2001-09-07 - 12:18 a.m.

wherein an attempt to clean an apartment feels like a slight dusting off of inner issues

BigSis came over tonight to help me clean up the apartment before my big (ok, probably small) dinner party this saturday. the living room has never looked so clean. ever. i hardly recognize it. i have a whole box of books to donate, and a whole box of things for goodwill and we barely scratched the surface in my room, and we ran in horror from the abyss that is my closet. i still have a lot of cleaning and organizing i want to do on saturday. plus cooking. plus shopping and wine buying and maybe a jaunt to Pier One for some candles and better candle-holders.

we noticed a very definite trend in cleaning the living room and kitchen. 90% of the things that we wanted to move to someplace else belonged to eRoommate. just tons of stuff. not that i'm saying i don't have tons of stuff, and clutter and crap. because i do. tons. but i tend to keep it localized in my room. eRoommate had his spread all over.

but the place looks much better, and i have faith that i can create a similar effect in my room (perhaps just by cramming everything into the closet and plastering over the door) and i tell you.

sunday is going to be a day of rest.

because i've earned it.

elsewhere in my life, the job still sucks. i can't get my focus back. it doesn't seem real to me. it's like an acting job. i go there everyday and pretend to be a programmer. i find myself asking questions like "hypothetically speaking, if you were writing this piece of code, what would the first line be?". i've checked out. i no longer want to be on the bus, but i don't yet have the gumption to get off the bus. i'm afraid to get off until i have another ride lined up.

top this crappy attitude off with this lovely revelation i had today. i just found out the exercise price of my stock options. it's five dollars more than the current stock price. can you say "negative incentive"? i knew that you could.

so recently i mentioned that i haven't turned the corner, but i might be able to see it. here's something i was thinking about today. the past six months (really more, but six is a nice round number) i've been on a kind of auto-pilot. i've put a lot of my aspirations on hold in my mind. i've put a lot of things that are important to me on the back burner. and what's on the front burner. nothing really. that's the trouble. i haven't really been striving for anything. i've just been coasting. as old Bob said "the only thing i knew how to do was to keep on keeping on"

well, i'm trying to change that. i feel like this journal has been important in my realization of what's been going on (or really the lack of anything going on) in my life, but as i said to BigSis tonight "self-awareness is not worth much if you don't act on it".

so i'm trying to act on it. it's silly in a way, but making this effort to clean up the apartment is important. it feels like a first step. it feels like not just motion but positive motion. baby steps. baby steps. another random quote whose source i don't recall "every day take positive action for the good".

i said to my pen pal the other day (or maybe it was today) that keeping a journal on-line, where i know other people can read it, makes me conscious of the vicious cycles i get into. i can no longer write the same whiney crap about the same problems and never do anything, because who knows, you might actually call me on it. you might sign that old guestbook and tell me to get off my whiney ass and *do something* ferchrissake. you would do that for me, wouldn't you?

i feel like i'm bursting tonight, like i have so very much to say and that it's important to me to get it out online for everyone to peruse. sometimes, especially at work, i feel like the time i spend writing is more *real* than the time i spend on most anything else. am i most alive at these moments? am i most truly myself? what does that say about me? who's frying baloney? just seeing if you're still paying attention.

okay, i really, really, really should try to get some sleep. BigSis is asleep on my couch and she'll come through here to use the shower a bit earlier than i'm used to waking up. so not much sleep again in the world of j$.

good night, you princes of new england, you kings of maine.

good night.