Category Archives: Introspection

In which I wallow in insecurity but you shouldn’t worry about me because, really, I’m fine.

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A minor site redesign today, mostly because I was getting bored with the old one. The wordpress theme I’m using is called “Twentyten” and the new banner image comes via a Creative Comments attribute license from a flickr user named ‘BRADYDAWG.’

Renovations work at the museum continues, and is going well, for the most part. I can’t seem to shake this near-constant feeling of anxiety, though. This is not a good thing. I posted as such a few weeks ago on facebook and a college friend pointed out that “anxiety is just another word for fear. So what is it you’re afraid of?” I think he’s absolutely spot on. I throw around words like ‘anxiety’ quite a bit without thinking about what they really mean. What am I afraid of?

I’m afraid that the renovations will hit some kind of deadline-busting snag. I’m afraid some additional expense will come up that will eat up what little remains of the budget. I’m afraid that some little bureaucratic detail will rear its ugly head and delay the renovation progress. I’m intimidated by being the one in charge of the renovations project – I feel visible and exposed. In the financial state of the University, I fear that not constantly proving my worth will lead to layoff. I fear the future. When this project winds down, will it be time to job search again? I hate job searching. Chicago doesn’t feel like home. Is there a place that will? I long for it; I fear I’ll never find it. What does the future hold? No way to be sure? I fear uncertainty. Too often I find myself thinking, “What’s going to go wrong next?” I hate that guy.

So, yeah. I have anxiety.

I fear.

The glass is half full, right?

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I’m not really sure I have anything interesting to talk about right now.

I mean. my usual go-to’s (traffic and the weather) just feel a bid over-played and I can’t bring myself to bitch about either one.

The semester is winding down, although you wouldn’t know it from my workload. Three big projects are dangling in front of me and none of them are gathering the momentum they should.

Also, I am as yet internshipless. I need to be internshipful. I’ve applied to three so far and have been rejected by two, and am waiting to hear on a third. And the third is the one I really want. I believe the person who is making the hiring decision may be speaking to my class on Tuesday, so perhaps I’ll learn more then.

All I know now is I really have to buckle down with the school work and get this semester behind me.

But for now, I have a wife to go on a dinner date with, some friends to host for some final four viewing tomorrow, and probably a bacon egg and cheese sandwich or two to eat this weekend.

In all, life’s not so bad.

pre-reboot

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Although I readily admit to not being a farmer (the only thing I grow is a pile of laundromat-destined clothes), I have read a thing or two about the subject. When growing crops, it’s important to remember the periodic need for a field to lay fallow; that is to let it not grow crops for a season or seasons, to let it simply lay still and be. This way, vital nutirients are re-introduced and the field can return to a state of healthy agricultural production.

I think a mind works in the same way.

I love to read. I almost aloways have a book that I’m working my way through; not because I have to, but for pleasure’s sake. That said, if I go through a cycle of finishonestartanewone,latherrinserepeat, I get to a point where I can’t read anything at all. My mind won’t absorb. I find I need to take a break of a week or so; watch bad TV, go on long walks, drink too much beer – anything at all I can do to let it all sink in, to let my mind become fertile again.

That happened here too.

It was bad timing, sure, but I was getting a little oversaturated with this here nerdhut at just the same time that I shook everything up like I was playing a life-scaled game of yahtzee (yhatzee?) or something. I had to go away, had to readjust my brain a little bit, had to settle in to a new place, a new set of activities, a new me.

That took about six months.

But I feel mentally good again. I want to write again. And so I shall.

Remember how Batman Begins was a “reboot” to the franchise? Well, next time I post, I’ll pretend that I have readers other than Nick, Kate, Ben, and possibly Pete, and “reboot” my own franchise, if you will. (That sounded tremendously dirty) Tacky and cliched introductory posts will follow, but for now let me set the ground rules:

I will post at least once a week. This post may come earlier, but at the latest it will come on Friday sometime between 12:30 and 2:30pm as these are the hours I’m contractually obligated to be in front of a computer.

This is my place. It is an iron-fisted democracy, not anything else. For any friends and family may come here and read, please understand that this is where I come to unwind, to vent, to be honest, to be me. I will never ever purposely offend anyone, but if you don’t like frequent uses of the F-word, unapologetic bathroom humor, occaisional screeds along my admittedly-confusing hybridized political belief lines, and the unholy (ha!) marriage of deep respect for/deep cynicism of organized religion, then I respectfully recommend you get off this trolley at the next stop.

Alot had changed, and really not much has changed. All that will be explained next time.

For now, let me just say hi. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I’m here.

Let’s do something fun.