Manufactured productivity...

After spending four months in a high-pressure, 24/7, getting-up-at-5am-to-read-the-news-online job, I clearly had adrenaline withdrawal. Which looks something like the following:

*Wake up at 8am. Roll over. Go back to sleep.
*Wake up again at 10am. Spend 30 minutes deciding whether or not to get out of bed.
*Get out of bed and make coffee (no need for auto brew now that I don't set alarm for 6am).
*Halfheartedly drink coffee, check email, and end up playing umpteen games of spider solitaire.
*Cold. Make a fire in fireplace. Try to do some writing, but it's so waaarrrrrrm now.
*Shut down computer before noon and nap.
*Wake up around 3. Hate daytime television. If no food in house, go to store. If lazy, call for chinese takeout.
*Consider taking a second nap around 6pm. So. Tired.
*Eat, don't eat, don't care.
*TV is boring, try to read. Reading is boring. Watch TV.
*Phone rings. Don't even get up to answer...they'll leave a message.
*Remember back in college when you used to get high and watch cartoons. Feel nostalgic. Do that.
*Adult Swim is on Cartoon Network until at least 2am.
Repeat.

OK, so there's been a holiday in between and I actually have done a good job of keeping up with dishes and laundry, but none of that takes as much time as a 12-hour day working on a political campaign. And since four months is enough time to develop a habit, you know it's really over when political news on CNN or MSNBC just sounds like noise. Boring noise.

I was supposed to "take it easy" between now and the end of the year. That was the plan. But "taking it easy" shouldn't mean "sleep all effing day long." I think that's a symptom of depression, or in my case, adrenaline withdrawal. I need something else- a deadline, a crisis (not wishing, Universe, hear?), or a $750 bill for 30,000-mile maintenance on my Honda - to get my ass off the couch and start working again.

This week I started getting it together. I made an appointment for my car (see above "maintenance on my Honda." I committed to having lunch with a friend next week. I called my sister just to talk. I've had several conversations with friends and family about whether or not I should get a puppy (working from home again = perfect opportunity, no?). I paid all of my bills early. I bought stamps. I did some "real" grocery shopping (meaning not just dinner, but a week or more of meals), I updated my resume, I called Earthlink for the umpteenth time about my slow-ass "fast-access DSL" that I pay $65 a month for (finally got a straight answer on that one instead of them selling me another modem: slowdown is from "additional customers in broadband area and they are going to expand my line." Hello, could you have told me this a YEAR ago when I first starting calling about it? Pissed off.), updated Netflix queue, wrote a couple of blog posts, had lunch with mom and sister and nephew, downloaded Hemingway short stories on audio vols 1, 2 and 3 and listen while cleaning house, and once this week I made my bed.

There is still much to do. I have a guest room that needs cleaning, holiday shopping, puppy shopping, and need to start writing again regularly - even if only in the form of blog posts here.

Putting a toe in the water...

It was a wild ride, folks. I got four months of "how to run press for a political campaign" boot camp. I made some great friends. I had a lot of really good (long) days, and a few bad ones. In the end, my candidate only lost by four percentage points. She did really well in Charleston County, got more votes than Obama in Horry County, and I think we ran a hell of a campaign. I have lots of stories, but need some time to process before jumping in all the way.

My job didn't end on Election Day - I was really busy until the 15th and have been doing some of the things I listed in my previous post, but mostly sleeping and spending time with the family. I had a birthday (strangely, did not get a year older). I spent Thanksgiving with my mom, three sisters, five nieces, one nephew, a brother-in-law, a nephew-in-law (is there such a thing?), and some family friends. We ate a disgusting amount of food and played Cranium all afternoon.

And now I'm trying to get back into a routine, go through my list of all of the things that I've been putting off for four months, and getting my creative mojo back. Step one: start blogging again. Check.

The countdown begins...

The past four-plus months have been completely amazing, insane, wonderful...I can't believe tomorrow is finally Election Day. If you haven't voted absentee (I did that on Friday), PLEASE don't skip it on Tuesday! The lines will be long (I waited almost 3 hours to vote absentee myself) and it may rain, but you're going to want to tell your grandkids that you were part of this historic election.

I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing politics non-stop since early July. My entire life has been on hold. Now I get to start thinking about November 5. I have a list I've been keeping in my little Moleskine notebook called "things to do after Election Day."

In no particular order:
1. Sleep.
2. Sleep through an entire night.
3. Read a book all the way through.
4. Read a magazine all the way through.
5. Express gratitude that my cell phone is not ringing every 20 minutes.
6. Pedicure. Do I need to say that my "summer polish" is still hanging on?
7. See my friends and family.
8. Go one day without reading a newspaper, online or otherwise, or watching CNN.
9. Get home for the day before darkness falls.
10. Find where I stored my winter clothes before it gets too cold.

I'm probably forgetting a lot of things, but these are the ones that have been on my mind a lot. And I miss you all too. I miss being able to talk about what's been going on in my life, with my job, and all of the minutiae I used to go on (and on)about. So here's the notice that I'll be back - soon and before the week is out!

P.S. SC District 01 - Vote Ketner! And (especially my dear friends and family who have been volunteering), please come over to our election watch party Tuesday evening from 8 to midnight - Omar Shrine Auditorium on Patriot's Point in Mt. Pleasant. It's free and open to the public - hope to see you there!

Really just wanted...

...to stop looking at the same sad post from 10 days ago. I'm still working a lot (and will be through the election) and trying to decompress when I'm not. I actually went bowling Saturday night (this will only be funny if you know me well).

I tried to read last night because I've been anxious to start Haruki Murakami's latest, but couldn't concentrate long enough to get through a paragraph. So I plugged in the iPod and listened to new music downloads instead.

I'm not a huge Zach Braff fan (probably because Scrubs went on about a season too long), but I love his taste in music. I like the soundtrack from The Last Kiss more than I liked the movie (esp. Rufus Wainwright) and I just downloaded the soundtrack for season 2 from iTunes and it's dreamy: Old 97s, Rhett Miller, Joshua Radin, The Polyphonic Spree, Colin Hay...

Then I fell asleep during Law & Order. Did the same on Monday night 15 minutes before the end of Heroes (don't tell me what happened!).

I get it. Sadly, but I do get it...

Author David Foster Wallace hanged himself on Friday. I just spent twenty minutes writing that sentence, but there is no prettier way to say it. I was in the car when I heard and broke down in tears, partly because the person I most wanted to call and tell first is no longer part of my life. And I have tears in my eyes writing this now.

I fell a little bit in love with Wallace in 1996 after reading Infinite Jest. I cannot count how many copies of that book I bought and passed along to friends. I wanted them to see a part of me through it. I loved him darkly; I loved his darkness. I didn't see the humor in the book that so many reviewers saw - the same book that won him a genius grant - but I did see the genius. And I remember how many times I told fellow writers and friends, "I want to be a writer like that." I meant it.

And I'm sad to have to revise the statement. I've been to some dark places, I've pulled myself out of them more times than I'd like to admit. I know how I get when I allow myself to wade in too deep, when I'm writing fiction, what I'm like when I start acting like the character I'm writing for.

My heart hurts because I do get it, and at the same time I also understand the impact suicide has on the people who love the person who takes his own life.

I don't want to be a writer like that.