Last night, I logged into WoW for the first time in a month or so. I was in game for about 3 minutes, and we lost power in the house for ~10 minutes.
So I logged back in, and the second I got back in game, we lost power for 2 hours.
Should I take that as some sort of sign?
I know I’m not going to log in during a blizzard again, that’s for sure!
It’s Wednesday again, and you all know what that means!
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Nothing.
I’m on autopilot today. Work has been just worky for the last couple weeks, no excitement, no fun, just...work. I’m sure it will continue this way for the next 3 years.
I’m thankful that I’m employed, having had a few friends recently, and currently, get hit with the economy in the face.
Although, if I just stop paying my bills...then I can stop working. Right? I’ve said it before, maybe someday I’ll mean it. I’ll be that hermit, in a hand hewed cabin in the woods, squatting on some forester companies land.
Sound nice, doesn’t it?
A touch on the hand. A soft scent. A slight upturn of the lips. Then she was gone.
He didn’t watch her walk away. He knew there was nothing there. Not even a hope of anything.
He couldn’t feel the touch. Once past the side of his face, he couldn’t see her.
Why did he try to live a normal life?
The waitress was like the rest, pleasant, but reserved. There was no person that mocked, or teased. No hushed whispers behind his back, at least none that he could hear.
His life was the chair he lived in. Quiet, responding to slight movements of his mouth. This was all the life he’d had since waking up in that hospital bed.
Since falling asleep in the cold.
The doctors that attended him then, and in the months that followed counseled him to not dwell on what he’d lost, but to seize what remained, and make a new life for himself. The chair, the months of therapy, both physical and mental only drove home the point in his own mind. No matter what life he made, it was only a fraction of what he had lost.
The accident, the momentary lapse had robbed him of his own life. All he had now was this shell, this pitiful existence. He wasn’t poor, fiscally. He’d done well for himself in the dot com boom, and doubly well in the housing boom. Both bubbles, he’d ridden early, and gotten out at the crest. Unnaturally lucky, his friends had said. His friends. Not friends, acquaintances. Business partners. One of them had increased his wealth exponentially after the accident, suing anyone that could have possibly been involved. The car manufacturer, the highway department, the maker of the guard rail, and they’d all paid.
It didn’t matter to him though. All the money in the world, and he sat at this table, in this dive. Unable to eat anything by himself, unless it fit in a straw.
All this dwelling, he didn’t notice someone take the seat across from him.
“Mr. Tarry. I have a proposition for you.”
A wooden spoon.
A leather belt.
A hand.
A metal spoon.
A length of clothesline.
A rubber spatula.
A plastic spatula.
A piece of matchbox track.
In other words, listen to your parents.
The rain turns from heavy to deadly. What was a heavy sheet of rain is now thousand of jagged ice spears.
He knows that he should slow, he doesn’t care.
The tires are good, he’s gone this way thousands of times. He’ll be over the pass soon, in 15 minutes there won’t be any more curves.
Up the mountain he goes, steady on the gas around the curves and switch backs. No sudden action, no jerky steering, no touching of his brakes.
He’s confident, stable, capable. Yet down comes the ice, covering the tarmac in a deadly beautiful shine.
The temperature drops further. The moisture that was already on the road hardens. It’s invisible in the dusk. The only thing that shows that the road might not be safe is the glint of his headlights.
Through the pass now, on his way down. Danger averted. Eyes to the side slightly to see down into the valley.
One second too long.
The curve he’d been following to the left keeps going left. The tires loose all connection with the road, now covered thickly in ice. The car goes right.
The guardrail, so sturdy looking, shears off instantly, slightly slowing the car, jarring the man who had just been driving. Now he was merely a rider, no control, nothing he can do.
The airbag goes off, the car already tilting down the incline. Whiteness, powder, the smell of plastic long package, instantly deployed with a gas charge.
He feels the drop.
He knows the car is falling.
He can’t hear anything but the lack of a heart beat.
The car hits a tree, the seat belt clicks loose. It never worked right, he never really cared.
He cares now.
Another tree, he feels the car spinning now. Rotating, rear over the front.
He’s floating, the car spins, he remains in the same position.
Then the car is past its apogee, and he’s against the back window.
Then he and the window aren’t with the car.
Sight returns, murky, red. Stuck against the back window, miraculously whole. He watches the car careen off yet another tree, spinning away from him.
The ground comes quickly, but not as hard as he thought it would.
He slides with the window, stills somehow whole.
A tree halts his progress.
The window doesn’t make it through this time.
There is no pain. There is no feeling.
He hears his heartbeat again.
His eyes close, there’s only darkness.
For the last 3 months, I’ve been on high blood pressure medication. My BP is in the super elevated range.
The medication didn’t work. In fact, my diastolic was around 20 points higher than 3 months ago.
I can probably attribute that to the caffeine and complete lack of sleep I had the night before the appointment.
The doctor prescribed a new medication.
There’s the rub. I don’t want to be on pills for the rest of my life. I don’t care if they’re innocuous little water pills that make me have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes, or giant horse pills to stave off whatever infection the doctor thinks I might possibly maybe run the risk of hearing about at some point.
However, I think it might be my job getting to me.
Granted, my dietary choices haven’t been stellar for the past 21 months or so, and that can’t help. But I really think that the stress of the job may actually be getting to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love working with some of the things I do now. I just don’t know if I’m built to handle the responsibilities of the position. Sure, I’m on a team, and I’m no longer on call more than once every 10 weeks. However, now every project is the most important thing since sliced bread. Every change is scrutinized, and watch out if a mistake is made. Our customers are some of the most demanding blood suckers in existence. Unfortunately, that rubs off in our day to day, so that my coworkers are all demanding. Nothing can wait, everything has to be now.
The chances at doing things right are few, and far between. Usually, we don’t even have the chance to make the proper plans before an implementation is already underway.
That kind of activity bothers me to the core. Add in the usual mix of lazy coworkers, overzealous know it all coworkers, and upper management that’s just out of touch, and I’m burnt out.
No, I’m more than burnt out.
I think it’s adversely affecting my health.
Or maybe it’s just genetics. I am only 3 years younger than my dad was when he had his first angina.
Well, we’ve been pulling things from the garden, and I’d consider our first one a pretty big success.
We had peas, green beans, corn, tomatoes, butternut squash, beets, pumpkins, scallions, lettuce, spinach. All matter of leafy things.
Some turned out well. Some were stunted, but still tasted just fine.
However, this I think is a perfect example of how something can be deformed, and amazing, all at the same time.
Yes, that’s a carrot.
Yes, those are DW’s hands.
Yes, that’s the doorway to our basement.
Sliced carrots anyone?
His frosty breath covered the glass in crystalline splendor. Eyes, too cold to close, frozen open, staring at the deadly beauty that was creeping its way inside.
“Is this the end?” he wondered.
His pulse was leaden. He could feel his blood thickening. Long ago the feeling had already left his hands, his feet, his arms, his legs. His thoughts heavy with his own demise.
Then he felt…
What was it?
A feeling..
Feeling had left him hours ago, after his leg had snapped, after he had landed, after the glass around him had shattered.
But he felt.
The feeling had no point of origin, it simply was. Warm.
Slacking isn’t a task, it’s the opposite. If you’re going to slack, you have to be completely prepared to not accomplish anything reasonable or worthwhile.
What’s reasonable or worthwhile? - You ask
Well, I can’t answer that for you. I can answer that for me, and possibly a few people that are very close to me. You, however, have to answer it for you.
In order to slack, whenever something comes up that needs to be done, don’t do it.
That’s all. QED.