To care, or not to care?

7/24/09 Friday
Yesterday’s headache lasted into the evening. Hadn’t had one like that in a while. Hurt my back removing a heavy cooler of oil field parts from the truck. The parts were given to me by a friend who no longer had a use for them. As he was debating how to get rid of them my old liquidator instincts kicked in. Having once built a large company selling corporate leftovers I had always been on the lookout for things such as this, though back then it was on a much larger scale. Regardless, times are tight so every little bit helps. Plus there is no shame, at least in my mind, for hustling for a buck as long as it’s legal and ethical. These are all small parts so I’ll have to be careful. Theft of oilfield equipment is a big problem out here and law enforcement is on the lookout for it. So I’ll make sure to not give the appearance of selling hot goods. My friend will verify the items are legal if it comes up. With my colorful past I’m a little paranoid of being accused of anything untoward. Like the bible says I don’t want to give the appearance of doing anything evil.

In a recent conversation this kind of came up. One of the things I always worry about is having said something offensive or given the wrong impression. I suspect that this paranoia can be a pain in the ass for some I’m around a lot. With my friend I brought up some of the things I’d been mulling over in my mind, things I said that I thought would be construed wrong. In this case I had told of the problem we had with the guys we sold Cherie’s car to. How I’d gotten upset and told them off. They got scared and came up with the money the next day. What I worried about was that my friend might have gotten the impression I physically threatened these two. That’s not at all the image of me I want to portray. I threatened to take them to court, that’s all. But I was pretty mad when I did it so they may have considered the possibility I would get physical. That I felt bad about and wrote a letter of apology the next day.

What my friend said was that he used to worry about what people thought of him years ago but he no longer did. For me it’s just the opposite. There was a time I didn’t care what you thought, I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and if you didn’t like it you could…well you get the drift of it. Now I care. I’m new to the world and started life over literally when I woke from the coma. Moving here no one knows me, I’m a stranger in these parts. Most folks here have a lifetime of building a reputation of the kind of person they are. In my mind a man’s reputation is of more value than many things, hell most things. It’s something earned. Part of my creed is to “become a person you can be proud of”. I am a man of my word, I won’t lie or even fudge the truth despite the fact it makes some very uncomfortable. My motto is that “I say what I mean, and do what I say”. It bothers me that sometimes I’m unable to do what I say. It bothers me a lot. I keep forgetting or taking into account that I’m unable to operate at the level I once did so make promises I truly mean and feel I can accomplish, only to find I can’t.

One of my favorite comic strips is Doonesbury, written I think by Gary Trudeau. He hits political subjects hard sometimes and covers current events with his characters. They are good facsimiles of personality types we see all over. A recent character, Leo, is someone who sustained a traumatic brain injury in Iraq along with enduring post traumatic stress disorder. Gary captures some of the issues we have well. It is good to see this. I strive to get others to understand the difficulties survivors often must deal with and things like this help raise the awareness of TBI and in this case the damage of war as well.

The rain’s gone so it’s back to work. I really didn’t get much done at all yesterday. Just couldn’t no matter how much I wanted to. Hope today is better. A pain pill will help me ignore my back so that’s not an issue. Not till the day ends that is. I have lots of peas to pick but not lots of places to sell them. We might attend the farmer’s market for the first time this year to do so. I’ll be delivering some in Midland today so if you want some drop me an email. I’d publish my phone number but don’t think that’s smart. Give it out individually to folks I meet but am careful with it.
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Well, I’m off to a start. When I went to start the tiller I was shocked to see the gas cap was off. This isn’t good. I can’t believe I would be that careless and am certain that when I rolled it out of the garage, where it was to protect it from the rain, the gas cap was on. Here’s where the paranoia kicks in. I look all over for footprints or signs someone had snuck in to do this. Can’t find anything. The parable Jesus told of an enemy sneaking into a field and sowing weed seeds among the wheat comes to mind. There’s always something and it’s always a fight. I started it up and it ran for maybe twenty seconds and then quit. There is water in the gas for sure so I drained the tank and carburetor float. It still won’t start. So far this has taken up two hours of the day and I’m not done yet. It will start with starting fluid but won’t keep running. Next step is to remove the carburetor and go through it as I have half a dozen times now to clean out the sand that is an ever present problem. There’s so much to do. Damn it. Don’t have time for this but have to do it. It’s way humid with all the rain we’ve got so I’m already feeling the heat. Don’t think this will be a fun day at all. Have to pick peas before they dry up on the plants. No time to talk. Just came in to chill a little, settle down and collect my thoughts.