There is a meme going around about posting a big block of text in your LJ basically about having negative emotions about time running out as you grow older. I am not posting it in my LJ because I don’t feel most of those things. While I have not “accomplished” great things, I have accomplished things I am amazed about when I look back over my life. The work I am doing now is amazing to me considering where I was just a few years ago. In fact I think I am ahead of the curve in a lot of ways.

I don’t really have any savings, I doubt I will have much for my retirement, I don’t own a home, I am not in a long term relationship (not in any romantic relationship), I don’t have kids and never will, I expect there will be a lot of change over in my friends over the next few years, I just started yet another job that doesn’t have much room for upward mobility… but these aren’t measurements I use to assess value. They are things I can see others using to measure me and I don’t really care about those assessments. My value is somewhere completely different.

One thing about being ready to be done with life before the age 18 is that anything I get done is gravy. If I don’t do something before I die, that is no biggy. I don’t want immortality. After I am gone, I would rather be forgotten. Once I am gone, I won’t care about unfinished business here on Earth. The only time these things matter is when I am here and that is why I work on them. They matter now, not after some deadline.

Growing up, I was very glad to be the age I was and resented growing older. I was happy to be a kid and didn’t feel the need to look forward to being a teen. As a teen I enjoyed the freedoms I still had and didn’t shave my legs or wear makeup wanting to reach for being an adult. As an adult, I still felt young. I am older now and while I am not pleased about how my body is no longer working as well as it used to, it has never worked as well as I would have liked and so it is not that different.

I knew when I was traveling around Europe that I needed to enjoy it while I could because I loved backpacking and staying in youth hostels and when I got older, I would need to stay in hotels. So I absorbed as much as I could and now looking back I don’t regret any of it. A few times I wish I had done more but I have a clear understanding that those were the decisions I made with the info I had at the time and I probably would do it the same way again if I was in the same place.

I would prefer not to grow older just because I don’t want to go through the process. I finally feel like a real grownup because I feel like I am actually looking at things like a grownup and taking responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, actions and relationships. When I was 19, I got my first apartment for the summer and that made me feel like a “real grownup.” That is the only time I can think of where an accomplishment was a milestone for me. Buying my first new car was a milestone, a milestone of actually buying a car. That is it.

I am responsible for my life and how I feel about it. While I am not happy with it, it is for very different reasons than I am growing older and missing out on things. If you are missing out, take stock of what you want, make a reasonable list and start doing. I think Jadecat9 has been doing that. Sadly, I am not sure her list is reasonable. She likes so many thing and wants it all. But she is following up on what she wants to accomplish instead of feeling bad about it.

Me, I am different. I am going where my next step takes me and then I will see what steps are available from there. It feels odd to not have a “goal” or be driven, to not be pulling myself forward even if it is just to next week. But I am ok with that for now.

So to sum up my babble, I am not posting that meme because it isn’t me and I feel I am different from a lot of people my age because of that.

The Silicon Program Book has finally been put to bed. I have been working on it non-stop this entire week.

Oh my ghods I am tired. I am having trouble moving my fingers correctly and my feet correctly. I have gotten very clumsy. I have to put concentration into things that use to be second nature. I have ended up bleeding from my toe and my nose. Feh.

Now I get to move onto Baycon’s website. Sure would be nice if they didn’t clump up like this. I try to keep them spread out but people drag their feet and I end up with a traffic jam all at the same time.

I am beginning to give up on my idea that I can actually affect a change and have thing happen at a more reasonable time. It is looking like it is not in my power and no matter how much energy I put in, it will keep happening the same way again and again. I think I may have to toss in the towel because I can not continue to work this way.

This comic about sums up my basic attitude most every morning.

I was up late last night doing work on the Silicon program book. I stayed up later than I planned and couldn’t go to sleep when I did go to bed.

I am an hour late to work because this morning started off badly . First it was me pulling the alarm clock out of the wall so I had no time. I didn’t have any of my shakes to drink to get me started so I chewed on a bar instead. I was trying to make something real for breakfast after that and I stubbed my toe on the vacuum cleaner. Ouch.

In the bathroom while getting ready, I found I did more damage to the toe than I thought, it was bleeding. Didn’t hurt after the first smash…yet…shock is a great thing. I am sure it isn’t too badly injured but not a good way to start a day.

When I put on my polo shirt and the hawaiian shirt over it and looked in the mirror, I found I had put the polo shirt on backwards. I didn’t think it was possible to do that without realizing it right away. I just thought the collar was up in the back and bugging my neck.

I forgot about the prepared food and it is currently sitting in my microwave at home so I bought a bagel with ham, eggs and cheese. I have a swig of OJ left from yesterdays food crisis. And here I sit trying to focus on the work that was waiting for me from yesterday. It seems the more important it is for me to be on time (I have to leave an hour early today) the more I work at messing it up. I actually want to be here.

I would ask for a Do Over for today but then I would have to go through it all over again. It wouldn’t be the same that doesn’t mean it would be better.

Today is my first Real day at work. I have been a temp until today. I have all my paperwork signed and am officially a Real employee. This also means I don’t get paid for three weeks (instead of weekly) due to payroll cutoff.

I am very tickled to be here. It feels like I have something to offer and they like what I have to offer. When I asked my boss (who is also the owner of the company) what I could get away with if I were to dye my hair, she asked me what I was thinking of. I showed her my series of driver licenses and told her that my current one expires in Nov. Her reply was that it was imperative that I do something wild to my hair for this new license. I have had responses similar to this but never from someone that had authority over me.

While the bulk of the work is in Word making simple text changes (boring, tedious, and take a long time), I have gotten to make a cool looking Newsletter layout, design ppt templates, design report covers in Photoshop and Illustrator, work on logos, and develop consistent guidelines for our templates and processes. This is the sort of thing I like doing.

Their are four of us in the pubs dept and we seem to work well as a team. We talk a lot and bounce things back and forth. They even like my endless questions. They find this valuable because it improves the product and keeps everyone on the same page.

This seems like a very good place for me. I haven’t even had a problem with the heat in this old San Francisco building. That was the one thing that worried me.

A comedian I think I enjoy is coming to the Bay Area this upcoming weekend (Sept 14-17).

Would anyone like to join me Sunday to see the 6:30 show? It is at the Green Room which I believe it at/near Fisherman’s Warf.

He has a website here (http://www.vincemorris.com/). There is video of him there and on his myspace page to get a feel for his flavor of comedy. I watched a few of his Comics Unleashed bits on youtube.

I had a thought that just occurred to me while chatting online with someone.

Everything bad that has happen to me has been my fault.

This may seem like another one of those Wired Backwards things but it makes sense if you follow the logic.

I have a very strong Security Consciousness. I don’t have stalkers, or crazy people hit me or taken in by scams. I am amazed at the experiences some of my friends have had because I honestly can’t picture that happening to me. It isn’t that I live is a perfect world. Thinking on it, I worked out it isn’t that I am good at spotting these sorts of things and avoiding it or that I live in an unrealistic world and will end up with a smackdown sooner or later. It is because when things start being just the tiniest bit sketchy, I am out of there. I don’t end up in situations where these sorts of things happen because I am uber-cautious and I end up veering away long before anything bad shows up.

So the things that really tear me up are generally things that I have set up for myself. I get too invested, I make bad choices, I am too sensitive and react more than appropriate, etc. These things lead me to grief and I hurt badly. But they are all consequences of my choices, ergo my faul. I created them.

The good things are also my fault but they feel more like I am just picking up coins found on the ground rather than building the situation. I see a good thing and I move towards it. When I see a bad situation I move away from it so the bad situations I find myself in are ones I didn’t see coming but I put into play.

The thing about being responsible for these things, it means I have power over these things. I can change them once I figure out how. And to make sure I don’t end up in the same situation again. Doesn’t always work but I have power instead of being a victim.

So see, it isn’t as bad as it originally sounded.

Today is going to be rough since I was up until 5am reading a book.
But I got loads of sleep over the weekend.
But I never left the house and didn’t get dressed from Friday when I got home to Monday when I left for work.
But I got a bulk of my dishes done.
But the flies drove me nuts, I have probably 50 – 100 of them, they have had a lot to feed on for weeks.
But I got a lot of work done for Silicon and Baycon.
But…

This could go on and on. It all ads up to both good and bad happened this weekend.

Friday was another really bad day. I seem to be having them about once a week now for the last four weeks. Different days, no real pattern. Nothing particular sets them off but I end up going way down and not sure if I am going to hit bottom or not. The next day I am fine. I may or may not be good but at least things are more manageable and I have options and movement again.

As long as I keep moving and motivated, I should be able to get through today.