little red bicycle

The workaholic’s day off

Posted on 06 November 2011

I’ve only recently admitted to being a legitimate workaholic, but it’s been true for years. Every job I’ve had, I’ve become obsessed with. While at various retail jobs I skipped meals, thinking that if I took 10 minutes to eat, I’d have to make up for it later. When I worked in a fancy office building, the only thing that got me out of the office for lunch were group meals. Everyone (all 5 of us, huge, I know) would go out to eat for an hour and a half, and while we ate we’d talk about books we were all reading, pets, and games we had been playing. With LRB, it’s no different: I will work from the time I get out of bed, to the minute I’m back in bed. This generally means that I’m productive, but the cold hard reality of it is that I’m always stressed and always overwhelmed with the next 6 things I have to do.

So, it’s no surprise that my “day off” usually means I wake up, work for a few hours, then goof off for a while until bored, and work more until dinner time. My last several “days off” have been like this. Last week? I spent four hours re-skeining yarn on Sunday, then making minis, and steaming yarn. The week before that? I took a half day to go into the city and see my favorite Mommy-to-be, but before I went to her place I was packing orders, shipping things, steaming yarn, re-skeining, updating etsy, etc etc. Rinse, repeat, going back to May or so.

This week, I was forced to take a real day off. Last night, I logged out of my email at 9pm, and stared at the ceiling. My big plan for today was to do brunch, thinking that maybe if I enforce some kind of tradition on my ~Day Off~ I’ll be better at not working.  This was the plan:

Wake up at a luxurious 10am, take a shower, read, then go out for brunch.

After brunch, wander, find a book store, wander more, sit and knit. Coffee.

Following that, head home, knit, prepare dinner, tidy my bedroom, and watch a movie. Drink a lot of sangria, because I’m too classy for PBR or Highlife on my day off.

 

What actually happened?

7am: Woke up. Sun was up, thought it was 10am, beelined for the studio.

7:02am: remembered that today was my DAY OFF, scowled at studio door for a few minutes, talking myself out of turning the knob.

7:05am-7:30am: stared at ceiling, contemplated work so that I’d be less bored.

7:31-8:05am: Napped with Pono (he’s skilled at napping) (see below)

8:10am-10am: Worked on the evenstar shawl until bored (watched shitty tv on hulu and itunes during).

10:05-10:45am: threw hands into the air and scooped the catbox, did dishes, grumbled about life.

10:50-12pm: more grumbling, knitting on shawl.

12:05pm: lock self out of house. Lay on deck, stair at sky (because there is no ceiling).

1:00pm: get let back into house. Swear forever. Kick proverbial puppies in angst, leave for brunch.

1:20-2:25pm: Brunch failure. Place I wanted to hang out was packed, back up cafe also packed. Wandered.

3:oo: found Palo Alto Creamery. Ate too much. Silently swore about it not being brunch anymore, cursed self for failing ~the plan~

4:oo-5:30pm: wandering, came home, thought about packing orders REALLY HARD, read, worked on shawl, caught up on news.

And so on, and so forth. Having a day off was really stressful, in a completely strange yet relaxing way. What the hell am I supposed to do with myself when I’m not working? Do I clean everything? Do I find excuses to spend money? Paint my nails? I really need to work on this whole thing.

At least I got through chart 1 of the Evenstar shawl, and spent a lot of time with this dude.