Overdue for a rant...

Hopefully, all of you had a good holiday. I was off for three days, worked Sunday and Monday, and have spent the last two days catching up on Hulu during the day and tearing through Smallville Season 9 with Shelly at night.

So much of my life is and has been dedicated to escapism. I love novels, comic books, film, television, video games-virtually anything that allows me to not think about my life for a while. I had a rough year or two, but my life hasn't been all that rough, overall.

I did well enough in school, had both parents during my formative years, enjoyed several long-term (but ultimately doomed) relationships, graduated college, and even worked in an aspect of my preferred field off and on for seven years.

For no reason whatsoever, I was on the edge of having a full-fledged panic attack all afternoon. I was watching British sketch comedy, so I don't know what might have triggered the feeling, but it was unmistakable.

I work a minimum of fifty hours a week, with a variable schedule. I don't have time to think about the details of my life while I'm there. Instead, I wait until I'm off work to worry about it.

A lot of people are fortunate in that they've never had a panic attack. These same people are typically always assholes if you try to explain living with an anxiety disorder to them. They've never had the pleasure of worrying so much that they wonder if they're having a heart attack, then have to worry about that on top of whatever made them anxious in the first place.

I spent nearly 5 years taking medication to help my anxiety, but various people told me that it turned me into an emotionless asshole. A nurse I once dated referred to it as a "blunted affect." One day, I decided to not refill a prescription, and in that instance, I was rewarded with the best laugh I'd had in years. The lows hit lower, but the highs hit so much higher.

Recently, I've been a downward trend, a slump or rut, if you will. I've got a lot of things for which I should be thankful, I have a hard time keeping my spirits high. I truly felt I'd hit rock bottom last year (end of a long relationship, a return to my parents' home, the loss of my job) but this year's main success (getting engaged to a good woman) is basically the only good news I've gotten all year.

I feel like the human equivalent of livestock right now.

The Threadbare Throne

I spent several hours sitting in my chair today, my first day off since starting back on last Tuesday. Since moving to Fort Smith, I've spent at least two hours a day sitting in my chair, but for the past week, I've barely had any spare time to just sit. From here, I applied for jobs, watched far too many hours of television via Hulu, listened to podcasts-basically spent entirely too much time online with nothing to show for it.

This was (and technically still is) Shelly's chair, and her various cats had already given it a delightfully shredded look, a tradition that our kitten Loki continues with great enthusiasm.

As per my usual routine, I visited a few of my favorite sites, caught up on a few shows via Hulu, and even checked the classifieds. There were a total of NINE jobs listed on the Times Record's online employment want ads. I guess I got snatched up at just the right time.

Shelly and I made a trip to the Cracker Barrel in Alma, followed by a stop at the Target on Phoenix. A stop in their book section made me realize that the first step in getting a book franchise up and running is not skimping on the cover art. I really don't think I'd like most things Rick Riordan has written, but they do look neat...

Today seemed to last a great deal longer than when I was unemployed. Work days don't fly by, but neither do they crawl. They are long and suitably fast paced. I expected today to pass rather quickly, but Shelly and I drove two towns over, ate breakfast, walked around Target for an hour, and I still had time to sit around and enjoy doing almost nothing for about three hours.

I even made split pea soup from scratch after that, and still had time to sit in my chair while I write this post (though I don't think the soup agreed with my, and I fear I may have to vacate this throne for one even less glorious).

-Andrew

Angry Robot Time Machine

I haven't had a lot of time to collect my thoughts for a fresh post, but luckily for you, I still have some leftover thoughts-on-paper from the steno pad I found in my trunk. Enjoy!

I just got back from Tulsa, where I did some clothes shopping. Always kind of depressing.

Even when I lose weight, I can't just buy something off the regular rack. I've got to the "Big & Tall" section. I want to know, if most of the people in America are as fat as studies say we are, why don't stores carry more fat people clothes?

Even when I was thinner, it was hard to find clothes. I've got odd proportions. A regular 2X on me is basically a belly shirt.

I've had trouble like that since I was a kid. Do you know how weird it is to be too big for Chuck E. Cheese by the time you're six?

It was kind of traumatic, but not all bad. I got to ride the good rides at carnivals much sooner than everyone else, and got into R-rated films without getting carded when I was fourteen.

As I recall, the first movie I saw on my own while underage was Kevin Smith's Mallrats. I went with Matt Hickman, a neighbor kid who turned out to be distant relation. I recall that I didn't get much sleep that night, because a) I'd eaten an entire packet of chocolate-covered coffee beans, and b) I had successfully tossed some sort of candy into one of the wall sconces in the theater on a dare, and was terrified that it might overheat and start a fire.

Ah, to be young and afflicted with irrational anxieties again....

Here's a little something that turned out to be rather prophetic.

You know you've been working in an office too long when you have a favorite type of pen.

Pilot G-2 07's. I love them. Any time the receptionist goes to the office supply store, I have her buy me a pack on the company card, even if I don't need them. I think I have three unopened packs in my drawer right now...

Does anyone here think busy work will help save your job? If the bean counters come in, I don't care how many spreadsheets you've made in your spare time, your ass is GONE.

I'm actually hoping to get laid off soon. I haven't had a proper vacation in three years. I work in advertising. I figure I can take a pay cut to be on unemployment and still sit on my hands about the same amount each day.

You know what? I wasn't wrong. Aside from my three-month stint at 5 News, I spent almost a year to the day on unemployment. It was glorious. Work is and shall continue to be kicking the shit out of me, but I'm pretty good at it. For those of you wondering what I'm doing: stop asking. If I wanted you to know, I'd have already told you. It's a mundane job that pays the bills, and I hope to never see any of you while on shift.

The fact that I live in a city of relative strangers makes it easier than if I was in my hometown, but the math finally beat me. If your only choice is to apply for jobs outside your preferred field, and you must make three such applications each week (in order to receive unemployment benefits) eventually, someone is going to offer you a job, and at that point you have to take the offer.

I guess I did have time to compose a few thoughts after all...and I still have leftover pens.

-Andrew

From the Vault

During my brief lunch break today, I went out to my car and looked for a notepad in the trunk. I found a couple yellowed pads that had some pretty obvious water damage, but the real find was a blue steno book with A TON of good stuff from the days when I was newly-unengaged (don't worry, my current engagement is going great, so don't get confused), freshly unemployed, and for the first time since leaving home at age eighteen, living with my parents.

Here are a few selections, that certainly took me back:

If I had a time machine, there are two things in my life that I would change:

1. I'd stop myself from breaking up with my girlfriend in junior year of high school because I thought I was going to lose my virginity to her (thank you, church).

2. Skip College, and get a trade.

Do plumbers or x-ray techs have twenty-year structured payment plans to pay off their schooling? Fuck no. And unlike videography, editing, and copy writing skills, people will always need someone to unclog their drains, or take pictures of their broken bones.

I'm still pretty sure on the first time-travel mission, but I've revised the second part to convincing myself to pick something a little more marketable, like a teaching degree. Here's some commentary on romance:

My parents have been married over thirty years, almost half of which, my dad has worked nights. This, I think may actually be one of the keys to their success. Relationships are so hard these days. Most women I meet, I don't want to spend thirty minutes with them, let alone thirty years. Even when you do meet someone you like, that doesn't mean the feeling is mutual...

I was definitely going through a temporary bout of misogyny there, but luckily, I got better, and when I did, I found the right one.

This next piece was probably written during a sales meeting. It's always curious where my mind wanders during anything corporate. I once spent the better part of an hour-long training session plotting scenes for a sci-fi erotica story that seemed creepy even to me by the time the donuts wore off.

Who doesn't like a night on at the strip club, right? Cheap beer? Check. Topless women? Check. I tried to come up with more reasons, but that seemed to be enough.

I didn't go inside a "gentleman's club" until I was twenty-six. I want to know who decided to call them gentleman's club. I have never seen anyone remotely resembling a gentleman (or lady) in a strip club. "Creepy guy club?" Maybe. "Douchebag's Club?" Definitely.

The weirdest people spend the most money, and ninety-percent of the time, they're wearing suspenders or overalls. It's as if whenever the farm subsidies check rolls in, Farmer John leaves the sheep alone and comes to town.

And on that horrifying mental image, I bid you all sweet dreams-but don't worry, I've got a few more tidbits from this treasure trove to share with you later.

-Andrew

Behold, the Horror that is...SHOULDER-CAT!

Rather than go downstairs and type, I decided to sit in our rather large closet (my friend, John Carter, likened it to Harry Potter's room under the stairs at the Dursley house).

Loki, the younger of our two cats, started clawing the door, so I let him inside. He's recently developed a habit of jumping on Shelly's head while she brushes her teeth. He prefers a variant with me: attempting (mostly successfully) to jump on my (usually shirtless) stomach and bounce onto my shoulder.

I was and am sitting Indian-style (no, I will not call it "crisscross-applesauce"), and he is now perched in the shelf above my clothes, having employed my organic trampoline-gut in his ascension.

While I was unemployed, he and I spent nearly every day together.

Shelly rescued him from almost certain death. Loki's mother had most likely been put down by a maintenance worker at her school, and he was left to fend for himself.

She called me and said, "I've got a surprise for you, and it's not my fault." I knew then that it was either a cat, or someone had given her a bunch of clothes for me. We weren't yet living together, and she did most of the work, bottle-feeding the barely month-old kitten, even when she was working a band camp.

When I moved in, Loki officially became "our" cat, but I like to think of him as mine. Shelly already had Cleo, her obese tabby, but I hadn't had a cat in nearly ten years. During my most recent period of unemployment, he and I spent most of our days together.

Now that I'm going back to work, I feel sad that I won't have as much time to enjoy his company.

I'm especially concerned for what hell he'll unleash on Cleo (and the furniture), now that he'll see fifty hours less of me each week.

For now, I face a more immediate dilemma: how am I going to get out of here, now that my legs have gone to sleep?

On the Precipice

My last day of freedom is winding down. I got up as Shelly was leaving, good practice for the run of 7a-5p shifts I'll be working as my training schedule progresses. I made cheese grits for breakfast, watched an episode of The League on Hulu, then fell deep into the world of Red Dead Redemption. I may be returning to the real world and planning to write with some regularity, but it is going to be hard now that I know I can get $2 for skunk meat at a general store in a video game.

This time last year, I was preparing to leave on a journey across the country. Now, I'm preparing to begin another kind of journey, but one that was long overdue.

When I was in college, my psychology professor said that people who went into business doing things that they loved could eventually learn to hate those things. I love television and movies, and for about six years, that's what I did. I don't know if I had enough time to learn to hate it, but there are definitely things I don't miss about the business.

The research my professor was quoting found that most people do better finding something for which they have a knack, and then simply doing it well. I did alright working in TV, but I can't say I ever really felt like I was consistently good at it. Fortune smiled on my career, and I was lucky to work with some good people in the right place at the right time.

My best skill is basically being clever. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I have a way with words, and a way with people. My new job will actually let me put that skill to use, though not in a way that I'd really allowed myself to consider until now. There are a lot of people out there who are truly smarter and better qualified than me that are in far more dire economic straits.

I've been given a chance to get back out there, and while I won't be making much more money than I was on unemployment, I now have the potential to work my way up a ladder, something I never truly had when I was working "in my field."

I love some things in this world, but I now realize that work doesn't have to be one of them. I love good books, good stories, and good people, things you can still find, even here in Fort Smith.

-Andrew

Return to Reality

I've had two really cool vacations in the last year, both in the wake of trying circumstances. I had taken long weekends, and enjoyed quite a few paid holidays every year, but I hadn't taken a proper vacation since my trip to Memphis in 2004.





My fiancee and I went to the Fort Smith Historic Site today. Despite living here for nearly three years, she'd never been, and I had only made the trip from Springdale with my family once, when I was about twelve.





After stamping my National Parks Passport, we watched a short video about the site's history, as a military installation, trade post and eventual courthouse. The building's interior had received a major overhaul since my childhood visit. I was slightly underwhelmed by the current restoration of Judge Isaac Parker's courtroom, but I enjoyed the view from the barred windows of the basement prison. The walking trails that wind down to the Arkansas River made me want to start jogging again (I miss Lake Fayetteville).





Going back to work means I'll get to take vacations again someday. I'd initially thought of my unemployment of a vacation, but without the benefit travel, it quickly wore thin. Even the word "vacation" seems a little hollow. Europeans go on "holiday," while we Americans simply "vacate" our lives for a while.

The next trip I take will likely be our honeymoon. Shelly doesn't have any particular demands about where we go. I wonder if she'd be up for Denali...