a week of Saturdays

I mentioned back at the beginning of March that I was still struggling with the same internal and external problems that had in part prompted my 40 Topics / Days / Years series. As you might expect, that in part accounts for the continued lack of posting here. However, on the first of March I also started working on contract with my previous employer, 3Sharp, for a couple of projects. The projects required me to go to their office in Redmond and work nearly full-time hours; although there was some downtime in the middle, they kept me busy right up into the middle of June. Additionally, I continued to do some of my usual freelance editing on the side, nights and weekends. Back to the unaccustomed full days of work plus commuting time—not to mention getting up earlier than usual each day—I found myself pretty tired before the end of each week.

Then, Memorial Day Weekend kicked off my busiest month in a long long time: first with spending that weekend at the Sasquatch Music Festival, once again as a media correspondent for KEXP, and then with finalizing preparations for Go Play NW 2010, in addition to working first at 3Sharp and then switching over to a week's contract at KEXP right before Go Play NW. Doug arrived late Thursday night right before Go Play NW, and then stayed for a week's visit afterward, during which I also had my last full day on the KEXP contract and then spent more than full-time hours in the next two days editing a long paper for my usual freelance source.

All this is to say, I've been really busy for the past four months, busier than I have been any time in the past three years since becoming a freelancer. That was much needed, too, as my financial resources had all but run out; all this work has given me a slight reprieve, though I still need to quickly find more work before I'm broke again.

However, despite the still razor-thin margin I have, and because of being so busy for the past four months, I've just had a week of Saturdays. After seeing Doug off last Saturday, going out to a party, and then dancing until dawn at an after-hours club, I've been staying up until about 3 am each night, staying in bed until 11 or noon, and doing very little during the day. Even today, even after making my list last night of all the things I have to do, I still got up very late and did nothing more productive today than mix a batch of ice cream for Sunday's Independence Day / Tony's citizenship celebration party. I think that's okay for me to take a week of mostly lazing; certainly it won't help me to berate myself about it. But I also see the poisonous side of it, the weight of inertia, apathy, and depression lurking in there. I need to turn away from that and find some momentum to get moving on things, again.