1984 – Livesay Writing

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Master Blend, Office Coffee

When we shot the rocket that killed Soleimani the stock market took a dive. The whisperings of war can be bad business – they bring uncertainty. This afternoon, without any more explosions, or gunshots, or any major players blowing each other up, the stocks climbed, hitting back at the record highs we’ve been seeing, as investors bought up the low-sells and stocks for defense spending and military suppliers soared. It’s a optimism, I guess, that even a bit of bloodshed can’t slow us down, that a certain level of killing is acceptable, desirable even in the ways it opens opportunity for more profit. That’s the world we live in. Optimism, like a long-lived vampire, ample blood.

Two weeks from now I’m getting my investing licenses. The Series 6, some life and insurance, just enough to dip my toes in the water, to buy and sell products based on the rates of the S&P and Dow. If it all works out, I’ll help clients take their savings and make more of it. I’ll have a hand in marriage funds and retirements, in putting some money away to pay for your first kid’s college. There’s this vision of bankers as unloving husks, the kind of people worn by their own suits, but that’s never how it’s felt to me. I sit with peoples’ stories and try to help them write the ones they want. Yes, it’s a business, but I’m in it more for the small impacts in peoples’ lives that they pay back to me by letting me in.

A few months from now, depending on where the world’s at, and how the market’s doing, I might help someone save for their retirement by earning them interest on weapon manufacturer funds. I won’t know it – I’m not daytrading, picking or choosing what companies to buy or sell from individually – but more then likely I’ll wake up to that languid smell, like winter iron, of a bit of blood on my hands.

Currently Reading: Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

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“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
George Orwell, 1984

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

Two weeks from now, I’ll be reading selections from the Coffee Log at Fig Raleigh in Raleigh, NC at the Third Wednesday Open Mic as the night’s featured author. The reading starts at 6:30 and there will be an open mic afterward. It’ll be a fun time. I’ll be slightly nervous. If you’re in the area, come out and make me slightly more nervous. I promise I don’t bite.

It’s been a strange week. The weather’s been up and down, rainy and cold or hot and sunny, and I’ve been up and down with it. A see-saw with four or five raccoons on the other end, periodically getting on or off.

I’ve been waking up late. 7:30, almost time to go to work. I’ve tried setting an earlier alarm but my body doesn’t listen. It’s like my muscles are that stringy stuff you find inside a pumpkin, not tough enough to do anything, and I spend at least an hour each morning carving it out. I’d gotten on a good schedule of reading and writing in the mornings but that’s been thrown off. Maybe this is just me getting older.

‘Alabama’ was on the news today. The Justice Department is suing the state for keeping unsafe conditions in it’s prisons. I didn’t catch the details, but the lawsuit seems like good progress. All day I’ve been thinking about the word ‘Alabama.’ It sounds like old trees hanging over dirt roads.

I met this kid today at the bank. He was five, his father was opening an account. The kid wouldn’t stop talking while we were going over the opening. He found a hole in my office desk that cords come through and I told him that’s where we keep all the bank secrets. He spent the next half hour peeking inside the hole and describing the shapes of strange objects. By the end of it, I figured he must have found something even I don’t know about.

And that was my day.

Novel Count: 36,238

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

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If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
George Orwell, 1984

Tag: 1984

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