life observations, thoughts

winter has been brutal. by far, the weather where i previously lived was much harsher and unforgiving, but having gotten used to such mild post-autumns has spoiled me and makes me wish that spring or fall were here again (because secretly i enjoy winters a tiny, tiny bit more than summers. i know, ass-backwards). it’s been the coldest and longest winter that i’ve dealt with since moving down here and with the horrible snow removal in my neighborhood – and general area – i have become less inclined to enjoy snow as it drifts in. as soon i see white specks flickering in revealed more clearly at night by the soft yellow glow of street lights i’m thinking “god that’s beautiful, but driving in this shit is going to be a bitch.”.

my office definitely did not escape unscathed by this past season. my work complex has been plagued several times by acts of nature (aka in-office floods) which has brought our general paranoia to a higher level. whenever there is hard rain or a large amount of snow we wonder if our office will be flooded and whether the precautions that our landlord took to prevent water from seeping in clandestinely will actually stand true. for two years things held up and then we became complacent; a few weeks ago the cold froze our pipes and gutters and the water came in and soaked up our carpets. shutting down operations, bringing in wetvacs, and making sure expensive electronics wouldn’t be damaged became our main priority. after the initial wave of problems our office space became wet and damp, bringing in mold which made employees sick and also attributed to the “swampy” smell that now permeated throughout.

suffice to say, bitching and moaning ensued and we are finally getting our carpets replaced. this of course required that we pack up our fragile belongings and little toys (breaking down my lego set was just as fun as it was putting up) in order to make things easier for the crew that would be coming in. now, while i sorted through my papers and documents to see what i should throw out or spare i came upon an old steno notebook – my first since working at the company – that mostly contained weird abstract doodles, several meeting notes and the hours i put in for the projects that had been assigned to me. deep within the uselessness inside i did find one gem: a draft for a letter i had written. it read:

Dear Dad,

I came to the LF (which is not a cult by the way) to learn about myself and relationships. However, what I’ve learned is that I haven’t been completely honest to myself. For a long time I have been under the pretense that you were never willing to listen to me, that you never thought that I could do anything right. In actuality I’ve been using these excuses and lying to myself that my shortcomings have been due to your unwillingness to support me and believe in me. Because of this interpretation, it has destroyed my ability to be approachable and to approach those that I love. I felt for many years that your critical and analytical report of me was only to spite me and make me look like a fool, but I have since come upon the realization that you only wanted the best for me and not have to go through the same hardships that you had to go through when you were growing up.

I’d like to say that I am sorry for blaming these things on you for all these years, and I ask that you forgive me. I have made the possibility for my life to be forgiving, trusting, open and accountable for my actions and as a result I am inviting you completely into my life and to begin the truly open dialogue that we never possessed. I hope and pray that you will except my invitation.

Love,

Mark

i read this to him the day after i wrote this draft. our relationship has never been the same.

life has grown into a great uncertainty.

i realized this after a night of severe dreaming. now, i get that it’s a well known fact that everyone dreams – however, not everyone remembers them when they wake up. being as i am one of those that don’t usually remember my dream visioned flights of fancy once i wake, it struck me odd that i would remember a lot if not most of what i dreamt last night.

perhaps it was the cold, frigid air that night, as i had left my door slightly ajar, allowing the rogue and less accepted air to creep into my bedroom – or maybe it was due to the fact that i had a particularly stressful time at work yesterday. i don’t think i’ll ever know.

what i do know is that while i stared into the mirror, covered in a slight sweat after waking from my last night journey, i felt that something was wrong. now, it wasn’t the type of wrong where i thought my life was in danger or that someone i cared about was going to die, but something definitely felt awry. so to try and analyze why the hell my mind was racing in this fashion, i sat down and began to recollect my first couple of dreams.

some time later, i decided that my dreams were pointing to the uncomfortable notion that i didn’t know what was up with my life. i am 4 years into my career, but don’t feel like i am progressing forward. my educational path stopped years ago despite my father’s adamant disagreement, and while he and many others continue to prod me that i should go back to school again, both my heart and my mind don’t want to. how can i ignore that? my financial situation is precarious at best, with one and a half years of planning hardly making a dent. i am still reeling from a relationship that disintegrated in front of me and have no immediate plans to pursue another one. not that i have a large amount of options in that regards – the memory of “lines at the door” has long been lost.

so while i am generally feeling better about myself these days, i really don’t know where i’m at and more importantly, where i’m going. but you know, i’m not really distressed about it. how can i amidst all this panic, fury and concern over nuclear, chemical and biological warfare?

i’m going to get some lunch.

i was inundated with work today. out of nowhere it came and hit me, like a midnight storm that is angry at you because you cursed at it when you were a young child. you couldn’t help it though, because the storm was so big and noisy and black, and you hated it and it scared you and you didn’t want to have anything to do with it. yes, inundated like that.

i have multiple clients breathing down my neck, and what do i do? i sit at my computer and ignore the piles of paper stacked around me like the beginning of a fortress and chat away, surf and write stupid little poems. for awhile i had my priorities right – i was motivated and feeling clean and heroic and inspired. i’ve decided that i’ll feel that way again, but not right now. maybe tomorrow.

i preordered a GBA SP from a company that imports japanese stuff (because stupid NOA won’t have a damn black one for north america, how dumb is that? now i gotta go ahead and waste more money on a fun little gadget that i will love and cherish and not because i dropped a fat nut on it) and for their manual authorization of my order they required me to scan the front and back of my credit card and send that to them. fucking weird and seemingly unnecessary and something that makes me feel un-intrepid. i had visions of small asians running around the streets (hey, that sounds like me) buying up all sorts of goodies from the streets of hong kong, laughing as they slide a fake credit card that has my information implanted within its magnetic goodness which would in turn siphon millions of dollars from my accounts. only thing is, i don’t have millions of dollars in my accounts. i scanned it and emailed it to them anyway.

i want to smoke. the craving for nicotine is maddening, and the constant undulation of my discipline has let me come close to failing in the face of temptation. i am particularly strong today and have only thought about cigarettes a few times, which is a large contrast from yesterday where every irritating moment, every comment that i didn’t want to hear, every searing criticism that pounded at my skull made a little voice in my mind’s ear whisper “smooooooooke…. smoooooooooooke…”…

but i’ll beat this damn vice yet. i’ve got it on the ropes, i tell ya.