It's been a long time.

Wasn't that the name of my last post? I feel like it was. Hm hm. Well it's still been a pretty long time since I last updated.

So I just finished my last semester at Montgomery College. Prospectively, I'll soon have an Associate's Degree. That's pretty sweet. 5 years at 2 different institutions over an 8 year period....getting there! someday I may even have a bachelor's!!

I did a lot better than I expected. My final paper for that class I always fail? Turned in--on time--no extensions necessary.

I'm not sure what's next. I may move out for a little bit--live on my own at a friend's place for something ridiculously affordable for a couple months. Then maybe go to UMD next Spring? Or maybe I'll launch into the rest of my 4year this summer--take a class or two. My parents are getting close to retirement, afterall, and likely won't be as capable of helping me through to the end of undergrad after they do.

Maybe I'll keep wroking at Macy's--not likely, at least not in my current department. Maybe I'll transfer somewhere else in the store. Or maybe I'll finally land that officey job I've been talking about. Get some real money and reasonable, stable hours.

It would be nice to find a stable relationship, or at least go out and meet people regularly. It's been a while since I had a regular boy of any kind. One with staying power. The last one still isn't talking to me, and I don't know for the life of me why. It sucks cuz we didn't end on bad terms or anything. Other boys I've dated recently have usually been bad matches personality/maturity wise. Like, total flakes.

I know part of my problem is "needing" a relationship too badly; too often I'm the guy who's always available, always down to hang, always waiting for you to be available. And guysquickly take advantage of that, likely without realizing it. And I guess it's okay--I've discovered that if we're just too busy to hang or do much in person, I still like to at least hear from you. A text here and there. A phonecall if you can spare a minute. It's selfish, I guess, but it's nice to know that even though things aren't exactly working, you're still thinking of me.

Eh, it's sad, I know. but that's where I'm at.

Other things are going well, though, as I mentioned. I think this uncertainty, though, about where I'm at or heading has me stressed. Like, because I'm sure abou tthat area, i'm worrying more in other areas that're also lacking stability or certainty. So like this stuff with guys? I think i'm looking to compensate for the stress of uncertainty--in my school or work or living arrangement life--with the relief and comfort of a guy I can depend on/fuck on the regular.

Later I'll have to come back and talk about this research project of mine. I'm likely going to develop this paper I just finished into something publishable--either an article or articles or even a book. Maybe I can focus on that (and finding something income-related) for now as things settle out.

When did that happen.

I've somewhat spontaneously decided to go back to school. I took time off 2 years ago to figure things out; I had only 2 classes left to get an assocaites degree, but I'd struggled with them. I've been idly considering going back for the last 2 years, but recently I got serious about it.

It coincides with going part time at Macy's. I can't stand it being full time there for reasons I think I've already intoned elsewhere. So now I'm part-time at Macy's, and part-time at school. And it's scary because one of these classes I've taken like 4 times and never passed. And it's scary because it's change. And because I might actually pass--and then what?

I'm kinda counting on having grown up some in the last 2 years. I'm also paying for it myself; I've taken out so many loans in the past that I didn't need to that I feel adding more, even if responsibly, seemed unwise at this point.

In other news, I've been seeing a boy, kinda. That may not be an entirely fair way of describing it, but whatever.

I'd begun worrying, though, that he'd lost his enthusiasm. I dunno, just the tone of his texts and the way our plans tended not to work out. I was feeling frustrated and kinda down about it. But then we were at the movies last night, and he just automatically rested his head on my shoulder, and it was really nice.

I realized this morning that I was possibly more content with the slow & snuggly approach than the previous fast & flirtatious way it'd been. This felt nicer, more interesting. And it made me feel suddenly more grown-up, and that wasn't such a bad thing.

Who knows where this will go; it'd be nice to do something slow & snuggly though. And who knows where school will go; I'd like to pass and get it over with, finally, but it won't kill me if I fail. I'll just be out $450. Which actually does kinda suck. Oh well. Onward and upward!

Over and done.

I just don't know where anything is heading anymore. So, I'm still frustrated with my job, halfassedly looking for a new one. I've been trying moderately unsuccessfully to rekindle my writing. Suddenly I've been considering finishing school. I need to figure out what's important to me.

For some reason, that question's been leading me to my writing. My non-existent writing. I guess because it's expressive, it's enduring, it's relevant. Selling perfume? Not gonna be remembered someday for all the fantastic perfume I sold. It's not that I need to be remembered or adored, just that what I do with the rest of my life, however long that may be, actually matter to me and maybe someone else. Right now I'm about as far from that as I think I can get.

The job, as I've said, pisses me off a lot. I'm not terrible at it, but I'm also not good at it. And it consumes most of my time and energy and leaves me not only exhausted but wanting more from life. And angry. Really angry, a lot.

The kind of work I'd like instead seems to prefer some kind of degree. At the least something more to show for 5 years of higher education than I currently do. It just doesn't look good, I imagine, to go to two different schools over so long a time and not have any kind of degree. Even so. Even so....

I don't know what I want from life anymore. If I'm gonna write, I either need to figure out a system by which I actually allow myself to write. Some manner of discipline mixed with some kind of plan. Neither of which I'm very good at. I also need to have the time and energy, or so I imagine, to focus on writing projects, neither of which I seem to have much.

I'm dithering on again; I'll just quit while I'm ahead. Before I start getting actually angstsome. I will say, however, that I'm sure something needs to change. Just not totally sure what that is yet or how. But I definitely can't keep on like this. At least I hope not.

Uncertainty is my owner.

Right now, I feel like I'm running around trying to do all kindsa things I think I want to do and think I need to do, while unsure what I actually want or need. It ends up a noncommital mess of half-assery instead of any of the useful things I'd wanted in the first place.

Of course, I'm exaggerating, somewhat. In reality, the bulk of it is confined to looking for jobs, considering school, and weighing moving out. And it's the how's and when's, as well as the which and which nots. Do I really want to saddle up the responsibility of going back to school right after starting a a new job? Is moving out of my parents' basement with its marginal rent and into a real place with real rent at the same time as incurring more student loan debt really that good of a plan? But these are things that, if artificially, would move my life forward. And it's felt ungratifyingly stuck in one place for much too long--my patience is running out, which is probably the worst factor of all here.

Additionally, I want to pursue more personally fulfilling, interesting things. I really want to get serious about my writing. I want to go out and be more social. I want to explore the city around me. Go on dates and stuff. But, most of the time, I feel trapped somewhere along the commute to work with pitstops at the gym and food court.

A few months ago, a friend interrupted some ramble of mine to tease, "I don't know what you need. I feel like I wanna help, but I don't know what you need." Too true. Too goddamned true. My sponsor--having evidently picked up on this, too--assigned me to mediate on the question, "What do I need to be whole and fulfilled?" I'm not sure if it's actually a trick question--like "psych! it's self-worth!"--or if I'm actually stumped, but this goes to the core of what I'm struggling with these days.

And the result, of course, is that my first blog post in months is whiney and emo and angstsome--yet again. I'm not sure things are really as bad as I make them sound--it's a talent of mine, making things sound much worse than they probably are through worry and wordplay--but I am definitely confused. I feel like things might actually be shifting about, behind the scenes, under the surface, and it's just hard to see those changes or point to them decisively. Like I've started making notes on my phone  about bits of poetry or ideas for things to write. I'm looking around at jobs instead of simply sitting on my ass and dreaming about them. I've had several serious talks with my potential/probable roommate about locations and rents and third roommates. But besides feeling unsure, I'm worried I'm rushing myself into too many things at once. Or not moving enough at all. Or both.

Sometimes tricky.

Asking for help can be tough, but sometimes tougher still is figuring out what to ask for.

I'm sitting outside my therapist's office before my appointment. And I keep wondering--what am I going to talk about? It's more a "where do I start...?" than a "what is there to say...?" situation, but either way it comes down to needing helping and wanting help but not being totally sure how to ask for it.

There is some major (or at least majorly frustrating) dysfunction in my brain; of this much I'm certain. I'm not sure, though, where it's tripping me up or how it manages to trick me every time. So how do I ask for help? What am I asking for?

It's rather a tricky trouble.

I suppose I could focus on specific frustrations of the week, then talk with him of ways of approaching them differently, etc. But it isn't just with him I need to work on asking for help. I have other resources I don't (adequately, responsibly) take advantage of. Friends, parents, managers, program friends. Part of it is pride, but part of it really isn't not knowing--perhaps for lack of practice at it--what to ask for.

But then, I suppose I don't have to figure it out all at once, do I? Still, i don't want to come away from this appointment as I did last time--feeling like I wasted some valuable opportunity and resource by babbling nonsensically about too trivial things. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to do the best I can. At the least I can feel happy knowing I want change and that I'm trying.

Still trying.

Things are slow sometimes; sometimes it's hard to see any changes at all. It's especially easy to overlook them when you doubt them regularly. But how much does worrying get you?

I like talking big changes. Sometimes I'll break them out and talk myself into thinking it's all terribly easy, then let myself down anyway with a monumental lack of motivation. I've had better luck with aiming for smaller changes.

Like, I've had "job look" in my to do list for an age and a half or so now, roughly meaning "look for/at job possibilities". Granted it can be pretty simple depending on interpretation--like, look on craigslist and see what there is that sounds reasonable. I've even done it a couple times and felt both bucked up and let down. Because even then, but especially in more broad implementation, there are other steps in "job look" that I have to get organized.

And that can be scary. But even in that, I can try marshalling it along, a step at a time. Like, I put on my to do list today "work on resume". There are some steps I could worry about there, too, but maybe I can break it down, and work on each of them at a time. I can try, at the least.

It's still tough--when I start getting down on myself over this stuff. Over everything, usually. Routine is a drag, a rude disguise for malaise. Maybe I'm still fighting too much. Maybe I need to aim more for balanced efforts and pragmatic attempts than dreaming of some grandiose bucking of my day to day. I feel like I already try to do that, though, and it doesn't feel like it's gotten me anywhere. Maybe it has; maybe it's my same old doubts creeping in.

You know, I look forward to the day I'll have mostly moved past these mopey, dragging emocrapsicle posts. To when I can post about the successes of my day, the interesting thoughts I want to share; to when I no longer only ever blog to angst & think out my dysthymia aloud. Case in point, eh?

But I do think, somewhere in me, that there's been change. I was looking over the 4th step inventory I've been working on for over a year, and I realized that although still perfectly flawed and fucked up, I'm a lot less drastically maladjusted and screwy. Like, my resentments are much less frothing and free-flowing than they were; I'm so much less anxious and so much less concerned about things beyond my control.

My main problem these days is doing the next right thing; I usually know or have some good idea what that often is but actually doing it, mustering the momentum to, overcoming the self-indulgent if momentary laziness...that usually escapes my abilities somehow. I mean, as I said, it's self-indulgence and laziness (and likely some amount of fear and worry lingering about) that's keeping me from doing what's right and from moving forward as I'd like to see myself doing.

Well, I might as well keep trying, one little, bitty thing at a time. At the least, the sum of many very small things usually completed is probably still greater than a scant few large things basically always unfinished. How's that for commitment? Ah well, it's a start.

I forgot to mention.

So the last couple posts weren't made from your conventional kind of computer. No, they were written on what experts call a "tablet".

That's right, kids. I did it. I got my tablet. :)

I opted for the Asus Transformer Prime--it's glorious. I love the keyboard dock--it's what I'm typing with, and what's extending my battery enough to even allow me to type this. Cuz, you know, I'd been playing so many games that it that the tablet's battery was about to die. What's nice is how long its battery does last--even without the extra battery in the dock. Also nice is how long my phone's battery can last now that i'm not using it to play games, type blogs, or check my calendar (or when there's wifi, watching youtube and hulu and stuff). I take it with me on all my lunch breaks, yeah to play games, but also, in the last few days, to catch up on the news and opinions and analysis of the day or continue reading some book on Kindle.

Frankly, I'm as satisfied with it as I'd hoped I would be. And that's pretty relieving. I know I was hyping it up a lot back a few months ago, but I wasn't sure how gratifying a tablet would actually be where I'm at in my life. That's part of why I got the phone I did--to put off a need for a tablet by having a rather excellently capable phone.

And then my desktop computer died. Well, I don't know if it's really dead. I do know that if it isn't it'll take some amount of effort and/or money to get it running right again, and even then I don't know if it'd work. Plus I missed having a laptop/something portable that typed. Which was the other part of getting the Transformer--the keyboard dock virtually turns the tablet into a virtual netbook. So I can, like, type things. And everything. Yeah, everything.

So, anyway, I've been watching South Park and Strangers With Candy and playing some mindnumbingly repetitive but still somehow gratifying games and reading The Rum Diaries.... and now I'm done blogging about the tablet...on the tablet. For now.