Hyneman envy

[jere7my]

Jamie Hyneman, of the excellent Discovery Channel show Mythbusters, revealed last night that he'd been in the Special Forces, owned a pet shop at which he taught a goldfish to ring a bell, owned a dive shop, and become the international whist champion, all in addition to running a special effects house, hosting a nifty TV show, and finding time to grow that mustache. He's not much older than me; when do I start my life? (Kendra points out that I already have the mustache.) My big accomplishment for today was re-stringing my guitar. Yeehaw.

Crunching to and from work on the weird Astroturf-textured snow that fell last night, it's hard to imagine life ever changing, anything ever happening in this gray world. Spring is a rumor; see Little, Big. It's a tense time for us, Kendra being on the job market and trying to finish her dissertation at the same time; there's a mingled sense of expectation and hopelessness, like the next stage of our lives is visible through the walls of this jelly jar we're trapped under.

This is my fourth night working in a row, which means Kendra and I haven't seen much of each other since Friday. It's always easy to let the level of glumness rise when we haven't managed to touch base in a while. Tomorrow we'll have more time.

Now I get to climb a ladder and muck about with metal letters twenty feet in the air. Hooray.

Comments

[quixoticdancer.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaayyyyyyy! You quoted Little, Big, only one of my favorite books of all time. That just made my day.

Have you read Daemonomania(sp?), yet? I liked it more than Love and Sleep, but not as much as Aegypt.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

No; I own Daemonomania, but I need to find a copy of Love and Sleep before I read it. I keep waiting for them to reprint L&S in trade PB, but it's one of the few books of his they haven't gotten to yet.

[quixoticdancer.livejournal.com]

Well, wadda you know? I happen to own a copy of Love and Sleep. Perhaps we can arrange something...I know, go and comment on my last post, and it's yours to read.

See, I told you I was a comments whore.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I generally like to own the books I read, though, so I'll probably wait until I find a copy. If I read it before I buy it, I'll never have a reason to buy it, and there will forever be a hole in my collection.

[quixoticdancer.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, that's understandable.

And I hope you know i was only kidding about the "only yours if you comment" part. :-)

Sorry about your angst (*hee* the closing theme from Orgasmo just popped into my head). I hope you feel better soon.

[jdh92.livejournal.com]

It's a tense time for us, Kendra being on the job market and trying to finish her dissertation at the same time; there's a mingled sense of expectation and hopelessness, like the next stage of our lives is visible through the walls of this jelly jar we're trapped under.

Yeah the "not knowing where I'll be living in 6 months" feeling is downright bizarre. And unfortunately it may continue for a while. The flip side is that once you do know where you're headed it is fun to start making plans.

"When do I start my life?"

[tapas.livejournal.com]

So what do you want to accomplish that you haven't yet and what do you feel is standing between you and your goals?

Re: "When do I start my life?"

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

What do I want to accomplish? Apart from becoming a beloved writer who is set upon by legions of adoring female fans as soon as he steps into a con suite, I'm not sure. I have this itch to build, create, fabricate something real; I think maybe I've been watching too much Junkyard Wars. It might be some sort of delayed macho thing, or something more significant to my psyche.

The barriers are clearer; I'm not driven. I'm lazy; I like to be comfortable. Good musicians might practice four hours a day; it's hard for me to focus on my playing for one. The things I can lose track of time in aren't things I want to spend my life doing: video games, graphic layout tweaks, database design. If there's a community out there doing the sort of thing I might want to do, I'm too wussy to join it. And writing a novel is the ultimate in delayed gratification; I rely too much on cheerleaders (which I lack), not enough on my own drive.

Also, my computer sucks. :)= That makes me not want to spend time with it.

That said, a lot of this is SAD; things look bleak as the winter drains away. Spring is coming; Kendra and I may move to somewhere new, should God smile upon us; I really have made a great deal of progress in my Scottish guitar over the last year, more than I had in the five years previous. (This is probably because I've been playing for class, which means I have instant positive reinforcement.) And I'm getting a new computer in a month or so. Things aren't as bad as I make them out to be. I'm just awash in uncertainty right now, and I'm being a rudder for Kendra at the same time, which makes me introspective.