Upon further reflection…

One of the imaginary friends who lives inside my laptop* wrote a lovely post this week – preparing for the new year ahead, which includes a milestone birthday.  This is the year that Manuel will turn 40.

Replying to his post while assaulting my liver with bourbon, i hoarked up this:

one small bright spot, perhaps.  i turned 40 ten years ago.  and my 40′s have been my best decade so far… mostly because i completely stopped giving a flying fuck what anyone thought of me.

“yes.  i’m fat.  fuck you for noticing.”

“yes.  i have wrinkles AND pimples.  fuck you for noticing.”

“yes.  i just drank a martini for breakfast.  at my desk.  because i needed it.  fuck you for noticing and alerting the management”

It was a toss off comment.  But it’s true.  And it’s incredibly liberating.

It’s not that i don’t care what others think or feel.  i simply couldn’t give a microscopic sliver of a fractionalized fuck about what they think or feel about me.  About how i live my life.  About how i look.  About how i choose to spend my time.

For the past few days i’ve felt like i should do a “year in review” sort of post… To clear my head, maybe.  Sort out a few things.  Take advantage of the pinning point of a new calendar year.

There are a few small flies in my soup.

But i didn’t really want to.  Just couldn’t get the words up.  Couldn’t be bothered, really…

i use the blog as a way to collect thoughts, amuse myself, make friends, sort out things that keep me awake, and to get a handle on the complex relationship i have with my extended family**.

It’s all still there.  i just don’t feel like examining any of it.

This is effectively captured in a quote that anniegirl1138 used in her New Year’s post that has nestled itself comfortably in my brainpan.

You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened…

or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.

– Tupac

Yep.  What he said… It was a good year.  Next.

* Sounds a bit freaky… kinda like that old joke about Princess Margaret and the Bentley…

** Who doesn’t?

Achievement

Poof.  My Outlook Inbox was empty.  So was the “Sent” folder.
 
Just. Like. That.
 
Given that i’d changed jobs over a year ago, it was time to turn in my old laptop back at the prior shop.  Well, that laptop and the two ancient, fossilized laptops that i’d checked out over the previous decade.
 
On the bright side?  i had kept close track of the business equipment that had been loaned to me – and had no trouble locating all three bricks.  The downside?  Needed to crank them up and clear off my “Stuff”.  From photos to documents to all the e-mail that had been downloaded onto the desktops. 
 
Always a good plan to purge* prior to returning your equipment.
 
The first mistake i made on Thursday night was letting the laptop connect to my home wireless network.  That assured that my current outlook inbox was happily downloaded to the laptop.  The other fatal mistake?  Forgetting to re-set the ‘over-rides’.  This assured that any changes i made on the laptop would trump whatever was on the desktop system back at the office.
 
Oops.
 
When i arrived at work Friday morning, and realized my boo-boo, it was a blip.  Nothing.  Instead of rage and frustration at my own stupidity, it was “Well, huh.  How about that?” 
 
Granted, anything of size or substance had been downloaded to my desktop.  i can find it if i have to.  There are archives, too.  But the last time I’d archived was around April, i think.  So the ‘current events’ message traffic was all vaporized.
 
Now, here’s the funny thing.  Ten years ago?  i’d have been a salivating, ranting, hot, screaming mess.  It would have been debilitating, and i’d have been down at the IT help desk, asking them to pull the most recent weekly ‘back up’ files to restore what i’d dumped.  “Veins popping on my forehead” rage. 
 
Now?  i can hardly muster the energy to give a shit.  It’s sheer magic, i tell you…  
 
This is a milestone of note.  i have achieved irrelevance! 

* i’ve been a supervisor.  i know first-hand that the IT folks LOVE to root around on the returned equipment and see what folks have been up to.  i didn’t have anything on my equipment that would get me fired.  Not by a long shot.  But there were some personal e-mails buried in the mix – scheduling a booty call,  post-game analysis of a booty call, making fun of other people i work with, horrific foul language – that had to go.

Spank Tank

When i checked into the hotel Tuesday around noon, there were two professors in the lobby, having a spirited debate about the U.S. policy on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. 

These are Physics professors, mind you.  Not experts in public policy.  “Electrons and Photons” physicists.  Not even nuclear physicists, or particle physicists…

On the one hand?  Nice that they give a shit.  On the other hand?  They might have well been USING the other hand to spank the Little Professor for all the good they were doing…

There is only a slight twinge of guilt for taking yesterday afternoon to go walk the beach, watch surfers playing in sloppy waves and get sunburnt.  In theory?  i was working… thinking deep thoughts about how little it all matters.