Another Fucking Velvet Morning

For going on two days now, Blogger has had a "Scheduled outage at 4:00PM PDT" sign above the posting field. 4:00PM on which day, one asks?

I'm some 130 pages into Jonathan Franzen's The Collections, which is going slowly for me, considering it's over 600 pages in length. This feels like a committed relationship. This is the third book I've started in the last two weeks, but I no longer tend to read more than one book at a time. Once upon a time, I'd read four or five. I should strive to return to that time. My mind was sharper then. I feel old when I think of things like that.

A month and a bit, and I'll be 33. I'll be 33 and without a clue where my life is headed. Or will I be? Hmm. I may then have a clue. I suspect a lot will happen in these six weeks. I have the power to change a lot, but do I have the time?

My home is a disaster, I'm working 50+ hours a week for the next two or three weeks, I'm trying to create a podcast, writing every minute I can, trying to have some semblance of a life, and don't know my head from a hole in the ground.

I find myself getting angry at the lack of time I have, but I amassed so many bills in my two and a bit freaky months that I need to pay off, and will be unable to do so without the additional work. Pity I'm paying taxes on it. Sigh.

I'm hitting that birthday's-approaching-and-what-have-I-accomplished need to do an inventory again. I reflect a lot, you know. Obviously. Back in the day, before I adopted "A Scribe Called Steff," I was Rearviewmirror. Always with one eye forward, one back.

This time, I'm in a strange place. In a job I don't feel I really have yet, and can't seem to trust, in a limbo physically, mentally, and emotionally, and no sense of any of what lays before me. I'm just a classic Winslow Homer; adrift or suspended.

Sigh. A load of laundry's in, and I should be having breakfast, but I awoke to dark skies and a pounding rain, and I fear my morale's taking a hit.

I've been having back problems for three days now, the kind that can get serious in a hurry, the sorts that begin as spasms and evolve into shutting you the fuck down. I'm a little alarmed, and am trying to stretch it out, but with not as much success as I would have hoped by now. Add to that this professional uncertainty I'm feeling, as well as the realization that my hands have gone drastically downhill this year and I'm always hurting a bit when writing now, and you'll find me a sad Steff that a birthday seems to be coming and for the first time ever, I'm feeling some concern that they're coming and always going, and another one looms behind it.

Measuring one's life is a troubling thing to do. Measuring your place, your accomplishments... Whew. Heady shit.

I can take getting old, I just don't want to fucking feel this way. I suspect back problems will come and go for the rest of my life. I'm sure I can learn better behaviours that might give my hands and wrists more longevity. I always have rock-hard forearms, for example. I suspect that when my check for fame and fortune arrives, I could start getting regular massages, and that might help. That's what I need: A masseuse for a lover. Fucking right I do.

God, that reminds me that I have to respond to this local guy who's been propositioning me. Bah. Another fucking hassle. Aspects of it/him appeal, but not enough for me to add another annoyance to my life right now.

I need to decide if I can handle tutoring anymore right now. The spending cash would be awesome, but I don't think I can manage it. I think I need two weeks off or something. I'm getting overwhelmed and tired and bitchy, and it's not helping things. I guess I'm up, then I'm down. I slept nine hours last night, and I wake up and think, "My god, think of all I could've accomplished if I'd slept two hours less!" This is no way to live. I wish I didn't have bills.

I would ditch my old job in a heartbeat if I felt confident of where I'm at in the new one. Come September, I can start tutoring about five hours a day on Saturdays and make some cash there, and hopefully ditch them by Thanksgiving and take a couple days off work.

Maybe I'll pull out all the stops sooner in favour of staying home more and spending less. Either way, there's a price I pay, isn't there?

Okay, today's a 7 on the depress-o-meter, maybe an 8.

I had a keychain once, Virginia Woolf's quote: "If you are losing your leisure, look out! For it may be that you are losing your soul."

You said it, sister. Depressing then, that she killed herself. Wow, this is harsh, I'd never read about her death before. Now I wanna read a Room of One's Own.

At the end of 1940, Woolf suffered another severe bout of depression, from which she felt she was unable to recover, partly due to the onset of World War II. On March 28, 1941, at the age of 59, Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse, near her home in Rodmell. She left two suicide notes; one for her sister Vanessa, the other for her husband, Leonard, writing, "I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness... I can't fight it any longer, I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work"

Yep, depression's a bitch. I need to make a decision today about this work thing and deal with it tomorrow. Phone people, buy myself some time: because that's what I'll be doing. By not working, I will be buying myself some time -- exchanging money I would have had for time I would have lacked. A business transition. So, then, I need to consider: What will that time be worth for me? What can I generate from it? If I buy that time and use it to generate a new website, an audio show, and a merchandise store, isn't it fair to say I'd be investing in my future?

Ahh. This is one of those times when you see I'm a friend to logic. If I can reason it, I can believe it.

Yeah, I tried the work thing. I'm cutting back to 45 hours a week. I can't handle this. Once that happens, I'll feel better. So much for the wardrobe, et al. All I can say is, Gift Certificates, people. Birthday? Gift certificates!

And while I do collect stones, there's no need to fear me loading my pockets with stones and entering the Fraser River. The girl had style, though, didn't she? Nothing uncouth like a bullet in the skull, which is kinder to the people doing the finding, no?