Several years ago, I tried to teach myself to juggle.

I bought a book Juggling for the Complete Klutz (which came with a set of three bean bags to practise with), and tried seriously to learn how to do it. I never got beyond the second chapter. I just didn't have the coordination for it. No big surprise, really. Even in comparison to white heterosexual men, I'm still just a marginal dancer. It's not that I can't feel the rhythm deep down in my soul... I just can't shake my groove thang, get footloose, and do the hand-jive, all at once. It's too much to keep track of.

One of my friends used to refer to me as "the absent-minded professor", which is both an affectionately patronising stereotype and a Disney movie starring Fred MacMurray. To this day it bugs me that I've never actually achieved professorship, but I find the moniker endearing, because it acknowledges my (objectively confirmed) brilliance, whilst recognising my greatest weakness: my inability to keep track of things.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem, except that I have a tendency to let my life become more complicated than I can handle. I have a lot of interests. I'm into computers. And not just one operating system, but several (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Netware, BeOS, etc). I like the visual arts. Not just drawing and graphic design and photography, but a little interior design and interface design as well. I love to write. Whether it's factual information on Wikipedia, insightful commentary here on GodsExBoyfriend.com, or creative storytelling, I think (and I'm told) that I'm pretty good at it. I have an aptitude and interest in the law. I scored better than 90% of law-school applicants when I took the entrance exam on a lark. Which is to say nothing of almost minoring in Philosophy, considering a career in politics, and a stint serving as an amateur social worker for gay and lesbian teenagers. Hell, just look at the categories for this blog! There's too much that I want to get involved in!

A big part of my problem is that I don't trust people to do things for me. Mostly that's because I've been burned when I did. Hell, I'm probably smarter than them, and with my diverse interests, there's a good chance that I could do the job better than them. So I do.

I host my own web sites, running my own server, using an operating system and other software that I can configure and modify myself. Hardware failure? I replace it myself. Power failure? I have my own generator. There are still a few links in the chain that I'm powerless over (e.g. the internet itself), but for the most part, I have the ability to keep my own systems up, all by myself. Which means that when there's a problem, and my systems aren't online... it's entirely my fault... and my problem.

I have more domain names registered than I'll admit. I get an idea for a site I'd like to develop, discover that no one's registered the domain yet, and I grab it. But I don't have time to actually develop it. Earth-Zero.com just sits there. GraphicNovels.info was just a place-holder until recently. And against my better judgment, I just volunteered to be webmaster for yet another web site.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get around to realising my childhood dream of writing and drawing comics. I have scripts for half a dozen different stories, and ideas for a few dozen more. Some are downright brilliant, if I say so myself. But how and when am I going to produce them all?

Which is to say nothing of my day job, which I'm trying to get converted from a simple not-quite-full-time techie gig, into a full-time position in which I'll help to set direction and policy, and work on a more creative level. Like I need a reason to stay later at the office.

What I need to do is to focus. I need to simplify my life.

The irony is that I've already done that - or allowed it to happen - pretty extensively. I don't have a family (except the parents and siblings I was born with). I don't have a spouse, or even a boyfriend. I have few friends. Dumped the church ages ago. I don't even have the activism-based social life that I once had. And even without all that, it's still too much.

Which is a somewhat round-about way of getting to the point (because I wasn't really sure of it when I started writing this) that I'm officially deprecating God's ex-Boyfriend. It's obviously been neglected a bit for a while now, and I need to acknowledge that and let it go. I'm not going to take the site down, and I'll probably still post things here from time to time as the spirit moves me. But it's officially off my "current activities" list.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!