Goto: the rest of your life.

Goto: the rest of your life.

Today is my last day at work. Fare thee well, poorly-lit cubicle. Fare thee well, Adobe Framemaker. Fare thee well, stock options. No really, screw you for making our taxes 800 times more complicated. Fare thee well, job that I hate.

In general, I am actually very charmed by this place. I fiercly love most of my coworkers, and I have made some dear, lasting friendships here. It'll be so nice to just be friends with them, and not, as Jackie so insightfully mentioned, have to spend "10 hours a day 5 feet from them." She always has good snacks, though, so if you need to have someone 5 feet from you that often, make sure they have good snacks.

But most importantly, I'm ready to move on. We had a bit of a reproduction issue recently where we actually decided we wanted to have a baby and start a family, like now. God knows why this struck us at a time of major change, but Erik has a real job now and for the longest, longest time, that's what we had been waiting for. So we went for it. And it didn't happen. In fact, things got pretty complicated and I was scared and sad. Even though I only had a few weeks, even days left at this place, I still think the stress and overall void of authenticity was really affecting my body and my will.

Tomorrow, I'm heading out to Arizona to take a hiking team in and out of the Grand Canyon. Then, after just over a week of Woman Of Leisure-ness, (pronouced very londonly, like "lezshuh"), I'll start a shiny new job doing program coordination work for a non-profit. And I'm going to have every Monday off, when I can just meander around the neighborhood while everyone else is at work and sit at cafes and maybe hang out with the old man up the street with the gigantic pet pot-bellied pig.

Hopefully, in the fall I'll be off to a teaching program, but we actually might put that off. I'm going to look into whether all of my pre-requisites and test results will last for another year, and instead maybe we'll try some more for babies and do the school thing next year, when they're wee. This is a lot of information for you all to use against me :-). But most importantly, may I never step foot in a cubicle again.

Anyway, I'm going to wrap up the, like, 800 projects on my desk as best as I can, and then take down all of my flare. Then it's happy hour time. I can't wait.

This? This is a good day.

Create.

Create.

I am feeling remorse for my creative negligence over the last few months (into years). It's my Blue Period, notably lacking the accompanying masterpiece artwork. I used to write all the time: blogs, bad poetry, etc. I'd write stories and pretend to start novels only to get sidetracked when I couldn't make the characters as cool and important as I thought they should be. I'd write songs and I'd play them for other people, and even though the lyrics were generally void of talent and originality, I was still creating something, and offering it to the universe.

Perhaps I turned too far inward and got selfish. Or maybe I just made a general wrong turn amidst my overarching state of pity about my job and career, and maybe felt a little bit pathetic about being artsy. But whatever the cause, my outlet, my saving grace, became running and being in nature. But what did this offer the world? It just helped me out and left some muddy footprints along rainy trails. Granted, due to this release I may have let go of any fantasies about breaking some coworkers' necks. So that's good.

Last night, on the way down Kwaay Paay Peak with a new friend, we talked about his daughter's behavior problems. I heard myself talking about the importance of creativity and the actual tangible representation of her secret self. I heard myself and I believed myself. But as we navigated down the tricky steep part of the mountain, I felt a strange guilt creeping across me. I felt inauthentic. I felt meaningless. I felt like I'm failing to do the good things for the world that I'm capable of. Quails fluttered out of the sage brush and with them my pride.

Sure, there can be a big gap between creating something and offering something good, something helpful to the world. But there's an even bigger gap if I'm creating nothing.

Maybe I'll throw some paint on a canvas. Maybe I'll go to open mic nights again. Or, most likely, perhaps I'll just start posting more of these crappy introspective blog posts. Hell, at least it's not a bulleted list again.

Joel's boss.

Joel's boss-san.

Carpool, ex-work-boyfriend Joel has a very motherly boss. However, she markedly does not come off as the type to really mother people. In fact, I'm pretty sure Joel is the only one who is treated this way by her, which of course, completely warms my heart.

Every so often, he'll be on a conference call with her and some customers, and she will shoot him an email demanding that he add a "-san" to the end of the Japanese names to show respect and admiration, or something. Also, she will often send "good job Joel" emails out, CCing Joel's peers and other managers. Joel's peers generally then tease him for getting praise from "mom."

She sits far across the floor from him, right by me, which means that Joel's visits to my cube usually involve him carrying Drawings and Bits of Machinery. Joel will be the first one to admit that these are mere props to look important and busy. Instant A-game. I am completely within earshot of her frequent cackly laugh outbursts, the same cackle we used to slightly mock, but that was before I knew she mothered Joel. She is also the other main user of the famous female locker room, and we run into each other there often. It's always kind of awkward, because we never really talk outside of near-nakedness in the locker room. I don't work on any of her projects, so to her, I feel like I'm nothing more than the reason that Joel can't stay late and work more, and then all of a sudden we're taking off our clothes.

It's kind of hot when I put it that way.

She has some sort of eastern European accent, is the highest ranking female in engineering, would wear scruffy boys' clothes every day if we didn't have dress codes, snuck off and got married without anybody really noticing, and totally gets shit done at work. I think she's one of the most effective managers I've ever witnessed, even though she can seem like a frantic ball of stress. This post is my giant "good job Joel's boss-san" shout out to her.

Also, please note that an effective Joel Torture Method is, when walking past her office on the way home, to casually mention: "I saw her naked today."

I should have changed that stupid lock.

I should have changed that stupid lock.

I'm back. Dudes, you should make haste to forgive me. Here's why: a bulleted list.

I quit my job.

Do you know what a pound of gummy bears looks like? Make a circle with an approximate diameter of 4 inches. Hold it up to your belly. Imagine that your belly is full of that much sugary goodness. Don't try to run.

Speaking of "don't try to run," I've officially postponed training for a marathon until later in the spring/early summer. We currently have two hike teams going, and are logging 30 miles on foot a weekend. I don't have time to squeeze in any weekend long runs, even if I could muster up the energy.

We've done fuck all on our house lately. Big household news includes things like, hey, we vacuumed! Hey, we mowed the lawn! Hey, it's trash day! Hence the lackluster house blog performance.

Erik got a new job, but not until three days after I gave notice. Since November, our plan was that I would quit as soon as Erik got a more permanent job. Finally, we just decided to let go. God was just waiting for us to do the faith thing, I guess.

We got an internet quota at work. NOTE: THIS IS NOT WHY I QUIT, contrary to what you all think of me. Mostly because the quota is completely useless. We have time limits on only the most specific things, pretty much limited to web mail, and are completely restricted from ridiculous items such as flickr and the "best of" section on craigslist. I can piss away the entire day on wikipedia or blogger, however. IT guys, if you're reading this, you ought to change that. Please wait 3 weeks, though.

I QUIT MY JOB.

No, I don't have anything else lined up. Yet. That's actually part of my evil scheme. I cannot describe how good it feels when people ask, "Where are you going?" and I just sort of shrug. A shrug? says a thousand words.

I got stung by a bee on the top of a mountain yesterday. Turns out I'm not allergic to bee stings, so I didn't die. The bee, it sacrificed itself all for naught.

Speaking of, a quick Cumbrian Dialect lesson: "naught" is pronounced "now't." And when an old friend bumps into you in the street and asks you what you are doing, you just say: "now't much." Don't even use your tongue on the 't at the end. Swallow it. Erik's mother, before she met me, alluded to Erik that she was nervous to share a meal with me since I'm English and therefore are prim and proper with excellent manners. Poor misguided woman. I am from West Cumbria. How much primness is in me? That's right: Naught.

Thanks for taking me back, sweet readers. It's been a little treacherous these last few weeks what with all the work badness and quittingness. More Julia stories soon.