Most of the time, I love my job. It's not hard to do, it affords me the rare ability to pay my bills while still enjoying 20+ days of free time every month, and it gives me work stories that are sometimes so good they sound fictional. On top of that, I have the best boss I could ask for, and there's plenty of room for excellent income down the line as I develop a larger skill-set and a network of professional connections. Not bad for a job I basically stumbled into accidentally.
"But . . . ?"
There is, against this backdrop of awesome, a minor caveat or two. And of course I wouldn't be a first-world citizen if I didn't complain about the glare on the deck of my beach house.
My schedule is totally unpredictable. I may or may not have a loose idea about what my work schedule should be in the weeks ahead, but it changes on a dime. This makes planning anything more than a few days in advance into a very dicey proposition, as basically all my plans are necessarily tentative. It's not even that my employer would object too strongly to me missing days of work, it's that those 8 or 9 days of work each month are too valuable to my financial stability for me to miss them.
Now like I said, this is a very minor whine in the scheme of things. I wouldn't even mention it if it weren't for the fact that I wanted to post something at least vaguely metal-related, and a recent tweak to my schedule means I won't be able to see Amon Amarth with Skeletonwitch and Enslaved later this week. I did get a consolation prize of sorts, though, when Cattle Decapitation played at a local bar called the Cheyenne Saloon this past Friday. They were touring with headliners EYEHATEGOD, but my brother and I didn't stick around for them because I was exhausted and neither of us had any interest in the band anyway. Besides, Cattle Decapitation tore it up on stage, and I was content that I had gotten more than my money's worth. A few local groups provided opening support, of whom only the doomsters Demon Lung were really worthwhile. Incidentally, they released their debut album The Hundredth Name last summer, so if you're into female-fronted stoner doom you might give them a listen. They put on a good show.
As for the other concert I'll give my brother my ticket and he can tell me about it I guess. I'll just console myself with the knowledge that I've seen two of the three live already.
On a final closing note, this kept up my little streak, which I hope to maintain throughout the coming year. Every month, I'm trying to see at least one metal band that I've never seen live before. I'm willing to be flexible on what exactly constitutes a "metal band" but I'm excluding small local acts from this exercise (though I'm certainly seeing them too). So far the list looks like this:
Sept. 2013: Black Sabbath
Oct. 2013: Slayer
Nov. 2013: Nine Inch Nails
Dec. 2013: Mushroomhead
Jan. 2014: Cattle Decapitation
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