Journal : OpenRoadWorks

I tried to get sleep last night, and I did - at least I thought I did. Today, I returned to the office to find the same state of malaise. What has happened to me? I feel like I'm in a perpetual cycle of staring at the computer screen and accumulating fatigue. It was not my choice, or so I thought. I reconsidered that statement after talking to a friend this afternoon. We were supposed to be on a conference call, at which another colleague was supposed to join us. Instead, we started to chat. Our chat consisted of work topics, but work topics in which I found interest. I was engaged, I gained some bit of energy to go through the discussion and consider the topic. As soon as the conversation ended, though, I returned to the current state of malaise. What a great word to describe how I currently feel. So here I am, sitting at the same desk in New York City, wondering about the Italian girl that I am going to meet tomorrow and her current state of being, figuring my next st...

Whatever happened to today? I was sitting at my desk, and then lunchtime happened to me. This meant a break, which I dutifully entertained out into the street. Descending 17 floors by elevator car, empty into the street, but only after a brisk rush down a wide-open foyer. It is a beautiful day yet again in NYC, and I sit here befuddled. I have lost my ambition for a moment, much less to figure what this moment could offer me with insight. I am pensive and reflective again - it could be an encounter from last night which reminded me of my failures this past year. This is reinforced by the strumming of Pedro the Lion through my headphones - "Bad Things to Such Good People" is starkly rattling in my head. There were so many things that I was meant to do, that I thought this year would hold for me, and those thoughts no longer serve me. I guess that this is the end of utility, if you will, for my own mental reference point. There could have been more to this story, bu...

I was not quite clear this morning when I landed in Cleveland - so much so that I walked away without my backpack from the departure area. 90 minutes of endless wandering in the mezzanine finally brought me back to it via TSA (those seemingly unnecessary but government-mandated, generally nice people that get to control the security lines that come in and out of every large as well as insignificant airport in the US), and I was out of the airport. But I had lost more than my backpack for those minutes - this culminating moment totalled three nights of sleep that resulted from late nights working and a horrendous flight that saw me spending as much time on the ground as in the air on Thursday - 4 hours at both. Total: 8 hours. The night before culminating in a late-night "connection" at midnight through O'Hare (announced by the pilot upon descent but our taxi was as long as the flight to Cleveland was supposed to be). In short, the connection turned out to be a long w...

Hello afternoon, Friday has descended upon me; my eyes are looming so close to my eyelids. I close them for an instant, and a weight lifts from my brow. Tension creeps out of my neck and into the back of my leather chair. I am released to venture into the outer regions of contemplation of an afternoon that sneaks into the weekend. Supergrass is playing softly in the background, Brit rock with some pop and melody, bubbling against the window and white walls of the room. I am drifting slowly away into this moment that seems to hearken me away from my myself and into another place. Startled, my head jerks from the chair, pulse quickents slightly, and I look around the room. There are some chords from the song that have mysteriously vanished out of capture of my ear. I am disoriented, without normal sleep over the last three days. My fatigue has found me now. Hello afternoon, Friday could not have arrived sooner than this.

Mixed up, straighten out, caterpillar fingers, go go go, for a moment's breath, another webpage, typing typing typing. Windowcleaners, wires hanging, phone cord, overlord, book I'm reading, action item, email, typing typing typing. Early morning, sun not shining, silver lining, lunchtime, windowpane, energy rush, darting, furtive, not quite pensive, expansive, thinking twice. Reply. Delete. Page forward. Home. Office. Notebook, third time look, presentation, ostentation, graphic, elastic curve, framework, solid, done. Next. Sip, bite, look again, revise, red marks, hearkening sound, turn around, paper, twice phone rings, courier brings fax, relax. Look out the window. Again. Stop - write it down. Cross it out, write it down again. Typing typing typing. Stop. That's it for now.