Missing You

HEY HONEY, YESTERDAY WASN'T A GOOD DAY FOR ME. EVERYTHING I DONE, TOUCHED, THOUGHT WAS ABOUT YOU. IT STARTED ABOUT 7PM. I WAS LISTENING TO MY IPOD WHEN LORIE MORGAN, PICTURE OF ME WITHOUT YOU STARTED AND I STARTED. I WAS CRYING SO HARD I HAD TO PULL OVER BECAUSE I COULDN'T SEE THE ROAD. BEAR KNEW SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT. SHE WAS TRYING TO CLEAN MY FACE TOO! I JUST HAD TO SIT THERE UNTIL I COULD SEE. THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU CAME TO ME WHILE I WAS ASLEEP VAND SAID YOU HAD SOMEONE THAT WANTED TO TALK TO ME. I COULD SEE TOMMY, GRANDMA, CAROLYN, DEAN AND JEAN BEHIND YOU. I ASKED IF I COULD HOLD YOU AND YOU SAID NO. BUT I REACHED FOR YOU ANYWAY AND YOU WERE GONE. ALL I WANTED WAS TO HOLD YOU ONE MORE TIME. THEY SAY THAT IT GETS EASIER AS TIME GOES BY, THATS CRAP. IT SEEMS TO BE GETTING HARDER.  I THINK GOD IS PUNISHING ME FOR BEING AWAY FROM YOU SO MUCH. EVEN WITH ALL MY MISSIONS WHILE IN SERVICES, YOU NEVER KNEW SAID A THING. YOU NEVER KNEW WHERE I WAS GOING OR WHEN I'D BE BACK. YOU NEVER KNEW YOU WERE BEING WATCHED AFTER WHILE I WAS GONE BY AGENTS OF THE USAF BECAUSE OF MY MISSIONS. THATS WHY I NEVER WORRIED ABOUT YOU AND THE GIRLS.  NOW I HAVE TO SUFFER THE FEELINGS YOU MUST OF HAD. AND IT STINKS. I KNOW I'LL SEE YOU SOON BUT I HOPE I LIVE TO BE 100. I WANT TO SEE YOU NOW BUT I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THIS WORLD YET. I HAVE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS AND 2 BEAUTIFUL GRAND DAUGHTERS I WANT TO SEE GROW UP. SO DON'T PLAN ON ME BEING THERE TOO SOON.
Love,
~Ricky

My Job

A lot of people ask me what my job is and I can never give a definitive answer because it’s a little bit of this and a little bit that...a whole lot of this and a whole lot of that.  I make the station look good on site, but I have a team that helps me because I can’t be at every event so I can really say, I don’t necessarily make the station look good on site EVERY time.

Today, I just came up with job description of “I corral people.”

If you had asked me in 2001 when I started for the radio station what my job duties were, I wouldn’t have included the term “Mama Bear.”  I say and mean “Mama Bear” with love and the utmost respect.  I’m the promotions director/marketing director over two rock stations.  One is a classic rock and one is a new rock.  Complete opposite ends of the spectrum but also kind of the same.

I call my part timers “Baby Bears,” because I am like a Mama Bear protecting her cubs.  I love my part-timers.  They may aggravate me like real kids, drive me up the wall, work hard and bust ass, and so on, but it comes right down that if you attack one of my part-timers (aka Baby Bears) or try to throw them under the bus, you are attacking me and trying to throw me under the bus.  There is nothing I won’t do for those kids who bust their ass for me.  And I say kids loosely because some aren’t kids at all, but if they’re kicking ass for me, then I sure as hell am going to kick ass for them.  The work they do, I’d do if had too.  I don’t ask them to do anything that I wouldn’t do.  I have a great group right now.  I didn’t think I’d ever have the same feelings as I did toward a group of part timers as I did last year.  When we had to let that group go because of cut backs and such, I cried so hard that I couldn’t even tell them how much they meant to me or that I had to let them go.  I had to have one of my peers do it.  Once you become a “Baby Bear,” you’re family to me.  And once you’re family, you’re stuck with me as long as you’ll let me be part of your life.

So a few months ago, we brought round two of End Girls around.  I was a naysayer.  I won’t even lie about it.  I got shafted with the job of being in charge of the first bunch of girls.  It was a disaster.  They weren’t what I hoped them to be and they were short lived.  It turned out to be a hassle more than a help.  With the round two of End Girls, I went in with pretty damn high standards.  I expected the ladies to be smarter than the average bear (and I don’t mean Baby Bear way, I’m stealing that straight from the Yogi Bear cartoon) and I expected hard work.  I’m a female, I worked hard to get where I am and I didn’t use my body to get to it.  I hoped for at least 40% to think the same way.

The station had hundreds of entries and we narrowed them down and we have a group of about 10 to 14 (the exact count is hard to remember this late with this much tired coursing through my body) and I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch.  Yes, I feel like a pimp and yes it makes me feel bad asking them to put on something sexy when I would rather get shot in the face than have to put on heels and something sexy.  Here’s where my Catholic guilt from another life sets in.  Any grunt work I normally ask someone to do, I’d do myself, but getting dolled up and looking pretty, not one of them.  These ladies work hard, wear insane high heels, endure the lusty leers, come ons, and douchiness of men (and sometimes from the ladies).  They strut their stuff and work a crowd.  They smile politely and get their picture taken.  Go them.  Me, I’d rather not have any of that at all.

Today, we had a photo shoot, and we threw the elements at them.  Cold rain being one of them.  I know they would have rather been at home in their comfy clothes with the ones they love than hanging out with me on their free day (and vice versa for me), but they were there and I couldn’t have imagined spending my Sunday with anyone else than those girls.  They crack my shit up & are so much fun to talk to and hang out with.  Did I mention, they crack me up...(that means they make me laugh!)  I thought it would be all drama.  I mean come on, you put females in a room, and you’re bound to get something, but these ladies weren’t like that at all.  Any sort of drama was held at bay and they were always there & ready to help the other if needed.

• Ally is calm, cool, & collected.  She’s a star-gazer (and I don’t mean celebrity) and believer in the big picture & unknown.
• Amy is the quiet & shy one but has a 1000 watt smile and a heart of pure gold.
• Brionna is also shy & quiet but can work a pair of freaking 5 inch patent leather stilettos like no one’s business.
• Brittany is a hard-working single mom trying to provide for her son who loves her more than words & brought her to tears on how much he loves her.
• Christy is a rocker. Honest & balls to the wall.  And she puts me to shame in drinking tequila.  She wins.  I loose.
• Deanna is a girl who people might see as dumb but has enough savvy to run her life & her career.
• Heather is a freaking giant (and I mean tall, but I’m 5’3 so anyone over that is tall) but commands attention because she’s just down right fun and I sense that little bit of insecurity in her that makes her a bit innocence.
• Kristen is as brutally honest as I am.  She had me in stitches all day.  As she said several times today, “Why do you let me talk?”  Because she’s honest!!!
• Mimi is a reminder of my little sister.  Sweet & innocent but balls out and full of energy.  She puts energy drinks to shame.
• Robin is all sweet & innocent but I’m sure that she would not waste time in knocking you down a notch or two if needed.

So I have a new batch of “Baby Bears” and I’m going to have to work on a name for them because they’re not exactly babies as they would all kick anyones ass if they had to and I don’t want to refer to myself as a pimp or them as my “ho’s” because they are not no matter how they are perceived to the world.

But what I did learn today was that, I would do just about anything for these ladies as I do my part-timers so if I do need to get a “pimp stick” and beat some jerks in the ass for them I would.  They might walk around in higher heels than I have ever owned in my life but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect them and expect others to respect them.  They may put themselves out there to look smashing in a bikini or other outfit, but if you’re disrespecting them while they’re working for me, you’re disrespecting me and I don’t take lightly to that at all.

More importantly, the ENDmates made me realized that I do love my job maybe even more today than I have all week.  They made my week end nicely with a lot of laughter and a lot of attitude.

So thank you ladies...the ones at the photo shoot and the ones who weren’t...for everything that you do for me and for the station but mostly, I’m proud of you gals.  I’m glad to call you co-workers and friends.

More New Beginnings

It’s been a while since I last wrote.  There’s 101 reasons why I’ve not written and 101 reasons more why I should have written but mostly, it has just been laziness.  This site crashed and I didn’t want to even look at it or think about the blogs I had lost.  I started a new project solely dedicated to my love of hockey.  My iTunes crashed and I lost 11,000 plus songs.  I actually cried over that one, and I brought home Nick, my mom’s Yorkie.  He’s been a handful but an absolute joy to have around.  I feel less insane when I’m talking character scenes out.  Not that I’ve been writing a lot.  Again, laziness and the fact that I cannot sit at a computer and force myself to write like I have before.  I haven’t written anything since January.  Yes, there has been a few starts, but my commitment to writing and finishing it has not been there.

But I miss it.  I miss writing a lot.  I have to find that spark and that drive that made me write before.  I could blame it on the death of my mom, I could blame it on the crazy busy schedule at the big girl job, but it’s neither of those.  Nothing creative dances in my head like it use to before.  I use to go to sleep with character scenes or characters developing in my mind.  There is nothing now.  Even my past characters seem dull and faded like an old black & white photo.

So as my crazy big girl job (aka the day job) slows down the first week in October and before the insanity of hockey season starts, I hope to meditate, stare into the night, let the sun shine on my face, and so on and find that spark, that joy, that love, that desire to write.

I need to find it.  I’m quite lonely without it.