Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Things have been changing at the Day Job as of late.  Good things in a way, and a long time coming, but at the same time it's kind of weird and maybe a little bit stress-inducing.  See, I've been working on certain requests regarding checking since...oh, probably 2008?  And I've been part of another check process since 2014.  And within the span of a few short months, both of them have changed considerably.

For the older process, I'm still working on them and I've been told they're not entirely going away any time soon, so I've got a bit of stability there. The major change is in the communication with the print facility; it's essentially the same but via a completely different platform.  For the other mor current process however, that is essentially going away completely within the next month or so. I'm of two minds about this: on the one hand I'm kind of bummed because it was a process that I dedicated a TON of time to over the years and am quite proud of (considering a lot of it was of my creation)... but at the same time I realize that giving this up will lessen my workload and stress levels considerably.  And taken from a different angle:  I'm torn between not having to deal with that stress anymore, and having to stress about whatever I'll be assigned to next (including possible phone coverage...which I am dreading).

In the meantime, these changes and lightening of loads have also given me time to get caught up with all the fiddly day-to-day things I'm still required to do.  It feels great when I'm able to stop typing for a few minutes, exhale, and let my mind calm down for a few minutes.

Anyway, we'll take it as it comes.  I'm keeping my options open.

...but the only thing holding me back from doing anything about it is my own damn self, so at least I know who to blame. :) 

After a hellish start at the Day Job on Monday (in which I was tempted to ragequit at least twice, ignored repeated pings from people and may have responded not entirely kindly to an internal email that pissed me off), I forced myself to calm down for the rest of the day.  Not the best way to go about things.  I chilled for the remainder of my shift and then took it out on the treadmill at the gym afterwards.  And felt SO much better for it!  Yesterday was infinitely better so I just told managers that I'm hiding in Do Not Disturb so I can Finally Get Shit Done.  I'm only a day behind now, yay!  *facepalm*

ANYHOO.  Some more life choices coming up that I really shouldn't put off any longer.  I say this because if I do continue to put it off, I'll either start second-guessing myself (which I HATE, because that's the number one way for me to kill my own dreams and goals), or worse, I'll just shrug and roll over and take it.  And I realize I am SO DONE with doing the latter.

More on this at a later time, he says vaguely.  ;)

Still focusing on a lot of personal things lately.  Not complaining, just that it's keeping me busy.  Let's just say that this latest thing I've been thinking about has somehow jumpstarted a few other things that I've put off for far too long.  In particular I've been thinking about my current health status and what needs changing.  I need to lose weight -- probably around 30-40 pounds, most of it in the stomach region.  I need to take better care of my skin -- something I've had issues with for years.  I need to be more active -- especially since both my Day Job and my career require that I sit on my ass for hours at a time.

So why now?  When I've got other things on my mind, such as the Day Job situation and A getting laid off, among other things?  Well, that's the thing.  I let myself be stressed out and miserable for a day or so, just to get it out of my system.  Then I turned it around: I was NOT going to be that mopey miserable bastard again.  No fucking way.

This is my current outlook:  it's time to take a serious look at myself.  Confront the fears instead of running away from them.  Face the truths instead of avoiding them.  Question the things I've taken for granted.  Take my life choices seriously.  And most importantly: decide what I need to do for myself without the influence or input of others.  Yeah, I know... this all sounds as pithy as a self-help section of the bookstore, but there's nowt wrong with that.  Not this time.  I've got a few things on my mind that I've been wanting to change up, and it's far past the time I looked into making that happen.  Or barring that, coming to terms with why I don't need to make it happen.

Is this my own version of a midlife crisis?  Who knows.  I might be questioning what I've done with my life to date, but I'm not feeling regret.  With my past, it was what it was.  I've made my peace with those events.  I'm not responding by trying to have a second childhood, that's for sure... that's not what I want, and it's certainly not what I need.  This is me changing my life -- purging the things I don't need anymore and moving on. Making the necessary changes.  

Which brings me back to weight and health.  I'm kind of treating this the same way I treat my novel writing: a lot of moving parts that need equal focus time, in a specific order.  So while I'm working on changing the inner me, I'm balancing it with adapting the changes of the outer me as well.  All in, as they say.

Right now I have no idea if it will pan out, or if I'm just deluding myself, or if these are the changes I've so desperately needed for years now.  Self-doubt can be a bitch, especially if that's what I've run on for most of my life.  Even worse is outside influence, when I find myself so easily talked in or out of things -- that's been my worst enemy of all.  To have an idea that would benefit me, only to have someone say 'come on, is that what you *really* want?' followed by me giving up... that is the one biggest weakness of mine that I've battled with for years.  Sure, I could call myself a nonconformist all I want, but that doesn't mean anything if my instinct is to shrug and say 'maybe you're right'.  I can't do that.  Not anymore.

This has got to change.


Yeah, I know... heavy shit for a Sunday afternoon.  :p

Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

Funny thing, memory--it definitely messes with your head.

I've been reading Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, and I have to say it's quite the eye-opener. Caveat: it's not a self-help book at all; it's more of a way to explain why we tend to remember the weirdest things, forget seemingly important things, and that our memory may not be as much of a sieve as we believe. It's SCIENCE!

Okay, maybe not completely...but it put a few things into perspective for me, especially considering that over the past few months I've been thinking about why I've been forgetting some things lately (nothing important or worrisome--just things such as what we were planning to do a few weeks from now, something Emm said to me a few days previous, or exactly what week in April I was taking for vacation, things like that). I know I'm not losing my mind or having a mental breakdown or that anything might be physically wrong--on the contrary, I had to explain a detailed procedure to a coworker the other day and was able to do it with very little backtracking.

There's also the fact that I've been delving into the past quite a lot lately for my Walk in Silence project, which has been a mixture of listening to a lot of 80s college rock (in chronological order--I love MediaMonkey's ability to sort it down to month/day level), reading some of my old writings and poetry (I also have a habit of dating my longhand writing sessions, so I know when they were written), a hell of a lot of reading for research, and putting it all together chronologically on a spreadsheet.

This second thing--the writing project--is what's been fascinating me over the last few months. I knew I could remember a handful of events and songs if given the right stimulus--in this case, the combination of the music and writing, as well as looking at the chronology--and it worked in spades. I of course can't remember full conversations or exactly who might have been present at the time, but in this case that isn't completely important. The important thing was that I remembered my mental and emotional state at the time, and what I was listening to.

The reason I bring this up is because Moonwalking brings up the fact that mnemonics tend to be how many people can remember all sorts of things. I subconsciously learned how they worked, interestingly enough, back in the 80s when listening to music. I realized that in listening to certain songs, I'd be reminded of certain specific memories. Most people do this, and use it as a tool of remembrance of sorts, but when I understood how this worked, that's when I started obsessing over music even more--I'd make all kinds of mixtapes for myself, and even a lot of my Flying Bohemian songs were mnemonic in their own way.

One of my many plans for 2012 is to get myself grounded again, and one the ways I'm doing that is returning to some of my older thought processes. Over the course of last year I'd started to notice how much I'd miss the logic connection (that is, "putting two and two together"), or when I'd catch myself not paying attention, or even losing my train of thought. Like I said, I knew it wasn't a physical problem--it was a mental and emotional one. It was partly due to disconnecting from the stress and frustration of life, partly due to a long-standing habit of 'not getting involved' to different levels...a bunch of things. I realized it was time to change all that. Foer's book merely validated what I'd been thinking over the last few months.

This is going to be a long personal project, and one that will definitely take longer than just a year--this will take years, really. Undoing bad habits, relearning thought processes, all while learning new ones. But it's something I'm willing to try out, because I'm mentally and emotionally prepared to do it this time.