Yeah, I'm still here

They haven't caught me yet. I was heading out the back door while they were crashing through the front :)

Been an interesting week so far.

Monday night I took my daughter to dance class, as I do every Monday night, and was standing outside having a cigarette, as I always do every Monday night.

Some fella comes around the corner and starts chatting me up. He seems to be a little onfused and is talking about how he has been having flashbacks and headaches. Then stops and stares off into space a bit then talks about the weather then these flashbacks again. Even when I ask him about it he's not clear what these flashbacks are.

Then he suddenly gets stiff as a board, rolls his eyes up in his head and topples over backwards, slamming his head into the street on the way down.

A grand mal seizure.

So I call 911 who tells me the address I'm giving them doesn't exist as a regular patrol car pulls up. I hand my phone to one of the cops to deal with 911 while I talk with the other. And we wait around for the EMTs and Ambulance and they have all sorts of questions for me. How was he acting? Did he seem intoxicated? What was he saying etc etc etc. Got to read very little of my book that evening (Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep. Goood stuff).

This is the same corner where another guy chatted me up last fall. had seen him around before. He has diabetes bad and is homeless and jobless. I watched as some bitch snubbed him a few minutes earlier when he asked her for some loose change. I gave him $10 (hey, I'm in better shape than he) and told him to get something decent to eat at the nearby Subway.

He did.

Had to call the IRS to make arrangements to pay my not inconsiderable taxes because of hitting my IRA so hard last year to keep the mortgage paid. Expecting a true nightmare I was. But they were surprisingly easy to get through to (less than 15 minutes wait to a live body) and very nice and reasonable with their terms, even for someone as broke as I am.

I know some credit card companies that should take a lesson from them.

And today a call from a Tech headhunter and a helluva good (and lengthy) phone interview for a position where I will not be told I am too high on the food chain. In fact, if it works out, I will be moving up the food chain.

But I am not getting my hopes up. Not too high, anyway.

None of this means anything other than to say I haven't disappeared. Haven't forgotten you. Just been very busy, especially for someone broke and out of work.