summer panic

I recently interviewed for a job and got a few rounds in before they said, "No thanks" Which was fine because, even if offered it, no way I could take it. Would be a pay cut what with upending my whole schedule and childcare. 

This then made me realize I'm stuck in my current gig for what will effectively be forever. Coupled with the start of the summer time busy season and this whole long weekend has just been one of gnawing dread. 

I'll flutter with housework doing four giant loads of laundry and then folding it in a late night marathon session. Or pickup the endless sticks the basswood tree spits out in the back yard. No dirty dish sits for too long. All this so I can work at work and be content that "at least the house work is done!"

Or I'll go in early to the office or an a weekend to knock out some of the endless building stuff it takes to transition. Peel stickers off the floor and scour away the chiaroscuro halo from the floor with Goo Gone. Move boxes from one office to another. Vacuum the spot the custodian ignored. All so when the work week begins I be prepared for the middle management curveball. We need this budget re done. Fuck around in all these spreadsheets. Fix my phone, my computer, my anything.

Or I'll day dream hard. Imaginary conversations with everyone from high school teachers to my kid's dentist about how this is how it will be. I'll narrate being a long haul trucker (when I'm really just driving to fix to someone's phone) and debate the best truck stop boiled peanuts in rhe northern Florida panhandle. Daydream adventures with everyday people. These sometimes slip into blunter fantasies. If you've read the blog then, trademark, the hottest thing on earth is women with swords and I spin up scenarios for people right out of the pulp pages. This is often people from work who I hype into scintillating heroes capable of hacking a main frame while being shot at, looking great in the whole process by the way, even though we all know each other as flawed.

I'll read or play video games. Go for silly little walks but the only thing that effectively blunts that summer panic are the above.  I may not make it another ten years.