Trying to Stop being Clever

I'm trying not to make this about anybody else, or to drag anyone into it, but I need to get it out, & I feel really funny talking to myself. This has so far been a safe depository for my thoughts & ideas, so here goes... I think I have realized (been helped to realize) that I am wasting time & money trying to put together a band to play live gigs. It's what I want to do as much as anything else in life, but there are other things which will make me at least as happy, so I'll content myself with those. I'm starting to think it might make it easier to move forward with some other endeavors if I stop thinking about how things will translate into a live show. I'm not saying I will give up music. That would be stupid. Stupid to say, stupid to do. It means far too much to me. But I can concentrate on writing & recording, & maybe I can become a composer of music for other people to play. I don't know. But if I don't worry about if I

"But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they're giving none away." I've taken on a whole new aspect to my job. I'm semi-officially part of the IT Department in that I have a login to the company Help Desk inbox. Yes, I'm assisting various project managers as PMAs with tasks to fix their little changes and glitches in The System. They're usually pretty good about giving me the acknowledgment and compensation for my additional and well-performed duties, & hopefully there's something in this taking-on of more responsibility and lightening the load of the specialists with their deeper understanding of programming & the like. I get to do more mundane maintenance tasks so they can focus on the overwhelming number of other things I don't understand. By mundane I don't mean to imply that it's boring or that I don't like it. It's really just that these things are a time-suckage to people who are in demand for thei