february, 2013

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.


all this Šnori heikkinen, February 2013

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