Greetings from scenic,

prettyboytellem.com

Category: Diary
Tags: Time Work

Steady as He Goes

I've gotten sick recently. It started out as a little cough and gradually it worked its way into my head over the past few days, widening into a system-wide panic of coughing and fever and a headache to top it off. Not fun, especially given this is my first week of work at my Summer job.

Last weekend was absolutely magical; my boyfriend flew out to see me (all the way from North Carolina!) and we toured the city for 3 days. It was a blushy-crushy good-time and the best weekend of my life. But it came to an end all too soon and there I stood in the middle of the crowd in a full-embrace sobbing my eyes out. There's hardly a time I visit the airport that I'm not a little tearful. I rode the yellow-line Antioch all the way back to Downtown, then transferred to the red-line Richmond train back to Berkeley; the foggy blue-gold sky of the fading afternoon light kept me company as I rode back to my home here.

Work is pleasant; I shouldn't talk much about it (because I'm not sure what I should and shouldn't say) but it's basically an IT position, though only for the Summer. Wiping computers, troubleshooting system problems, and writing out specs. are pretty common for my job: the government has a lot of electronics and that's largely what allows a team to take on someone like me.

I ride the red-line San-Francisco train in from Berkeley every morning at 7:25 so I can be at the office by 8:00 sharp. Not that it matters (i.e. nobody is there when I clock in because they all work later) but I like to work a solid 8~5 with time for a solid lunch and a few breaks. My breakfast is usually rapidly improvised, sometimes pancakes or sometimes french-toast or sometimes an egg-sandwich; it's important to eat breakfast so I don't starve before lunch, which is always second-helpings of my dinner the night before. Needless to say, I have to get up a little early to do all this and walk to the train station before that last one departs.

That demands I go to bed early, somewhere between 10 and 11. And coming home from work at 5, talking to my boyfriend while I do the groceries and walk back and then cooking puts me back to 8 until I've got supper and the next day's lunch prepared, then running pushes me back to 9 and... oh my! Time to sleep. There's no part of this day-to-day I'd like to cut out (e.g. cooking at home is enjoyable, therapeutic even, and running is non-negotiable) but I somehow feel cheated of my time to relax.

True, there are moments on the train where I can look out the window overlooking Oakland and breathe deep of life, or sometimes at work I take a stroll by the windows overlooking the neo-classical city hall. But it's as if these moments are as if I'm coming to the surface of the water for a moment and only to be plunged soon back underwater.

The distance is killing me. But time is the only prescription.

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