One-and-Thirty: Somebody will help you

It's 6:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. I wouldn't say I was especially "productive" at work, although I didn't leave much undone. However, I am currently twiddling my thumbs waiting for Mel to finish upstairs so we can have dinner -- and get on with our night (will likely be spent cuddling on the couch and watching The Walking Dead, which on a whim we decided to get back into after dropping off at season 4 during our couples watchthrough early -- very early -- in our relationship.) I'm not pre-preparing dinner because without knowing just when she's going to be done it feels a little sad, to start getting dinner ready and risk it getting cold, but more than that I just want the time to breathe for myself. I have any number of things that I could be doing, working on, writing -- including a story I started this past weekend that I'm quite taken with, or as usual the X-Men blog -- but right now I feel very specifically like not doing those things and simply idling. Idling can be good. 

Sometimes when I have idle moments I go for a walk, around the block or as far as the nearest park down the street. But lately we've been walking together, or meaning to, so when I walk by myself she seems a little let down, like she really wanted to, but damn, work got in the way. Next week is her last week at this job, but she already knows it's going to be tough and overworked. This is, of course, why she quit. Too much pressure. Maybe just too much pressure for what it is, or maybe she hit her limit in capitalism. I've been mulling over the fact that I seem to have hit mine. I put myself forward for advancement but halfheartedly and have simultaneous frustration and relief when I don't make it.

On my desk is a fortune cookie slip that I received earlier this spring which reads without a trace of irony or hedging of bets, "You are headed for a promotion." I had a good chuckle about that on Instagram.

But no, no work, too fried even though it would be hard to say I exactly put in my best effort at work today. Hell, I took a timeout to finish reading the Jennette McCurdy book that I got on the weekend. Now that was absorbing. I wanted to read that thing every spare moment I could take during my day, and the child actor horror scenarios it depicted made their way into my half-awake anxiety dreams, along with my work in progress and the zombie show.

I see things faltering. The kitchen is perennially messy again. I stopped updating my grocery tracker and consequently have a pile of receipts on my desk. I haven't been watering the garden although in fairness it's been raining pretty consistently and it's hard to know if it won't during a day. The biggest tell perhaps is that I've been getting out of bed and going right downstairs for coffee and work (after catching up on the morning's Content) rather than showering. I don't know why but that's always the key when I'm a little Done With It All. I don't get out of bed and shower first thing, I leave it for later and work half the day in my pajamas. In theory there's nothing wrong with this. It's work from home times, people do shit like this all the time. It seemingly means nothing, but it means something to me to keep up my preferred morning routine: out of bed, shower, get dressed in fully qualified day clothes... then, coffee, an obnoxiously long time spent looking at my phone, and finally work.

To be fair, the last few days getting up and going right downstairs were partly motivated by a desire to keep reading that book, which I have now completed. I think I maybe moved to write a blog post about it.

The other benefit to showering later is that because of my habits it means I brush my teeth later, and that's probably smarter, because it means I'm brushing after drinking a cup of coffee (and likely eating a bowl of Cheerios, or a bagel or whatever I've done) and because I've already eaten and coffeed, I can use my Prevident, the high fluoride toothpaste I use once per day to prevent my baby cavities from becoming a serious tooth problem, which you have to wait a half hour after using before eating or drinking. (On days when I brush in the morning, I use Colgate Total first, then use Prevident at night before bed, but I lament it because it means I can't drink my beautiful cool nightwater that I keep on my nightstand for 30 minutes.)

This is... surely, a really fuckin' tedious post, but it's what I'm doing now to relax.

As summer has turned to fall, I've become a little glum and listless but not so bad. A few weekends ago was Mama H's birthday, and we went to the mall to get her a gift the night before, a rare evening outing for us -- we got her a decorative Halloween gnome, which she liked. We spent the warm, breezy Saturday afternoon in their backyard while playing Summer Hits of the 70s on my phone, and had Jimmy the Greek catering for dinner, then played Bingo (I'm unsure what inspired this) with me as caller hamming it up with every number I could, while I played 2010's club jams from the Track Radio of Black Eyed Peas. Elsewise, we had some lazy days, although this past Saturday we went out and played tennis again. I think Mel has decided she is not into tennis, but we gave it a go and I enjoyed it more than I thought I might (hard to say, mostly it was serving, one return, and missed, no matter who served.)

Mel's lateness brings to mind some of those times back in our apartment years, when she would be in the door as late as 7 and I'd have to determine what was an appropriate time to start working on dinner.

This all sounds kind of glum and matter of fact, but in reality it's just cozily quiet, not melodramatically depressed and frustrated like I sometimes am on here. It's kind of a nice equilibrium and while it's no kind of high, it's where I can live a while. I've always been kind of saturnine, ever since I was a kid. That was one of my vocab words from way back in grade 12 writer's craft. Serves me well.

I hope that next time I find myself with a few hours of leisure time I do wind up writing, having idled once. I have doubts, as always, but it's an important skill to push through them and proceed with whatever it is you planned, since if it seemed a good enough idea at the time to start, you might as well see it through. That approach has only steered me wrong seemingly once, and even then it was the quickest I ever wrote something, even if it was the worst.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto

Thirty: Delayed Vertical Suplex

It's been a strange, stressful, interesting couple of weeks to end the "summer."

Last weekend we went back to the trailer. This was always going to be a bit controversial. We'd just been and I, personally, really felt the sting of the no-technology. This particular time was for a sort of family farewell to Ali, who is moving off to University in Nova Scotia. That meant that everyone wanted to come, and Eric even took the weekend off for it (undoubtedly to much frustration at his work.) But the problem was, obviously the guys wanted to go home that night and there was nobody in a position to take them. Mel and I wanted to stay, both because Mel covets the trailer (and particularly the pool) and because the idea of driving 90 minutes both ways in a single day just seems draining.

Mel was frustrated. I was frustrated too. I conceived of a compromise which I was luckily able to get everyone on board with (whilst daydreaming in and out of conversation the previous Saturday at Nonna's.) Maybe my dad would be kind enough to drive 2/3 of the way there, and then I could drive the guys to meet him. He was down for it, although admittedly, I underestimated how un-fun it would be to drive 30 minutes each way to get to the chip stand we were using as the drop point, and also how hard to confidently co-ordinate while my phone was getting nil reception at the trailer. Details details, the point is, we had a plan. And it worked. Maybe not to my satisfaction -- we got there kind of early but dinner was kind of late so I was really fatigued and anxious by the time we actually got to go, but the point is it worked.

Other than that, it was nice. It was good to see the guys and share a 90-minute car ride with them. It was good to see Cam and Ali and Paige and the family. Karen had this big activity of everyone submitting words of wisdom for the grads, which kind of had us rolling our eyes but we did our best. Mel and I came back to their trailer after we returned and spent a little more time by the fire, listening to Ali's surprisingly adult contemporary-oriented playlist (Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, that sort of thing.) Then we went back to Mom and Ross' trailer and slept pretty poorly on the very thin guest mattresses. (Ross noted he wanted to upgrade them to memory foam since he sleeps there sometimes.) We each ended up taking a bunk since Mel needed room to cuddle with Poppy. 

The next day, after breakfast with mom and saying goodbye, we hit the pool, Mel's favourite spot. We witnessed a weird altercation between one of the park staff and some 18-year-olds, at whom she snapped for being in the adult pool, despite the fact that they were 18 and thus met the age requirement. "We're not bringing ID to the pool," the main girl huffed. Then the staffer came back and huffed some more about the teens being "lippy" when she had been polite (which I can vouch, she was not.) Later I heard she was shaken to tears by the teens' ill manners.

I mean look. Most 18-year-olds haven't mastered the art of communication, but that's not a law. They were accused quite unfairly, when they weren't bothering anybody (any more than, say, a similar-sized group of adults would bother me.) You approach them with that energy and you're not going to like what you get back in return. Anything you can do to them after that is just being vindictive because you don't like the way you were spoken to.

I told Aunt Lori about this later, and she was pretty miffed since Cam and Page use the pool often, and if Ali wanted to, she doesn't exactly look 18 either.

Mel napped, I watched some of Rocky (AMC was the main channel of choice while we were there, and we saw bits of The Breakfast Club and Fast Times at Ridgemont High as well) before we made dinner and went. I drove home, but my stomach was a little turny by the time we got there (honestly, it had been a little bit all weekend) so I didn't participate in our planned dinner of Burgertone Chicken Sandwiches. I just had pasta and a ginger ale. There was... a weird kind of reaction to that, which I don't necessarily think is worth digging into, but it's the kind of thing that pops up from time to time and makes me sad because I have to wonder, at the worst of times, who is worrying about my feelings the way I worry about others?

We watched Fever Pitch and cuddled.

The week was the week that was. Actually there was one extremely notable piece to it, which is that Mel finally quit her job. In order to destress, she had decided that things had finally reached a breaking point and she could no longer continue. It was a very hard process to go through, as she was very concerned with how it would be taken, and leaving certain people out to dry (she's very dedicated, that Mel) but it was something that needed to happen, and I helped by helping her find the words to break it to her boss. Now she feels a lot lighter, which I'm very glad about. Also I finally got my hair cut after months of putting it off.

Happenings from the previous week also included going to the dentist (kudos for using previ-dent and not letting my baby cavities get any worse) and starting talks about my mid-year appraisal, which involved the ever-thorny issue of where exactly I'm supposed to go from here. I was sanguine about it as ever but a little more in the tune of "I'm just enjoying the ride" rather than "I don't feel like I have any direction so I'm not engaged." Maria praised me for handling myself without as much category manager oversight (as the people minding those categories have more pressing things going.) Me, I'm happy about where I am in the company right now, trying to show a bit more of myself, but I understand why I didn't get the bigger job. I just found out who did get it, and at least one of them -- the one I think I will be working with -- I think is a great fit who deserves the job and I would be very happy to work with this person.

I had the day off today. I did some writing, actually polishing a piece that I did yesterday during work hours (sorry, I was moved) but mostly didn't push myself. I just wanted to drop this check-in, and then maybe do some reading. I also went for a walk, which I try to do several times a week. It's been a fine day.

Given I usually only write while in distress, I wanted to show, you know, that sometimes things are good. Not perfect, sure, but quite good.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto