Maybe it was the sub-tropically rooted atmospheric river we’re under in western Washington that put me in a funk with all this rain, all this weeping and draining and sagging and uprooting that got me encased in a work-induced death spiral feeling sorry for myself at the kitchen table working from home, poking at a very old microwaved chicken with my fork, when Dawn asked what’s wrong.

I caught myself in the mirror with the same shirt I had from a long time ago, and thought about that shirt because I wanted a headshot I could use on my work alias since what’s there now is generic, a black silhouette with my name beneath it when I appear to others on Skype: and there was a picture of me at my last job someone took for the team Portal, I could remember how I looked in that shirt (obviously younger, happy-go-lucky, I was doing jack shit back then by comparison, which explains the smile and the youth, the almost “glow”): but now, my job feels like I’m in a Kung Fu film with bad overdubs, a lot of action and quick moves and stunts, but hard sometimes to follow the plot.

And the volume of email, the pace of things in a tech job feels somewhat like the rain this season, its persistence, the sense it won’t ever let up. This cumulative pooling about and everything soggy looking, only rare patches of relief.

I had to consciously put the phone down, to close the laptop lid and just go outside with the dog although it was raining, to get her there and back, but it was just another task.

I stood for a time at the shore looking out, but there was no semblance of Art there, not today. But I thought about writing on the walk there, that I would make this later, and it was a good distraction. I felt I needed a pill, or something. But I had a 4 o’clock so I showered and shaved thinking that would transform me, and then I lay on the bed for a time but got roused by the chime of a new email and answered it, then lay back down again, and got up to get ready for my meeting and clicked on the link, and talked into my laptop mic, and took notes by hand but it didn’t make much sense, and when I was done we went to Beth’s for dinner though I didn’t feel like it, I wanted to stay home and pout, to just clear my head and think about nothing.

When we got back I went for the last of a bottle of bourbon my friend Chris brought me for my birthday in November which I’d been saving for a special occasion but decided this was it, The Last of the Whiskey, that was special enough.

In case you missed it, I have a call for content for Saturday guest posts starting this spring—details here.

Categories: musings

Tags: Anthonys Navel, humor, identity, pacific northwest, postaday, William Pearse writer, work life balance