My line of work is not, shall we say, physically demanding. I don't exactly haul around large heavy objects all day as a matter of course. No, see, my lazy pasty white butt likes to sit around on soft surfaces. The most action my arms see in an average day involves moving food and beverages from desks and tables into my mouth. Generally I try to keep these food and beverage items under a few pounds each.
So when it comes time to move well over half a ton of household furniture and boxes in the space of two days, my scrawny little body gets downright bitchy. I've heard rumours about these "muscle" things that are supposed to make manipulating large masses easier. I wish I had some of them, because I've been manipulating one heck of a lot of large masses, and it's starting to hurt.
My neck is stiff, my arms feel like they got run over by a truck, and my ankles are drowning their sorrows in a pub down the road. (I can tell this because the bastards "forgot" to invite me, and their absence has created an exquisite feeling of agony between my shins and my toes. There was also that trail of bloody footprints earlier, but I'm not sure if that was actually me, or just a sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination.)
Normally, after having to, y'know, use my body for something, I'd curl up like the soft little wuss that I am and sleep it off for about three days. Unfortunately, my employer does not approve of this practice, which means I have to stay awake. In fact, I have to perpetuate my state of sleep deprivation in order to "Get Some Work Done."
The ironic thing is that, being totally fuzzed out in the brain, I'm not getting much done. Last night I finally worked up the energy to open my laptop, boot it up, actually log in, and poke the keys a few times. Then I just stared at the pretty picture for a few minutes, decided that all this pretending to do work wasn't really all that fun, and went the hell to bed.
Tonight, against my better judgment, I have reverted to my old vice. Yes, weak and despicable man that I am, I have acquired high-caffiene beverages. I have no moral fibre at all. In fact, I have such a deficiency of moral fibre, you could say I'm morally constipated. I'd need some kind of massive injection of moral Metamucil to get me even back to "morally bankrupt" again. (See, this kind of idiocy is what happens when I work physically all day and then try to make my brain work for another few hours.)
I am armed with a four-pack of Sobe No Fear, one of which is partially gone already. I have a nice to-do list of simple documentation edits to make tonight, which I managed to hack out last night before I slumped over and drooled all over myself. I fully intend to procrastinate a little bit more and then do an item or two before falling asleep again tonight. If I get terrifically lucky, I might actually do three items.
I had been hoping to get in touch with some of my old crew from this area, but sadly it looks like I won't have time. Schedules just didn't work out, and what with all the moving, I barely have had time with my own family (who I'm supposed to be here for), so it'd be kind of dumb to go shred the last bit of time we have left and go partying. I'll have to try to come back down this summer; I still have a sister and two nephews in the area, so I have an excuse.
I moved around so much as a kid that I barely know what it's like to call something "home." To me, "home" just means "that place where I keep all my crap, and maybe sleep at once in a while." That definition has quite literally applied to my own car once or twice, which makes the notion of "home as a house" kind of alien to me.
Despite that, I'm finding it oddly sentimental to pack this house up. I only lived in it for a couple of years, and that was a while ago. Virtually all of my stuff has been out of this house for ages anyways. Most of my memories of the place are from sitting at my cheap, crappy knockdown desk and hacking into the early morning hours. Maybe the fact that I'm sitting at that desk for the last time right now has something to do with it. In any case, I'm starting to miss this place. I guess my sentimental streak is back causing its usual troubles again. A lot has changed since I left, but enough is still similar enough to prompt those little pangs of wistful remembrance.
I really wish I had more time here to meet up with all of my friends in the area. I don't even think they know I'm down here, which is really just as well since I won't have time to do anything interesting.
My laptop has a cheap integrated sound card, which is very annoying, because it picks up line buzz. With most headphones the buzz isn't significant enough to be noticed except in very quiet environments, and even then it is drowned out by even the softest actual audio signal. With my new noise-reduction headphones, though, the buzz is actually deafening, unless the noise-reduction is turned off. So I have to listen to music in a sort of muddy, blurry format (apparently the noise reduction system is also responsible for some minor amplification and signal balancing). I can also hear background noises like my laptop's CD drive, which makes my spoiled little eardrums very sad indeed.
Alright... time to quit putting off the inevitable, and get this work done.
