As a writer and aspiring author, sociology and anthropology are a part of what I do.  Particularly within the genre in which I write, the below is something of great import.

Apparently, I suck at it.

Or at least, in this particular case.  The reason is because I am involved and am an active participant; I am not watching from the sidelines.

Fifteen minutes outside of Mexico City, in the mountains, is a small village.  Now, if you have every driven in and/or around Mexico City, this just ain’t that far, guys.  And Mexico City is not indicative of a third world country.  It’s pretty close to living in the states in many places.

But, no matter where you go in Central America (and most of South America), you just have to suspend disbelief.  I have been told this a million times since I have been here, but I guess you just don’t believe it until it happens to you.

In this small village, an incident occurred.  I won’t go into specifics, but it involves some dogs, a proprietor and a friend of mine.  They were walking the dogs, and a family became “scared” and climbed trees.  The dogs did nothing but want to play with them.  There is a lot more to this story, but it’s really too long to describe here.

Now, apparently, JAMA does not want you to know of two particular things that can be caused by low amounts of stress in very small increments of time.  But the villages of Mexico are fully aware of such horrific side effects. Whether or not they have shared these things with the global medical community or not, I have no idea.  But I MUST do my due diligence in making you aware of such things.

Should you ever experience minor stress, even for a short period of time, say, fifteen minutes, you may be in danger of contracting the following two things:

Diabetes

Demon or Spirit Possession

Below are the steps to prevent the above from occurring should you experience minor stress for this small period of time.  Be sure to follow these steps specifically, leaving nothing out.

1. Gather everyone in town, including children, and arm them with stones and machetes.
2. Meet with the individual who caused the stress and surround him or her.
3. Greet the person cordially.  Make sure to let the person know that their mother needs to be fucked (which in Mexico, NEVER happens unless you are homicidal).
4. Properly introduce the individual to the machetes and the stones.
5. Ensure that the individual is aware of the embellishment of the crime, and introduce them to the local authorities that have come with you to support them.  Allow the authority to show that he is also carrying a machete and stones.
6. Cut off access to the offender’s domicile, and demand payment for entry.  Tell the individual that you have no idea what the payment would be, and that you would get back to them in a couple of days.

At this point, you just look at the group of people and realize that you are either dealing with people with IQs of 25, or they are just fuckwads who grew up with this fucking voodoo shit and logic will never apply.  You realize that you have just encountered your first experience with that shit that they’ve been telling you about.

Next steps:

1. The villagers/pillagers tell you that there is a local “dude” who runs the community, and that we should all meet with him.  You say okay.  They set it up for some weird-ass time that concurs with some weird-ass star/moon association.
2. You meet at the local community center with this weird-ass shaman fuck with 30 villagers on one side, and you and your friend on the other.  **Note: you are a full born Mexican citizen but you look like a Canadian.  They don’t give a shit.

Now, pay attention.  HERE is how you prevent yourself from getting diabetes or getting possessed by a spirit:

1. Go to your local witchcraft store and consult with the blah-blah (insert Indian name here that I CANNOT pronounce, and it’s for protection against possession, both good and bad, and for disease).
2. Have shaman or whatever come to your dwelling and protect your house and property for the same.
3. Everyone with whom you have come in contact with since the incident must have the same “treatment”.
4. At the “town hall meeting” (read “Indian pow-wow wampum”), determine compensatory damages.  Apparently, stuffing money into stress holes in your body keeps spirits and diseases from occurring.
5. Because dogs carry evil spirits and bring death and destruction to small towns, the owner of said dogs must provide some type of compensatory homage to the city in the form of a new building, a new fountain, or something that does absolutely no real good for the community.
6. Negotiate with the offender regarding a daily toll for access to his or her property, and another toll to the public road that access the property.

It is a good thing that I was not there for the negotiations, or so I was told.  I would done the following, and seriously, I might add, considering that logic does not apply:

1. Indicate that both sides need to come up with case studies of

• three incidents: man, woman and child who “contracted” (their words, not mine) diabetes at any time due to stress.
• three incidents: man, woman and child who became possessed by a spirit due to stress.

2. Based upon the stress level and duration of said stress, determine the statistical possibility of such two things occurring in the complainants’ case.

3. Determine compensatory damages based upon the statistical percentage, and cover any “medical” treatments required by “shaman” to prevent demon/spirit possession.

I was subsequently told that I would have been machete’d to death had I been there to negotiate.  I was actually surprised, because I would not have been mocking their belief at all.  I would actually have been supporting their belief, and just asking for evidence so we could make a statistical analysis of the probability to determine compensatory damages.

I was told that they would get lost as the word “negotiate”. So I think I am fucked.  I mean, as a logical person, how do you suspend ALL logic and deal with a situation where there IS no solution?  How do you reason where there IS no reason?  How do you ask someone if they believe that stuffing money in their pockets proactively removes the ability for possession, doesn’t that preclude the actual belief in possession if they don’t even understand what the word “preclude” is?

How the fuck do you reason with someone like that?  The bottom line, I have learned, since I have been here is, you don’t.  You give them what they want, or they kill you.  Plain and simple.  I have now seen and/or heard of incident after incident just like this.  And not in the papers, but through my friends.  You cannot reason with magic.  You can reason with Catholicism, but not with magic.  You will get killed because of Magic and Voodoo.  You have NO recourse.  When the villagers come at you with machetes, you cough up the dough, or you are dead.  And don’t forget; the cops are there with the machetes too.

Ah, Voodoo, Witchcraft and Santería.  How I love thee.

So, the lesson learned here is this:

If you are going to bring death, disease and spirits with you somewhere:

• Bring death and disease to the narcos, but stay the hell away from the border states.
• Bring happy spirits that can’t stop laughing or are extremely content and/or happy.

And to change Lincoln up a bit (it was Lincoln, right?),

Speak softly, and carry SEVERAL very large guns.

Slut has been asking me (bitching endlessly) to write about who, what, when, where and how I ended up in Mexico City.

I have been extremely busy (avoiding the blog because it’s a long one) and have been putting it off (I have been lazy).

So, just for her, I have put together this short (extremely long) entry.  Enjoy!

About five years ago, after ten long years of corporate whoring, the Absurdist had a long talk with herself.  Actually, it was more of a mental meltdown.  She finally had it with corporate America.  Of course, this discussion had occurred about every ten minutes of every day for the last ten years.  But for the sake of brevity (yeah, right), let’s just pretend that this is the first discussion.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances, the Absurdist was stuck in technology and really had no other skills.  So the Absurdist trudged along and continued down this abusive and horrific path.  Five years later, and seven or so years on the road 100%, the Absurdist have a very calm and proactive conversation with her employer at the time.  It went something like this… Sort of. And of course, this conversation is just a very small representation of what the Absurdist has experienced over the last fifteen years of working in technology corporate.

*****************************************************************************************************************

E= Employer.

A=Absurdist.

E:   “So, we have been abusing you to clients after selling complete lies to those same clients.  We send you out and you are thrown into the lion’s den.  We lie to you, and then we don’t back you up.  We expect you to fix everything and lie to the client all along.  And if you fix the client’s problems too quickly, we beat you up because we can’t bill them for maximum hours.  When you do too good of a job, we have to punish you.  What do you have to say for yourself?”

A:   “Well, as far as I am concerned, the client pays our paycheck.   Seems to me that if we held our clients’ best interest in mind during the sales process, then our repeat sales with them would be tenfold of what they are, instead of our track record of returns.  Additionally, frankly, I really don’t appreciate being a placeholder for maximum billing when I pride myself on my abilities and skills.  If you want me to sit out at a client site and not fix problems so you can bill out as many hours as possible, I know where I can find a mannequin.”

E:    “Your answer is not only not what we don’t want to hear, but it is the truth.  And when you tell the truth, we have to put you on a plan with human resources to keep you from voicing the truth again. In addition to that, according to your plan with HR, should you make one more mistake again, we will get rid of you.”

A:    “So basically, because you do not want me to do my best, and you want me to lie to the clients, and you want me to do a poor job so that services sales can go out to the client and sell more billable hours because I didn’t do my job I am in trouble and am now on a plan with HR.  And this plan with HR is basically your way of firing me without firing me.”

E:    “Oh no.  Not at all.  it’s our way of making sure you are perfect and never make a mistake again.  It’s all on you what you choose to do or not.  Just don’t make a mistake again and you will be gainfully employed.  These mistakes include fixing anything that is broken at a client site before the very last hour is billed.”

A:    “You are serious, right?  Of course you are.  This is US Corporate.  Okay.  So, basically, you are the same company I have worked for the last 15 years, but you just have a different name.  The quality of my work means shit, and sales is all that is important, and short term gain is all that is important.  We don’t care about the longevity of the relationship of the client, and we don’t care what they think about us.  And you don’t care at all what they think about me or the work I do, and you will throw me under the bus with the client when it suits you and when it suits sales.  Oh, and when you have an expert on a new product that you release, and you didn’t train anyone, and you hire me to handle it for over one thousand customers, and I also have to support it internally, and I beg for help, and we also have no one to do custom development on it, and you lie to clients and lie to me, and make me do a 600 hour project and tell the client we can do it in 40 hours, you throw me under the bus to clients, and then you put me on an HR plan that is basically firing me but not firing me.  Do I understand this correctly?”

E:    “Perfectly.  You have it now.  I am so glad we could have this talk.  By the way.  The client that you are working with right now.  The one that is a 600 hour project that we said we would do in 40 hours.  Well, remember how they made you work through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, every weekend, and you have been putting in over 120 hours a week for them?  And remember how they are stupid and are never satisfied?  And remember how they always complain about the fact that nothing is every done because the guy who sold them the package in 40 hours lied and took off and then was spotlighted by our company as being totally awesome?  Well, they are going to buy 4M USD in products from us.  But guess what?  They told us that they wouldn’t buy the products unless we fire you.  So we decided to let you hang yourself by putting you on this plan.  We also decided to conduct a witch hunt behind your back with everyone you have ever come in contact with in this company, without telling you.  Isn’t that fun?  And guess what?  Here is the most interesting part!  We didn’t find a damn thing on you!  But since we didn’t document it, we can fire you anyway, not call it ‘firing’, be really vague when we talk to you, and then just get in trouble with the Texas Workforce Commission when you talk to them.  It’s cheaper that way. Totally cool, huh?”

A:    “Wow.  That IS fun!  You are so creative!  I never would have thought to do that! but guess what?  I already knew about the client and the firing.  So wow!  I guess I AM smarter than you thought.  Amazing huh?”

E:    “Well, the good news is that we are going to let you go on Monday without telling ANY of the clients who are waiting on you to do customizations and help them with the product that only you can do.  And you know that client that is going to give the product back unless you fixed their issue that you have a meeting with one hour after we are going to let you go?  We don’t care!  Isn’t that great???”

A:    “I think that’s FABULOUS!  It’s right on par with your typical modus operandi!  I can’t wait for them to send the product back and sue your fucking ass!  Your sales team will be so proud of you!”

*****************************************************************************************************************

And on and on it went.  The good news is that they “fired” me illegally, so I decided not to sue them if they gave me unemployment.

I had planned on “retiring” from technology in five years and pursuing writing.  But I was so worn out from traveling and being abused that fate, I guess, decided to do it early for me.  I was specifically homicidal; not generally.

My doctor had told me that not only did I have to get off the road, but I had to get out of corporate because I had been used and abused so much due to my niche skill set that it was killing me.  My primary care physician said I would have had a heart attack within five years.  I had no choice anyway.

Anyway, I decided that it was time for me to go ahead and start writing.  So I did.  I had to figure out what to do with my life.  I needed to live on the cheap, but it’s almost impossible to do so in the states.  My aunt has lived in Mex City for 20 years.  I decided to go on a little vacay down here in April to visit and to take care of her animals while she was gone for four days to visit my mother as well.  The goal was to relax and to see if it was some place that would be conducive to my writing and a place where I could make enough money to get my visa and stay.

I really enjoyed it, so I left to go back and decided to liquidate and store stuff and come down for the summer to give it a go.  I found a unique opportunity that should have worked out.  when I came back down, it didn’t appear as if it would.  Now it appears as if it might.  I am not saying it will, but it might.

Either way, I will stay if I can find a job that will make me enough money to prove for my visa and enough time to write my 2 trilogies that are in progress.

I am enjoying the culture.  I am not anti-American.  I love my country.  I am just done with corporate.  Additionally, I love studying this culture. I also get to learn about some other things that are pertinent to my books.

So that’s pretty much the story…

Well, most of you DON’T know that I moved down to ole Mexico.  Those of you who know the “real” me do know that I moved down here.

Anyhoo, I had an adventure last weekend.  I was going to go to an annual goth event; a big one, on Saturday night.  Of course, having nothing to wear, we decided to wander over to El Chopo.  El Chopo is a Goth market that occurs every Saturday in Mexico City.  You will find every type of person there, and you can buy just about anything Goth, Ska, Skater, whatever there.

I thought I would feel terribly out of place, but it was a ton of fun, and my friend and I both got outfits.  I even got some really cool boots that I can wear again and again.

She and I decided that we are total “goths” and are going to “embrace” the lifestyle; at least as one of the many eclectic lifestyles that we are playing with down here.

Anyhoo, I didn’t get any pictures because you are supposed to have some kind of a badge or something, but here’s a blog about El Chopo with some great pictures and it’s funny too.  Take a gander.  It’s a lot of fun!

Some pics of our group:

The girl on the far left is my friend.

The guys TRYING to be serious

This year, I was “relieved” of my position.  I knew I was going to leave corporate; my tentative “thought” was five years from now.  I planned to write until then, and finally leave.  I had HAD it.  After fifteen  years of working 80 to 100 hours a week, having no life, no close friends to spend time with, no personal life, no time for hobbies, etc, I wanted to have time to build a real life.  A life that I could enjoy; a legacy.

I wanted to have a life where, should I die in my house, it wouldn’t take three weeks before someone noticed that I wasn’t around.  I wanted to be in a situation where, should I die, the only people that would come to my funeral were my mother’s friends from Rotary and the church.

Let’s face it; my life wasn’t worth much.  My life was worth the billable rate that I made for whatever company I happened to work for at any given time.  And my life was not just about the 60 billable I did a week; my life was 24/6 on the road.  It was completely gone.  And no, it’s not all about the fabulous travel and seeing the world.  Don’t fool yourself.  Those of us who travel live in the hotel or at the client site.  We do NOT see the cities to which we travel.

There were no real relationship in my life, so I had no “priceless” value.  I didn’t have children, so I had no legacy.  Therefore, the only value in my life was monetary.  And that value was what I could bring to a company.  Considering that the value of the rest of my corporate life would have been about 10 years, my actual value in this world would amount to about 4.5M USD.  For a company.  For me, it would be worth about 1.2M USD gross.  Not much.  Especially when I have no one to give it to, and no legacy to give.

This was never what I wanted out of my life.  I have always known that.  I became what I am out of necessity; I never planned.  I just did what was the next best thing in front of me.  I could tell you that was what I had to do, but my choices put me in situations that caused me to have to do that.

So, with the opportunity to have been relieved of my position, I decided not to wait five years for my dream.

This is a frightening time for me.  But I decided that I would be just as frightened five years from now.  Doing something completely different from what I have known for the last 15 years would be scary as hell now, five years ago or five years from now.  If I had 10M USD in the bank, or 5 dollars in the bank, I would still be just as scared.

So, what will my life be worth?  Well, a hell of a lot more than it is now, or would have been.  In my twenties, it was all about money; money for security.  Now, it’s all about relationships.  How can I help you?  How can I help them?  What can I bring to the table?  How can I make things different in my little niche in the world? How can I leave my little legacy?

I realized something.  If I am not in harmony with what I am doing on a daily basis, then I am doing the wrong thing, and I will never be successful.  I am in harmony when I write.  I am in harmony when I work with animals.  Do I make a lot of money doing it?  No.  But I am in harmony, and I am happy.  And I don’t miss the money when I am happy.  Because I don’t try to use the money to fill the gap of the unhappiness.

I have friends because I am happy.  I have made more friends doing what I am doing now than I ever did in discord in corporate.  I haven’t scowled.  I have made my peace with corporate.  Amazing things for me.

I am on my way to Mexico to try to make it work down there, working on two businesses.  I will be living outside of Mexico City in the mountains.  I will get to write, and live in a beautiful house.  I am very excited.  My aunt lives there, and I already have a lot of friends.  So I am going to create my legacy, and become the person I always wanted to be.

As for grudges and who I used to be, I never want to be that person again.  I have given that up.  There’s no point in that.  It is so completely freeing to no longer engage with those who want to create discord.  It’s just no longer a priority for me.  I want to be happy; I want love in my life.  I have lived with discord for so long that those who want to live with that in their lives are no longer welcome in mine.

So, what is your life worth?  What are your feelings worth?  What are your actions worth?  Are your actions detrimental to others, causing a negative impact, or are they positive?  Where are you in the spectrum?  Or do you count the value of your life in pennies?

Here are two poems I leave you with:

The Wage
Jessie B. Rittenhouse

I bargained with life for a penny,
And life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of life,
Life would have paid.

IF
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!

Dear Readers:

It has come to my attention that I owe my family an apology.  I write this post in embarrassment, expecting some pretty harsh comments, which are warranted.

As citizens of the United States, we enjoy the freedom of free speech.  Of course, free speech does not come without consequences.  As an anonymous blogger, for the most part (save my friends and family who know who I am), the identity of those about whom I write are also anonymous.

It is only recently that I found out that certain individuals of my family, with whom I have very poor relations from time to time, actually read my blog.  First, they are not technically inclined, or so I thought.  Second, I do not have good relations with them more often than not.  Therefore, I made the assumption that not only did they know where my blog was, but they were not interested in the least should they have known by some unusual circumstance.

Unfortunately, I found out that my assumptions were completely erroneous.  Because of this, I owe each and every one of them an apology.

I specifically owe my mother an apology.  Although my writings are about my frustrations in real life, it hurt her that I talked about them here on the blog.  It doesn’t matter that you do not know who she is.  She knows I am talking about her.  I was unaware that she reads my blog.  Although many of us use our blogs as a venting venue, I at least should have discussed my frustrations with her face-to-face so that she was aware of those frustrations.

Many times, I find her behavior funny.  And sometimes, she does as well.  But my writing tone is a bit bizarre, and only those who know me well understand that.  It is no excuse, however, to tell those stories without her express permission.  And for that, I apologize.

Even though the stories that I tell involve me, and I have a right to tell them due to free speech, there are indeed consequences.  And I suffered those consequences.  I at least owe her the right, on this blog, to apologize to her in this public forum where I hurt her.  It does not fix the fact that I hurt her in the actual postings.  But the only rectification I can make is an apology that addresses the actual incidents, and my desire to make amends.

I am of the belief that an apology is not sufficient.  I believe that making amends is the right way to “apologize” to someone.

Therefore, here is my attempt to make amends.

Mother, I am fully aware that I have hurt and angered you over the last few years regarding posts on my blog where you are a part of the content.  In order to rectify the same, today I removed every single blog entry that where you are associated.  I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused you.  In the future, I will not engage in this behavior, as I know now that you read my blog, and I do not want to hurt or anger you any more.  I apologize for this behavior, and I fully lament the pain I have caused you.

As for other family members; I apologize for causing you grief regarding these entries.  No additional entries will occur regarding the same.  I fully accept responsibility.

On to other things.  I do want to address a couple of points.  I am moving to Mexico City (or near it) at the end of this month.  I am starting over, because I can’t do corporate America anymore.  I have re-evaluated my life, and I am at that moment in my life (around 38) where most people do the same.  I have dreams that I want to fulfill, and have realized that in order to fulfill those dreams, now is the time to take hold of my life and make it happen.  I could not do this without the assistance of my family; particularly my mother.

Thank you, mom, for your assistance in this endeavor.

There is one additional thing that I would like to address.  It has been stated to me that I have started over a number of times in my life.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have endeavored in corporate America for 15 years.  I have worked for several companies, and have lived in several states.  But I have always worked in technology, and have always maintained a corporate position and worked 80-100 hours a week.    There has been no starting over in my life until now.  I have made no major shifts in my life since I started working in technology.

Okay, that’s pretty much all I wanted to clarify, and all I want to say regarding my apologies and amends to my family.

Thank you for reading, and if you would like to leave comments, both harsh and normal, please do so.  I am open to anything.

Thank you.