Fulfillments

satisfaction is a tough bird to run down. fulfillment isn't easily caught, and if it is caught, it always slides away before too long. there's a constant hunt, a humanity-wide perpetual motion machine of seeking that holy grail.

at least, i'm a perpetual motion machine in my search for fulfillment. for all kinds of fulfillment, all at the same time. like the multiple orgasm, cluster-fuck of fulfillment. i want fulfillment in every available hole, tickling every nerve ending, engaging every aspect of my body and brain and soul. clearly, this is never going to fully happen.

my mom told me about a workshop she went to that discussed "two basic types of people". all these "two types of people" things are bullshit. but this one serves as an interesting tool. there are "satisfizers," and "maximizers." satisfizers look at what they have, evaluate the situation they're presented with, and choose to be all right with it. some things could be better, some could be worse, but all in all, they decide that they're going to be happy with what they've got. they either choose to be satisfied, or its simply a hardwired behavior. maximizers look at that same situation, and slowly drive themselves insane. they can't accept what's in front of them, or are unwilling to accept it. there's this little detail that could be tweaked this way, and that irritating fold that could be undone and flattened. the imperfections well huge in their vision, and they set out to get as much out of the situation as they can. they need to maximize returns.

guess which one i am...

just guess...

sometimes, i would like to be a satisfizer. i would like to be at peace with myself, with my surroundings, my life as it currently is. i want to sit down, and not feel like there's something that urgently needs doing. i want to live without the harsh voice in my head that's constantly telling me i could have done that better, or that i don't do enough, etc, etc, etc. and this gets caught up with my own... obsessive nature. or my low self esteem and its backpack full of need for acceptance. i want to be a satisfizer. i want to be happy. but most of the time, the thought of sitting back and feeling complete and full frightens me. it feels like laziness, and it feels like a surrender to forces that are, in fairness, out of my control. i don't know a life where i'm not hungry. where there isn't some project that i'm pouring myself into. i don't know days when i'm not yearning for something, or lusting after it, or pursuing it like a shark, or in my own patented, round-a-bout way. and most importantly, i don't believe i'd be truly alive if i wasn't hot on the heels of my next promise of (temporary) deliverance.

i was so fucking thrilled with my job at starbucks. and yes, that was a past tense "was" in the previous sentence. i still like the job. i like having a job. i like getting a bit of a pay check. i'm not thrilled at having to go back to austin to finish emptying out my apartment, but its something to get through and i can spend the rest of my life trying to sort out what those two years in austin meant, in the grand scheme of things. the people at the shop are nice. i'm making fewer mistakes. the manager is pleased with my work at the bar. i'm quite pleased with my work at the register. its fine. its really just fine.

but its not enough. i knew it wouldn't be enough. it wasn't supposed to be enough. i can never have "enough." i want more. i want harder. i want better. i want faster. i want stronger. i want things to be deeper. i want things to be more meaningful. i want things to be more beautiful. i want things to be more sensitive. i want things to have more layers. i want things to be smarter, hipper, with a bangin' beat, and more genuine lyrics. i want more and more and more and more and more!

i'm like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; the one who wants the world, who wants the WHOLE world, who wants to lock it all up in her pocket, its her bar of chocolate.

at any rate, please don't laugh. i couldn't tell my dad because he would laugh, and i would get angry, and harsh words would be exchanged, and then i'd have to apologize, and we'd go back to the status quo. because he doesn't know any other way to be. and its that or nothing. so don't laugh, but yes, i am dissatisfied with my job at starbucks. i graduated sixty-fifth in a high-school class of six-hundred and fifty. i graduated from a premier liberal arts college in the expected four years. i performed more than admirably at a standardized testing company. i got into the u.t. architecture graduate program, and successfully completed the first semester with no grade less than a b-. and i am dissatisfied with a barista position at starbucks.

DUH!!!

it was just so wonderful the first few weeks. i was out of the house, and there was all this new information to learn, and all these new skills to acquire. there were new people to meet, and things to do, and it was just such a wonderful change from sitting on my ass all day looking for a job that just wouldn't, fucking, appear.

well, i always knew that this wasn't my life's ambition. this isn't my goal. its a way station. its making me money while i figure out what it is that i'm really here to do. its keeping my from atrophying in so many ways. but it is not fulfilling. i am not full. i am not at ease. i am not, SATISFIED.

i am not UNhappy, but i am not HAPPY either. i am in between.

and considering where i've been emotionally the past few months, in between isn't that bad. at all. but after just a couple weeks of happiness, i'm ready to stick a spike in my arm if it gets me back to that feeling. its addictive, this positive sort of existence! and i'll get it back. i'm tired right now, and it was a rough day. i worked bar, and i'm not so hot at that yet, but i'll only get better by practicing. but still. two or three hours of doing something i'm not very good at really wears at me. who likes doing things they're bad at?

this is just what's going on right now. it will be different soon. perhaps better, even!

a real christmas post soon enough. i'm not ready to rehash right now. but i got my korean drum, and it is beautiful and loud, and i love it like... i just love it. i love banging it. i love remembering the rhythms. and i'm very excited to practice outside around the neighborhood. other than that, food was wonderful, the family was pleasant, and all gifts, all around, seemed appreciated and thoughtful.

sadly, it didn't really feel like a day off. being around family, behaving and being pleasant and all that jazz... its TIRING!

and this is tiring too. i know i slacked off this month. its been busy. but hopefully, i'll get back to toeing the line here. its just so much EASIER when i'm pissed... i swear... tolkien said in "the hobbit" that the happy parts of adventures, the weeks spent in the house of elrond, etc., were glossed over, because they are static. there are no monsters or adventures or hikes during the happy times. its the difficult times that give us grist for the mill. those are the times that spur us to action.

well, things aren't all that difficult, but that doesn't mean that things aren't sticking in my craw. so get ready to be... crawed. i guess.

eww...

Austin: Redux

i went up to austin yesterday to drag home a van full of stuff from my apartment (brother will be taking it over and going to u.t. until the lease expires during the summer).

it was unpleasant.

i really hadn't thought at all about the psychological impact of going up there, but it was... something that should have been considered.

austin in general was all right. driving the streets, bumming around, etc, fine. whatever. going back to the apartment (not MY apartment, but THE apartment, notice the distancing language i use...) was so bizarre. all my clothes and books and crap, just waiting for me. the bedroom assaulting me with memories of entire days spent rolling in bed, doing nothing. reading, surfing the net, and being really, really lonely.

the whole place just felt like an unfinished set for a life that was supposed to happen, but didn't. there were supposed to be friends, and gatherings, and parties. there was supposed to be a workstation, and drafting and planning. there was supposed to be school meetings, social functions, a reason to have a queen-sized futon beyond the extra leg-room it gave me. there were supposed to be pleasant afternoons spent reading in my balcony gardens, and maybe little meals at the iron cafe table.

none of that happened.

school was unpleasant, so i quit (a very good decision, thank you very much) and then i couldn't find a job. for months. and months. i went to a lot of twelve step meetings, and bought dozens of books, and talked to a lot of strangers online, and holed up in my apartment like it was some sort of last refuge. i buried myself in my third floor one bedroom, and tried to hide from the world that waited at the bottom of the stairs.

and now, i'm hauling all my accumulated stuff back here. i work at starbucks, which i truly enjoy, my cat still seems to love me, and i'm enjoying being surrounded by my family. i'm glad to be out of the apartment. i'm glad to be out of austin.

but life takes some funny turns.

i've avoided picking up the pieces of my sojourn in austin for several months now. because i'm not ready or able to start addressing those two years of my life. i don't know where they fit. i don't know what they mean. i'm not sure what was accomplished.

but the decision to return home has finally been made. i'm moving on to a new stage of my life. the starbucks stage, apparently. but its no less valid than the architecture graduate school stage. i'm moving in a direction. i have no clue where it will take me, but i'm moving. and i'm closing the door on what came before, with all its goblins, and teeming hordes, and sleepless nights and wasted days. i'm moving forward to a place where i can sleep through the night, and feel productive during the day.

adieu austin. i would shed a tear, but i do not cry; and any tears i could muster, would not be for you.

Veering Predictably Towards Shitsville

sometimes i wonder if all things really do gravitate to a certain state of being. entropy and all that. no, i actually don't think i wonder that. i lied. but i think i'm speaking from the part of me that's smart. or at least, smart enough to know that cosmetic enhancement of one's life doesn't really do much to change the way you interact with the world in the long term.

having a job is starting to feel like a cosmetic enhancement. or maybe i'm just coming from a day off, having done nothing more than eat, sleep, jerk off, and otherwise waste time. oh, and get into a spat with my sister, but that didn't really last. still, not a happy day, and i'm sure that i'm anxious about going to austin tomorrow to start hauling all my stuff back down here to san antonio, since it seems i'll be staying for a while. austin is scary. i'd like to just forget i ever lived there.

i got into my first snafu at work on wednesday. i offended an old lady, and rectified it as best i could, but its odd to be in such a powerless position. and retail, is just FULL of such powerless positions. most of the time, i don't mind remaking a drink, or changing someone's order, or whatever. its my job. that's fine. and i want to do a good job. i have a ridiculous urge to please. but this exchange was different. i'm not sure why. i'm just not used to having people not respond well to me. which is basically me being blind to my own luck or whatever, and also me having ridiculous expectations as to how i should be received by the world at large.

but perhaps the most oddly comforting thing about the situation with this old woman, was that she was mean. she didn't have to be mean, but there's no reason for her not to be, and she was mean to me. and i really wanted to defend myself. i wanted to yell back at her. i wanted to tell her that she was being cruel and unfair. and i didn't, because i'm not ready to get fired yet. (oh that yet just says it all, doesn't it...) and i know this is all just part of a learning process for me. but i felt the need to take care of myself. and i wanted to defend myself. i felt like i was worth defending. and that, is actually a really wonderful thing for me.

and clearly, this episode is sticking in my craw. and i'm not fully sure why. because it was uncomfortable, surely. but also... i don't know what happened. it was like a hit and run accident. i was functioning on autopilot and don't remember exactly what i said, and if it made sense. i can't objectively say whether i was rude to this woman, though i'm sure i didn't mean to be. i didn't think she was a pushover because she was old. i wasn't trying to get away with anything. i wasn't trying to be mean. but i was trying to be lazy. i was trying to make my job easier by getting the rest of the line taken care of before grinding her beans, and saying that this is all about grinding beans makes it sound just as STUPID as it all really is...

and it might just be that i don't want to admit that i was in the wrong. which i was. i should have gotten her beans started (dear GOD, we're talking about BEANS!!!) and then helped the next person in line. i was trying to shirk.

and i don't think of myself as a shirker. i'm a hard worker. i love to work. but i was trying to shirk, and i got caught. and maybe that's why this is eating me up. because i don't want to be a shirker. i don't want to be lazy. but i am.

or rather, in this instance, i was. it doesn't mean i'm a full shirker, nor does it reflect on my personality or something. i don't know. i don't know i don't know i don't know.

but it doesn't feel good. it all feels dirty and messy and ragged around the edges, and i'm unwilling to let it go for some reason. probably the same masochism that tends to run my inner life.

also, B. was on floor as manager for the first part of wednesday. and i shouldn't talk about her, because that only gives her more power over me. but she is such a painful person to work with. i don't think she's ever smiled at me. she doesn't like me. she thinks i'm a shirker, and a lazy, and a time-waster and a day-dreamer. and i'll manage. it'll be fine. and i can't expect everyone to love me everywhere i go. and i KNOW that i tend to inspire extreme reactions in people. it's just so opposite day that she dislikes me so, when i feel like i act just the same to her that i do to everyone else, and they're all fine with me. but at any rate, i know i'm not the only one who dislikes B. and that's vaguely comforting, though it doesn't help me figure out how to deal with her.

i'm feeling sort of muddled here...

i just sort of feel like i desperately want some people on my side, even though i don't think my side is the right side.

i'm feeling confused, and i'm feeling tired, and i'm feeling like i ate crap all day and am going to wake up fat tomorrow as a result.

i should go to sleep. even if it doesn't help, at least i won't be awake and worrying about all of this... i'll be asleep and dreaming about it. much better. muuuch better.

old woman, i'm sorry if i was rude to you. i didn't mean to hurt your feelings, or treat you badly. but i wish you'd expressed things in a different way. because now i'm angry at you, and i'm not supposed to be, and i know its not right. i don't like you, old woman. i think you're mean, and cruel. and you think i'm mean and cruel. and this is all just a horrible mistake that i know i could have avoided... we could be friends right now. i wish we were friends right now, instead of me doing something stupid and making you be mean to me. or something. i don't know, but this was all avoidable, and i'm sorry i let it happen.

i'm hoping that work feels like a comfortable place again when i go back on sunday...

fuck and shit. i'm not happy right now. and its all right to not be happy, but its also unpleasant.

like its been so long since the last time i was unhappy...

life just ain't never good enough for me, is it?

See!?

days, DAYS since my last update. this job business... too time consuming.

but oh, it does result in fun blog fodder... so long as i manage to have absolutely no tact or scruples.

who's your guy!? c'mon... who's, your, GUY!!!

i would like to report that i may have reached a defining extreme in my obsessive attitude towards life. i had to open the shop this last tuesday, which meant reporting for work at five in the morning. suckage, right? so, flawless, i'm up at three thirty after five hours of sleep, have the dogs fed and out (cuz i'm watching dad's dogs and house while he's at his mom's funeral. bizarro-world has definitely arrived...) and am sitting in my car in the parking lot at a quarter to five, rocking out to M.I.A. and waiting for the manager to get there to let me in.

cuz that's just how i roll.

and on the subject of managers...

R is really an okay girl. i think i can manage. its cool.

Anne is nineteen. NINETEEN!!! WTF!!! its amazing how the way you perceive a person can ENTIRELY change in an INSTANT! just because you get your hands on the right information.

Anne is nineteen.

i don't even feel comfortable being alone in a room with her anymore; it totally makes me feel like a dirty, skeezy old man. and sure, she's perceptive, and discerning, and very real, but she's also a CHILD. i'm sorry, but nineteen... and mostly, its just that i'm finally starting to really feel my age. i feel like enough of an adult for hanging out and playing head games with a nineteen year old to seem creepy and wrong.

shit, yo... damn.

another manager is nice, and has the same name as sister. along with the older woman who has the same name as my mother, the shop can feel downright homey at times...

and then, there's B.

B was recently promoted to a managerial position. she's also in school, and hence in the midst of finals. she is extremely compulsive. she is also obsessive. she is curt. she takes things really, really, ridiculously seriously. she is not fun. in fact, she is the black hole of fun; all fun within a certain radius of B is drawn to her and absorbed, never again to be released. the sight of her makes small children cry. all ice-cream within her sphere immediately turns to rum-raisin flavored fat-free frozen yogurt.

and she does not, like, me.

i am an unwanted burden to her. i'm a n00b. i fuck things up. i ask lots of "stupid" questions. i send out a signal that seems to let her know that what i need, right now, is a ten minute lecture on how i need to standardize everything i do so that if i were to go to a starbucks in guam and work, i would get everything exactly right, "because they're all the same. we're all the same."

charming.

granted, we don't have to like each other. and i understand the whole corporate "thing." and while it's not my favorite aspect of life on this earth, i understand that its useful and has its place. look, chick just really grates on me, all right? she imparts essential information, she works hard to make sure that i'm learning what i need to know, but every interaction is a jarring neon squiggle in my brain. i even discussed with E & M how i wanted to start hiding things she would need, just to drive her insane. she's clearly already at the brink. i would just start "strategically misplacing" some essential items, and then watch the worry lines around her eyes develop. fun!

but then, after a monday of the josh and B show, i realized something both sad, and gratifying.

all the normal shit i do will drive her insane anyway. all the random new-guy mistakes i would make regardless, all the register oopsies and beverage code violations, will chip away at her just as much as any little plan i could come up with. the B model we have does not come equipped with the ability to deal with that "shit" which we've been told, just "happens". and in this instance, i am like a diarrhetic cow. not a flattering image, but hey. i am a walking "mistake" with gravy on it. and its sad that B will never really like me (i guess) but its also funny that she's immune to all the things i do that make people like me, and in fact angered by them.

but really, i just have to remember that in the end, i'm bigger than B. not physically, morons, but just, BIGGER. i'm not going to let her bad attitude ruin my days. i'ma smile, and nod, and do it right, and otherwise ignore. because my time at work is too precious to spend sulking. i'm gonna enjoy the hell outta my days, and B ain't gonna do nothin' to change that.

in other news, i am exhausted. oh! and remind me to tell you about the funeral! or, relay to you what certain sources have told me about the funeral. there hasn't been a full "debriefing" yet, but i do hope there is one!

i had other things to talk about, but i've forgotten what they are.

which i'll assume is a message from "god."

goodnight!