Friday, October 5, 2018

In the Shirt Pocket





The stress of delivering on work hasn’t gone anywhere.  It’s in the air when I make my way downstairs and crack open some soda water.  Looking through the emails.  The ones that might bring relief haven’t come.  Other pin pricks of email responsibility present themselves, according to schedule.  But this has been a week where I can tell whoever needs to know that China has the week off.  I’ll still answer your inquiry.  But the folks I work with here are off the grid. I’ll get back to you on that next week.

Vacation notwithstanding, today is the first day the gym has opened back up.  A cool, sunny day I decide to break my fast and eat my lunch before biking over.  I’ve taken to wearing a short sleeve button up shirt with a pocket over my tee shirt when I head to the gym.  This because the cord on headphones is unstable and I regularly lose connectivity when I just put the phone in my pocket and ride my bike or lift some weights.  Pop it in the shirt pocket and I’m good.



I suspect though that this is a rather abysmal fashion statement.  Hip gym-wear at 5:45AM with only two or three other teachers in there?  I don’t really care.  Today there were a bunch of young dudes doing weight routines.  I suspect I looked like someone who took a wrong turn from a Club Med volleyball game, but I did take off my turquoise shirt.  And don’t think I didn’t see how much you lifted, just now.  That was like half what I just lifted kid.



Back in the sun, strolling to my bike, I decide to give a former colleague a call.  We were to have talked today anyway.  But this morning, big news broke.  His company has just merged with the arch rival.  They’ll be a whole set of cost-efficiencies that come with a merger, which will affect everyone I know who still works there.  “You wanna come work with us?” I ask, as an opening liner.  It’ll be months before anything is finalized and I’m just playing.  But amidst all the other atmospheric pressure I’ve got, I’m glad fate isn’t in the hand of any one company. 



Thursday 10/04/18

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