Tank Update #4: Aquarium Equilibrium...The Green Slime Abates...Hell Or Pediddleville...State Of The Blog...

I am now again considering getting some new fish, maybe only a few.  After the mass death in the tank, the number of fish has been stable at seven now for weeks.  Ich infected the tank and confounded me because it affected both the older and the newer tank residents.  Did the parasite that causes Ich come in with the new fish, or was it just beginning in the tank before the new ones were introduced?  Of the original batch of Dace, only Queen Dace and one Henchman remain, and he almost died.  Of the newer batch of fish there are three Dace and the two "others", who are growing fast on their goldfish flake diet.  The Ich treatment successfully stopped the deaths, and also seems to have stopped, or even reversed the growth of the blue-green algae bloom that was covering everything.  I still need to do a good cleaning and water change.  The pollywogs have not been seen for a while and I assume they starved or were killed by the Ich treatment.

The last several weeks have seen ramped-up frustration, and it takes a heavy toll on my motivation and attitude. Conditions at my workplace have become almost unbearable due to the evil shit-heads who run it.  If you are familiar with the book "Catch -22" by Joseph Heller, you may be able to understand.  I have always been a reliable, diligent worker, yet bean-counting little shits with MBA's have implemented a measurement/ranking system just inches off from what Hell must be like that somehow makes me look bad.  I never had this problem until this system was implemented, so it's obvious what's going on.  The company's sheer callous disregard for anything other than inflated profits approaches the ridiculous.  At a time when supposedly everybody is hurting, these fuckers are raking it in.  No matter how hard I try, it is a losing battle against a stacked deck.

I mention this because one reason I have this fish tank with fish from my beloved Salmon River is for stress relief, primarily stress from my job.  It is also why I write this Blog.  My creative output has always been something that I have used to measure how successfully I am navigating through life.   The job sucks the energy out of me, and despite the plans I often make to work on this or that after work, family obligations, and just "being there" are easy distractions.  Also I am a champion procrastinator.  Yes, I know I should be doing Yoga or some other theraputic method, but I see the hazard of the methods themselves becoming roadblocks to doing the things I want to get done.  These things take Time I don't have, and Energy I don't have.  I'd really just rather write and play music than work toward being able to do those things, and I know it is imperative that I get my ass out of this debacle that is my occupation or it will simply never happen.  For instance, there is one Blog post that has been languishing in my mind since I started this thing.  In fact, it is one of the first things I wanted to write, but the subject matter has been too big and important for me to ever complete it.  It is now about half-done in draft, and should be the very next post here.

No more writing about writers writing!  

I have been keeping a low profile--I have only told a small handful of people that this Blog exists, but after I publish the next post, I think I will go much more public.  I do get a kick out of seeing that I have had visits from people in Russia (I'm big in Russia!) Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Macedonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and France.