Off Topic With Ashley

I carefully select the track that’s been echoing through my conscious mind for the last two days and set it to play. The volume’s muted, so after adjusting the volume on my speakers, the volume on my laptop, and set the track back to zero seconds; I let it play once more.

Loud.

The phone rings at about one minute thirty-six. I swear — inaudibly, as the music’s loud enough even that if there was anyone around nobody would notice — and pause the track gratingly in the middle.

“Hello?”

(It’s Mum.)

“You just left on your month-long trip not ten minutes ago. Why are you calling me?”

“Touching base? Oh yes, I hope you have a good time too.”

“Bye.”

My eyebrows tense up in a little consternated hustle as I fumble around for the play controls once again, with a little less enthusiasm than before. The track plays through, and I get my fix of last year’s indie pop.

I put on Veckatimest after this, and contemplate my life for a little bit.

I’ve always got such great plans for the weekends, but I’m sick of always, always having work run over and making me feeling guilty about not doing it. This weekend I have a project — admittedly small — due, which I should have just got out of the way on Saturday morning, but now it’s Sunday and I’m irritated because it’s still looming over the rest of my free time.

The result of this is that I’ve ended up sitting in my chair all weekend, half frozen in a state of guilty indecision. It’s kind of like procrastination, with the insidious nagging that I shouldn’t be working in the first place. It’s crippling, in a way.

While continuing to not do anything in particular, I stumble upon an article (ironically) about work, burning yourself out, and “me time”. Unknown higher powers can be sure I’ve read enough articles like this over the years, but they only really sink in for the first six or so hours after consumption, after which they dissipate into the ironically grey matter, never to be recovered again. I’m completely beyond self help, but I nevertheless decide to leave my work for the Monday, and take some personal time to do some personal things.

I narrow the plans for my day down to two possible things:

1. Go for a bike ride, and not feel guilty about not working.
2. Fix up my web site, and not feel guilty about not working.

Both of these are quite reasonable, and I would enjoy doing both.

I decide on number one, because it’s the first on the list and it’s just easier that way. I put a water bottle in the freezer so it’ll be cold when I leave, put on my specialist bike riding pants (these are the same as my specialist everyday pair of shorts  because I haven’t been summer shopping yet and I only have the one pair.) I prepare my journey (out to Bribie Island from Caboolture-ish,) and step outside to find it’s raining and miserable — a slight hitch in the plan.

It’s also an especially cold day, so not wanting to catch a chill I fall back to option number two: Fix up my web site.