All The Same New/Old Stuff.

So hello all and a happy new year to you.

I am going to try to ease back into this whole blogging thing. I have been absent from it for awhile now. There are a lot of reasons for that, but mostly we will just put it down to discombobulation.

First, there has just been too much work lately. Too much. Just too much. God, so much work! Even when I wasn’t working 10 and 11 hour days, I was still coming back to my little apartment and collapsing into an exhausted little puddle November and December were especially bad and busy at work. It is amazing how much a stressful day can just sap all of the juice out of you. It used to be that sitting down here with my little computer was the haven when I hid from the stresses of life, but at some point this year that simply ceased being true.

Also – and this probably isn’t going to make much sense to most people – I think I have forgotten how to write. Not in the most literal sense. Not like some railroad spike went through my brain and I miraculously survived except that I can no longer compose sentences. More like I just haven’t been able to get into the place where one needs to be in order to compose poems about unicorn smuggling rings or to actually write a short story. One has got to be in the right head space to do that sort of thing and I just have not been able to locate it. For now, let’s just put it down to stress (stressing myself out is my one real superpower).

It would also be true that life has been strange for me personally for a little while now. I know that the life I have right now really is not the one that I want; it isn’t fulfilling and I can’t remember the last time that I woke up feeling even a little bit zesty. There just hasn’t been any verve in me lately. If I believed all of the commercials on television, I would probably have to assume that I need one of those testosterone pills or something. Sadly for both me and the companies out that which sell testosterone pills, I do not think that this funk can be pharmacologically cured. Though I was recently – sort of – offered cocaine. Though I’m not sure if the guy offering actually had any cocaine. He might have just been drunk. Let me tell you, I did not hang out in that bathroom long enough to find out!

Speaking of bathrooms, I recently made a trip back east for Christmas. Yes, I spent several days in snowy Connecticut, with some little bit of time spent in New York City. Among other things, I had a Norman Rockwell night with (most) of my family. Building a snowman out of freshly fallen snow and breaking my tailbone sledding with my brothers. I was all very American Gothic of us.

While I was out there I also found a little bit of time to run. It was a new experience for me running in real biting Winter cold, with snow falling lightly and little white flakes melting in my warm puffs on breath. There was an interesting thing that happened in my brain as cars shot by on the little country roads, the people inside of them would look out at me quizzically as if wondering, “What in the holy fuck is wrong with that guy?” Anyway, it made me smile. I like being a runner, even though I am still quite bad at it. If the measure of being something is doing something, then I was most certainly a runner. At least right then.

Also, I try not to talk about my family much open here – because I am the one who has chosen to air all of his problems on the internet, not them, and I try to remember that – but I was struck, once again, by how lucky I am to have such a great family. In the lottery of life, I totally scored big with my family Even the ones who I didn’t see for Christmas I saw upon returning to the West coast. Without gushing too much, I just want it to be known that I have a loving and supportive family and when the book is closed on me and talented therapists finaly figure out what the hell is wrong with me, I can assure you that it is not going to be unresolved childhood issues.

Let’s see … what else?

Even though I have not done any actual writing, I have been thinking quite a lot about writing and I recently figured out a big piece of something which had stumped me for quite some time in the novel I am perpetually working on. It is nice when a problem can be solved. So now that I have solved this gaping hole in the plot I should really sit down and – you know – write it.

All in good time though. I have refused to make any actual NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, because that seems to me like the best way to guarantee failing at them. However I have quietly made some plans for myself. Some small and delicate promises. They are exactly what you would expect: I want to write more, but not just that. I want to DO SOMETHING with that writing. I haven’t had anything published in quite awhile and that is 100% due to the fact that I simply haven’t sent anything out in awhile. So it isn’t just about the writing, it is also about putting myself out there.

Also, I am simply at the point where I need to find a new job. I’m tired of the hours and the stress and the not-so-great-money-considering-the-hours-and-the-stress. At this point I feel as though my work ethic is being somewhat taken advantage of. Almost as if they go, “Hey who should we give this last-minute and impossible problem to?” and then it invariably lands on my desk about 6pm and they say, “It is suddenly your job to have this fixed by tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, we are all going home. TTFN!” I have been in the position several times recently where I had to INVENT ways to fix things. Not simple FIND ways, but literally invent them. It just seems to me like that shouldn’t be required of me. Sure, if I worked for the CIA or NASA or something then I would understand, but I don’t work for those places. I work in a totally normal office and all of these problems could be avoided through some better management. But alas, I have said too much. I don’t like to complain specifically since I use my real name on this here blog.

Finally, I am going to make a very real effort to become more fit, physically and emotionally and intellectually. I didn’t read enough last year, I didn’t write enough, I didn’t run enough or do enough pushups and I certainly wasn’t GOOD enough. I have had some passing moments in the last few months when I have felt like a man, not just an erstwhile thirty-something who is a grown-up because he has a job and pays his taxes. No, there were a few moments sprinkled into all the chaos when I felt like a man; like somebody who had it together. I would like to feel more of those moments. Most of them came with moments of clarity. I have offered a few real apologies to people who I really owed them to. I came clean about some things and it felt good. I have tried to be more honest, with myself and with others, and that felt good. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on the hyper-ironic mockery of everything, but I also haven’t given up on hope and on joy and on the idea life is always a work in progress.

So there is all of that. I’m sure none of this means anything to you, but it is good for me to sit here and say all of this. I hope that your year is going well so far. I hope that you are healthy and happy and pure of heart and I hope you are looking forward to good things in the days and weeks and months ahead. If nothing else,  I hope that you are as thankful as I am that that whole Mayan Apocalypse thing didn’t pan out.

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