Resisting my better urges, I’m staying up to try and log an entry for tomorrow (or today, by the clock). I finally signed off my VPN’d work connection, sending and receiving mail (yes, I’m not the only swamped person working late, it seems), and I was getting ready to go to bed. Then, I realized I’d downloaded some new tunes over the past couple days and wanted to hear them… it was enough of an excuse to move my computer-staring activities from the living room to the computer room, where I can listen to music on some proper speakers. So I’m here, and I’m writing… it’s a start.
Guys, I apologize. The writing about work has got to stop. But, I’m gonna do it again for a minute, because lately it’s been what’s all-consuming. While I had hopes for a change, today continued along the alarming trend of having no time to breathe between tasks. In fact, I’ve taken to adding a 3rd class of Post It note to my Post It notes filing/tracking system – the “to do tonight” note. A subset of the broader “to do” list, this small note contains only the items which need to get done before the next workday. The stuff that, while it is important and has to be done, just gets pushed aside while putting out the day’s many randomly arising and ill-timed fires. So, tonight I’ve got a couple hours to log before I can start tomorrow with a relatively clean slate. At first, the crunch was exciting… made me feel important. Now, I’m starting to get tired of the crunch. Today, the crunch prevented me from getting a much needed haircut, not to mention stopping me from mowing my overgrown lawn. So as boring and repetitive as it may be, my writing will continue to be dominated by the overriding activities of my day… and for the immediate future, I have a feeling that’s gonna be work, work, and more work.
A lot of times, when my phone rings, I purposely ignore it. I may be that I just don’t feel like talking, or it may be that I just don’t feel like talking to you… either way I just silence the thing and go on with my business. I always have this fear though, that the person calling me is outside my house, or somewhere where they are able to see that I’m there to answer my phone… walking behind me in a public place for instance. I can imagine someone watching me look at my phone, press a button, and get transferred to voicemail. So, even though I’m sure I’ll always continue to ignore phone calls – I do get a small pang of guilt every time I do it. Now, at work I’ve got caller ID on my phone, so I know when someone’s calling from their desk that they’re at their desk – and I can safely ignore it. Cellphones, however, add caller mobility as an unknown. Stupid cellphones, making my call-shirking all the more difficult.
When I was growing up, my friends and I of course enjoyed thumbing through the occasional pornographic magazine. However, being that we were in the 5th grade (or 6th, 7th… whatever, it was a pretty consistent trend in the post-5th grades), we couldn’t exactly go and pick up a skin mag at the local 7-11. No, we had to rely on the many kid-tested porn “dumps.” I don’t know if you guys had this kind of thing or not. But, as boys, we had an almost instinctual knowledge of a place’s porn-potential. For instance, when I lived in Lompoc, there were a series of empty fields which were known as “the dirt trails,” where kids would go ride their bikes. There were burms and corners and dips and jumps, it was a BMXers paradise. It was also a notorious skin mag dump. If you spent a few minutes exploring the underbrush off the trails, chances are you’d happen on a hidden cache of Playboys, Penthouses, Juggses, Barely Legals, Hustlers, and occasional Cherry. When your primary method of transportation is your bike, you tend to either find, or hear about, likely porn locales all around town. In Florida, we had a “Playboy ditch;” so named because a ride back and forth along the edges would almost always produce a sun-faded, bug-addled, waterlogged flesh rag. It wasn’t a once-in-a-million, you-might-get-lucky kinda thing – it was almost a sure-thing that you could score a magazine at these places. Don’t discount these kinda stories as some sort of coming-of-age apocrypha – I would wager a decent percentage of males reading this can identify with something similar from their growin’ up days… but… I could be wrong.
1am folks… and I’m ready for sleep. I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and do this all again, so wish me luck with that OK? Thanks, I appreciate it. Goodnight.