If you were my girlfriend this would be the point where you asked, "why don't you ever talk to me anymore?" I know, because I've been asked that question in times like these. Luckily for all concerned, you are most assiduously not my girlfriend.

So yeah, I haven't had a whole lot to say lately. I've had a lot of fragments of thoughts but nothing that jumped out and said, "write me!" And nothing that came to completeness anyway, so I'd have started writing something and ended up deleting it every time. I dealt with that enough back in my college paper columnist days so I know how it goes.

Anyway, I guess the reason I haven't had anything to say is that I've been thinking. (I'm not content). I'm not particularly satisfied with my life lately, or I'm vaguely dissatisfied, or something.

This is nothing on the scale of a midlife crisis, and I'm not going to take up skydiving or quit my job and tour the country in a VW Microbus or anything similarly overwrought, but I guess I'm mentally looking for something in my life that isn't there. Of course, it's hard to look for something that isn't there, because when something's missing it's not always easy to tell what the thing that's missing is.

(I suppose at least one of you out there is going, "Dummy! What you need is a girlfriend! Duh!" That's not it either. It'd be fun, but that's not it.)

So I've been taking stock. House? Nope. Renting. Car? Only half paid off. Financial security? As if. Try not working for eight months and then moving to one of the most expensive areas of the country in the middle of that time and see how your credit cards do. Career? Eh. I'm doing stuff, but none of it really makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning and "hit the ground running."

So, let's look at potential solutions to the items listed above. House? Probably not yet. The time still isn't right, and I can't see myself paying as much money as it would cost around here. Car? Time. More time than I'd like, really, because of the credit cards. Financial security? Still quite a ways off. I can see my way to getting out of red and into black, and I'm making significant dents in the debts now, but as Ringo said, time takes time. Career? Eh. I'm stuck.

I can't quit, not that I'd really want to, since if I think I want to buy a house at all then I should shoot for longevity to make creditors happy. But I also can't make much more money here than I'm making now since I work for a stupid company that - in spite of 70% annual turnover - still undervalues its technical employees. So the road to improvement is longer and slower going than I really care for. And I hate looking for work. And this job actually looks like it's going to get much more interesting than it's been, although still with the same stupid company. And and and.

And I don't like being whiny. ;-)

So this is why I haven't had much to say lately. I don't like talking about things that aren't complete thoughts yet. I don't know what the answer is. I don't really want to quit, out of laziness, out of some loyalty to the manager who hired me, out of inertia, out of the hope that I'll get to do cool stuff.

I make enough money that throwing 30% of my net income at my credit card balances doesn't even touch my standard of living. I'm too lazy to allow mere debt repayment to touch that. ;-) And still, with 30% of my income going into the hole I dug over the past couple years, I'm not really getting anywhere. I suppose I could open up Quicken and look for ways to up that percentage even more. But that's no fun. I like fun. And I'm worth more money anyway. Why won't they pay me more?

I want something to live for. I'm getting tired of this ennui shit.

link (2000-08-03)