I have nothing incredibly heartening to report, no silver bullet for my troubles. I briefly toyed with the idea of putting up a post that said I was more depressed than ever, thinking about throwing in the towel and swallowing a bottle of aspirin or something... but people I know read this thing, and who knows what they'd do after a joke like that? Never believe my protestations to the contrary, I can tell you that. Then again, just to be devious, I'd like to put it on record that I could be lying about lying about that. Don't put it past me.

 

But seriously, I'm doing all right. The house is working out well; I'm trying to devise a budget, but despite being out of classes since June's end, I'm still only pulling down 20 hours a week at work (lame). Money is... well, "tight" isn't exactly it. I don't keep a minute-by-minute handle on my finances, but while I know that I'm slowly losing money to frivolous expenses, I'm not worried. I'm more fiscally responsible than many of my peers, and if rent's my biggest monthly expenditure, I don't have a ton to worry about. Knock on wood, at least my car's in great shape.

 

Let's see... other ho-hum sort of news: D&D is going all right, and while I have my misgivings about my players (as always), I'm satisfied. I'm having fun, and that's important. Other fun fronts? Not much, really. I'm working up to the romantic status update, loyal readers (hah)--but I'm not there quite yet. Work's all right, house is all right, and I don't actually have much else that I do.

 

So, without further ado, my latest musings and such. First off, no, I'm not dating, and I may even be out of the arena for trying, here for a while. (No, this is not "the first conversation of three conversations") I'm just going to lay low, and stop torturing myself so much over it. I'm not losing anything by not, since it's quality and not quantity that I'm after. Rushing stuff isn't going to help. Granted, this mindset will be tough to maintain outside the five minutes of microstroke that inspired it... but I'll see what I can do. In a nutshell: I've realized that I'm pushing myself for this, imagining some perfect relationship that I'm going to "attain" if I keep trying so hard.

 

Except here's the kicker: It's not a line that I just get to hop over, and suddenly, gee whiz, I'm in a great relationship that obviates my need to do anything else. It's work, it's a process, all that jazz. That's not going to happen any faster if I keep pushing myself. What will happen is that I'll burn out, and if someone actually does come along, I'm out of luck, because I've quit. So, laying low, watching the skies (weird metaphor, but still). It'll happen when it happens. A caveat: I used to believe this, too, except "It will happen when it happens" meant that I didn't have to do a damn thing. What I must do is be vigilant, and keep myself in the right frame of mind to be... receptive, I suppose. Or ready to make a move, as the case may play out. Nobody knows--yet.

 

So, that's me. Recentering myself a little bit, taking a little "me" time--as terrible as that sounds--and just having fun my way instead of trying to be hip and cool and poppin' fresh. God knows I had better start seeing myself as okay the way I am instead of trying to "fix" all the problems with myself. Clean living is all I need.