Freeze Frame

Looking through the lens of a camera I’m never more aware of what my mind erases. It forces you to look, really look, at what is there – the debris in the foreground, the splinter in your eye.

I’m tired. How was it that I became so bitter? On a day-to-day basis I don’t really see that bitterness, but it’s there – the figurative debris in the foreground, the literal splinter in my eye. I want to find a way to dissolve it like sugar cubes under absinthe.

I wonder if the trees make me feel lonely of if I’m lonely and thus have developed an affinity for the trees. One day I’m so happy, content and feeling apart of life – the next I’m a bit wrecked. As I have parted ways with lovers more than one has said, you’re just too intense. I wish I could part ways with me sometimes too. I think I’m coming to know what they meant – maybe. I really crave, demand and need a high level of engagement.

Okay, okay.. back track. I’m sick. I’m sick today – I’ve been fuzzy, foggy-headed, dizzy for days on end. And last night I was up most of the night, at least every hour and today is no better. I’m not feverish (unless the thermometer is broken… just my luck), to the contrary my body temperature is incredibly low. I just realized that most (really, maybe all) of my symptoms are side effects of an antibiotic I’m on. Fuck it. I’m stopping the antibiotic – frill’n MPH ho. I’m not convinced I need it anyways. While I love (in principle) the idea of solving a problem with a drug, it’s just not always the answer. In fact it’s rarely the answer. I just want my body to work better. The point of telling you that I feel sick, however, is that when I feel sick I come to the conclusion that my life sucks – even though just a few days ago I was riding high on how lovely and cozy and wonderful things are right now. So really it’s to say likely it doesn’t suck at all, I’m not really lonely, generally speaking, pervasively speaking (can one speak pervasively?) and perhaps I’m just intense, needy and demanding when I feel sick. Or maybe I’m intense, needy and demanding all the time – sound attractive?

Anyways, if you’re not in the mood for intense, needy, demanding and whiney then do not inquire within.

I’m freaked out by the idea of having to look for a job. I thought, oh, I’m not working today (because I called in sick.. because I am sick – it’s a weird thing to call in sick when you work from home), I’ll work on my resume. But I’m too dizzy-headed to work on anything.. duh.. that’s why I called in sick. I have to take a conference call in an hour and I really just want to heave. ((Why I am writing about this?)) Anyways, I’m freaked out by the idea of having to look for a job. I haven’t had to do that in over a decade and I didn’t really look for this job – it found me.

The truth is, I’m really freaked out about not having a job. And while not having an income does wig me out, not having a job wigs me out equally if not more. And worse, the fact that not having a job wigs me out more freaks me out even more. What does that say about me, what I’ve come to rely on for identity, purpose, blah, blah, blah? It means I’m becoming someone I don’t like – I’ve become someone I don’t respect and maybe that, as much as anything else, has inspired me to quit the job. I mean, you may have a job that you really love – and believe me I can relate to that – that used to be me – but the day that the job that you love and your identity become so intertwined that you don’t have one without the other, that is a problem.

And through all this lamentation my boss leaves a message on the machine telling me that she can’t give me any information about the possibility of a severance because they’re now entering into some kind of discussion about restructuring my job into something that might be palatable to me – something that I might be willing to stay for. I’m not calling her back. Talk away. Talk is cheap. I’ve had nearly fifteen years of talk. Blah, blah, blah. Do something already.