Category Archives: Life

Autopilot…

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If there’s anything I’ve come to expect from myself it’s that no matter how late I go to bed, no matter how blown out my throat is, no matter there’s a dull thump somewhere in the middle of my head, if it’s Saturday morning my eyes are going to flip open sometime between 6:00-6:30. My brain is going to engage and it’s going to insist that I get the day started, no matter the level of protest the rest of me might throw in its path.

This internal alarm clock is one of the reasons I don’t tend to have late nights often. The other reason, of course, is late nights tend to demand social interaction with people… and I think we all know how I feel about people. The weekend looks like it’s going to be dark and rainy, so I’m about to pour on a few gallons of coffee and switch the day to autopilot. If I’m going to be awake, I might as well make the morning count.

Realization…

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Yesterday afternoon I passed a Buick going the opposite direction. Nothing unusual about that. It happens every day. What was unusual is that while it was approaching, I was struck by what a good looking vehicle it was. It wasn’t until it was well in the rear view that realized what just happened. I was looking at a Buick. And I thought it looked sharp. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I knew for sure middle age had her claws in me and she has no intention of letting go.

I’ve been ignoring the small aches and pains – like the sore back that’s been nagging me for two weeks now. Looking at a Buick as a viable automotive alternative, though, that hit home. So next weekend I think I’ll take a drive past the Chevy dealer to take a look at Corvettes. We all have to go, but no one ever said we had to go quietly.

On giving up…

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I’ve mostly given up on trying to get a post together on Friday nights. It’s generally not for lack of something to say so much as it’s because by the time Friday night rolls into town, I can barely stomach the idea of spending more time looking at a monitor. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, Friday night seems to be the night my brain mashes down on the “system reboot” switch. Just staying awake until 9:30 or 10:00 will be a major accomplishment. Forget any wild notion of trying to get something done or taking the effort to go somewhere. It’s a losing battle and I’m largely given up on fighting the inevitable.

I know in about 11 hours I’m going to wake up and be, what in my world passes for refreshed. I’ll charge through the next two days knocking items off my to-do list and sometime Sunday night realize that the weekend burned off way too quickly. Such is the near-mechanical rhythm of of my weeks. Still, now and then, it would be nice to get home, look around, and want to go out, raise hell, and get stupid. As it is, all I’m really interested in getting is another pillow so my spot on the couch is all the more comfortable.

A simple request…

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It was 60 degrees yesterday. I had the windows open taking advantage of a long awaited chance to air the place out – because face it, no matter how often you clean, living with two dogs and a tortoise is going to generate a certain amount of airborne funk no amount of spray cleaners and elbow grease will quite get rid of. Even today, with temperatures in the 40s, it’s a kind reminder than winter can’t maintain it’s grip on the Mid-Altlantic indefinitely.

Then, of course there’s the low rumblings I’ve heard that the cold weather may have a punch or two left in it this year. I’m studiously ignoring every television forecaster and website that’s trying to hype a mid-week winter storm. I don’t care whether it’s a full blown blizzard or just a glancing blow from something hitting New England. It quite simply needs to go away. I’ll be griping and complaining about the heat soon enough, but right now I really just need to feel temperatures in the 60s, hear the weekend hum of lawn equipment, and be able to leave the house in fewer than three layers. I’m a simple man and I don’t think that’s too much to ask from March.

The more things change…

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I’m afraid we’re screeching back into one of those times when I’m going to spend far too much time casting around for new blog ideas. In this case, the problem isn’t any kind of block, but rather that everything I really want to write about is embargoed or otherwise of a nature that I consider it out of bounds for this forum. It really is a pity, because I know there are some real doozies that are sitting in my notes just wasting away. Sure, maybe they’ll see the light of day sometime in the future when they’re less relevant, but there’s no denying that takes the edge off them.

If you’ve read The Cynic’s Guide, you’ve already read most of this story. God knows I’ve already lived it. The best I can tell you is that the past is a pretty damned good indicator of what the future is going to be like. It’s 100% situation normal in the belly of the bureaucracy… and that’s a uniquely off combination of comforting and infuriating. If nothing else, I know what to expect. I’ve been here before after all. The names and faces are different, the scenery has changed, but it’s the same old, tired story. The more things change, the more they never do… at least this round of eye rolling is on the banks of Mother Chesapeake instead of Big Muddy.

Things unsaid…

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The single hardest thing I do around here is try desperately to keep my big mouth from writing checks that the rest of me isn’t quite ready to pay for. It goes against my nature as a blogger to censor myself when every bit of my ego, pride, and desire for page views tells me that I could write a scorcher. But no, that little voice inside my head that preaches moderation and self preservation is demanding a hearing… and reminding me that from time to time, opening my mouth and letting words fly out might have a tendency towards shifting my career dissipation light into overdrive and leaving it there until it blows the engine apart. It seems the better part of valor this evening is to keep my powder dry for use when it might be of more practical application.

Precision…

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I’ve been told on a number of occasions recently that English is a precise language and we must use it precisely. I’m good with that. I like precision. I like to use words to cut through the clutter and mean exactly what I say. Except the problem is, most people don’t. Most people use the language as just another avenue to be vacillate and be throughly indecisive.

Don’t be surprised then, if you ask me “Do you want to do Activity X?” and my response is an immediate no. I’m answering your question honestly and directly. No, I do not want to participate in Activity X. In fact, generally I’d rather stake myself on an anthill covered in honey than engage in Activity X. However, if you changed the question slightly, by saying “Will you do Activity X?” or a more directive “You’re going to do Activity X,” I’ll probably shrug, possibly roll my eyes, and get on with dealing with whatever X is in our little equation.

See, the social contract depends largely on people doing things they don’t want to do. But when you frame the question as whether I “want” to do something or not, you’ve given me the option of saying no, because that’s the honest answer. I spend most days doing things I don’t particularly want to do, so when given the option to avoid adding one more to the list, I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised when I opt out… because frankly life is entirely too short and it’s already too filled with random pointless activities that we don’t really want to do in the first place.

Going back…

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The trouble with being away from work for the better part of a week is that if you want to keep getting paid on a regular basis, you have to go back eventually. If I’m honest with you and myself, it was exhausting. Not in that way that you’re tired after a long day of chopping wood or being physically engaged, but in that very special way that leaves your brain feeling like it’s turned to jell that could ooze out your ear at any moment. Today was definitely a day like that.

I keep telling myself that it’s just a matter of getting back into the swing of things, but even while the joy of time off is still fresh in my mind I know that’s not really true. As I’m sitting here bashing at the keyboard, flanked by a steaming mug of fresh coffee, a few good ideas, and a couple of dogs, I know it’s not true at all. At best I’ll muck through tomorrow, the day after, and the ones that follow so I can get back to doing this as quickly as possible.

But hey, I like eating something other than Top Ramen and there are bills to pay, so before the sun’s up tomorrow I’ll be back at it. Maybe not with a spring in my step or a song in my heart, but sometimes just going back has to be good enough. Sometimes that’s the best you’ve got.

How I’ve misspent my time off…

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The world where days off are relaxing, restful, and leave you feeling recharged and ready to face the world is probably a complete fiction. Even on my slowest moving weekend, I don’t remember reaching the end of it and feeling particularly recharged. Productivity-HacksIf I’m lucky, the weekend means I’ve allocated an extra hour of sleep each day to the five or six I try to stick to during the week.

Even though the extra long, long weekend I’ve had is coming to it’s inevitable end, the best thing I can really say about it is it has been fruitful and productive. I won’t even make the pretense of it having been restful in the least. The last two days have been eaten up by organizing last year’s tax information and pulling together the even larger stack of paperwork needed refinance a home loan. Either one of those activities over a two day period would be enough to make a simple history major like me crazy, but running them simultaneously has left me feeling a bit like maybe the world getting hit by a meteor wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who could just sit happily in front of the television and not have ideas that inevitably end up causing me to jump through inordinate numbers of hoops. I could just use one of the online tax services and let it go at that… but for a little more effort, I can squeeze every drop I’m owed back out of the system. The loan I have now is good enough… but I can better structure my debt using a new loan. I could just sit here and stare at the talking images, or I can try to churn out a few hundred more words of my own story.

For a guy who fundamentally thinks of himself as lazy, I’m not at all sure I’m doing it right. Surely I’d spend more time with my feet up and a lot less trying to cram 30 hours of “wanna do” into a 24 hour day.

Bad juju…

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I suspect we all run into them from time to time – days that are just filled to the brim with some kind of bad juju. For me, today was just dripping with the stuff. It’s not like anything bad actually happened (to me at least), but from the time I walked out the door this morning to the time I came back through it tonight, every second felt vaguely unsettled. That small voice in the back of my head that seems to become more sage the older I get, whispered a near constant “just keep your head down.”

I can’t pinpoint exactly what the problem was today, but it just had the unmistakable feeling of being ready to come off the rails at any moment for any reason. It seemed like all it would take was the barest nudge and the whole thing would end up out in the tall grass somewhere. Creature of habit that I am, unsettled does not make me happy. I’m sure that only adds fuel to the fire of the day’s already uneasy feeling.

Since we don’t get mulligans in this game, I’ll send the rest of the evening trying to shrug it off as a large group of people collectively having a bad day. I’m not optimist enough to fall back on the idea that tomorrow will always be better, but if it avoids getting worse, that’ll be an enormous step in the right direction. Who knows, maybe a good night’s sleep will shake off the bad juju.