Must go to sleep now...

Duty calls. In a few hours I must get up and trudge across the city and bow to the silicon god for another day. I am a god-damned, freaking, bloody monk. I will practice my asceticism in my grey cubicle and perform my rituals in time with the almighty clock. I will render unto Caesar more than his fair share and give up the rest to pay my tithe to the Unholy Church of the Dreaded Student Loan. It's so much fun. Everybody is doing it.

Because I'm a rebel, too.

As my last entry attests I went to sleep last night just thrilled at the prospect of killing another day of my life in this cubicle. I'm torn between letting myself aquiesce and tolerate this for the time being and railing against it for the sake of my sanity. So I am doing both and neither today. In a fit of meaninless rebellion I am wearing jeans on a Tuesday. The horror. But being sensibly sheepish they are barely recognizable as jeans since they are "dressy" jeans (lighter weight canvas, designer cut, very dark black dye - the only thing that distinguishes them as jeans are the rivets on the pockets and leather patch on the back, which are covered by my shirt). Yeah. I'm a rebel, baby. Ugh.

I'm feeling especially like a brainless pawn of fate today. Yesterday I was all fired up to force a change on a project because I had a better idea than what was mandated by the steering committee. After I make this decision I looked at my horoscope and was amused to find the following:

Undertake a difficult project, but only on your terms. You're experienced enough to know what you need, and articulate enough to get it. Hire a skilled assistant who's ready to learn while helping.

Then today I wake up late in a crappy mood and don't want to iron anything. After I've decided the dress code can go to hell I read my horoscope and behold

The Virgo Moon draws your strings tight. There's no telling what Leo might do when pushed to extremes. Eccentric behavior is tolerated in the name of efficient performance. Results are even more eagerly anticipated.

Sheesh.

So my day unsuckified itself

Despite my determination to be miserable today was good. My boss was asking me how things were going and clearly concerned that I may not stay on when my contract is up (which I actually haven't made my mind up about). I've been noticing old habits coming back from a few years ago when I last had a job with regular hours. Damnit all to hell anyway. My counter-culture façade of disdain is crumbling under the realization that I make about as much in a day now as I used to live off for a month when I was 17. That's worth eight hours in a cubicle.

Oh, man.

What an exciting life I lead. I spent my day in my cubicle writing code for a bank's intranet, then I came home and spent my evening writing code for a credit union's intranet. It is possible to interpret some of what I do as being important... the stuff I've made so far, at the moment, directly impacts or will have an impact on about three million people. How weird is that?

Do you have a bank account with HSBC? I my work affects your life.
Do you have a bank account with NSCU? I my work affects your life.
Are you a smoker in British Columbia or Newfoundland? My work will affect your life.

Yet I don't feel like I've done a blasted thing because it is all completely intangible and none of it means a damn thing to me. I don't like banks. Consumer credit is pure evil. Yet I support this system. I think the government suing the tobacco companies that they tax and regulate is absurd, yet my work supports this legal action (I took up smoking out of guilt).

I'm doing this all to pay off my fine art education and keep my studio space. Does that justify it? Does it matter one way of the other at all? Am I just an idiot for thinking about it too much? I'm groping for some meaning here. But there isn't any. I know that.

I'm just trying to be happy. Sometimes for a few hours here and there that happens. It helps not to have to worry about rent and food. I suppose that is reason enough for now.

I've really got to work this out, though. I can't keep flip-flopping between contentedness and discontent. I don't have any solid goals at the moment and without a goal I have no direction. I'm adrift. I'm getting seasick.