Fri, 22 Feb 2013 12:28:13 -0800
I very nearly didn't bring my laptop with me this morning. I stood
looking at my packing list, still debating computer vs. tablet, even
after I'd called a taxi. Mostly, I didn't care -- I just wanted to
get back into bed, a small sleep-purring radiator of down duvets and
still-dreaming boy, in which I'd want neither. But the flight said it
had wifi on board (lies, it appears), and I figured I could at least
reply to emails, stare listlessly at timeseries unit tests, dig
through binary logs to figure out why my half-launched project isn't
immediately doing what I want it to, or at least muse into my terminal
screen about the dreaming boy over a glass of free wine with lunch.
On the one hand, I feel like I don't really have the time to be flying
off to Minnesota for the weekend to make winter-thematic cocktails for
old Madison friends and to partake of eggy stuffing and maple-syrup
pecan pies until either I fall into a food coma or Jim declares it to
be Hammerschlagen time, in which case the act of pounding nails into a
stump in 10-degree weather ought to wake me up. Which is the plan of
record for the next 48 hours. My work time has been whittled away
recently -- holidays; next week's annual 3-day ski trip (the planning
of which which appears to be impossible to disentangle myself from --
"no, I am not organizing food this year" turns into a 10-minute
conversation anyhow; somehow I've been sucked into grocery shopping
for it anyhow); the week after's planned excursion to snowboard in
Breckenridge with the Q's and the dreamer -- all my own doing, but it
means a full slate of 3- or 4-day work weeks right before the spring
promotion cycle. And I've suddenly landed on a list that's made my
interview load skyrocket, another public good that feels zero-sum with
the personal good, at least until Q2. Hiding at home to work from my
couch doesn't help, even though it spares me the commute -- too much
an extrovert, I get bored and lonely, and find myself to actually be
more productive working from a loud office an hour south.
On the other, I have too strong of a work/life division in place for
my well-intentioned idea of submitting changelists from 30,000 feet to
ever really have happened, at least today. I reluctantly left the boy
asleep and took a towncar to the airport, bought a new hardcover novel
(allowing myself to take a break, perhaps indefinite, from my
public-domain kindle edition of paid-by-the-word Dickens), and the
in-flight wireless isn't working anyhow, which feels corroborative.
Even daily, I pretty well resist the bleeding over of one last commit.
Getting more done in the same amount of time is therefore requiring
greater efficiency -- always a challenge; more so when I suddenly again
seem to have exciting extracurriculars: The boy above -- sweet and 27
(oh so much older than 25!), attentive and handsome -- is fast
becoming a welcome fixture. Why would I work late instead of going
out to mostly-vegan dinner with him, or simply slowly sipping bourbon
together on my couch?
I have cardamom bitters in my suitcase. Who was I kidding? I'm
really not going to to open this laptop again until Monday.
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