kingtycoon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kingtycoon) wrote2021-02-22 08:09 pm
kingtycoon) wrote2021-02-22 08:09 pm
Shoulda
I like my job. That’s a thing. It’s been 2 months and I like it here. I really look forward to the end of March though, when I go to 100% remote. I like my job but I’m certainly not going to move to where it is. It’s not a good place to live or be, exactly. It’s a fine business, sure – essential infrastructure – but Pittsburgh’s exurbia isn’t where I want to be. Fortunately I don’t have to be there. I also don’t have to be where I am.
Sometimes I forget & don’t really notice, if only briefly, just how appallingly shitty my upstairs neighbors are. How noisy & stampy. I forget – but then I also remember that soon I can just leave. Go away away wherever. I just want to go away from them. I can go anywhere.
That’s the hard thing, for me. I think about it at work – customizing the software so it’ll accommodate what people want. The trouble is nobody knows how to make decisions. They don’t know what they want they just want help. I think about this. Someone on the long radioshow of the early morning drive from home was talking about how in AK & WVa there’s the most COVID vaccination. “How come?” They wonder. My thesis – broke-ass poor people in the poorest parts of the country with the least amount of options just go to the one place they can & get things done. Rich people in rich cities with all the options – they’re paralyzed by it. Decisions – there’s too many decisions foisted on us all the time & nobody’s got the time to devote to it. You’d think you could organize a public body to manage these options, pick out the best ones and set them up for the community. You’d think that & maybe, someday there will be such a thing. I propose it should be called government.
But paralysis in the face of the wide-open horizon. This is where I am. I kept thinking about it. Over and over I’d put out a tentative plan. Over the past few years I’ve tried to feel out a new direction – because as it happens next month the world will change all the more dramatically. That cub of mine will be, ostensibly, grown & will need my presence & assistance much much less. Presumably.
I’m conflicted here because she’s got another year of HS still. I promise to leave CLE & to settle elsewhere, make things ready if she’s interested in a different life. But I think her ambition is far less than her inertia. Maybe I’ll be surprised? She is sometimes surprising, but whether she’s ready for a change – she hasn’t demonstrated any of the requisite agency required to enact a change. And yet, here and there she’ll surprise you with her sudden flashes of bold decisiveness. But here now, it’s up to her.
And no longer do I have her as a reason to stay where I am. Or, anyhow, it is less & less a reason. I’ve relied on it, her need of me, as a reason for doing things that I’ve done. Some of them. For sticking around & staying where I do & it’s been pretty unfair of me to put that on her – but for the life of me I can’t drum up any internal motivation beyond being left comfortably alone. Too many bad experiences have left me cold, disinterested in participating. But being left alone is an expensive prospect.
And yet, here I seem to have cracked it. Comfortably paying remote work that allows me a wide range of options. And yet? What’s best? What’s right?
I kind of wish I had someone pulling. Someone saying – come here & be at this place. But I think I’ve squandered a lot of that amity by indifference? Isolation has confused my sensibilities – what’s the right thing to do nowadays, call & write & be nearby? Or – keep a healthful distance? Or? Or… Maybe I’ve succumbed too much to bad sentiments & have wrecked my prospects in the near term.
I’ve put together all the pieces I need for a different kind of life & yet? I’m not ultimately prepared to make it happen.
Eh. Maybe it’s the winter. Maybe it’s the plague. Maybe it’s just a Monday morning.
Eh. Maybe it’s the winter. Maybe it’s the plague. Maybe it’s just a Monday morning.
Sometimes I forget & don’t really notice, if only briefly, just how appallingly shitty my upstairs neighbors are. How noisy & stampy. I forget – but then I also remember that soon I can just leave. Go away away wherever. I just want to go away from them. I can go anywhere.
That’s the hard thing, for me. I think about it at work – customizing the software so it’ll accommodate what people want. The trouble is nobody knows how to make decisions. They don’t know what they want they just want help. I think about this. Someone on the long radioshow of the early morning drive from home was talking about how in AK & WVa there’s the most COVID vaccination. “How come?” They wonder. My thesis – broke-ass poor people in the poorest parts of the country with the least amount of options just go to the one place they can & get things done. Rich people in rich cities with all the options – they’re paralyzed by it. Decisions – there’s too many decisions foisted on us all the time & nobody’s got the time to devote to it. You’d think you could organize a public body to manage these options, pick out the best ones and set them up for the community. You’d think that & maybe, someday there will be such a thing. I propose it should be called government.
But paralysis in the face of the wide-open horizon. This is where I am. I kept thinking about it. Over and over I’d put out a tentative plan. Over the past few years I’ve tried to feel out a new direction – because as it happens next month the world will change all the more dramatically. That cub of mine will be, ostensibly, grown & will need my presence & assistance much much less. Presumably.
I’m conflicted here because she’s got another year of HS still. I promise to leave CLE & to settle elsewhere, make things ready if she’s interested in a different life. But I think her ambition is far less than her inertia. Maybe I’ll be surprised? She is sometimes surprising, but whether she’s ready for a change – she hasn’t demonstrated any of the requisite agency required to enact a change. And yet, here and there she’ll surprise you with her sudden flashes of bold decisiveness. But here now, it’s up to her.
And no longer do I have her as a reason to stay where I am. Or, anyhow, it is less & less a reason. I’ve relied on it, her need of me, as a reason for doing things that I’ve done. Some of them. For sticking around & staying where I do & it’s been pretty unfair of me to put that on her – but for the life of me I can’t drum up any internal motivation beyond being left comfortably alone. Too many bad experiences have left me cold, disinterested in participating. But being left alone is an expensive prospect.
And yet, here I seem to have cracked it. Comfortably paying remote work that allows me a wide range of options. And yet? What’s best? What’s right?
I kind of wish I had someone pulling. Someone saying – come here & be at this place. But I think I’ve squandered a lot of that amity by indifference? Isolation has confused my sensibilities – what’s the right thing to do nowadays, call & write & be nearby? Or – keep a healthful distance? Or? Or… Maybe I’ve succumbed too much to bad sentiments & have wrecked my prospects in the near term.
I’ve put together all the pieces I need for a different kind of life & yet? I’m not ultimately prepared to make it happen.
Eh. Maybe it’s the winter. Maybe it’s the plague. Maybe it’s just a Monday morning.
Eh. Maybe it’s the winter. Maybe it’s the plague. Maybe it’s just a Monday morning.