Winter Storm

The storm is nigh…

This is the first post. It isn’t the greatest post you will ever read, but it’s a start. You see, I’m an habitual procrastinator. I work best under pressure, especially when deadlines are screaming at me to finish (or die). Despite knowing that my entire career, business, house, and family rely on me for so much, I perpetually find myself in a state of being overwhelmed into an hypnotic trance. Dissociation?

Today has been a good day - at least it started as such. I slept in, enjoyed a nice breakfast with my girlfriend, showered while listening to MAX VELOCITY - a youtube weatherman - explaining how we’re all going to freeze to death, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, played with the dogs, enjoyed the serene, pale grey skies on my drive to work-

Wait. Something is off here… RIGHT! Turns out we’re all going back to the ice-age tomorrow night and I’ve prepared even less than I lied to my parents about when they called to check in on my storm prep. “Oh yeah got that cooler full of ice” as if I’ll need it buried under a foot of snow, “and I’m thinking of picking up some firewood.” You ass. Truth be told, I do have a cooler, and I do have ice, so it’s barely a half-truth, much closer to a full one, and I was thinking of picking up some firewood even though everyone is telling me (including my parents in the immediate aftermath of my prior statement) that I need to have my fireplace cleaned before I burn anything. This sentiment was apparently shared by the home inspector, who insisted it was very important not to use it in its current state. I forgot about that until I grabbed the inspection report to prove them wrong…

But how bad could it be? Really? I mean the storm… and I guess the fireplace too. Would the whole house really burn down if the fireplace isn’t immaculate? I have homeowner’s insurance. And will the house fall apart into chaos if I don’t panic-buy a generator and eighty gallons of water? Eh, probably better to just listen to my parents in this case. I guess I’ll head to costco tomorrow and umm… drip the faucets. Thank you Max.

Everything else continues.

Tragedy and hardship are just around the bend, but I still had to go to work today. Bills are due, mortgages are promissory death notes, and I am one of the lucky ones to not only have a job in this time, but to have a job that gives me the freedom to homeroll an entire blogging platform on a whim. Sorry <redacted company name here>, half of management took off to prepare for this storm early, so those projects you need just aren’t getting done today. This has been infinitely more fun and rewarding.

Yes, this website was built just moments before I started writing - even though I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite some time. Today was the day. Amidst an impending historic storm, a client calling me because she clicked on a phishing email link (then proceeded to dutifully enter her microsoft password to access the cloud file she never expected to receive labeled something like “DOC10922377239”), changing all of her passwords (I own a small MSP by the way, by choice, for some reason), and explaining that it’s smart to double check the URLs of the websites she visits before entering personal information on them… I still managed to get this site operational. And it is still only 7PM. See, I do work well under pressure, even if that work has nothing to do with my deadlines.

It’s just about staying busy I guess. As one of the least responsible youths you would have ever met turned a slightly more responsible adult, I impetuously pile on way more than I can chew. It’s got to be a kink or fetish. Do I really like being under this much pressure? Maybe I’m too overconfident in my abilities or maybe I just shamelessly forget all the times I’ve let people down (including myself)… or maybe I’m neurotic and need an outlet for some of this nervous energy that is always bubbling under the surface… and no, I refuse to acknowledge that paradox.

At 32 years old I’ve mastered hiding any sense of dread or anxiety. In fact, most people think I’m too non-chalant in most situations that most people would generally agree call for a higher degree of engagement and expressive pronouncements of time-sensitive seriousness; the sort of get-down-to-business stern facial contortions and corporate theatrics your dad told you to master as you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, squarely look some well-dressed man in the eyes, and ask him for a job for whatever he’ll offer to pay. This isn’t just some wild guess at how people perceive me, my corporate overlords deem me as such at my semi-annual reviews. “Charismatic, optimistic, generally disagreeable, should probably take things more seriously.” I would love to, but I can’t. It’s just not in my DNA. It’s not that I’m not nervous or worried that I’ll fail and lose my job, my clients, my house, my love, my life… I am terrified. It just doesn’t do me much good to wear that terror as a costume and put on a show.

So truth be told, I knew about the storm. It’s just not the most important thing in my life right now. Sure it’s urgent, and Max reiterated the importance of preparing, as did my parents. It’s just… I have enough to get through it, and if things break, I’ll fix them. No, I was never going to burn down my house due to carelessness. I’m just pissed off at the audacity of the universe, irreverently doing whatever it wants with no respect for me or what I’ve got going on - so I pretended not to care. I didn’t want to imagine the self-satisfied and smug look on the universe’s face thinking it got to me.

I could have really used this weekend, ya know? I wanted to go hiking, I wanted to propose to my girlfriend, I wanted to finally install the new water heater and clean the garage. Too bad I have to hunker down in the cold dark just so the universe can get its bell rung. Humans are smart, but we haven’t been able to make the universe pay for its attitude just yet. That bastard slimeball, he’ll get his. You leave God out of this, that’s a whole other story.

Feels like I can be a little more honest this far down the page where nobody will read, and it’s freeing. So this is why people write into the void? I can dig it, fellow kids.

Those deadlines are here, and I will likely be without reliable power and internet for the next few days if not longer, so things will continue not getting done. Here’s a better excuse: I was busy doing this. I needed this. It may not have cured me just yet - it may never cure me of whatever this is that ails me - but damn if it feels good to let some of this out. I didn’t work on the applications that I need to develop, because it was way more fun starting from scratch on this blog. Like the direction? The style? The simplicity? I hope so, but it’s not for you. Unlike my other projects, this one is entirely for me; and until this deplorable, selfish decision to spend some time voicing my opinions - to absolutely no one for no reason at all other than it felt inevitable - comes around to bite me in the ass, I will continue writing here. You may already know how all this ends… but as for me, I’m going to remain optimistic that I’ll weather the storm.