Where did the TIME go?

I can't believe the date, that it's already THIS weekend, Memorial Day Weekend. It seems like just yesterday I was freezing and now it's unofficially Summer. I've just watched Primer for the second time, an absolute necessity to understand the movie. I was following the film and thought I understood the theory, but then became completely lost in the last twenty minutes. The theory I thought was brilliant, and didn't deal so much with time “travel” as removing something from one point in time and reinserting it at an earlier point. I had the gist, and did my best to follow two guys speaking not with clear hollywood idiot-proof simplicity, but everyday science geek speak. I was disappointed to realize I'm not as smart as engineers, but I guess that was an unrealistic burst of ego. After watching it twice, I would say I have about an 87% understanding of what happened, which is more than enough to appreciate it and possibly as much as I can ever hope to comprehend with my Fine Arts degree.

Time moves so quickly, that it would be nice to be able to go back and take care of things I didn't get to the first time around. I used to pride myself on being fast at what I do. I don't design as well as a lot of my colleagues, but I turn out a decent volume of work in the time I have. The older I get, and the more people I know at work, the easier it is for me to get distracted. The company was letting us out at 2PM today, and at the start of the day I had very little work to do. My next meeting is Tuesday morning after the long weekend, but under our reorganized structure someone else has provided printouts to my team. Ever since I graduated college, downtime has always frustrated and scared me. If I was consistently busy, then I was needed. Long periods of inactivity equal redundancy in my book, and while part of me has relaxed and accepted that I may not survive the next round of layoffs having made it through the last two, there's another part of me that hopes I do. I've gotten comfortable. I know the routine and, more importantly, I know the people. Growing up, I hated the fact that every 3-6 years my life would be disrupted when I'd graduate to a new school with new routines and new people. Just as I made friends and acquaintances, the cycle would start all over again. An adult should NOT fear being the “new kid” with no friends, but it’s a neurosis I may never shake emotionally, even with the intellectual ability to comprehend the absurdity and insignificance of it. I always eventually end up being liked, even accepted, by a few people, so even though none of that matters the fact that such a condition is temporary should provide some comfort.

I began the day with nothing to do and that sense of impending doom, when the e-mails started pouring in. Like some of my commenters, I too take pleasure in hearing e-mail arrive. The first was a information for a portion of my catalog which had come too late for yesterday's printouts. It wouldn't take me long to design the small box which affected one page, and print that page for Tuesday. But then my editors e-mailed me a request to design a new jacket in a short period of time. In these situations, we don't have time to commission an illustrator to do a new painting from scratch, so we purchase rights to existing art. The editors had a general idea of what KIND of image they wanted, but didn't have a specific piece in mind. They mentioned a few illustrators whose styles they liked, which was a good starting point. I spent the bulk of my morning flipping through art books and surfing web sites. Sometimes it bothers me that I'm not being productive when looking for art, but it's definitely one of the more enjoyable parts of my job and, when motivated, I can crank out the boring productive work pretty quickly.

I had to eat. There was no way I was going to work until two without at least walking outside and grabbing a pizza. Rey and Jerry even convinced me to sit outside and eat since I wasn't going to be working if I was eating at my desk anyway. When we returned, I saw that my editors liked the suggestion I'd e-mailed prior to taking my break, and had another request for a new commission. Once the appropriate forms were filled out and submitted, I only had to take care of the one page in my catalog that needed work, and I would be free for a great long weekend. I let myself get drawn in to a Star Wars® discussion and suddenly, everyone was going home. Ever experience a lapse in time? Ever find yourself driving down the road, start thinking about something, then notice you're several miles further than the last time you actually noted your surroundings? Time slips sometimes, and real life can be as confusing as the movie I watched. I had my motivation to work faster though, and by 2:15 I was a free man. The gym closed at 3PM but I at least got my daily run in, edging ever closer to my peak. At some point last year I was able to run 3.2 miles in a half hour. Various factors kept me from going to the gym as regularly and I backslid, but I've been pushing every day, fighting to get back to normal. Today I ran 2.35, which is the best I've done in a while. I WILL get back to where I was, and then exceed it.

As I drove home, the sun came out, a welcome sight after a week of rain and a good omen. I realized if I mowed the lawn as soon as I got home, I would take advantage and make good use of the unexpected time I'd been granted this afternoon, freeing myself for other things this weekend. Tomorrow I may head out to an air show at Jones Beach in an attempt to get better pictures than my last Photo Blog Wednesday offered. A phone call tonight yielded another unexpected treat; the band leader of one of the Italian bands I'm in got a last minute call to play a two-hour gig tomorrow night. Sunday I'm already booked to do a parade with another band, and Monday morning I'm playing two parades for a third band, possibly followed by a barbecue held by an old college friend.

I've got plenty to look forward to this weekend and I have the sneaking suspicion that as soon as I post this, I'll find myself sitting in a meeting at work on Tuesday wondering where the time went...