Little Bill

I don’t think I’ve ever been much of a slave to self-doubt. My choices in life, my career, most of the decisions I make are mostly influenced by my own intuition — by my instincts. Every time I felt as if I were taking a blind leap of faith into the unknown, I really embraced the trust in myself that everything would work out all right. And for the most part it has.

Today I quit my job. Let me restate that more accurately: today I quit the second job I’ve had since moving to New York. Less than a year since my last job. You’d think I quit a dream job: work from home, set my own hours, sleep in as long as I want, fuck around whenever I felt like it, work as little or as much so long as the job got done. And I did it. I did it well. The thing is, I felt doubt before taking the job, while doing the job and even afterward, quitting it.

It’s because I’d quit my real dream job at Nerve for a perceived dream job. I was trading in a known for an unknown. All my instincts at the time were screaming to jump: my tenure at Nerve had left me feeling frustrated, angry and suffocated. So I took a leap, trusting that my instincts would be right, and I exchanged the things I loved most about my job at Nerve (pride in my work, friendship and a real working relationship with peers) for the two things I wasn’t receiving (creative control and pay commensurate to my talents and experience.) I flipped it upside-down. Now I was making the money and receiving the creative control I was due, but had no one with whom to share ideas, jokes, and camaraderie.

I was sitting in my room, alone.

Sure I had my cats, and instant messaging and Skype teleconferences. But there was no denying I was all alone. Every day. And, after a while, no amount of money or sleeping in could beat out the fact that I was even more frustrated, more angry and more suffocated.

My instincts said to jump. So I did.

Let’s see if it works out this time. I have faith in myself.

- - -

(I still talk to my friends at Nerve daily. But it’s not the same. Not for me, not for them.)

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

Out, damned spot. Out.

It’s nearly four in the morning. I woke up early, I went to bed late, I did a good amount of work today and crawled into bed tired. So why is it, three hours after crawling into bed I’m still awake? My eyes are drier than an unused sponge. I’m lethargic and groggy. But the moment my head hits the pillows, my mind races.

Thinking about jobs, and dates, and friends, and exes, and my car and the possibility of a new apartment. Making plans for tomorrow, trying to come up with ideas for films, thinking about photographing my friend’s wedding in a month or so…

I don’t sleep and I have to be up in the morning. I have only one Ambien left and I’m not about to use it yet.

…I guess I’ll try sleeping again.

Not a lot to report as of late. I’ve been lying low as of late; working a lot; and (re)reading Harry Potter 7. Big things to come on the horizon, I’m sure; but right now this is the calm before the storm.

…or is it the storm before the calm?