Perhaps I ought to wait until the last day of the year to bash out some thoughts about the dozen months gone by, but knowing how well I’ve stuck to my writing plan lately I’d probably end up writing this in mid-January… or not at all, most likely. (Let’s not dwell upon how many things I meant to write about but never did, and now can’t because I’ve lost too many of the details. Ugh.)
Two thousand seven, the year that was… after the break. (more…)
Just because I have a place to write doesn’t mean that I have anything to say.
I wonder how much my lack of writing output is because my life isn’t terribly interesting. Not that it ever was, I suppose. Maybe I’ve just lost my enthusiasm for talking about myself. What’s to say? “More of the same, yep! Some parts of my life are good, some parts are bad, and I’m tired a lot!” I don’t want to be the broken record guy, you know?
I want to change things up, but the pressures of my life keep squeezing me into the same routine whether I like it or not. I’m not even getting the basics done, most of the time. (Let’s not talk about how long it’s been since I last shopped for groceries.) The good parts of my life are good, make no mistake. I’m not complaining about the core parts. My health is as good as ever, there isn’t any relationship drama to speak of, my kids are their usual outstanding selves, nothing has broken or burned lately.
And yet, I’m tired all of the time. I don’t make very good company nowadays because I tend to yawn, fade, or otherwise wind down once the clock ticks past 8pm. To get a “decent night’s sleep” I have to crawl into bed shortly after 9pm, and that’s still no guarantee. Nightmares and insomnia are regular visitors in my psyche.
All of the projects I say that I want to accomplish require me to get home with enough energy to want to do more than curl up and veg out. I’m not sure what I can do about this. One proposed solution is to move closer to my work… which takes me away from nearly everyone I care about, which means I’ll only see them on weekends, which means my weekends will be overbooked, which means I’ll start work Monday feeling like I haven’t rested at all and still won’t have put in nearly enough quality time with my loved ones.
Hmm, I think not.
The other solution is just as plausible: Change jobs. And the less said about that notion the better, here.
So. Much of my life is good, but my ability to enjoy what’s good is hampered by the parts of my life that aren’t so good. Fun, eh?
The Sitka spruce along Highway 26 fell down. For some reason this saddens me more than finding out that SixApart has sold LiveJournal to a Russian outfit called SUP.
Here. Enjoy the two pictures I have of a big old tree.
This is not an auspicious beginning to my December, folks.
In attempting to make a positive-minded effort toward combating the general atmosphere of malaise I’ve suffered for most of the last couple of years, I’ve been taking stock and rethinking some aspects of my life. Some parts of my life I simply can’t change, and I find myself reciting the so-called Serenity Prayer on occasion. I find this amusing because, one, I don’t pray anymore and, two, every time it comes to mind I think back on the bad old days of youth when Mom was in and out of 12-step rehab programs.
But I digress. I enjoy digression, mind you.
On the personal front, Kyla and I have agreed to take another shot at the “relationship thing.” Over the last couple of months we’ve had some of the most open and effective communication out of our entire time together, and I think we might be able to function as a healthy pairing once again. Time will tell, of course, but the last couple of weeks have been consistently positive in that regard.
On another personal front, Lil’ and I continue our struggle against the vagaries of work schedules and other conflicts to maintain something resembling a healthy, ongoing relationship. Text messaging is our friend, for good or ill. Yesterday she received the welcome news that starting in mid-December she’ll be working a nice, normal Monday-to-Friday daytime shift. The gods rejoice! This won’t solve all of our scheduling problems, but it certainly won’t hurt.
On the family side of things, my kids are awesome. Not that this is really news, but it bears mentioning when both of ’em come home with excellent report cards and are getting high praise from their teachers. Erica, particularly, has shown incredible improvement in attitude and effort this year. Neither of them are “straight A” students, but they’re pulling down better grades than I ever did at their age and they’re on track to become decent adult human beings as well (which is more important). I’m intensely proud of them both.
One of the areas in which I’ve found myself lacking this year is in my writing, here and elsewhere. I run an anime forum and barely write there. I host this journal and barely note the highlights of my existence in it. I belong to several online communities in which I fail to participate. I have story ideas that never make it outside the confines of my skull. My schedule (and all the distractions surrounding it) precludes much in the way of extracurricular activities, but at least one of these complaints can be addressed if I simply start using my journal again more like the way I used to. Well, I might not post so many damned memes. I’ll spare you that much.
In my search for ways to make journal writing a regular event again, I looked into offline editors like BlogJet, BlogDesk and Windows Live Writer. They’re all decent products, even the Microsoft product, but none of them support WordPress 2.3’s tags yet so that idea’s right out for the time being. Instead I’m going to go back to a simple idea that might just work: I’m going to set my browser start page back to this journal. I don’t remember when I got away from that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the day I changed that setting (first to Yahoo’s then to Google’s portal page) coincides with the major decline in posting here. We’ll find out over the next few weeks if my crazy idea pans out, won’t we?
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
Excuses I have. I’ve been sick for a week and a half, missing two days of work during that time. My job has become more tiring and tedious. My personal life is in a state of flux. I’m broke, in spite of landing a substantial bonus from work last week. (That’s that last of those I’ll be seeing any time soon, too.) The mornings and evenings are darker, in the “sun rises later and sets earlier” sense if not the metaphorical sense, so I’m engaging in my annual battle against the onset of seasonal depression.
I considered joining one of the “national something-or-other month” activities such as NaBloPoMo. (During a particularly manic phase a few days ago I decided that I was going to do BloPoMo with a theme, such as “30 days of musical artists” or “30 days, 30 anime” or some-such.) I even considered WriMo, which I have insisted for years that I’d never do again. I realized, however, that I’d end up even more depressed if I started something like that and then failed to complete it. Given my track record with unfinished projects lately it seemed the better part of valor to forgo that particular form of punishment.
So, this month I’m just going to sit back and participate in my own little event: National Do Whatever Month. You may get a couple of the music mixes I came up with. You may get a rambling about animation from that planned theme. You may get two weeks with no posting whatsoever… yeah, that would be new around here, wouldn’t it? At any rate, I have several unfinished posts that need fleshing out and tidying up, so it’s not like I don’t have anything to say. (Of special note is the upcoming photographic journey through the building of the Very Expensive Media Center Computer.)
If nothing else, I can at least take some comfort in the fact that October is over. Hooray.
Here’s something I think at least twice a day: “I should post an entry about that.”
Stuff, you could say, has been going on. The problem for this journal has been that I rarely have both time and inclination to write about it. When I have the time, I usually have something better to do. Sometimes that “better” means “more fun,” but just as often it means “which actually needs doing.” Laundry comes to mind. Catching up with friends is a good idea. Taking out the garbage should be done regularly. Cleaning up my physical and electronic spaces in general needs doing frequently before things get out of hand. And, so on.
Never mind life itself getting in the way. Personal stuff, work troubles, financial ups and downs, they all take their toll on one’s available time and energy. I haven’t even been playing games much lately. I log into City of Heroes/Villains once a week, maybe twice on a good week. I played Space Empires V for a little while last week but I haven’t touched that game since Sunday morning. There’s the bulk of what I play anymore, folks.
Since I’ve been out of touch, and since the entire point of this journal is to aid my memory in the days ahead, here’s one of my patent-pending bullet-point run-downs. My recent life, in a series of dots.
That should cover it, I think. Not that I believe I remembered everything I needed to mention, but this looks like most of the highlights… right?
