Tired Tired Tired.

I've been in no mood to write. It must be the weather, in part. It's cold and rainy and blechy. Today was the type of rainy blustery day that I always associate with my college days. The quality of the air, the wind, the light rain -- for whatever reason it makes me think of school and of mid-terms. Its also the type of day I would throw my covers back over my head and spend the day languishing in bed. But in this school you just get 15 days PTO a year, never mind a summer vacation - so you must choose wisely, lest you piss it all away.

Another reason I haven't written lately at all is that I am just tired. Tired tired tired. Its no wonder though, since my insomnia is kicking in pretty good and my brain just is not clicking the way I like it to when I write. I'm not sure if its really beneficial to my writing per se, but it certainly is more enjoyable.

Larry Block or some other author recommends you to write no matter what, even when you don't feel like it. Its important to me, and you dear Internet are important. All three or four of you that read this semi monthly. Or not. So here I am forcing it, for what its worth.

Onwards then...

Career possibilities are careening around my head again. Cinematography, photography, feature writing, screenwriting, graphic arts, painting, drawing, advertising. Even cooking school. Yep. If you check my IE history you will see FCI pages. If you look on my bookshelves you will see GRE and LSAT books. Somewhere there is even an application to CUNY Psychiatry program. I get Pace nursing school information. Westchester Community College sends me EMT literature because I had spoken to them last summer. Of course there's the Coldfusion, ASP.NET, SQL and SQL Server 2000 books as well. In short, I am all over the place. Part of me wants out of tech and another part of me thinks I might do well if I could just find niche and a mentor. That's not really working out though. Not yet.

So what does all these careening career thoughts mean? Just one thing. It means JamesBoDean here is none too happy with work and clutching at straws to find a way out. Still though, I don't think its coincidence I've tended to look at the less pragmatic choices - ones that take a ton of time and a ton of education (aka a ton of $$). Psychology would be a good example. It plays into my lightly held, very naive belief that you can do whatever you want, do whatever you put your mind to. No dream is too big and its never too late to change your life. But the reality of it is I am a bit old to pursue a PhD in psychology and it's not like I am coming off of twenty years of raking in the coin and I'm ready for a change of pace / second career type thing. I'm just starting to get this one figured out! However the advantage in choosing such impractical goals (at this juncture) is that one, I don't actually have to follow through and two, I get to feel miserable about it. Do you get it? The psychology of its pretty clear. I get to do nothing and be pissed off about it.

In my heart, I think I know what I need to do. I need to concentrate on one of these hobbies that I've laid aside (drawing, painting, writing, guitar and so forth) and try to grow it as best I can while performing the best I can at work. At least it would bring some balance to things. Anything else really seems like change for change's sake and rings false. I think Thoreau said it best...

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.