and this has gotten me to thinking. what if i had the power to transport myself back in time to a year ago before all of this chicago nonsense? would i still make the same decision knowing what i know now?

well, things ARE better. slowly but surely, i am settling into the idea of having a permanent job after temping for so long. has anyone seen the movie "haiku tunnel"? the film tracks the travails of transitioning from "temp" to "perm", skewering modern notions of work and the workplace. highly recommended and a detailed roadmap of the terrain i am currently traversing. the enthusiasm and glow of actually having a job has begun to wear off in the last few days, as the day-to-day grind begins to reveal itself. do i like my job? not really. do i like having a job? why, yes. the whole food and shelter thing has quite an appeal. the prospect of health insurance and other related benefits helps too. and for what it is, it ain't half bad. but it is still a matter of settling for what i could get, instead of obtaining what i desire and deserve.

and yes, i haven't even begun to feel the psychic benefits of my new apartment. i knew that i probably had scads of unresolved issues regarding my old roommate, but not until last thursday did i realize the extent of them. i dreamed that timothy had found out that randy and i had gotten a place together. randy was the other roommate in my prior hellspace and we had decided awhile back to get a place together. i had kept this information from timothy, fearful that it might trigger something, what i'm not sure. well, in the dream, he breaks into our apartment in a rage, with a knife. i end up having to subdue him, tie him to a chair and then proceed to curse at him about every little thing he has done to me, my life and my relationship over the last year. i did not wake up feeling any better, just more sad about how everything has gotten to this place. it is a great apartment and i am grateful for it on more levels than i am probably aware of, yet it isn't home and randy isn't family.

so, even though things are better, i'm impatient for things to be GOOD. i'm sick of telling myself "things could be worse". of course, they could be and have been. yet, i'm tired of waiting for the good things to happen. maybe, what i really want is a fast-forward. but what if what is to be isn't all i've cracked it up to be?

which brings me back to the do-over. erase the tape and start over. knowing what i know now, i'm fairly certain that i would not have moved to chicago. but in reality, that is neither here nor there. i AM here and i have decided over and over since i've come here, to stay here. the problem with decisions is living with their consequences. and one of those consequences is deferring of the GOOD life. yet, my impatience for this is messing things up more in the meantime.

hence, the pause button. a time out to work through the bumps and foibles of all this newness and find the goodness that is bound to come from it. i still do believe that greater things are on the horizon; personally, professionally, romantically, physically, psychically. the real challenge in life is to live it; day by day, accepting the bad with the good, the rough with the smooth, the crisis with the crescendo. life isn't on tape, it isn't a sporting match. there is no pause button, no time-outs. it marches on, with or without you. i've been watching from the crowd, waiting for the prize float to show up so i could jump on. you know, like in ferris bueller? i mean, that isn't too far-fetched, right? ferris bueller WAS set in chicago, you know. and waiting? well, let's just say it isn't my strong suit. so for now, i wait and i write and i live and i love and i give myself a break.

and when that float shows up, watch out. i do a killer Danke Schoen.