Over the past couple of days I have been writing a lot. Some professional writers might not think so, but it's been a lot for me. NaNoWriMo has begun (The NaNoWriMo button to the right will get you to my page at the National Novel Writer's website) but I was in the middle of writing a Sci-Fi story for Handsome, and I wanted to finish that before I started my NaNo novel in earnest. So I was working on both of them at the same time.
Well, that wasn't working out too well. I wasn't seeing the kind of progress I was hoping for in either project, even though I was writing my rear cheeks off. I've been drinking more Hydrive over the past couple of days in order to stay a little alert while writing, especially since Tuesday night I got about 3 hours of sleep and last night it was closer to 2 and a half.
2 and a half hours of sleep, and then I went to work.
Now, usually I do not drink Hydrive in the mornings. All that caffeine in me that early in the day is a recipe for everyone around me to be annoyed. I mean really annoyed. Like, carrying pitchforks and torches and chasing me over the moors annoyed. But there I was, driving to work with a Hydrive in my hand, one to replace the one I had been drinking while I was writing before work (I did manage to finish and print up Handsome's new story, by the way!). My breakfast was ... minimal. So by the time I got to work I was what they like to call 'wired'.
I sang. I danced. I sang some more. I tried to keep it quiet, and I did manage to listen to my audiobook for a while as I was sorting mail, but it didn't last. Eventually I was pushing my sorted route out of the building in a big hamper, getting it out there into the parking lot so I could load it into my truck. That was where I saw PW.
PW is a coworker who loves to hate me. He has fun hating me. The part that he hates is that he's a somewhat angry man and I tend to make him laugh. That kind of spoils the mad. He's a little short too. Pretty much if you were to take Grumpy Dwarf, shave the little bastard, and slap him in a Postal Uniform, you'd have PW. And I did have PW, right there in the parking lot with me.
Now, since he has fun hating me, I have swung the complete opposite way and have fun loving him. I do things like sing love songs to him across the workroom floor, and I make sure to wave when he leaves the building, or sometimes salute as he walks by. And there he was, backing his truck out of its spot int he lot.
I stood where he could see me, and I started waving. He backed out, saw me there, and started to drive by without acknowledging me at all. Well, in my Hydrive-enhanced state I just couldn't let that stand, so as he pulled by me I started to jog alongside of his truck, still waving. And yelling goodbye. Loudly.
I could see that he was trying not to laugh, and as he came to the stop sign where he would take a right and travel up the driveway along the side of the building to the street I decided to stick with him. He was only smiling, I hadn't yet broken him, you see. So he made the turn and I paced him, running alongside and bidding him a fond farewell at the top of my voice from about three feet away.
Suddenly he floored it. I knew he could only run to the end of the driveway and then he'd have to stop again, so, with a youthful exuberance borne of massive caffeine overload, I sprinted after him. I didn't do too badly, managing to stay alongside the speeding vehicle and looking in his big wing-mirror to watch him watching me. His watching was happening through slits, his eyes squinted nearly closed with laughter.
At the end of the driveway, mission accomplished, I stopped, put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe. As he drove away, I jogged back to the rear parking lot and loaded my truck . As I was loading up another co-worker, JS, asked me "So, did you catch him?"
"Catch him?" I replied, "I never lost him."
"Really? He must have been laughing his ass off."
"Yup, he was. But the real funny part is still to come."
JS looked at me quizzically. "What's that?"
"I am going to be so sore tomorrow!"
The sore did not wait. My hip, which does trouble me from time to time, decided that today it was time. I limped all day, and sometimes it hurt quite a bit. But all I had to do to feel a little better was remember PW's squinched up little laughing eyes, watching me flailing along beside his truck like a total fool.
Tomorrow morning I'm getting on a 7am flight direct to Denver. I'm going to be stiff and sore as hell when I get off that plane in DIA. Am I going to have a Hydrive as soon as I get up, and be all twitchy and restless for the duration of the flight? Oh, hell no.
I'm packing one in my checked bag and drinking it as soon as I get through baggage claim!
Watch out, Denver!
Talk to you later!
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