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Showing posts from October, 2015

A Halloween confession

Here's something. I don't really like Halloween. It makes me feel really, really inadequate. I am not the kind of person who likes to dress up in outlandish costumes. I also have a hard time relaxing these days around other people. I feel like I'm always wearing masks anyway, never really unable to tell most of the people I come into contact what I feel about anything. In order to do my job right, I have to check so much of myself and put it away.  But it's more than that, too. I can't imagine spending time to get a costume together. The idea of it all makes me anxious. My life is one where relaxation takes the form of hanging out by myself without a deadline. I feel anxious when I let my guard down, nervous that maybe I said the wrong thing. I'm happy for others who like the holiday and don't at all want to have people think I want others to not enjoy themselves. I just get a weird, sad melancholy when Halloween comes around and I'm no

Satisfaction

I had a great day today. I turned in two stories and worked on a third that's going to be an absolute blockbuster. More on that another time, though I really don't want to talk about my work that much here.  I thought I was supposed to work at Court Square, but when I realized I did not have to do, I felt like I could devote some time to myself. I went to Tin Whistle to finish work and met up with my work colleague Tim Shea who is leaving the organization soon. Speaking with Tim and his girlfriend made me happy, as did talking to several other friends I saw there.  So I decided to come home and try to make music. Astute readers will know this is a pastime of mine and has been for many years. Singing my own songs makes me feel alive, but I don't seem to be able t write them. I have to improvise them. I love seeing what I can come up with in the moment.  I also have a hard time sharing any of it because none of it is perfect.  I have dozens and dozens of hou

Thoughts on the future, the past, the gift of the now

I'm rewatching Back to the Future 2 for the second time in 24 hours. I'm looking forward to Saturday's Doctor Who. The concept of time travel appeals to me because I so often wonder what would have happened if I had made different decisions at key points. Both the trilogy and my favorite television show employ a narrative device that simply doesn't exist. But yet I often imagine how I might go back and fix mistakes. I am a time traveler. I've committed my life as a writer to understanding how people make decisions. I've learned so much about how the community in which I live came to be. I have spent the last eight years writing about decisions made. I am gifted with the ability to write these things down. I am also blessed with the ability to be able to write and sing my life in my personal journals, and I often write about time travel and patterns that I see in my life, personally and professionally. Sometimes I think I am trying to create a bootstrap p

Two months into 42

This is the first day in seven that I'm going to go to the gym. I feel weird about this because I would love to go. But I'm working on a story and I have to go to work shortly. I don't much want to go to work, but I'm facing up to my responsibilities. I'll also work tomorrow, finishing up this story as well as doing a catering shift. This isn't where I wanted to be, financially, at 42. But, it's what I have to do. Becoming suddenly single so suddenly after purchasing a house almost seven years had an effect that will last well into my fifties. Now that I can see my fifties approaching, at least on a spreadsheet, I no longer feel young, mentally. I feel my options are pretty limited, so I'm trying to be the best at the things Physically, though, I feel fantastic because I know I'm on the right track. I've not had a soda in almost two months and I've given up coffee. I've also given up hope in other arenas, but I won't go into