Okay, it\u2019s time for some serious internet blog whining. I intend to vent. You are under no obligation to read this, much less to respond \u2026 I say it mostly to get it out of my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been feeling pretty down lately. I think that it\u2019s multi-factorial \u2013 and I suspect that like all of these episodes in my life it will resolve itself as the seasons and my fortunes start to turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But gah. Seriously. Meh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First off, it\u2019s f-ing late August. There has been no summer to speak of. Sure, we married off my brother \u2026 and bought a house. That was neat. There was also a bit of whale watching and \u2026 um \u2026 a weekend in Maine? However most of the summer seemed to involve sweating in an attic, work travel, dying cats, and writing large-ish checks to contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time in two years, I\u2019m stressing about money. I know. Whine whine privilege whine \u2026 but I had managed my life to the point where I was *not* stressing about money. Bills came, bills went. The budget worked, and I took time every few months to tune it. Now I\u2019m all \u201ccan that wait a couple of weeks so we can get paid?\u201d I hate<\/strong> stressing about money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did I mention nursing my cat to her inevitable, bloody end over the course of two months? Did I mention making the bi-weekly decision to not<\/strong> end her life followed by the special one-time-only decision to end it? Because if I forgot to mention that, my whining would be incomplete. We\u2019ve still got the cremated remains in a nice little box on the dining room table \u2026 along with about two months worth of backlog on crap that has no deadline to deal with but ought to be handled at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My health is awesome, yet I feel like my body is falling apart. My knees hurt. My shoulder hurts. My skin has little thingies on it that open up and then take a few days and a band-aid to heal. Some of you have long term chronic pain. I\u2019m whining about skin tags. I know, I know. See the header. My blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have great friends. I hang out regularly with some of the cooler people I\u2019ve ever met, and they seem to think likewise about me. I\u2019ve grown used to the \u2018imposter syndrome\u2019 phenomenon, where I can\u2019t really bring myself to believe my own hype. I live in fear of being found out as not really all that clever or productive \u2026 and that fear is what makes me work harder to keep it from being a reasonable fear \u2026 or at least keeps people from noticing it right-now-today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel like I\u2019m behind on a dozen things. The house in Detroit needs my attention. It needs to be emptied and sold at a loss. Downtown Detroit is not coming back any time soon, and that house isn\u2019t going to get easier to maintain. Of course, dealing with that will require both dealing with recalcitrant family and (naturally) sweating in an attic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, I ought<\/em> to be working on something \u2026 meaningful \u2026 but I don\u2019t know what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel this vague and morbid sense of dread when I think about the future. Me. Mr. \u201cI\u2019ve trained my mind and spirit to a high degree.\u201d Mr. \u201cgives decent advice on matters both of spirit and flesh.\u201d I meditate. I do 120 push-ups at a stretch. I cite eastern and western philosophy. I\u2019m working on black belt number two in between yoga practice. I\u2019ve sponsored my own goddamn scholarship. I bring religion to the atheist club and atheism to the thanksgiving table. I play chamber music with my peers, I\u2019m a fish and farm co-op member. I participate in an annual art retreat. Still, I find that I have no goals that extend beyond age 40 (that\u2019s the second black belt \u2026 ), no deep passion for my work, and no hobbies that I wake up and think \u201cgod, what a cool hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I waste a lot of time on trivialities. I\u2019m starting to think that I understand what the Dalai Lama means when he says that he considers small talk a sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You know what I\u2019m looking forward to right now? Finishing this house move. I want to schedule the movers earlier rather than later, mostly because it will get the process over with sooner. I want to stack up my schedule and get kicked in the ass \u2013 win or lose \u2013 succeed or fail \u2013 but get in the game. I\u2019m sick of waiting for other people\u2019s schedule to determine my own. Bring it. All this week? Great. All today? Even better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m fully aware that I\u2019m the luckiest person I\u2019ve ever met. I can\u2019t even begin to imagine what it\u2019s like to be someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you\u2019ve made it this far, then your input is solicited. I don\u2019t need any self help crap. I\u2019ve read it. I write it. Instead of that, expect more of me. Call me on my crap. Don\u2019t let me get by with the same answer I gave you last year \u2013 demand more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yo. Out. Gonna get on a plane in 7 hours \u2026 but first perhaps \u2026 yes \u2026 a little auto-tune the news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Okay, it\u2019s time for some serious internet blog whining. I intend to vent. You are under no obligation to read this, much less to respond \u2026 I say it mostly to get it out of my head. Here I shall say nothing that has not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-bloggin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1959,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions\/1959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Here I shall say nothing that has not been said before
And in the art of prosidy I have no skill
I therefore have no thought that this might be of beneft to others
I wrote it only to habituate my mind.<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n