"Hey," he said, "what you do that for?"
Trillian was tapping her finger on a screenful of figures.
"I've just thought of something," she said.
"Yeah? Worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for?"
"You hear enough about yourself as it is."
"I'm very insecure. We know that."
"Can we drop your ego for a moment? This is important."
"If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." Zaphod glared at her again, then laughed.
I started this blog post almost three days ago, but I have not had one second to sit down and reflect on life and the world this week. It had nothing to do with my towering ego (I do sort of understand Zaphod in the above passage). No, it has just been a perfect storm of events that has kept me away from my laptop.
It is now Friday evening. I just arrived home from work. My daughter is on a school trip to compete in the State Solo and Ensemble Festival with her musical theater solo. My wife and son are over at my mother's house. I am by myself. The house house is absolutely silent, except for the wind shaking the windows a little. And I am sort of enjoying the solitude.
Let me give you a little shakedown of my life these last five days:
- Monday--home sick from work, taught in the afternoon and evening
- Tuesday--work all day, a therapy appointment (I'm a mess), and helping my daughter with scholarship applications and essays
- Wednesday--work all day, teaching, my daughter's final high school chorus concert, and a poetry reading
- Thursday--work all day, travel to Escanaba, Michigan, for a poetry reading with the wonderful Margaret Noodin (a fellow Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula nominee)
- Friday--work all day
If that doesn't seem like a lot, let me assure you that it was exhausting. I'm weary in my bones this evening. On my lunch break at work, I took a 20-minute nap. And after I'm done writing this blog post, I may just stumble into my bedroom for another short nap. The festivities of National Poetry Month and Easter are catching up with me, I think. Next week is finals week at the university. Translation: lots and lots of grading. Additional translation: I won't be resting fully for another week-and-a-half.
That is my life. It has been my life for over 20 years. It's fragmentary--me running from one job to another job to teaching to grading to poetry gig to more grading. In my younger years, I was able to maintain this fairly hectic schedule without getting tired. Nowadays, I teeter on the brink of a breakdown these last weeks of the semester.
I love teaching. I love giving and attending poetry readings. I love my life, for the most part. The first four months of 2019, however, have been emotionally and physically draining for me, with the loss of a job, search for a new job, start of a new job, daughter moving quickly toward graduation, etc., etc. The word I would use to describe 2019 thus far is "overwhelming."
Saint Marty needs a drink and a nap this evening.
