Diary of a Madman

It’s been a little while.

Things just seem to get better and better (sarcasm) – I find myself sinking into deeper and darker pits of depression as the days go by.

I don’t know why I felt the urge to post tonight, except that it’s been a little while, and there has to be some way, some outlet, that lets me express what I’m really feeling. And let me tell you, it’s not real good.

The last week or so, I’ve been sitting here, thinking about knives – how easy it would be, and yet how hard, just to fall on one and end it all. I’m sorry to anyone reading this (yes, you know who you are) who might find this hard to hear. It’s hard for me to type, too.

I’m tired of fighting.

Everywhere I look, the odds just seem stacked against me. Nothing I do seems to have any positive effect. I feel completely ineffective, unliked, and insignificant. Goodness knows, I’ve been trying hard to change things – at work, especially.

But it doesn’t seem to be having any effect.

I bought a packet of smokes the other night – after 18 months or more without, it was a bit of a copout, but I was drunk and needed comfort. But of course, like many things, it was only temporary.

So many memories………….so many things in the past that should be forgotten and can’t be…..so many things that should be in my future, but somehow just can’t be pictured there………so many regrets, so many wishes and dreams, so many sorrows…….

It’d be so good to just start again…….but that’s never going to happen…..so what is one supposed to do? I can’t go on crying every day of my life.

Something’s gotta give. 🙁

I wish I knew.

Dealing with people every day is such a nuisance….I just want to crawl into a hole sometimes and not speak to them, just find some cocoon of warmth and protection that provides me with all the sustenance I need……maybe that’s why every time something goes wrong I seem to crawl into a bottle for a few days….

Nothing ever seems easy – everything is a lot of hard work and it’s so difficult to get motivated about anything any more. And the worst part is it feels like there’s nobody urging me on, nobody who is really interested…..I’m the sort of person who’s easily ignored, I guess.

I need a rest. Really.

I get a real kick out of singing – nobody who knows me in real life would realise that, because it’s something that I only ever do when I’m alone – either in the car, or at home, and especially after a few drinks, it’s an excellent stress reliever. Not that I’d ever let anyone else hear – it’s difficult for me to do it in front of an audience, even when I’m drunk – and I do think that I’ve got a semi-decent voice.

Evanescence is still a great band to sing to – such raw emotion comes out in their music, that I just can’t help but put my heart and soul into belting out tunes. All the flies on the wall at my place must have burst eardrums by now 🙂

The business that I manage has been subject to an internal audit over the last couple of days and I’ve also had my area manager visiting. It’s been a busy couple of days, to say the least – but I’ve pulled through it (I was going to say “with my sanity intact” – but after tonight, I’m not so sure.)

So I get to thinking deeper, and the thing that keeps on jumping out at me is that life is nothing more than a series of tests – tests of character, tests of decision making skills – whatever. The old saying is true – “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately.

I can only hope that in a few months time I’ll feel a helluva lot stronger, because at the moment I’ve been fighting back against the feeling that it’s killing me! 😐

You bastards! Beaten by a single, solitary point in golden goal (sudden death.) I was disappointed!

But hey, that’s sport for you. It was a pretty average game of footy though, in a lot of ways. But I don’t think anyone needs my post-match analysis. I think it’s safe to say that if you saw the game you can make up your own mind, and if you didn’t see the game you’re probably not interested in hearing it, because you’re probably not a league fan.

I’m feeling the need to do some deeper pondering on life, the universe, and everything. There’s probably a lot of that in this blog already – indeed, it seems that it’s all I write about. Perhaps I’m self absorbed – but I don’t seem to spend a lot of time involved in deep thinking about anything else. I used to – somehow things changed. There just isn’t anyone around that stimulates my thought processes like there used to be. No meaningful conversation. Very little meaningful interaction with any human beings, in fact. It all seems rather shallow and petty these days.

Something changed – somewhere along the line, when I switched off my feelings for the rest of the world and put up the defensive walls that are keeping everyone out now. Once you put them up, it’s hard to pull them down again.

I need to find people that can help me do that – I was thinking as I got onto a plane today that I’ve been waiting for other people to come along and help me make the change; maybe that’s not the right way to be thinking. I was thinking, when I took holidays earlier this year, that maybe changing my physical perspective on things might help – sadly, it didn’t. If anything it might have made things worse.

I was thinking, as I got on that plane, that maybe some medication might help make the change – then I realised that, paradoxically, my emotional insecurity prevents me from going to see a shrink – and besides that, the last time I went to a doctor about my panic attacks and my emotional fluctuations, he really didn’t seem all that interested. Blamed it on my alcohol intake – which is my second argument for saying that medication is a waste of time. I can also come up with a third one – a living, real life example of someone who is living happily off her medication simply because she put herself in the right place and surrounded herself with the right people. I’m happy for her.

So the question is what will do the trick for me?

Life is about that journey of finding out. The problem is, right now, I’m feeling very very tired from the trip. I really hope there’s a rest area coming up soon.

Thai food is great.

Thai food washed down with a couple of Crownies is even better.

Thai food when you’re interstate, on the night of the first State of Origin, when you wouldn’t normally be able to watch it live if you were in your home state, while eating Thai food and drinking Crownies is just about as good as it gets (other than the fact that I’m alone in a motel room. But hey, nothing’s perfect) 🙂

So, I’m sitting here waiting for the football to start. Some of the work issues have blown over (had a long chat to my boss the other night – told her how I feel – couldn’t get a word in edgewise after that but I’m over it, in any case) and tomorrow they start again in earnest.

Earlier an interesting realisation came to me. One of the major stumbling blocks that I am having in my professional career is….paradoxically….my lack of personal life.

It seems that I’ve come to just about the limit of what I can achieve professionally, until I can improve my social, relationship and people skills. So somehow, even though I’ve been talking about it for a long time, I have to get myself a life. As traumatic and stressful as that’s going to be for someone like myself who suffers from paranoia and problems with intimacy – I just don’t naturally relate well to other people without putting on an act, and it never feels comfortable.

Until I’ve drunk enough to remove all the inhibitions. So – some scary stuff needs to happen.

Anyway – enough of my bullshit. Queensland must win the football! Watching a decent game of league is something I’ve missed since I moved to the ass end of the country (mental note: please do not give the URL of this blog to any Tasmanians) – so it should be interesting.

Time to forget my troubles just for one night and kick back – tomorrow at all the fun starts again.

See title.

That is all.

I’m pissed off.

I need to have a rant about some work shit – so tune out for a moment if you’re not interested 🙂

I manage a business as some people may know – with 12 staff working for me. Last year there were some issues raised with my boss (at the time I didn’t have an area manager, she is slightly higher than that) about my manner with the staff – sometimes when I’m under pressure I have a tendency to be short, snappish, and generally don’t speak to people in the most pleasant way. Last year they raised it with her, we discussed it, and I resolved to change that.

Now over the past 24 hours she’s been to visit, with my now area manager, and she’s sat down with every member of staff in private to talk to them. Last night she told me that this was something she’s doing everywhere – and that nobody has made any complaints about me. “Your staff have good ideas”, she says – “we didn’t just discuss you”, she says.

Before she left, we sat down, and I was subject to a nice little spiel about how I have to spend time speaking to all of the staff one on one each week so that I can become a better people manager and get better results from the team. In fact, now that I think about it, ALL the things we talked about before she left were about me and my management style. Thanks for sharing all those “good ideas” with me. I appreciate it.

Now somehow I have to find the time to sit down with 12 people WEEKLY and talk to them in private – the bottom line is, the only way I’m going to be able to do this is to drop some other responsibilities (and some of those responsibilities are ones which are making the business so successful in the first place.)

I simply don’t have the time – the business is one of the most successful in the group – all the figures, on paper, are excellent. I just don’t have time to be touchy feely with people.

Sigh.

I don’t have time for any extra responsibilities. It’s hard enough when I’m going away for training and meetings 4 or 5 days a month, doing the administrator’s job when she’s not there, and generally run off my feet the other days – unless I work 7 days a week it’s going to be a struggle.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, it annoys me how people can walk in, talk to everyone, and all of a sudden come to the conclusion that there’s a problem, when it’s mostly caused by a couple of whingers (who are part of the minority.) And I know who they are – I just need to weed them out.

For the love of god, please do see the topic!

It’s amazing what effect a few little innocuous comments can have on a person, particularly on someone like myself (perhaps I’m slightly emotionally unstable, who knows.)

I went into work this evening, to have a couple of beers with the staff after work. Nothing really unusual about that. I was in a good mood when I got there, and everything was fine.

Then someone said something which implied I was unfair – and it put me on a downer for the rest of the night – to the point where I’ve been socially incommunicado for most of the evening. The pub was a deadset whitewash, nobody seemed to want to talk to me very much, and even after I left I got a couple of SMSes from our 2IC asking me what was wrong. Of course I put a brave face on it (even though I was in tears) because I can’t bear anyone to see me when I’m feeling vulnerable.

So of course, I’m taking the mature approach – stifling the (unusual thoughts of suicide) stupid crap that enters my brain, I’m getting insanely drunk. After the few beers at the pub I’ve managed to polish off a couple of four packs of JD and coke (it’s bloody annoying the amount of backspacing I’ve been doing whilst posting this) and I have a couple of pizzas and some more Jack Daniel’s on the way. I expect I won’t be sleeping tonight, I’ll be passing out.

So for the love of god, people – think about what you say! You never know what effect it’ll have on those of us who are more emotionally fragile than others. A seemingly innocuous comment can easily put someone on the brink of a nervous breakdown, if it’s said in the right context.

I don’t want to seem like I’m whining – so I’ll shut up. But tonight has highlighted to me how much I (perhaps stupidly) care about what other people think.

Screw them. They only make my life a misery – of course that’s not my fault. At all. Is it.

Heh.

There’s a lot to be said for sitting on your arse doing nothing – and that’s what I plan to be doing for the next few days.

In front of me is a nice, cold, Jack Daniel’s and coke. On the way (my mouth is watering in anticipation) is a couple of steaming hot pizzas from my pizza establishment of choice.

My internet is working, although not without a little coaxing – for some reason, after running LiveUpdate this evening, I completely lost the ability to surf the ‘net – uninstalling then reinstalling NAV 2003 fixed that. So I’m happily online and doing my thing.

Seriously – I’m going to get full of food, pissed as a mute, and just generally hang out here doing sweet bugger all. This is the life 🙂

Mallrats is excellent.

In fact, almost all Kevin Smith movies are excellent, with the possible exception of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back, which possibly earns the slightly lesser grade of “OK”. If anyone else had made it, I might have labelled it B-Grade.

Can I just say though, that sitting in this comfortable chair, on my laptop, in front of my widescreen TV, watching a DVD with my laptop on my lap, is just bloody excellent 🙂 I should do this more often, instead of sitting in a small office on my leather backed executive chair with the sadly flattened. bum numbing seat.

I might do a Kevin Smith marathon tonight – I was tempted to watch Chasing Amy first but I was worried that it might cause severe depression – that movie always makes me cry 😐

Anyway – not much to add. People are weird – but today is a good day.

That kid is back on the escalator again!

Phew – what a day – I’m just about pooped. Gothika was a pretty good movie actually, as supernatural thrillers go – there wasn’t much that was out of the ordinary though. The old “ghost who comes back for revenge” type story – I managed to put a couple of the pieces together before the movie had actually spelled out the answers, so it must have been a bit predictable 🙂

Telemarketers suck.

I’ve had this girl from a mob called SuperTAB trying to get me to spend money on their “investment program” – basically it’s a betting system where they give you a heap of tips every week and you put bets on all these different events. I’m not sure I want to spend $5k on that!

So she’s on the phone today, and I tell her no thanks, I’m not interested (the same as what I told her a month or so back) – then she starts putting the hard sell on me.

Remember what I said about Dad in my post below? Well this girl could rival him, easily. She must have gone on for a good 10 minutes, just on, and on…..and on…. about all the benefits of the program – I couldn’t get a bloody word in edgewise. I had to laugh – I just looked at one of the other girls in the office and shook my head…..

In the end I had to cut her off. “You’re not going to convince me. Thanks but no thanks.”

Somehow that’s one investment decision I don’t think I’ll regret making.

My father just rang me.

He shits me to tears. How is it that he can manage to phone me and maintain a constant monologue for such a long period without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement from me. I often feel that I could put the phone down and just let him ramble until he got sick of it – it’d take him a while to realise I wasn’t there.

Seriously – it annoys me no end. I don’t know why, but it just does. I suppose that’s why I mostly avoid speaking to him, mostly. And my mother.

That probably makes me sound like a terrible person, but the fact is, I’d prefer to be emotionally distant. All my emotions ever seem to cause me is pain.

Anyhow – for a more cheerful way of spending the evening, I’m going to watch Gothika. Then get a good nights sleep – tomorrow at work should be interesting….

I’ve completely been ignoring blogging lately – feeling a bit slack about it too 🙂

But the universe has a habit of reminding us of things like this. Last night I was fooling around with an IRC Script I installed and I discovered it had a webcam viewer coded into the script. I thought, “COOL!” and happily went on my merry way viewing some cams – although they were all pretty boring – so I started having a click on the homepages of some of the people in the cams.

I was reminded of how many people blog, and how much of people’s lives they share on the ‘net.

It’s a wonderful thing.

So it’s time I put a proper front page on this site, I think, and personalised things a bit – there’s not much here that’s really private, I guess, and nothing about specific people that needs to be censored.

So it’s on the agenda – no ideas about time frames, because things are pretty busy at the moment. Between my day job, and another business project I’m working on (which I won’t elaborate on just yet) I’ve been burning the midnight oil a lot lately.

Oh, and just to mention – I am no longer Windows free. My spell using linux, and only linux, lasted all of 2 weeks.

Oh well…………..

Truth comes from the strangest places.

I’ve had the TV on in the background tonight – and an episode of Sex and The City just happened to be on.

So I’m sitting here innocently being a web lurker, and Carrie says “Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”

And as usual, I think to myself that the past is still hanging around and stopping me from moving on. Particularly a relationship with one woman who is still in my life.

Coincidentally she called me yesterday for help with a PC problem.

It’s really easy to become over analytical and it’s one of those things that I tend to do a lot. Being a geek means that you’re really interested in the wheres, whys, and hows of things. That doesn’t just extend to electronic devices. I find it extending to sociology, nature, and many other subtopics of things that I encounter in day to day life. But this is one of those times where one needs to stop analysing, stop thinking, and just start living. Move on.

Being the easter bunny was great, by the way.

Nite 🙂

The last week has been interesting. A few things happening in the work world – for example, on Sunday I’ll be wearing a bunny suit. Won’t that be interesting. (!)

But I didn’t log in to blog about that – actually I felt like having a bit of a rant about some of the issues I’m having with linux.

As of the weekend I’ve gone completely Windows free (other than on my laptop, which will stay with XP for a bit longer, methinks.) I’ve dropped an install of Fedora Core 1 onto this machine, and everything is working quite nicely. I managed to import all of my 2500+ emails from the old Windows installation (used a second *nix box here as an IMAP server, transferred them all across, then downloaded them again onto the new install) as well as just about everything else. All my NTFS drives are mounted read-only so I haven’t lost any content and it’s all there for me to use.

However – gripe number one – how the HELL can I get TNEF to work! For those who don’t know I’m referring to the tendency of Microsoft email clients to send attachments within a wrapper of the mime type MS-TNEF – which is not something the email client (Ximian Evolution) I’m using seems to cope with.

Now there’s a couple of applications like ktnef and tnef that should handle opening these attachments but do you think I can get either of them to work/install properly? Nooooooooo!

It’s something you’d think would have been integrated into email clients by now – but I’m no software developer so I can’t comment knowledgeably on all the intricacies involved.

Gripe number 2 – do you think I can get my Canon USB scanner to work? (It’s a 1250U) – noooooo! The sane backend finds it and recognises it correctly, but XSANE has no idea it’s even there. I don’t really know where to start with it, and lots and lots of googling hasn’t enlightened me either.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll think of some other things to rant about later. Isn’t this fun?

I’ve been sitting at this computer for 8 hours, on and off, trying to resolve these issues (mainly the tnef problem) without success. Basically I can’t seem to get a ktnef package in .rpm format anywhere. It’s supposed to come with kdepim but I’ve apt-getted that and can’t seem to see it. I’ve downloaded the source but it won’t install because it doesn’t think I have Qt installed (I do) – and I’ve tried reinstalling Qt (from source, instead of .rpm) but that failed with an error as well.

Installed TNEF from sourceforge download page, not much happening there – doesn’t seem to work properly. Tried (and succeeded in) downloading fentun – but it won’t extract – linux doesn’t think it’s in gzip format. WTF?

It’s enough to turn you to drink, fair dinkum…

Sporadic blogging makes the world go round.

The new series of Black Books is excellent – for those who haven’t seen it, I highly recommend getting down to your nearest black market TV episode supplier and grabbing some episodes (up to episode 3 now if I remember correctly.) There’s many laughs to be had.

Whirlpool is starting to really bore me. Damn having a short attention span! It kept my interest for a long time, but I can feel myself hungering for more, and starting to slip back into a darker depression again – ironically, things seem to be going pretty well otherwise – at least I thought they were.

It’s amazing how one little comment can seem so big.

I’ve been talking to my staff over the past couple of days, and the general feedback has been that things have improved a lot – I’m less stressed which has resulted in a much happier atmosphere for everyone.

Then this afternoon I’m talking to our sales manager and she says “oh, they still don’t like you, they just tolerate you.”

Like – WTF? Screw them. I’ve worked my ring out to teach them everything I know, to get the business to a point where it’s making good money and they’re all being well rewarded for it. And what I get in return is a bunch of whiney ass immature and lazy staff who want to treat the place like it’s a freaking holiday camp and yet they complain when their bonuses aren’t high enough and bitch all the time. And they DON’T LIKE ME.

Well they can go fuck themselves.

Anyway, that was how I felt this afternoon – although I managed to laugh it off. Damnit, I’m the manager of a decent business with 12 people working under me – if everyone liked me, I wouldn’t be doing my job. It’s just that I have a 2IC who everyone seems to like. And besides that, I’m just like any other human being – I WANT to be liked. I’ve tried so hard to change my management style so that they feel like they’re being treated with respect – but apparently they still don’t like me….

It just makes me want to give up.

!!

But aside from that, life is quite boring. I have a new lounge suite (purchased on the weekend), a new TV, and a PVR/STB.

They aren’t making me incredibly happy, but they’re good for wank factor – and if I ever do end up getting that thing, (what’s it called, umm…. a social life!) then these things will be quite handy 🙂

Amazingly, I think I’m starting to feel a bit happier though – slowly finding some purpose and gaining some confidence. Sadly though, I’ve started drinking and eating junk food. Not good! Thought I’d kicked that habit. Oh well, diet here I come. 🙁

Yes, I’m still playing the cricket game in my last post. Completely, utterly, hopelessly addicted.

I haven’t posted here in a while, I’ve been travelling a little bit with work, and I’ve had other stuff happening too. Tonight I decided to pose a philosophical question to my huge adoring fanbase.(!)

Why is it that so many things in life that are good, fun, and enjoyable, so many indulgences that make us feel happy and content as humans, are ultimately bad for us?

Of course in my case, right now, I applied that to pizza and bourbon. But it can be applied to so many things throughout our lives.

Of course there will be purists that say “but everything is good for you in moderation” or “everything is bad for you in excess.”

I used to say that as well.

But if I want to drink bourbon and eat pizza every night, and it’s what gives me a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment, then why should my life be shortened by 20 years as a result?

Here is just another example of why “life is not fair.” All of you that have children, teach them that from an early age.

I have a strong suspicion that many of my social imbalances and inadequacies are a result of some of the brainwashing I was subjected to as a child, that what I gave out to others would come back in return. Alas, that has proven to be a complete falsehood – if you are nice to everyone, then people will walk all over you and take advantage of your nature. The only way to be truly at peace with the world is to assert your authority, tell the world what you want, and don’t take no for an answer!

That’s my take on this whole “society” caper.

Having said that, I’d like to tell people how much I love them without fear of being thought of as a sentimental, eccentric old softie. So there’s a paradox for you: How does one truly be honest with their feelings, build other people up and give them a sense of self worth, without turning themselves into an object of ridicule and a doormat for others to wipe their feet on?

I think there’s something in that for all of us, don’t you? (Deliberately phrased to sound like that pastor guy from Full Frontal.)

Those who read the above post might think I’m a little sad or upset tonight, but that’s not true at all. On the contrary, I’m feeling quite content and happy. Strange.

I may recieve a substantial pay cut soon. There are zero reasons to be happy about that – and I’m not – but I’m not exactly sad about it either, I’m just indifferent.

Where am I headed?

PS.

This game rocks.

I suck at it, but it still rocks.

I’m a bit pissed at the moment 🙂

My new TV (and stand) arrived today – after much pissfarting about, it was installed (for some reason my VCR decided to stop doing audio out while I was setting it up – but it decided that complying with my requests was more prudent than being relegated to ebay to be sold off to some other poor sap) and now everything’s working very nicely.

It also looks very pretty 🙂

The VCR is the only thing that doesn’ t match the colour scheme – not that I use it much – so it had better keep doing what it’s supposed to!

A friend of mine has put me onto a fantastic online radio station. My ISP streams it as free traffic, so I’ve been listening to it a lot this week – it’s excellent. Nothing but 80s music – if you’re interested, click my link and have a listen.

There’s also been lots of alcohol flowing through my house this week (I blame all the 80s music) – sadly, I’ve slipped back into some old habits. There’s been things happening at work that are really dampening my spirits – things that are quite unique to us because of our location – but that’s no excuse. I’ve just felt like getting pissed.

And this next week is going to be a bit sucky – I’ve got a couple of interstate day trips, and I’ll be in Hobart for the rest of the time, trying to help my counterpart on the other side of the state. It should be fun, but the travelling gets very tiring.

Anyhoo – I’d better stop drinking and sign off. I still intend to post my life story here, but there’s plenty of time for that. More to come on that note later….