“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
In 2020 I got out of the wine business with the intent to become a different man and a different sort of professional such as a writer or a birdwatcher or just an all around better father and husband. I had also helped to start a cannabis company of which got bought by a publicly traded company and I thought, perhaps, that might secure my retirement. Now, November 2024, the cannabis company floats on the breath of feckless and pointless politicians, stalled out and struggling, no money in it. So I started looking for a job with the caveat being that I won’t go back to the schnook life, the wine life, as it’s too high in stress, too low in health, too high in needless social schmoozing, too low in joy and too high in drink. For over a month, I applied for warehouse jobs, accounting jobs, sports writing jobs, technical writing jobs, more warehousing jobs, jobs at hospitals, jobs in local government, federal government and the post office, data analytics jobs, janitor jobs and more jobs in warehousing. The average pay for every job was between 35-40k, forty hours a week.
As we left the meeting I had something of a panic attacking, embarrassingly enough, and started to shake and cry. All I could say was: “I wish I could have been a different man, a different type of professional but I can’t. I am back in it. I have to be back in it. Wine is all I can do. Wine is my only way.” Just as Sartre warned, I was trapped in my life and I must face the reality that I can’t escape it, nor do I have the time to wallow in it.
So here is this blog. I am not exactly sure what it will be, hopefully funny and irreverent, occasionally honest and sad (if the situation is such), maybe even uplifting, maybe, even, celebratory of some pretty cool people. But mostly, mostly, it’s for survival for writing is the healthiest tonic, just ahead of Barolo Chinato.
I mean, in Schnook City if you make a sale forty percent of the time you are basically batting one thousand. And now that I think about it, maybe, someday, it will help my daughters to understand who there father was and is: a Schnook.
In the best sense of the word.
There is was in the back of my mind, sitting and snickering. You are who you are: a schnook. I met with an old colleague in the wine and wondered if he might have a position for me. Within hours, I was offered a job at three times the pay of anything else I had applied for plus flexibility with my working hours. I put it in my back pocket and went off to meet my wife and some financial advisors. The financial advisers told us if we don’t decrease our spending and increase our income, drastically, we have a 0 percent chance, yes zero % chance, of a semi successful retirement. No chance to dream about retiring to Fruili and telling my daughters to come visit or stay forever if they would like… no chance.
As we left the meeting I had something of a panic attacking, embarrassingly enough, and started to shake and cry. All I could say was: “I wish I could have been a different man, a different type of professional but I can’t. I am back in it. I have to be back in it. Wine is all I can do. Wine is my only way.” Just as Sartre warned, I was trapped in my life and I must face the reality that I can’t escape it, nor do I have the time to wallow in it.
So here is this blog. I am not exactly sure what it will be, hopefully funny and irreverent, occasionally honest and sad (if the situation is such), maybe even uplifting, maybe, even, celebratory of some pretty cool people. But mostly, mostly, it’s for survival for writing is the healthiest tonic, just ahead of Barolo Chinato.
I mean, in Schnook City if you make a sale forty percent of the time you are basically batting one thousand. And now that I think about it, maybe, someday, it will help my daughters to understand who there father was and is: a Schnook.
In the best sense of the word.
