I stayed up too late last night.
Anything past midnight these days for me usually results in punishment come morning. So it was that I had a hard time rousing myself today. I snoozed the iPhone at least three times and only finally pulled myself from the sheets after I saw the time was well past seven. As I dragged to the bathroom for my pre-shower morning sit-down I could hear the rain tink-ta-tink-tinking on the windows. Through the tightened blinds I could tell the morning light wasn’t quite as light as the hour should have allowed. Sitting, flipping through the online news and working the dry out of my eyes, I noticed the sound of the wind on the roof. It wooshed and sang through the various attic vents. I could hear it against the outside wall, gusting. All omens of another stormy day.
The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detecting motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.
But I had a meeting with someone. At work we have these hallways between the many buildings, we call them “breezeways.” The suits have setup little tables and chairs there lining the long ceiling-to-floor windows that look out. I’m on the third floor so this view is actually pretty nice. I can see a bit of the city and I can watch people walking to and from their cars in our huge parking lot. For cubicle folks like myself, windows are something of a fascination. Imprisoned so at the computer these snatches of the “world outside” become filled with some sense of nostalgia. “Oh dear it’s really beautiful ‘out there,’ isn’t it? Makes me remember the times when I was outside.” Maybe this is just me. Either way I enjoy having meetings in the breezewere where I can look out the windows. Today I sat and watched the storm during the hour I was there talking office politics, annual reviews, and technical crap. That kind of stuff is a lot more palatable when you have a visual reminder that a real world exists just beyond a thin pane of glass.
Cold and wind and rain dampen not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.
Goodnight.
The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detection motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans LINK HERE and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.
The weather dampens not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.
Also written on this day...
- rocket dream - 2011
- the yes bus & my prog hard-on - 2008
- sucking out the spirit - 2005
- the same slippery scenario - 2004
You get homesick when you are 3 miles away from home? Weak.