Welcome to the suck
No, I'm not comparing my current situation to a war. (Kudos to anybody who gets the reference though.) That's just the best way to sum up my feelings about it.
My week started early Sunday morning. I had drank an obscene amount the night before and I woke up feeling fine. I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and spent the next hour reading a novel that a friend wrote and self-published. It's really bloody good.
I was at a cottage by Parry Sound and in the depths of despair. Even despite the picturesque surroundings, the presence of good friends and any number of positive things.
Later that day I asked Christa if she'd ever felt like she had to "explode her life." She said she didn't know what I meant. I responded that I didn't really either.
Monday I got to work at about 9 a.m. At about 4 p.m. I got news that my great uncle was dead. We'd been expecting it (cancer), but he'd been lucid up until the day before. Based on all of my grandparents, I'd expected him to still be around for a little while yet. Stupid me.
I took a twenty minute break to clear my head, then went back to work. Mocking up a newspaper with 36 pages of content that needs to stretch to 40 pages because of colour ads with promised placement is not fun. I could rant for a long time about that but it's better that I don't. An excess of froth would fall on the keyboard and break it. Let's leave it at this: I'm pissed.
I finished at 4:30 a.m. I drove home, went to bed and 'woke up' a short time later to Christa and a cup of coffee.
I shouted something after she had gone back out to the kitchen and before I actually woke up.
"It's too bad this machine won't make me breakfast," I said.
The shouting actually woke me up the rest of the way. I remember that the machine I was referring to was a laptop. Don't ask me to explain anything else.
The coffee, the coaxing and the hot shower had me feeling less like a corpse pretty quickly. I was in the office for 9:30 a.m.
I left the office at 7:45 p.m. because I wanted to watch House and I wasn't sure I could stay coherent long enough to keep working.
I came in this morning at 9:30 a.m. and worked all day without a break or lunch. We blew deadline by a few hours, finishing at 7:30 p.m.
The production staff and I ate on the company credit card after finishing (totally legit; there's a small line item in the budget that allows for it every so often), then Ian came back and we watched the first story (in six parts) of a great 1970s BBC sci-fi series called Saphire & Steel. Ian had read great things about it from someone he respects and ordered the complete series from Amazon.
Now, I can't sleep. The funeral is tomorrow. It's in my hometown. I'll make it back just in time for the editorial meeting that kicks off the next production cycle.
I'm trying to figure out whether to grieve or not.
Why is it that we seem to have this idea that bathing ourselves in our pain so that we can then go on with our lives is a good thing? Why not just go on anyway?
I know all the stock answers, or at least I think I do. I even kind of agree with them. But I think they're kind of bullshit at the same time.
My week started early Sunday morning. I had drank an obscene amount the night before and I woke up feeling fine. I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and spent the next hour reading a novel that a friend wrote and self-published. It's really bloody good.
I was at a cottage by Parry Sound and in the depths of despair. Even despite the picturesque surroundings, the presence of good friends and any number of positive things.
Later that day I asked Christa if she'd ever felt like she had to "explode her life." She said she didn't know what I meant. I responded that I didn't really either.
Monday I got to work at about 9 a.m. At about 4 p.m. I got news that my great uncle was dead. We'd been expecting it (cancer), but he'd been lucid up until the day before. Based on all of my grandparents, I'd expected him to still be around for a little while yet. Stupid me.
I took a twenty minute break to clear my head, then went back to work. Mocking up a newspaper with 36 pages of content that needs to stretch to 40 pages because of colour ads with promised placement is not fun. I could rant for a long time about that but it's better that I don't. An excess of froth would fall on the keyboard and break it. Let's leave it at this: I'm pissed.
I finished at 4:30 a.m. I drove home, went to bed and 'woke up' a short time later to Christa and a cup of coffee.
I shouted something after she had gone back out to the kitchen and before I actually woke up.
"It's too bad this machine won't make me breakfast," I said.
The shouting actually woke me up the rest of the way. I remember that the machine I was referring to was a laptop. Don't ask me to explain anything else.
The coffee, the coaxing and the hot shower had me feeling less like a corpse pretty quickly. I was in the office for 9:30 a.m.
I left the office at 7:45 p.m. because I wanted to watch House and I wasn't sure I could stay coherent long enough to keep working.
I came in this morning at 9:30 a.m. and worked all day without a break or lunch. We blew deadline by a few hours, finishing at 7:30 p.m.
The production staff and I ate on the company credit card after finishing (totally legit; there's a small line item in the budget that allows for it every so often), then Ian came back and we watched the first story (in six parts) of a great 1970s BBC sci-fi series called Saphire & Steel. Ian had read great things about it from someone he respects and ordered the complete series from Amazon.
Now, I can't sleep. The funeral is tomorrow. It's in my hometown. I'll make it back just in time for the editorial meeting that kicks off the next production cycle.
I'm trying to figure out whether to grieve or not.
Why is it that we seem to have this idea that bathing ourselves in our pain so that we can then go on with our lives is a good thing? Why not just go on anyway?
I know all the stock answers, or at least I think I do. I even kind of agree with them. But I think they're kind of bullshit at the same time.
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This is one of the pictographs. They were painted by natives on vision quests. 
The young turkey vulture to the right was pointed out to us by the tourguide. My eyes must have been on the fritz because it took me forever to spot him. 
The next day Christa and I rented a canoe for the day and went across the lake to hike along the Bon Echo rock trail. The steps that were there were steep enough, but look at what had been bolted to the rocks until the mid-70s. Christa's posing beside one of the old ladders that had been put in back when the rock was the focal point for an inn on the other side of the lake.
This little bird drove Christa crazy because it hadn't stayed still long enough for her to identify it; I just barely snapped this picture. That coupled with the fact that she'd left her bird book in the car had her talking to herself for a while.
So, I'm testing out an element that I'll be using regularly over at 