Part of a series of posts from my old website archives. Enjoy!
The Farm!
my place to get away from it all
6.28.99
“In choosing your dwelling, know how to keep to the ground.
In cultivating your mind, know how to dive in the hidden deeps.â€
– Tao Te Ching, #8
If it moves, kill it.
I had forgotten how difficult moving was.
The dirt, the mess, the forgotten STUFF. I never would have guessed that so much stuff could have accumulated in three and a half years. That’s a damn long time living in a house. I couldn’t imagine living any longer elsewhere.Just a few more loads, a few more odds-and-ends, a lot of cleaning, and a bit more stuff to be sent to the lock-box, and we’re good to go.
At least we’re no longer living in a parsonage.
This new house is smaller, more “quaint”, and fraught with “personality traits”, e.i., the floor leans in places and doors don’t like to shut completely. But hey, just about everything about this new house tells me, “Hey, Shawn, don’t you think it’s time you moved out on your own?”
As soon as I get this nagging little job thing out of the way.
Ongoing Goings-On
Things are going fine, if that’s what they’re calling it these days. Moving is a drag, regardless of how far the move. The addage “the more, the merrier” does not hold true when someone is moving. Not only are you moving your own stuff, but other people’s stuff as well.
I dare say that the hardest part of moving is not carrying the appliances, it’s not dragging everything you value as “your stuff” to a new place; it’s not telling everyone and their brother you’ve moved.
It’s taking your pets.
Five cats, one dog, and the scratches to prove it. Three trips: two cats, two cats, then one cat inside the cab of the truck, and the dog, with me, in the back. Once it was over, it wasn’t so bad, but damn, all those claws hurt. The pets are starting to adjust just fine. One of our older cats, Precious, managed to hole herself up behind the stove. After 48 hours, she decided it was safe enough to come out.
Silly thing.
It just occurred to me. We now live only a quarter of a mile from Texas. Funny thing is that the only thing standing in between my house and the state line is a big cemetery. What do you suppose the symbolism is there?
This is ponderous, man. Really ponderous.
Now. On to the job thing. This week marks my new re-emergence into the job hunt. I took last week off (sounds funny, doesn’t it? “…last week off [from job hunting]….”) to pack, prep, and move. Now that the last niggling bits of moving are well-nigh done, it’s my time. In the last week, I’ve gathered a few job prospects, and this week, I hope to nail them.
My friends are doing a fine job in pointing me to jobs that are ripe for the picking, and I take their advice in heed. They say, “Shawn, you could be a manager at Whataburger,” and I say, “Uh, no.” You see, I think I deserve the right to demand the kind of job I want. For the past four years, I have attempted, time and time again, to get into the IT field, and without fail, I end up with a job that falls short of that, something that is as far away from the computer as you could get. Dammit, but no, this is my time. If I want a job working on the internet, I will no longer settle for less than that. If I wanted to waste my time managing a restaurant, telemarketing, selling shoes, or waiting tables while I used that time “looking for the perfect job,” then I would. I’ve tried that.
Children, gather around, because Uncle Shawn will tell you a story about how that doesn’t work. As sweet as it sounds in theory, it doesn’t work.
Unemployment is running rampant among my group of friends. It must be something in the water. Just as well, those of my close friends who have jobs in which there is an admirable amount of “job satisfaction” are scant. What is it about the way things are which prompt us into taking jobs we hate? The New Economy tells us to “work for the money; job-satisfaction can go to hell.” Sorry, I’m a little more old-school than that. If I’m not happy with my job, then dammit, I’m not going to perform at 100%. My last boss even acknowledged that fact in a little post-partem conversation we had. “It’s hard making yourself get up and go work a job you absolutely hate every morning, day-in, day-out, and expect to get there on-time all the time.”
I totally agree.
So, with my handful of job leads, a good night’s sleep, and a fresh shave, I swim back out to the desert island of job-opportunity. We’ll see whose coconut trees I can shake.
Projects
I absolutely regret missing the chance to see the boys of Gutterhaunt play their first-ever gig outside of Texarkana. Friday nite, the 25th, they played at The Vault, a new club in Shreveport, LA. The station 99X had a rather kick-ass promo for the two-band event. I haven’t talked to the guys yet about how it went; and, just as well, explained my absence.
I would have loved for nothing more than to go. But no. I was moving. The carpool caravan left town at 7pm friday night. At that very time, I was unloading one of our trucks before the rain fell on the furniture.
Rotten, just rotten.
So, now that the move is just about over, I can finally devote good time toward completing Gutterhaunt’s site. A lot of people (friends and band-members included) have asked me constantly about the current state of affairs regarding the site. I would love to get it done. It’s perfect resume material, and I absolutely adore looking at a job well-done by my own hands. Pardon me; when it comes to my own work, I’m narcistic.
Gutterhaunt is a good band, and they deserve a good site.
Here’s to well-satisfied days and nights-
Shawn