I am having an "I'm too tired" day so far. A nagging feeling that I cannot make a difference, cannot achieve my goals, I just can't hack it.
All I really want to do is go back to bed and curl up with my book, a book of mindless fantasy masquerading as a novel that doesn't require thought or analysis to get the juice, the meat of it to dine on. And even as I think that, the other prissy voice that lives inside my head speaks up.
"You have two interviews to edit. You have to pull the music for the show tomorrow night and run the scheduler for the automated hours on Saturday and Sunday. There are two promos to be written and recorded, next week's hurricane hint to record and produce and a music bed to find for the commercial that is not quite right. Two DVD reviews to write which means finding two films to watch."
Gods, sometimes I hate my little miss organizer self who knows exactly what everybody else needs me to achieve so life flows smoothly and totally ignores the fact that I am on the edge of burnout.
A week of morning shift, quick flip to night and back to day; a firing that means that I, a pagan, am writing six programs on the symbolism of the use of colour in the Bible. And worst of all, I have a poem stuck inside me.
Words keep rising to the surface like an errant dream, wrenching my heart with the need to write them down but they slide back into the depths and I cannot save them from drowning. Cannot save myself. I am hours light on sleep and realise I have forgotten several meals in the last few days because my strength of focus is the weakness that brings me to the brink of dissolution when discipline falters.
Self-knowledge, sadly, does not always lead to change; just shows where change is needed and I drink adrenaline as eagerly as some drink alcohol with just as much potential for disaster.
So lets break it down: essential is the music for tomorrow and the reviews are part of that and so, important. The commercial needs to run this week so the music bed needs changing and one promo will push a feature for tomorrow night so must be done today. I can have the IT department run the scheduler and then just check it and the hurricane hint is needed next Wednesday and can wait till Monday to be recorded.
I am still tired, lacking sleep but I can do this in four hours then go and pick up movies and come home to play reviewer in shorts and a t-shirt with bare feet up on the footrest and a tall icy glass of lemonade, bajan style beside me all chilled with frozen grapes for me to eat when the glass is empty.
That's a plan.
From time to time I worry about what might have happened to my friend T....nce. If he was straight we would have been a good match despite his passion for opera.
Not that I dislike opera, it's just that many opera singers are built on heroic lines, maybe they need to be - the Wagnerians especially - to support the amazing energy required to sing for hours but I find it difficult to achieve that 'willing suspension of disbelief' when Tristan and Isolde are heaving themselves around the stage like geriatric grampuses instead of tripping in youthful elegance. I shut my eyes but when the beauty of the voices and the music makes me crave the spectacle I open them and all is lost. I laugh.
T...nce moved from NY to Fl for work and we went from lunch or dinner twice a week and brunch on every Sunday to emails and once or twice a month over eggs and bacon washed down with the best Greek diner coffee. It was just a job. We would always be friends.
Then he moved completely. giving up a rent-controlled apartment and giving me a choice of those lares and penates that he would be discarding and a beechwood block of knives that sits now on the counter in my kitchen. Still I wasn't worried until all my emails started to go unanswered as did his cell phone. He left the job I knew about and though I have done the best I can to search, he is missing from my radar.
We have cried in each others arms over heartbreaks, encouraged dreams and supported efforts despite reservations. In years of hanging out we never fought, or squabbled and we were friends. Last time I saw T...nce we hugged our usual heartfelt goodbye till next time and he walked out of my life. Apparently forever.
Perhaps our season ended, we achieved the linkage and exchange set out for us this time around. We loved each other with a pure uncluttered. undemanding love that filled each other's eyes with tears when one of us was hurt, that listened without judgment to our deepest shames and with pride to the stories of our greatest struggles and successes.
He was and is my friend, always in my heart. I miss the twinkle in his eye that heralds a scathing remark. I miss the only man who may ever sit with me in a restaurant and sing show tunes just like in the old movies when diners burst into song and danced their way around the tables. I miss my friend who knew me and still loved me, just as I am.
I miss you T...nce, and love you. And I fear for you, because even though you were gone, I used to feel you in the Universe. And now I don't.
and my bedroom, and my office and my kitchen and occasionally - if I don't close the door quickly enough - in my refrigerator. And then he is on my lap, both skinny arms clinging to my wrist while he bites the webbing by my thumb as though it is his favorite snack.
I'm still not sure I really want a cat again. Especially an illegal cat. I like rules. I like to buck them, live by them, circumvent them but in the deepest recesses of my heart I respect them even if I do not agree with them. I have lived in this flesh for enough years to realise that I will not always understand the rules because I cannot see the bigger picture, and sometimes rules are just some power hungry jerk trying for control because he or she has no center, no bedrock faith in their own worth and so they need to dominate the world.
Like everyone, I make adjustments every day, seeking balance, comfort in my life. I say rude words and flip the bird but experience has shown my grandmother was right. Honey works much better than vinegar, although I have little interest in catching flies, and when it is honey backed by truth life becomes a paradise of friendly smiles.
I grew up in a culture where good mornings and good evenings are acknowledged and returned, a habit I almost unlearned in NY in self preservation. On coming home it took a mere day to open up the gentle nods and murmurs of greeting that say yes, I see you, you are here in this world and I acknowledge your right to be here. You are a person and you matter.
I see the bitter complaints in the forum about unanswered mail and wonder how many of those complaining have ignored a flower in their mailbox, left a note without an answer. I post my poems and often tag them with a good evening or good morning to say I know you are there and that I care and I some times feel so alone when not liking the poem is enough to make it too much trouble to say 'I see you' in return.
So the cat taking asylum in my home bites the hand that feeds him and the world at large ignores the greatest social lubricant of all time, good manners.
Eight a.m. and I am awake where I had hoped to sleep at least until two. The game plan is changed. Tiredness still hovers just beneath my skin so if I turn the morning into a flurry of achievement I can go back to bed at two and sleep until eight this evening.
I usually get to the station by ten forty five to take care of any loose ends before air time at midnight on the dot (and I still need to find a really good clock striking twelve effect, not cheesy or would be scary, just hello it's twelve and I am with you kind-of-thing) so eight would give me time to wake and turn night to morning. Even six would be okay.
So laundry, wash the car, walk (not drive) to Speightstown and back to run some errands and a general whip around the house to clean up and I should be properly exhausted. My BA sleepmask from my last London trip will solve the light issue and I will be in great shape.
Time for another cup of tea and then I'll quiet down and see if there's a morning poem in me waiting to escape and either way I will dive into the day and make it work.
Oh, I love it, in the margin ads beside my text box I am told I need never be rejected again or that i can make someone fall in love with me immediately. Pretty powerful stuff! There is not a huge pool of people in my area to choose from and most of them have their upper age limit lower than my personal number, which I have found really makes a difference to some.
And while youth with flesh all closely anchored to the bone is luscious I am not inclined to open kindergarten in the ways of lust and satisfaction, at least not this month or week . I have learned never to say never because it hurts my heart when I break promises to me.
The day awaits and tea is on the menu backed up by crumpets dripping butter just enough to make me need to lick my fingers. Life is good!
Odd week, up at 4:15 a.m. out of the door an hour later and somehow not finishing the work part of my day until eleven in the night on Monday and Tuesday.
Partly a rush edit job, new client, new program, recorded on Monday, rough edit for review on Tuesday with polish and assembly, music and FX, promos and commercials recorded and produced to launch the broadcast today at 6:30 p.m.
And a major edit and assemble job on one of the Artform editions, scrambling to find seventies rock (I always play the artist's choice of at least two pieces of music) with wailing guitar in the library of an easy listening format station. Managed Aerosmith and not much else so I faked it with a Yes piece.
Now it is Thursday and I need to turn from day to night so I can pull the midnight shift tomorrow. One good thing, we have hired a new salesman and he seems to be pretty on the ball so maybe we will finally get sponsors for all the stuff I have been producing over the last six months. Perhaps even get some regular spots in my overnight time slot.
The newbie that was fired said to me that doing her thing on radio was her passion...and yet she knew to the minute how many hours she put in each week and pointed out how she went over the time she was actually contracted for.
I know I have pushed too hard this week because my eyes are sitting in hollow sockets and my head swims every time I move suddenly. My skin feels stretched over the skull that houses the mind and essence of me but the only reason I know what time I stopped work each night is because I had to try for some sleep to put the station on air at six a.m. with any level of energy. And as for money, my ex-newbie's other plaint, well I took a fairly hefty paycut moving to this job which is MY passion and don't miss a penny of it!
Tonight looms large because I need to stay awake until the wee small hours and sleep my way through day time and sleep is tugging at my very soul because the early morning pattern has engraved itself that quickly on the substance that is me.
So I will blog and write and dine at midnight, watching movies and rereading one of my favorite books to keep the engine turning over on the wakeful side for at least another seven hours.
I can hope. I am an optimist, sometimes a fool, but always determined and an optimist.
My newbie announcer got herself fired yesterday. Annoying because I have established a new pattern for the listeners and now, like a soap bubble, it is gone.
It is a long story that I will not tell here beyond mere outline. I am the manager, I set a schedule for November, newbie didn't like it, said she would complain to the big boss.
I advised her that that was inappropriate, she seemed to agree and then decided to call anyway, and set up an appointment to see him. Apparently she thought she was popular enough on air to have my schedule overturned. Or me fired for being insistent.
When she said she could not work with all the restrictions - I had asked her to spend Tuesdays writing and Thursdays on her sales calls and she was upset that I insisted she actually come into the office as I had advanced training to do with her as well - the big boss told her if you can't work in the current situation we have come to a parting of the ways, and that was that.
So, fresh out of her probation period she is gone. And the six programs she had committed to writing? Well, I will write them I suppose. I was going to edit them and produce them anyway.
I am very tired this week, opening the station at five forty five, working the morning show then interviews, editing and producing commercials, promos, jingles, then writing about fifty bios of artists with their philosophy statement to be recorded to start airing Monday.
Stretched thin with only four hours sleep a night and loving it. The challenge to do, create, and make it happen stirs my blood even though I need to whine a little. It is intense and I am glad the newbie's gone .
I never found the right language style with her to avoid her taking what I meant as constructive feedback, not even criticism, as a personal attack. And yet she saw nothing untoward about being four weeks behind on her deadline (set by her) for a sponsored program where we have a commitment to a client.
Ah well, none of this will matter in fifty years and right now the only thing I care about is sleep. I only have two things to finish up for tomorrow...
Actually cats do anything they like, rule the roost, train their humans, plot the domination of the world (oh no, that's the mouse called Brain, cats have already taken over!) or just sit and watch with quiet eyes that see 360 degrees.
Furball made an excursion into the great outdoors. He is convinced there is some better place to be, with more toys, more fun, more appealing food, more something behind every door that is closed. I think it was Heinlein who wrote Door into Summer, one of my favorite Sci Fi stories, which had a very important cat as one of the characters.
Each cat knows on some genetic level that there is a magic door that leads to cat paradise and we humans keep this knowledge to ourselves. Cruel creatures that we are.
The other day I opened up the oven, fully heated, to put fish in to bake and Furball hopped up, in and out so quickly that he didn't singe a hair or blister a paw. Yet he looked at me with those great eyes as if I planned the whole thing.
So he went outdoors, I hovered by the window just in case the feral cats came swooping in to stake a claim, or, even worse, the pair of dogs across the way, which might be fast enough to catch a neophyte who hasn't learned the world is not solely inhabited by mountains that dispense food or baby talk.
When he headed for the 'way over yonder' of the neighbours' yard I went and fetched him back, ignored his squalling and blessed the moment silence fell until I saw the scratching start. Way too much for a transitory itch, this flurry of back feet and claws meant trouble and sure enough, beneath the layer of white fur, I could see the dark forms of invaders. Fleas! Lots of them. All over Furball.
He was so trusting as I put him in the sink and turned the water on. Even when I soaked him down he didn't struggle, just looked at me with that LOOK. Then when I lathered him up with baby shampoo with a drop of tea tree oil and a drop of lavender oil mixed in, his little sodden paws reached out and clung to the tap as to a lifeline in this new, wet, uncomfortable world. I washed and rinsed and marvelled at the sheer number of parasites he had acquired in a mere fifteen minutes.
I washed and rinsed again, then took him out to comb and dry on the back porch in the sun. Poor little soggy thing. He started to shiver despite the brisk rubbing so I took him back in and used the hairdryer on him, low speed, just warm. So now, I have this fluffy, sweet-smelling cat who is attacking me from behind every chair, eyes intent on mayhem, and I think I did not get all the bloody fleas either as I saw him scratch again just now.
One of the disadvantages of living in Barbados is not being able to run down to the neighbourhood drugstore or pet store (especially on Sunday) to pick up flea collars for cats or even treatment for the yard or foggers for the house. And me, I have showered twice, changed and laundered all the clothes I wore while treating him and still feel the need to scratch.
This too shall pass.
I hope.
There are times, in the night, when my bones whisper through my dreams that they will break. The tension is too much and if I don't let go, they will splinter in the unyielding grip of my determination.
I listen to my dreams, all the secrets of myself are murmured just below the surface of my mind and as the ear turns inward the single notes all sound into a chord and then a harmony arises that helps me grow.
But only if I listen. And knowledge does not always show the path that must be taken, just a fact or two that must be taken in and centered in the heart to make the life I live authentic.
My bones are strong, compressed and buttressed by the weight of years and gravity, but there is this incident that worries them because it worries me so much I am losing sleep.
My dream time's turning sour with the weeds of other peoples' power trying to supplant my own and the flavour of betrayal scars the mouth, the tongue, like acid making speech a memory of what was, what must come again.
I am the architect of my existence and I feed my bones to keep them strong. The power that is mine will stand against a thousand armies many people strong if I have faith, if I listen to the whispers in the night that tell me how to go.
It's all the cat's fault. Yowling his head off at 5:30 in the morning. Then again at seven. And going for three at ten. Each time I got up, paid attention, gave food gave water, even tried to bribe with milk (not really good for him but I need to sleep) too bad. He wanted out and about and that's all that mattered.
I had an evil thought, is that the cat part or the male part driving him to make a total nuisance of himself? No matter. I am awake, if yawning, with the prospect of another twenty two hours of being up ahead of me, the last six spent being the nameless lady in the night who fills the airwaves with company and conversation side by side with music.
I think I'll make some pancakes, pour the syrup on and butter them to a golden gleam to suffocate my wakefulness with carbs and comfort, possible ticket to a two or three hour drowse that would tip the balance in my favour.
Besides, I like pancakes and have not had them for at least three months. Sounds like a plan! The cat? Perhaps I'll give him what he wants, I'll open the back door and let him out, the whole world his to play in. Only kidding. I think.
Furball is growing and somehow is still living in my apartment. This Saturday will make it four weeks, and his eyes have turned to grey-green orbs that look at me consideringly from across the room then disappear as he lies in wait for me to pass so he can leap, shrieking little goblin cat howls, paws splayed apart for maximum lift, on some portion of my anatomy.
Each day I become more and more an etching, strange hieroglyphs that mark his life with me. Each day gets filled with work, with errands that prevent me taking him elsewhere, eating up the time where I could be delivering him to a shelter and setting myself free of all the inadvertent chains he has wrought around my heart.
He is growing sleek and lean, a face with huge eyes that gaze into mine as if to impart the secrets of the universe, right before he bites my nose or sinks claws in my shoulder as he races off to catch the movement of the air across the room.
My house is rearranged. I am not tidy but there is order in my chaos, or there used to be. A bracelet rolls beneath my foot here by the desk. A bracelet that lives in the box in the bathroom. An earring sits in splendour in the middle of the room. My cat has magpie instincts. And he's not MY cat, just a boarder till I find him shelter.
He eats icecream but not the chocolate chips, he doesn't like sardines and he longs to get outside and stalk the grasses as they dance in deference to the morning breezes that sweep the night away. He is unimaginably loud and looks at me and grins a goblin grin, a pixy grin all pink and white with sharp and shiny teeth.
He has put his newsprint covered pawprints on my soul.
And tomorrow I have to take action. My newbie announcer has been around three months now. Time to evaluate, to add the pros and cons and act.
Her on air delivery is generally wooden and stilted, yet she has moments when I hear pure gold. Still , no matter how I say yes that is it, that feeling, that connection that you made...go there, seek that, she seems not to be able to retrace her steps.
She has never met a deadline, even for the pieces she comes up with herself. I have been waiting five weeks, promised every week "it's coming", for a piece to edit so we can record. A sponsored show in six parts only one part done and as I am the only production person I will be doing the recording, editing and polishing.
But it is November here and now and I am producing forty five-minute pieces for one station, six half hours for the other with Independence specials and December in the pipeline with interviews and bookings all set back to back plus four days in St. Lucia for the World Music Festival (third annual) so I cannot let her slide.
I have decided to take her off air two days a week and make Tuesday writing day for her and Thursday sales day. I hesitate to change a pattern on my listeners but perhaps a month of enforced function to get what the station needs and what her job description includes will give her structure.
And the gods will give me words to do it gently, to present it not as punishment but as a way to make things easier for her. Then if she balks I'll fire her. Probation's up. She hasn't really made the grade but I have no one on line to fill that slot, just one or two who want part time that I cannot use yet because I want someone in daylight.
She is also a little silly, she tries to play the managing director against me, not realising that I discuss everything because I am revamping the station, making changes and I consult every step of the way because I am shifting ground that has stood unbroken for 25 years. I am changing something that is not broken, just outdated and stagnant so I consult and explain and am fully transparent - in the language of today.
Well, I shall leave until tomorrow those burdens and the travails that belong there and hope to sleep without the dreams that tossed my sheets to licorice twists last night.
I have completed four of the six impossible things so I guess I was exaggerating and whining a bit. However I realised I may have cracked a finger when I changed the tyre yesterday. So frustrating getting those lug nuts off and then on again tight enough that the wheel won't go sailing across the road while I am driving. Boy would I feel dumb if that happened!
The seatbelt is malfunctioning again too, grabbing down hard with no slack so it gets really difficult to lean forward to check the road on corners. Also if I have to really slam on the brakes the darned belt will probably break my collarbone or decapitate me. The joys of modern machines.
Time to head for the office for stage two of my day.
Furball says "Hi, I am really sleek and gorgeous now," to all his fans. He doesn't actually answer to Furball by the way. He looks up at "You with the whiskers" though.
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