Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1024
New York was shockingly productive and rewarding, but the new LGA sucks. Out of Pocket revisited, controversially.
Good morning! Hello! How was your week? I hope it was productive? Mine was super, stunningly, amazingly productive. More productive than I could possibly have dared hope. Fantastico. Unfortunately, I am also overwhelmingly busy, playing catch up from four days being out of communication.
Not out of pocket. That refers to expenses. Though I must admit, as I’ve grown older, “out of pocket” in terms of being unavailable to your work team members has bothered me less and less, because there exists the phrase “in the pocket,” which means you’re in the groove when playing music. So it does stand to reason that you being not in the pocket, as a metaphor, means you’re not in the groove, not in sync with your bandmates, and it works perfectly well as a metaphor.
This is, I am absolutely sure, a controversial take that is going to piss off some people.
Anyhoo, sooo busy. Terrifyingly busy. One of those days you’re so busy that you have to keep reminding yourself that so long as you’re doing something on your todo list, you are being productive, and it doesn’t help to stress about getting the exact prioritization right, because you can’t. Just chip away. I was tempted to skip writing, I am that busy, but I promised you guys I’d be back today, it’s already been an unprecedentedly long absence from GMHHAY, and a promise made is a promise delivered. Just like Barack Obama at the beginning of his term when he had that website about keeping promises, until he realized that was impossible, and quietly took down the site with little fanfare. But we are not there yet, and we love Barry anyway, dude caught a fly with two fingers on live TV and got almost no credit for it cuz we’re all racist.
New York was great, there was a fly in our airplane the whole trip and the woman across with me could not let it go. I felt bad for her. I think that fly ruined her trip. The new Laguardia sucks it is so, so big, and it took me twelve minutes to get from a gate to the street it is just insane. It’s too expensive and too big and I miss the old Laguardia and everyone made fun of it but they were wrong. Upon leaving New York, after another twelve minute walk, my flight home was out of the last remaining sliver of the old LGA and it was like seeing an old friend. I will miss it. And I will finish it soon, I swear.
My cab driver was Indian and at first I thought he was a mystic as he told me a story (parable? apocraphyl?) about his son who one day helped a little old lady across the street and asked for nothing in return and that lady turned out to be rich and powerful and was so thankful for this rare kind man that she helped him create his brilliant career and how he is the baron of a plumbing HVAC company that does $15 million a year. Then he lectured me on how a good marriage exists because of communication and that’s when I started to wonder if maybe I was not actually existing in a modern day Siddhartha cuz… duh. And sure enough, as I got out of the cab, he told me to read a book that would change my life:
Dianetics.
Alas.
I almost completely spent the trip with my coworkers, morning, noon and night. I did get a little bit of extracurricular activity in — I had a dinner with my friend Flood that turned into a not-too-terrible-but-still-probably-too-much-for-our-age pub crawl, and I got a beloved hour of solo New York bar time where you end up meeting someone interesting in an empty bar which is the single greatest thing about New York, in this case it was two women in their 20’s, lifelong friends, celebrating one of their birthdays, and we had a long conversation about Genesis P-Orridge, the problematic side and the innovative side, fandom and Olivia Rodrigo. I didn’t hit on them, we just chatted about art and I left them after 30-40 minutes like a sane, normal, civilized person. It is not that hard.
The work retreat was great, just so much better than I could have possibly predicted. The team is great, they are in sync, some of them I met in person for the first time, some of them I hadn’t seen in person in years. It was emotional, it was transformative, god, it all sounds so cheesy but we were all walking around afterwards, while learning to make pasta, talking about how no one ever has a good work summit, let alone a great work summit.
So what I’ve realized is I’m not a terrible manager after all, and this was a massively relieving realization. Because I know I used to be a great manager, even with the sleeping till noon and constantly being hung over. But the last, oh, I’ma gonna say three, four years, I’ve really started to wonder if I’m not a good manager anymore. Less patient. Less able to convey a point. It’s been gnawing at me.
But, lol, nope. It’s just remote. Which sucks cuz I love working remote, the team loves working remote, but it does have an impact. I am not particularly keen to contemplate the ramifications of this.
But that’s also cus we didn’t do this for three years. It’s our first post-pandemic summit. And it’s very clear we need to do more. So I think the glow of this one should last till, you know, close to the next one. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.
Hats off to Emma, who watched Jane solo for a week again, and Jane was not especially keen to go to school most days this week. She did have fun at the fun run. She got scared about drawing a monster. She does not seem to enjoy PE, which is alarming because, you know, that was a big failing in my life.
Anyway, sorry this is late, did the Walmart run, ‘twas fantastic. Had to go to the refund desk, I will tell you the whole bin saga in a future edition. Met with the solar people about the in-law house not producing enough. Our theory is it’s the Mach-E, so we’re gonna charge that on another house for a month. Did the recycling. Had a call about PR. Went to McDonald’s, they stiffed me for my hash browns. But that’s okay nothing can stop my mood today I am going to work.
No photos of my daughter cuz I’m in quarantine, but I did get a breath-holding hug.
But: Yes. RDU balloons shining bright this week.
Moody and quiet today. All new. Honestly I don’t even know half these bands, just listened to them in the truck this morning. Lot to investigate. But so far so good. Love this new Sufjan. It gets a little noisy, but… it fits spiritually? Also love this new yeule.
We will return to our regularly-scheduled programming on Monday. I hope you have a lovely weekend. Ciao.