Black and White
March 09, 2003

It all looks like this at the moment:

1. I have contract on another house.
2. Work has been a combination of pure high-adrenaline hell offset by periods of extreme boredom.
3. Madison and I went through a little period of a stress, but seem to be better now.
4. I've decided to keep my career fresh by teaching myself .NET programming (via way of C#) and database administration.
5. I've been excessively playing Anarchy Online, again. And I feel like my life is passing me by.
6. Exercise? Piano? Writing? --None.

The house has been overwhelming. For example, let's say that you, the reader, are buying a house. If it isn't hard enough to find something you like, you also have to wade through an ocean of over-priced traps. If you're patient, you'll make an offer that eventually gets accepted, and you'll get to the home inspection. Everyone should have a home inspection. That's when you find out that your toilet drains directly underneath the house instead of going into the public sewage system, and that little "drywall crack" is really a major problem with your foundation. Estimated cost of repairs: $40,000.

Get through that and you can start shopping for a mortgage. Everyone wants to pull your credit and will do so, without asking you, if they think they can get away with it. (Don't let them.) They'll try to tell you it won't count against your credit. And, actually, you'll find out that, yes, you can have multiple credit pulls from the same types of business, hus enabling you to shop around for a house or car. But you will find out at the same time, this is only true if each business is registered indentically to one another. So how many different ways can YOU say "bank." Can you say also say, "goodbye credit score?" I knew you could.

Now that you've finally gotten your mortgage, with a credit score slightly worse for the wear, you can shop for home insurance. Fun! Fun! Fun! Now, being savvy, you don't let anybody pull your credit until you're sure that you have a company that a) wants to do business with you, and b) you want to do business with. It's the first part that puts the "Fun!" in "Fun! Fun! Fun!" They'll each ask you for different criterion. "How far away are you from the closest fire hydrant?" "Do you have pets?" "Does your nearby river flow into the ocean?" It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't instantly disqualify you for certain answers. And when buying a wood framed house, built in 1928, in Florida, there are a lot of answers that will disqualify you. One company wanted me to fill in the crawl space under my house. "OKAY!"

You'll find a company eventually. It turns out there is only one that will accept you for covergae. You don't tell them that the roof needs replaced, of course. That would disqualify you and you'd be stuck back at the apartment. Of ouruse, you're planning to do that the day after you close anyway, but they wouldn't care. Worrying about this, you remember to add something to your to-do list: "get three quotes for a new roof."

Through all of this, you'll assume that the survey, pest-inspection, title insurance and appraisal will be fine and done for you, as per normal procedure. You'll assume this because your realtor and mortgage broker tell you this, and you believe them. You'll especially believe it because the realtor eventually calls to tell you they've been done and everythyign was fine. But imagine your surprise when, a week later, you find out that the mortgage company is having a hard time with the title insurance, because the survey isn't done, because the seller sold part yf the yard recently, and that sale hasn't yet made public records.

Of course, you already knew part of the yard was sold, but now you're a little confused and worried. You'' get a little pissed when you find out that the appraisal isn't done -- for the same reasons. And you'll be even more pissed when you find out that the pest-inspection actually wasn't done yet. "Just because," on that last one.

You won't get too mad though, because your realtor will tell you he just got out of emergency surgery the day prior.

I would take this satirical-yet-true story further, if I had reached the end yet. I've got about a week and a half to finish putting all the pieces together. I'll finish the story then-- hopefully with a happy ending. In eager anticipation of that, I bought a new set of silverware at a half price sell. Eighty bucks for 48 and they're Henckle -- to match my knife set. I'm getting so posh.

Work has been driving me crazy. I'm either slammed busy, or bored out of my gourd. And half the time when I'm slammed busy (like the last two weeks), I'm listening silently on a conference call with a dozen other people. I was describing the job (critical situation management, really) to Madison who summed up the position with crystal clarity. I'm a baby-sitter. I'm a high-tech, god-dammed babysitter. She is a substitute teacher, so she brought a new perspective to the idea and really helped me figure out my place in the business universe.

Back tracking a little bit, let me begin with the boredom problem. I think everyone in the world would love to be paid good money for not doing anything. But the problem is, I get riddled with guilt and depression when I'm not busy. Ideally, I would use any spare time to further my technical understanding. That however, doesn't usually bubble up through the despair and fear of not being needed. The result instead is unfocused idleness. And it makes me ashamed and miserable.

<flip>

On the other side of this coin are back-to-back 90 hour work weeks of sheer terror. Upper level management and otherwise very bright technical people looking at you with wide, round eyes saying, "Please help us!" Talk about burn-out. This entire weekend has been spent recovering, and I'm lucky for the break. It will all start up again first thing Monday morning. Honestly, I wouldn't mind; but in this particular instance, the recommended changes from my team aren't being followed. Obviously I can't give the details here, but let me just say to the world, "It's a database problem! Obviously!" But the customer will have none of it.

So today, here and now, I feel worthless -- on both sides of the coin. And that's not good; theoretically, one is supposed to make me feel better about the other. Monday I will try to get some of my manager's time and propose to him what I think needs to be done to resolve this situation. He's been involved already, but I'm going to ask him to bring out the big guns. I can't be a babysitter if I'm not allowed to take charge. We have other people to handle the politics.

I get so many compliments when I'm able to take over a situation and make it work.

What I'm really driving at, is that I don't want anything to happen to my job and I never feel like I'm on generally solid ground. Mind you, I've never had a complaint and get many compliments. It may be the ADD. I've read that adults with ADD go through life feeling like they are on the edge of a cliff and about to fall off -- as though they could suddenly lose everything. And I definitely feel that way.

The other problem I have with work is that, as a baby-sitter, I'm not getting all the technical hands-on experience that qualified me for this job in the first place. And technology doesn't stop. I'm teaching myself Microsoft .NET programming (via C#) and database administration because the likelihood that I'll ever get my hands on another router or firewall or switch again, are slim to none. The most we get to do in my team is help with various OS tasks. <yawn>

Fear. Don't like it, and it probably has no basis. But, at least it's a kick in butt before something worse happens. I can't shake this feeling that I have a dark cloud haning over my technical head even though everything is great currently.

The third item of recent note is Madison and I just got off a little rollercoaster ride. I should have written about it at the time, but maybe it's just as well that I didn't. The gist of it is that we both have some bad habits. And for the life of me, I can't remember what they all are. Well, I can list several of mine. For example, I make inappropriate jokes that I intend to be funny, but really aren't. Sometimes I focus too much on the negative. I ramble. Sometimes I don't communicate as completely as I should. (While furniture shopping, describing everything as "interesting.")

For her part, it seemed that the tone of most of our conversations had become heated, or angry, or irritated -- or just intense. Just trying to remember it make my chest hurt actually. I would say that it was like we were constantly arguing. But it's interesting that I can't remember many of the example or details, or even how it seems to have been resolved -- a couple desperate and heated conversations, caring and a bit of time, if memory serves at all.

There may have a bit more from either person, but I can't remember and don't really want to. The last couple weeks have been great and I think we're the better for it all. I like her so much and I think the relationship is a good one. She's been helping me left and right with the house, for example. I've been helping her paint her parent's house and I help her with school where I can. She inspires me to pursue my goals; and we both have a good time, watching tv, fooling around, cooking for each other, or exploring.

I was so worried that things were going to come grinding to a halt between us. (There is that fear-thing again.) I'm so glad that things having being going well again.

On more or less of a side note, I've been playing Anarchy Online way too much again. What, (WHAT!) is so addictive about games like AO and EverQuest? I'm chomping at the bit for Star Wars Galaxies to come out in April; and EverQuest II will blow the lid off everything when it comes out at the end of the year.

Maybe it's just a way for lazy people to feel like they're accomplishing something. Maybe not though. I love the process of developing a character. (I recently came into possession of the super-rare "Grid Armor" in Anarchy Online while hunting with some guild mates.) I enjoy character development most of all. I enjoy exploring large virtual worlds. I enjoy a bit of role-playing. To a lesser extent, I enjoy the interaction with so many other people co-existing in that same world. I've begun taking part in the defense of our guild towers and the towers of alliance guilds. You never know when an attack on one is coming...

I'm addicted. Again and again on message boards I see people acknowledging their addiction and quitting. I wonder if they ever come back like I have?

Finally, my general mood lately? I'm a little teacup. And the world? The world is a great... big... fire hose. In fact, we need a new "I'm a little teapot" song for the 21st century:

Just a little cup for tea,
that's what I'm about.
drink all you want, and I won't pout.

But when you shoot a firehose into me,
hear me shout,
I shatter into little pieces
and fly about.