The Agony of Defeat
A cigarette sure would taste good about now.
So, as my regular readers know, I missed my NaNoWriMo goal by a factor of about, oh, 10 or so. I managed just under 5,000 words of the 50,000 goal. So, in that sense, it was a total failure. However, that was 5,000 more words of fairly not terrible fiction than I’ve written in, well, in a very, very long time. So, in that sense, it at least got me writing some more. (You can see the drivel I managed to produce at my other blog, Fantasist’s Scroll.) What I learned from all this is that working 10 to 12 hour days and weekends does not make for a good writing schedule. I just wish I had more to show for all that work than I do.
You see, after a good two-and-a-half weeks of soul-crushing, mind-numbing work, I still have “issues” with our new phone system and voice and internet provider. The main issue with the new phone system is voice-mail. The phone switch itself, a Nortel BCM 400, is actually quite nice, as far as I’m concerned. Loads of features, quite easy to use and, once you get used to the interface, easy enough to manage. It also came with some nice tools that I can use to monitor the switch from my PC via my network. Now, granted, we have an issue with one of the cabinets having a bad backplane, but, once I moved those cards to the second media cabinet, it seemed to stabilize quite nicely. Of course, I’ll be going in to the office for a bit tomorrow to check on things to make sure it’s still running okay, but I’m fairly confident that all will be well.
The “problem” I have with the new CallPilot voice-mail system is, well, mainly that it’s new. And it has new, different options and menus. Yeah, pretty much, that’s the only “problem”. It works differently than the old system and the boss doesn’t like that. *sigh* So, now I have to try and salvage that end of things. I’m hoping that I can get some kind of work around that I can program into the phone switch to make it more like the old system, but, as of right now, the biggest problem with the new phone system is that it’s new.
The data end of things, however, is a different story. Since about two of my readers actually care about this, I’ll sum it up for you. The salesman told me that I’d be able to do something with e-mail that we do on our current provider and, today, I found out that we simply cannot do that unless we have our own server. Eventually, we will have our own server, but, until then, I can’t have a feature that my boss, the president of the company, sees as essential to his business taken away from him. It simply won’t fly.
And, if that’s not enough reason to be suddenly craving a good smoke, there’s more in my personal life.
So, there’s that girl…
You know, over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern of sorts with the “problems” in my personal life. The problem always starts “Well, there’s this girl…” The fact that I’m days away from being 38 years old hasn’t changed that much, though the “girls” have gotten older, too.
In any case, it’s been a long, long time since a woman got to my like this one. I can’t explain it. It’s not a sex thing, honest. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy to find her eating crackers in my bed, but there’s something about her that’s special. She’s just the right mix of crazy and conservative. Very professional at work, but, after showing her my tattoos, she confessed that she had two as well. I haven’t seen them yet, but, maybe someday. I can’t get enough of the way her dark eyes light up when I make her laugh. When I see her, I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her close just to feel her warm reality pressed against me. I want to confess secrets into her perfect, little ears and feel her cool fingers warm in my hand. I want to make her blush and fluster her with subtlety of my flattery. And she reads. Oh, God help me, she reads books for fun at lunch! Every frustrated writer’s dream! A reader to love and a lover who reads all in the same person.
So, what’s the problem? Well, aside from a divorce that will be final Monday, and an 11-year-old daughter that I think I already charmed, and an 8-year-old son I haven’t met, and the dog I’m about to adopt from her, just one. Her misogynistic, ex-Marine boyfriend who’s also a single dad and in college. (UPDATE: Okay, upon reflection, that may have been an extremely biased judgement that was partly based on desire and single-malt Scotch, but, still…) I don’t know, though, things sound rocky. Besides, I’m the one she trusts to take the dog. And, she made some hint about being “forever friends” if I took him, since she’d want to see him again.
You know what? I think I could live with that, but, it sure makes me crave a cigarette. I always used to smoke while I waited for things to happen.
I’m not going to, though. Smoke that is. No, instead, I’ll mumble a prayer and have another Glenmorangie and water on the rocks. As I told one of my favorite bloggers last year at my birthday, I don’t drink much anymore, but I always drink the good stuff.
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If you want others to be happy, practise compassion.
If you want to be happy, practise compassion."
--The Dalai Lama
