Skip to main content

Salvation through work

I've not been able to work very much in the last few months. I've been distracted by the roller coaster ride I've been on. One day I will be able to figure out a way to process that, but today, I finally had all of the elements in place to begin that journey.

Sudden bouts of sadness shut me down cold. Even though I might not feel sad, I suddenly become incredibly indecisive. I can't get my mind off of the recent past and the wormhole of previous negative experiences threatens to spaghettify me back to a time of crisis.

Today, however, I went to work. For the first time in ages, I put two computers together and began to work on a parallel track on two separate projects. I broke mental logjams that were preventing me from moving forward, in part because I scheduled today as time to work.

I'm not one for schedules. There are too many of them. I like to try to keep things in my head more, and it tends to work. The various schedules I have on Google calendar are all jumbled together. I have my personal calendar. My waiting and catering calendar. My work calendars. Calendars for when I see my kids. It all jumbles together slowing down my ability to get any of itdone.

The roller coaster has also been a jumble of confusing thoughts and terrible emotional pitfalls. For the past two months, I've kept to the straight path by exercising. That's been incredible, and it will continue. I have lost over thirty pounds since November. I look completely different.

But I haven't felt different. In fact, I've been concerned that I've not been able to work properly. Projects have taken way too long to finish. I've lost the speed that I used to have. I've not been exercising my ability to be sharp and nimble as I produce audio.

Today, though, I finished a project that was long overdue. I can't wait to write about it.

I also fixed the Charlottesville Podcasting Network today. I had neglected to renew the domain, and it took about 12 hours to get resolved fully. I didn't find out about until noon, when I got home from the gym. I went into a tailspin of sorts, because I wasn't pleased that the site was down on the day when we post WNRN's Sunday Morning Wake-Up Call.

(LISTEN: John Halliday and Krista Ferrell on the Big-Read)

Now I'm tweaking the theme a little, and listening to some old recordings from the past. A friend of mine has put an alarming number of songs on YouTube, but I don't dare link.

So, I think I'll be okay if I can just get my work ethic back. But, I'm also cutting myself some slack.







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Running as sense-making

It's going to be a stressful day. I got up at 7:00 AM to start work and I could sit here in front of my computer for the next 10 days and still not get it all done. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but I'm prone to that awful habit when I'm under stress. I'm under stress at the moment as I try to balance work, my other work, and my need to run six miles or so every other day. In 14 minutes my feet will hit the street and I'll be off. No phone. No e-mail. Just me and my feet. I'm even going to skip the iPod today so I can hear the birds, and so I can concentrate on my surroundings. I don't know where I'm going to go. I know I'll leave the condo and will turn left up Commonwealth Drive. From there? I don't know for sure, but I can guarantee you the day will become a lot less stressful.

Video builds the radio guy

I'm watching the tail end of the debut of Max Headroom, one of those shows from the late 80's that seemed so amazingly different, refreshing. The premiere revolves around an advertising conspiracy that's killing people. When I was a kid, this seemed so futuristic and somehow important. A television show was critiquing television practices. Now, the irony comes in because I'm watching this show on Joost , which is a new service created by the makers of Skype and KaZaa. There's advertising, of course, but it seems so seamless, you hardly notice it. A friend of mine sent me an invite today, and there's a ton of content here that I can watch legally, as often as I want. And, the picture is pretty darned good, full-screen. Everything is changing, and changing fast. Steve Safran of Lost Remote was recently a guest on Coy Barefoot's show and continued preaching the gospel of convergence, and Joost is so far the best (legal) implementation I've seen. It lacks

The Fire at Court Square Tavern

My tavern is closed indefinitely tonight, after a fire that broke out early this morning. I had just dropped off my daughter at day care, and heard a bulletin on 1400 AM , one of our two sports-talk stations. I didn't even know they did local news, but at least on this occasion, they did. All I heard was "evacuation at Court Square" and I immediately thought I should drive over there. The big building at 500 Court Square was still standing, so that gave me a bit of hope. People were moving around Market Street, and seemed happy. Or at least, not burned. Then I turned up 5th Street, and saw one of the front windows, covered with a tarp, and a huge pile of debris on the sidewalk. Oh crap, I thought. I've worked at the Tavern since August of 2004, and have gone through many ups and downs while there. I started as a server, and became a manager and began bartending that December. It was the first place I was able to work since my separation from my first wife. Working the