Ha! I never described how Thanksgiving went. In a word: Perfect. All the food was delicious, nobody stressed out, we all chatted pleasantly, we went on a brisk walk around the neighborhood, and we watched two Jackie Chan films (Dragon Lord and The Medallion). We ate succulent turkey, flavorful stuffing, plump sweet potatoes, corny corn muffinsh, and thick slices of apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Couldn’t be better.
As mentioned before, I then spent the weekend on various purchases. Friday night, as I lay in bed thinking about the morning, I had an idea shocking in its odd yet perfect logic: I needed a coffeemaker in my bedroom, despite not drinking coffee.
No, all that anime hasn’t rotted my brain. My morning pages (three pages of journalling in the morning) have become a tradition, but I’ve had difficulty waking up in time to write all three pages. I usually wake up to the alarm, then lay in bed luxuriating for half an hour or so. I realized that, if I had a hot cup of tea waiting for me, I’d be much more inclined to get up immediately.
So I bought a cheap, programmable coffeemaker and set it up for the next morning. I woke up and listened to the tea cough and burble into the carafe, and up I sat. Went right over, poured myself a steaming mug of hot tea, sat down at the desk, opened my journal, took a sip of the tea…and nearly spat it out. Tasted horrible. But I was up and journalling.
I still don’t know why it tastes so bad. I’ve washed everything, but maybe it needs a more thorough cleaning. Very odd. But I still get up.
And I do enjoy the mornings, especially calm, grey mornings like this one. It rained last night, and the sky was that lovely, velvet grey that looks soft and inviting like a worn blanket. The street outside was still empty, but with a promise of further activity. Kids were no doubt lined up on the corner farther down, craning their necks to look for the school bus, another week of lessons and friendships begun.
And I’m preparing for another week of work, to which I’m increasingly looking forward with good anticipation. Tom Peters writes about “reclaiming work from Dilbert,” that we are not simply slaves to corporate culture; we’re accepting slaves. We not only work in insane bureaucracies, we sit back and take it. No. No. We can reclaim the idea of work as a fun, amazing, exciting thing to do. We can leap into our workweeks with the ferocity of a pit bull and the excitement of Peter Pan. We can become masters of our own work.
And I suspect most of my readers are rolling their mental eyes, saying, “Yeah, right, whatever.” I was the same way. But I’ve been thinking about this, and observing my work, and wow do I have opportunities to reclaim my work, to stake my claim, to turn this mundane project into an experience that makes people gasp in awe.
Why on Earth would I want to settle for mediocrity when something like that is possible?