To-Do Lists

Things I did this weekend:

  • Picked up some parts from the Honda dealer, got some much-needed tools to add to my collection, and replaced a plastic cap on my engine valve casing that’s been leaking oil for the past 2 years. It was an easy repair, but had a high risk of going bad (which is why I waited this long). Thankfully, the old plug came out fine and I didn’t have to remove the valve cover. Hopefully no more smell of oil baking on the engine block.
  • Topped off the radiator with antifreeze to bring the concentration up for winter; the hydrometer showed it was a little weak.
  • Wiped down part of the engine and cleaned up the battery contacts (since I had to disconnect the battery for the repair), finally putting the stock plastic cover back on the positive terminal to prevent accidental shorting.
  • After several months, I finally took four fat trash bags of shredded bills and some jars of used cooking oil down to Ecology Action for recycling.
  • Got a ton of quality hanging-out time with friends from several different circles at the cafe.
  • Met with the director of the short film I’m doing sound work on and got some very useful feedback.
  • Slept an average of 7 1/2 peaceful hours a night.
  • Updated all of my timepieces to Standard Time.
  • Got a pleasant surprise when I drove past the Crossfit gym near my house this morning and caught a glimpse of a woman with a well-toned backside in a lime-green string bikini and high heels posing in the garage door for a photo shoot (they were perfect hemispheres, I swear). Put a smile on my face.
  • Had some wonderful spicy chopped beef at Ruby’s BBQ on 29th and Guadalupe.
  • Located a decent Chinese carry-out restaurant to feed my cravings for sweet-n-sour chicken (these places are becoming rare now that they’re all changing into pan-asian or fusion cuisine places).
  • Made breakfast both Saturday and Sunday of ham, eggs, and pancakes.
  • Took a nice walk down the street to a cafe I seldom visit and, thanks to unreliable WiFi (must’ve been an atypical night), managed a good work session on my sound project.
  • Chewed through about 8 episodes of “Farscape”, season 3 – kinda dawdling on the storywriting during this stretch, but still fun to watch.

Things I didn’t do this weekend:

  • Go to a party.
  • Get laid.

OMG! This weekend is a failure! Why do I even try!? I QUIT!

Just kidding. This weekend has been inordinately kind to me, and I’m grateful to have some of my projects and obligations moved along to completion. It’s nice that I’m not allowed to do any overtime at my job; it prevents me from logging in on the weekend to check on the progress of the test machines (hey, it might be important, but I ain’t workin’ for free). I get my life back.

I have plenty of things I still want or need to do, but to have a chunk of them cleared out of the way in two days is a weight off my aching shoulders. I would wish for continued momentum, but life’s not all about that. It’s about irregular cycles; feast and famine, labor and leisure, give and get. This is my season for motion. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Intractible

Picked up Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. Got through the introduction. Sounds like an interesting book.

A friend is having me assemble an audio track for his mostly-silent short film. We have some great ideas.

I have several short stories that are in the works. One is mostly finished towards a second draft, the others are a handful of notes.

Have a few song ideas, some that have been going unfinished or unrecorded for almost 4 years. That’s a long time to get nowhere.

Walking through the second season of “Farscape”; after seeing a handful of episodes, I fell in love with the show, but never managed to see the entire 4-season run. I watch it when I can.

My job is taking my mindshare away from me when I’m off the clock, and is getting no traction when I’m on the clock. Impossible deadlines, broken infrastructure, and chaotic management abound.

So many projects in my pocket, most of them creative. I take them out at the end of the workday, put them on the table, decide what I want to do that night. And all I want to do is turn off and do nothing. The creative execution is difficult, the joy fleeting, the reward impersonal. I feel dead. Does it get better?

Waylaid

Five years on this gods-forsaken rock. FIVE. They sent me here for a year-long tour to research the local culture, some “earnest measure” to evaluate the consequences of first contact. My early reports weren’t too favorable, so when the inter-solar economy went soft, the axe came down and my manager got shitcanned for poor performance. Not my fault that jackass sent me here without doing his homework. He just delegated that research to me to be done in situ and waited on my field reports.

“See that world!” he exclaimed. “Gain valuable experience!” he cried. “It’ll be a great résumé builder!” he implored.

But he and anybody who knows I’m here is gone. My only hope now is if I’m still on the payroll. Maybe some mid-level accountant will look over the books, notice the checks going out, but not see my ass sitting in the hive. “Hey, where’s Funar Densnak?” he’ll ask. If I’m lucky, they’ll send a transport and rescue me.

I swear by the red shores of Senastes, I will seek punitive damages for pain and suffering induced by overexposure to Humanity. I would pull all three rows of teeth to leave this place.

Deface

I don’t know about you guys, but part of me is getting turned off by this social media thing. Law of diminishing returns, I guess.

I mean, I like keeping in touch with the people I know from near to far, from now to then, but it goes with the territory that reading up on their lives involves reading about their lives, that reading their thoughts on things involves reading about their thoughts on things. People have opinions, and they express them. As hard as Facebook works to make sure we’re all enveloped in an echo chamber of like-minded posts from like-minded friends, you’d think it would go down easy to read each and every ideology that cascades down my news feed…but it doesn’t. Everybody talks, and it’s work to go “well yeah, but nope” as I skip through the posts without bothering to read the comment threads (Internet comments are the worst, even in situations where you know the real name of the person commenting and could punch them in the face later that day).

Lately, my job has gotten heavy enough on me, psychically, that I just don’t have the mindshare or bandwidth to even go “yeah; no; yeah; you’re stupid, but I still like you; no; hide post; no really, just hide this post”. I’m actually closing the Facebook tab for hours at a time. Work time is work time, social time is social time. Maybe I’m growing out of it; maybe I’m worn down by the constant stimulation and distraction. Maybe I just don’t want to make expressing an opinion an uphill battle when I have more important matters in the real world to attend to.

It requires a good bit of personal energy to keep it current, and I get little of it back — most of that in the form of “Likes” from the same ol’ folks (God bless ’em). So, yeah, diminishing returns.

At least MySpace got me laid once.

Gravity

The most dangerous social policy is the idea that someone else is lower than you. I’ve seen people who lost everything achieve much. I’ve seen people who had much achieve nothing.

I myself am trying to look at everyone I see through human eyes to see their human potential for exceeding the human condition. It’s difficult, at times nearly impossible. But we’re all one hair’s breadth away from rock bottom.