6:20: Last night my plan for this morning had been to get up early-ish, log into work from home around 6:30, work for about an hour, then go for a 2K run once it’s light enough. Be home and showered in front of my computer again at the start of the core time – 8:30, which is when I’m definitely supposed to be “at work”.
I’ve been awake since 3:45. There is no way I’m dragging this tired body with this tired mind out for a run this morning. Am I ready to start work early as planned anyway? Not so sure yet. I have no clear idea what’s keeping me up at the moment. A bit of stress at work maybe. Nothing bad, just lots to do and lots to be in charge of, which is still something I’m not experienced in. You as reader can’t follow my train of thought here so I need to point out that my first impulse in that last sentence had been to type “something I’m not good at”. I caught myself just in time and amended it. Perspective and how to talk about oneself and all that. Progress. It still baffles me a bit, but in a good way.
Other things that weigh down my mind and rob me of sleep might be what’s going on “out there”. In the world. Other nations. Nature catastrophes. Armed conflicts. Fascism on the rise. I do have thoughts and opinions on some of that. Conflicted thoughts and opinions in some cases. Is it a human impulse to pick a side? Probably, as it makes sense in a evolutionary kind of way. Tribes and support and the human need for connection with others. But sometimes the situation feels so complex and intricate, that there isn’t just “one side”. It’s not all black and white. And thus I sometimes have a difficult time to formulate and share an opinion on all these issues. I’m back to “we all contain multitudes”, I guess. Expect one thing: Fuck Nazis! No discussion about that.
It doesn’t help my troubled state of mind that these days I often tend to tune out of some news coverage and then feel guilty about that as well. I still haven’t found the right ratio of
- being the politically interested and engaged (global) citizen that I want to be or have been at times before
- working through some of the personal issues I still feel I need to work on
- granting my mind some rest from all of this to just recharge (and not just mindlessly distracting myself from the first two
19:00: As knackered as I had been this morning I had hoped for a sort of relaxed day working from home. In a way it was, with just minimal disruption from phone calls or such. The main task today was to create a PowerPoint presentation for a meeting tomorrow. It’s not really complicated, just a bit tedious. Copy & paste, adjust format. Rinse & repeat. Interrupted by 90 minute phone call with a coworker to brainstorm on one of their projects in the morning. And another almost 3 hours video call with my supervisor in the afternoon. We have different ways to go about certain tasks and that’s something I still haven’t quite gotten used to. It doesn’t drive me as bonkers as it did. Because in the end there is no right or wrong way to do this stuff, it’s just different and I’m glad I managed to be more zen about it all.
Funny thing with my supervisor, who’s almost a decade younger and I’d thus for some reason expected them to be more more or at least as experienced as me with formatting tables in Microsoft Word. But I taught them two tricks today. Tricks I thought were common knowledge, at least I’m so used to doing it this way. But they were surprised that it worked so easily. So that was fun. For me anyway.
With all the phone and video calls and slaving over PowerPoint I didn’t eat or drink as regularly as I should have.
Too much coffee, not enough regular fluids. That might explain the weird “what day of the week is it?” feeling I’m experiencing right now.
A little more than two weeks from now I’ll embark on my longest-distance road trip to see Frank Turner play a show. In Copenhagen, Denmark. About 800 km, 8.5 hours of driving time (according to Google Maps). I am nuts! Some friends in the US might laugh about me calling this long-distance. And to be fair, I’m only doing 640 km (6.30 driving time) on the way up as I’ll detour via Billund. LEGO! Land and House and everything. This will be fun. It will be another 3 hours (250 km) from Billund to Copenhagen on the weekend then. And a long drive home. Distance wise it would be a bit shorter with the ferry, but it would cost more and I’d have to be on time for the ferry. I’m a person who’s always way too early for things like ferries (airplanes etc.) so it wouldn’t be quicker all in all. I say that now…
