Huh, I wonder if your piano teacher's ex is one of those people who says 'we have to get coffee!' as a form of 'hello, how are you?' I think 10% of the population is wired that way She probably just forgot to reply to your email and now it's buried under 40 other messages. I find I do that a lot nowadays - I check my email on 4 different devices. I might scan a long message from a friend while waiting in line at the grocery store and then realize weeks later that I forgot to reply when I got home.

A lot of jobs are going to be more tolerable than the one you currently have! I don't know how you stand that. Is there some kind of online degree or certification you could pursue while you wait for something to do? Or an online script writing class? You'd have a lot to contribute in a class on Waiting for Godot, right?!

I do need the sleep - I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and sometimes can't get back to sleep. I slept three hours the other night and still feel pretty sleep deprived from that... so part of me wants to head into the studio and another part of me just wants to watch a movie for 20 minutes until I pass out.

As someone who really resisted (and still resists) going back to doing something I don't really want to do, after two extraordinarily horrible jobs, I will say that some experiences are truly extraordinary. The weirdness and dysfunction I am encountering at this place might be irritating, but it is nothing compared to a truly traumatic situation (like not being given work for months and years on end, or having an abusive boss).

Your current situation is pretty extreme. Even if you aren't sure that you want to continue in your field, being at a normal job would give you mental space to think about what you really want to do. Who can concentrate on that when dealing with a crazy work situation?

I do think most of us tend to plan or think about or intend to do projects more than we actually do them. I usually do a ton of research and reading, sometimes develop a game plan, get started, then abandon. I'm *really* noticing that I do this at work and it kind of interests me. Since I am getting paid to do stuff, I think it's going to be easier to stop this habit there - I hope!!!

Today I had my first exposure to people's technology use outside of what my boss has described. It was intense - I am supposed to make recommendations about unifying a certain aspect of their systems across multiple branches and departments. After talking to some different reps from these places, it seems pretty impossible.

And I do feel like I used to be better at this stuff. It's like I have gone through phases in my life where I get a ton done ... and then there are fallow periods. This has been a long fallow period, unless I am just not giving myself proper credit for my accomplishments. I am pretty sure I could have accomplished 10x more than I did during my last sabbatical, though. So, yeah, I am not sure that the change has been for the better. I am better at certain things now than I used to be, but I miss the ... persistence I feel like I used to have.

Really, I am pretty sure that I never had it any more than I do now - it just feels that way I have always, for years and years, had this feeling that I do not get enough done.