If you didn�t know, now you know about me 3-13-2015

03/13/2015

If you didn’t know, now you know about me 3-13-2015

Since there are a few new readers I wanted to take an entry to introduce myself a bit.
I could write a biography but who’s going to read my biography? So I’ll keep it short.
(Edit, ok, as short as I can without going into long drawn out stories lol)

Me and my family

My name is Jonathan.
I’m 37 years old.
I live about 20 minutes north of Boston.
I come from a white middle class Jewish family
I have 3 siblings, one is my twin.
Two of my siblings are married with a child each.
I live with my parents.

I am blind.
My vision started going when I was 6 and totally gone by the age of 14.
I try not to let this affect me but obviously, the world gets in the way more times than I care to admit.
I have a regular computer with a screen reading program.
I’m an open book on this topic so if you are curious, ask.

School and work…basically my resume

I wanted to be a lawyer growing up.
I earned a degree in 2001 in criminal justice with a double minor in psychology and sociology.
Did an internship at a juvenile court house only to learn my idea of a lawyer is that of a TV lawyer.
Volunteered at a Boys and Girls club for 2 years after graduation tutoring in Math and English so I’m doing something while I figure out what I want to do when I grow up.
Went to grad school for mental health counseling in 2003.
Interned at a high school, in an inclusion classroom for students with mental illnesses.
Interned at a day rehabilitation program for adults with mental illnesses.
Wrote a 76 page thesis report on “parental rage in youth sports”
Graduated in 2005

Went to advance grad school so I could have enough credits to be eligible to be a licensed mental health counselor in 2005.
Did an internship at a family strengthening program.
Did an internship at the day rehabilitation program again.
Wrote a 10 page clinical research thesis report on teacher’s knowledge of physical disabilities.
Finished all my course work and internships by 2007 but the thesis took me a bit longer and didn’t officially graduate till the end of 2008.

Continued to work at the day rehab till it closed down (ironically) December 31, 2008..
Moved in the company to a group home in January of 2009 where I still work but only a couple of hours a week because in order for someone to have a fulltime position in my company and unfortunately, in most companies in this field, a driver’s license is required.

On January 20th, 2011, one of the top 3 worse days of my life.
A client of mine murdered a coworker of mine at the group home while no one else was home.
October 2013 was the trial.
I testified on 10-09-13. The most anxious day of my life.
The animal was found guilty and was sentenced for life.
My awesome supervisor felt so much guilt “what if I was there? I could have done something about it” etc. She took a temp leave and eventually it was permanent.
The person who took over was a bit strange… but he only lasted 3 months.
The next guy who came in, from the first day, I did not see eye to eye with him AT ALL. Despite me working at this group home for 5 years, he treated me like I was just a relief counselor, like I knew nothing. It has been a lonely hell for the last year.
I like my coworkers and the assistant manager but that jerk…
He did announce today (ironically) that he was moving up in the company to work at the main office but he doesn’t know when that will be.

A few weeks ago, I started looking into a new career.
I enjoy writing, doing research and making people happy.
After doing research on the profession and on college courses, I signed up for a class on grant writing. I think it will be both fun and rewarding for me while being a challenge.

PASSIONS
Sports, Music, writing

I love sports, football, basketball, some Hockey, some Boxing, some tennis but baseball, oh baseball is my life. If you ever seen the movie Fever Pitch, I tell people that movie is based off of my life. I don’t have the time to express what baseball means to me. It’s in my blood.

I have been to over 400 baseball games. This year I will be traveling to California to capture my 25th and 26 major league stadium.
I have also reported to spring training for 7 different teams over the years and also been to a few minor league games in 3 different stadiums.

My hero is the great Nolan Ryan. I was lucky, fortunate, honored and amazed that I was able to attend his Hall of Fame Induction, July 25th, 1999.
My next favorite player of all time is Ivan (pudge) Rodriguez.
I don’t currently have a favorite player.
In basketball it was Dominique Wilkans then Jason Kidd and looking for my next in that sport as well.
Football it was Jerry Rice and currently it’s Michael Crabtree but he’s been a disappointment mostly in the pros. I’ve followed him since college.
Hockey: Wayne Gretzki
Boxing: Mike Tyson, Oscar DeLahHoya

When I was growing up, I was big time into WWF and WCW wrestling. My mom took my brothers and I to all the matches in Boston including the Survival Series and WrestleMania.
My first favorite was George the Animal Steal. I had many favorites over the years but when I lost my vision, I couldn’t follow the matches any more so I lost interest.
I have met many wrestlers over the years but the greatest story of them all… I met, the one, the only, HULK HOGAN!

MUSIC

I love music. Most of my music collection is pretty contained within 80’s rock and early 90’s grunge. Basically what I grew up with. I am lucky and fortunate to be able to say I have seen every musical band-artist I ever wanted to see …minus Nirvana and the Beasty Boys. I have been to over 100 concerts.
Some of my favorites include: Aerosmith, Billy Joel, Bryan Adams, BoyzIImen, Everclear, Gin Blossom, Green Day, Guns N Roses, (old) Madonna, Metallica, New Edition, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, REM, RedHotChilliPeppers and I purposely skipped over two of them.

The band Blessid Union of Souls who is most known for “She likes me for me!” captures me only second to the next band. Blessid Union’s lyrics is what first caught my ear with the line “I tried to call, your old number, but the voice that I heard on the phone, I recognized, but you told me, the number was wrong” WORD.FOR.WORD that happened to me once. I don’t want to get into it, because it will spin off another long story but I actually called the radio station I was listening to and asked what the song was and who sang it. I love the voice and emotion the singer, Eliot Sloan, puts into every song and the lyrics which I can identify with so much. I have seen them in concert 22 times and I haven’t seen them in a few years.

Then is my obsession, my Boston Red Sox of Music, my man crush that is, Mr. John Bon Jovi.
I can’t even explain it. His voice, the music, the lyrics, the way it all fits perfectly together for me.
I have been listening since my 10th b day, 1988, when my twin’s friend brought over the cassette tape of slippery when wet. It was followed up by my favorite album of ALL TIME, titled “new jersey”. Over the last 20 years I have seen him 21 times in 6 different states in front of 500 people to 100,000 people. I’m one of the lucky fans who saw Bon Jovi open up the New Giant’s stadium. According to my computer, I have over 1300 songs of Bon Jovi-John Bon Jovi including his 1977 Christmas song “R2D2 we wish you a merry Christmas” and always looking for songs I do not have.

Writing
My math skills are pretty awesome so naturally, my English skills suck, or so I’ve been told my entire life.
However, this didn’t stop me from writing. When I was in middle school, I enjoyed writing this one story that my mom dubbed “the great American novel” It was pretty cool. (Keep in mind, 1990-91 ish) I was playing Super Mario Brothers in my bedroom when I got zapped into the screen and realized that I was now, Super Mario. I had to go forward and jump over the holes and jump on the goobers, hit my head on those various blocks and eventually go into the castle. I don’t recall what the rest of the story was about but it was a very very long story that I lost somewhere along the line.

When I was in 8th grade, we learned about the various types of poems and how to write them. I wrote my first poem of my own in Braille and it was about my Hero, Nolan Ryan. The poem was 81 lines long.
In my junior year of high School, using my Apple 2E computer, I wrote a poem for my first love, Lisa. It is called “how do I feel about you”. I gave it to her that year on Valentine’s Day. She loved the poem and the true seeds were planted, someone loved a poem I wrote. From time to time I would write a poem here-there throughout high school and college. I probably had about 20 poems. One poem has a very cool story behind it because I literally dreamt about the words of a poem. It came to me like credits rolling on a movie screen. The first night I “saw” it, it went too fast and I woke up too quickly. The next morning I woke and saw the words again and tried to remember as much as I could and then got up and turned on my computer and wrote it down. The 3rd morning, I was expecting it so kept my computer on overnight and when I woke, I tried to stay as still as possible and tried to memorize the poem as much as I could. I got up, and wrote the poem out and saved it. I gave it to my close college friend Jill. It is called “I have some things that you may want”.

When I was in college, my SR year I shared a room with a friend and his then GF and now wife. Although this made for some awkward and frustrating moments, it was the set up for the rest of the story.

I had left a poem on my computer screen and left the room for whatever reason. She had read the poem and loved it. She shocked me when she asked me if I would write a poem for their wedding. Up to this point, I never wrote anything for anyone else and not sure if I could since it would cause me to actually think about when writing.
I did accept the challenge.
The following week, she came back to me and asked if I would, recite it at their wedding in front of 300 (strangers). I am not good at public speaking. I would normally just freeze up and my throat would close up a bit, causing my voice to get weak.

I did write the poem. I did recite it.
My poem was also in their wedding program
I guess I could keep telling stories as every poem of mine has a story behind it but I’ll stop there.

The summer after I graduated I learned how to use the internet and got my own IBM computer. I started a diary on FOD, and that’s where my poetry writing flourished and multiplied. I came over to bloop in May of 2003 and continued writing and posting poems. Through the feedbacks I received, it just gave me the motivation to continue writing.

Each time I write a poem, I will write it in this MSW document titled “poem 1”. According to that document, I have 327 poems stretched over 480 MSW pages.

I write about everything from sex, drugs and suicide to love, romance and heart breaks to sports, music and other hobbies. Some are silly and some are serious poems. Poems about my friends and family and poems for my friends. Pretty much, I write where ever my imagination takes me.

When I write a poem, it's not because I am bored and say hey, I think I will try to write a poem.
I get a thought, a feeling or a vision in my mind and I try to get to my computer and write down whatever it is. Most of the times I don't even realize what I am writing. I'll go back and say, hmm did I write that?

I have 3 rules for myself when it comes to writing poetry.

1. Write, write till you can’t write anymore and when you are done, you are done.
2. DO NOT, go back and revise-change it. If you do, you are changing your original thought. You can go back to spell check, but that's all.
3. (This is why I love writing poetry vs anything else) no line needs to end with a period. The end of the line is the end of that bit of thought.

PLAY WRITE

In 2011, I did some research on how to write a script for a play. I then started writing a play that took place in the 1960’s, in a little city just outside of Boston. This smart, Jewish young man who come from upper middle class family, who will be the valedictorian of his class meets this average young lady who comes from a lower middle class, Irish family who is being raised by her father as her mother past away when she was young. These two fall in love and her father forbids her daughter from dating a Jewish boy but of course, they date anyways. Near the end of the play, he has to make a choice, go to NYU on a full scholarship or stay home and attend Harvard but without a full scholarship. I wrote 6 full scenes and 2 half scenes. I just need to finish writing those two half scenes and I’m done but I put it down and have not picked it back up again. It’s sitting there in my documents just waiting to be completed. Unfortunately, I got bored of it.

I was writing about relationships, crushes and friendships but it was getting a bit long and this is long enough. So I’ll finish writing that and post it next time.