Friday, September 22, 2000

 

10:26 a.m. Yes, I am always up and about at this time of the day ... but until the vacation crash, I had relegated this all-important (writing) part of my day to the wee hours. Why do they call them "wee," I wonder? They sometimes stretch long and terrifying; they sometimes crouch in the dark corners of the room or fall squeaking from the sky ... but wee? Hardly.

Anyway. Today a veritable mob of boys is descending on my humble home. A few are coming to rip apart the back end of my computer setup and install a company-loaned CD-rom burner for a short stretch. That should be fun. A few more are coming for an editorial conference, arranging their muscled and buff selves onto chairs and stools for a brief, sedentary moment before it's back to the gym.

Maybe they'll be more later -- I'm pretty much a boy magnet these days. Must be the WD-40. (That link refers to an entry of mine from a little less than a year ago. It's amazing to me, always, that I've already weathered a summer ending and lived to tell about it. It gets colder and the days get shorter, the holidays come and I feel inadequate, it gets colder still ... and yet ... )

And thus you see the total, brilliant rationale for keeping a diary, a journal, a day-timer or a motley collection of dated notes. You prove to yourself that you have stamina, muscles in places you never knew could hurt, wherewithall, and sticktoittive-ness. Maybe not the right stuff, but certainly the all right stuff.

12:13 a.m. And then the day just skidded out of control and I found myself here, in the night. It's better to write in the day, believe me. I'm going to have to learn how to write and talk to people at the same time. Write and eat at the same time. Write and scan, write and vacuum -- at the same time.

The CD-rom burner installation didn't go very well. When I opened up my computer, the young fella with the wires and the wirerims looked inside, blew around some dust, and said it was the oldest machine he's ever seen -- in his life. And all this time -- I thought I was cutting-edge. I guess not. More like dull cheese-spreader.

Everywhere I look, I see the young people on the march. There are greater and greater mobs of them and they have a lot of disdain in them. In the daylight I think they are cute and winsome and fetching, but once night falls ... I become a little bit uneasy. They're skittering along the halogen-lit streets, tossing beer cans, multiplying out there, as I type.

They're soon going to outnumber the baby boomers, if they haven't already. They're going to overrun the planet with their fat sneakers and whoop-whoop cheers and their backpacks and their neon scooters.

Kids! I used to be one. Luckily, I outgrew it. Now all I have to do is outrun them, and for that I need some sleep.

See you tomorrow, when the day is young.