this is it (three years gone)

After the end of today, I will be working another job. I won't have the time that I used to have, so the blogging will be sporadic at best.

However, if I get a routine going I can always blog after work at the library, before going home. If it means that much to me then yes I will do that.

I realized a year into this gig that even with all the free time to do what I wanted during work hours, two factors always disrupted my flow:

1) Imagine trying to create something and someone (mate, spouse, friend, neighbor, etc) kept calling you every fifteen minutes to talk for one minute. After a while, you will not get very far because your momentum is constantly sapped-- that's what it was like working here. I stopped trying to do anything long-term because I never got anywhere as long as I had to contend with the traffic report every fifteen minutes. Blogging was the perfect activity to indulge in because I could step away for a few minutes and get back into the flow relatively easy... not so with other projects.

2) The nagging suspicion that I am wasting company time and resources was never lost on me. After a while I felt downright guilty, only because no one ever complained about my sitting here doing nothing. Even when I got into trouble concerning my stalker, I came away with a slap on the wrist. My internet privileges were never taken away and no restrictive measures were taken against me.

I became very accustomed to doing this job: waking up after 10am, stumbling into work anywhere between noon and 2:30pm, working from 3pm to 7:45pm, unless there was a soccer or baseball game wherein I would leave a few hours early and get paid salary on top of that.

Sounds nice, you may be saying to yourself, but I call it a rut. I know ruts when I am in them, and this is a rut and a half.

Plus, the money situation has not improved my standing so I have to bid adieu.

I just realized that, prior to the end of 2002, I was pretty much internet illiterate. In the past three and a half years, I have made up for lots of time. By the time I was working here at the radio station in May of 2003, I was blogging like there was no tomorrow and making friends all over the world.

Then I managed to get too into it, like I always do, and in the process I hurt some feelings, made some cyber-enemies, and generally ran through an interesting gamut of technology-related emotions.

I also learned a hell of a lot, and I turned my life around from being unemployed and pitiful to being gainfully employed and pitiful.

I regret accidentally losing my archives from the first blog, but something tells me that I am all the better for it. There was a demonic evil embedded in those entries. The only times I was gentle was when I was writing about music and women.

Fortunately, I saved a few items in those veins by having them printed up, and maybe one day I will incorporate them into something. I definitely have the material for another novel if I so desire to shape the blog entries into something linear.

I send thanks and shout outs to Zen Master, Sahalie, Fishfry, Tim, Violet Butcher, Blue 59, Glutterbug, Blousy Drake, Bridget, Wiley, Grumpy Girl, Clay Sails, The Blogger Formerly Known As Hometown Unicorn, Eternity (aka Butterscotch) and anyone else who joined me at some point on this remarkable foray into online journalism.

The past three years have been quite the learning experience. From writing for an East Coast college website to having a plethora of My Space profiles; from trolling in right-wing conservative chat rooms to flaming out on certain free forums; from not knowing what Photoshop was to learning how to design my own website, I have come a long way in the span of three years.

I wonder what the next era has for me. I can't help but wonder what the future holds. In order to get some perspective on it, I looked into what I was doing a year ago. Normally I'd link to it but firstly there is no June 5th 2005 entry; secondly, the blogs I was posting around the 3th and the 7th were short bursts, merely some links to (outdated) sources or in this case a recitation of some Bob Dylan lyrics:


"Gentlemen", he said,
"I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards..."

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.

--"The Changing Of The Guard"


There's a hint of Tarot imagery in those lyrics. I guess I was going through another set of transformations at the time. What's funny is when I read the first entry of the post-archival-loss blog...

After reading it again, it seems to me like I should've just quit right then and there. I would've come out ahead, instead of watching my regular readership dwindle thanks to my cyber-beefs and my refusal to write about anything outside of my own solipsistic sphere of influence.

That's my big problem, people: I never know when to call it quits. I always linger too long, sticking around until a bitter taste develops in my mouth. This job would've been the same if I hadn't decided to bail out-- eventually they would've phased out my position, and even if I stayed on I would have to contend with a daily commute to Anaheim that I would NEVER be prepared to do.

So I guess that I am doing good by jumping off the bandwagon now. I feel like I am taking a huge risk, but in the past I have always felt that it was the times when I should've risked it all and didn't that haunt me.

I left the first radio gig with this in mind, but when the job I left it for didn't pan out, instead of looking for new work I went back to the old job. That was my biggest mistake...

So now I know that, no matter what happens with this new job, I cannot go back to this old one and expect things to be the same. They will not, no matter how hard I try to rationalize.

Whatever I do from this point on, I have to look forward and not backward.

Thank you all for your support. I apologize for any times when I may have made you feel small, or any times when my writing disgusted and/or repelled you. Writing is therapy for me, and sometimes it gets ugly... I'm sorry some of you had to read some of these sentiments expressed here. I am also glad that some of you read and commented on the better posts.

You were all witnesses to near-daily exorcisms of my soul. It was always intense, no matter what I was writing about.

I don't feel so scared about the future now. This past weekend I panicked slightly until I realized that I am just shedding another skin, and what scares me is that I have a lot of changes to make.

I know I need to makes these changes. It is never easy to force the change, but if I must then I must.

This is not the end. It is sort of a new beginning, but only in the sense that a new chapter is waiting to be written. Nothing, other than my 9 to 5, is really ending.

It just keeps going on and on and on.

Have a nice life, friends and peers.