Bits 'n Bobs

My great return to blogging has been a little less than impressive. Thankfully, with Madame2Bar out visiting a friend in hospital, the kids in bed and bugger all on TV I have almost zero excuse to blog.

After working my way through the procrastination flowchart, that is (thanks Téa).

I just realised that, even though I've not been blogging, I have at least a dozen draft posts and a good size more ideas sitting on my thumb drive awaiting posting. Which makes me question whether I am a) depressed or b) just a lazybum.

The fascist Howard dictatorship has now been turfed out of office. I must admit that it would have been funnier watching Labor self-destruct after another defeat, than the inevitable Liberal 'handbags-at-dawn' fight over the tattered remains of what is left of their party. I won't cry myself to sleep that Kevni won ... the Liberals have been hard to love lately. I wonder if the party will reform under a new title or continue as Australia descends to one-party rule? Interesting times ...

My little brother, heretofore dubbed 'OneBarRiff', has been in hospital for a number of months with some pretty serious stuff. He thinks he contracted it when his immune system was low on account of depression. Wait a minute ... sister, brother, me ...? I'm sensing a pattern here. So are my parents, which brings more crap to deal with.

Owning a pool is great. I think I've assembled an inventory of chemicals that could make a serious sized explosive. (Hmmm ... I wonder if ASIO tracks these kinds of things?) Being able to take a plunge in a perfectly temperatured pool after a 39 degree day isn't too bad either. Roll on summer.

The low employment rate is starting to bite at work. At the same time, I know plenty of people who are looking around for alternate employment. It's a matter of finding the best fits, I guess. When I started work in the early 90s, you couldn't find an accounting job for love nor money. Now it's gimps straight out of uni wanting $50K per year. Pah!

I'm turning 35 soon! I've started drafting a birthday post but finding it hard to work out want I want to say (not an unusual predicament). I do, however, feel that having nothing to say would be wrong.

And finally, I picked up my guitar for the first time since the operation! Here is video to prove it.



One would have thought that a near 6 month, self imposed layoff would have inspired some creativity ... sorry.

Guess who's back ... back again? *

Not quite a month off, and I don't really feel bad about it. For two reasons:

It's been very hard to write anything. Change that. It's been very hard to WANT to write anything, so I don't know if it was hard to actually write. Also, since taking the medication (6 weeks now, I think) I have been experiencing some changes and some realisations about myself.

• Time.

I have a different view of time now. Things used to seem to have to be done nownownow and, if they weren't, I'd get the guilts and just end up leaving things. Now I feel that I can put things in their appropriate space, but also give things their own time.

Part of this realisation came about during a trip over east to meet up with my counterparts from other states (multi-national corporate slave that I am). In terms of age, I discovered that the nearest to me is 14 years my senior, the oldest is probably another 5 -10 years older than him.

So, alone in my hotel room staring at the ceiling, I realised that I have no need to push my career as much anymore. If older people are happy doing what I am doing, then I have made an achievement and can now focus on building my career from the 'inside', as opposed to the energy I've spent trying to find the right career in the right industry.

I'll try to explore this later, because it sounds like a small thing when re-reading but I now have a feeling of peace about myself that I don't remember ever having before.

• Jealousy

I also realised that I am a very jealous person. In fact, I would say that jealousy has been the number 1 driver of almost everything I have done or attempted. If you are a person that I have know in real (or semi-real, ie internets) life, it is almost certain that I have spent time being insanely jealous of something you have, done or said.

Having the green eyed monster as your 'coach' is a surefire way of never being happy. This attitude has not only made me focus externally, I've never really focussed internally. In the wash up, sometimes I've not even known what I've been jealous about.

So that's the two big breakthroughs that have occurred. And I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have occurred without the medication that I'm now taking. So yay for little white pills.

Now I need to find the little pill that gets me back writing regularly.

* A measure of my success in addressing my thinking patterns is that the song came into my head during work and I immediately thought "What is Eminem doing these days?" In times past, I would not have been able to resist going on the web to find out there and then. Now, I haven't even bothered. Baby steps, sure, but steps nonetheless.