George Jones & Tammy Wynette - Your Shining Face (1973)

Already posted this, but I love it again and again. Profound song.

What to do on a Tuesday

In my case, I got up at 2pm and showered after 2 days, and then went to the closest Target, buying cat food, generic Drano, generic paper towels, real Cokes, real beer...

A gray 58-degree day in Austin, perfect for coming back home and doing nothing but lying on the couch and reading an Ava Gardner bio.

For the past 3 weeks, I've been incredibly tense and fearful: What am I going to do without my job?! Then the realization: I've got money enough to do whatever I want for the next 3 months. And I hated the people at that job --- didn't hate the actual editing work, but I hated being around the sheep-like people.

I'm OK for the next few months. I can lie around and read about Ava and buy Drano in the middle of the day if I want.

George Jones and Tammy Wynette: You're Everything (1971)

Tammy Wynette & George Jones: Someone I Used To Know (1971)

George Jones Live (1986)

TAMMY WYNETTE IN CONCERT PART 1

A great Tammy Wynette with a terrible '80s audience. (Stand up and cheer, MOVE, you stupid, sluggish motherfuckers.)

Tammy Wynette - Talkin' To Myself Again (1987)

God Help the Wolf after Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark (Ted Hughes)

There you met it – the mystery of hatred.
After your billions of years in anonymous matter
That was where you were found – and promptly hated.
You tried your utmost to reach and touch those people
With gifts of yourself –
Just like your first words as a toddler
When you rushed at every visitor to the house
Clasping their legs and crying: ‘I love you! I love you!’
Just as you had danced for your father
In his home of anger – gifts of your life
To sweeten his slow death and mix yourself in it
Where he lay propped on the couch,
To sugar the bitterness of his raging death.

You searched for yourself to go on giving it
As if after the nightfall of his going
You danced on in the dark house,
Eight years old, in your tinsel.

Searching for yourself, in the dark, as you danced,
Floundering a little, crying softly,
Like somebody searching for somebody drowning
In dark water
Listening for them – in panic at losing
Those listening seconds from your searching –
Then dancing wilder in the silence.

The Colleges lifted their heads. It did seem
You disturbed something just perfected
That they were holding carefully, all of a piece,
Till the glue dried. And as if
Reporting some felony to the police
They let you know that you were not John Donne.
You no longer care. Did you save their names?
But then they let you know, day by day,
Their contempt for everything you attempted,
Took pains to inject their bile, as for your health,
Into your morning coffee. Even signed
Their homeopathic letters,
Envelopes full of carefully broken glass
To lodge behind your eyes so you would see

Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter – your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give –
Whatever you found
They bombarded with splinters,
Derision, mud – the mystery of that hatred.

The Boy Can't Help It

From "The Badlands" by Ted Hughes

...The canyons cooled. Indigo darkened.
Oozing out of the earth like ectoplasm.
A huge snake heaping out. "This is evil,"
You said. "This is real evil."
Whatever it was, the whole landscape wore it
Like a plated mask. "What is it?"
I kept saying. "What is it?"
As if that might force the whatever
To materialize, maybe standing by our car,
Maybe some old Indian.
"Maybe it's the earth,"
You said. "Or maybe it's ourselves.
This emptiness is sucking something out of us.
Here where there's only death, maybe our life
Is terrifying. Maybe it's the life
In us
Frightening the earth, and frightening us."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sylvia Plath and her new husband Ted Hughes took a cross-country trip across the United States soon after their marriage in 1956. In The Desert's defense: The British Hughes and the East-Coast-raised Plath weren't quite prepared for it! :)

Tammy Wynette: Starting Over (1980)

Her voice is so pretty and so powerful...



Wondering where the hours go
Catching up on TV shows
It's not easy, heaven knows
When you're starting over

Knowing that the phone won't ring
Back to being lonely me
Funny how I seem to be
Always starting over

Foolish me, I never mend
Almost heal then break again
Looking back, I've always been, starting over

So just when the hurt is through
I'll see a face across a room
And wonder if it's still too soon
To be starting over

But like a fool I'll give my heart
Then the same old thing will start
I'll watch it slowly fall apart
Then I'll be starting over

Foolish me, I never mend
Almost heal then break again
Looking back, I've always been, always starting over

Bussin' down South Lamar

Being unemployed and having nothing to do all day after sending out approximately two resumes (I'm still particular at this early stage), I decided to take the city's "Rapid" bus to the end of the line down south. (Last week for my meeting with the UT employment agency, I took it about half the way, to downtown, but I'd previously never taken it all the way.)

Aaaah, all of the newly sprung-up generic apartments for techies along South Lamar, with their 4 ft by 2 ft "balconies." They've now enshrouded the iconic Broken Spoke, for instance. (Last time I went there was in the late '90s -- see two photos below for the difference.) Opened in 1964, the Broken Spoke was still a bit rustic in the '90s, South Lamar still relatively undeveloped. When you went there 20 years ago, you still felt like you were going someplace interesting --- and not as a "tourist" intentionally trying to step back in time to say you'd been there, but as a person who liked country music and (watching) country dancing, and who liked the genuine old-school atmosphere and the feeling of being a part of your own Texas past.

Yeah, yeah, much has been written recently about the "Old Austin." It's true: Austin used to actually have a definite flavor and feel. Today, it really is pretty much generic apartments/bars for techies, with a very few pockets of Old Austin still stuck in there for the Finnish rockabilly tourists (some respect for their seeking out actual Texana) and Silicon Valley transplants (zero respect, you parasites).

Broken Spoke, 3201 S. Lamar, 2014.

Broken Spoke, 1997.

Aside from seeing all of the new apartments, was also, at the end of the bus line, treated to the multiple homeless camps/stacked-up garbage at the final bus turnaround:

Funny, but, contrary to liberal propaganda, I didn't see any mothers with children there, just a few men hanging around their shit. If you allow this, they will come.

Oh, as for bus behavior by my fellow travelers during my 3 hours on the to-and-back trip: The usual that I'd known from pre-2016, before I got my car: (1) A mentally ill black woman who stood by the stairwell right in front of me screaming at the top of her lungs about various "motherfuckers." A working mom with her 5-year-old son were sitting right in front of her; the little kid with his big eyes couldn't stop staring at her while the crazy woman kept shouting about people staring at her. (2) A black homeless guy on the phone recounting to unknown what a great worker he was: He just minded his business, Nigga, and came in and did his job, Nigga, etc. (I'm directly quoting the constant "Nigga" parts.). (3) A fat white student blaring his music sans ear buds out of his device. (4) A mentally ill Hispanic guy targeting a young student sitting across from him: Was she from Mexico? She looked Mexican. (No, she said, she was from here.) You're beautiful. Do you know you're beautiful? Has anybody told you you're very beautiful? Do you know how beautiful you are?

This time, I was on the bus as a choice. My years from 2010 to 2016 in Austin, though, prior to being able to afford a car, were spent putting up with the above bus shit as a matter of course. Perhaps I should someday attend a City Council meeting regarding why people insist on keeping their cars... (The arguments are probably similar to why people insist on keeping their guns.)

George Jones & Tammy Wynette: THIS GROWING OLD TOGETHER LOVE WE SHARE (1973)

Hunger Games and Sequels

Yesterday, the SyFy channel (what was wrong with "SciFi"?) was running all of the "Hunger Games" movies. Being unemployed, I was lying on my couch and watched all of them.

The first one (2012, directed by Gary Ross) was brilliant. I saw it at the theater when it came out (with my nephew Townes and my mother), and was impressed with it then.

The next three (2013, 2014, 2015, directed by Francis Lawrence), which I never saw at the theater, were mediocre.

With the initial Ross movie, I felt the horror that Katniss was feeling with every camera shot, with every scene of the decadent Capitol and citizens (typified by Tucci's host).

Every film after that, I felt nothing, was just watching to see what action went on.

Health-care: $634 per month

After quitting my state job 2 weeks ago, I now have no health-care insurance. So what, I thought. After 5 years at my last job, I'd never once needed to visit a doctor or dentist. Lucky for me.

In case I DO need a doctor in the near future, however: Just got a letter that I needed to sign up for COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act), under which I must pay $634.47 per MONTH for health insurance. (Um... I'm unemployed. I don't HAVE $634.47 per month.)

Austin is awful. Any escape?

Austin has been awful for the past 15 years or so. Now: Completely generic, tech-people-filled, rents jacked up by incoming Californians. (What the vibe of the town used to be: slackers who had not yet annoyingly labeled themselves "creatives.")

I'm stuck here for the moment. But, as exhibited by my recent quitting of a solid job, I will never be subservient to idiocy and illogical leadership. I can't escape for the moment, but I wish to. Can I come up with any way to get out? (Can't/won't leave cats.)

George Jones - That's The Way I Feel (1957)

Recorded at this speed!

My cats have grand tails.

Not Mama Hennessy; hers is spindly, but then she grew up a stray. The others: Almost too much tail for one apartment! They should be show-offs out on the street/alley!

Day [fill-in-the-blank] of Unemployment

My sleeping schedule is all screwed up, as I knew it would get, having nowhere to go and nothing to do. Today, though, I actually had something to do: Fill out paperwork at the university temp agency. Bus runs right from my apartment to the place downtown, so I, in a small way, looked forward to a peek back into my old bussing lifestyle. Trip uneventful; mildly excited to see LIFE again! Various people in various states of dress walking around on city streets! (My old workplace was 2 miles from my home; car trip took 6 minutes at its fastest [15 at the slowest]. Car > parking lot > ugly building. Voila. Mildly depressing.)

The bus stopped directly in front of the temp agency. Once there, I was met with a check-in screen at the counter, which I'd never seen before. I tried to touch various fields, to no avail, and finally had to ask, dumbly, "What do I do?" (In my defense, the last time I temped was early 2014, a mere 5 years ago. At that time, the temp office was located ON campus, and "check-in" consisted solely of greeting the receptionist and having a seat. So I don't know that my inability to recognize what I should do with the screen was THAT crazy! It's only been 5 years, not 50!) :)

After meeting with the employment counselor (who remembered me from 5 years ago!), 'twas discovered that I couldn't actually do any university temp work until I received my final vacation-hours check from my regular job --- allegedly scheduled to be deposited November 1. ("Allegedly" because my old place of employment screwed up my paycheck at least 7 times during my years there.) So I'll be twiddling my thumbs for the next couple of weeks. Although I HAVE had a small freelance editing job for the past 2 days --- just 10 hours' worth of work, but it's something... (And the work was done from around 5pm to 10pm --- seemingly great; "Wooo! I work whenever I want!" But no, I don't like working those hours stone-cold sober and chain-smoking. I previously liked working on my Joan Crawford website, and drinking beer, during those hours for fun --- AFTER coming home from 8 hours of getting paid!)

After the temp meeting, I considered jumping on the bus and riding to the end of the line just for "fun" or, more like "something different to do." Nah. I was just rather tired and depressed by the idea of no schedule/no money for 2 weeks, so just wanted to go on home. On the bus back, a crack addict asked me if I worked at the School for the Blind. I looked just like someone.

The Beautiful Ones

Ginny: In case you didn't know:
 Your beloved Prince died of an overdose.
Your beloved Heart: Ann Wilson got really fat and adopted kids.
Our beautiful Jessica Lange ("Frances Lives" T-shirts): Aged into the exact same Grand Guignol characters that my own beloved Joan Crawford played in her later years.
The girl you left me for as a teen is now with a large black woman. (Facebook tells me this.)
I am with no one.
Nothing much else happened.
I remain posed over the vent in the upstairs of your parents' house, with my nightgown blowing up, and you telling me that I looked like Marilyn Monroe.

Three Letters from Ginny

Ginny, don't leave me.

From my poem for you in the Summer of '83: "A soul mate comes once in a lifetime / So I'll run with the chance / To smoke and dance and sing / And let you know / That nine out of ten / Are always there for the breaking." I still miss you.


I received 11 letters from Ginny between 1983 and 1986. Most in '83/'84. She died March 27, 1988.


9/28/83

Calligraphy on envelope: Ms. Stefanny Jones/W0354 Jester Center Halls/Austin TX/78784. Reverse side of envelope: "It's not as long as it looks - so remember while you're alone in this big, big world, looks can be decieving!"

Stef,

      I talked to Mom about why they thought UT was too far, and she said that she'd like for me to be able to come home more often, but I wouldn't if I was living on campus at U of Azle. Daddy's in Austin now, so I'm sure they'll be able to come down for visits, cause he drives to Austin, and he goes pretty often.

     I've pretty much decided against a doctrate, it's too fucking much trouble. I haven't got the foggiest idea about what I want to do. All I know is I want to do something important. I want to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone - Maybe I could be Reagan's mistress!

     By the way, speaking of doing something important, the one & only, Joel V. Miller [my senior-year high-school boyfriend], still works at the big "K." God's on his side though, and it's his will that Joel is there. I wish I could be so lucky. Had you not denied the "Holy Trinity" maybe you could be so lucky as to still be working there.

      I've started saving to pay for that Goddamn call, I've got $4.00 (000000!) I figured I could have $100 save by Easter! Think the bill will come before then? I haven't the slightest idea what they'll do. Probably just make me pay for it, and take my phone privelege (for the rest of my life in this world)

      I told them you got a long weekend because of exams at the end of Oct., but that your mother might have to go out of town, but you wanted to come home. And she volunteered to let you stay here, so if you want to come. Then, by all means, do.

     You know the English test I told you I fucked? I fucked it, bad, I made a 30!, not good. But I hope it won't affect my grade that much. I just figured my avg, and it'll probably be a low B, depending on what I make on the Beowulf test & worksheet, and then my 6 wks. Well, now that I think about it it'll probably be about a 90, if I make a 90 on both tests, and 100 on the worksheet. My other grades are no prob. But, Mrs. Smith told us last week that the test we had today would be our last grade for the 6 wks. So I don't if Beowulf will be on this 6 wks or next.

     I hope it goes on this one, it'll bring up my grade if I do well on it. I know, now, what you mean & about her explaining everything over. It drives me mad!

     Did I tell you already I dropped out of band and started tennis? Band sucked out loud, Friday night games, UIL, Parades, and 7:30 practices were more than I could handle. Tennis is easy as hell. All we do is knock the ball back and forth, he doesn't even watch us or tell us what to do or how to do it.

    One more thing then I'll go We, I are doing an article for newspaper on stores selling liquor to high school kids. Me & Kim & Mary are going to go to some stores and see how many will sell to us. It'll be a blast. It was my brilliant idea, but with my luck I won't be able to buy any, anywhere, but still it'll be fun to try.

                                                              Love,
                                                                 Ginny

p.s. I'm having my score (ACT) to UT, I mailed the thing today.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/3/1983

Envelope addressed in calligraphy: Stephanie Jones/W0354 Jester Center/Austin, Texas/78784

Notebook paper. Circled on top: "I am not a sarcastic, smart-ass, bitch, thank you - and all your goddamn college friends that -
The Punker, the Burper, The Modal, the Satanic Worshipper And The Lesbo!"

Dearest Stefanny --
"The Gothic Hand" -- That's me! What can I say? What I do? To change your mind - I'm so in love you - Yeah, ah, yeah - Oh, excuse me, I just felt like singing -

       I'm taking the ACT 12/11, so get those brain waves ready. There is absolutely nothing happening, Azle's such a goddamn fucked up place - I finished my geometry test in like 5 minutes so I said, to myself, I said - "Boy howdy, wouldn't it be fun to write Stephanie a letter," and then this little voice went, "Why, it shore would!" So what the hell. I'm just havin' me a good ole' time, lemme tell ya. (Yeah, I know I misspelled sure, and I think I misspelled, misspelled) Can you dig it?

      Have you ever seen the Laverne and Shirley where "Squiggy" sings "If only I'd have listened to Mama"? Well, think about it -- and look at what he turned out to be - a real big time loser. I'm not preaching, and I don't really care what you do, well yes, I do, but that irrelevant, anyway - It's your life you can do what you want, it's your mind you can think what you want, hurt me sometime show me I'm wrong. Oops another song - back to the sermon.

     I really think your Mom's right - for once and only once - I mean, you told me when you were here that you had gotten used to getting drunk every weekend and had to - I know, I know, you don't really have to but you want to, I'm sure - And you've even gotten less considerate when it comes to drinking - I mean, when you opened the bottle as soon as we were upstairs when I was asking (or telling) you not too - Before you left, you were so concerned about me staying out of trouble with my parents, then after 2 months you come back and drink wine in my bedroom with my parents downstairs and liable to walk in - I know they didn't but they could've and they'd never have believed that I didn't want you to or that I wasn't drinking, too. But like I said before It's your life - you can do what you want -

    Now, to a happier note - hell, I don't know anything happy - Geometry's so fucking easy - it's ridiculous -

    I was reading Mom's prayers and she thanked god for your visit - I couldn't believe it -

    I haven't got any news at all - since you were just here I guess you've heard everything-

    I'll let you know about Dad coming to get you for Thanksgiving - closer to time -

                                                   Love,
                                                     Ginny

P.S. Is Toe-2-Toe anything like Cheek-to-Cheek?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/15/1983

Stef -

    Just a quick note to let you know everything's fine at home - Mom & Dad have decided to let me go when I want so I'm going to get an apartment here in Azle around the 1st of the year.

    I got a letter from UT and there's no way I can go there, so I'm going to W'thford. I've made up my mind, that I'd rather go to a smaller college, anyway.

    I hope to see you at Thanksgiving. Write me and call when you get here.

                                                         Love,
                                                            Ginny

Be Cool, Self

My last day of work was Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, I was cool. Got stuff done around the house, sent out resumes, made an appointment with a temp employer for next week.

Saturday (today), though: Slept most of the day, watched the Longhorns get beat(en), laid on the couch watching REELZ TV shows on dead celebrities. Judy and Elvis in prime-time, but the most interesting and well-done hour-long programs were early-morning, on a Russian actor/singer whom I now can't find the name of (terrible voice, bad Hamlet, looked like Russian Steve McQueen), and Austria's Falco.

By the time I finally roused myself off the couch, it was 5pm. I did manage to shower and dress and go for a beer/Whataburger run. After that, right back on the couch. (Flashback to unemployment in NYC and in Austin until 2014.)

By the time I got up again and made it to my computer, around 10pm, I was feeling surly, yelled at all cats to quit jumping on my lap (they'd been lying on me on the couch all day, and now that I was sitting up, I needed a break). At this point, the volume on my TV wasn't working, and I was fucking cursing my life and why things were breaking NOW that I was unemployed, etc. (I also had a barely heard phone conversation with the temp office last week; my tiny non-smart phone from 2007 is clearly not good enough in 2019.)

Be cool.

The volume on my TV has been sporadically fucked up since I bought it a couple of years ago (a shitty Samsung). If need be, I can move the bedroom TV (which I never watch) into the living room. I'm addicted to TV, but usually while on the computer, I put on music anyway... So I switched off the defective TV and put on George Jones's "Unreleased Duets," which I've been playing nearly every day for weeks and which immediately calmed me down. Then disc 2 of Essential Dolly Parton, now Essential Highwaymen. While transferring files from my e-mail to where they belong in my home Documents. (Sent from my work files over the past 2 weeks.) This was the real cause of tension: After I gave my notice at work, I had a butt-load of files such as 2014 through 2018 tax documents and 2016 car documents that I'd stored on my work computer to transfer over to my personal files. Plus dozens of editing samples that I'd now need for applying to new jobs. Oh yeah, and photos of Joan Crawford that I'd captured during free moments at work. Oh, and I had PhotoShop at work and not at home!

Sorry cats, I'm agitated.

Thing is, though: Sans any job whatsoever, I have money enough for the next 4 to 5 months. I can get a new phone tomorrow. I can get a new TV tomorrow. And PhotoShop is available for $19.99 per month.

Be cool.

Where to go?

Not much income, seeking to get away from Austin and its obnoxious tech influx: Where to go? I remember visiting and liking the East Texas pines of Memaw in my childhood and, according to Craigslist, there are cheap homes available there... but those homes are not my Memaw's home on Lake o' the Pines. How to get to where you want to be.

Day One of Unemployment

Gave my notice 2 weeks ago at work and have been sending out a few resumes since then, but today (Thursday, October 10) was my first day of actual unemployment.

(1) Last night and today, did laundry built up over the past 3 weeks.
(2) Updated various resume sites. Sent "goodbye" thank-you mails to a couple of nice people at my last job. Here's a sample:

Thanks for coming by my office to say goodbye before my departure on October 9. It was a nice thing to do, and I appreciate it.

Our conversations were some of the highlights of my time here! Many times I felt isolated, or labeled as "argumentative"... when in fact, I just liked to talk about things! :)  I enjoyed talking about things with you.

I also very much appreciate your permission to list you as a Reference. Your own writing was so precise, I hardly ever had to actually edit anything for you, but thank you. And thanks for hollering at me on the street over the years, whether by car or bike.

Go Hawks. [He and I both were raised in Iowa Park, Texas, home of the Hawks.]

 

----------------------------------------

 

My science editing job of 5 years that I just left was GREAT! It was intellectually diverse and serious and perfect for me. Unfortunately, my boss chose to give a newly hired editor practically the same salary as I was receiving, despite his 4 months of editing experience in comparison to my 20 years of experience. (Thanks to the Texas Tribune government salaries site for the information.) I debated, and some of my work friends debated, the wisdom of my quitting over such a thing... Some things are gray, but this was a black-and-white issue. There is NO WAY that someone with 4 months of editing experience deserves the same salary as me. The definitiveness of this fact made the decision to quit simple.

Self-righteous as I am, though, the fact remains: Damn. I've now got to drum up something else!

 

George Jones & Georgette Jones "You and Me and Time" (2008)

Dear god, not ME psychologically wishing for my Daddy! But still: This is actually a good song (albeit a bit cheesy) -- the mighty George long past his prime, doing a favor for his wannabe daughter.
 

Dolly Parton "I Am A Seeker" (1975)

Dolly Parton "We Used To" (1975)

Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) Lennon 1970

Heard this song for the first time at 15 in the summer of 1980 on a tiny radio while being miserable during a forced week-long visit to my divorced father at his Air Force Base lodgings in South Dakota. My father had been emotionally nasty to me the whole time; I remember crying to my mother during her phone call to see how I and my brother were doing and saying that I would NEVER visit him again. (I kept my word.)

I'd been reading about the Beatles and their subsequent solo careers in the months prior to hearing this song and had been curious about it. In the midst of my summer 1980 misery, it gave me a sense of strength and hope. 

(By the time Lennon was shot to death on December 8, 1980, I owned the "Shaved Fish" hits collection, "Mind Games," "Walls and Bridges," and "Double Fantasy.")

''Tavern Choir'': George Jones & Jim Lauderdale (1988)

From Jones' "Burn Your Playhouse Down" unreleased duets album.