a lot has gone on since my last lj post back in… march? has it really been that long since my last update? i guess so.

april

i adopted a cat from the washington animal rescue league and he is seriously THE BEST CAT EVER. i named him bertie, after p.g. wodehouse’s bertie wooster of the “jeeves and wooster” series of stories. (i need to do a post that is just about bertie, he is that awesome of a cat.) my friend jae had a passover seder, but it was actually more of an excuse to eat and hang out. venusglitz and lissylulu came to town on vacation and we had fun going out for dinner with some of their friends that live nearby. i went to the us science & engineering expo where i got to see adam and jamie from mythbusters (what little i could see, anyway), actress/scientist mayim bialik (amy from the big bang theory), and got a glimpse of bill nye as he was walking around the convention center.

may

i went on a road trip to tennessee to visit feisty_fitz and her husband. met a hot girl who works at a bar down there, got her number, then proceeded to feel like i was robbing the cradle when i discovered she’s about 8 or 9 years younger than me. kelly and i went to the grand ol’ opry and played tourist around nashville, and i got to see their new house that they just bought as well. i signed up for the dc road runners marathon training group to help me prepare for the marine corps marathon in october.

june

i went to my first professional basketball game with my friend caryn – she got two tickets from a coworker to see a washington mystics womens’ basketball game. saw the doctor about my depression and we think that the meds seem to be helping. next step is to find a psychologist to help me with coping strategies for my anxiety and depression. i don’t know how to find a good therapist, especially when there are dozens nearby for me to choose from.

july

i saw the fourth of july fireworks from the roof of the newseum in dc, and a few days later on july 8 dad and i set out on a father/son cross-country road trip as part of MINI takes the states. we went to chicago, des moines, lincoln, boulder, albuquerque, phoenix, and los angeles. on the way back we went to kingman, az; the grand canyon; mexican hat, ut; durango, co; lamar, co; kansas city; and richmond, in. MINI had events planned for us at each of the stops on the way out west ranging from visits to a zoo to a barbecue to a pool party and so on, but dad and i made a few detours of our own – from chicago we went to milwaukee and saw our old house in waukesha and the house and field from the movie “field of dreams”, and from des moines we went to kansas city for the all star game’s fan fest.

now i’m back at work. i’m not happy at work, and in general i’ve been feeling very down about things lately (my medication notwithstanding… i’m sure it helps me, but it’s not a magic cure-all in itself). that thing that i was written up about in my last post back in march, it ended up not being as severe as it could have been – i protested the punishment i was given and after reviewing the circumstances further it was decided it wasn’t really my fault. still, in the past few weeks i made some mistakes at work before i left for this two-week long roadtrip that were pretty bad, and i almost expected to not have a job when i got back. i talked with my boss the other day about my work concerns, but i don’t think it’s going to help me much.

tl;dr version: though my circumstances in general are awesome, i haven’t been feeling awesome lately. i think that finding a new job would help, as my workplace morale is very low, but other than applying for jobs i don’t know what else to do (especially since i’m either rejected outright or never hear back from jobs i apply to, and it’s difficult for me to find jobs that interest me). it sucks that everything around here seems to require a security clearance (which i don’t have), and when you find a rare job that will sponsor someone to get one, it takes several months to a year or more to go through that process.

i feel like lately i’m failing at everything i try to do. i keep making mistakes at work. i go out for a run, and since i wasn’t able to exercise regularly on vacation, my few runs since i’ve returned have felt incredibly difficult. i’m not motivated to do much of anything, really.

i’m trying not to withdraw from people and events, but i’m just mentally and emotionally exhausted and stressed and that just seems like the path of least resistance. i just want to stay home, but even when i just stay home, i’m finding it incredibly difficult to get anything done.

i turn 30 in less than a week.