BUT I did become hooked on blogging. It was a creative outlet I where I could write in short bursts, and as my audience grew, I could get instant feedback and interact with my readers. It was also an outlet for personal frustrations and deep thoughts. It became the sounding board I turned to when I needed to talk. I was so much better at expressing my complex feelings in writing, that it soon became my default outlet. And it affected my relationship. My significant other was unhappy with the fact that she had to read my blog to figure out what I was thinking.

I fully embraced my geekiness, and reveled in the acceptance of strangers who liked my writing. And I let that define me. It was apparent that I had unresolved esteem issues. Couple that with the financial stress, the relationship strain and a few other things going on at the time, I had a lot to write about. For a period of time, I was producing two posts a day! Plus I was frequenting other people’s blogs and commenting there too. My productivity at work suffered a bit due to my excessive blogging activities. It was a strange addiction, and through it all my sweetheart did the best she could to keep up with me by blogging and commenting too.

I’m not sure when it was that I finally started to come to my senses. I think stress levels were calming significantly, and my relationship was improving by leaps and bounds. We talked more and I blogged less. She became my sounding board instead of my blog. My era of intense blogging was coming to an end, and I transitioned to casual, infrequent blog posts whenever the mood struck me. Which has been occurring less and less. I think as I become more and more content, I have less that I feel inclined to share with the public. I’ve become a bit boring perhaps, haha.

Blogging served its purpose for me, and I don’t regret my foray into blog obsession. But I now have an awesome job that I love with an employer that is exactly what I’ve been looking for, my relationship has never been stronger, the house is fantastic with reasonable payments, money is good, and I have never felt more confident about my life than I do in this period of my life. And it’s only taken me… *mental math* 37 years to get here. Well, 38 in a few days.

The funny thing is, the guy talks over everyone else! Even if I wanted to get a word in, which I did sometimes, it was exceedingly difficult. All night it was mostly him blah blah blah blah and calling for another round of shots. They reminisced about their clubbing days and throwing up in someone’s car and other stuff that I could never relate to. It wasn’t my world, but I was fine with it. I naturally don’t talk as much as others, so I just listen.

At the end of the night as we were saying our goodbyes, he smiles and tells me to loosen up and “learn to have some fun.” ...WHAT?? I was happy up until that point. Mr. Party Animal is judging me?? His idea of “fun” is my idea of a freaking nightmare. No thanks. I really hate it when some people can’t possibly fathom that someone may have different a personality that enjoys life in different ways. Quit lording your fratboy version of fun over other people. I feel sorry for his introverted brother who has to put up with it day in and day out. It makes me so thankful that I am with a caring person who understands and supports my unique perspective, despite the fact that she herself is outgoing.

One of the biggest qualms I have against all religions is how they manipulate people into giving money. Televangelists are some of the biggest known offenders, but Buddhist temples aren’t much different. One of the “principles” my mom talks about most often is the idea of “merit”. You earn merit by doing good deeds and it goes towards good karma. Simple concept, and a good one. However they take it much further by talking about the “need” for those who are deceased to continue receiving merit. My mom keeps telling me about how she “transfers” merit to her deceased mom, as well as to her kids. Like a freaking bank account. She’s even made that comparison when trying to explain the concept to me. So basically, you can pray to earn merit for other people. Of course, maybe you don’t have that kind of time, the temple says you will earn greater merit the more you give money to the temple! In the end it’s all about money. You want to save your immortal soul? Give money! Give more money and save your ancestors’ souls! Give even more money and save your kids’ souls as well!

It pisses me off, and I’m sure my mom has been duped into giving thousands of dollars, but I can’t say anything, because religion is all about blindly accepting what someone else is telling you. It wouldn’t help anyway, because she’ll just smile serenely and say it’s okay I don’t believe, but maybe one day I will understand. The other thing that annoys me (okay there’s countless things, but I’ll stay on topic) is how she thinks it’s all her praying that has made my life so good. I got laid off and I was able to find another job within two weeks. I proudly told her this during one visit, and I jokingly said, “Because I’m that good.” She smiled in that insanely peaceful way and said, “Maybe, or maybe it’s because of all the merit I’ve been transferring to you.” Seriously? You want to take credit for me kicking ass at interviews?? Hogwash! But I don’t say this. Why take away her source of joy, however crazy it may be? If she can’t be proud of me, then at least she can be proud of herself, even though I think she’s wasting her time.

The second prospect is even more promising! The pay is much better, BUT they want me to start part-time, sort of a trial period. If they like me they may hire me full time, with a significant increase in pay. Having a mortgage to worry about, I of course can’t just subsist on a part-time paycheck. So rather than jump out of this job and into part-time, or worse, decline the opportunity altogether, I’ve decided to negotiate with my current employer and see if they’ll switch me to part time.

It feels like rather than jumping off the cliff I’m edging towards it and peeking over, hoping to engineer a rope to ease myself down instead of freefalling. If my current employer agrees to switching me to part time, then I’m all set! If for some reason the opportunity doesn’t turn into a full-time position, then I can ease back into full-time at the old job. However the workload at the old job requires a full-time person, so I’m not sure my plan will work. My supervisor has told me that he’s going to try lobbying that for me.

If it doesn’t work out though… well, I’m going to have to take a flying leap of faith that this opportunity will expand into a full-time position for me.  Either my parachute will open I will splatter at the bottom. This current job is dragging me down with all the crap that goes on here. The CEO is crazy and unethical, and I don’t want to be a part of helping such a person succeed. We’ll see what happens…

1. Arrive at the event early. It’s much easier to become get involved with a smattering of individuals than to get there and find a lot of people already grouped in conversations.

2. Sit in the first two rows. Although it goes against everything my personality prefers, the fact is a lot of important people tend to sit in the front. If you arrive early and get your butt into one of those important seats, no one is going to ask you to move. Chances are higher that you might sit next to someone that could be helpful in your career, and the fact that you’re there before the event is starting gives you time to strike up a conversation.

3. Focus on how you can help the other person. Introverts like myself are usually not keen on talking about ourselves. We are excellent listeners. Extroverts love this. Finally, something that works to our advantage. As a networking novice, I always thought the whole point of networking was to find people who can help you. This is too “me-centric” to be successful. The point of networking is to find people who can help you later. People rarely happen to have a job in their back pocket waiting for you. More importantly, it’s not just those who can help you later, but those will want to help you later. And the best way to get them to keep you in mind is by helping them first. Help them how? Maybe they’re looking for a particular type of contact. Maybe you can put them in touch with someone. Something like that. I am personally going to find it this part hard because, well, I don’t really know anyone useful.

The thing about networking, I discovered, is that you need to cultivate and maintain your contacts so they’re there when you need them. It’s not like groceries that you get when you need eggs or carrots. I can’t just go to some event and find people with jobs waiting for me. I have to think of it like an herb garden. If I don’t maintain it, there won’t be any herbs for me to use when it’s time to cook. That’s another difficult thing for me. I am terrible at maintaining relationships outside of the one i have with my honey. I’m like one of those one-person dogs who could care less about other people. This is fine for dogs, but bad for one’s career. I don’t even keep in touch with my own family and friends that much… how am I going to maintain some kind of relationship with a bunch of strangers? I guess that’ll be another day of research for me.

I look at those around me… the managers are now younger than me, and the coworkers at my level are like 10 years younger. All my attempts to bridge the gap between grunt and decision-maker and cross over into a role with more responsibility have never panned out. I used to believe that you make your own luck, but in all reality, there is a great deal of random dumb luck involved as well. You have to be in the right place at the right time. Or in the case of my current workplace, the right gender. I figured it was just a matter of time before I become dissatisfied with this job. The big boss is a hypocritical control freak and a closet sexist. I need to get out, but the jobs that I really want I don’t seem to be qualified enough for. So I may end up moving sideways again.

Is this what a midlife crisis is like? Isn’t it a little early? I’m not even 40 yet!

Instead of being a whiny whiner, I want to do something about it. Maybe get some kind of certification or degree or whatever bullshit these employers want. But they’re expensive! I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars only to find out that it does nothing for my career. Employers want experience. So how do I GET that experience? Dumb fucking luck. Or working for free. I don’t know. I’ve been pondering it for a year and I still have no answers.

• Signed all the loan and title docs
• Got the keys to the condo
• Dropped a few things off at the new place
• Had an awkward conversation with the seller, who was there unexpectedly to collect a few things
• Rented a huge 24’ moving truck in LA
• Emptied our storage unit just before it was time to pay for the next month
• Drove down to San Diego in this massive thing, which instilled a newfound respect for truck drivers
• Emptied the moving truck into the garage while the house was being painted and re-floored

• Tivo
• 58” HD Plasma TV
• King bed
• Gas stove (electric stoves are horrible!)
• My box of work things from my last job
• The rest of my clothes
• Closet space

It’ll be so nice to get back into a place of our own!

Priorities change on a daily (and occasionally hourly) basis here. If I’m given an assignment I’m not keen on doing, sometimes all I need to do is work on something else, bide my time a bit, and that unwanted task will get deprioritized. If I’m lucky, it may even go away altogether! It’s one of the incredibly few “bright sides” of working for a scatter-brained, micro-managing, self-proclaimed “visionary”.

So here I am, procrastinating, because I was told to update all the products on this website that I never even knew existed. Seriously, why do we have 12 different websites selling the same damn thing? His reasoning? “The more exposure we get, the better.” Yeah. It’s called diluting your efforts to target markets. With him it’s quantity over quality. So if he’s not going to listen, I’m certainly not going to put forth my best effort because it’s all wasted.