Things are a bit weird at work as I have no desire to do anything and am meeting assignments with a great deal of push-back. I need to reign inn my cavalier attitude or I'm going to end-up leaving on a sour note. On the other had, it hasn't even been a week since I received the news, so I feel I am owed some slack.

The reality I have to start really looking at what I want to do is quickly becoming of the utmost presence. I worry about jumping into something I won't like, but I also worrying about being left out in the proverbial dark. I just need to keep reminding myself I have a bit of time. And I need to follow-up on the numerous networking leads I've received. I also need to forge ahead with the writing. I spent Tom a couple of the drafts I have been working on. I am eagerly awaiting is feedback.

I've been trying all weekend to find the right and words to convey what effect my being laid-off has had on me. And after seveal starts and stops, I realize that maybe not everything can be sumized when you are still in the moment. I tihkn that is the case. Saw the Dead to night which served to ease me out of the past week's events. I'll begin to deal with things and formulating a plan when I return to work for the first time after the announcement became offical. Stay tuned...

The expected happened. I was laid off on Thursday, effective August 1st. It basically gives me an additinal six weeks on top of the severance package I recieved. All in all, I should be all right until the mid-point of October. I'm not sure I want to get into things that much right now, but I do think it is bothering me more than I am letting on. I just feel off. I spent the entire day after the getting the message at work blowing-off steam in a bar. Tracy came out but had to leave to get home to the dog. She was a bit upset by this. However, I need to blow-off some steam. I just need some time to let this sink. I need to....I just can't write about this now...

I'm finally turning the corner on the longest case of the "wierdies" I have ever experienced clocking in at just under two full days. I would have been inclined to attribute them to the cloak of uncertainty at work but the wierdies are generally a direct effect of too much debauchery and never last more than a day. Of course, being at work prohibits being able to reach for the only known cure, namely a couple of beers. So, suffer through them I did. I suppose the sadness of a great weekend slipping by too fast played a big role in them as well. Either way, they sucked.

I don't know if its my paranoia about the lack of projects and information or just my general distrust of my position, but I'm not sure how much longer I can go on not knowing my fate. I have resigned myself to assuming I will be laid-off, under the guise of preparing for the worst with the hope I will be pleasantly surprised. Still, I feel being laid-off would be both welcome and frightening. Welcome in the sense that it will certainly give me the time and the intense motivation I need to seek out what I truly want. Frightening because the job market is horrible and I'm saddled with some decent responsibility these days. Nonetheless, I maintain there will always be a way to make money somehow, I just worry about the stress any long period of unemployment may potentially place on the old marriage. But, as the old cliche goes, we'll worry about crossing that bridge when we come to it.

I'd be lying if I said this all wasn't effecting my performance at work though. I'm getting done what I need to and what is coming my way, but I'm hesitant to create more work for myself than need be. At the same time, being in the same bad situation that has plagued me for well over a year now is also preventing from putting forth the total effort needed to beg and seek out a job. Hence, my conflicting conundrum.

Least I delve too deep right now, I'll stop. My body needs the sleep it didn't get this weekend further establishing its proof that it no longer can keep up with the my still playful mind. I've got to remember to build in recovery time.

Poison ivy is simply a pain in the ass. It’s astounding to think a simple plant can cause so much discomfort. It’s Mother Nature’s biggest joke. I’m about 10 days into this bout and it still keeps creeping up in places. Its current tour has made stops at my right forearm, my left shin, my right ear, my right arm, my right calf, the right side of my chest and my right hip. It’s had quite the ambitious journey so far, much to my chagrin. I guess these are the hazard of living up against the woods. Of course, now the ever going battle between it and I has begun. It has the upper hand but I fought back this weekend with hedge trimmers and poison being extremely cautious in my picking my shots. Here’s hoping it didn’t land anything.

Day one in the week after the lay-offs were announced went by as several had prior to the announcement with the girls club effectively keeping work from me and my paranoia that I will be let go growing exponentially. I continue to try and take fate into my own hands by getting out into the job market although getting the energy up to make a dedicated effort today took the entire workday. Nonetheless, I did reschedule my appointment with the BU sports director, sent a follow-up email and got a resume out. Not sure I accomplished all I wanted with regard to that and the peeps story, but not an overly poor showing for a suckday. The big company meeting set for tomorrow morning has bought me some extra time in the morning. No matter what the week brings, a fun weekend waits at the end.

Approaching ten-thirty on a Sunday evening and my head is swimming with too many thoughts to contemplate calling it a night. Yes, its against my better judgment, but so reading the email from my old high school friend and former tennis partner that has put me in this predicament. But here I sit, again pondering blame, specifically where it lies from losing touch with high school friends. My thoughts again are of whether or not it was my own personal agenda coming off as arrogant that led me to losing touch. Of course it probably is, but keeping touch has always gone both ways. I think much of what I took from high school was a general lack of true friends. I always tried to spread myself with certain groups of people at certain times as my interests were at the time. This probably came off as arrogant as I would often hang with some people for a while and others for another while. I’ve always thought it was just trying to keep in tune with what I wanted to do. And yes, some of it was simply trying to fit in, but it was always a matter of wanting to fit in with everyone. Or at least that is what I’ve always told myself was the case. But why do I care now?

My life is good, aside form the job, but that is what it is and for now, that means I’m staring at a win-win situation with regard to lay-offs. But now I hear high school friends are getting married and realizing that the same group of people from high school are the same friends today. I’ve always chalked it up to my leaving Rhode Island and getting away from the same old, same old. And there is good merit to it. I guess I changes, people tend do it, as they get older. Maybe I was never looked upon as a true friend to many, and lord knows I probably did enough to warrant such a perceived premonition, but what can I do? Things are what they are.

The greatest of this discomfort lies in the distance I have with Leo. Leo and I grew up together having known each other long before high school. We had a rivalry of friendship that comes from two competitors always trying to best each other. The disconnect came form me carrying that competition off the field. I need to get in touch with him though. He is getting married and his mother is fighting a battle with lung cancer. It is just plain rude of me to have not contacted him. It needs to be done, and it will be my priority for tomorrow.

This same friends email mentioned that my dad referred to me as being pretty domesticated now. Not a stretch of the truth by any imagination, but it was weird to see in print. I am who I am, but I am that person because of the relationships and experiences I had before. It is in that vain, that the friends I have made form the message board comes into a greater context. For what I have there are the type of friendships that I wanted to forge in high school and to a lesser extent college. And much like the romantic relationships I needed to forge to get to where I am today, I needed to do the same with high school to appreciate what I have now.

If there is one thing I have been coming to grips of lately, it is that you can never go back to what you once had. However, you can always reminisce about those times with the people whom you made the journey. Those people are still there and a simple phone call or email will probably go a long way. But domesticated? Well, I guess it is what I am, and I like it. There are always numerous choices we can make, but the sooner I realize I can’t be everything to everyone in my own head, the easier it will be to realize my place in this world. It is then that I will have the perspective I’m searching for.

While I feel I need to continue to exercise my writing muscles, I was just too burnt out tonight to get anything done. Work is in a bit of an uproar with the announcement of significant lay offs of 26% across the company and close to 40% in the division my department resides in. We are supposed to know our fate by the end of the month but it is not doing much for my overall productivity. Three years ago I would have willing headed toward the door, but now with a house and a lot more responsibility, that situation is a lot less attractive. In the end, I know things will work out for the better no matter what the result, so if anything, it has served to give me a positive mind frame on things. Only time will tell and I’m confident we’ll be all right.

Things on the story front are moving along fine and I have an idea to pitch to the folks at Relix. I need to get back into the freelancing, not only for my own career aspirations, but because it is very likely I may need to rely on my ability to write for some income in the near future.

This is all I can muster for tonight making it a pseudo night off.

The story in moving along swimmingly, its 8,500 words a testament to what focus can bring.

And work, well, work is work, but I'm working on bettering it. Hit with some big news about the future of the company today that will be public knowledge tomorrow.