In which I complain about my privilege, albeit a privilege I earned over a dozen years.
I took some time off of work. I’m incredibly fortunate to work for a company that offers a benefit like this for employees who have been around for a decade or longer. I’m also incredibly fortunate to have been around for a decade or longer. I’ve made a habit of that without really meaning to. I’ve been in the workforce for forty years or so and I’ve had four full-time employers (one of whom laid me and a third of their workforce off after 9/11). I never even thought of this as a career until it was. Funny old world.
Unfortunately, we were a bit limited in what we could do with the time off. We have an elderly cat who needs fluids every day, so we’re restricted to overnight stays when traveling. That’s fine. It’s certainly worth it. Travel is weird these days anyway. I don’t feel especially celebratory with all of this (he says, making a gesture indicating “everything”). We did make one trip down to the coast and found it really depressing. Downtown Corpus Christi is a ghost town, with almost every building either boarded up and/or empty and leasing. We checked in to our hotel, strolled around looking for one of the cute restaurants that had been there not long ago, got seriously bummed out, and went back home. Sunk cost fallacy: avoided!
My goal for the time off was to write an album. In this, I failed spectacularly. I have one track all but completed, about six are in various stages of writing or recording, and four that are just ideas at this point. I like what I’ve done, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to concentrate and be properly creative. It was probably something to do with ten+ years of work stress to burn off. The record’s going to be good, but it’s a long way away and I need to re-calibrate my plans and come up with a more realistic timeline.
I did get to see David and Kim, a couple of old Kitty City friends. They’re in Nashville now as David’s music career is, from my outside vantage, picking up steam. They brought their son with them and we got to hang a little bit outside a small-town music hall and catch up a little. When we make our next real road trip, we’ll be sure to go through Tennessee and drop in on ’em.
Mostly, the time was for relaxing. Nicole insisted I distance myself from work and for that I’m grateful. I had intended to check in and see some folks to talk non-work things, but…nah. She wasn’t having it and I’m glad she wasn’t. I did get to slough off a lot of the stress I’ve been feeling. I did some reading, did some writing, celebrated a birthday. Oh yeah, I had a birthday. That was fun. We had an extended celebration, eating at two disappointing restaurants in Austin and one brilliant one in San Antonio. The brilliant one was Bliss. The others are available on request.
One of my birthday traditions, at least over the last few year, has been to visit with a capybara or two. This year, we decided to check out the capybara encounter at Snake Farm. This place has a checkered history but they’ve but a lot of money into upgrading their operation recently so we thought we’d give it a shot. It’s less expensive than the Austin Zoo, they have many more time slots available every day so the wait isn’t nearly as long. That about it for the positives. You get 15 minutes to spend with ’em, they provide 2 leaves of leaf lettuce per person, and the enclosure was not especially clean or large. The capys themselves were wonderful, and I do not regret it for a moment, but it was unfortunate that our zoo guide had absolutely nothing to say about them. The Austin Zoo gives you half an hour, with a two heads of leaf lettuce per person, and the enclosure is immaculate and expansive. In addition, they will not stop talking about capybaras, which is a big plus in my book. It was a good time at Snake Farm, but…there are better options.
Nicole also got me tickets for us to see Steve Hackett doing one of his “Genesis Revisited” shows featuring “Foxtrot at 50.” She gets me. The first half of the show was from Hackett’s solo catalog and it varied pretty wildly. This was my favourite tune was a short instrumental called “These Passing Clouds“. He can shred, sure, but I’ve always liked the moody, tonal stuff more. The second half was, well, all of Foxtrot. The singer did a fine Peter Gabriel impression and the band were up for it. Weirdly, the only member of Genesis I haven’t seen perform “Supper’s Ready” is Gabriel. Anyway, it was pretty much nonstop chills from the opening of “Watcher of the Skies” to the end. The encore was “Los Endos,” which is not only a great song to end on, but it calls back to “Supper’s Ready.” If you’re a fan of the old Genesis stuff, Hackett does it justice.
Things got weirdly cursed near the end. We had a flat on highway 130, which, if you know it, you know that it’s a Really Bad Place to get a flat. We took the ol’ donut home and went to get the tire replaced the next day. It was only 2 years old and had great tread, but it was shot. Worse, the front tires had metal showing throw. Yikes. So, we replaced all four.
The next week, driving to my boss’ going away party, the new tire in the same spot went at almost the same location on 130. Spooky. We assumed it was a wheel issue, but the wheel was fine. Just had a hole in the tire. The road hazard took care of it, but…damn. Also, we need a new donut. They’re only good for ~100 miles, if you were wondering. The same week, we had a big hailstorm coming, so we put the car in the garage. The car was fine after the storm, be we lost a 100 year old pecan tree across the driveway. On an unrelated note, electric chainsaws are actually pretty good now. We also had 2 cat emergencies and the weather delayed some medical work on yours truly until the week I went back to work.
The net is: Six weeks off is wonderful, and having the peace of mind to deal with these little emergencies helped a lot. My job is largely emergency-driven, so it gets a little whelming when home life emulates work. It’s not enough, especially when it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The thought that gnawed at the back of my mind the whole time was “this is it; the is the longest time you’ll have for vacation, the last extended vacation, for the rest of your life.” I know that’s not a productive or helpful thought, but it was a thought I had nonetheless.
Things are (mostly) back to normal. We completely cleaned and remodeled my office, so that makes the landing a little softer. I’m recovering from the medical stuff as well as can be expected and I don’t expect any bad news. It’s possible, but it’s unlikely. The thing I have is serious but very, very slow.
So, if you’re still around after the long gap between posts and/or this wall of text, thanks for reading and hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
-RK