Much like the downpour blanketing the neighborhood right now, this month–with 11 packed days to go–feels like the proverbial fire hose from which I may very literally be drinking. When I look back at our last two posts, the underlying tone seems to be hopeful, and I don’t think I’m in quite the same place tonight. You could say last Tuesday and Thursday were the story I’d like to tell: how, beset on all sides by responsibility, I ultimately prevailed, borne by sheer dint of will and the strength of my convictions. The real ending may be markedly different, though. We’ll see.
Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynrd will both be in town this weekend, and despite my best efforts to avoid this concert, it appears I’ll be going. For most of the attendees, I imagine such events are chances to unwind, opportunities to get roaring drunk against a live soundtrack. But for me, I’m going out of morbid curiosity and, more importantly, because it will be free. This time, however, I won’t be nearly as prepared. This might be a good thing. One positive by-product of being busy, I’ve realized, is the propensity to just do things, rather than overthink them.
This will be a shot at normalcy, in other words, at least for a Sunday. Certainly I won’t be completely ignorant. I recall seeing Kid Rock on TRL in high school, for example, and witnessing his debilitating inability to wear a shirt, which I believe he’s overcome in recent years by donning the American flag in varying configurations. And Lynyrd Skynyrd? I’ve played “Freebird” on Guitar Hero. So, y’know. I also suspect you won’t find their known works on NPR. And clearly they’re unaware that real vowels exist.
Other than that, I’m going with a clean slate, ready to let the experience shape me as it will. I see two immediate possibilities on Sunday night: either I will emerge a more learned person, or I will be dead, facedown in a pool of PBR, vomit, and cigarette butts, shot by an authentic Confederate-era revolver because I hailed another concertgoer’s wife as a “sir.”
Tonight, just a few hours ago, I sat dazed in my cubicle, eyes rapidly glazing over, with two instances of PowerPoint splayed across my desktop. My day job had long ended and now, in the corporate witching hour, the cogs of industry began to turn once more for responsibilities outside the office. Before me was a deck I should’ve banged out last month, but here I was, caught in my own horrific version of happy hour, wondering whether I had bitten off more than I could chew. Normally I spend my time in Excel, province of endless numbers and trippy formulae, so I was ill-equipped to take advantage of more creative software. I was at a loss. I may as well have been trying to write a poem in Sanskrit, understand.
Specifically there was a fancy slide before me, lined with graphical flourishes forged by who knows what unchristian means, and I wanted to use it. Only problem was the original artist had embedded a logo entirely useless to me in one of the corner swirls. But I continued, undeterred in my quest to “borrow” this slick-shit border, by popping open MS Paint, dropping the correct logo on top of the existing one, zooming 8x, and painstakingly freehanding around it, pixel by pixel, like a master forger.
Ten minutes into the process, I started feeling energized. Resourceful. Also, hungry. Emboldened by the progress in this brave new world of presentation production, I started pacing around the office, fully believing my run of luck would feed me as well. And in a way it did, for lo! There in the breakroom sat a multigrain bagel, complete with a depleted tub of lukewarm cream cheese. I don’t think it belonged to anybody. Having secured an entree, I proceeded to rustle some peanuts, along with a stray can of root beer, and then dinner, finally, was served.
Whereas I had been a pauper but a few minutes ago, poor in spirit and light on snacks, now I dined as kings are wont to do. Then, having sufficiently malnourished myself, I returned to my dark work. The final product was spectacular, virtually indistinguishable from the original, and upon getting a second wind I dove into the deck itself to add some actual text to those fancy borders. One slide, then another, followed by yet a few more, and I was done, my magnum opus completed. Thanks, liberal arts education. You taught me so much.
I remember thinking on the Fourth of July how brutally busy this month would be, and as one neighborhood firework exploded after the next–drumbeats heralding inevitability, in a way–a sinking feeling grew, slick and unsettling, until I wanted nothing more than the Gregorian calendar to give me a pass and skip straight to August. But the only way this wish will come true, apparently, is if I do it the old-fashioned way and grind it out for another 17 days.
It’s easy enough to parcel out your routine: health, social life, family, work, and so forth. I tend to like having one of these areas on the fritz at any given time. The friction keeps you sharp, I believe, and besides, it’s unrealistic to expect everything to happen smoothly all the time. Now, when two or more of these pieces explode, so goes the theory, the stress begins to gather. Settle. Coagulate.
It feels like I’m neck-deep in the storm right now. I hesitate to use the word “burnout” because it strikes me as weak, a conceit tinged with self-pity and an overwhelming lack of motion. There’s this sense of wallowing. Waiting. And I’m well past it. Instead, I’m turning to this framework of skill acquisition again–namely, what can I gain from this situation? Is there knowledge about how to do something, ready for the taking?
Absolutely. Here’s what I’m currently learning: how to approach an endless swirl of tasks and commodify the fucker. It’s this idea of nailing down a mass of half-finished things, regarding it coldly, impersonally, and then breaking it into palatable pieces. Units of Done, as it were. 17 days. A mere half-dozen posts from now, and I’ll be on the other side.