A month's worth of random musings

So, it's been a month or so since I had anything meaningful to say, and I've been taking full advantage of that time to say nothing.

Surprisingly (perhaps), saying nothing doesn't necessarily have the desired effect. I always go on these bouts of e-silence with the thought that eventually I will store up things to talk about. Of course, given my short attention span, and even shorter memory, I don't ever come out of the silence with anything more on my mind than I went into it with.

I was thinking about my blog today, for the first time in awhile, and wondering what it says to the world about me. Assuming anyone reads it. Well, I know at least a couple of people do, because during my determined silence I've still amassed hits on my counter. Someone must care. Even if they are only reading me because of some confusion on the part of their search engine telling them this might be a good place to look for "Tonya Harding Tape" or "Nate McMillan Wife Pictures."

I was planning on doing a diatribe on our current governmental situation. I find myself, though, a slave to the same sort of apathy that causes us all to lose interest while those government go on about the business of doing whatever they want to, with the knowledge that any outcry will be a relatively quiet peep in the symphony hall that is the media of today, and the assurance that just because I'm upset today doesn't preclude me from getting too caught up in American Idol tomorrow to forget what I was so nutted up about.

So, my general statement: our government is disappointing, dismaying, and generally doesn't seem to represent my best interests or the best interests of anyone other that the most powerful constituencies. Though there are some exceptions, generally speaking the electorate is hood-winked into picking form over substance, and there is not really any danger of getting a truly principled person placed into public office any time soon. I've spit out the Bush Kool-Aid, I'm sick of the issue-du-jour (who cares if English is our official language? What does that really change?), and I'm fed up with feeling like our representatives don't really represent anything about us.

That said, I offer no solutions. Why? Because that would require active engagement, and I find it too hard to fit a softball game into my busy week of work, child-rearing, and marriage-maintenance to take up any new challenges. And all of the principled people I know are likewise too busy, or too poor, to push their way into politics.

I've been spending much of my free time lamenting my abject poverty. Not that anyone in my rarified line of work, getting paid over $30/hr, should really lament any such thing. However, getting to where I am consumed a great deal of money I had not yet earned (same held true for my wife), and we find ourselves raising a child, paying a mortgage, and trying to get student loans paid as well. Not an easy proposition.

Today I was on the phone with my friends at Sallie Mae discussing my need for a re-forbearance on my loans. My wife having just taken up a newer, better job, after spending a season at reduced time in her older, less-better job, we have found that although the student loan companies are ready for us to emerge from the forbearances we took while we were having the baby, we aren't quite in agreement with them about our financial readiness. I've successfully been able to get my wife's loans into forbearance with no hitches. Mine, on the other hand, are not so easy to work with.

Seems that, due to forbearances I may or may not have taken a few years ago (they say I have, but I don't remember any such thing), I have used up enough of my bites at the apple that, to take another, I must pay them some "good-faith" money. Whatever. If I were to claim bankruptcy, I couldn't escape this debt. Why do they need a show of good faith when, despite my deep loathing and hatred, they are the one debtee from which I have absolutely no escape?

Of course, if I could pay them the good-faith money (equal to one month's payment), I wouldn't be asking for a forbearance in the first place. Happily, I've been advised that I can have them post-date the payment. And if I was going to have the money next month, I also wouldn't need the forbearance.

So, I find myself scratching my head planning my next step. I'm thinking about putting "Project Mayhem" into play, like my good friend Tyler Durden. If I can take down the Matrix, I can have a new reality.

More likely, I'll rob Peter to pay Paul, and then Peter will charge me some other fee to not report me to his masters at the credit bureau.

Man, capitalism's a drag sometimes.

I've been spending a great deal of my time recently working in offices that aren't my own. I have an office, I have my workload, and I have an employer who seems to need me (and many of my cohorts) to be in as many places at once as possible. I spent about four hours out of 40 in my office last week. I get to spend all of today in my office simply because I made a big enough stink about the fact that I'm getting behind on my own work while trying to cover others'. In my wanderings, though, I've felt some satisfaction. I have spent the last two-and-a-half years in the same position in my office, doing the same work all the time. Having been able to plug into the other parts of my office, and do other jobs, has been a nice break from the norm. Now as I sit here, doing my own work (well, not at the moment, but that's what lunch hours are for, right?), I find myself wondering when I'll get to have a new regular job.

I've said I won't talk about what I do here. It's true. I'm not going to tell you what I do, who I work for, how long I've been here, or any such stuff. What I will say is that there are places in my office that keep you very busy, and there are places in my office where you have to make work for yourself. Although I can make work for myself, I'm beginning to find that I like being kept busy by a constant stream of work. The days go faster, and you don't feel like you're wasting time because you don't have any to waste.

I was reading my friend OCG's blog earlier, and notice that she decided to dime up our friend Jim. Of course, his name isn't really Jim, but knowing both OCG and the Joe whom she'd been having dinner with, I've also met Jimmy and know a bit about him. OCG used Jim's divulgence of his limited number of, um, oral encounters, as a springboard to talk about pleasing women. However, I find her conversation along those lines reminds me more of something I heard in college. The old adage that I've heard is that, once married, there are some things that women will no longer do.

Being married, and having at some point been unmarried, I'm not really interested in sharing my experiences with my wife (or, in the pre-marital sense, other women), although you are free to infer what you will. I can say that I've had friends tell me that their wives did still perform certain tricks for them, but those friends tended to be full of shit on many other claims, so I find their assertions in the sexual context to be questionable. I know of only one person who'd never had an oral encounter until after he was married, and I found that to be entirely remarkable.

I'd guess, though, getting back to Jim, that he represents more the rule than the exception -- I'd guess that most men probably get less of some experiences than they used to. If you have a take on that, I'd love to hear it.

Finally -- it's allergy season. Has anyone noticed? I've spent the last three days in utter agony. Itchy nose, itchy throat, itchy, watery eyes, the works. Nose running like a fountain. Luckily, my wife's new job has her working in a medical office, with an allergist involved somewhere in there, and so I'm getting excellent second-hand medical advice. Which is great, because if I had to keep taking Benadryl, I'd never get anything done.

That's all. I'll see if I can't stop in a little more often, although life can tend to get me distracted from the truly important stuff, like verbally regurgitating on the internet and all...