Day: July 5, 2009

My brain has not been a quiet place of late. I suppose that makes sense because my life has been anything but routine for months. I keep running from one major event to the next with little time to pause and reflect. None of this is news. I’ve been complaining about it for months. But over the last week I’ve finally figured out how much work July will contain and it is less than I’d feared. I’m very glad to have a less stressed month, but I am also very aware that less schedule stress means less money coming in. This leads to a potential financial stress in a couple of months, but I am not going to fret about that now. Pre-orders are still open and we’ve yet to see how books will sell at GenCon.

My house feels empty. My parents were here for almost a week. Before they came I was worried about having guests in the house while we had the stressful week of opening pre-orders. I was worried that my inability to pay attention to my guests would be a source of stress. The opposite turned out to be true. My parents just slid into the household without a ripple. They left me alone when I needed to work and picked up all the household slack that Howard and I were leaving around. But now my parents are gone and they took Gleek with them. She gets to accompany them on a trip through Idaho to visit cousins. This long-promised solo trip is something that Gleek has really been anticipating. I’m glad she gets to go, but the house feels empty. It always feels empty when one of us is missing.

Two days ago I had my first experience with someone knocking on the door looking for work. It was a little scary. I was very aware of the possibility that this was a scam attempt or a fishing expedition to scope out our house for theft. On the other hand I was very aware that this man, his wife, and baby might really be so hard pressed for money that knocking doors was the best option. They did not want charity. They wanted work. I did not let them into the house, but I did give them some work in the garden. He worked hard and when he was done the rest of the yard lived up to the flowers my mother planted. I think it has been years since the exterior of my house was so nicely groomed. I paid him for the work and he left me his name and number so I can call him if I have more work. It is possible that the tale of woe was fabricated, but I received fair work for the money I gave, so I don’t much care. It was a chance for everyone to come out ahead and I think we all did.

Over the last few weeks I have been using my down time to watch The Office on Netflix. The show is sometimes painful to watch because some of the characters are extremely hurtful to other characters. Most of the hurt is unintentional, but that does not make it less painful. For me the most fascinating thing to watch has been the evolution of the series itself. It starts out as a faux documentary about an office full of caricatures who interact with each other in amusing ways. But then there will be these small brilliant moments when a new facet of the caricature is revealed and suddenly instead of a caricature, there is a person I actually care about. The annoying people remain annoying, but somehow it becomes affectionate annoyance. I understand how these people still work together despite all the pain. All that said, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll be watching season five when it comes out. I’ve loved watching these characters grow and the next logical step is for some of them to move on and leave the office. Unfortunately due to the nature of serial entertainment, those characters can’t be allowed to leave. They must stay, trapped. In order to retain character tension, the relationships must be broken up and reformed. If no one is allowed to move on, then the illusion of life which I’ve loved is destroyed. Instead of The Office it becomes more like Sartre’s No Exit. I’m not sure if I want to watch that.

Yesterday I had no work to do. The internet had gone into hibernation for the holiday weekend and I’d already answered all the email. Not only that, but my house and garden were both in beautiful shape due to the intervention of others. I ended up sitting down and playing Fable 2. I think that is the first time I’ve really played a video game in years. It was fun. But I also got up from the game with an awareness of how expensive video games can be for me. They don’t want to just stay in the leisure time. Instead I want to start stealing time which should be spent on other things instead. Also there are already five people in this house negotiating for turns with the game. Adding a sixth doesn’t seem very helpful. It is possible that my character will languish in neglect. But perhaps I’ll find the odd hour here and there when I can putter in a video game universe.

Our Fourth of July celebrations were extremely low-key. Howard and Kiki spent most of the day either groggy or sleeping after their all-night game session. Link, Patch, and I just hung out at home. At dusk we joined some neighbors for fireworks. Our contribution was a box of party poppers left over from New Years. I did not have to plan or organize anything which made it a nearly perfect holiday for me. It was good to have a real break.