Where I stand.

It occurred to me last night that my wrists were hurting, largely due to the terminally boring and soulless factory work that I've been doing. Yes, I realise that somebody has to peel oranges by hand. Somebody has to shovel hundreds of kilograms of prepared sloppy portion controlled salad into two kilogram bags and seal it. I realise that somebody has to come home with their skin oozing the smell of sanitising chlorine. Somebody has to go through their entire working week in a closed off room populated with other workers who appear too scared of losing their precious soulless jobs to have a conversation and get to know each other, just in case the bosses think they aren't working hard enough.

Fuck it. That person is no longer me. Smacking me in the head like a gangster with a baseball bat is the realisation that I want to perform as a musician above everything else. I get into a band after working my butt off on the audition material and now I haven't had the time or energy to work on the material for the rehearsal this weekend. Where do my priorities lie? I'm a fucking musician, dammit. A performer who loves to gain energy from the crowd and dance and lock into the band in the way that makes me so energetic and goddamned happy. I'm the fucking Groover. Second to that priority, and a little conflicting (but I'll work it out later) is the desire to travel, to see, to experience the world in a different way. My way.

It seems to be something I do to myself with regularity. This deciding that I need to work to supplement the traditional Musician income of dole payments and the occasional gig, and then realising that whatever shit job I supplement this income with is actually detracting from my goal. Luckily, the period of drudgery before the realisation occurs seems to be getting shorter. Maybe one day I will not go through it at all. In this case the job I have been in is causing so much strain on my wrists that strapping them is only alleviating the pain a little. I've already given myself a repetetive strain injury in a previous crap filler job (defrosting freezers with a rubber mallet and a bucket of water all day - go figure) and I get knocked around every time it flares up.

Then there's the fact that it is fucking boring. There isn't a social life to distract you from that fact at all. It's in your face all day.

Two strikes. Fuck off, work. I'm a musician.