I suppose today was day one. Of what, TBD. But after waking at 0300 last night to give Ryan a bottle and get him back to sleep, I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't shake a feeling that my old self from years ago would take a look at me and yell "unacceptable!" Like Genghis Khan in the Hitchhiker's Guide, only somewhat less temporally removed. I mean, wow, what a string of worthless jobs, stacked one after the other. To say the least, at least as far as job satisfaction goes, the last ten years have been suboptimal. But was it really the job? No. Jobs don't matter. It was more of a feeling, pressure building up over a while now. Little incidents of people being idiots on the road were starting to make me see red. Those hurried little ants, always racing to go nowhere. Completely oblivious to the futility of their own efforts. Most of them with an IQ of a carrot.
I've always hated people. Individuals are OK, even great. There's a small number of individuals that I can spend all the time in the world with and be happy. But when I'm forced to interact with a number of people at once, I would prefer to just disappear into the wall paper. I don't even want to be a fly on the wall. I don't care much what they have to say.
My focus tolerance is very low. Unless it's two people I really like, I start to fade out even in groups of three including me. I suppose it's no wonder that I hate living in the suburbs of DC, crammed in with all these other people, all of them debt slaves chasing shit we don't need. Including me. "Unacceptable!" yells the old me, and I start to listen…..
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks. I have no answer. "Why are you wasting your life on this stupid shit?" Still, no answer. He's not in the mood to take no for an answer tonight, so the badgering continues for a while, until I finally drift off to sleep….
I wake up in the morning, all motivation to go to work some distant memory. I lay in bed while the house is getting started, Katy and the parents welcoming Ryan to a new day. At long last, drag myself into Ryan's room where Katy is changing him and announce that last night I died, and was born again…..resurrected. To her inquisitive look I explain that I need to find something to do that doesn't make me feel like a piece of shit, or I need to quit and take care of Ryan full time. The latter would negate my need to interact with those parts of humanity I detest. After all, Amazon even delivers groceries now.
To my surprise, Katy says "OK, well see what you can find and then we can have a talk." At that moment Mom comes around and says that it's 60 degrees outside. I say I'm going for a run. It's 0630.
The iPod shuffle plays "Adam's Song" to start off. How fitting. About a quarter mile in comes the crescendo with "Tomorrow holds such better days, days when I can still feel alive, when I can't wait to get outside….."
Thanks to my long hiatus, I feel a bit winded but good. The shuffle seems to know my mood, and makes some great random selections. I turn to University to Sligo and make it to University fairly easily, then head back towards Dennis. On the way, "One Last Thing" by Angels and Airwaves comes on. The first gate is open, and I'm flying back to Dennis. Disregard the turn back home. Work can wait. "Bad Blood" by Bastille comes on. Oh yeah, "All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?" A good medium pace song to not burn so bright as to burn out. Continue on, and on to the Brunett mile long hill up to the house from Sligo. As I start up it, "Gone" by U2. Perfect. A half mile out, Shinedown comes on - "Have you ever been caught in a sea of despair and the moment of truth is the day you say I'm not scared…."
At the end, I'm beat but overall, a much better use of my time than work. Take my time showering and getting ready for work, and decide to motorcycle to work. Take a new way through windy Seminary Road through Kensington, and it's now my standard route. Fun to drive and no traffic. Great weather.
Get to work and I've missed a meeting with my supervisor. Who cares.
There's a message from upper upper management on my phone. Fun fact, 3-3-7 is the code to skip to the end and delete.
There's a meeting with a Senator and his staff next week. Whooptie fucking doo.
Decide to actually do some work on the lower priority, but more interesting project to which I am assigned. Feels good.
Wrap up, and head out. On the way home, the motorcycle dies on Beach Drive and I pull aside. Display is dead. Call Honda, and they say check the battery leads. Open up the maintenance cover, and sure enough, there hangs the positive lead. The screw is loose, and won't re-thread. Try for a while, but ultimately redneck it and use the maintenance cover screw to dig into the loose rubber material that holds the screw in position on the battery. Drive it in at an angle to get some traction on the screw. It works as a temporary fix to get me home. Reminds me of the trip out west and troubleshooting that old Suburban. On approach to home, reflect that I should probably have been a mechanic.
Overall a good day. Certainly better than portended at 0300. We'll see what tomorrow holds…..
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