Friday
January 26, 2001

 

 

Signs of Life

 
 

Thub-dup...

Thub-dup...

Thub-dup...

"What the...? Holy shit! Hey! We've got a pulse over here!!!"


Hi there. Thought you'd lost me, didn't you? Well, no such luck; the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Sort of...

Things have been kind of rough around here in recent months, which is why I haven't been posting. I think a little of the angst leaked through in my last couple of entries, and I just stopped after writing those because I didn't want this to turn into a litany of "poor me, my life sux." Not so much because you don't want to read it, but because I didn't want to write it. Dirty laundry belongs in the washer, not on the Web.

But... Oh, hell, what's a few skid-marks between friends? Or between me and potentially thousands of anonymous voyeurs, for that matter? In the interests of sorta full disclosure, I guess I'll share a few of the minor stains with you, just to illustrate a bit of what's been keeping me down and these pages blank.

First, significantly, there's my work situation. It sucks. After my training gig with PaineWebber ended so abruptly and unexpectedly, I was left scrambling for work and it was a harder scramble than I would have expected. Interviews came and went and I kept not getting hired. I went without a job for quite awhile before I finally landed a position as a trainer with CompUSA, where I'm not working nearly as many hours as I need to for quite a bit less pay than I'm used to. So money's been pretty tight for us lately.

Which leads to the ever popular marital discord, of course, which always makes one's life a party. There's nothing quite like the thrill of arguing with your wife on a nearly daily basis about how much money there isn't and what's being done to ensure that it won't continue to not be there to whet the appetite, stir the juices, and spark up the ol' joie de vivre. It's almost enough to make you want to not write in your journal for awhile. Or write anything, for that matter.

Which leads to something I touched on in the last entry: my "career" as a screen/TV writer and how it's stagnating. What with the money troubles and the stress of job-hunting and the tension with Beth and the weird, verboten juxtaposition of Zoe and the kids of assorted Hollywood movers & shakers I'd like to work with and a clothesline full of other laundry I haven't even mentioned... With all of that sucking every last drop of energy -- creative or otherwise -- out of me, I just haven't been doing it. AIC Time (Ass In Chair Time) just hasn't been happening. Pages are not being written. So of course I'm beating myself up for that, too. Just call it frosting.

So life hasn't exactly been a Superbowl party for me for the past couple of months. Hence my silence. Now, aren't you glad you asked?

But...

[Wait. You thought I was going to say "Things are getting better," didn't you? Not. But at least they're not getting worse, and that's saying something.]

But... My mood is improving -- at least it has over the past couple of weeks. I had a promising job interview that I'm afraid to go into detail about for fear of jinxing it, Beth and I are getting along better, bills are getting paid now that the meager CompUSA $$$ is trickling in. That light at the end of the tunnel just might be the dawn -- if it isn't an onrushing train, that is. We'll have to wait and see.

Does this mean I'm back for good and always? Hell, I don't know. How many times before have I resolved to be "good" about updating and then slacked off on it? If you can't count on me in better days, you sure as hell can't count on me now. All I'll say is this: I'm feeling better about things, so I'm that much more likely to write and post entries. Check back later, see if I've posted again. (Or maybe join the notify list.) Let's see what happens.

But in the meantime... To all y'all out there who checked in and sent out good thoughts: Thanks. Really.

 

 

 

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