Monday, May 12, 2008

Time for some mofo celebration!

Friday was our first, white-trashy, front-yard sit of the yard-sitting season. It was so nice to to see our friends again ... it's as if we hibernate for the winter or something. We're like bear-people who just forage for buried roots and berries during the winter, but when spring comes and the first crop of beer is harvested, everyone comes outside.

Our skin is all pasty and translucent (OK, OK, my skin is always pasty and translucent) and we have to wear sunglasses or the diffused spring light will burn our retinas. This changes as spring becomes summer and we move to within a mile from the sun.

Then everyone (except me) gets all tan and vigorous from doing all the outdoorsy things that we like to do.

I was having a really good time unwinding Friday night until Margaret went to bed.

I made a rookie mistake. I laid down with her.

The next thing I know I hear the sounds of people leaving. It was midnight.

I crashed like a first-year freshman at 10 p.m. Luckily no one wrote on my face with a Sharpie ...

But it makes sense. For the past six weeks, I've been spending every spare — and some non-spare — moments writing curriculum for an online course I will be teaching. Six weeks of sitting in my tiny office-like room on my exercise ball trying to be smart, interesting, thorough and correct.

The stress was starting to get to me. Any time I took time to do things like clip my toenails or sleep, I would stress that it was time lost I could be writing. And then like magic, Saturday morning I finished my last little bit of writing.

Sunday after having a lovely Mother's Day weekend, I uploaded all my files and called it good.

Bill went to the grocery. Margaret went to a friend's house. I sat to watch some Deadliest Catch, but I. could. not. relax.

I was sure that there was something I should have been doing. I was anxious. I kept trying to tell myself it was all OK, but I've trained myself these past six weeks to keep working.

Tonight I give the final in my class then I'm off for the summer. No class to teach, no curriculum to write, just my own stuff to do.

My own stuff? What do people do when they don't have to work? How will I pass my free time?

I guess I'll just have to figure it out through the trial and error method. I do think I'll try by adding a bunch of Sauza Hornitos and see what happens.

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