I was going to write a big philosophical analysis, but instead I'm just going to say:

I quit. Monday's my last day at Microsoft.

This was a long time coming. Because of Microsoft, I got to do many things I may not have gotten to do otherwise. Being a public speaker, for example. I would never have guessed I was going to wind up traveling all over to give talks. Didn't see that coming.

The professional side of life has been interesting. But then there's the personal stuff. From the past three years:

- Blew two big relationships with people who are very important to me.

- Blew a few smaller relationships.

- Started depressed, and ended horribly depressed.

- Developed a major drug habit.

- Went through major rehab.

- Forgot what I like to do for fun. Entirely. I still have no idea. I asked you guys once, but you didn't know.

- Been through a few large upsets in the family.

The list goes on.

I don't know how other people would react to these things, but I made a lot of bad decisions while stressed out, depressed, and unable to think straight. Take Aydika for example - we got engaged five times in under a year (she maintains that it was only four times, but you know how people sugar coat the past).

That's not a good sign. For the relationship, for life, for the job... it's all mixed up, and every affects everything else.

I have no interest in going through all that again. I'm doing well, I'm nicely (maybe even properly) medicated. I'm excited about the future, and other Hallmark Card sounding crap.

Once I mention the future, the inevitable questions is: What are you doing next?

I'm moving back down to Portland to be with my people. It's a different social environment, and one that's far more conducive to my personality type than someplace where people everywhere seem uptight. I'm not big on uptight.

I'm not getting a job. I've tried that. It just gets in the way.

All I'm going to do is:

1. Write

2. The podcast

I've outlined books. Planned others. I probably have enough material here to put together a collection of anecdotes or something.

What I want to do, though, is work on the fiction. I tell a lot of lies here, but they're in the context of more or less ordinary things. The kind of fiction I'm talking about is the kind that's one big lie from start to finish. Like, 75,000 words of lies, all strung together according to a common theme.

Those books are ready to write. The ideas are done. The characters have been created. The scenes, plots, blah blah blah - it's all there. Or, more specifically, it's here on my laptop, and I've been carrying some of it around since around 1998 or so. I think it's high bloody time to spew it all over the page so that you can read the steam and brush the chunks away. You have to pay for that privilege, by the by. That's the other reason I'm doing this - I want to make all of you poor. My books will only be available in hardcover editions. The paper will be from exotic rainforest trees. You'll probably find a little rainforest monkey pressed into the pulp here and there. That's how exotic the wood for the paper will be. You will pay dearly for it. Except for Yuvi - he offered to steal any books I write (it's the thought that counts).

I also want to do this because I've been in tech long enough. I know my way around. If I needed a job, a job would find me. That's how it's always worked. I don't think I've ever had to go after a client. I'm pompous enough that people believe I might actually be important, and that makes them want to hire me. I'd suggest that talent might have something to do with it as well, but that would rob me of the feeling that I'm hoodwinking people.

Navigating the publishing industry will be a new challenge. My goal is to dominate. And if I fail to dominate, then my other goal is to get rich. I know people are always talking about how there's no money in writing, but that's crap. If there wasn't any money in writing, there wouldn't be writers, nor would there be publishers, marketers, editors, agents, distributors, printers, or dictionaries.

It's not a question of whether there's money in it - it's where the money's going. That's the way any industry is.

Most of the writers I've met over the years in school and elsewhere are a bunch of snively, angry, hyper-serious, pretentious fruit-loops who have writer's block because they can't finish the Most Amazing Novel in the Universe About Something Quaint and Infinitely Dull. How do you think they're going to do when pushing for a better contract?

I've heard horror stories, but I don't care. When I got into tech, I was a high school dropout, a college dropout, had no professional experience in tech, and it was right in the middle of the steep slide the NASDAQ took after it hit 5,000.

But I managed.

And that's it, then, I think.

Monday is the last day I'm going to walk out of building 18 as a Microsoft employee.

I quit - I'm a quitter!

Goobye, Microsoft! Goobye!