All bottled up

I’ll preface this post with a warning: This post will be entirely me ranting and bitching about stuff related to my life and choices, so if you don’t wanna spend the next few minutes reading about me whining, then you can safely skip it and not feel like you missed out. That being said, let’s get on with it.

Me in my natural habitat….

When I started blogging, it was for many reasons. I felt like imparting what little knowledge I have, and views I have on life. I wanted a collection of this information. I even felt “well so many people do this, why not me”. Another big reason is because, to me, it’s a form of therapy. People have said to me, on more than one occasion, that I have balls for posting some of the shit I post. This always strikes me as kind of odd, but that’s mostly because my perspective is different. To me, I’ll post about pretty much anything, shame free. Doesn’t really bother me much. Hell, the only reason I don’t talk about most of my crazy shit around others in person is because it tends to make THEM feel uncomfortable. For me, blogging about stuff is cathartic, a process akin to journaling which they teach you about in therapy. Only difference is that I do it in public, in case there are other people out there who feel the same way, so they can read it and know they’re not alone. Oh, and the attention, I also totally do it for the attention (of which I get very little [hey, you shut up!] ok..)

Soooooooooo, here goes! I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be miserable at work forever, and my career will burn out in about a decade. Good start, right?! I’ll elaborate. I used to do logistics and warehousing, and while I enjoyed it, I made shit money and there was no real career path. The other careers I had interest in were a wash as well, so I chose something that came easily to me, and I could make better money with: computers. I got certified and started doing PC support and followed with sysadmin work. The work itself isn’t bad, per se. I like solving puzzles, and learning how shit works. Problem is, it’s not a passion of mine. I don’t go home and play with computers. I’ll check my mail and Facebook, maybe troll Craigslist a bit, but otherwise I don’t bother unless something’s broken. Also, a ton of people in this profession are complete assholes. Many of them have this competitive thing, where every time you disagree with them, or correct them, it’s seen as a challenge and is thus “game on”. Others have severe control issues, or are so lacking in social skills that it’s painful to work with them. Sure, there are cool laid back kinda dudes and chicks too, but they’re in the minority, from my experiences. I just don’t feel the need for the pettiness and condescension. All in all, probably not the best fit for my personality, since I don’t tend to take shit like that well. To top all of this, I’m trying to find a new place to work. My current place does little other than stress me out, but even searching for a new place is also stressing me out. Can’t win either way.

The Lish and I have had to make a hard choice. After much deliberation, we’ve decided to move. Not to get too far into it, it should suffice to say that our current house doesn’t fit our needs, and altering it to fit our needs would make our already insane taxes absolutely astronomical. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if our school district was top-notch, but it isn’t. Grade school and such are good, but the High School is apparently like a demilitarized zone since the “less illustrious” town next door sends their kids there too. So we’re moving. I didn’t realize how much stress this packs on, especially since we’d have to sell and buy right around the same time. I’m going nuts trying to get the house in salable condition, while also keeping an eye on the housing market, and trying to keep the Lish from getting trampled by the onslaught of “moving stress”. While I’m doing this, she has to be the one who must constantly keep the house 95% clean in order to show it to buyers, and be ready at a moment’s notice. We also have to round-up all of our stuff that we don’t use regularly, and store it somewhere off-site in an effort to give the house a more empty look. Not an easy task when you have a bunch of stuff, much of which is hobby related. That’s another part, I have restrictions on homes I look at. Must have room for my arcade addiction hobby, must have room for Victoria (my ’68 Fairlane), must have heat and a roof and stuff. You know, little shit. All this, and we’re trying to get it done ASAP so we can (hopefully) move within the next year or two.

Now this next part is completely my fault, and may be slightly my imagination, but it matters. I’ve been moving a LOT of arcade machines lately. I brought a few new ones in, and I took a few out. I keep my games in the basement, and they go in and out via a short staircase to the garage. Considering how much these games weigh, and how bulky they are, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that I always need help moving them in and out (HAIYO!). I call on my friends to help me on such occasions, which ends up being once or twice a month. At first, I had no problem getting help. Nowadays, the help is drying up a bit, and I can’t say I’m surprised. I have a bunch of very good friends who always go out of their way for me, yet in recent memory all I’ve done for them was asked for help. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to waste an entire day driving for a game, only to break their balls helping my get it up or down stairs. I’ve felt the vibe off those around me, and whether it’s my imagination or not, I feel like a user. I feel like I guilt people into helping out of desperation, since they know I can’t move these games alone. I’d imagine them feeling like “well what am I gonna do, say no?!”. I feel guilt about this, and it does weigh on me. I don’t wanna be that guy, who takes from others without really giving much. As such, I’ve been wracking my brain to devise a way of getting these in and out without needing another person. I have a plan, but I need to do some more structural engineering to work out the kinks. Once that’s in place, I won’t have to harass anyone in order to shuffle stuff around. BTW, if you’re one of my friends reading this, please don’t succumb to any need to make me feel better. I KNOW I’ve been doing this. I’m just letting you all know that I acknowledge it, I do feel bad about it, and I’m making arrangements to free you from future endeavors.

I’m currently in 2 bands. One is an original band that I play keyboards in, the other is a cover band that I sing in. The original band is much more focused. We play out once a month or so, and that’s great. The other side is that it’s harder for me to learn or work on parts, since setting stuff up at home to practice is a nightmare, and it’s hard to find the time. Also, we have a few songs with solo sections for me, and I was never really much of a soloist to begin with. I’ve never been good at just going off like guitarists do, I’m more of an elaborate fills kinda guy. Now I’m looking down the barrel of more and more shows, and my writing issues are starting to drag things down. My cover band, on the other hand, is a totally different story. I’ve been playing with them for about a year or so, and we still haven’t played out. I’m not sure what the deal is there, but it’s aggravating going to practice every week and practicing songs that only we hear. Hopefully that changes soon.

All this shit just compiles to send my normal stress levels into orbit. I know, almost all of these are first world problems, and there are many people out there with real problems they have to deal with on a daily basis. I don’t really have much of a response to that. Sure, I could say that from my perspective and such, this is an equivalent stress level to others who have real hardships but are used to coping with them, but I don’t actually believe that. I think people with real hardships have lots of underlying stress they don’t even recognize. Oh, and by the way, don’t mistake me ranting about being stressed as me unhappy with my life. Far from it. I’m just very stressed out at the moment, and needed to vent to nobody in particular. It’s easier than venting to a person, cuz then I’m always wondering if they’re thinking “listen to him bitch about stupid shit, he doesn’t even know what real problems are”. Maybe I don’t, but that doesn’t make my stress less valid and real…