mystery shopping is dying off and becoming less and less relevant to me these days. At least I have that $18 coming in from my last mystery shops over the phone with NFCU and that $20 mystery shop I scored a 10/10 with at Perry Ellis at Arizona Mills Mall. So there's $38 coming in, better than nothing when society won't let me work.
I can remember when I returned from Utah back in 2013.....I was so desperate for something to do that I went all the way over to Tangent Center over on 95th Avenue and Glendale for a shop of a Sunglass Hut for a mere $10.....I just needed to have something to do and it was better than nothing. Today I lack the energy I had even then and would not go that far for a mere $10. One of my more interesting shops over the years? I remember doing an audit of a Medicare presentation in the back room area of the Coco's I worked at 2001 to 2002 - now that was trippy. The staff had 100 percent changed and no one knew of my past there and I certainly did not say anything in regards to such. Those shops paid really well, too, and I do miss them. And last October? That shop I did of Chase Bank at the Grand Canyon for $125.....now that was funky to go back to Flagstaff and then to the Canyon after all those years. I am glad I did, too, as I had the chance to see Janet Hadley before she was fired for something ultra stupid. How strange it was to be in Flagstaff.....the place was once God to me and now it has absolutely no relevance in my life whatsoever. Neither does the Grand Canyon, as I don't have rehire status at the South Rim and I don't believe I could get rehired on the North Side and given how cliquish it is, I don't believe I'd want to work there again, anyhow. It's too far away from medical help should anything go wrong on top of everything else.
I think things with the government changed around 2012 - the year after my last National Park gig. In 2012, to get a Federal Work Study job on a college campus, you had to be background checked - this was the start of this. And I believe such spread to the National Parks around that time, too. I remember running into Bill Behrens from the North Rim who told me that in 2014 background checks were done on all the long termers at the North Rim and he had something on his but that Mike Kidd stood up for him - I seriously doubt that I would have been stood up for and would have been driven down the mountain in humiliation. I'm so glad I did not have to endure this - this is something else in my life that may not have worked out well per se, but it did work out as well as it could have realistically under the circumstances. It's interesting too as we are coming up on October 17th - the anniversary every year of my Father's death and also the date in 2011 that I last set foot at the North Rim. I remember walking to and from the lodge and the old dorms through the woods that day more than once and trying my best to remember it - it's like in some way I knew instinctively that I was not coming back. And sure enough I did get screwed over and was not wished to return the following season and at this point, I have no desire to return period. I would not want to room with a stranger and I don't want to be that isolated again after my experience in Dutch John, Utah, May of 2013. That was such a nutty season, too, with such shitty management. And something else? Get on Sharon Wilson's bad side and you are doomed there - not something that appeals to me now, now that I know more of female nature.
I can no longer realistically see myself working in a national park. More later, Rob
