The Sims/Real Life

Over the last ten years I have been almost singularly focused on goal achievement. The first seven of those years were spent on career growth, where I essentially tripled my income. That focus however exacted a price in a very severe depression that I spent nearly five years battling.

Now that I'm back in a professional setting, I am once again having to remind myself what is really important. At the moment things are beginning to become tense at work, and it really is going to take some effort to remind myself that this job is merely a source of income, not my identity. I've always had a tendency to take things too personally and in the past that has gotten me into deep trouble. I can see where the tendency is beginning to surface, but I also think I'm self aware enough to avoid the pitfalls.

After my mother, my sister, and her family, nothing is more important to me than school. Then my home and my friends. Then my job. If the job goes away, I'll get another. I'll never have another mother, sister, or education. Those things are irreplaceable.

On a lighter note, last weekend I indulged myself and bought my first computer game, The Sims. Essentially it's an elaborate soap opera game in which you can create the characters and live out their lives. I was going to be really pissed if all of the characters had to be straight, so the first thing I did was starved off the ugly fat woman and her husband. Then I created a gay couple. It took a while for the game to recognized the couple I had created as a couple. It wouldn't let me put them in the same bed. But finally, through a course of interaction, the game offered my an option to kiss. I seized it, and before long my two boys were in the same bed. Soon the game even let them adopt a baby girl. And just like in real life, they can't get married.

It's a stupid game, but I flipped it on this morning, intending to play for half an hour. SIX and a half hours later I quit because I needed food. The game is scored on a number of different categories in which your characters have to perform tasks to keep their energy up in those categories. Much like real life, the key to the game is maintaining a balance. When one thing gets out of balance, the character's whole life suffers.

Everything seems to offer life lessons these days.

I'm exhausted and off to bed. Tomorrow will be a big day at work.

Emotional Vampire Royale

Without going into too much embarrassing detail, a major portion of my life has been spent battling vampires. Not the Ann Rice, Bram Stoker variety. I'm talking about the emotional vampire.

The emotional vampire is someone who feeds off the emotions of others. They usually crave a particular emotion, such as anger, sorrow, pity; and they will go out of their way to generate that emotion in others. The more insidious are able to effortlessly manipulate complex situations to their advantage, creating oceans of the needed emotion. Frequently these incubi and succuba are very charming, and can appear carefree until they are ready to strike.

For a time I was something of a emotional vampire-in-training. I didn't realize it, in part because I was struggling with depression. My emotions of choice were pity and anxiety, and the brilliance of my personal strategy was that if I was unable to generate sufficient amounts of pity, I could internally generate an almost inexhaustible amount of anxiety. Then I stopped, and that's another story.

Today I find myself smack dab in the middle of an emotional vampire feeding frenzy at work. It's bloody, verging on operatic in scope and try as I might I can't seem to avoid it. Not for lack of trying. But, being a former incubus myself and a prime provider of emotional sustenance to such creatures in the past, I'm not only attractive to these vampires, I seem to attract them. In this particular case, like Van Helsing himself, I am unafraid and have met one of the old-time vampires at work. My job sort of requires that I deal with these messes, but usually they are on a much lower level with neophyte vampires. The current work situation however can be described as nothing less than a skirmish between good and evil. While I'm not the focal point of this grand tragedy-in-the-making, I have reached the point where I have to declare my allegiance. Choosing incorrectly promises much gnashing of teeth and howling in lakes of emotional fire. Aligning myself with the ultimate winner should be the entre into paradise.

I, quite simply, do not overstate. Let the games begin.

Nanner, Nanner, Boo-Boo!

This afternoon I sang with the chorus for the Sondheim festival in Millennium Park. As we were leaving the stage some Christian hecklers with a bullhorn started shouting that we were all going to burn in hell. So, we returned to the stage and sang our own prideful version of "We're Still Here." It was one of the best moments of my summer.

I, Helen of Troy

This week I had two grown men fighting over me. I can tell you, first hand, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

I’ll try not to bore you with all of the irrelevant details, but the bottom line is that there is a power struggle going on between the management, led by the new CEO, and the three original founders of the company, led by the Chairman of the Board.

In broad strokes, the Chairman came to me and asked me to do something that is just a tiny bit illegal. I told him I’d look into it, and found a way to accomplish the end result legally. I took my solution to the CEO, who was the one to approve such action, and he asked for my advise. I told him I didn’t want to do anything, and that it really was in our best interest, both long term and short term, to do nothing. He agreed and refused to approve any action.

Well, the Chairman didn’t like that. As is his way, he began back-room manipulations, trying everything he could think of to get his way. This infuriated the CEO. The Chairman claiming I promised that the project would be done and the CEO telling him that he wouldn’t approve it. The Chairman then went on to blacklist me and insist that I be fired. Luckily both my boss the COO, the CFO and the CEO all came down on my side. In a closed, glass-door meeting apparently things got so hot between the CEO and the Chairman that they were gearing up to throw punches and were prevented only by the CFO.

A formal showdown comes on Tuesday, at the official board of directors meeting. At that time I should either be unemployed or have a promotion and a big, fat raise.

Stay tuned…

You Know You're an Ungrateful SOB...

...when you get up in the morning and discover that your wallet is missing, so you start making the dreaded phone calls canceling credit cards; then, when you've just hung up from canceling the last card, the cabbie from last night rings your door and delivers your wallet. If' he'd just been a half hour earlier...

At least I don't have to replace my driver's license, student ID, gym card, Jewel or Dominick's cards, library card...etc.

But still, whatever happened to good, old-fashioned American customer service? Just another example of how our society has deteriorated.

Vacation Ramblings

* I love online banking. I paid all of my bills in less than five minutes.

* Crime sucks. While at the movies with my friend J. the front wheel to my bike was stolen. Depending on my schedule, I may not be able to replace it until next Saturday.

* Paid vacations rock! I still have three glorious work-free days before I have to head back to the office. I'm pretending I don't notice the little pit of dread gnawning away at my stomach.

* Gaining focus in hard. As I think I've written before, focus requires making choices, and I have difficulty doing that because I want it all!

* Choices I've made this past week include: committing to my return to the gym, walking away from the seductive television set, and cleaning my kitchen. All of these are mature, responsible choices that were made in favor of eating pound bags of M&M's, watching the entire last season of Six Feet Under for the third time, and hosting crawling bugs and emerging diseases.

* Things I've not yet accomplished on my vacation: I haven't written a single short story. I haven't finished Anna Karenina. I haven't gotten to the beach.

* Things I have accomplished on my vacation: I sang two concerts and a memorial service. I marched in the Pride Parade. I reconnected with my friends J. and C. I'm going to visit A&J tomorrow. I reestablished my gym routine. I did all my laundry. I hosted a small dinner party. And I chilled.

The chilling part is really what is most important during vacations, and I've perfected it. But I can feel the siren call of responsibility, so I'm easing back into the routine, and trying not to count the weeks until Labor Day Weekend. I still have nine days that I can take this year, but that just seems so paltry. I'm trying to save up time for next summer and a modest trip to Europe. More on that later.