2002-08-16 - 8:52 p.m.
I just survived one of the few difficult weeks in the academic year. Relatively intact and in good spirits. After next week I can go back to my usual non-emergency work life. Quiet. Time to do a good job on things and really listen to people. I think what I hate most about these times is rushing, trying to get things done so quickly. Not wanting to make people feel processed, but having to process people.
I tell myself that anything worth doing is worth doing slow.
Like learning the guitar. My lesson went much better today though. I didn't completely butcher the songs I was supposed to be playing, and in fact I had a few moments of real success. Mr. Guitar Teacher has his students learn some simple little tunes, and then he plays along, putting in the the harmonies, and the resulting duet sounds amazingly good. It is also very distracting, and totally different from the experience of playing in the dining room by myself. Every time I would allow myself to notice how nice it was sounding, I would goof it up. And then I would try to tune it out, and we'd sound good, and then I'd get a teeny bit proud, and.... clunk. Wash, rinse, repeat. But at least he could tell I had been practicing. And, I get to go on to the next stage which is learning to use different fingers on the strings. Gold star for me.
We have a project. Skootie got us this freelance job assembling notebooks, for what seemed like an incredibly large amount of money. (How hard could it be to assemble notebooks? we wondered) This morning at 7:15 am, a large truck stopped in the street in front of our house. I went outside because the dog was yapping, and the driver was at our front gate. He asked me if we were expecting a delivery from Boise-Cascade. And I drew a blank for a minute....(of course it was 7:15)....Oh, the notebooks are here. Yes, you are in the right place.
"Where do you want me to unload?" he asks. And looks incredulously at me when I indicate the living room. He proceeds to haul an entire truckload of boxes up the steps and pile them in front of the fireplace. Do you know how many boxes it takes to hold 500 three-inch binders and all the pages/ page protectors/ discs/ etc. that will go into them? The pile pretty much fills the living room.
When we got home from work, we sort of tried to arrange them so we would have a path through the house. And then we just started laughing. Feeling so much like Lucy and Ethel, on one of their wild money-making schemes. Now if we just had to try to hide them from somebody, that would make it a true sitcom situation.
We treated outselves to a brand new, state-of-the-art hole punch. And I guess I know what we will be doing with our free time for a while.
We're going to sit down with a nice Friday night glass of wine and a few cases of gummed reinforcements here in a bit.
Anything worth doing ten-thousand times is worth doing fast.
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