I hope you had a fun few days off! We went out of town for a few, completely disconnected from the internet, a rarity. I really *like* not being online even though I am on the internet 24/7 when given the chance.

I can't believe your boss told you that two screens was too much detail. Seriously? You have such a high value skill set and this company is absolutely wasting it. Change *is* hard, but life would be so much nicer once you were on the other side of it.

I'm trying to tell myself that, too. I just want to start spending maybe an hour a day working on an escape route. It feels like if I could just get started... maybe I need to set aside the same hour every day? Seriously, why is this so hard??? The weight stuff, too -- if I ate less and exercised more, I wouldn't be so fat and I'd be in better shape. Why don't I just do it??

I am not saying this is a good idea, but I read about some guy just getting started in sales went out and bought himself a Porsche. He did it because he knew that if he *had* to pay the bills, he would find some way to do it. I was kind of waiting for that to happen to me... and I guess it sort of did, in terms of this job coming up at about the right time in terms of cash flow.

Anyway, I don't think buying a Porsche is necessarily the right idea, but I do think that it actually is a lot like relationships - when you are in a crappy one you don't really want to leave, maybe because you don't think you can do any better... but you can or you can figure out how to live on your own. Your job is like being a SAHM with three kids married to an alcoholic husband... it's hard to leave and maybe things will be better without him and maybe you will be poorer... or maybe you will find that things are better *and* you have more money since you don't have to spend it all on coping mechanisms anymore.

I'm having trouble sticking to the point this morning, but life without this job is possible. It's just hard to see it when you are in it.

I'm dreading going back to work tomorrow. I need to get 20 million things done today and it's not happening fast enough...