Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:47:24 -0700Suddenly, I seem to have hit my overcommitment threshold. I almost always run myself right at the edge -- so much so that the unscheduled weekends last fall when I made myself stay home to paint my closet glossy white, before the chandelier and damask-pattern wallpaper went in, were deathly boring, just me and a can of zero-VOC and the late-night BBC. This recent addition to my social calendar, in leonine boyfriend form, hadn't seemed to tip the balance that much. But I think I let him (or, the fact of him) tip it for me -- though I haven't yet seen my manager's quarterly rating of me, it's no secret to him or me that my mind was at least partially elsewhere. Which has been lovely. April, however, seems to have brought the full scale of my commitments to bear. Lion-O still lays tacit claim to my nights. There has been just too much singing (one-off IOC gigs; Mari's graduate composition recital; I need still to decide if it even makes sense for me to re-audition for next year's Symphony Chorus season (it doesn't, but I'm in denial)). I just finished three weeks in a row oncall -- three (weekends off; the final one secondary, but still). And, speaking of tipping the balance, Lion-O just did that this weekend, off a swing set, and onto his ankle, dislocating and possibly fracturing it; I spent today tending to the non-walking wounded. An unintentional four-day weekend may have helped to at least mute the distress signals emanating from my calendar, and the frantic sense of being a 36-hour girl drowning in a 24-hour day. Olivia, with husband Charlie and adorable, squirrel-cheeked 10-month-old Audrey, flew out for a few days. If I felt guilty about missing my Friday meetings, the subconscious stress ebbed while craning our necks at Sequoia Sempervirens in the Muir Woods, while cooing at a baby intent on removing her socks and befuddled by mirrors, and while taking the grown-ups (that's us) out for Nori's Eat-And-Drink Tour of the City: Fresh peas at Universal; Bonal and celery bitters at Comstock. And today's spate of errands for a laid-up boyfriend was unintentional, but lovely in its own way: Walking to Ritual late in the afternoon, I had a strong sense of malingering -- but then, I've never stayed home sick for someone else before. (And now he has Advil, gougères, functional crutches, tulips, and clean laundry to last him the duration.) Malingering, drowning. There's probably a middle ground somewhere in there. I think have my work cut out for me. |