Rolling down the road, dodging crazy drivers and suicidal pedestrians, thinking about what lies ahead in my day, and what has come before it. Where am I going? What am I going to do to keep on making it?

It's not often what I want to be doing, but often it's some of the things imposed upon us that we need the most.

A few days ago at work, my car died. Just out-and-out died. I sat in it after a long day (after 6:30 PM when I was leaving), turned the key, and it barely started. The stereo started playing, "Drops of Jupiter" from the CD in it, and the AC started up.

Being something just above an idiot, I said to myself, "hey, that's weird," and turned the key off. Immediately realizing this, I started it right back up, and the dashboard went black. The engine turned over though, the alternator started generating power, and the car ran.

My radio said "LOC". The power died to it and I can't remember my Theftloc code. I've found instructions on disabling it the way that the dealerships do, but I haven't driven an hour yet to get it out of "INOP" mode. (I tried a lot of combos.)

We got a new battery in my car, thanks to Marilynn (due to a fluke in my finances and a check I wrote a while back that just cleared, finances have been and will be tight for quite a while).

So now I get to think and reflect in the car. A gift from The Goddess? (I'm not sure I believe in any deities, so... who knows?) A gift to myself? I don't know.

What I do know is that I need it.

A couple weeks ago I was too pissed off. I was to that point where I just hated my job and wanted to walk (if only I could at this point... this point). In fact, I almost posted this:

I am an architect. I like to build software baubles and tools, create new works and systems. I revel in my mostly solitary nature want to leave the politics and bullshit out of it.

This is the reason my job pisses me off.

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I think what bothers me most of all, without end, is that at my workplace no decisions can be made for technical reasons. They all have to be made according to whose kingdom something belongs to or who knows somebody else or who is buddy-buddy with someone else. Since I work for a hospital system (one featured in a current ABC medical reality series for the summer filler season), it's a system that's run by doctors and nurses, and technology be damned.

There are so many things to be done where I work, but we constantly chase shadows and issues that are widely considered tertiary or poor ideas where better solutions exist because someone who rules that little kingdom says this is the way things will go. This means that ideas and solutions aren't pursued, patches and constant maintenance are called for, and when something does work we can't leave well enough alone.

It's maddening. Worse, it's demoralizing.

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Often I think, "I'll just find a job somewhere else." Unfortunately, I know it's this way everywhere, not just where I work. I'd be naïve to believe anything else. Whenever you have to work in groups with some defined hierarchy, you get kingdoms and control freaks.

I think what I truly miss is working on my own. Or maybe I am tired of not working on my own ideas. Or maybe I'm just tired of having tasks that could truly be interesting waved under my nose, but before I get to work on those I have to complete some series of arbitrary, bogus tasks that are never really finished.

Standard fare for the things I used to write about - a brain dump of all the things that were bothering me.

The difference of me now, and how I was then, is that I occasionally try to find the most constructive way to approach situations. I try to do something about them, realizing that they don't get better on their own.

The twenty-five minutes during my morning commute give me this time to find what I should be doing, rather than my knee-jerk reaction.

One method? I scan the job ads occasionally now.

I sent a resume to Toshiba - they needed a webmaster at a location in Houston. I don't expect to hear back from them, but it was worth a shot. The simple act of sending my resumé and cover letter made me feel like I was in control of my life again.

Another thing? Geek time.

I've been working on my sites a lot lately. I think Marilynn may be feeling neglected here and there, but I think she also understands that design and implementation of my ideas is deeply important to me. I like to create, and I have that creative urge so strongly that I don't know what to do if I don't follow it.

I haven't been working on my studies of wicca and paganism.

Partly it's been that my energies have been flowing to creative pursuits. I have been wanting to build in the evenings, not read.

Partly it's because I feel a disconnection with nature - that happens when it's raining constantly, or then when it's 95 degrees outside every afternoon. Better to sit in air conditioning.

Partly, it's due to allergies - I've been suffering unmercifully because of the cat and mold spores. I had to leave work sick yesterday because of it.

Partly it's because Marilynn has been sick the last couple days, too. I have been at least moderately attentive to her needs (thus, more than 24 hours without any geek time).

Does this mean that I don't feel the lure? Or is it like everything else I take an interest in? Does it wax and wane with the tides I feel in my mind? Is it my very INTP nature that makes me lose interest in a subject, only to file the information away and come back to it again and again?

I am making myself insane, I swear.

restlessmind