In the grand tapestry of Labor Day weekends, I’d like to think mine was particularly productive, with time judiciously allocated to family, church, housecleaning, and getting my finances in order. Sounds like an Amish rave, doesn’t it? I suppose it wouldn’t help my case if I mentioned I worked a little bit as well. But work was the most exciting item on the docket, even taken on its own merits, and that’s because I’ve been grinding away at an all-company presentation.
I like presentations. Started back in college, I think, with debate class, when the entire process from prep to delivery had me hooked. It’s this idea of turning a pile of raw information into something slick and compelling. The audience is a large part of the thrill factor, too, because for every person rooting for you out there, you just know there are some who want to see you choke, and your charge is to prove them wrong, to know your shit so well that you can apply a generous coat of showmanship to it all. Then again, there’s always a chance you’ll still jam up, even with ample prep. That’s the gamble. That’s the exciting part.
There’s more work to do. A lot more, in fact, so it’s time to wrap here. I’m even rocking the pen and paper, which means it’s serious. You remember in Gladiator, how Maximus would reach for a handful of sand before every fight, or in An Unfortunate Series of Events, when Violet would bring out the hair ribbon for every conundrum? It’s kind of like that. That’s my ritual. I grab a pen, along with whatever scrap paper I can procure, and then I go fucking loco.
In just two short weeks, we’ll be temporarily shuttering this parade of vowels, and it won’t be purely because I prefer consonants. The real reason? I’ll need to take a week off as I soar through the skies. Now, I don’t mean this in a Bette Midler, “Wind Beneath My Wings” capacity, so much as the fact that I’ll be strapped into “airplanes,” otherwise known as coffins with wings (and crunchy snacks), bound for Ft. Lauderdale and Indianapolis.
Normally, in a given calendar year, I’m fine with flying approximately once or not at all. But when corporate necessity beckons, I must heed the call, and so I find myself staring at back-to-back sky pilgrimages. Four lift-offs. Four landings. Paltry sums for any avid flyer, but for me, these are dalliances with disaster, overt flirting at an altitude of 20,000 feet with statistics I’d rather avoid entirely.
At the same time, though, I’m excited. You’ll recall it was just around this time last year when I embarked on a similar trip and began to adopt a new, more sociable persona. Maybe, just maybe, a similar degree of change awaits. Even if this isn’t the case, it’ll be interesting to revisit the same places with a fresh set of eyes. Oh, Lord. Was I just being optimistic? Perhaps a plane is a sky cocoon, then, rather than a coffin with wings, from which I’ll emerge a beautiful butterfly.
Elevator luck. I’ve had a run of it these past few days, and if you work in any kind of high-rise, you know exactly what it is. Now, you may call elevator luck by another name, but it’s really just the good fortune of hitting the call button and having the steel doors open instantly. Swish! No waiting at all. From a rational perspective, such a phenomenon might occur because your building has a shitload of elevators, scientifically speaking. I’d like to think, though, that other people’s timelines just so happened to have intersected with mine, arriving right when I needed to depart.
But I’m not really thinking about elevators tonight, so much as one of the reasons for why we ride these elevators, day in, day out, and that’s money. Cashola. Cheddar most fine. I dipped into my savings a few weeks ago for the first time in, like, ever, because my checking account needed an infusion. Money’s been flowing out at a healthy clip, what with summer birthdays, legal counsel, property tax, and a confluence of other expenses that necessitated a transfer of funds.
Cry me a river, right? On the one hand, sure, but on the other hand, this episode evoked emotions similar to what I felt when I bounced by first–and last–check ever, way back in college. For me, savings is a kind of vault to be breached only in catastrophic instances. Well, breach it I did, and now I owe myself a chunk of change, with payback still a couple weeks off. But these are the benchmarks I’ve set for myself, and the mantle of adulthood, unlike cash flow, is heavy and unbending.