Something's Always Wrong
Like a sled dog who would gladly run himself to death, I seem not to be able to kick the habit of over-working, especially not on things that I find interesting. If my interests and efforts were mostly aligned at Jot, they're now identical vectors at SitePen. My full-time job is now what I once did as a hobby, and my hobbies are all the interesting little technical pursuits I've put off in the last couple of years. Add a large dose of Lutheran guilt about doing the right things the right way and a seeming inability to say "no" to people, and sleep seems like a particularly quaint anachronism.
Were it not for Jennifer, the woman I love madly, I think I'd be clinically insane by now. I'm good at last-minute panic. Things like "did we turn off the stove?" and "maybe I should double-check when that flight is leaving...". Jennifer, on the the other hand, is the organizer. Instead of leaving important details for the last minute, she ensures that big things happen at all. Months in advance, she'll be asking "so [insert name of band] is coming, do you want to see them?", and thanks to that (and a little "where did we put the tickets?" from me) we've been able to see Buddy Guy, BB King, and Toad The Wet Sprocket this summer.
Toad was a special treat since they've been broken up for years. Despite it carbon-dating my highschool years, I've got something of a soft spot in my iTunes playlist for old Toad stuff. Even new "Ok Go" doesn't make me as happy cycling through my playlist during these endless hours at the terminal. While their set the other night was pretty heavily scripted, they still sounded as good as any of the studio recordings. Thanks to Jennifer, I got out of the house for some celebration after turning my brain to mush in preparation for a talk at LinuxWorld and I finally got to see a band I've been listening to heavily for nearly a decade.
No matter what you may think of the music, it's hard to imagine a better gift.