Letters To People I May Or May Not Know

Dear Bonnie Tyler; I'm sorry that you sounded awesome 30 years ago, and don't nearly as much nowadays. Not that you're not talented or awesome now, just that, ya know... Everything you've done in the last 4 years (all remakes of the same song, that happens to be my favorite song of yours) kinda has that whole 'sounds like you did 3 packs a day for 40 years' when you sing deal happening. Sorry.

Dear Lady Gaga; Sorry you're not as talented as Madonna was 25 years ago, even if you're trying to sound *just like her*. You're still irritatingly catchy if it makes you feel any better. And 'Bad Romance' has done wonders for my Rock Band 3 achievement whoring with it's incredibly simplistic vocals. This isn't a compliment.

Dear Bestie; Sorry that you keep kicking my ass to write something new for this spot. I've been doing a lot of writing. Just none of it for *here*.

Dear New (being a relative term) Upstairs Neighbors; When I long for the days where the abusive couple were quieter and more predictable than you were, then you're DOING IT WRONG. This is why its 330 AM and I'm blasting rap music in your general direction. Please either send your kids to school or invest in shackles and/or muzzles.

Dear Canada; I feel like my personal space has been kind of invaded, but my willingness to be the bigger person and avoid confrontation is over. I hope you're around on the next karaoke night that I'm sufficiently intoxicated. I kinda need one and the other to happen together so I can convey the awesome idea I had earlier tonight to let you know how I feel. Alternately, you can find a new goddamn bar to hang out at. It's not like there aren't 17 identical ones that are as much of a shit hole as the one I hang out in.

Dear Everyone I Know Who's From Canada Who Isn't The Intended Recipient Of The Last Letter; Ignore that, it wasn't for you. Obviously. All two of you.

Dear Allie; I know you're busy doing important stuff like like going to the motherfucking bank like an adult, but if you updated more often, I'd send you warm psychic fuzzies.

Dear Protomen, LiGHTs, and Gavin DeGraw; RB3 tracks need to happen plox kthx bai. And I wouldn't turn down a tour date in Fredericksburg or Stafford either. <3

Dear Sacco; Your sad clown otter PAX East pic has no sway over me. It is in no way totally amusing and deserves a reference. I'm obviously lying.

Dear End of June Facebook Status; I haven't forgotten about you and the epic cockblocking you promised to share. It'll happen some day. Maybe.

Dear Random Kid; I know it's in your nature to be inquisitive, and I know since you're an American your parents probably didn't teach you any Goddamn manners, but the next time one of you asks why I'm wearing an eye patch, I'm going to tell you with no humor at all in my voice, "There is no Santa Claus, and your parents divorce really *was* your fault."

Dear DC; You know that rule we have that says RL > WoW? That applies to the GL too, sadly. Sorry I been neglecting y'all lately. Also, I know the music stream in Vent is still broken. I'll fix it someday soon. Ish. Maybe.

Dear Local City Police Officer; Thanks for applying logic and saving my ass from the bored Sheriff tonight. You rock.

Sincerely, Ptak

Burnout!

Ever get to a point where you just feel burnt out in every single aspect of your life? Life at home, life at work, life with your friends, family, loved ones? And it's not necessarily anything they've done, just common, run of the mill, 'need a break from it all for a while' burnout?

This is where I am right now.

If it were just one or even two parts of my life, I could deal. Just take a little break from that area, focus on something else, come back in a few days or weeks refreshed and ready to tackle things with a new perspective. But alas, it's not just one or two parts of my life. It's every. Single. One.

And this need of a break is even extending to things that I'm not even actively doing. I've got a pile of unread books sitting around that I've been putting off. Movies, a small handful of games, TV shows, backlogged. I've got half a dozen creative projects that I've been intending to start, false starting, started and shelved... Sometimes, I have the time and just don't want to get into it, and other times, it's all I wanna do but I'm stuck doing anything else. It's maddening, really.

But its the big areas that I'm more concerned with.

Work burnout, however, gets a lot more worrisome. It makes you sloppy, less professional, and more willing to take chances just because you really don't give a fuck. And of course, I work in one of the more upscale, professional types of places in the casual dining hospitality industry, and it's been starting to show that I'm cracking a little under the surface. This is something that I really need to put the brakes on now, before I really screw up and get an unwanted kind of vacation. The kind that involves making a full time job out of finding a full time job.

Home burnout, is probably the least affecting one I have right now. Things around the house are fairly stable and for the most part, relaxed. There have been a few bumps along the way, but for the most part, everything lately has been getting a lot more manageable. Would a change of scenery be nice? Absolutely. Will it kill me to wait a few more months? Not right now.

Social burnout, this can get linked to two separate social circles.

My drinking circle, I've really cut back on the last few weeks, because of all the extra work I've been having to do. Of course, in my line of work, working more makes that end of shift beer sound that much better, but I've been trying to cut back on spending, and drinking out is the first thing to go. This'll change in a few weeks when a night or two out becomes a bit more affordable. It's been kind of nice not getting into a lot of the drama that comes out of these though, so there's another bonus.

My geeking circle, we've been getting burnt out on fast moving deadlines for goals we haven't been able to hit just yet, and everyone involved has been feeling the strain. Some people have already started taking the time off to recover, which puts the rest of us at a disadvantage, because we can't do things without them, which causes us to get more frustrated, which causes more burnout related breaks, which just becomes cyclic. There's other things involved here as well, which I have to take a bit more shit for since I'm in something of a leadership position in some aspects of things. This, likely, will become another post topic later on.

That odd center of the Venn Diagram of my primary social circles, ironically, is totally stress and drama free right now, thankfully.

So what can I do? I'm already planning a vacation early next month, which should help immensely with the work, home, and drinking circles. Said vacation corresponds with some things relating to my geeking circle, which deadlines hit or not, won't matter because 99% of our current projects will get scrapped and we'll be into something totally new. And maybe while I'm on this vacation, I'll figure out exactly how much juggling I really need or want to do, and come back with a few less plates in the air.

After all, everyone prefers 'moderately relaxed, smart assed because it's funny and I don't really mean it' Me more than 'rediculously stressed, extremely angry, purposefully mean so you'll leave me the hell alone' Me. I know I prefer the first one.

Inspiration is a Cruel Mistress.

I know I'm going to regret this later on. I should have been in bed hours ago, but I suddenly got the urge to sit down and do some writing. At this point, I might as well just stay up till after work. Why does she crack the whip on me at the worst possible times?

Anyone see that ball I dropped?

Get your minds out of the gutter.

I have a good reason though. Work finally leveled out and ramped up and brought a whole new level of topics to cover, which, ironically enough, I just had to sign a paper saying that I couldn't. I'll have to find a way to twist it around, although no one really knows which restaurant concept I do work at unless they, ya know, actually know me. And I hope they're smart enough not to say anything about it in the comments. I actually like my job.

I also moved. Got a pretty nice new apartment with a pretty awesome roommate. One of my neighbors sucks, and that's definitely going to be a topic that gets touched upon soonish (though hopefully not as heavily handed as the 'topic in question' gets 'touched' several nights a week). And now I feel dirty for even trying to make a domestic violence metaphor.

I've also been doing less geeking and more drinking lately too, during the transition period. It doesn't help that there's a decent hangout bar between where I work and where I have to park for work. But now that things have settled down some, that particular habit will correct itself.

Onto the writing front. I've gotten all my scattered notes together and half transcribed, and misplaced several of my written backups. I do have a few of them saved to backup discs. The catch there, though, is they're on 3.5s... And I haven't actually owned a computer with a 3.5 drive since... 2003? It's pretty moot anyways, since I've been gutting 90% of everything I had previously written and been redoing it almost from scratch. So that's coming along as well as can be expected. I did, however, decide to not post a few sample chapters, and just start the story from the beginning. I think it'll help me have it all flow better, and less chance I'll screw up the continuity of things. More on that later.

Lastly, I do wanna touch on a bit of actual geekery. E3 just came and went, and the one thing I was pretty hyped about was announced a few weeks prior. MAHVEL, BABY! Everything I've seen about MvC3 over the last few weeks has me so hype for this. I really can't express it enough. The new trailer looks fantastic, the match vids from E3, the released third of the lineup, and the speculation of who will realistically make the cut in the final build... I really haven't been this excited about a new game release in a very long time. Ten years to be exact. And it was for MvC2. I don't even get this hype for MMO expansions (though I am totally ready for Cataclysm).

So it looks like I've got a handful of topics to hammer out over the next few days. Hopefully I won't drop the ball again. I actually want to talk about this stuff. If it happens, I won't be apologetic for not keeping up with what at the end of the day is a hobby, but I'll make an effort.

So I Wanted to Talk About Writers Block.

And I sat down to write something up about writers/artist block the other day.

Yeah, that's all I had.

Fuck it.

(Seriously though, I got something cookin'. I'll have it up in a day or two.)