Sentimental Woman

I miss writing for fun.

Not that I don't enjoy my job; since I last deigned to lay down any words in this poor excuse for a blog, I've managed to get promoted, so I'm finally getting paid to write for a living. I'm doing what I could only vaguely imagine pursuing back when I was in college and waking up hungover on a fucking Tuesday. I may not be married, renowned or attractive when I make an appearance at my 10-year reunion all-too-soon, but I can proudly swirl my dirty martini and brag that I'm actually doing what I went to school for, and I love it. So that's something.

Anyway, the assignments are interesting and hilarious. In the past week alone I've learned the immediate steps to take if I suddenly get canned, just what a woman scorned is actually capable of, and that male walruses can eat 70,000 calories a DAY and *love* bivalves. Really, it's great.

But when you spend the day writing for other people, it's hard to find the energy to write anything for yourself. And that's one of those things you don't realize that you really, truly miss until it's been taken away for awhile.

I've always been a little hot-headed and prideful, but we're creeping into mythic proportions lately. An unintentional shove on the subway can send me into a rage, and really, that's a bit much. This is the city; jostling is just part of the job description if you want to call yourself a New Yorker. (I've lived here barely four years, and think I have another decade and a half to go before I can even consider myself a true one.) What I'm trying to say so weakly, here, is that I'm not releasing the stress the way I used to. I don't come home and write every day, or burn through the bad vibrations with a healthy round of consensual violence at rugby. I tried picking up rugby again, but my heart wasn't in it this time around. Same as how when I look at my laptop lately, so often the words just aren't there anymore.

In finding my career trajectory at last, I managed to lose my focus, if that makes any sense. A lot of my close friendships have grown fragile or simply fallen away out of neglect on my part, and I hardly seem to talk to my family. The boyfriend is still a high point in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes I worry. I worry that in dividing all my passion between work and a relationship, I'm losing my grip on the simple things that define who I am. Kayaking on the Hudson and inadvertently knocking a couple of tourists into the river. Slamming 25-cent beers at POBs. Sneaking into movies on Long Island or simply picking up a couple of 40-ouncers and sitting on the roof until the sun rises. Completely losing myself in a book.

I'm not at all implying that something's gotta give with the job or with the boy; I love them both dearly, and am extremely lucky to have found them both. I just need to get the other stuff on the same page. The stuff that makes me the person that drew the job and the boy to me in the first place.

I'm losing my muse here, so I'm going to hide behind the Dismemberment Plan:

I'm an old testament type of guy
I like my coffee black, and my parole denied
even as I flake on every deal I ever made with myself
before the ink could dry...