So, just curious, would you people follow me through another website transition? I found out my free year here is about to expire prematurely. Reasons why are not important but I’ll be making a decision on this soon. I thought this was the last move but it looks like I may have to do it all over again… Computer related troubles abound. First iTunes, then the webhosting and now as I leave the house this morning, I remembered what I set out to do this weekend and never even gave it a second thought. I’ll think about it all week until I get home and I’ll forget about it until Monday again. I need to look into mid-level video editing software and a video input card. I want to get my old Hi-8 tapes digitized and I have some other video I’d like to edit. I was over at Wade’s this weekend for his birthday (Happy birthday man!) and he would know what direction to send me in, I just never thought about asking him. My head was in a different world. If I didn’t love those people so much I would have never left the house this weekend…
My left elbow has been in pain for weeks now. I got in the truck this morning and I remembered why. As soon as I rested my elbow on the door frame, the pain shot through me. I have been driving the truck almost exclusively these this last month. Normally Heffner drives the highway miles to whichever town/city we are in and I’ll do all the ‘in town’ driving because he doesn’t like the way this larger truck corners, parks, etc. Heffner and I are always split up on one job or another now so he’s been bringing his own truck. I miss my partner in crime. The road gets lonelier when you’ve got no one to talk with. Although I do get a lot of my Podcast listening done now.
On the way to Tampa this morning I left early so by the time I hit 301 south of Waldo, it was still early enough to see a misty fog. I was listening to a particular podcast and she was playing “Moodball” by Greenman just as I entered the fog and I cleared the fog just as the song ended. If you could hear the song, you’d know why it felt so cool. It was all drummy and mysticalish.
Her podcast was on the subject of spiritual burnout. I was listening and trying to agree but I just kept coming back to the word lazy. Especially when applied to me. The words “I don’t have time” shouldn’t be used when it is something you consider important and can get done in a small amount of time almost anywhere. Just as I was speaking these words alone in the truck, she said them as well. So it would seem that I am not alone…
Although, burnout is real enough and will effect everything in your life. I was feeling it badly about a year ago. I was working with a dear friend on spiritual matters when she suggested we pick a deity to work with on a closer, more personal basis. After some research I decided to pick Calliope. I was re-reading ‘The Illiad’ at the time so the Greek pantheon was fresh in my mind and Calliope is the patron deity of poets. I was drawing blanks on some writing I was doing so while it may have been logical, it felt weird to pick such a “foreign” deity from those that I normally deal with. My choices in gods are a more human/grittier sort. I imagine the Greek gods as impenetrable, flawless marble statues in gleaming shafts of light. A bit fru-fru for me but I made that decision fully aware and indeed because of that stark contrast. I needed something different. Now, it didn’t work and I didn’t feel any immediate divine inspiration coming from the classical muses. It was like Calliope was screening her calls. She knew I was calling but she let the answering machine get it.
“Thank you for calling, I am away from the phone right now but you can direct all your needs to your regularly scheduled deities”
So it worked in the sense that it woke me up. I felt that kinship with my own pantheon again and I felt the presence of the gods in my daily life again. So burnout-relief and inspiration may come from the more obscure places when you aren’t looking for it.
I wonder what cures “road burnout”… Maybe a shitty homelife that you can’t wait to escape? Maybe having the ‘road warrior’ spirit and loving the road? I don’t have either. Maybe nothing cures it. I’m not going to last much longer out here alone. I talked with a guy 5 or 6 months ago from the Pittsburgh airspace. He told me not to hold my breath, I haven’t heard from him. I put in for a local Jacksonville tech job today. It’s the first real possibility I’ve seen in 2 or 3 months but in the end, it’s one of hundreds I’ve already tried in the last 2 years, I don’t expect any miracles. Hell, I don’t deserve them.
I chose poorly in the hotel search tonight. I was in a hurry and I didn’t want to search around for a good hotel, I figured it’s only one night, I just want something close by the airport so I don’t have to deal with much traffic in the morning. It’s a Days Inn by the airport and shares a parking lot with the ‘Bliss Cabaret Gentlemen’s Club’. It’s a dump. I can hear a guy arguing with his wife/girlfriend/hooker in the hall and the room next door keeps going in and out of their room and the door slams hard enough that I have to look up to make sure it’s not my door being kicked in. What the fuck did I expect? I should have searched for the closest Courtyard or Hampton, next time I will. I just wanted a place to lie down and read my book until I fell asleep and had to pull the starter rope on this carousel again tomorrow. I grabbed a quick dinner so I could get back to the hotel, finish my work and jump back into my book. I’m about 100 pages in to Miller’s “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare” and I want to finish it tonight. You know that feeling when you’re a third of the way into a book and you can’t wait to read the rest of it in one sitting even if it takes you until dawn? Well that’s what I was feeling up until 20 minutes ago. I forgot to pack the book. I remember putting it on my nightstand last night thinking I would get some reading in but I never picked it back up this morning. So here I sit in a shitty hotel with nothing to read and no one to talk to. There’s an elliptical residue on the nightstand by my bed. A bottle of babyoil? Astroglide? I think I’ll be sick. Hey, at least there’s some GOOD news, the TV reception is so shitty that at least I can resist turning it on and wasting my time…
I did see something interesting today though. I was coming into Tampa on I-75 and there was an ambulance (would the plural of Ambulance be Ambulai?) a ways back and it had its lights on. Of course, I slowed down and pulled into the right lane, so did most everyone else. It took forever to pass me because it was doing 68mph. It had lights and siren wailing and it had a clear road but it never sped up. I took the I-275 turn and there is the ambulance just chugging along blocking the left lane. After a few miles, everyone passed the ambulance because it is holding up traffic. I drove right by it and felt weird passing a lit ambulance but what the hell was he doing? I don’t care WHO you are, don’t drive slow in the left lane or I get to bash you off the road. [See Emperor Morgan's rule #15]
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