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my inner voice makes me sleepy.
March 04, 2005
so, there's been another hiatus. there's several reasons for it. you may not care, but you're here, so let's discuss.
first, the energy just has not been there. i just have not been able to get healthy in the past few weeks. this issue may or may not have been further compounded by stress, poor diet, inconsistent sleeping habits, a relative lack of exercise and, quite frankly, getting a bit drunk every other night.
work: no sir, i don't like it. i love the people i work with, the location... and, well, that's mostly it. that was all ok, but it looks like i'm having to do more litigation, which i don't feel comfortable with, and have never liked. and no, my not liking it has nothing to do with my not being good at it. i love basketball and sex. ok, actually, i think i'm above average when it comes to sex, and only those i've had sex with might disagree.
anyway. so, the litigation stuff is both stressing me out and annoying me. on top of that, a certain private "non-profit" statewide dental association that will not be named has a certain aggie-assed schmarmy car-dealer representative from bryan-college-station, who will not be named, in their pocket to block my agency's request for appropriations.
basically, our legislative appropriations request seeks something called "pay parity." currently, our employees make, on average, something like 60% of what employees at other state agencies doing similar work are paid. combine that with the auditor's report that across the board, state employees make 17% less than their private-sector counterparts, and you see that currently, what we have is "pay parody," also know as, "crap."
so, hope wanes a bit. we'll see what happens in the next month or so.
the lack of sleep, exercise, and sobriety don't need a lot of explanation.
another big factor is that i've not been happy with what i'm producing. i'm happy with the prose. but i think people are tiring of it. people want to be entertained, and so do i. but it's just not there, and i'm beginning to think that it's because the manic side of me is being muffled by the medication.
i almost think i can go back in the blog and see the change in writing, how it corresponds to when i filled that first prescription for depakote and lamictal. the moody stuff was always there, and always will be - i'm not anxious to let that writing go, either. i'm more stable, but as we've seen, not necessarily happier. the lows aren't as bad. i haven't missed any work on the days where i just couldn't get out of bed, because i had already, in my head, lost the battles of the day, and of life. i don't have the stupid little anxiety attacks where i feel like an elephant or, like, rush limbaugh is standing on my chest.
for me, my best writing, particularly the funny stuff, happens with little effort. any idea becomes a spark, my mind like a shed full of fireworks in a cartoon. chain reactions of connections begin firing in my head like small explosions, the words and ideas flood out, and all i have to do is write as much of it down as i can catch in my hands. at those times, i feel brilliant. my brain is at its best, doing what it was made to do, and it feels active, alive, better.
and the connections are good. for example, i would never usually go with "rush limbaugh." not timely. too obvious. not funny. but right now, i got nothing else.
anyway, there's a matter of taste involved, but i've always loved robin williams from an early age because i recognized something in him. when he's at his best, the words "brilliant" and "manic" are the only words to describe him. i see the explosions going on in his head, and his ability to focus their power, and you get mork, or his early standup work, or even his relatively recent performance on "the actor's studio," which is something i would gladly pay for a copy of.
the medicated robin williams, however, gives you "patch adams." still sort of funny, and surely borne somewhat from his desire for balance, to represent the other, too-long neglected side of his persona... but not quite right.
i still do alright, but it's quieter, calmer in my head these days. funny things happen in short, unsustainable bursts, often helped along by habit and familiarity with a handful of formulas - plug-in comedy. gone is the wonderful, enervating sensation of one idea branching out explosively, exponentially into seemingly endless realms of possibilities, from the literal to the ludicrous.
so. i have a task. first, control the other variables - sleep, diet, exercise, alcohol. try to either find a way to change things at the job, or move on and make more money. then, we'll see where i stand. maybe then, i'll still have a decision to make, a cost-benefit analysis that will determine which version of me i will choose to live with - the safer one, or the freer?
thinking of such a time and such a choice, i immediately think of ben franklin - "he who would give up his freedom for a little bit of security deserves neither freedom, nor security."
Posted by Rob at March 4, 2005 11:48 PM