In 2006, I was living with Clare, and having one of my infamous breakdowns, but at least this one ended differently. I had been binge watching The Office (BBC) during my days, while I pounded keys for yet a company that refused to recognize my value even as I acted a fool.<\/p>\n
When I can’t convince people of the value of what I do, I make myself the most obviously firable employee for all reasons except my work. Then, when they inevitably bring me in for discipline, I tell them outright to fire me. They never have. They still miss my point, perfectly made.<\/p>\n
Martin Freeman’s character, Tim, had realized on his 30th birthday \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mine was coming up \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that he didn’t want to spend his time working in a mid-range paper company. The similarities in my own life were too strong to ignore.<\/p>\n
I pounded my fists and raised my voice at Clare, who had never earned my ire, not once. I raked my face and racked my brains. I searched and scraped my soul for how to proceed. And I found it.<\/p>\n
The one thing in my life that I consistently looked forward to was teaching stage combat (which I called “fencing”) at my high school alma mater. I would pursue that. That realization lead me to the SAFD.<\/p>\n
Now, nearly ten years later, my unyielding depression’s mumbles echo painfully in my ear, as I have been accepted to the exclusive, prestigious, and mettle-testing Teacher Certification Workshop. I have arrived at the doorstep of my past self, with weak knees and a dead heart. And a compass, broken, with the arrow pointing up.<\/p>\n
“Here is where it all leads,” I say to myself. “It’s still the only thing you look forward to, but that doesn’t mean what it used to.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2006, I was living with Clare, and having one of my infamous breakdowns, but at least this one ended differently. I had been binge watching The Office (BBC) during my days, while I pounded keys for yet a company that refused to recognize my value even as I acted a fool. When I can’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73iP8-Gz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":73,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=73","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":0},"title":"Holy Pedarast! It’s the Catholic Church!","date":"3\/12\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"IM convo with alfalfa martini: AM:heh heh....you lead a double life SB: I'm like Batman, only poor and fat. AM: so, does that make Clare Robin, or Alfred? SB: Robin. I have sex with Clare.","rel":"","context":"In "Found Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=3","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":1},"title":"and then there was this time…","date":"4\/18\/2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been struggling with this argument between my two Piscean halves for the last few months. Is my time more at a premium now because I am attached to a woman? I seemed to get very busy right when things finally worked out between Clare and me, but many of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Self-service"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":773,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=773","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":2},"title":"Are there such things as softwood floors?","date":"7\/3\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We gave our landlady a written confirmation that we are moving out in September. We did that at 1:30p.m. on the 1st, when we paid our rent. Yesterday, between the hours of 5 and 7, she showed the house to 10 different interested buyers, and we saw at least two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":218,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=218","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":3},"title":"This is Hallowe’en.","date":"11\/2\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I will be making a wonderful post today, pictures included, of the eventful and satisfying Hallowe'en weekend I've just lived through. I know you can't wait. Saturday afternoon. I have work to do in the morning which bring me right up to the beginnings of the festivities. A group of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":775,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=775","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":4},"title":"Matters of the heart.","date":"7\/15\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, in the Potbelly line, my friend and ex-boss Travis asked me about the upcoming change in location for Clare and me. Would we be staying together? How would that work? I answered honestly that I did not know. I know we are not breaking up, but the future is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Best of the Buddha"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":459,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=459","url_meta":{"origin":2639,"position":5},"title":"I don’t believe in isms…","date":"1\/4\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend emailed me this, but rather than pick and choose who to send it to and flood inboxes, I put it on my blog, where it probably belongs. -- Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people including\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Self-service"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2639"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2644,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions\/2644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}