In which I return to the fold... with a familiar promise...

On a unique night last March, I fended off stubborn Laotian mosquitoes and greedily devoured a profoundly tasty French ice cream crepe, while reading Life of Pi and sitting on a balcony overlooking the moldering stone fountain in Vientiane's decrepit central square. When I finished gorging myself, I scribbled fervently in my resilient and well-traveled black notebook that my pleasant but unchallenging routine in Thailand had coagulated into a deep mental stagnation. My prescription: a daily dose of blogging, meant to haul my lazy brain up by the frontal lobes and force me to be creative. Ideally, this would kick the cognitive tires and It worked. The next six months (for diverse reasons not entirely dependent on blogging) kicked vast quantities of ass.

But now my brain has gone goopy again. I got back to Vancouver in August, and had a blast reconnecting with family and friends and generally lazing about. But dreaded monotony, a beast with which I don't grapple well, has reappeared most vindictively. I have a hectic but humdrum job that affords me no opportunities to use the skills I've spent many eventful years acquiring. I'm surrounded by friendly and decent coworkers who nonetheless consider my professional interests (chaos and war, mainly) to be quaint curiosities, and my hard-won skills to be amusing but quite trivial. In short, I've been shunted abruptly to the bottom rung of a career ladder which I have no interest in climbing. And, frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being patronizingly "mentored" in the ways of the world by people who repeatedly refer to me as "kid". Seriously, did they even read my bloody resume? I miss being an International Man of Mystery.

Anyhow, back to the main train of thought. Work doesn't truly suck, but it ain't doin' it for me either, and that's unlikely to improve. Few things in a typical life are worse than being sincerely unhappy with one's job. So, of course, I'm seeking work of a more challenging and (if I'm honest with myself) hazardous sort. But in the meantime, I have to kickstart my senescent neurons somehow, and blogging once again must do the trick.

So here's the deal. I'm going to blog at least a paragraph everyday, and any time I miss a calendar day, I pay $20 to the first person who calls me on it in the comments. It worked last time - got me blogging daily, and in turn set the old mental fires burning once again. Anything counts - political babble, personal laments, photoblogging (provided I offer texty goodness to accompany any pics). I claim exemptions in case of hospitalization, total technical meltdown on the part of Shaw Cable, or travels to any place where the web can't reasonably be accessed daily (that happens a lot). I think I still owe Christian $20 from last year. But seriously, I'm good for the money.

So I'll see you tomorrow.