Thinking Week
“Are you okay? You seem a little off this morning.” Howard said to me from across the kitchen counter. At first I tried to answer that I was just tired. It is true that I’m tired, but more is going on than that. I’ve been off for most of the week. Some of it is due to the fact that I had a necessary conversation with a friend. It is the sort of conversation which is important to have so that everyone stays friends. I’m glad my friend saw the need. I’m still soul searching and thinking as a result. Unfortunately soul searching tends to scare the demons of self-doubt out of the corners where they’ve been hiding. But I already wrote a post about that, and the noise has mostly settled anyway, so it wasn’t really what Howard was seeing this morning. (Also I probably need to write an entirely different post about how a loving personal critique from a friend can save hundreds of future conversations not with just that friend, but with others as well. I’m pretty sure that is going to be the outcome here and it’s worth wading through a cloud of demons.)
We’re in the final week of school, which means we have a routine that is only sort-of normal. Instead of having a pattern so familiar I can almost ignore it, I have to look at each day and remember its special parameters. This day is the dance festival, that day is the drama showcase, Link comes home early all week, Gleek and Patch have partial days on Friday. None of it is a surprise. The patterns are familiar from prior years, but I have to think about them.
The shipment of Longshoreman of the Apocalypse arrived yesterday. That means life has switched over into high-gear shipping mode. After nine Schlock books, two picture books, two XDM books, and thirty thousand coins, shipping is familiar. Yet for the past several years I’ve had my friend Janci as an auxiliary brain during shipping season. This year Janci was booked solid and Kiki needs college money, so Kiki has taken on the role of auxiliary brain. Kiki is doing a fine job, but the role is new to her. As with the final week of school, the patterns are familiar, but I’m having to think through all of them.
Add physical fatigue because boxes of books are heavy and some sleep deprivation because I haven’t been getting to bed on time. Yup Howard, I was a little off. There was a lot of thinking to be done this week. The good news is that most of the thinking is complete. All that remains is to do the things.