5:16 AM: Variance in transit

It's the end of a workday... such as it is. I still don't have that much work to do because of the lack of systems but we are grinding our way through, and while we make our latest pushes to get things done blindly, we are also anticipating the return of certain key elements of the system before much longer. So that's good. Maybe I'll slack less. I've been really into this TEW scenario of playing WCW 2001.

I did some work and avoided others. I have to complete my self-assessment before my call with Maria tomorrow. I have a jar of jellybeans on my desk that enables me to give myself a stomach ache nearly every day. I have a cold decaf coffee. Not an iced coffee, just, you know... coffee that's gone cold.

I was reading old posts. I was struck with the urge to listen to Stars' 2010 album The Five Ghosts and then time travel back to the time in my life when I was listening to that album, back in the early days of HMV and SOTW and the end of University and everything. Man. That kid thought he was so far along but he was just a skinny little baby who hadn't even started. I miss him. I'm not nostalgic, but who doesn't yearn for a time in their life when things were new and scary and uncertain? Well, there is uncertainty facing me in the future, but that's too scary.

The blog was pretty active at that time but it was around then that it started to dwindle, due to a combination of growing self-consciousness, lack of anything to say, twitter and tumblr, even though I never wrote about myself the way I do here on twitter and tumblr. So those years are not well-represented, until it finally just cuts off in summer of 2013, which is all well and good because those years are deservedly something of a blur. I often talk about how I never know how deep the forest was when I was stuck in it and by that point I would have been in for years. In retrospect, as we all know, I spent my 20's basically waiting to hit my 30's. And I made it to 30 right on time. Now I'm almost 36 and there's been, well, marginal movement. I can't blame all of it on the pandemic I guess. I did get married, but I was pretty much married from the moment Mel and I moved in together. Hell, we pretty much got married when I took the Home Office Job and officially started spending every free moment with her. She has chided me in the past about putting off proposing to her for too long; in my view, everything that happened in this relationship happened right on time. She hasn't said that much lately, but there are other things that I think she wishes we had started sooner. Hindsight and all that.

This was not what this post was going to be about, but in fairness what was this post going to be about?

Like I said, time travel, younger days, quote-unquote "freedom," all that. Fourth year, anthropology, angst. Being 24 but feeling 18. Yadda yadda. I don't miss it, I just wish young Scotto could have seen the forest for the trees, although I know he tried. I don't beat him up over it. Everything that I needed to happen in life eventually did and mostly on time as I said, but I just wish there had been more to keep me occupied during some very quiet years.

Anyway. It's been cold and not at all springlike and that's got me feeling feelings. Otherwise I'm still on the usual treadmill about work and life and the future and the nebulously-described "other stuff" that I'm still not ready to talk about. I do think the statute of limitations should expire soon on my early January flipout, but there are still nights I go to bed seething over it... quietly now, on a low simmer. It will never stop biting to think about, at least a little bit, probably, but I think the older you get the more you accumulate until you just grow a callous and don't care enough to get mad at stupid shit like that anymore. Probably, I hope.

This Friday is Mel's birthday, and unlike past years I am not scrambling around at the last minute trying to set things up. No, it's pretty much all taken care of, although there was some late-breaking "Oh shit, what do I get her for a gift" until a perfect opportunity presented itself that I can be happy with and I hope she will love.

Other than that, things feel good. No, they do! Mel wants to go to the office more often after previously being averse to the idea, partly as a way of combatting her anxiety. The house is becoming marginally cleaner on a regular basis, especially the kitchen, thanks to our new dishwasher being able to be run anytime in the evening or overnight if we so desire. We manage to plan meals and have food in the house, but also treat ourselves to take-out on a reasonable schedule. We work out. Little victories, you know?

So yeah, why not end this on a note of positivity?

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto