random thoughts – Day 1,646 – (Thursday) – gray with drizzle and delays

It was gray and chilly. Drizzly. I did a schedule switch and worked in-office today which had everything feeling a bit off kilter. The switch was so I could be to remote on Friday and be on the correct side of the river at 5:00 and spare myself a half hour headache crossing the river to get to an evening commitment out of town.

Gray day with drizzle.

There was nothing catastrophic about the day at the office, but every thing I touched seemed to skid a little sideways. Most of it involved the printer, and after fighting with it on two or three projects I was ready to reenact the scene from Office Space when the guys take the office printer into a field and bash it to bits. Instead, I did the less satisfying but more civilized and professional activity of submitting a service ticket to our Help Desk. 

The simple task of printing and trimming 50 copies of the invitation was derailed by not being able to print more than one of the small pages on a sheet of paper. It was tried every which way and ate up much more time than it deserved before I said “Eff it” and moved on to screw something else up.

There were ads I received from an outside designer that needed to be moved along for review. The problem was, each PDF for the foreign language ads contained extra versions of the ad in English that needed to be stripped out. It’s an annoying and time-consuming step that was had been set aside while a series of other brush fires was extinguished. Days turned into weeks before I knew it and suddenly, the firm was asking if they could close the project file. That lit the fire under this project again and the ad files were finally stripped out so I could send the ads for Spanish and Khmer reviews. At least that got done.

The entire day went like this. My sinuses had been sniffly most of the day. The series of annoyances, at least one or two of which were the result of my own doing, was tiring. I needed a nap.

I ended up staying a bit late at the office, and when I was about ready to leave, it began to rain. Before leaving the office, I had told my colleague that after the irritating day, I didn’t even feel like going to ballet, which I had looked forward to for a week.

The traffic outside the office was heavy. I was nearly hit by a red Honda HR-V while crossing Merrimack Street in a crosswalk. The magic lines seem to be invisible to many drivers. Or maybe, the more accurate conclusion after nearly being run over twice in as many days is that I’m the thing that has become invisible.

It took 35 minutes to get home in heavy traffic with light rain, which also seemed to be accompanied by a drastically lowered driver IQ. I finally arrived home at 6:00, just as the rain had gotten heavier.

The tardy arrival in an annoyed state allowed 30 minutes to change from work pants and top to leggings for ballet class, fill the water bottle, grab the ballet footwear, and get back into the car. The drive to class took around 45 minutes in dry weather and a not excessive traffic volume the past three weeks. The volume at 6:00 felt extra heavy, which would double the already crazy amount of time it takes to get out of Lowell. I changed into sweats, nuked the last of the tortellini with tomato sauce and cheese, parked my arse on the couch, draped a blanket over my lap, and did not go to class.

Was I recharging? Decompressing? Avoiding? Engaging in calming self-care? Maybe, I don’t know. From where I sat, I was half-reading the subtitles on a Korean drama while scrolling through emails and social media, whatever that qualifies as. When the K-drama ended, the next show I dove into was Nobody Want This with Kristen Bell playing a self-absorbed sex-podcaster who falls for a rabbi. So far, it’s pretty good.