4: A word that hits like a hammer / A poison memory

Twist my arm, why don't you. I've been meaning to get back on here pretty much all month but things keep getting in the way. That feels like the essence of the story. I always feel like there will be time, and I don't want to say that there isn't, but when it comes there are other things that take precedence. I haven't even done that much creative writing lately although the X-Men blog is thriving. I worry that, having expanded to more posts per month it really isn't quite as easy of an assignment as it once seemed to be. I'm writing this on the train ride home, seemingly the only time I can get clarity.

We are slowly plodding through the frigid, bleak days of January into February. One week this month -- and fuck me if I remember whether it was last week or the week before -- we were trapped in the dreaded polar vortex with temperatures in the feels-like minus-twenties. Even now, with relatively normal temps of -7 to -5, it remains dicey whether we can take Hank out for walks early in the morning or late at night. And he's usually pretty okay about that but today while I was at work he started o get fired up and Mel had to walk him and she already wasn't feeling good. Not that I could have known today would be any different than it had been but it did make me wish I had bit the bullet and walked him since I had time in the morning.

One morning during the polar vortex week, I woke up and wondered exactly how much do I hate myself. I thought, should I just call in "cold" and stay home from work? Or am I a good soldier and go in? Well, we know the answer to that. I live in fear of anyone thinking that I'm dogging it even though I desperately want to. I'm the guy who tromped his way out to school on otherwise snow days in my misspent youth (misspent not in the sense of acting badly, but in the sense of not taking enough opportunities to act badly enough.)

Just how am I such a patsy for this commute? I do hate it and yet I have also grown somewhat attached to the routine. It would be nice not to have to wake up so early and haul myself out to the city and "be present" or whatever but some sick fucking part of my brain seems to enjoy sitting on a train zoned out and listening to wrestling podcasts. I feel like if I did it twice a week I wouldn't even have a problem. But by the third, I feel like I'm always in danger of falling apart at the seams. Then somehow I don't, and I wake up on Friday and I overcompensate by treating it halfway like a day off even though it should be normal. I think that's part of what I hate about the hybrid model, that you end up fetishizing your WFH days. Because I'm so stuck in place the rest of the week, it's such a release of pressure it kind of wrecks the home days a little bit. And given how much time I shave off my work day when I'm in office I end up scrambling on Fridays to get shit done before I sign off for the weekend. It's not normally so calamitous but last week saw the release of the biggest property of the year and it all fell on my shoulders with a ton of pressure and visibility.

Oh well, I guess that's what they mean when they say Work is Work.

I indulged in a little more re-reading of my archives. I saw a lot of stuff that I didn't remember saying, thinking or otherwise experiencing from back then, which was nice. I often think about how miserable and lonely I was back then. Encountering that guy years later as a spectator, I do find I did a good job expressing that while still couching it in terms that were relatable and entertaining. There were reasons people came to me back then and stayed. I wasn't half bad. There were even a few bits of writing I thought were decent, at a level I'm not confident I would be able to hit again (my energy is not generally going that way these days.)

The days blur together but don't mistake that for a lack of activity or specialness. There's been plenty, which is why I've been itching to write here. We saw the babies, we watched Sonic at Unc's, Mel went to see Wicked with her mom and I had an afternoon/early evening to myself. We had a breakfast date at Cora's. Nearly every weekend we say we want to clean but end up not, or in the case of last weekend we identify twice as many things to clean as we have time to do. We did manage to take down the decos from the shelf and put away our Christmas gifts. We saw my mom for dinner at the Judge & Jury (she and Mel somehow showed up wearing the same sweater from Reitman's) and she gave us our belated Christmas gifts including a fuzzy blanket and slipper socks Mel really liked. I've been wearing the slippers that Zia Carmelina gave me, which I like for being soft and warm but I'm less enthused about the hard soles. Oh well. Also, my Mom is moving again, now to a ground-floor apartment. I was unsurprised when I heard.

There is much to do. Laundry. Having to decide what to have for dinner, then what else to have for dinner when we decide we don't want what we had planned on. Usually that's nachos. I grind away until I can finally take a vacation in February. I think we actually don't have anything on the docket for this weekend, which is nice. We're trying to read more and be on our phones less, including reading a book about how to be on your phone less.

I think that covers it. It's out of my system. I'll see you when I see you.

Keep on Rockin'

-Scotto

Edit Feb 16: Writing on the train when this post was originally done, I skimmed a bit, but doubling back, another thing we did in January (and hell if I know which week that was) was go to Kitchener to see Mel's Auntie J and cousin Jeff. It was a nice visit, obviously I didn't say a lot but I didn't say nothing. It was not super fun to drive out there, and we were hemming and hawing over whether we wanted to accept a ride from Mel's parents or if that would be too anxiety-provoking for Mel. I told her that if I was being selfish I would take the ride because I didn't really want to drive, but that I would gladly drive if she would feel more comfortable. So I drove. It was all good but started to run out of steam after dinner when for some reason they turned on the TV to coverage of the LA wildfires. Mel lost an earring somewhere not in the house, which she was sad about. On the drive home I got off an exit earlier than I had intended, but following the GPS, which took us through more of the backroads than we would have wanted. That was a little stressful but I thought I managed OK, although Mel didn't feel good when we finally got in. That was a long while ago by now.

KOR-SAW