Last week, I was attempting to start a wish list at Wists, but I wasn’t getting very far due to website issues, and the bookmarklet not wanting to cooperate. The one website I was trying to bookmark a camera on was wonky and wouldn’t let me access anything. So, I did a quick Google of the camera, and found out news. I admit, I’m late in finding this out, but it still is very very sad news for me. Apparently? Konica Minolta is no longer making cameras. This is EXTREMELY disturbing and disheartening for me, especially considering they sold off their camera business to Sony (ew ick). My film SLRs have always been Minolta. I love Minolta. So I have to decide if I want to get a camera that’s discontinued, and won’t have further support… or if I should try and decide on a new digital SLR to get. The Canon film SLRs never impressed me (in fact, often doing the opposite when I’d use a friends), and after a very bad experience with a Sony digital camera – I cannot stand them. The higher cost of Sony equipment is typically for the brand name, and not for better quality. Sure, I get an employee discount off any digital camera I want, as long as we sell it, but that doesn’t make a Sony any more desirable.
Migraines have been getting the better of me the past few weeks, with a few even messing up my vision. It’s very weird when it looks like things you’re watching aren’t real. For instance – I was writing addresses on checks to be mailed out Thursday, and it didn’t seem like it was my hand that I was watching write the words. The screwed up vision made me feel very disconnected from it. I swear it seems like I’m always falling apart. If it isn’t one thing, it’s something else. I’m getting sick of it. Anyone know some place where I can trade my body in for a new one?
I’m getting incredibly restless again. Back when I first got my driver’s license, any time I got bored, restless, frustrated, etc – I would just hop behind the wheel of my car and drive. I’d travel all over the Metroplex just driving, with absolutely no destination in mind. Just being on the road was a catharsis for me, releasing a lot of that tension. I could have the radio blaring as long as I wanted, singing along at the top of my lungs without worrying about anyone else hearing my terrible voice unless the windows were down. 😉 I could even scream as loud as I wanted if I felt the need. (Side note: Sometimes, when friends and I would go out cruising, we’d get to a red light, count to 3, and all scream as loud as we could. It would make us feel better, and then collapse into laughter.) The world seemed so full of possibilities, like there were so many places I could go in that driver’s seat.
Granted, I did end up going a lot of places. I drove to/through 19 of the 21 states I’ve been to so far. The travel to 13 of those 19 states was between ages 16-22, with a great majority of the time me traveling by myself, or with one close friend. I know I was very very lucky to get to do all the traveling I did. Of course, I did lie to my parents about a lot of it – telling them I was going one place, and then heading off many many miles further away instead. :-X While most teens were rebelling by partying and drinking and the like – I was rebelling by traveling cross-country without my parent’s knowledge, often staying in the homes of people I knew only from the internet. I guess I got lucky that nothing bad happened to me – I’ve always been too trusting for my own good.
I miss that, though. Like I was saying, I’m getting incredibly restless. I NEED to travel, desperately. I don’t like being all cooped up and stuck in one place for so long. I’ve got a nomad soul that longs to travel and roam and explore. Work’s one of the two things that has me cooped up now a days. I can’t travel as far as I used to, since I can’t miss work. My schedule isn’t as flexible as it once was. (The job I had before my current one? I loved for traveling. If I worked a holiday, I had my choice between getting paid Double Time+Time & 1/2 OR getting paid normal time and get an extra 8 hours of PTO. I always opted for the PTO, and had plenty of paid time off to travel on!) The other thing, of course, is the goddamn gas prices. I used to be able to travel all the way from Dallas to Nashville on roughly the same amount of money that it now costs for a single fill-up. I would probably be able to go one way to Nashville on what it used to cost me to make the round trip, and then some. I cringe every time I see that total on the gas pump as I fill it up, and it creeps over $30 a tank. That evil price of gas makes it so I can barely do any necessary travel around town, and there’s just no way I can travel much further anymore. It’s a very sad day when it’s cheaper for me to fly somewhere than drive there.
I miss the days of deciding I wanted to go to a concert, picking up, and just taking off to go. The location didn’t matter – I would travel anywhere I wanted. I didn’t always even have tickets in advance. My friend Anita and I drove all the way out to Nashville to see Garth Brooks without tickets. We just went to the ticket window the morning of the shows to see if any tickets had been released, and we were able to get into every show we wanted. Now? If I didn’t have a guarantee that I could get in to that concert in advance – I wouldn’t be able to justify the expense of travel to get there. I can barely even justify the cost of getting across the Metroplex to Ft Worth for a concert anymore. I can’t even recall the last time I went to Billy Bob’s. It had to be some time last year.
I still go on trips, but they’re almost always by plane now. There’s also a lot fewer trips than I used to take. I guess I’ve got to find a way to get used to it… to find some other way to take care of my restlessness. I miss driving. I think this ramble lost it’s steam somewhere along the way. Oops? I’m sure it will end up being revisited again.