Devoid.

Or, Da Void depending upon where you were raised.

Right now, things have been generally quiet around here and on the Flickr stream of late. The simple reason for that is that I find my energy being directed towards the daily grind of getting in and doing my work on the gig I’m currently on. Right now, I’m on week 8 of the 10 week gig so there is definitely an end in site. It may run a few days over but, I’ve already started casting about to see if I can make the whole downtime thing a relatively short period.

Freelancing is funny in that you have to be like a shark in the sense you are always swimming about looking for your next meal. Sharks that get lazy and stop swimming don’t last very long in the ocean.

Truthfully, this sojourn into regular hours and office life has been fairly painless. Not perfect, just painless for the most part. I recognize my energy level (something I could never boast of being great) is diminishing with the passage of time. Consequently, I have little drive to do much else when I am focused on working.

Case in point, the day starts for me sometime between 4:30 and 6 am. Last week I was indulging and not getting up until seven am and was paying the price by getting into the office by ten. No one gives me a hard time about it, it’s just that I’m trying to establish good habits and get to work earlier rather than later. Any day I can walk into the office before 9am, I feel as if I started off the day right and accomplished something of a small victory.

It sounds a bit inane - either that or highly self indulgent. Like getting to work before 9 am should even be such a big deal but, the commute for me varies most days anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours so walking in the door before 9 am means I managed to get myself out of the house before 7:30.

Also true, is that if I wind up at work until 7:30 or 8 pm, I often don’t wind up walking in the door at home until sometime around 10. When you start crunching the numbers in terms of how the days fall out, it winds up being that there is very little time for me to do anything besides going to work and coming home.

Still, like I said I really can’t complain. I’ve gotten to a certain point now in my career where I’m just not thrown for a curve as much as I might’ve been earlier on and that means any potential disasters can be anticipated and dealt with well before they explode like the ticking time bombs they can be.

I still might dread having to drag myself in but, the truth is once I’m in the office I find myself having a pretty decent go of it. A lot of that has to do with the people I’m around but, as much as they may or may affect things the big determining factor is my own attitude. It’s something I’ve come to realize more and more - the simple lesson of how important it is to have a positive attitude and outlook on things.

Sounds simplistic?

I’m not saying I’m getting to the point where I put my head in the sand, just trying to manage a more even tone throughout the day and not let things bother me.

Case in point - Friday evening when I returned from work, I got to the garage where the car was park only to find my car had been keyed. Keyed!

Well, I walked up to the passenger door and noticed the kind of Jesus fish pattern in the side of the car and just thought someone was being a jerk. Then I saw that the same pattern had been carved into the driver’s side door as well. I imagine if the car was newer or something I might’ve been more bothered by it, as it was I wound up waiting for a policeman and filing a police report on the whole thing. I’m still not sure how I’ll handle it but, it didn’t ruin my weekend.

In the past I might‘ve walked around for a bit and held a certain amount of anger or rage about the whole thing within me but, something is happening in that I found it all together easy to let it go.

Like I said though, I’ve got to keep swimming around looking for the next meal so, I imagine there are more pressing concerns that are in the forefront of my mind currently.