Tom's Diary

Hey [Tad],

Was wondering if you were planning on attending this meeting and if I could stay with you on Friday and Saturday night.

By the way, did you get the XM radio?

Tom Hesley

Dear Carl,

Yep. All is well. I go to have my wrist examined tomorrow. Hopefully, they’ll figure out what’s wrong with it and get it healing for me. I’m anxious to begin lifting weights again.

Give your Mom my regards in her recovery from her surgery.

I’ve heard from [Ronda] and [Kandi].

You take care as well. Talk to you soon.

Tom

Hi [Ronda].

The doctors rescheduled my wrist appointment for tomorrow morning. Hopefully, they’ll get me back on track with the weight lifting soon. I’ll let you know.

Glad to hear that school is going well for you. I’ve been in touch with [Kandi]. She just got back from a semester in China. In fact, she just wrote today. She’s doing well.

Well, catch you later,
Tom Hesley

Dear [Kandi],

Hi. All is well, except the wrist that is. I have an appointment with an orthopedic specialist tomorrow morning. Hopefully, he’ll give me some answers then so I can get it healed quickly. No, it’s not feeling any better. They suggested I take big doses of Motrin three times a day. I did that for a week, and the wrist did feel a bit better. At least at first. However, my body was getting used to the Motrin as eventually, it no longer relieved the pain at the dosage prescribed. Also, I worried about what all that medicine was doing to my kidneys, liver, and other organs. So I decided to stop taking it since it really wasn’t working anyhow. Well, we’ll just have to see what they say tomorrow.

Yes, I remember the first-day-of-the-new-term-jitters quite well. I had them especially strongly on the first day of my first term in college. Ah but it gets easier each term you do it, as you gain more confidence in your abilities to handle anything they throw at you.

As far as exciting happenings goes: Yes, I’ve begun talking with a lady from New York City. She has seen my pictures and wants to get to know me. She’s an LPN at a hospital in Brooklyn. Sweet and sophisticated she is. However, I have not yet seen her pics. I’m not sure she and I match well, because she wants to have children immediately, whereas I do not want them at all. Also, she is married, and even though she’s legally separated, I don’t relish involving myself in that sort of situation, particularly since her husband still comes around (they have one child together), and stays at her apartment several nights a week.

She says there’s nothing going on between them, and I believe her. But the fact that they share that bond (their son) seems a bit daunting to me. The thought of having to share my lady with another man, even in the decidedly innocent venture of raising a child, scares me. I never liked sharing my sweeties. I don’t know. I just don’t’ get a good feeling about it as of yet. Perhaps more time on the phone with her will help solidify my interest.

Well, enjoy your new term. Good luck. Study hard. Score high. And, as time permits, write soon.

Later,
Tom

Hey Jeff!

Thanks for letting me know. [That software I supported while there] did have a long run, and this ends a distinguished era for [the compnay]. The first [software] pieces went into production at around this time in 1993, I believe. 12 tears (I mean, YEARS). What a life.

How you doing? Who’s still left out there? Are you a manager yet?

Things are going well here. I’m continuing to build my DJ business. The music collection is up to 35,000 songs now, and I’m doing some Windows programming in Visual Studio 2003 .NET, to manage all those MP3 files. I’ve added some high-intensity black lights to the show, and did my first two weddings in 2004. The business is still limping, but it’s starting to pick up momentum.

I injured my wrist last November. They think it’s broken, so I’m not going to be doing any DJ gigs until that gets straightened out. Hard to carry my heavier gear around with just one hand. Here’s a pic of me doing a sweet sixteen birthday party a little while ago…

Give the folks who knew me my regards, if you wouldn’t mind. Let ‘em know that I’m still alive and kicking.

Tom Hesley

[Ronda],

Oh, I thought I did write back. I’m so sorry.

Anyway, campwalt looks like a wonderful place. Will you be up there the whole summer? From when to when will you be working up there?

Hey, I had to stop lifting the weights (hopefully, temporarily). I injured my left wrist last November. The doctors are calling it an impaction fracture. They haven’t said yet what the treatment’s going to be. I have to see the orthopedic specialist on Monday.

On the Djing, I did ten gigs last year. That’s up a bit from 2003. But I haven’t been pushing them. Not sure if Djing is what I really want to do. It’s a lot of fun, however it doesn’t pay all that well. But I’ll probably keep doing it (at least, as a hobby).

I hope we do see each other again. Very much. I had imagined you and me, sitting here in the back yard, in my pavilion, sipping lemonade. There are two swings in that pavilion that face each other. We could either sit across from, or beside one another. I’d rather sit beside you and play with your hair.

The views are great. Lots of evergreen spruce trees around, and there’s a river a few hundred feet below the pavilion, that’s nice to stand beside and think and enjoy and ponder life. Also, about two miles up the road, there’s this hill, called Chocolate Knob, where it’s quiet and when you climb to the top, you can see mountains all around. I don’t know. I thought it’d be nice to take you there. It’s a nice little hike. So, want to come visit me before you take off for New Hampshire?

My sister lives in State College, and the store where I buy my DJ stuff is there too (The Music Mart on Beaver Ave.). Perhaps if I’m down there, we could have lunch.

Well, I’m glad you wrote me again. We’ll keep in better touch this time. Best wishes for a successful school term, and write back soon.

Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

Onward. Yes, I have the real long version of Lay Down by Melanie. She had some gospel group singing in that with her. Maybe it was the Edwin Hopkins Singers, who did that song: Oh Happy Day.

Yes, I have much   low frustration tolerance   to eliminate from my psyche. Unfortunately, the past is like a cancelled check. It can’t be changed and will always be in our heads. I suppose that in the present, we can control how weu think of the past and what conclusions we draw from it. But it is what it is. So there’s no point in regretting it. If we like the people we are today, then we should embrace that past because through it, we got to where we are in life today.

You remember that   Star Trek: The Next Generation    episode where Q gave Picard a chance to go back and change his past, and how those changes impacted his present life. Picard didn’t like the man he became when he didn’t fight with the Naussican, and told Q that he’d rather die as the man he was, than to live the life that resulted from his more benevolent handling of the Naussican.

One more thing: This may sound obvious. But people start out life with different advantages and short-comings. How many people, in just one generation do you think, actually live the rags-to-riches story we so often read in books and watch on TV, where they start life without benefit or property, and end it with a dynasty at their beck and call? Not many. Oh there are a few perhaps. Dolly Parton. Booker T. Washington, and Bill Gates. [However,] many of society’s great performers and highly effective people came from families where such good fortune has reigned supreme for several generations. They don’t invent anything. They’re just continuing a long-running tradition. Know what I mean? Who was it? Newton or Einstein that said that he was able to see all the trees in the forest because he was standing on the backs of giants. Most of us aren’t lucky enough to have a great giant to stand on. Many are lucky to even have a mentor to occasionally show us the way. That giant of privileged upbringing seems to elude most of us. Nonetheless, we should not discount it’s importance in the lives of those who we feel are more savvy at the game of life than we ourselves are.

Now to your   irrational belief   as you call it. The truth is that some people master a discipline with very little effort, and others must struggle to do it. I’ve witnessed this at work time and time again.  Still others can’t do it at all. Your irrational belief may be wrong in certain scenarios. But it’s right in others. Only you can decide whether you’re reaching too far or not far enough as you pursue new skills. Gently push yourself, yes. But don’t slave-drive your mind and body too much.

I would say though that the vision impairment we share tends to confine us to lives of hard work and struggle, but with relatively little accomplishment. I’m speaking very generally here. So don’t take offense.

Lower achievement than our peers is a hallmark of the handicapped existence I believe. Is that an irrational belief?  The question is: How much of your life do you want to devote to beating the odds? It’s noble to try and excel. The quest can be most enlightening and enriching. But if such an effort is so sapping that we can’t enjoy our lives, and all we do is   work work work, then perhaps a bit of humility is in order. I sure was humble the day I resigned from my job in 2003, for I could not escape the gaping question: Why had I been struggling so hard to excel? What was it really getting me, besides a fat wallet and lots of enemies in the workplace? Not a whole lot. It didn’t bring women to my bed often enough to make the sacrifices worthwhile.

I believe people should challenge themselves to a moderate degree, sure, but not to the point where the effort ages them prematurely and in their obsessive quest for power and money they forego real personal growth, the kind obtained only through consistent and repeated introspection. The point of all this: Don’t be too hard on yourself about your irrational belief, because it’s not completely irrational. Work to eliminate its irrational parts, but, just as importantly, learn to accept its   rational   parts. More about this when we next talk on the phone.

In my life, I’ve come to believe that the anxiety I feel when approaching attractive women is a quite-rational response and it is no longer my mission to overcome it. I don’t see it today as the excluding force that keeps women out of my life. My anxiety is my friend.  We’ve touched on this in other talks, but my thinking on it has significantly advanced from the last time we did. I’ll tell you all about that when we talk live.

I’ve got to go for now. Thanks for writing, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

Well, about Rich, I figured he’d come up with some sort of slippery spin favorable to his position, regarding my choice to leave my job.

Hmmmm. I wonder why he repeatedly thinks I’m gloating when I tell him about my life. Back in 1988, he accused me of it when I told him of my new job. You and I have discussed that a number of times since. Now, he’s doing it again by saying that he thought I was happy about not having to work while others must work. [Mentat], that was never the story at all. While I admit that I’m much happier now that I’m not working for that company, my happiness is due to the fact that I’m under much less stress. Not because I feel that I’m privileged. I don’t like being poor – I’m lucky if I clear a fourth of the money I did while working. He conveniently neglected to mention that part of our discussion. Nor does he include my comments about how difficult making money in the DJ business really is. His chronic problem of not listening to others shows up again.

But anyway, it doesn’t matter because he’s history in my book. I’ve just had enough of his negative interpretations of events. He’s really quite the toxic person. It’s amazing that [his wife] has put up with him so long. But he’ll poison me no more. I’m done.

Anyway, to your comment about REBT [Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy] and my avoidance of people who “make me mad”: Yes, it’s a worthwhile skill to learn – to keep others from pushing our buttons. But in some extreme situations (like this one with all the history that goes along with it), it’s just better to cut one’s losses and run. As I see it, there is little to be gained by struggling to learn to keep Rich from firing me up. The more attractive solution to me, is simply to avoid him.

Tom

Dear Carl,

I hurt the wrist lifting weights.

Yes, bosses can be quite a challenge to get along with. I only liked about half the bosses I had over the years. Good luck with your new boss and location.

Tom

Hi [Kandi].

Where are you attending college? Penn State?

Congratulations on your new apartment. I remember my first apartment in 1979. I was so excited.

Things are pretty good here. However I did injure my wrist in November, and the doctors think it might be broken. So I have an appointment with an orthopedic specialist on January 31st to get it straightened out. Hopefully, they won’t recommend surgery. They think I actually hurt it a long time ago, possibly back in childhood, and the weight-lifting I was doing in the 2nd half of 2004 aggravated that situation. Apparently, signs of a healed trauma showed up on the x-rays. Meanwhile, it’s been difficult carrying the equipment to the gigs with just my right hand, but hopefully by the time camp gets here, I’ll have it fixed.

The gigs have slowed. Nothing scheduled currently. I’ve been using the time to beef up the software on the computer to better handle error situations. I’m finishing up a program that runs when you first turn on the computer, that checks the music disk drives and puts up an alert window if it finds any problems. The program also automates startup of some other programs, ones that I had to start manually up ’til now.

If the DJ business doesn’t take off this year, I’m toying with the idea of getting a job again. (I’m running out of money). These programs I’m creating are Windows programs and I have a fair amount of experience writing them. Hopefully if I do have to look for a job, those skills will make it easier to find a good [one].

Life is pretty ho-hum these days. I’ve talked with a few ladies. But no keepers so far. I’ll just keep wishing and hoping.

Don’t know if I told you. But I’ve accepted the treasurer’s position in my high school’s alumni association. This is a four-year term, and I just finished computerizing their books. Fun!

Well, thanks for writing. By the way, do you have a phone number there? I wouldn’t mind calling sometime. Mine is: 814-742-xxxx.

Take care,
Tom