Positive Postal

Sorry (but not sorry) for being such a grumpy Gary (Busey, obvs) yesterday. 

For a guy who has been spending as much time doing what I love (riding around aimlessly) on my overly abundant time off, the weeks when I've been heading into work have been a little more mentally taxing lately.  The person who is normally in the "lead position" has been out of the office, and I've somehow found myself filling the seat.  

As we call it, "being the mustache."

Good thing I'm prepared for this task.

At least in the ironic sense.  Everything I know about the job is based on my proximity to it and the things I've accidentally learned out of idle curiosity and a desire to be a little halper.  75% of the work, I know what I'm doing.  The other 25% is a "growth opportunity."

The Pie has has been learning me how to speak "corporate."

What that means is I've been tied to a desk the last three weeks that I've gone into work.  It also means we're short handed.  It's also² been during some of the busiest times of the year.

It also³ meant there were days that I went into the big building at 9:00AM, and I came back outside at 5:00PM, spending all that time in a windowless room.  I mighta snuck out to peep at the outdoors once or twice on a potty break.  I was not the "bike guy," as we get loosely referred to by regular office folk. 

It's difficult for me to sit still, and worse, to sit still indoors.  Perhaps that's why I packed a solo ride beer the other week, because as long as I was outside, nothing else mattered.  I love my job because it grants me the freedom to be outside, even when it's raining and cold or hot and swampy.  Life is better lived in a non-climate controlled environment.  It's what I've been doing since '96 (except that regrettable three months in middle management wearing a tie and slippers and shaving daily), and I miss my regular job.  I've resorted to leaving my "running shoes" at work (are they even running shoes if you don't run?) because it seems pointless to click and clack around in clipless shoes for eight hours and not hopping on a bike occasionally.

It's temporary, but every time I have to call the outside courier, I'm jealous.  One less trip down Third Street to the courthouse.  One less climb up Fourth Street past the bus station and the arena.  One less trip out to the residential area of Dilworth where I look at houses and wonder how many kids I'd have to have in order to justify heating that many square feet and are there rooms that no one goes in for years at a time?

So perhaps that and what's going on out in the real world have been pulling my spirits down at times.  

But... everything is temporary.  The bad as well as the good, but there will always be more of both, and it's probably better to focus on the potential for the latter more than the former.  The days are getting longer, the temperature will get warmer (eventually), the trails will dry out, and my saddle sore will go away.

I hope.

The Pie would like to remind me that I still have a jerhb.  I still have my health.  I still have a tolerant wife.  

I tell her I also have five bikes and a dog.

Count your many blessings.