Six: Make Yourself an Expert

Just a quick one tonight, trying to ramp up to other things. I wish I had put laundry on  ut now it's late. Mel, still sick as she's been since last weekend, is now dozing softly beside me. I am awake but not completely alert. I always feel bad letting these times go to rest. But my brain is too tired to do writig at 10 pm. It isn't the old days anymore. I should know, I've been reading old posts. (Started as research for my three-part megapost about Half-Past.)

I have been feeling odd lately, not always present, but I'm working on it. I sat with Jess this week to discuss my appraisal. The feeling is, I'm doing well for my own sake and for the business, but communication and collabroation are places to improve for 2019. I can live with that assessment.

I did have a big personal victory this week. I helped Amanda get her foot in the door at home office. She applied to be part of the Love of Reading team. I highlighted her resume with a serious letter of recommendation to my friends on that team. As I would have predicted, she beat out a very crowded field of candidates and is now working at hone office with me three days a week.

There's part of me that feels like her success is then my success, but really it's all just her being the exact person she has always been since I met her in late 2005. Hypercompetent, overachiever. Every job I've seen her do - and it's a lot - she became indispensible, and I'm not shy about telling people that. It was just a matter of getting her to stand out. To say, out of dozens of people in competition, here is the one who deserves this most.

Hopefully things go well from here.

Not much other news. Mel and I received our Save the Dates in the mail. That's very exciting, and we worked hard to design them and they look really cool, using the illustration of us Mel commissioned me for our anniversary.

You know, there are times when I wish I could break away and recharge my batteries. I wish that were possible  ut I understand why not. There are times I get reatless or irritable. But to my core, I am happy with what I have. I celebrate that. I look at this person beside me and she belongs in my life. My life belongs to her, and hers to me. I feel so much for her its hard to believe I was ever the person who didn't have her. Things get complicated sometimes, sometimes unnecessarily so, but in the end it's really  ery simple. Love is my answer.

Keep on rockin
Scotto

Five: It might not be a whole thing

So here's the agenda: first some blogging about blogging, then some regular blogging, then hopefully sleep. I should probably already be asleep if I know what's good for me, but I think 16 years of content -- half a lifetime - should tell you I emphatically don't.

I have been working on writing something, shaking loose a few memories for the BLTN blog, the part that is a memoir. I have wanted to tell the full story of Half-Past Eight PM, and now felt like as good a time as any. To aid in this, I have been reading old posts again, since this blog was present for all three incarnations... although it only came in right at the end of the first.

My point is not to glorify the past, sin e any examination of my past inevitably reveals whst a total sad bastard I always was. At least now I'm coping. The hope, I think, is to shake something new loose. Maybe put myself back on the track of someone who thinls maybe he potentially could be aceriter. I can't seem to escape that dream. Why not lean back into it?

Director's commentary: so much of my world during those various incarnations of that play was about different girls I liles by couldn't have. I mostly left thst angle out. Sometimes I wonder if I lea e Mel out of this too much, or if I only bring her up when there's a problem. Isn't thst stability? Sustained radio silence punctuates by storm sirens?

Well, I sure did blog a lot back then. No minute detail of my life seemingly went unrecorded. And now I can't ever seem to write here without remarking how rarely I write here. That's fine, that's how it must be.

Last week we started at the new office. The last day at the old digs had been bittersweet. Being it had been my first office job I was quite attached to the dynamic. It felt homey and lived in and creative. The new office is stagier, making a big show of its exposed bricks and natural light. It's someone's idea of a dream office. For me, it's just something to get used to. Lots of clamour and activity to distract. I've walked home drained and with headaches multiple times. I feel less productive although I can't prove it. Criticism of the new office, no matter what they try to tell you, does not feel welcome. I don't love trying to express even my faintest doubts about something and having pushback from higher ups insinuating I'm wrong not only for not being on board, but for not feeling comfortable coming forward with my misgivings. Maybe it's the punk in me that suggests if some authority figire is insistently telling you something is good, it must not be.

Hey, I can adjust. Whatever. But don't ask questions if you're not going to like the answers. There are legitimate discussions to be had about the chain of communication, but I don't intend to lead them.

This all to encircle the story of Tony's and my "lunch" with Heather. I won't tell it here since I've related it enough times to be tired of it, and I'm writing this on my phone. But I doubt I'll look back on tbis post in ten years and forget how it went.

Other than that, work is fine, if not without challenges. It feels like I spend lots of time fighting fires and investigating issues and not much growing. I fear I'm becoming disgruntled. Before Isiah left I noted I was sadly getting past thevpoint in the job where I was just so happy to be here. I stoll feel lucky, and on my good days happy. But there are challenges. And honestly, whilw it can frustrate me to feel like I've entered a daily grind, the work is juuuuust stimulating enough to keep me happy. And I think, despite a few challenges, I am indeed good at it.

Well that's it. The remnants of my beer are gone, I've been typing on my phone in bed for 20 minutes, lets call it a night.

Keep on rockin
Scotto's Thumbs