ShannonThomas.Org

Yesterday evening was the kind of night where so many little things went wrong, one right after another, until I reached a point where I could hear myself, outside of my body, as if I were looking down from fifty feet above and narrating my own life.  Narrator-Me looked down on Pissed-Off-Me – my head down, shoulders slumped, and fists clenched.  The scene froze, and Narrator-Me (who sounded a lot like Waylon Jennings on the Dukes of Hazard show) said, “Now, I wonder how big a can o’ whoopass that boy’s fixin’ to pry open?” Continue reading Little Things Can Pile Up Into a Bad Day »»

Now that the new year is officially upon us, I’m rededicating myself to this site and to adding content on a regular basis.

If you’d like to keep up with the content I post here, I’ve provided five ways to stay informed:

1) Feedburner – See the “By Email” button in the upper right corner?  Clicking that button will open a page that prompts you for an email address.  If you submit an address, you will receive an email when I post new content.  You will receive no more than one email a day.  If I post ten items, you’ll get one email.  This is my preferred way for folks to track my site because I can see and publish the number of subscribers.

2&3) RSS – beside the email button in the upper right corner, you will see links for comments and posts. These links bring in RSS feeds to your browser.  You can bookmark or add them as favorites in the menu bar of your web browser, which allows you to click on the link and see if there’s any new posts or comments, without actually navigating to the site.

4) Comments Email Subscription – at the bottom of every post, you’ll see a link for subscribing to the post.  This allows you to receive an email anytime someone posts another comment, in case you want to know when I reply to your comment or if some one has commented on what you posted.

5) Newsletters – If you’ve subscribed to the website and supplied a valid email, you’ll get a newsletter in your email a few times a year from me.  I don’t do them very often, usually less than three a year, but they include good information about site features, updates, and any password changes.

Frequent visitors of this site know that I always have too many irons in the fire.  I can’t seem to take one out without putting two new ones in.  This coming year I’m going to try to focus my time and energy and keep from spreading myself to thin.  With that in mind, I’ve made a list of tasks I want to accomplish in the next year.  Some are simple; others will require their own lists of sub-tasks, but don’t worry; I’ll get it figured out.  Here it is, the Master To-Do List for 2010:

1. Query literary agents one more time (I expect nothing to come of this)
2. Research everything I need to publish and promote my novel
3. Start my own publishing company
4. Self-publish my novel
5. Schedule and attend book signings and other promotions
6. Migrate Shannonthomas.org to a new web host
7. Collect the last pieces of commissioned art
8. Finish the website music project
9. Create an animated trailer for the book
10. Lose forty pounds
11. Build a new deck on my house
12. Change out the shower stall for a larger one
13. Paint the back bedroom
14. Restack the bricks in the retaining wall behind the house
15. See as many concerts as possible
16. Get my car some tender loving care
17. Submit my application for VA benefits
18. Pay off my car loan
19. Get the rest of the furniture I want for the house
20. Spend as much time as possible with family and friends
21. Post weekly content on this site
22. Continue to do well at work

Hmmmm… That’s still a lot of irons for the fire. I suppose 2010 will be business as usual: full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes!  What about you?  What do you want to accomplish next year?

I’m a little bit bummed out this morning.  I’m on vacation this week, but besides the fact that I’m not at work, it doesn’t feel much like vacation.  Things happen, plans change.  Sometimes you just roll with the punches.

I’ve had lots of ups and downs since Christmas Eve, and I’m trying to focus on the positive side of life, but I just can’t shake off this tenacious funk.

This is a time for family and home.  I miss my family, and I miss my home.  I miss the simpler times when it didn’t require a miracle to get all of us together under the same roof at the same time.  I spent Christmas night with my girlfriend.  Otherwise, I’ve been in this house alone for five days, and I’ve just about had enough of it.  I’ve ventured out into public a few times, thinking it would help me to just be around people, but on each occasion I’ve barely made it home without killing one idiot or another.  I can’t decide if there is something about the holidays that makes people even more stupid than usual, or if the imbeciles are always out there, but they’re just out in public more often during this time.

I’m also bummed because I’ve done more research on starting my own business and self-publishing my novel.  I can already tell that the business side of this endeavor is going to wilt my soul.  I have no interest in it whatsoever.  Even worse, my research indicates one depressing trend:  Self-publishing a fiction novel is a total waste of time and money.  I’m not even sure how I’m going to finance it.  I had thought I’d get a loan, but now that I see everything that goes into the preparation to even apply for a business loan… It just seems like a waste of time.

I’m still committed to doing… something.  I just don’t know what, and the absence of bearing or course has me in a terrible rage.  I launched a plan in 1993.  Sixteen years ago, I contrived to get a day job that would pay the bills and allow me build my writing career on the side.  It took me longer to get the job I needed, but I have it now.  However, I can’t truthfully say that my plan is working because of any force I applied to my fate.  Circumstances have just aligned such that things seem to be working out as I planned.

I’ve done some very difficult things in my life, and I’ve had some tough times.  By no means has my life been easy, and I’ve always worked hard.  However, I’ve never really took control.  If I wanted to sum up my entire life, I’ve always just gone with the flow, even if the flow took me into turbulent places.  I just rode it out and did whatever I needed to ensure I came out of it in one piece.

I’ve had this novel written for three years, and it has gone nowhere.  I’ve made all sorts of excuses and expended massive amounts of time and energy in websites, editing, and other bullshit, but I’m no closer to publication now than when I started in 2006.  Why is that?

I’ve attended one of the most expensive and prestigious colleges in the state.  I’ve been an Airborne Ranger.  I’ve been a college instructor.  I’ve been face-down on solid rock bottom and climbed back up again.  I’ve been a network admin at a hospital.  Now I’ve got a job important enough that I don’t talk about it.  I’ve written 170,000 words between two novels, and I know beyond any doubt that both novels are better than 50% of the shit that’s in the bookstores right now.

So why aren’t they published?  How can I have done the things I’ve done and achieved all of these accomplishments, but these novels are still just digital dreams on my hard drive?  I can point fingers and sling blame all day, but the simple truth is that publishing these books requires me to go against the flow, something I’ve never done before.  I haven’t really tried as hard as I could have, because the flow took me other places.

No one is going to do this for me.  I must do it myself.  I know I can make it happen.  The real question is, do I want it bad enough?  I wish I could pound my chest and roar, “YES! OF COURSE I WANT IT BAD ENOUGH!”

But I’m just not sure anymore.

I had two major goals this year: I was going to lose forty pounds, and I was going to publish my book.  I lost 30 pounds, regained 25 of it, and didn’t even come close to publication. Therefore, it may not require too much imagination to see why I sometimes consider this last year to be a total waste of my time and life.

However, there are other circumstances to consider.  Before we pass final judgment on the year, let us consider what other events have transpired.

In January I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, and I learned that I had been on the brink of dying in my sleep numerous times.  I was prescribed a bi-pap machine and began recovering from years of sleep (and oxygen) deprivation.

In February I quit my job at Camden Clark Hospital and started a new one at the Bureau of Public Debt.  I had just gotten to a point where I was comfortable in my position at the hospital; I’d only been there 18 months.  But I packed my bags and moved onto something bigger and better.  I was faced with an even steeper learning curve and even more challenging obstacles at BPD than I had surmounted at the hospital, but I persevered.  Now, eleven months later, I still have much to learn, but I am mostly settled, and my yearly appraisal indicates that management is very pleased with my performance thus far.  I am in a great place, with a great team, great management, and great opportunities.  If I must be in Parkersburg and if I must work in information technology, it simply doesn’t get any better than this.

In March I ended a relationship with a woman I’d been seeing for five years.  It was extremely difficult for me to end it, and even though I am still 500% certain it was the best thing for both of us, I still have mixed emotions about the way I ended things.  I have met someone, and she’s quite possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to me.  Since I’ve met her, I’ve been learning to laugh and love life again.  We’ve had some ups and downs already, but all in all, we get better and stronger every day.

Over the summer I had two opportunities to see my three best friends. All four of us had not been together in years, but we made it happen twice this year, and I hope we can make it a precedent for following years.  There are few treatments better for the soul than to be with friends who know you well, and don’t judge you despite what they know.

I bought my very first home in late August, and that has taken much of my time – learning about taxes, home owners’ associations, insurance… the list goes on and on.

I also became a pet owner again. Cali spends her days contriving ways to wrap me around her paw.  She also delights in giving me minor heart attacks by hiding in odd places until the perfect moment to jump out and scare me half to death.

Even though I’ve regained much of the weight I lost earlier in the year, I am still stronger than when I started.  I’ve steadily increased weight in the gym, and I still feel (and move) much better than I did a year ago. If I can just get my diet back under control, I should be able to slim down again.

I have not published the novel or gained an agent, but I have combined websites, improved the one site that remains, made progress with an illustrator, commissioned custom music for the site, and made tentative arrangements with animator to make a video trailer.  I have also decided once and for all that I am going to self-publish and self-promote this book. I’ve done some research, but I still have a ways to go.  At least I have a job that will allow me to pay for this.  Additionally, I’ve made tremendous effort to clean up my credit rating this year, so perhaps I can get a business loan if I need it.

Let’s see – new relationship, new job, new house, new cat, revitalized website, healthier body, bigger paycheck, and a solid plan to self-publish -  maybe the past year hasn’t been a total waste after all.

I adopted a cat from the humane society yesterday.  I wanted a dog and a cat, but after careful consideration of the things I hope to achieve in the coming year, I decided a dog was a bad idea, because I intend to be on the road many weekends.  The last two pets I owned were cats I literally took off the street, so I thought I’d go to the pound and see if I could find an adult cat that was already housetrained.

Cats can be very detached creatures, and I hoped to find one that would take a liking to me and perhaps be affectionate more often than not.  My father has such a cat.  It’s officially Mother’s cat, and it’s officially named “Miss Kitty” but the cat prefers Dad and follows him around so much that he calls it “Cat-dog.”  I wanted my very own cat-dog.

I found a female adult cat that crawled up into my lap, buried her head under my arm, and purred so hard that it shook my guts.  I named her Calisto (Cali for short) and brought her home with me.  She’s only been in my house 24 hours, and she already rules the place.  She follows me where ever I go, never letting me leave her sight.  She’s on my lap right now, “helping” me type this blog entry.  In all honesty, I may have gotten a little more than I bargained for:

I made two out of three work.  Now when I publish a new post or edit an existing one, a notification will automatically post on Facebook and Myspace.  I couldn’t get Twitter to work, but that’s OK.  I really don’t get the point of Twitter anyway.

I should be in bed instead of fooling with this. 

Edit:  I think facebook is working now.

Edit:  facebook is working.  I’m going to try twitter one more time

Myspace is working, but the entire post is getting pushed to the blog.  I only want a notification.  Let’s see if I can make that happen and also get Facebook and Twitter to work….

I’m still trying  to devise a lazy way to post here, on facebook, on myspace, and twitter all at the smae time.  Let’s see if this works….

Today marks four years since my friend was murdered by her husband.  He shot her to death and then shot himself.  I’m OK.  It does get easier as time passes, although it amazes me how little things still remind me of her, and the reminders seem to come more often as this day approaches.

On this day I am reminded that fate has been good to me, but there are no guarentees that it will continue.  Everything can be taken from you in an instant, for no reason other than you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

We all have been alive for as long as we can remember, and while we know we will die some day, we never think it will be this day, this hour, this minute, or this second.  But why couldn’t it be?  What prevents us from dying at any given moment of the day?  Nothing.  What assurances do we have that we will still be breathing at the end of the day?  We have none.  Every subsequent moment of life is a miracle created by a delicately balanced and enterwoven set of circumstances.  I strive to live every moment of my life to the fullest, taking nothing for granted.  I resist the tendency to become complacent and jaded, to take anything for granted.  I often fail in this endeavor, but I keep trying.

On this day I am reminded that humans are animals. Below our cerebral cortexes, underneath our vaunted morality and reasoning ability,  we are savage  and reptilian. We are driven and governed by the most basic needs.  We eat.  We sleep.  We kill.  We fuck.  All of our culture, science, philospy, religion, careers, and hobbies are built on top of these urges, obscuring them until we forget they are there.

I won’t forget.  I can’t forget.  These truths cannot be unseen, forgotten, or erased once one has faced them.

On this day I am reminded of the oath I made at my friend’s gravesite.  I promised to see, hear, taste, smell, feel, rejoice, grow, give, and love twice as much – once for me and once for her.  Looking back over the last year, I know I have done well in some regards, but I must also confess that I could have done more in other ways.  Therefore, I’m taking this time to rededicate myself to the promise I made.  I will not become jaded.  I will not become complacent.  I will live.  I will strive.  I will savor every moment of my existence – even the painful or sorrowful moments.  I will do this for myself, for those friends who still stand beside me, and for those who have died.

I miss ya, Ford.  Rest in peace.

It’s taken nearly ten years, but I finally updated the tattoo on my left shoulder yesterday.  I’m much happier with the current design.  I’ll post some pictures as soon as it heals.

Speaking of pictures, I have a bunch from the last two years that I have yet to post in galleries on this site.  Maybe I’ll get that fixed soon.

I’m trying to get a handle on my life.  I had big plans for this year, but I lost control about the time I changed jobs in February.  Most of this year has felt like I’m in the passenger side of a souped-up Corvette with no driver.  I’m trying to take control, trying to make a feasible schedule and stick to it.

Tonight I’m mourning the sorry state of this site’s content.  I had big plans at one point – I was going to write and post articles on many topics.  I wanted to have something fresh at least once a week, something with substance that might appeal to a broader audience.  Instead, I’ve been reduced to sporadic updates on my own life and events around me, and even those are watered down to the point where I’m not even interested in reading them, and it’s MY life!

I’ve identified the problem, but I don’t know how to fix it.

When I first started blogging, I used a pen-name and was more-or-less anonymous.  I was free to write what I wanted in the way I wanted.  I wasn’t slowed down by filters or censors.  If I wanted to write about what I was feeling or thinking, I could let the words flow out of me without worry or concern that my words would be tied back to me in “real life” and have unexpected consequences.  The result was writing that was solid as steel.  People responded to what I wrote because my words were true, clear, and because they could relate to me, even if they didn’t always agree with me.

Now, I’m not naive enough to equate online anonymity with online privacy, but I still had a mask, a layer of armor that allowed me a freedom that I do not have on this site.  This isn’t a new revelation.  I’ve bitched about it before, and I’ll probably bitch about it again.

I don’t really mind if my family and friends read the personal articles I’d like to write sometimes.  They’re already used to me saying what I think whether they like it or not.  The problems arise when I consider my girlfriend and my job.

Posting personal insights online can cause big problems with girlfriends.  Sometimes a girlfriend can get jealous or angry, because it’s easier for me to write my thoughts than to say them.  If I post them here, a girlfriend can get jealous of the “intimacy” I have with my audience, or she can get indignant because she feels that she shouldn’t need to come to my site like “everyone else” when she should be able to get her info straight from the source.  Alternately, a girlfriend might read every private thing I post here, and never complain once, but then the relationship becomes unbalanced because she has easy access to my thoughts and feelings, but I have no such access to hers. It can make life really confusing and complicated.

Online opinion pieces can also cause problems with my professional life.  I’m a network security specialist.  Regardless of where I work, my employers need to know that I’m stable, mature, responsible, and reasonable.  I can’t always say what I want to say, or I can’t say it how I want to say it, because I don’t want to deal with the possible problems that might arise with current or future employers, should my online ranting come to light at some point.  And it will.  The more you want something to be lost, the faster and the easier it is brought to the boss’s attention.  This is a concern for me now more than ever, because I currently work for the Federal government.  I am not a fan of big government.  I see things going on in our government that terrifies and disgusts me, but I don’t dare say much about it, because I’m working for the Man, and I can’t let him know exactly what I think if I want to get paid.  I also can’t have my co-workers reading some of the crazier things I’m prone to write from time to time.  In a best case scenario, I have to put up with the questions and heckling from my peers.  In a worst case scenario, one of these people could be freaked out or pissed off by what I wrote, and then become my boss a month later.

So I sit down to write something for this site… sometimes I get so pissed off with the self-imposed censors that I don’t even start, or I quit after a few lines, because I’m not going to write unless I can say what I really want to say.  Other times I finish a post, and the result is a boring, sterilized collection of stale words that isn’t of much use to me or anyone else.

I could work around the concerns I have about my girlfriend reading this site.  But I can’t blow off the possible repercussions at work.  I can’t quit work right now.  I can’t change careers right now.  I can’t go back to anonymous blogging if I want to have time to do anything with this site.  I don’t know what to do.  Maybe someday I’ll be a best-selling author.  I’ll be able to write whatever I want because authors are an eccentric lot, and if someone doesn’t buy that line of bullshit, I’ll still be able to tell them to fuck off since I won’t need to worry about going into an office and catching hell from my boss.

It’s a dream, that’s for sure.  At the rate I’m going, that’s all it’s ever going to be.

“Cast me gently
Into morning
For the night has been unkind
Take me to a
Place so holy
That I can wash this from my mind
The memory of choosing not to fight”

– Sarah McLachlan, “Answer”

Yes, I realize they aren’t my words, and yes, I realize I’m admitting that I occassionaly listen to Sarah McLachlan.  To paraphrase Jack Handy: “It takes a big man to admit he listens to Sarah McLachlan.  It takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man.”

This little peice of her song has repeated in my head over and over, all day long.

Have you ever had three or four things floating around in the back of your mind, where they aren’t really a distraction, but they won’t totally go away, either?  Or have you ever had the feeling that separate trains of thought are actually connected somehow, but when you try to figure it out, the connections dissipate, like tendrils of smoke in the wind?

That’s where I am today.  I took Friday and Monday off to finish setting up my house and to work on my websites a little bit, but I’m not getting as much done as I would like, because these other thoughts are teasing me in the back of my mind.  I cannot escape the feeling that they’re connected, and that the connection is important.  I feel like I’m just not getting something that I need to understand, realize, or remember.

Three separate trains of thought rumble through my skull:

1) Over Labor Day I went home to see my family.  While I was there, I split some gnarly oak for my grandma.  While I worked, Dad came out and helped me.  He set the blocks up and then stacked them as I split them.  He told me that he couldn’t split wood anymore unless he wanted to feel it in his shoulders and back for days after.  The role-reversal struck me hard.  It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was the helper, busting my ass as hard and as fast as I could just to keep up with him as he swung the splitting maul.

2) I recently saw the movie I Love You Man.  It’s about a guy who has always hung out with girlfriends over the years, and never made any true guy friends.  The movie is hilarious, and I recommend it, but it also made me realize that I don’t have any close guy friends either.  I’m not as bad off as the loser in the movie.  I have guy friends, and I’m perfectly capable of hanging out with any of them, or all of them, but when it’s all said and done, I don’t see any of them that often, and I can’t honestly say that any of them are my best friend.  To say it another way: I don’t expect any of them to ask me to be their best man at a wedding, and I don’t know who I would ask to be my best man if I were getting married.  I know lots of guys I’d invite to the bachelor party, and we’d have so much fun that most of us would end up in jail, but which of them am I really close to?  None of them, not really.  I had three best friends in highschool, but they all live hundreds of miles away now.  I had a few close guy friends when I was a Ranger, and a couple when I was in college.  Since I graduated in 2004, I’ve spent most of my time at work, at home alone, or with my girlfriend.  It’s been even more the case since I left the National Guard a year ago.  Do I regret the arrangement?  Now that I’m aware of it, do I want to change it?  I don’t know.

3) Two nights ago I dreamed about my Uncle Mark, which is very odd, considering Mark died over thirteen years ago, and I’ve scarcely thought of him in the years since then.  I liked him, but he and I weren’t close.  I can’t remember what he said to me, or what we were doing, but I wish I could, because I think it was very important.

These three thoughts swirl around in my head, and I swear I can almost see the threads that combine them.  They’re like three songs built on an underlying theme that I can almost hear…but not quite.