by Melody Bowen
My Dad was the hardest working man I've ever known. One of those men who never relaxes, or maybe even relaxes by finding more work to do. He was always admired for that work ethic, and I've always sought to be as hardworking on the job as Daddy was.
Well... I am my father's daughter. I've worked over 60 hours this week. Again. And I'm discovering that I seem to lose a couple of IQ points for every hour over 50 that I work week after week. As I continue to put in ludicrously high numbers of hours at the office each week, I'm discovering that my brain is ceasing its normal functions (and it's often becoming more and more obvious to those around me).
Case in point: My house. I looked around my house as I was preparing to leave for the office today (yes, on Sunday), and I'm stunned I haven't even *noticed* the shape it's in, despite the fact that my boyfriend is here for the weekend. It looks like only the pugs have been living here for the last week or so. The entire house is littered with dog toys in various stages of chewed-up-ed-ness. My bed hasn't been made in days and days, and one of the pugs has taken up residence on a pillow that is lying on the floor. My laundry pile is raging out of control, and if I don't dust soon, the dust bunnies are going to organize themselves into a little dust bunny guerilla army and stage a hostile coup to take over my household for good.
Another case in point: I don't sleep well when I'm under a lot of stress. Like now. I constantly find myself having strange dreams that I can't explain -- like the one last night in which my boyfriend was abusing one of my pugs (which, of course, he would *never* do -- in fact, my pugs usually like him better than they do me). Or the one two nights ago in which I sold all my worldly posessions and bought a very shiny, very girly, very cool Harley. Yes, a Harley. I found myself riding the Harley down California's Highway 1 -- down the coastline toward Big Sur -- the wind blowing in my hair and the sun shining on my face. Very cool, but very bizarre dream. (Mostly because I'm fairly certain that speeding down the windy California coastline on a Harley would find me plunging to my demise off a steep cliff on my very shiny, very girly, very cool Harley. I think a scooter is probably much more my speed.)
And the best case in point related to my bizarre behavior when I'm sleep deprived: Friday morning, I was sleeping soundly next to my boyfriend (he had arrived less than an hour before, having driven all night to get here, and had just drifted off to sleep). When my rock-music-blaring alarm clock went off, it was unusually close to my head (about 18 inches). The blaring music -- for the first time ever -- jolted me from a deep sleep and, quite frankly, scared the compound crap out of me. I jumped straight up off the bed -- arms flailing (Ned said the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was my arms waving wildly) -- and I launched myself straight over the side of the bed, crashed my arm on the nightstand, and landed flat on my ass in the floor. (Yes, brains, beauty, grace, all in one package. That's me. Ah, how nice to have one's boyfriend see one in the rarest of rare forms when one is sitting in one's nightgown on the floor, whining that one has landed on one's rear, hair all afright, and wincing from a smarting arm. A lucky man to have me, he is.)
Friday's humiliation continued when my fellow citizen of the People's Republic of Workaholistan, my office-mate, told me, "Go home! You work too much. Jeez, it's Friday night. Don't you have something to do?" This from a man who took almost none of his allotted 80 hours of vacation last year. If he's telling me I'm working too hard, I think the situation must be truly serious.
But it hasn't been all bad I suppose. The good thing is that my boyfriend has been all too kind about how much I've been working and how little I'm sleeping. He's done some really nice things for me, like rub my aching back with a tiny plastic massage thingie that looks like a lobster. Shopping for the last-minute things I needed from the grocery store while I was making dinner. Buying me an ice cream cone at midnight when I was feeling blue. Letting me curl up to sleep with my head on his chest instead of finishing the movie we were watching when I was too sleepy to stay awake another moment. (Ahhh...that sounds really good right now, in fact. Must say a silent prayer of thanks for a very understanding boyfriend who doesn't mind that I've worked all the live-long weekend even though he drove all this way to see me.)
Note to self: Submit change of address card that one is moving out of the People's Republic of Workaholistan! Renounce one's citizenship from that dull, lifeless place! Get a life that includes a residence in the People's Republic of Funhavingstan (or at least find a nice time-share there). No more in-at-nine-but-working-till-midnight hours. No more working every weekend. No more Fruit Loop dinners because one has no time to cook for self. No, no, no! Normal people work normal hours and do normal things. Normal people have time with friends. They go out in public and find adventurous things to do (remember the thrill of adventure-hunting?). Normal people hold conversations and tell a funny anecdotes that have nothing whatsoever to do with their lives at work. If one must, pencil time for self in on one's day planner. Get a pedicure, read a non-work-related book, spend an evening eating cheese dip and watching a Sex & the City marathon. Do something. Hurry, hurry, do it now! (Goodbye, People's Republic of Workaholistan. I'll miss you... sort of.)
Side note - the best part of my day today: Ned and I standing in the kitchen in our PJs and having such fun laughing and chatting that I could hardly pry myself away to shower and get ready for work. Makes me smile just thinking about it.