There are advantages to being an office drone -- particularly when you've worked in one place for a long time, as I have. You can skulk into your office without anyone noticing you. You hardly have to talk to anyone, so when you have laryngitis it's no big deal. You've been there so long, you're like a piece of furniture, fufilling your function unnoticed.
Sometimes it freaks me out to think my whole early adulthood is circumscribed by this one office. Four apartments, a couple boyfriends, pets gained and lost, years of headshrinking and all that goes with it . . . and I'm still here. Snow out the window. Rain. Sirens. Remember the few days it smelled like a corpse outside? No? Unbelievable. They must have unearthed something in a basement. That was six years ago.
How do people my age mark off periods of their lives? Social rituals -- marriage, kids; breakups and getting-togethers; moving; births; deaths; jobs; school. Right now I'm weighing a lot of small triumphs and failures.
I don't make new year's resolutions, but this new year's I have a big 'back to the drawing board' feeling that's pretty heavy. In one week I'm losing 2 of my closest friends -- one moving out of state, one out of my home. Musically speaking, I feel a tinge of failure (launching a record into the ether; not sure if anyone's buying it in stores; definitely sure that indie-level publicity is more difficult even than I imagined) mingled with great happiness (helping the label grow; new band, new songs, new fun).
This is a vicarious triumph, but watching my family grow is very exciting! This Christmas was so much fun: watching Little Nephew drag around his new toy guitar was especially heartwarming (I think he's already surpassed me in the guitar skills dept.) and dueting on "Jingle Bells" with his cousin Big Nephew on violin. It was Baby Niece's first Christmas, and she was very charming in her duo Tweedlebug pigtails.
There are lots of other things to look forward to, not the least of which is completing this double-volume encyclopedia that's been occupying me here at the job for a couple of years.
Speaking of which. Here I go . . .
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