Monday, September 10, 2012

If My Friend Molly Can Post Reguarly From EUROPE...

Then I really have no excuse, beyond that it hurts to type and I need to save every available minute I have for work papers, because I have a $40 million paper to get out today and a $100 million dollar paper to get out by Wednesday.

I know, right? I mean, THAT'S boring! But it's what I do, and furthermore it's what the Man pays me to do, and, you know, it's not trivial, this business of planes and foreign militaries and surveillance and so on. It's not Dilbert, although it can look like it if you're not paying attention. It's Serious Business, and I'm good at it, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view.

Fortunately, because between Entrepreneur and myself, someone has to make the money, and really, if I'm honest, I had to make money previous to me being in this relationship anyway! I mean, sadly, no one pays me to sit around and look pretty. I KNOW. I'm annoyed every day.

And unfortunately, because I actually love my job and would probably go batshit insane if I didn't have something LIKE it to do, and because if I want do it well, it can produce a lot of pressure and stress, two things I don't necessarily handle well, and finally, because as aforementioned, it requires 10 hours a day of constant typing and it turns out that I now hurt like the dickens, all the time.

ALL THE TIME. It's still weird for me to think about it, really. Like this is my new normal. Like my body just woke up one day and said, "You know what? I think I'm going to stop working today. I'm just, I don't know, tired, you know? I need some 'me' time. I just have to go...somewhere that's not here." And just took off, and I'm sitting there at the restaurant on this date with life that I've made, all like, "How can you leave me like this? After all I did for you? I looked after you and fed you and took you on walks!" And my body is already out the door, and the waiter's there handing me the check that I can't afford and also I'm naked, although maybe that only happens in my nightmares.

But, yeah. It's weird. It's hard to get used to a new normal at 31. I have to rewrite my life narrative. Ixnay on the tequila-fueled salsa dancing marathons, bring on the multiple cups of tea and ergonomic shoes. It's not...exactly...like getting old, but it feels damned similar. To be comfortable with it, I have to rewrite my narrative in a way that has promise to me, that shows promise FOR me, that seems like it will have good things around every corner, secret easter eggs that I have to walk slowly to find.

And so I'm doing things like: taking a lot more pictures, trying to stay present in the moment instead of wanting to fly off into the Great Gray Cloud Of Sadness And Despair. Trying to find small, good, things. Like, for example:

The fact that I have great health care (and that is a LARGE good thing!) and that I can even put my partner on it, saving HIM money, which is a good thing for US.

Even HAVING an US. (Again: a rather large good thing.)

The fact that the internet exists. Miles and miles of internet, miles and miles of entertainment, and not just mindless, either. For example: there is my friend Molly's travel blog, found here. I mean, my friend Molly can post updates to her blog from all over the world, and I can read them, here, standing at my ergonomic desk wearing my ergonomic shoes, and people say we don't live in the future? (To be fair, I would still like a jetpack.)

Also, you know what else exists on the internet? The text of Ernest Hemingway's story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", the title of which I just realized does not use the Oxford Comma, which is a thing I know about because of the internet. (Curious? Google the following: Oxford Comma Strippers. I PROMISE it is actually safe for work and will make you LOL.)

And finally, the following:

PLANT! It's name is Plant. It's a maidenhair fern, and it's in my cubicle, and it makes me so happy.