Oh, the weekend is tomorrow!
I can’t even imagine what my life will be like when I’m done with this project. Our next big big deadline is Monday night, and Tuesday? I may be very sick. You know how it goes, when stress and adrenaline keeps the tiredness and sickness at bay and when all is over, you suddenly explode into sleep and sickness and sniffles and coughs and tired and stay in bed? That’s what’s going to happen. Knowing how I have reacted in the past to constant work I could probably hold off illness for a few days, but then the baseline exhaustion won’t go away for months, no matter how much I sleep in on weekends.
It’s the western approach to medicine, though, that will make it hard for me to stay home on Tuesday. I am so used to waiting until I am very ill it’s hard for me to say “this is a preventative measure, therefore, it’s valid and appropriate.â€
The only things that are keeping me going on this project are:
I have forgotten what I would usually do in the evenings when I don’t have to work late.
Stress, consistent lack of sleep, and more caffeine than I’ve drank in the last 3 months. (I think caffeine gives me gas. Not stinky, gross, hide the children gas (or, as I’ve been told before, that’s what I think), but just plain old air poots. Weird!)
The faint hopes that my suggestions will be acted on and at the end of the year all team members will get t-shirts that say: “Nasty Lake: Our Science is Tight.â€
Last night was so wonderful and fun. I left work mostly early and met some glitterati at a coffee shop by Union Square to knit scarves for a charity scarf drive – we’re going to make scarves and give them to a woman’s shelter for the holiday. Their kids get stuff from toys-for-tots type charities, so wonderful cowgirly thought we should give something to the women.
I stayed out later than I had planned to, because the company was fantastic and I rediscovered how much I love knitting. For so long I’ve been working on little dinky projects – gifts for people, mostly. It’s been kind of exhausting to pay attention to patterns, or to deadlines. And I was terribly nervous about knitting the scarf because I hate knitting scarves – they’re so long, and boring, and tedious. I always feel like I have a lack of gumption, or something, because I’m terrified of getting bored during a project and never finishing. But I’m working with this lion brand homespun yarn and it’s knitting up really fast! I don’t know if it was the fun company and sassy conversation, or if it’s just because the yarn is a little thicker than I’m used to using, but I’m really zipping along and I’m starting to feel 100% better about scarves. Well, maybe 78% better. I still don’t like doing something that takes so long, and requires so little concentration. Now, dishcloths? The perfect project. Really! They’re so fast and easy. Instant gratification.
When I was walking home from the subway station I felt kind of euphoric. I don’t think it was just b/c I had left work “early,†but also because I realized again how much I love to knit. I guess I’d forgotten a little bit. It was so nice to sit there and watch the scarf grow as it fell from my needles.
