Doing. Jobs.

As many of you know, the year I turned 30 I worked out of Saginaw, MI as a traveling player, basically. Me and two people I'd never met before driving around the midwest in a van, singing ditties for schoolchildren with varying levels of give a shit (both ours and the children's). Then we would drive back "home" to Saginaw to live with 5 or 6 or 11 other vans full of other people who hadn't known each other until they showed up on Eddy Street with less than a dollar but more than a dream. We had a saying back then.

"Just do your job."

Generally this was muttered under the breath with some level of ire. We loved each other but we didn't always like each other very much. You try living in a van with someone for 9 months and tell me how that goes for you. As you got rubbed increasingly the wrong way eventually you wished for a moment of silence, a moment away, a moment not to have to negotiate the eggshell politics of half-chosen family. At that point all you wanted to do was have every single person just do their job so you could do your job and we could all shut up about it.

It seems I reached that point in the holiday season at about 4pm yesterday. I am coming down with some sort of light bug and I scheduled myself into a bunch of little things I wouldn't normally do. I thought it would be wise to take a different approach to the season. It seemed as though having plenty to do, especially things where I was expected to be merry and bright, would carry me forward on a wave of holiday jollity that would last right into the new year.

I blame the failure of this plan on the aforementioned bug. Fucking bugs. Except they are just doing their jobs.