Thursday, April 06, 2006

Letter of Resignation

Dreams and goals on the horizon. Here is my resignation reflection. Whole lots of folks, set in their ways. Not full of life. Just wanting to stay. Biding their time. To pay on their mortgage. Walking the line. Playing dress up for their porridge.

I've been a puppet. My strings have been pulled. I do my little dance. With smiles all about town. You put me in my box and you opened a wound. Dangled your cheese in front of my mouth. On with my life. On with my dreams. I resigned today. Never look back. Always look forward.

Not knowing what the future holds. Not knowing what it will bring. But knowing that in three months, I will be well in to it. Another place of work with different politics. I will learn everyday, to add to my skill set. Life will go on, as it always does. I will work to make my mark. And I will work to be proud of it.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Click my mouse.

I sit at my cubicle and scratch my head. Pick my nose. Look at my watch. Check my email. I hear multiple voices behind me. They are all talking to a coworker who sits behind me. I can't think because they do this all day. She needs her own office. I stick in earplugs so I can filter them out of my head. My buddy who was fired last Friday burnt me a C.D. with a ton of really great MP3s. M. Ward is my new favorite band. I think about his music. It's melodic, like a folk singer. I heard a really good Bob Dylan song the other day called the Masters of War. It is very relevant to today's current events.

I wonder when the work will get to me so I can do it. The Art Director has not farmed me any of the Photoshop files. I'm getting very little guidance on this project from anyone. The deadlines are getting closer. My wife is packing all day because we are moving into a new house on Saturday. This is life. This is reality. My baby girl is getting bigger. She's getting harder to pick up. I look at the clock again to see what time it is. I think of my buddy who got fired on Friday. About my buddy who quit last month. About all of the people who have left the company lately.

I wonder what I will be doing a year from now. Where will I be living? My baby girl will be talking by then, almost. My wife and I want to live around more culture. A larger city. A larger job market. I want to do great creative work. Do wonderful things. Work on great projects. Learn as much as I can. Technology is growing too quickly to keep up with it. I have to specialize on what aspect of it I really want to learn. Get really good at that one thing. Learn as much as I can. No one appreciates art. No one appreciates a creative background. Not in Jacksonville.

I think about my time in Brooklyn. How hard it was. About my time in the Army. Think how glad I am that I don't have to clean toilets after my shift is over. Think about how far I have come. Think about how far I have to go. Evolve. Every day. I get an overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom. I hold it as long as I can. I check my email. I check my blog site. I turn up the volume on Windows Media Player. I think about the deadline getting closer. Having to work here this weekend. Having to sleep here.

The camera would be stationed behind my computer chair. You would never see my face. Just the back of my head. I would type. Click my mouse. And you would hear what I was thinking. It would not be funny. It would not be glamorous. It would be reality. Mundane. Quotidian. Every day. Average. Life. This is my reality show.

Do you want to watch?

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I voted for Elliot

I voted tonight for my Idol. He has the most talent. Gifted. Uncontested talent. Maybe not the best looking. But he can belt out a tune almost as good as Sinatra. Most likely, he will not win. The good guy never does. Right? Talent goes undiscovered. Such is life. Maybe parents should prepare their children for that reality sooner. Remind them that Hollywood is Hollywood. Movies are not realistic.

My baby girl is babbling now. She is forming language skills everyday. I growl at her like a dog. She's used to it by now. We are animals after all. I'm getting her ready for the grueling road ahead. If she gets picked up by a pack of wild dogs she will already speak the language. The wolves will give her a better life even. She will learn life skills. How to hunt. Make a shelter. Hide from predators. I will teach her human social skills. How to throw a ball. Click a mouse. Maybe I can instill in her that she is not as special as my generation was programmed to think. The ME generation.

Maybe I can teach her that she must find fulfillment and mental health outside of the television. Outside of Hollywood. Outside of what our society deems worthy, attractive, and talented. Maybe I can teach her that she is special and unique by her own self defined values? Maybe I can teach her to stand up straight, take a deep breathe and know that her own self worth is held by herself not by others?

That she can redefine herself daily. Also, if she is lucky I will teach her to hide from predators (as soon as I learn to myself), and click a mouse at the same time. Be the primitive modern. The walking paradox. Be the thinking, knowing opposite that is mankind.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

I can see, hear and smell you

All my friends are virtual. I project them from my phone and there they are in my living room. Sometimes I drink and have dinner with old friends from college by projecting their image into my dining room. I love this new technology. Holographic Voice Video Imaging has really changed the way I perceive the worlds.

The last H.V.V.I. device to come out had an advanced upgrade. We can now smell what we see and hear. There are over two hundred scent variations that can be mixed to fit any visual or auditory occasion. Sometimes we have our friends over from Portland, some 3000 miles away for dinner. Very rarely are we eating the same meal, but with a little planning the same recipe can be eaten on both distant ends.

This technology has really taken our idea of community to a new level. I feel as if my friends are really sitting next to me. It's the next best thing to having flesh and bone friends. I've heard stories recently of some tribes in the Antarctic that have never met anyone from the outside world yet have received Ivy League college degrees through H.V.V.I. They can go to class and see, hear and smell the same input that students can that are actually there.

Being there has become overrated. Attendance at athletic events has decreased fifty percent in the last year. You can now be anywhere you want and be with anyone you want from the comfort of your own home. Who would argue that physical contact or physical experience is any better? H.V.V.I. is now said to have helped correct global warming as gasoline emissions have been cut drastically with the advent of this new technology.

My life has really changed dramatically. I had felt an absence in the last couple of decades with the Internet becoming my main means of communication between friends and family. Now we feel as if we are sitting right next to each other. Thank you technology. Thank you Internet. Thank you for giving me my friends back. I knew it was only a matter of time before technology and community would unite.