Capitals and Italics

In my last post, I used the word dreadful in the following context: “…absolutely nothing dreadful is happening and I’m tired of complaining about nothing…”

You can imagine, then, what simply had to happen:

I’m involved in a Situation at work. The Situation is not my fault. I neither conjured nor provoked the Situation. Yet, I’m at the center of it. It’s about me. I’m the one who has to find a way out of it.

Basically, I’m being offered a new job in a different department of my company. Current Department Honcho emphatically DOESN’T WANT ME TO TAKE IT. Possible New Department Honcho is PRACTICALLY BEGGING.

Wait, you’re thinking. Didn’t you, like, just take a new job in a different department of the company you’d been working for? Why yes, yes I did. That’s why I’m hesitant. Essentially, Current Department JUST trained me, so I’ve JUST become useful to them. To flee now would be, in my opinion, a crappy thing to do to people I like.

Indeed, there’s a but.

BUT, the new job is a level up. A promotion, some people would call it, although that sounds like something I should be happy about and I can’t be. This “promotion” also comes with more money. Not a life-overhauling amount more, but more is more. I think most sane people would say I should take it.

In fact, most people, quite sane and less so, have already said that. Without my having spread the news to anyone, EVERYONE in my office seems to know about this. They’ve all stopped by my cubicle to register their opinions. I’ve asked for opinions from outsiders, too – my parents think I should take it, my friends think I should take it. There’s wisdom in majority opinion, yes? So, I should take it.

Obviously, there’s a but.

BUT, if I took this job, I’d be making…a move. A “move” in the more negative sense of the word, like, a calculated shift that changes a whole bunch of people’s plans. My belief in life is that we can’t all go around thinking we don’t have responsibilities toward each other. And the fact, THE FACT, is that I’D be making life harder for people who don’t deserve to have more shit shoveled onto them. (Have I mentioned that conditions in Current Department are less than pleasant lately?) No question, I’d feel badly about that.

Of course, there’s a but.

BUT, I know that this is work. Work, not life. Work, not baseball. I can’t make decisions based on what’s good for the team. I could, but how can I then expect that if given an opportunity to elevate themselves, EACH member of said team would make the choice that favors the group as I did? I can’t, duh. I’m somewhat foolish and sometimes stupid, but not very much/all the time either and I’D HAVE TO BE.

Yeah, well, there’s a but.

BUT, the story’s a little sad either way it ends. I dream of neither path. If we’re talking about What Tracy Wants, then we’re having a different discussion entirely. To take the new job would be to sign up for a longer period of time than perhaps I mean to spend at this place. To spend a longer period of time would be to progress further into middle-life, i.e. the years that go best when supported by reliable income and sensible decision making. To do this would be to admit that I’m actually DOING THIS.

And we’ve arrived at dreadful. I’m full with dread of Monday, as I haven’t been in years. The Situation is waiting.

Missing October

I’ve gone and ruined what could have been a smashing anniversary. Well, okay, it wouldn’t have been smashing. This blog is smashless, mostly. But it has been going for a year now, or rather, it had been going for a year as of October 1st, which it is now one month, one week, and four days past.

The reasons I missed October are: I no longer have internet at home (and writing at work is an irresponsible proposition, given that it can take me up to three hours to craft a post about my own shoes); nothing dreadful is happening and I’m tired of complaining about nothing (if one is going to complain, one should have cause – unless one is four years old (I need to grow up)); and I’ve been out most nights, drinking riotously, left with neither the time nor the wherewithal to craft posts on any subject, including my own shoes.

Also, I've been focused on various well-intentioned Octobery pursuits like cleaning my house, cooking, doing yoga, attending conventions. Excuses. Pick one and apply to the week of your choice.

I met with two friends from my old writing workshop yesterday, and they are the reasons I'm shirking everything on this blue-skied Sunday to bring you the first post of my second year. One friend is nearly finished with her novel and is working on finding an agent. The other has involved herself in National Novel-Writing Month, the point of which is to lay down 50,000 words in thirty days. Neither friend is going to be on shelves by Christmas, but both are making such admirable progress in writing such great stories that I feel inclined to listen to them. They're telling me to write.

It's simple, the theory of progress in writing. It's like losing weight. All you do is, you just do it: a little bit every day, behave the way you know you should, plan to let yourself slip up tomorrow as long as you get back on track the day after that. Simple, but not easy. Or else I'd be a size four with three published novels by now, and clearly.... No, no. Can't go there.

I have a respectable amount of work to begin with - about 8,000 words of what started out as a short story, which my writing friends inform me has too long an arc and really needs to be turned into a novel. This I'm taking as neither an insult nor a compliment, but certainly as bad news. What, I'm not done yet? So, I've plucked this particular piece from my pool of unfinished short/shortish stories to work on exclusively. I mean, to the exclusion of others from the pool, not to the exclusion of The Bachelor and (occasional) nights of riotous drinking. It's not October anymore, but I'm still me.