Distraction
Mar. 8th, 2026 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera
I have to do nothing a certain number of hours each day.
I mean that quite literally. I essentially sit with my eyes unfocused. Sometimes, there's a book on my lap; sometimes, there's a yellow legal pad and a pen on a desk in front of me. But those are props. Really, I am just sitting there, & my mind is a complete blank.
Is this laziness? Is this some metabolic form of meditation? Who knows? But this is what I have to do to stay sane, & just because I'm toiling in the tax mines 10 hours a day, doesn't mean I can stop.
This cuts down on the number of hours I have available for Useful Work since added to the tax mine & the hours I sit with my eyes unfocused is the time I must spend on distraction. Books & movies! ("Movies" there is an umbrella term that includes television shows.) Dangling strands of narrative. Stories!
Long way of saying the Patrizia-torium is an absolute mess, and I've had the same basket of laundry waiting to be folded sitting in my bedroom for four days now. Though I did remember to get my Synthroid prescription refilled.
What I'm hoping is that I can fill the coffers high enough to buy me four uninterrupted weeks of work on the Work In Progress.
Three thousand extra dollars is not gonna float down in small, easily negotiable bills from the sky! Manifesting does not work for me.
No, I'm gonna have to sweat for it.
###
Shortly, I will be going into the Montgomery Schlock office to sit down with a client who somehow thinks it's my fault that he owes $2,000 on his federal income taxes.
He wants to ream me a new asshole.
Hey! I wasn't the one making out the W4 that only takes out 8% for federal taxes when he's clearly in the 12% bracket!
But like most people, he thinks tax refunds are a type of Lotto. And that I have cheated him out of his golden ticket.
The Montgomery office is far more tolerable than the Middletown office. I actually like the people who work there. Yesterday, I learned the entire life history of the office's manager, a pugnacious 74-year old, born & raised in Newburgh during its tenure as the murder capital of the U.S. The high point of her life? In 1981, she was Miss Ramada Inn!
Stories! I do love stories.
The day before, I studied up on Gary (not his real name), a sweet & super-smart guy who plays D&D, smokes lots of dope, & weighs 350 pounds—down from 550 pounds three years ago.
When people are seriously obese, of course, that is the primary thing you notice about them—though political correctness dictates you pretend otherwise.
Eventually, the conversation grew real enough so that Gary began talking to me about his weight, why it happened. Though I think the real reason was that when everything else in your life is starving you, you nurture yourself the best way you can.
"Here's an interesting factoid," I said. "Do you know the only food in nature that contains sugars and fats in the same proportions that they're found in processed cakes and candies and ice cream?"
"Honey?" guessed Gary.
"Human breast milk," I told him.
His mouth fell open. And I could actually see the light bulb forming over his head.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-08 02:39 pm (UTC)I also need sit and stare/do nothing time. Like, work and whatever obligations own so much of my day and I need some of it to be just mine. Regulating enough to truly relax or something like that.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-09 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-08 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-09 11:43 am (UTC)