Whining

So here I am in Hawaii, again, wrapping up my 26^th trip here.  I should be finishing up some hilarious blog about hijinks and awesome food, but I can’t.  The writing part of me is broken.  It has been for a while.  It’s not like I haven’t had the opportunity. So far this year I have taken several trips.

In January we bopped down to LA for a long weekend. Yes, I sat in seat 1A flying down. We rented this awesome West Hollywood apartment that had a gorgeous Israeli property manager named Yani, ate life changing tacos, visited the incredible Broad Museum, broken the bulkhead on a Virgin America airplane, again, and nearly died eating fiery Thai food at an LA outpost of a famous and very overrate Portland institution. No blog post.  Could not do it.

A couple months later I was back in SoCal to go to the Palm Springs of California. Yes, I sat in seat 1A flying down. I did try to write up a draft blog post that referenced The Palm Springs of Washington sign in Yakima, did proper homage to the classic Cheryl Tryvk Palm Springs story on This American Life, stayed in an amazing mid century modern house, had several nice brunches with bottomless mimosas, learned that vile Alaska Airlines was buying Virgin America while I was flying on Virgin America, got in a fight with a woman in the parking lot of an I-N-Out Burger, and faced hours of horrific traffic on the 10 freeway going back to LAX.  But no, no blog post.  I just could not do it.

Now I am in Honolulu, Yes, I sat in seat 1A flying over --  and it only took 2 hours to get here.  I am staying in the deluxe apartment in the sky with an unobstructed view of the Pacific. There are Japanese toilets. I have had truly awesome food in a couple of outstanding restaurants and bought and cooked some great fish.  I had a $35 Mai Tai. I got great joy out of scaring annoying Japanese people at Whole Foods in Kahana, had a zen like moment on a drive the windward side of the island, but I doubt any of this will ever get posted.  I just can’t seem to write anymore.

Usually when I write a good blog post (Kaua’i and India are good examples) they just come fully formed out of my head.  I just have to type it up and then spend days looking for spelling errors.  Not any more.  Nothing comes fully formed out of my head, nothing seems funny right now.

What has sucked the humor out of me?  Two things I fear:

My health.  I am supposed to be fixed now, but I am constantly worried that I will flip back into cardio flappiness. I am working hard to prevent this.  Pilates 3 days a week, cardio and TRX at the gym on the days I don’t do Pilates, sometimes both on the same day. Supposedly if I am good through August I am very likely to stay fixed, but it scares me, my heart, constantly.

Just as bad is my job.  I truly hate what I do.  I can’t stand it anymore.  Corporate America is an immoral, dehumanizing, awful place to spend time.  While I got used to making really good money, it does not matter any more.  I just can't take one more minute of awful people with giant egos stepping over bodies to build their little empires. 

While I am taking steps to improve my health, I am totally stuck on what to do for a living.  I have figured out that I am only in IT for the money and the money just does not matter any more.

If I could find something, anything, else to do for a living I would be there right now.  I would even do it for free for a while.  Yep, I just said it, I would volunteer. In my head I see my old t-shirt that says, “Volunteering, it doesn’t pay.”  The problem is I just can’t think of anything that I care about.

Come on, there must be some things I care about…

Let’s see:

Cooking

Traveling

Kittens

KCRW radio

KPLU radio

Nigella Lawson

Buffy

Star Trek

Architecture

Design

Flying first class

Oh, and in the past, writing.

Maybe it would be helpful to list the things I hate:

Working in IT

Public speaking

Bicyclists

Pedestrians

Bus drivers

All other drivers

Republicans

Christians

Star Wars

Flying coach

I am in full-blown existential crisis I fear.  What is a boy to do?   My acupuncturist thinks I should be a substitute schoolteacher.  Note to self, go back and add Children to the list of things you hate.

Sigh. 

More whining later….maybe.

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