November 17, 1982

           Hardly woke up but I had to get in for that meeting. Present were, clockwise, Stan Wells, Suzanne Daguiar, Kathy Wells, don McLean and yours truly and Cindy Kisser.
           I’m just not in the mood I thought I’d be in today. For years, I saw this as a turning point and it’s not. I had a few thoughts on the past & future today, but the intensity I imagined would accompany it all was not there. Somebody one said a man’s age is determined by the years ahead of him, a woman’s by the years behind.
           I still have the feeling, thought, that the many things I’ve seen most people claim as their due still are as far away from me as ever. A good education? A new car? A wife? A home? A career, a chance? Might as well just forget any one of them. Entire dimensions would have to be added to my life before I could even consider such things. Do I buy a nice car & trust I can continue the payments? Do I get married & hope my wife & kids will eat? Can I start a college course with confidence I can last 4 years? It is not practical to acquire money fast enough to do these things “for real”, and I refuse to gamble as I’ve seen others do. Especially in mariage.

           And no, I did not phone home today. Instead, I follow my upbringing, which is to declare to the world “I care”, but do nothing. I am weary of parallels and people who proclaim the worth of family. Such people see no distinction between my family and myself. That is because climbing and crawling are done in similar postures.
           It’s past midnight now, so my time to get on with it is here. I’ll just go home to Bobbies and hope they haven’t baked a cake. I’m too tired. But I hope they did! Anyway.
           And I heard an unfamiliar expression today. Goes, “That’s a real hole thing to do.”

           [Author’s note: this was basically the anniversary of my first year with the corporate giant, and the meeting had something to do with annual reviews. The meaning for me was that I had to realize I had finally sold out to the system by becoming one of their minions. By that age, I had already mapped out the details of my income for life if I stayed put. As you see, I had second thoughts about marriage itself—it was unaffordable. Now I realize most people simply skidded by on credit cards their entire lives, so it appeared they had everything. I knew something was wrong, but not what.
           Also, around this time I finally broke off any contact with family, including through Rusty. I had given them until this year to make good on the promises they made. It was tougher than I thought to finally admit my own family had stabbed me in the back.]