Flarg. Guh. Meh.

[mbarrick]

Watch out. It is one of those LiveJournal posts.

I didn't get enough sleep last night. I was up late preparing to post the pictures from Sin City this past Saturday (rotating, cropping, adjusting levels, etc.). Now I am tired and more disinclined to be at work than usual. I'm feeling almost desperate to get some self-promotion done and to get out of this full-time day-job nonsense. I can't afford to reduce my hours, though, because I'm still only making a web-monkey's wage here. The re-evaluation of my job is caught up in union bureaucracy. I'd leave now if the carrot of roughly a thousand hours of back-pay on a raise that should be between seven and fifteen dollars an hour wasn't hanging out there. But the carrot is getting old — and so am I. I'll be 39 this July 31^st. The idea of emigrating will become much harder in just one short year since my "value" as an immigrant diminishes at 40. This situation has three weeks to sort itself out. The cats have their chips and shots, and I have enough credit to fund a move.

My website sorely needs updating to better display the volume of photographic work I am producing without losing my painting and drawing and to allow for the purchase of prints. I don't want to upload high-quality work to deviantART, nor do I want to screw Canadian customers by selling though a U.S. based site so I'm not to keen on CaféPress either. I need to get a show together - and, sorry, I'm not interesting in showing in galleries where the only people with good hair and empty pockets show up - which means getting slides together, filling out submissions forms, having my press-kit/marketing-twaddle tickety-boo (which follows on having the website up to snuff) and other things that require pulling time or money out of my ass. I feel like I'm watching this pile of things I need to do grow in front of me while I sell my life for a web-monkey's wage.

It wouldn't be so bad if I was making a decent wage - then I could pay someone to do the things I don't have the time for.

Half-assed solutions don't appeal to me. This is a fundamental part of my personality. Really fundamental. I didn't speak until I was nearly three because I consciously waited until I was able to use complete sentences. I never drew "tadpole people". Taking this job seven months ago was a half-assed solution to getting away from Tolko. I can't stand the half-assèdness of it anymore.

Comments

[piratepantsnana.livejournal.com]

That sounds pretty rough. Being in a situation when your job is holding you back is always rotten, but at least you're still keeping standards for your art... ie: not just going to deviantArt or cafepress. You may not feel like you're moving forward right now, but more important is that you aren't going backwards :)

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Right now it doesn't feel like forward. It feels more like digging out of an old hole. I've taken a few nasty lumps in recent years and I'm just getting back on my feet.

[sebastian6.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to be going through some stressful re-evaluation of their lives. It's no fun, this retrograde shit.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

I forgot Mercury was in retrograde. I've had the July 31^st deadline in my head for several months, though. I've learned to assign deadlines to iffy situations early on so I don't let myself get strung along when I really should be chucking it and moving on.

I hear ya ...

[thomasrymour.livejournal.com]

I know where you are at .... hang in there ... work-life-play-hobbies can all be very overwhelming in life ....