(Preliminary grumble: WordPress 1.2.1 for iPhone ate a nearly-done draft of this post when I tried to go from local draft to online draft. It also didn’t update to 2.x through the standard App Store update process despite both being free. WTF, WordPress?!?)

Sigh. Another long stretch without posting. It’s not like I have nothing to say. One look at my Twitter feed will tell you that. And I have posts cooking in my brain about favorite topics like Lost and The Best Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of and a bunch of other things as well. (I mean, I saw MUSE live, ferchrissakes! MUSE!!)

So why no blog posts from me? I’ve been feeling really frozen up inside, my guts knotted by anxiety, for months.

You ever get the feeling that you’re standing at a Rubicon in your life? What’s more, have you ever felt terrified, even though you know that crossing over is The Right Thing To Do™?

I’ve been there for a while now…almost a year, really, since I started the current job. In other respects, I’ve been there a lot longer. Depending on how you prefer to look at it, it could be since I had surgery, since I left home en route to college, or even going back to murky childhood. I’ve definitely written on the subject before, though.

And I’m feeling kind of “reinvented out” after the number of times I’ve done it in my life, so I really want to get this one right in order to not have to do it agin anytime soon. It’s hard work, don’tchaknow!

A few things have me brooding on this topic again:

1. Getting ready to move out of the apartment I moved into shortly after starting at my old job, thereby shedding the very last vestige of the life I led during the Tale of Woe™
2. Watching other friends being or becoming all self-actualized ‘n’ stuff. (There are six links in there, folks!)
3. Feeling like I’m finally about ready to start expressing myself in the world now that I’ve finished the process of creating the “release version” of me.

The hardest things I’m going to have to learn are self-motivation and discipline, my twin bugaboos. Need to turn those dreams into action and all that. Like I’ve said before, inspiration is never my problem. It’s that “perspiration” part that always gets me.

Universe, help me channel the Spirit of Nike®…

It’s just that taking that step and really committing to not procrastinate ad infinitum, to not constantly sedate myself with the modern opiate of the masses, and to stop fearing the risk of failure is just pants-wetting terrifying after a lifetime of the bad patterns.

My rational mind knows that doing is a skill like any other, one that anyone can learn regardless of initial talent for it (which is good because my initial talent level is roughly that of a rhinoceros with a neurological disorder taking up skateboarding). My irrational, software-virus-ridden mind tells me something quite again in the voice of my parents, every teacher I ever let down by not fully realizing my Awesome Potential™, and every friend or lover I ever offended in a moment of thoughtlessness. Unfortunately, that voice has always been so much louder than the voice of reason inside my dense cranium. (‘Sides, nowadays, even the voice of reason is starting to sound a bit suspect…)

So, the emotional pressure has built up inside of me and I feel like something’s gonna give. EIther I’m going to become Super Self-Actuated Sonya™ or I’ll just give in to my couch-tuber tendencies forevermore. Ye gods, that sounds emo! >.<

I just hope that, much like Lane Meyer, all I need is a taste of success, and I’ll find it suits me.

In the meantime I stand, tremulant*.

*10 Scooby Snacks™ to the first commenter to correctly identify the source of this title. And yes, I know it’s not a real word!

A writer, they say, writes. This makes me a sysadmin, queer/poly pervert, a geek, but certainly no kind of writer the way I’ve been neglecting my blogging. And, really, the whole point was that I was trying to improve my writing habits. But, I’m not writing it off yet. (See what I did there? It was a pun, people! A writing-related pun! HAH! Oy…)

So, I’m going to check in and tell you about the nosebleed-inducing highs and the soul-grinding lows of late. All three of you who still read this blog after months of basic fallowness.

I’m not breaking down, I’m breaking out…last chance to lose control!

Some of the highs, it turns out, were chemical. And they were helping me screw some things up in epic fashion. If any mental health or medical profession ever again tries to prescribe me any form of Wellbutrin, they’re getting a smack. I mean it. The stuff is seriously no good for me. It and another antidepressant called Remeron were effectively doing bugger-all for me and canceling one another out for some months as my primary-care was at his wit’s end trying to help me medicate myself out of The Tale of Woe™. (One of these days, I’ll post a timeline of that. Long story short, it was about 3.5 years of my life during which the universe seemed to be conspiring to turn me into emotional road-pizza.)

Actually, that’s not true, it wasn’t accomplishing nothing. It was draining my pocketbook horribly on my current employer’s horrible high-deductible + HSA health care plan.

So, my newly-referred psychiatrist thought it would be peachy-keen to step me down off the Remeron first, leaving the Wellbutrin unchecked (and the truly marvelous Cymbalta as the only really effective med for me in the cocktail). And the resulting behavior prompted my therapist to say I was acting like a bipolar person in their “manic” phase—euphoric, out of control, and in my case even more oblivious to the concerns and needs of those around me.

I ended up burning my romantic relationship with wee Amy (tho thankfully not my friendship), screwing up so badly at Bawdy they asked me not to come back, and so obsessively seeking new partners that I almost drove the lovely Renie away completely.

Once I came down, I was (to continue to overuse the word) mortified at myself. I can’t think of a single relationship I didn’t strain, romantic, platonic, or employment.

Don’t try to keep your composure, I’m only having a laugh…

But there were happy things, too! My relationship with Renie has been intense and amazing. Even if we don’t make it (though I still have this odd presentiment that we will…I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am), it’s nice to know that I can feel chemistry that intense for anyone, and that someone so miraculous could feel it for me.

I’ve also been seeing two delightful women named Amy C and Kanane, who’ve just been wonderful to me. I guess my polyamory isn’t “academic” anymore, and what’s more it’s really nice to settle into a groove without feeling obsessive about meeting new partners every which where and all the time.

My longstanding friendship with a woman who’s always impressed the hell out of me—Heather—deepened in a wondrous way, as has my friendship with Amy of Chasing Amy, who’s also damned impressive. Chasing Amy has also been responsible for some of the more interesting and sexy stories of my recent life, for which there will be future blog posts, have no fear. (Teases: “Best…housewarming…EVAR,” “Pasta and strippers!” and, “FIVE?!? And a boy in the room?”)

I’ve also made new friends, like the astonishing Mags, and reconnected via the Internet panopticon of Facebook with two friends I’ve known from birth (mine or theirs, depending), Nick and Sam.

And Polly! Never has anyone made me look so good as this camera-slinging Photoshop goddess. She’s sweet, kind, and talented. How could I know her for a couple of years and only now start to realize how cool she is?

I am so surrounded by exceptional people. And they all, oddly, seem to like me. How cool is that?

The psychiatrist poses as psychologist…

And my therapy has gotten in-fucking-tense. We’re into all the crappy childhood imprints I took that have been holding me back since time immemorial and perennially making me feel like a loser and a failure. I’ve been avoiding talking to my mother for months now knowing that, after our last conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the next time I talk to her I was have to read her the riot act. She still wants me in her life things are gonna have to change, swiftly and permanently, ’cause I’m not having it anymore.

*sighs* What a fucking cliché.

But this is going out to all my friends…I need your help. I need your encouragement. I need you all to check in with me and help me overcome all this crap in my head that keeps me from doing things for me. Doing things for others, never a problem. Other people deserve things, and the people around me are so worthy of happiness and success.

But I’m having such a hard time making those baby steps toward feeling like I deserve things, too, and not neglecting myself horribly. So help me not lose sight of my goals and wants, OK? I really need you guys now.

You all rock. And speaking of rock, 10 Scooby Snacks to whoever can name all the songs quoted in my section headers without Googling ‘em. (Not that I could prove you didn’t Google them, of course…)

But I won’t wait two %^@!*($#^ing months to write again.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
—Ancient Chinese After-Dinner Prognostication Slogan

Well, I suppose in my case it would actually be closer to the 116th day of the rest of my life given that it was on November 30, 2008 that I lost most of my job. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve kind of been dragging my feet some in getting serious about building The Rest Of My Life™. I’ve already bitched in these pages about the steady, inexorable way in which the nice life I’d built by the beginning of 2006 had torn itself apart, so I won’t go launching into that laundry list here. I’m going to try to stay more positive.

Much like our old friend the fortune cookie tells me, I’m in a place of flux in my life right now and a new life is going to emerge from the ashes of the old. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the smoking crater of the past, to be sure, but I’m starting to get a flavor for what the new life is going to be and how I’m going to have to challenge myself to improve to make it work.

I know that January 1st is more traditional for announcing resolutions, but that’s only for the new year and I’m talking about the new life. So, on to the resolutions…

1. I’m going to make myself get up no later than 8AM on the weekdays and 10AM on the weekends. Sleeping away my life, as comfy as my memory-foam mattress is and as cuddly as Pi is, is not a terribly useful thing to do.
2. Conversely, no more of this “staying awake until 3 and 4AM or even later” stuff on a school night.
3. I will be on time to things (barring extreme calamity) and stop making my friends, or anyone else, wait for my happy ass. I try to pull that shit with clients and I’ll be on the street and starving in no time.
4. I’ve invested in and will actually use the organizational software, Things (also available for iPhone so you can stay organized on the go!), in conjunction with my other existing tools (like iCal) to be better organized.
5. Actually get things done for myself.

Oh yeah…in addition to all those good intentions and starting a new business and other entrepreneurial endeavors (Geek Salon, an iPhone app idea I’m pursuing with a friend…more on that another time, though), I’m also going to have to find shared housing and move at the end of next month. Oy!

But in order to do all this, I’m going to need the help and support of my friends, loved ones, co-workers, and other well-meaning folks.

Living alone has given me a feeling of isolation that really hasn’t helped me in trying to get my life jump-started. So, please…if you have my contact info, use it! Call me, IM me, email me. Check in with me, see how I’m doing, ask how things are progressing, maybe invite me out to stuff. The more momentum I can generate during these difficult first steps, the better, so help me not do my counterproductive withdrawing thing I’ve been doing so much of lately.

I’m going to start living The Rest of My Life™ rather than mourning the passing of what was, but like the man sang, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Thanks, everyone!

My first draft of this was even more emo than this, so just be glad I came to my senses. It was going to be sorta-kinda poetry. Free verse and worth every penny. This is what I get for having thrown out all my bad poetry from when I was 15…I almost subject you, my dear readers (all three of you), to the spectacle of a 37-year-old bleating on about being too this and not enough that and oh, how life is unfair, but even more so when you’re a lazy bitch with depression and crap self-esteem.

So, consider yourself lucky.

But the fact remains that, much like my dear friend, Dana, I have no idea here at midlife-ish who I want to be when I grow up.

That I’ve been dragging my feet on my small business idea (a Mac-based, full-service IT consulting firm, for the record) just reinforces what I already knew, namely that IT isn’t What I Want to Do For the Rest of My Life™.  Do I have the skillz to pay the billz in that business? Well, on a technical level, you betcha. On a business-admnistration and self-promotion level, I’m not so sure. That I’ve been dragging my feet on my Geek Salon idea (long story…tell you about it later if you don’t already know) tells me just how fearful I am of trying and failing. That I’ve been dragging my feet on my own writing really fills me with dread because, much as I’ve always felt I had a few good books or scripts or what-have-you in me going back to when I was a kid, it makes me wonder if I didn’t defer that dream a bit too long. To say nothing of being thoroughly cowed by the skill of writers I’ve been reading lately, like Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, or Alan Moore.

So I finished my transition…so what? What difference does it make that I’m as close to biologically female as medical science can make a male-to-female transsexual when I have no idea just who this woman is supposed to be for the next 40 years or so. Nothing is pulling on my heart and mind the way my transition did, saying, “You have to finish before you die. You can not let yourself give up before then!” I have no purpose…and it’s eating me from the inside out.

You know that feeling you get when you want to go out to eat with a bunch of friends, but every single restaurant or cuisine that’s suggested feels like a no-go? You don’t know what you do want, but you know you don’t want anything suggested thus far. That’s been my life for the last three years ever since I got back from Scottsdale and the last brief stint of true happiness I’ve known so far.

Political activism and crusading law certainly inflame my passions…and hell, I’d probably make for a damned fine lawyer given my penchant for arguing minutiae and my obscene memory for endless trivial details. Only trouble is that the quixotic nature of that life, the never-ending compromises, and the inevitable disillusionment with my own alleged allies would drive me to drink in short order.

Creating literature, moviles/TV, and/or music still has an allure to my heart, but feels too risky for me. I’m living on borrowed money, which means borrowed time if the old adage is to be believed. And it’s not making me burn the candle at both ends to do it regardless of “success” or “failure,” either. *sighs*

And more hardcore science or math would mean going back to school on money I don’t have to build skills never gained or long in disuse to do something I’m not sure I’d like anyway. The only part of that scenario that I’m sure I’d like is going back to school, but that would still require a goal. “Life-long student” is not a viable profession, whatever some of my former UCSC classmates might think.

It’s really enough to make me wish I could make myself content to be an IT technician and want to do that enough to make myself jump out of bed at a respectable hour.

If anyone has any suggestions for (re-)finding one’s bliss, I have to say I’m all ears.

I think I may have missed a real opportunity.

Some time ago, some friends asked me to do up a logo for their “Stop RealID Now!” campaign. I complied, but the first batch of concepts didn’t really do it for them even though I really liked them. They ended up going for a more basic design featuring a stylized ID card with a multicolored circle-slash over it, seen to the right.

The first round of designs ranged from the snarky to the downright eldritch, each picking on a different “all-American” logo. The Masonic eye-in-the-pyramid on the back of the $1 bill got mashed up with the Eye of Sauron, a classic “American Eagle” department logo became somewhat big-brothery, and the DARPA Information Awareness Office logo was given just the slightest of tweaks since it was largely self-parodic already. See for yourself!

And I really didn’t think much more about them until I looked at them again about the middle of this year. Then, an idea hit me. Maybe I could use these pieces. Maybe I should put together a satirical blog along the lines of Landover Baptist or Whitehouse.org, purporting to be the inner workings of the US government’s official “Department of Evil.” (Founded under Nixon, of course, but in its strongest incarnation yet under Bush II!)

There was going to be all manner of goodness. It’d be “staffed” by an array of vaguely demonic (in the sense of Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light in Dilbert) sorts doing their bumbling best to strip away all the civil rights and liberties of the US and paying lip-service to the evangeloonie right while sniggering at them behind their back. You get the idea.

And then I sat on it until it was entirely too late for the satire to be relevant enough to be truly biting. If it’d gotten started with Bush in full sway rather than before it became 100% clear that there was no way the GOP was getting out of the 2008 elections without major bloodletting, maybe I could have mined some humor from transforming it into the “kinder, gentler” version of itself of the sort last seen under Clinton, and then Carter before that. But that’s not the time to start something like this. I mean, Hell, who knows if Stewart’s and Colbert’s shows will survive a hope- and change-laden New Camelot™, much less some neophyte humor blog?

And don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying for one second that the US government isn’t going to do anything evil during the upcoming Obama Administration. It’s just that I missed out on the Roves, Cheneys, and Rumsferatus, who would of course be the true comedy gold of such a premise.

Anyway, I’ll probably hold on to the files just in case the GOP comes back into power in my lifetime, but let all the above be a lesson to you! If you’re going to do something with an expiration date, don’t procrastinate until it’s passed and you’re stuck with nothing but moldering leftovers where a great idea once was.