Happy Venereal Disease Day

Or is it valentines day? I always get them mixed up.

I won't state the obvious and say, "it's been a while." Although, I kind of just did. Work has been pretty steady since the new year, although strangely not too stressful but still I just haven't been able to find the time or motivation to write. My boss is out of town for a few days though so I really need to put something down here...

I guess I'll start with work. The thing I've come to understand after working in this industry (finance) since 2005, is that 75%, if not more of the work for the entire year is done between labor day and thanksgiving. Summer is over, kids are back to school and the energy is just like, "ok let's roll up our sleeves and do some fucking work here so that people see how fucking hard I work and I can get a huge fucking bonus." And that's what they do and it is very stressful. The end of 2010 for me was pretty difficult at work and I was really developing my exit plan. I can't go on like this, I said over and over but then the pressure breaks and you have the holidays and then the end of the year reviews and then the money pours down on every one's heads and people calm the fuck down and they are nice again or at least they stop acting like total ass holes.

I hope I'm being vague enough here because talking about work on your blog is career suicide and I need my job, which is kind of the point here - I want to keep my job. For now.

The things that my job gives to me which are extremely valuable are: Money, Benefits and Time with my family. The last one is really big and you wouldn't think that a job would give you time with with your family but I have great hours. 6:30 - 3pm. I know, painful in the morning but amazing when you get to leave at 3pm. I get so many more daylight hours with my kids than most working parents. I get to go outside and play with them, eat dinner with them. I also get a lot of paid time off at my job and that gives me time with them too.

Is my job spiritually fulfilling? Absolutely not. Is it a times demeaning? Yes - I swallow a lot. Does is at times border on soul crushing? At times but not all of the time and I think I can protect myself to the point where it's worth it to stick with it for a while.

Especially since, after doing the cost-benefit analysis, it just would be so hard to go back to school right now, spend all of my non-working hours studying, away from my family and then at the end of the process step into a job that pays about half of what I'm making now.

So, I've decided that instead of going back to school and jumping career tracks, I'm going to do a small soul fulfilling thing. I auditioned to take classes at The Groundlings Improv school. I have a special affinity for the The Groundlings because it was there that my hero Paul Reubens got his start. The classes are expensive and their system is a bit of a racket which gets extremely competitive at the top tier but I'm not really interested in that. I just want to play. I just want to exercise the muscle you know? I haven't done any acting since before Davey was born and went I went to this audition, I really can't even describe the relief I felt going to this audition. It was like a part of me that had been placed in a head lock for over four years was set free. I could breathe. I was the whole me.

The audition was not a big deal, it was set up like a class and they really just want to see if you have any acting experience at all and if you can hold your own in a class, which you would be surprised the number of delusional people who show up to these things. I really, really appreciate that they hold these auditions because it only takes one Yahoo to single handedly destroy an entire class and yes, there was one at my audition and yes, I ended up on stage with her. There were also some really good people and I loved the instructor. I had a great fun in the audition and it ended way too quickly. I got to go up twice and I just felt like, "again. more." which was great. I was by no means the best person in the room. Improv is motherfucking hard, a close second to CLOWN, which is by far the hardest. I'm definitely a natural comedian but I'm by no means a natural at Improv. It's a stretch for me but I like that it's a stretch and it's something that I would really really really like to be good at. I'd like to be able to step out on the stage an hold my own at it. Yes, I would. More than anything though, I realized that If I'm going to be a whole person, a good parent, a good wife, I can't ignore this part of me. I have to exercise it in some way. Does that mean that I'm going to pursue a career as an actor, hell no. Too hard. Way too hard. Classes at the Groundlings will do for now. The audition is good for a year so I will register probably for a class in the spring. It's like $500 bucks so there's that. Oh I don't think I said that I got in to the school. If I hadn't, I would have had to kill myself. So luckily, I did.

Ok, enough about me. Jasper is walking like a mad man now, full fledged toddler. He's also got some words and is into animal sounds. It takes me back to Davey at the stage. It's hard to imagine Davey before he could talk because it seems now that's all he does. Deron got his vascectomy. It was kind of a pivotal thing like here we are, this is for sure our family and I really appreciated him taking this step to ensure that because the kitchen is closed my friends. This is more than enough for us thank you. He's been in quite a bit of pain for the last 8 days but he's finally feeling better and so thank you Dup. It's the best valentines gift ever.

Also, Dup got an Iphone. The man has been obsessed about the damn Iphone since it was invented and talks about it constantly to the point where I was just like, "ENOUGH ALREADY JUST GET IT." The data plan makes our cell phone bill more expensive, which is why we've held off on getting him one but he's so happy now that it's worth it. I was thinking he might benefit from going to see a therapist 2x a month but now I see that he just needed to get an Iphone. Amazing.

Ok, I can't keep going on and on. My boss is out but there is still a ton of work to be done and if I don't get to it I could loose my job that I've decided to keep. Would that be a pisser?