Tuesday, July 21, 2009

What Do You "Do?"

That question. I hate that question. How I pay my bills does not define me, much as I wish it could.

What do I do?

Why, I am a cerebral prostitute.

I whore out my brain for money, M-F, 8-5.

While my brain is otherwise occupied, performing tasks that slowly strangle it in a gray shroud of boredom, my body is forfeit, as it is forced to sit in a chair during that time; getting fatter, slower, more useless. A month ago I started Metformin, because, at age 35, I have insulin resistance. Despite the fact that I sit all day, I am exhausted beyond measure. This body is a carcass, transporting the golden whore-brain to and fro, rather than a living thing. My hands shake constantly. I can't even remember the last time I felt "right."

I am on the "last-resort" antidepressant, an MAO inhibitor. It comes in patch form, and every morning I rip off the patch, and a good portion of my skin, to replace it with a new one.

For the last several months, while I've been away, I made the mistake of listening to the slew of "follow your bliss" bullshit artists, whose line is "do what you love and the money will come." Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. By all rights, I should have gone even more insane from the stink of it. If I had in my possession the physical amount of bullshit I've wasted my time reading, money would no longer be a problem.

You know how they've managed to "follow their bliss and the money came?" They sold volumes of fix-your-life fallacy to suckers like me, who are searching for a little bit of hope.

I am that idiot who bought into the "get a real job, be a grownup, ignore every true thing about yourself" line; believing that being an artist would be the impossible way. Now, I will drag myself onward; waiting to die, always regretting having lived.


Tuesday, August 05, 2008

ARgh.

Trying to fix template.

Not working.

Liking WordPress better all the time.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Always a bad sign

It's always a bad sign when I start blogging at the office.

I (made the mistake and) watched a program about Alzheimer's disease. The show, and it being Sunday night in general, got me started on a pretty heavy doom spiral. Some days I feel like I'm just biding my time until I find out what is going to kill me.

The leading contender is stress, being overweight, not eating right; and the resultant heart disease.

From how my GI tract has been acting, cancer of the pooper seems a likely second contender (of course, that could just be related to the stress, as well).

Third, we have the whole vast list of unknowns. Alzheimer's (early-onset is the one I'm concerned about), cancer of various regions, etc., etc.

I'm doing my damndest to try and squeeze some joy out of this life, but Monday mornings just make it difficult. One good night of sleep just ain't doing it for me. (That would be Saturday night; since I'm still too drunk jacked up from work to sleep on Friday night, and Sunday is...well, The Day Before Monday.)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Well, crap on a stick.

Things are just not going well today. The server at work has crashed- permanently.

I find it somewhat ironic that a similar situation caused me to start this blog; 4 years ago:
The server at work blew up.

Dammit

I was trying to get rid of the damn AdSense bar, and screwed up my template in the process. This place will look like ass for a little while, until I can find my old template code, and fix it.

If I can find my old template code.

If not, a remodel will be in the works!!

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Plan

After I quit writing on here in 2006, things actually got much better at Humongo. They were so much better, in fact, that I could actually see myself staying with the company for a good, long time.

Then we moved to Houston. I transferred to the Humongo office here. Things went into the crapper, quickly.

I'm not blaming Houston, because I really like it here. Even though this is the first time I have lived here, Houston gives me an "at home" feeling that I never got in Dallas.

The problem with the Houston Humongo office was, it had only been in existence for 2-3 months before I transferred in. There were absolutely no projects in the office. I can't stand the hectic workload I have now, but I can't stand having absolutely nothing to do, either.

I'm not a marketer- never have been, never will be. While the 3 senior guys were out chasing work, I sat, bored as hell, for 8 hours a day. On the surface, it sounds great; but let me tell you, it's awful. For a while, I took my sketchbook and markers in, and drew cartoons prolifically. However, the guilt over blatantly goofing off all day got to me- not that I had anything productive to do, but the guilt is a powerful force. I could think of nothing else but what I could be accomplishing if I weren't stuck at "work." I would wander around downtown at lunch, sometimes for 2 hours, alone. The other folks in the office, while really nice, all had at least 10 years on me. Not much to talk about after a while.

Also, I was the only one in the office who knew how to use CAD...so I wasn't liking where that was heading. During my 2-year hiatus from blogging, I earned some hard-won experience as a Project Manager/ Architect. Trying to stomach moving back down the food chain to pure CAD Monkey was not possible.

So I left, to go to where I am now, with the shiny new prospect of working with my best friend from college (definitely not Dude). Sure, I'd be taking a pay cut, and losing tons of benefits, but it'll be okay, right? Because I won't be doing healthcare work anymore, and I won't have to deal with big-office politics, and I'll be working in a more laid-back environment, right?

Those last three things are true. However. Dude is an ass. That's all I'll say about him for this post, because it's too damn long already.

Although I'm going to try my damndest to stick it out for 2 years, at the very least I simply cannot go back to a large company without having some sort of friends in this town. I know that sounds stupid, but when I think back to the worst part about Humongo Houston, it was the crushing loneliness. Currently, I have 12 architectural co-workers (the Dudes don't count), and 9 of them are kick-ass people. Socializing with them is often the only thing that makes going into work bearable.

Because I have become so thoroughly involved in all aspects of projects, there is great potential for me to make excellent contacts- and not just in architecture. For reasons I won't go into here, there are possible art world contacts to be made.

My plan, as much as I ever have one, is thus:
  • I'm going to stick it out until I can make some friends outside of work, so that I have a damn support system in place when I make yet another difficult career move. The last three jumps have been made on my gut, not with my brains; and they were tough.
  • I'm going to force myself to gradually work less each week, with an ultimate goal of 40 hours.
  • I'm going to force myself to not feel guilty about it (this will take some work), and not let Dude's idea of an acceptable amount of hours dictate how I feel about this.
  • I'm not going to let Dude get under my skin anymore. This may be damn near impossible.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Experience

Dammit, Google.

Yesterday, I followed the "In Memoriam of Randy Pausch" link at the bottom of the Google start page, and watched the video of his "Final Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon (it's over an hour long, but it's totally worth it).



It is this kind of thing that makes me feel all kinds of crappy. This man had terminal cancer, and had accepted the fact that he was going to die. He was completely satisfied with how his life turned out. He made achieving all his childhood dreams sound so easy.

If I found out I had terminal cancer, I'd be pissed as hell. This is not the life I want to leave behind. I feel like I've been stuck in some sort of financial-physical-social stasis since 2004; and I've been powerless to get things moving again.

One of the things he said resonated deeply with me:

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

I've certainly been getting a lot of experience over the last few years. All of it has got to be worth something.

On the positive side, the video served as a pretty swift (if temporary, as always) kick in the ass. Ever since watching it, I've spent the entire weekend working on my art. I accomplished a lot. This weekend was good, and restful, and I'm ready to face tomorrow at work.

Which is good, since I'm thinking about trying to stay. I know, I know! I'm just a big ol' waffle. Running may not be the answer, for once.

I'll come back to this later. Too tired now.