A slight, regular backstep

This has been my bleak week, one out of every four, a bitter gray sort of week, and I’m reflecting the brooding Ohio sky. Every day a drain, weakening my spirit and sapping my strength, for no reason other than this happens cyclically and regularly. The kind of week that makes me frighteningly grateful to be trapped in a carpet-walled cubicle farm, to do my 8 hours of time in an icy, dim hall of cells, a somber zoo of quiet cages. Though the intrusive silence has stretched the hours at my desk into those watching-the-second-hand-seem-to-move-slower kinds of days lulling my heavy eyes to sleep. That, and the headphones I have to wear to drown out the offensive cacophony of that NOBODY in cubicle 4 have been droning ambient and experimental, apocalyptic folk, practically the soundtracks for my dreams, making me all but defenseless against that damn Sandman.

I recognized just this moment my supervisor is likely to read this, so I should mention here, the system and regularity, the patterns and routine of my various projects, have been the only things keeping me awake. I’ve likely done more work this week than in weeks I’m exuberant and outgoing, because those weeks I actually have the drive and desire to do something other than my often dull and dreary work.

Yet this is the type of week that reminds me just why I wake up to the pitch black of pre-dawn and force myself into the conventional costume of the office: the people I work with. If it weren’t for the perfect union of personalities I find not only tolerable but likable, and the few people that are more than coworkers, are truly friends, I could not, would not (eat green eggs and ham) do it. My workspace is not without its share of monsters and Grendels, most especially that certain Nameless I’ve written of before, but my library team, and a few orbiting contractors that have been assimilated into our crew*, often give me the courage and strength to bare these ‘just-shove-it-up-your-ass’ kind of days.

*One of those orbiting contractors, the only one likely to be reading this, is more than the subject of assimilation, but a unique force that has altered the chemistry of our prior library circle. He is, in fact, one of those actual friends that gives me the will to start my engine and pull out of the driveway as the first cup of coffee is wearing off and my steering wheels is starting to take on the shape of a pillow.