Noted.

April 8, 2009 - 6:50pm -- swingbug

I found the sweater. Pants are still AWOL. On the other hand, I have two friends who have lost car bumpers this week, so it could be worse.

Also, I found a new ball of yarn for my stash. It’s funny, but don’t habitual drug users employ the word “stash” as well?

Maybe it’s not that funny.

I have a mammoth work project looming over me with big, drippy fangs. I’m missing an office environment in a big way. I know I’m lucky to be able to work at home and be here for my kid. I know that. I tell myself over and over again in those moments when my kid is screaming, the phone is ringing off the hook, and I’m crumpled in a fetal position around my laptop in the corner under a stack of draft maps with my fingers plugged in my ears.

I want a pencil cup and water cooler to visit and coworkers with which to share significant glances when whatever boss I have is being entirely unreasonable. I’d like printer problems to troubleshoot. God help me, I actually miss that.

Shoot, these days I’m lucky to have work coming in at all, right? I’m lucky to have a family to love, a skein of yarn to cast on, and a ballet class to wind up my evening with.

Noted. Really. I get it. I’m more fortunate than most.

I think I’m just well-suited to an office environment. I did well in public school and slid into the office world easy as pie. I’m sufficient institutionalized.

Even now, I never get up and go to my computer in my pajamas. I always get dressed in something clean that more or less matches, brush my teeth, have some breakfast, and make my tea before I perch at my desk. My work notes and my grocery lists go in entirely different notebooks. I take my lunch at noon everyday, one way or the other. I just don’t have any co-workers to shoot rubber bands at or walk to the coffee shop with. (You out there, Nat? Boy, do I miss you...)

It gets lonely.

The commute is short. That’s something. And most my meetings are teleconferences, so I can knit all the while and no one knows the difference. My boss is me and I’d like to think that I’m fairly reasonable, most the time. Scatter-brained and easily frustrated these days, but at least I can use the word “georeference” properly in a sentence, meet my deadlines, and get the billing out on time.

That’s not nothing. Not sure what it is, but it’s not nothing.

Noted.

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