the water got high and she never got dry

Thursday, September 27, 2007

we pause for station identification

I continue to be not dead, just with scarce time and inclination to write. Weekdays are pretty much entirely sucked up by work, approximately 10 hours a day down the drain. Soon after I’ve eaten dinner on a work day, I’m half asleep.

I hate the job and the commute and the ceaseless sameness of every day, I’m job hunting with renewed vigor and also considering the possibility that SD may not work out for us and we may have to pick up and go somewhere else. Not a fun thought for lots of reasons but we knew that was a risk before we moved out here.

Considering taking a blog hiatus, since I post so infrequently and unsatisfactorily as it is. I’ve been dissatisfied with the output here for quite a while and though I know one of the big reasons for it (it could be a whole post in and of itself), time is also an issue. My next big project is starting a psychology blog and looking for other outlets for my psych writing so I can start building a portfolio. Doing the research for my writing and getting such a blog up and running is going to take up a lot of time and between that and work and church activities and going to the gym and our weekend outings and daytrips and the guitar lessons I hope to take in the very near future, something’s gotta give. I’ll update here with whatever I decide to do with the blog (resume here or have a personal blog attached to the psych blog or something else) and when/if I come back, so that ya’ll (all five or so of ya’ll!) will know what’s going on. If you’re interested in whatever new blogs I start up or what’s going on with me, feel free to email me . Gmail knows me as awatersign.

I can’t see myself quitting personal blogging cold turkey but a break might be good for me and my writing. And who knows, maybe in a nice bit of reverse psychology, by announcing that I’m not going to write for a while, I might be inspired to write more often.

Monday, September 10, 2007

i need a job and i wanna be a paperback writer

Not dead. Have been alternately bored, blocked, or busy. Unemployment sucked, but working a mindlessly boring job is no great shakes either. I found a spot as a data entry monkey and started today. Slowest day ever. Tomorrow I go back dressed for comfort and with a fully loaded iPod (I'm light-years behind on the whole podcast thing but I'm trying to fix that, so if you have any faves, let me know. Right now I mostly have tons of NPR.) and things should be better. My professional life is obligated to get better, right? Because it can’t get much worse.

Good things have included going to the beach on an absolutely perfect evening , having a picnic and watching the sun set. Reminds me why I’m here. Went to a hip little tapas place Friday night. Sittingon a sunny patio and sipping Bellinis and eating duck confit and poached oysters with truffle butter is something a girl could get used to. Followed by a glass of sangria on the quiet bamboo decorated patio of a tucked away little bar and then on to the best chocolate cake in the history of chocolate cakes at Extraordinary Desserts. Orgasmically good.

We’ve joined a Unitarian church, which is interesting, due to the whole lack of creed thing and a mix of people that includes Christians, pagans (cue Dar Williams song here), and atheists. After service on Sundays we go to the farmer’s market in Hillcrest (a lot of my favorite activities tend to take me to Hillcrest) and snatch up fresh veggies and fruit for the following week’s meals and then enjoy a really tasty lunch, like a feta, corn, and jalapeno tamale, a squash blossom quesadilla, and a pineapple agua fresco. Yum! And laying out on a blanket in Balboa Park reading, listening to Andrew Bird, and eating plums is a perfect way to while away an afternoon.

So a crappy job seems like a small trade-off for all the fun I am and will be having off the clock, but I’m not going to be fully happy until I find something I can do uniquely well and feel fulfilled by. And I refuse to believe that that’s asking too much.