And on the 7th day, he wrote entirely about himself, because his ego has grown out of control. What an asshole.

I have no idea why I thought this would be an interesting topic. My life is interesting, but not at the day-to-day level. This might be a good cap on the theme of the last few days, where I’ve gone deep into what it’s like to be an author. Or it might be an egotistical exercise that none of us will enjoy. Who can say?

Today is Saturday, and not the greatest example or what my days are typically like. I’m attending a Shut Up & Write marathon. When it’s done, I may go tinker with my mail server to make sure emails are actually going out. I’m not convinced they are.

Instead of describing today, I will describe a more typical day.

It’s Monday morning. The alarm is going off on my phone at 7AM. I either stayed up way too late the night before, or I slept poorly. I always sleep poorly. I can’t blame it on the bed anymore. There’s something wrong with me, and though I have authorization from my insurance company to have a sleep study performed, I still haven’t made the call to see it through. I fumble with my phone to hit the snooze. I don’t have to start my work day until 8AM, and I’m not going into the office today. I can sleep a few more minutes.

I’m up. It’s dangerously close to the time I should be in front of my computer, working. My eyes aren’t working right. There’s gunk in them, and there’s crud in my lungs. When I talk, I sound like a smoker. I believe this is because we slept with the fan running all night again, but without the fan, Melissa roasts. The morning crud will pass, and my eyes will focus better in a few minutes. Just need to hack and cough a bit, and then I’ll be fine.

I’m in my office. It used to be my daughter’s room, and I fixed it up after she moved out. It’s now the room in the house that is most inviting to me. I try to make it inviting to others, too, but it’s small. I hit the KVM switch to turn back to the work laptop. I feel like I’m running late, now.

The work is there waiting for me, and it is impatient. I have to start using my brain immediately. There are problems only I can solve, which is strange, because I’ve spent the last 3 or 4 years teaching other people how to do what I do, but it doesn’t stick. It’s not because I’m a bad teacher, or they’re bad students. I think it’s a combination of factors. First, I have a long and detailed memory. Second, I have a higher-than-usual attention to detail, Third, my loyalty to Trimark is unmatched, and I see the problems from a different perspective than other people. I will do whatever it takes to make Trimark successful. Finally, it’s much, much easier to leave some of the problems for me to fix, and the shortest route to a resolution is the one most taken.

Not all of my work is reactive. It seems like everything is on fire, all the time, but that’s not true. I have some opportunities to work on new things, but we’re not currently focused on the things I need to design. We’re focused on something else, and we’re constantly going a route that I disagree with. But I keep it to myself, because… well, I might be wrong. I’m rarely wrong about these sorts of things, but if I’m right, we can still recover. If I’m wrong, it’s better that I remain silent and not make myself a disruption to the team.

I have a team, by the way. I’ve been a manager for a little while now, and there are aspects about the job that I really like. I like looking out for my people, giving them what they need in order to succeed. This sounds strange, but I used to run raids when I was playing World of Warcraft, and my favorite part of running those raids was seeing a bunch of different people come together and coordinate. I felt like a conductor, and the people in my raid were an orchestra, making something greater than the some of its parts. I get the same sort of feeling when managing. I suspect I might be a very good manager, but it’s hard for me to tell.

Melissa has most likely brought me something to eat, because I forgot to feed myself. I am very thankful. I hope she knows how thankful I am. She’s trying to take care of me.

There is something about the grind of the day that makes me careless of my own health. I have to force myself to get up and walk around the house, from time to time. Some days, good days, I go for a long walk around the neighborhood. If I’m going to keep my blood pressure in check, I need to exercise more and not just reduce my salt. Did I remember to check my blood pressure this morning? Shit.

We’re getting towards the end of the work day. Time has flown by in a blink. I have helped a bunch of different people at work with various problems, and I need to record all of that. We have changed the way we do things, and there is a micromanagement element to time tracking that grates on me. And I’m absolutely terrible at it. I would much rather remain focused on the moment, giving people the answers they need. Was it a replication issue I helped with earlier? Who was it that called me when I was in the middle of that Flexible Logic Controller issue? I have to record everything I’ve done today, and I’m going to do a terrible job of it and get yelled at again. This is the one aspect of my job I hate. It’s the thing that has me referring to my work as “Day Job” instead of Trimark. If I leave or get fired, the time tracking will be the catalyst.

It is 5PM and I can’t keep my eyes open. There is a tiny couch in my room. I’ll just lay my head down for a few minutes. A thirty minute power nap, and I’ll be ready to work on something that nourishes my soul, rather than fill a time bucket to be turned in for money.

It’s 6:30PM. So much for a thirty minute power nap. My neck is sore and I feel groggy and out of sorts. I feel more tired than I did when I laid down for a nap, but if I go to sleep now, my schedule is going to be even more messed up than it usually is. Besides, wasn’t there something else I was supposed to be doing tonight?

Melissa and I make dinner happen. If it’s a really good night, we work on it together in the kitchen. If it’s a bad night, we order in. Melissa enjoys cooking way more than I do, and she thinks I’m pickier than I am. Tonight, she makes something that involves ground turkey and noodles and tomatoes. She’s really helping me watch my salt.

Somehow, it’s 8:30PM. I’m in my office again. I want to write, but I can’t find the threads to my story. There’s something about the work day that’s still bothering me. I watch some YouTube videos. I check Discord and see if any of my friends are around. Maybe we’ll play some games.

It’s Monday night, so the garbage has to go out to the curb.

If it’s a good night, I succeed in writing a blog post, and maybe work a little bit on a short story that I’ve been dragging out for months. If it’s a fair night, I have enough energy to play a video game. If it’s a bad night, there is a long-running video playing in the background while I play solitaire. I have reached the point with solitaire that I don’t have to think anymore. I don’t want to think. I’m listening to something, maybe it’s a D&D game on Dropout.tv. I want to play in a roleplaying game, but there aren’t really any invites coming my way for that, and I don’t have the time or energy to make a game happen myself. I don’t have the time or energy to do anything. I’m just mindlessly moving digital cards, sitting, doing nothing. Feeling like I can’t do anything. There’s no fuel left to feed the fire.

The sound of the TV in my bedroom has finally diminished. Melissa likes these horrible drama shows, like Married at First Site. I can’t stand them. It’s the worst people, doing terrible things, and being terrible to each other. It depresses me.

It’s almost midnight. Or it might be a little after midnight. I intended to come to bed over an hour ago, but I lost track of time. Maybe I should set an alarm to tell me to go to bed? There were a lot of things I wanted to do tonight, and I don’t think I did even half of them. I might not have done any of them. I go to bed, and I try to sleep, but I have this dread about the next day to come.

If I don’t find a way out of this cycle…

Anyway.

That’s a relatively typical week day. Looking back over it, it reads like a horror story. I don’t think that’s what I intended when I added this topic to my list.

Tomorrow will be more fun, because I get to talk fiction.