You know, when you have been moving 200 miles per hour for a long time, and things are a blur of paperwork and spreadsheets and coffee and deadlines - it is really hard to get things back into a normal state of affairs when you get back to the forty hour work week - today, I was compelled to re-organize my emails - they looked like my laundry basket - just old dirty emails piled up in the in box, needing to be cleaned, folded, and put away - I looked over endless numbers of 3x5 cards that had notes on them, spent three hours in a conference room organizing my calendar, trying to figure out if Canadian holidays are close to American holidays, spent an hour or two following up on long lost emails, and spent another thirty minutes determining if I should change my flight to six am tomorrow morning, or to stick with Friday morning - indecisiveness sets in pretty good when you go back to doing the normal work schedule, the normal routine, the normal stuff - I don't think I was really built to do normal stuff - either that, or my brain has re-wired itself to misfire when I have to sit around and think about things without having anything beating on me to finish it in an hour, or get it done....I think that is probably the case, I have to somehow teach my brains to work a little differently, maybe fire on different cylinders, or at least fire on a few less (kind of like that new GM thing when you are cruising down the highway, it shuts down two of the cylinders and you just drive on four - why I know that, I have no earthly idea, but I do, and I keep it saved up in my slowly fading memory)...
I tried to convince myself to go down to the gym tonight - but felt a little safer in the hotel room, I was looking forward to some room service, and finalizing the holiday calendar with the ex - now I know why my parents were always stressed out around the holidays - not only did they have to deal with having less money, but they also had to deal with figuring out how the hell to magically teleport children to places that are supposed to feel like home for the holidays...
I reckon that is going to be the hardest thing this year - last year's holidays- well, they sucked - for four people - all of us affected by our own behavior, and some affected by just mine - but they sucked. Thanksgiving I got to sleep on a couch next to a couch where a homeless guy was sleeping, and Christmas, I got to borrow the house for a few hours in between the different families visiting and making their way through my place. Funny thing, my place- it is still half my place - and it holds quite a few good Christmas memories - the gifts on the mantle, the half eaten reindeer snacks, opening gifts in the den - fast and furious - just like I like things -
Yeah, I am not too good when I am not under some sort of pressure - not too good when I cannot figure out how to keep the quiet from becoming a little too quiet - and not too good at keeping focused when there are not enough bright lights and stress bouncing off around me - returning to a 40 hour work week - man, I just don't know how to handle that - in the past, there was plenty of Coors Light and streetlamps to visit - but that just got me into trouble, now, I go through several other things to give me something to do:
1. I walk the halls of the hotel around 10:00 PM collecting all of the the little unused condiment bottles off of the room service trays - not only does it make sure that TSA will sort through my bag, but just imagine how much I have saved on mustard, catsup, and little tiny jars of sweet relish.
2. I clean my hotel room. Yup - I actually clean my hotel room. I mean not like just a straighten it up - I make sure it looks like housekeeping just came in and cleaned it. Stupid - but I leave the do not disturb sign on my door intentionally to occupy a little bit of time in the evenings.
3. I watch French Television. I cannot speak a lick of French, but I can watch French Television.
4. I see how many sit ups I can do before my back begins to spasm. Lately, not too many.
5. I play that stupid damn game Mafia Wars on Facebook. Why, I am not quite sure - perhaps it is the fact that my facebook mafia wars bank account has billions of dollars in it, or perhaps, it gets really old listening to the air conditioner in the room cycle on and off.
6. I write a blog. Some of them less notable than others (you are reading one of those, but thanks for your persistance)
7. I empty out my briefcase and count how much change I have. Yesterday, I had close to eight dollars in Canadian and US Currency tucked safely away in my man purse. (About two dollars of it had congealed together with some sticky residue of chewing gum that had escaped its wrappers....)
8. I read really boring books. Right now, I am reading The End of Food- and although a long arduous and tedious book - it really is good to know that most of the food I eat is randomly being sprinkled with E Coli and hormones that will give me tits. (That would give me something else to do...)
9. I try and figure out who is actually reading this damn blog - I have one of those nifty site meters that gives me the IP address of the visitors, and short of folks from Dallas, Omaha, Ponte Vedra, a few from Bothell, a couple from Edmonds, and the occassional "LOCATION UNKNOWN" - it is pretty interesting to see who is reading it, why they are reading it, and when they are reading it. You know what is even cooler (for a computer challenged idiot like me) is that when it is forwarded - you even can get remotely close to the email text that forwarded it sometimes....very very interesting...
10. Most of all, I just think. I think of the kids, and of the future, the past, I think of many things - sometimes they put me to sleep, sometimes the thoughts send me downstairs for a single serve (I hate single servings) of Nyquil, sometimes, they just make the quiet loud enough for me to feel uneasy enough to make a few promises that tomorrow I will do something just a little better...
Maybe that's what the quiet is for, and if my brain could get used to it, perhaps I could too....
Until next time -
George
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