In-Between Days

It’s hot here. I mean hot, like sear your everloving socks off, hot. Just a few weeks ago, I was rambling on and on about how not-hot it was, and how people in the Northeast, really, had it MUCH worse than we did, because it’s air-conditioned everywhere here, and it’s soooo manageable! So manageable!

Except, I lied. Honest to God, the heat could melt the hotpants off of a Las Vegas hooker. Stepping outside is like wandering through a thick veil of slightly sour pudding that clings to your skin in every crevice imaginable. Within 2.5 seconds of stepping outside, my upper lip has a sheen to it that resembles a salty mustache after kissing a whale. It’s a foul, foul world out there, and the beaches offer no respite, for the water is about as refreshing as dipping your toes into a toilet of hot piss.

Oh, and did I mention there are sharks that make swimming extremely unappealing (unless you’re Christine)? There are sharks. Everywhere. I do not lie. I’ve become friendly with an environmental writer down here, and he’s reported – multiple times – personally seeing 7 foot bull sharks and hammerheads close to shore WHERE I SWIM. Recently, he drawled in his loveable Tennessee accent, “I wouldn’t go swimmin’ with no silver jewelry, if I were you, darlin’. You don’t want to resemble a mackeral! I’ve seen it happen!”

So yeah. I’ve been spending a lot of time inside.

It’s weird, these in-between days where nothing is wrong, but nothing is particularly exciting, either. I’m not dreading anything, but I’m not really looking forward to anything. The mornings, workdays and mealtimes sort of all blend together into a bland melange of days indistinguishable from one another on the calendar. It makes me think of the days – much headier days – when things were exciting, because I was always working on something important, always working on another merger or acquisition or earnings announcement, always killing myself to write another speech. For the first time in a long time, I can kind of look back fondly on those days. Well, if not fondly, at least not with a vitriolic rage that makes me want to kill people who work in accounting at every company across this wild nation.

I recall a time a little over a year ago, sitting on a gigantic, major corporate financial announcement and accompanying documents, including a speech that the CEO was going to read live in about 10 minutes. No one – no one – in the entire company had read those documents but me, and yet they were about to go out across the entire world to thousands of investors in 15 minutes. The whole time, I was thinking, “If these are wrong – if there is a fucking TYPO in these numbers – then I’m going to jail. J-A-I-L,” and for the first time ever, I wasn’t really being dramatic. I was pretty sure that it was absolutely true, and I would have been next to Ken Lay in orange scrubs screaming, “ATTICA! ATTICA!” I then cried and threw up, but when it was over, I rejoiced! I was right! Hot damn, I had done it! The sense of accomplishment was so overwhelming, I cried again. (For the record, all of this crying and puking was happening behind closed doors.)

Adam is living some of those days right now, and while I don’t envy him the ass-clenching stress, I know I’m going to be jealous of his sense of accomplishment when this is all over, and I never thought I’d think that. It’s not that I don’t love what I do – sweet Jesus alive, I do – but for the first time in my life, I’m completely and totally competent at it, and it is completely without excitement, and mostly without challenge. I feel like a giant turd complaining about this: I have a great job. I’m always home in time for dinner, and hell, if I go to work early in the morning, I can be finished by 4 p.m. and walk away without guilt. But there’s something to be said for challenging yourself beyond your comfort zone, and I haven’t done that in a very long time. I’m writing my book, yes, but not nearly as much as I should be. I’m writing more professionally than I ever have before, and it’s immensely satisfying. But christ, I can’t help but think “more, more, more, you lazy ass!”

I don’t know if it’s the curse of the Type A, or just the way things are. Honestly. The drive to ACCOMPLISH ACCOMPLISH ACCOMPLISH supercedes relaxation to the point of distraction. I hate sitting quiet, and I’m afraid that when these days are over – when I’m chasing a toddler around the house and I would give my right patella for just a moment to myself, a moment to write, a moment to accomplish more – I will regret not making more of them.

Or will I regret not just chilling right the hell out, exercising and watching the world go by? Gak, I wish I knew the answer.

Although honestly, if the world continues to look like this, I will stop watching. Doesn’t it look like I’m driving straight into the ninth level of hell?

*The Cure

14 comments August 28th, 2006