Random Thoughts

I wonder a lot. But I wonder about everything a lot.

I still haven't found anything -- in this business or out of it -- to push me over the ledge of doing something different with my life. Maybe, one day, I will. But not yet. Not yet.

 

I think about career alternatives all the time, but I honestly don't know what I could do. I don't have the patience or the intellectual stanima to handle law school. Teaching requires an ability to translate to people that I don't have, and I project authority as well as I ballet (you've seen me, you'll need no further explaination). PR would be fine, except there's never any openings for people with no direct experience.

But I need a change. Take tonight. I have a bunch of stories that need to be written, and I sit here and cannot, for the life of me, get motivated to do anything. I'll plow through, get the work for this week's editions done, but it'll be ultimately unsatisfying and in the back of my mind, I'll reel a bit about how I've let me standards slip. It's disheartening, but I also know I'm far from alone, and I know people who've been fired for stupid and incomprehensible reasons, so I should be thankful for my job.

And I am, I am. I guess ... I dunno, if you think you have this gift, and god knows you don't have a whole lot else going for you, and it doesn't work out, you tend to feel trapped and more than a little hopeless. But then acting like this is somehow a unique issue to me would be the height of hubris -- people far better than I have had fates far worse. So I should probably STFU and just do something with my fucking life already.

 

Some of us are like air-traffic controllers, where our life becomes work and work becomes life, and we don't know anything else except wake up, work, take a shit, work, go home, toss and turn and never get a goddam hour of real sleep, wake up and do it all over. Sad. For me, the end comes after the 2nd or so year at a shop. But this time I've lasted 3 1/2 years because I love it here. The challenge was to stick it up the arsehold of the daily, who doesn't acknowledge my existence. But now I'm at the same point as all the other stops: games, games, games, features, pissed-off parents, unsatisfied coaches, games, games, angry everybody. I shoud be celebrating my top 3 award in the region this week, yet all I've thought about during this month of debauchery is "what now?" I stared at the TV during the Super Bowl without as much as an ounce of care. The other night at the state track championships, I stayed for all 5 hours yet couldn't wait to leave. That's what's sad. Because I love this business. But every day now for a month I wonder if I'll ever love this business enough not to sabotage myself.

 

Mod, how much do you charge for the pep talks? You're better than Stu Smalley.

 

ewwwwwwwwwwwww

 

Well, they come in handy, especially at the end of a shitty week. Now I get two frigid days off.

 

I'm not sure a pep talk would help, but I'm thankful to have this board to release a lot of pent-up mental juju.

 

Even the gym doesn't release it all anymore.

 

For all the gym work I've done lately, wicked, you'd be shocked to know what I've done on the flip side. Even I'm disturbed by it, and I've never been disturbed with anything I've done.