Tuesday, November 17, 2015

It's been two months

I left London. I returned to California. I went to Grace Hopper in Houston. I had a great time. I've been turned down for several jobs which I'm not only eminently qualified for, but that actually need someone with my exact skillset. I've been depressed. I've been happy. I've been depressed some more.

I've been neglecting writing. I've been neglecting the meat-suit.  My baggage shipping from the UK is scheduled to arrive next week and that tells me that I've fucked off for about eight weeks. Wow.

It is really hard to write about any of this. It's hard to admit that I've been depressed, that I've been up and down and terrified because I don't know what the future will hold and I feel utterly at a loss sometimes about what will happen to me.

A few days ago I came across one of those Tumblr posts where people post things that they do to self soothe. One of them was "say something you've been thinking out loud."  Without thinking about it too hard, I said to myself "I think I could make it as an independent producer of stuff". I promptly broke down sobbing, alone at my kitchen at 11:45 in the morning.  My skill set is so diverse it makes employers nervous: I'm overqualified for what I've done, but none of my skills slot firmly enough into defined job roles to make me an easy shoo-in for the next thing I want to do.

My skill set is so diverse it makes ME nervous.

And then I realize that it's true, the quote that I only vaguely recall now - if you're not a drummer, the drummer will always jerk you around. Replace "drummer" with "engineers". And so now I'm also thinking of going to code school. Because I'm smart enough to pull this off, dammit, and I'm tired of not being respected in engineering orgs because of my soft skills.  Seriously.

In the meantime I'm applying for jobs. And trying to wrap up a bunch of other projects. And and and.