Beware the Rodent

I was tagged for one of these things by the Chinchilla. It's taken me a couple of days to get to it.


What I was doing ten years ago:

Slowly coming apart at the seams. That was the awful last year of my first marriage. We were circling the drain. Neither one of us really knew it exactly, but that I kept bringing marriage self-help books home should have been a clue. I was absolutely miserable. Heh... funny thing that.

Five things on my to do list today:

Finish up stuff for tomorrow's Gazz edition, deposit check from wife, give check to daycare, work on new novel and panic about the damned tax rebate. Where' s my money? Where is it?

Things I would do If I were a billionaire:

Get rid of it as fast as humanly possible, with as little destruction to myself as could be managed. I figure I'd have about two or three good years before the money would completely wreck me and I'd have midget hookers following me around. I'm not really designed to be super rich so I'd do what I could to pay off my debts and do some nice things for my family and friends. I'd probably buy a little property, put some money in a fund for my kids' education and maybe take a good, long vacation. I would keep some of it, in savings, but the bulk would go out the door. I'd try to invest locally in the school system and try to supplement the local food pantries and health clinics.
I'd go back to work. I don't know of any billionaires who write novels, do you? It would just be a hindrance.

Three of my bad habits:
Self loathing... see Jay, you were right. God damn you, Jay. Damn you to hell.
Heh.
No, seriously, I smoke occasionally and I don't exercise like I ought to and I take a little too much shit from the people I'm responsible for.

Five Places I’ve lived:

Johnston City, Tn
Pearisburg, Va
Athens, WV
Ishpeming, MI
Here.

Five Jobs I’ve Had:

Worked booking flights by phone for an airline call center. It was pretty bad. The airline was called Sunjet. We used to laugh about how they would sometimes leave the airport early or how they once triple booked a flight. Oh, there were some angry people there.

I was a DJ at a pretty crappy radio station in Beckley. The asshole owner wouldn't heat the building and the cops couldn't be depended on to keep out the junkies living in the basement. On the upside, the manager lived upstairs and kept me in beer and cigarettes.

My very first real job was working as a dishwasher. It was a pretty good gig, actually. The people were great and girls my age talked to me. I was all of 17. There were also decent parties and I drank far more than I should have.

I was a production assistant at a Public television station. I did very, very little. Your tax dollars at work.

I managed a pool hall for one summer. I worked the day shift and saw nobody. Mostly, I stood around, played the old centipede game and occasionally got hit on by a 14 year-old whose mother worked next door at Roses. She wanted me to give her beer.