1:07 AM: Held Gaze

It's after midnight and I'm up to my old tricks... or maybe the tricks are up to me. I should be tired, but I'm pretty wound up. I had a snooze but found myself waking up and fussing. I read some. My brain wants to do things, probably after being cooped up at the office all day. It really wants to write. All I can give it is this.

It was a weekend of being busy not being busy. Mel wanted to treat us to breakfast out on Saturday to celebrate her new job, and who was I to say no? So we went and we enjoyed ourselves, getting the dishes we wanted and a waffle to split. Then we went to the library to get cards, as Mel was hoping to have a chance to listen to the audiobook of Spare (the Prince Harry book of course) but sadly it's as long of a wait as with her Toronto card. She napped and I write, motivated by frustration with certain things in my life to finish something that other people might never see but was important to me to try.

Sunday, Mel watched her crystal show while I cleared off my old desk and assembled my new one. I wasn't necessarily expecting it to be an all-day thing but it took quite a while to clear off, clean, move and assemble. I'm very happy with it in the end, although there's still a dreadful mess piled on our dining table. We had nachos for dinner. I went grocery shopping solely to buy things for that, as she admonished me not to buy anything we hadn't already planned for... and then wished I had bought something for dessert. Alas!

Monday was Monday. Today I got up at 6:15 -- after a somewhat fitful but still restful sleep -- and got out the door for 7 so that I could make it to the office for 8:30. It was a fine day at the office. There were plenty of people there, I had some in-person meetings that ended up being more fun than if they had been calls. There was the big town hall that is always the ostensible reason for people to come. I had a one-on-one lunch with one of the other IAs. We all left around 4 -- a little after because I was late in running my replen -- to grab drinks, which I didn't tell Mel about because I left a little after 5 to catch the train, which ended up being the 6:15. I picked up Boston Pizza on the way home, then we settled in and watched a few episodes of Partner Track. A full day, a busy day, a tiring day, but I guess not tiring enough. They want us to come on more often, Maria basically settling for 1 day per week, out of Tue, Wed and Thurs. Whatever you say. Mel of course doesn't love this, but she has a visit to Toronto planned for next week so I'm going along.

Some stuff happened the week before that got me in a right tizzy. I went to bed mad about it almost every night for a week and even now get tense thinking about it. It has long term implications. It's not anything that shocked me except in how blunt it was and how I just didn't have the energy to put up any kind of front about it. You know, we all have our breaking points. I wrote about it, but didn't post. Eventually, the statute of limitations will run out and I'll say OK and let it go up the site and you will see some vitriol, but I don't feel good about it right now, too raw, too personal, too real. It's a side of me this blog only hints at, although if you leaf back, you can see it building over the year.

Obviously, work has been busy. For the most part I'm killing it but I'm also a little buried, with tons of little tasks piling up while I focus on my big ones. 2 or 3 major things command my attention right now, and beyond that I have little mental real estate to give anyone else. So be it. There was a little error that I noticed at the beginning of the day, but was told nothing could be done about, so I addressed it as best I could. Then Phil found out independently an asked me about it as I was leaving so I took another stab and got some results. It is what it is.

2018 me would have died inside to have to face that kind of challenge.

Today I am zen.

Partially, it could be that I did my writing on the weekend. Of course, I do writing every weekend but this was something else. This was my way of writing my way out. Now, that never works, or at least it never has yet, but it feels good and right to try again, in a way I simply haven't in a long while. I think my brain is craving more of that but there isn't more to give, not at 12:15 on a Tuesday night. I could stand to stay serious about this and go further.

I've been listening to a lot of The Who -- especially "A Quick One, While He's Away" -- and a lot of Bowie, during my stressful times. Hey, why not?

It's weird times, man. This blog ain't the half of it. It feels like I should say more but I'd really just be chasing my tail. I can't (oughtn't) complain. Some things are right, some things are not right, and some things are not the way we want them to be.

I don't know that this has relaxed me any. It may have gotten me more keyed up. I think being busy at work has really fed my desire to do things that are not work, although I also tend to get up to mischief when I am not busy at work, so maybe I am just a little gremlin.

Hm.

I'm stalling.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto