On the occasion of my 41st birthday, I’m checking in to give a status report. Went out for sushi, which was a treat. Went alone, but that’s for lack of pulling people into my life. Easier most times to go it alone. Had some miso, some yellow tail nigiri, and a Philadelphia roll, and I am stuffed. So good.
Still unemployed, but that’s for the lack of trying. I tell people I’m putting out my resume, but we know what’s really going on. We know the truth. Posting my resume to LinkedIn doesn’t really count. But I have a friend who has all but talked me into applying where he works. It’s a start; something to do to keep me occupied so I’m not spending so much time chewing on my own face. First-world problem.
Speaking of which, the past week of being ill has afforded me a lot of time to navelgaze, but thankfully my head has been too tired to do it. The week of going downtown to hang out and do SXSW stuff gave me plenty of headspace, but then filled it with some sort of pharyngitis. A week down and a regimen of amoxycillin knocked it out, mostly, but now I’m just feeling the malaise of getting my Tdap booster at my old-man yearly physical last Friday.
Doing a bit of spring cleaning at the apartment. There’s a lot of unnecessary stuff just hanging out, items I’ve been meaning to use but never have. A portion of the hoarder’s psyche is a distrust in the future, a worry about not having the right item on hand in case it’s needed. I have a little bit of that. So I’ve decided that I need to let some things go, lighten my load. Decimate some of my computer parts, get rid of old systems, drop off clothes I don’t wear anymore (but somebody else might). Throw out old box cartons and packing peanuts.
Things like a towel rack that I’ve been carrying around since ’98 when I used it in my bedroom at the house on Grand back home (kept it around because it takes up so little space, but I’ll never know if I’ll need it, y’know?) Like my first laptop, a Dell Inspiron 5000e, which has broken plastics, a bad screen, and no battery. Like the Pentium-class computer I built in 2000 to run Red Hat for testing web code, which now runs Win95 so I could use a parallel port scanner I bought in 1996. Stuff like that. It may be functional, but it’s not useful. That’s the rule of the day.
I’ve already dumped a load out at the Easter Seals drop-off behind Saver’s. I have a few more boxes to tear through, mostly of cables, wires, xmas lights, etc., before I carry my old electronic gear to Goodwill. Maybe in the future, I’ll aggregate less nonsense, eh?
So yeah. Life is like a mouthful of corn starch. I’ll eventually chew through it and swallow, hoping for the next spoonful to taste like something, anything. Maybe 41 will be a good year.
Wow… that old pos Inspiron is gone, huh? Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that, but man you held onto that thing for a really long time! Didn’t realize it was your first laptop. I hope it brought you many hours of… well, whatever it is you wanted to get out of it. :)