Makeup For The Silence

Little Bombs - Time

So I started a new job last week, and for the first time in a long time, I actually have some sort of responsibilities at work.  It’s a good thing, really, but it’s definitely got me a little more stressed out than usual; it’s going to take some time to get accustomed to, really, what most people go through every day.
 
One of the upsides of the new job is that I’m back down to working 40-ish hour weeks.  I did that with the explicit intent of reclaiming that extra 20-30 hours a week and putting them to some sort of productive use, one of those productive uses being furthering this writing thing I’ve got going on.  The trouble is, I’m used to my time being very limited, to the point where I would squeeze writing in wherever I could when the inspiration hit (or when I was up on a deadline).  Now, I find myself with plenty of time, but I keep finding myself unprepared for that time; work ends, and I’ve got the next four or five hours to get some writing done, but I’m not actually prepared to DO anything.   I don’t have fresh ideas for here, I don’t have any reviews prepped (which is to say I haven’t actually spent enough time listening to what I need to listen to and thus am not really ready to say anything about it).  I need to learn some new sort of structure, or at least to plan in advance better for when that downtime is coming.

Meanwhile, I feel really guilty when I’m not putting that downtime to good use.  Last night I had a plan to hang a bunch of pictures that I framed last week, but a headache snuck up on me and sent me crawling into bed for a solid twelve hours of sleep.  Now it’s Sunday morning, and I could be doing that, but all I want to do is stay in bed with a book and my cat and the music turned up. I spent four hours hanging out with a friend yesterday.  I’m going to go watch football with friends today.  These are things that normal folks do with their free time.  These are the kind of things that folks should be doing with their free time.  But because it’s “reclaimed time” for me, I feel like I’m wasting it whenever I’m not putting it to productive use.  Even right now, I think I’m mostly writing this blog post because at least spraying some words around feels like a better use of my time than passively absorbing whatever’s around me.

I can hear those pictures calling my name.  Time to get to work.

(This Little Bombs record has been soundtracking my Sunday morning, and my whole week for that matter. I’m working on a review which probably won’t run for another month or so, but in the meantime this is A+ stuff if you dig well-crafted 90’s style pop rock/power pop, highly recommended).