It's never easy.

Had an interesting meeting earlier today at work. It looks like my job is going to be moving in a new direction, and one which I am actually enthusiastic about going... This could be a deal breaker for my planned move back home. The decision to move still remains, now it's just a question of where do I want to go. One one hand I could stay here and keep working in addition to going to school, I'd just have to move closer to work and find a place that's a little less expensive. On the other hand I could move back to AZ and try to find a job, establish residency, and eventually move back out of my parents' house once I found a place that I'd want to stay. On the gripping hand I could come across something unexpected and do something else entirely. Sometimes I wish my life were simpler.

Have to cut this one a little short as I'm at work right now, and though it's a little slow I don't like spending too much time on personal matters. Damned ethics...

Sweet sorrow.

How is it possible for life to be so beautiful and suck so much at the same time? I just had the best night of my life in about the last 5 years. But the one that I was with is already someone else's. And I love her, and him, too much to do anything that would screw that up. Classic Romeo and Juliet syndrome, but fortunately (unfortunately?) I'm a lot smarter than either of those two tragic youths to throw away so much of my life on a brief moment of exquisite joy and pain that would be involved.

This might be part of the problem that I have in forming lasting relationships. I'm already in love with someone, and I know that the feeling is mutual. This might just be a problem of the fantasy always being better than the reality, but we've never had a reality beyond just being friends, so who's to say. Granted, we've had our problems in the past, and would definitely have them in the future, but at the same time, we agree on so many things, but have the benefit of differences that the other finds interesting. In order to acheive the same depth of feeling for someone else, I'll have to have known them for as long as I've known her. More than half my life at this point. Troublesome to say the least.

Since I recently had a birthday, I've been reflecting a lot on the last year, and my position in life in general, so this might also be some kind of natural extendion of that. I've definitely had an interesting year. Losing a job that I was expecting to be a career, and finding a new one. Asking lots of questions about where I am, and for the first time really deciding that I may not be on a path that I really want to continue down. Love, life, religion, status, the eternal questions that may never have answers. I think I've got a fairly good plan for moving forward, now I just have to stick to my guns and follow through, as opposed to just going where the current takes me. It's both exciting and frightening at the same time. Tonight is just helping point out to me that I need to CHANGE! and drastically before the option to make any significant change is passed.

I may not have been posting much as of late, but if I've got something to say, then I'll be here writing about it most likely. Enjoy the ride.

Back and Badder than Before

Well, I'm feeling a little better today. Still have a touch of a headache, but it's nowhere near as debilitating as it was previously. I've also got food in the fridge again, so that's one less thing to hassle with. Eating more is one of the things I seriously need to think about again. I found a scale at work and discovered that I weigh 145#. Great if I was 5'10", but since I'm 6'4" that gives me a BMI of only 17.6 putting me well into the underweight category. Granted I look ok with some very well defined musculature as my body fat is probably down around 1-2%, but I also look extremely skinny. Not to the point that I look malnourished yet, but if I don't start eating more then that's probably not far off.

On a happier note, the Hawk is Back! Granted, it's slightly offcenter and a little bit thinner than I had hoped, but really no worse than when I had a "professional" cut it last time. Also right now it's a little on the short side, but I think it might actually work out better that way. It's easier to spike and, given the natural curl of my hair, tangles less. They haven't yet seen it at my new place of work, so tomorrow night should be interesting. The guy who rides his Harley will no doubt think it's pretty cool, but my lead, well, I don't really know what he's going to think. Still though, it's nice to ride the motorcycle and feel the wind on my freshly shorn scalp. It's a sensation that is undescribable if you've never felt it, but the closest I can think of would be like having a scalp massage after a really long tough day, only all over at once and lasting longer to boot. Now somewhat perversely this style is a lot easier to maintain than my previous '50s generic male, but it requires far more maintenance. Have to shave it again at least twice a week, and preferrably every other day if not more. But hey, nobody ever said that looking THIS good was easy, right? XD

Bleah

I hate being sick. Of course, this could all just be an allergy reaction combined with not having eaten anything in the last 24 hours or so and oversleeping. But I've got the headache, nausea, and a fever so who knows. I don't have any food in the house, was supposed to go shopping when I woke up earlier, so I'm going to have to get up and moving just so I can garner SOME sustenance. Just not really looking forward to it right now. Hopefully I'll feel better after taking a shower.

I'm Not Dead Just Yet

I hate writers block. This one was somewhat self imposed though. I looked back over my past entries and found that I didn't really have much to say that wasn't there already, so I decided not to post for a bit to see if I could spend some time coming up with exciting or interesting things to write. I've discovered that I'm a fairly boring person... Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my life and I have quite a few different things that I'm interested in, it's just that I don't do a lot that I feel would be interesting to others. But, given what I've seen in other blogs making their way through the aether that's not really the point. The point seems to be to tell your story no matter how boring or uninteresting you might think it is, because someone out there will probably find something that you never even thought to look for. Maybe they will even let you know about it and allow you to realize that your life isn't just marking time until you die and allow you a greater appreciation for some of the small things that make you a wonderful person. Of course the flip side is that someone might point out to you just how shallow and uninspiring the things that you do take pride in are. Either way, just write something, and even if nobody else ever sees it you will at least have one more activity that you can feel some sense of accomplishment for.

So, had a few interesting commutes over the past week. Despite their best efforts the cagers have yet to succeed in killing me. At one point I almost had a core sample of my head taken by a pipe sticking off the back of a truck... Weather has been rather amazing with all of the storms coming through and temps getting up to the 90s. It's kind of strange really, the same people that will drive 80MPH through a blizzard with a foot of snow already on the ground won't go more than 20MPH once that first drop of rain hits the windshield. The duality can be rather aggravating at times. Also had an interesting couple of days at work escorting a technician. He didn't really know what the heck he was doing and I ended up teaching him a lot about his job. The routine is becoming more so every day.

It's odd how rapidly one can fall into a routine. Here I am, not yet a month into my new job, and I'm already used to it. There are still a few surprises here and there and I'm still building relationships with coworkers, but the pace of change and discovery is already slacking off. Now would probably be a good time to start working on getting a few of those certifications that will help me get a better job down the line.

Choices

Work was about the usual last night, but the drive in was interesting... Attached is the weather map from about 5 minutes before I left with my approximate start and end points showing as the red markers. I'm sure my mother would be happy to note that I took my car. Not that I mind riding the motorcycle in the rain, but for an hour and a half in full rain gear in 75-90 degree weather means that I would be severely dehydrated after sweating my brains out while trying to remain relatively dry. It did make for some very pretty scenery on the way home in the morning, but alas, the battery on my phone died so no pictures. It's fairly interesting to see snow on the mountains when it's still this hot out. Fortunately (?) the storm system is supposed to stay here for a couple more days at least, so I might get another opportunity soon.

Just finished reading The Years of Rice and Salt again and it's made me reexamine a few things in my life. If you haven't read it, then I would recommend it. Basically it reaffirmed that, at it's core precepts, I still remain Buddhist in my outlook. But as with seemingly all religions nowadays, the dogma seems to have overtaken the message in importance and thus I find myself unable to join the congregation. I digress though, back to my examination of my life. I find myself fairly content with my life, but it feels somehow lacking. With all of my gifts, I somehow feel that I should be making a greater contribution somewhere. I suppose I'm just waiting for that one "Dare to be Great" moment to come along so that I can make an important choice, and hopefully make one that makes the world a better place. Not that I haven't had my share of crucial choices in my life, but most of them seem to affect me and my life more than they do anyone else's. I'm fairly certain that in most of those I made the right decisions, or at least I don't regret the majority of the choices I have made. There are still a few that still remain in contention as to whether or not the correct path was chosen, but things seem to be working out so far. I guess my main worry right now is that for most of my life I've been alone, but for the first time I'm starting to feel lonely. How does one change at this point? How can I somehow transform myself into a person that actively seeks out more and more friends, when my life up to this point has marked me as a lone wolf with just a small number of blood trusted companions who have shared the path for a while? Is that what I really want, or do I just want to get back to alone without being lonely?

I know a lot of that sounds fairly depressing, but I'm not really seeing it that way. It's more of a "Here I am, now where do I want to go?" feeling. More hopeful than maudlin. Definitely something to spend some time on.

Sammy's a Fighter

I know I don't mention too much about my family or what's going on in other people's lives, but I felt like sharing this. My nephew has been having a rough time as of late but it looks like his chance at a future is getting a lot better. Check out my sister's blog if you want to know more details. Suffice it to say that I'm happy for the little guy. Also, no offence to Olivia and George, but for never having met them, Samuel has always been my favorite. It's great to hear that my odds of seeing him grow up are steadily improving. And a little bit of an aside, since familial relationships are awesome, but since no one I know seems to know what to call the relationship once you get beyond immediate ties, I found a handy chart that explains it all.

And after talking to a few more people from my last job, apparently the layoff was an actual layoff this time. I suppose that the suits at my old company are evil, just not as evil as I had imagined. Of course, this is most likely just round one or a precursor to them shutting down the command center entirely and moving it elsewhere, but at least they had enough honor left in their shriveled little souls to do the right thing when cutting the remaining numbers in half. Either way, I'm better off having gotten out when I did and am happy working at my new job so no tears there.