gotta do something with that.
Aug. 20th, 2003 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7God, I am so sleepy. I was up until 1 last night making a "best of" folder of my digital pictures, from which I will create a web page of photos-- for the family, mostly. I need to get started on that, so I did.
Someone in one of the forums I frequent (High Rankings, I think, or maybe Cre8asite or something) said it was obvious I wasn't just a copy writer or technical writer, I was a writer, and I ought to do something with that.
I know. It's fundamentally clear to me that I really need to do something with that, because the 9-5 job thing is really not suitable for me. I just... I just don't do well. I wasn't ready to go home at quittin' time last night; I was working hard on something and didn't really want to stop. I got home and wanted to work on something else, but had to make dinner. After dinner, I was working on the family website and didn't want to go to bed. Then I woke up, didn't want to, and wanted to keep working on the family website. I had to go to work instead. I didn't want to continue where I'd left off the night before. I have been forcing myself to do work all day but have been so tired and fried I haven't been able to.
I just had a vacation. What's up with that? I don't have another one for months. I'm going to have to take an unpaid couple of days to go to Buffalo for Christmas and Dave's birthday, but I'm determined to do so. This holiday season is going to be a difficult one for his family and I'm determined he should be there for it. I want to be there as well because he won't go if I don't. (I told him to take a couple days this week and go to Buffalo for a long weekend-- they're going to scatter his father's ashes in the lower Niagara River one of these days, and I think Dave ought to be there. He said no, I don't want to go without you. Which was sweet, and I'm glad he said it, but I really don't want him to miss the ceremony.
Ack. Anyway, I am tired and burned out for no reason. I have been working hard here at work, but it's not even like I dislike what I've been working on that much. I haven't had the time I've needed for my personal projects but i never have time for personal projects. How anyone in the world ever has time for watching TV I'll never know; I have so much to get done I'll never finish any of it.
I just can't cope with the schedule, or something.
I have been so unproductive today. Not for want of trying, but I'm drowsy, unfocused, and confused. I sat for twenty minutes earlier, and mostly just stared at my computer. I was listening to a 15-minute-long song (I Dream A Highway, Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)) and listened to the whole thing while staring blankly through my monitor. But I couldn't move. I couldn't think about anything but the song. I couldn't stop the song either.
And to top it off, I felt horribly guilty throughout. I have to have spaces like that, but i feel guilty because they're paying me, they have tons of work for me to do, and here I am staring at nothing and not getting anything done.
But...
I need spaces like that. I need to sit and think about nothing in particular to collect my thoughts. I need to not have anything pressing on me at times. I need deadlines, sure, but I need a whole lot of downtime to simply function as a human being. I don't even know what kind of a job would let me have that.
I could work many hours a day, sure, but I'd need to be able to structure that work time as inconsistently as the fancy struck me. Fancy makes it sound very lighthearted; it's not. It's just that sometimes, I can muster the focus to think straight through cinderblock walls, but I may well need to spend three hours aimlessly surfing the Internet first. I can't just turn on the concentration like a tap, and it's very difficult for me to muster it in the first place.
When I was in high school, I remember I used to stay up late some nights and write. I was writing for no particular purpose but my own amusement-- nobody read any of it, at all, and I would've died had somebody snuck so much as a peek (I would scroll rapidly up and down if anyone walked through the room, so that it wasn't legible. That was before Windows, so you couldn't just minimize the window). But I would work for six hours at a stretch and not notice the time passing. I think my record was 13 hours with one bathroom break at 11.5 hours. And that was on the computer with no other programs. I was just writing. I was probably not even editing. Just... writing.
I don't have time for that anymore. I have distractions in my life. I have people that I enjoy spending time with. I have the Internet. I have all kinds of healthy outside interests and responsibilities, that I didn't at 15.
But I still feel like I haven't managed to focus my brain once in months and months. It's like looking at a whole bunch of slightly blurry pictures-- you keep looking away and blinking, and can't really get very much done, but you're not quite sure what's wrong. I'm like that in my daily life, and have been for a long time. I can't focus. I can't take care of more than one thing at once. I feel handicapped or blurred or confused or short-circuited somehow. It's not just this job. I was like that when I was unemployed.
Maybe it's that I'm not being adequately challenged, or that I'm just not focusing. I need a place and a time and a space where I can just focus. Then maybe I can get all this excess whatever it is out, and go about living my life normally...
Fat chance. I wouldn't know normal if it bit me on the ass.
But I would like to know "not frustrated"...
Someone in one of the forums I frequent (High Rankings, I think, or maybe Cre8asite or something) said it was obvious I wasn't just a copy writer or technical writer, I was a writer, and I ought to do something with that.
I know. It's fundamentally clear to me that I really need to do something with that, because the 9-5 job thing is really not suitable for me. I just... I just don't do well. I wasn't ready to go home at quittin' time last night; I was working hard on something and didn't really want to stop. I got home and wanted to work on something else, but had to make dinner. After dinner, I was working on the family website and didn't want to go to bed. Then I woke up, didn't want to, and wanted to keep working on the family website. I had to go to work instead. I didn't want to continue where I'd left off the night before. I have been forcing myself to do work all day but have been so tired and fried I haven't been able to.
I just had a vacation. What's up with that? I don't have another one for months. I'm going to have to take an unpaid couple of days to go to Buffalo for Christmas and Dave's birthday, but I'm determined to do so. This holiday season is going to be a difficult one for his family and I'm determined he should be there for it. I want to be there as well because he won't go if I don't. (I told him to take a couple days this week and go to Buffalo for a long weekend-- they're going to scatter his father's ashes in the lower Niagara River one of these days, and I think Dave ought to be there. He said no, I don't want to go without you. Which was sweet, and I'm glad he said it, but I really don't want him to miss the ceremony.
Ack. Anyway, I am tired and burned out for no reason. I have been working hard here at work, but it's not even like I dislike what I've been working on that much. I haven't had the time I've needed for my personal projects but i never have time for personal projects. How anyone in the world ever has time for watching TV I'll never know; I have so much to get done I'll never finish any of it.
I just can't cope with the schedule, or something.
I have been so unproductive today. Not for want of trying, but I'm drowsy, unfocused, and confused. I sat for twenty minutes earlier, and mostly just stared at my computer. I was listening to a 15-minute-long song (I Dream A Highway, Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)) and listened to the whole thing while staring blankly through my monitor. But I couldn't move. I couldn't think about anything but the song. I couldn't stop the song either.
And to top it off, I felt horribly guilty throughout. I have to have spaces like that, but i feel guilty because they're paying me, they have tons of work for me to do, and here I am staring at nothing and not getting anything done.
But...
I need spaces like that. I need to sit and think about nothing in particular to collect my thoughts. I need to not have anything pressing on me at times. I need deadlines, sure, but I need a whole lot of downtime to simply function as a human being. I don't even know what kind of a job would let me have that.
I could work many hours a day, sure, but I'd need to be able to structure that work time as inconsistently as the fancy struck me. Fancy makes it sound very lighthearted; it's not. It's just that sometimes, I can muster the focus to think straight through cinderblock walls, but I may well need to spend three hours aimlessly surfing the Internet first. I can't just turn on the concentration like a tap, and it's very difficult for me to muster it in the first place.
When I was in high school, I remember I used to stay up late some nights and write. I was writing for no particular purpose but my own amusement-- nobody read any of it, at all, and I would've died had somebody snuck so much as a peek (I would scroll rapidly up and down if anyone walked through the room, so that it wasn't legible. That was before Windows, so you couldn't just minimize the window). But I would work for six hours at a stretch and not notice the time passing. I think my record was 13 hours with one bathroom break at 11.5 hours. And that was on the computer with no other programs. I was just writing. I was probably not even editing. Just... writing.
I don't have time for that anymore. I have distractions in my life. I have people that I enjoy spending time with. I have the Internet. I have all kinds of healthy outside interests and responsibilities, that I didn't at 15.
But I still feel like I haven't managed to focus my brain once in months and months. It's like looking at a whole bunch of slightly blurry pictures-- you keep looking away and blinking, and can't really get very much done, but you're not quite sure what's wrong. I'm like that in my daily life, and have been for a long time. I can't focus. I can't take care of more than one thing at once. I feel handicapped or blurred or confused or short-circuited somehow. It's not just this job. I was like that when I was unemployed.
Maybe it's that I'm not being adequately challenged, or that I'm just not focusing. I need a place and a time and a space where I can just focus. Then maybe I can get all this excess whatever it is out, and go about living my life normally...
Fat chance. I wouldn't know normal if it bit me on the ass.
But I would like to know "not frustrated"...
