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