time – Page 6 – JonWestfall.com

April 18, 2012

#79 Things To Do In Between Appointments on A Busy Day

It seems that on days when appointments stack like Tetris bricks, leaving small pockets of space that are too big to ignore, too small to be useful, one is forced to consider alternatives to their usual activities. Below is a list of potential uses for those 15-30 minute blocks of time you have between meetings.

Adopt a pet Mayfly – he might only live 30 minutes! Hold a memorial service for said mayfly when he passes on.
Clean out your desk of miscellaneous papers you don’t need. Extra points if you can get someone to believe you were fired while doing said cleaning.
Order a pizza to be delivered to your next meeting.
Find another co-worker in a similar empty time slot and schedule a 1/2 hour meeting to discuss the relative merits of each US President between Polk – Lincoln.
Eat something.
Drink something.
Do something… anything… somewhat productive if possible.
Adopt a pet Mayfly… oh wait… been there, done that.
Get your swag on.
Build a door for your cubicle out of cardboard.
Reply to mass-emails meant to be rhetorical (i.e. “Why thank you for the invite to your symposium! I’d love to attend but unfortunately can’t be there because I’m having my hair done that day at that time…”). Be sure to reply all.
Retire your shoes really tightly, then walk until they loosen up.
Find a desk calendar, make notes such as “Buy supplies”… “Train”…. “Read instructions online”… and then on one day simply write “ACT” and underline it twice. If anyone is reading your desk calendar (or the one in question), they’ll probably take that day off work.
Take a 20 minute power nap (This is actually good advice if you can do it!)
Write a blog post of about 300 words, pawning off your own need to fill time as “creative writing”.

So there you have it – 15 things to do in a 30 minute open block of time!

Authors Note: Written yesterday between meetings

[SSDay]

April 17, 2012

#78 Full Calendar

“I just don’t get it, Rich, it’s insane”, Bob said.

“I agree – they’ve got us running all around the territory – no time to slack off!”, Rich said in reply.

“Yea, and that’s the weirdest part”, Bob said quickly as he focused on the hole in traffic he was attempting to get in.

“What do you mean?”, Rich asked.

“On days we slack off, it seems to take forever for time to pass. But on days we’re busy, the day flies by. Sorta weird that we’d want slack off time at the cost of a faster moving clock!”.

[SSDay]

April 16, 2012

#77 Gathering It All Up!

She was running late that morning, and nothing was where it was supposed to be. Her bag was a disaster, her laptop case in complete disarray, and the laptop had a dead battery since she forgot to charge it. She wasn’t getting any work done on the train this morning, but maybe she could gather up some reading to catch up on. That meant digging through the inbox, finding documents, and synchronizing them to her iPad.

The clock flashed 7:23, and if she wanted to catch the 7:50 train, she knew she needed to get on the road for her 10 minute drive to the train station. She couldn’t afford a random 10-15 minute backup that weren’t unheard of at this hour.

“Hon”, croaked her husband, who lie sick in bed.

“What?”, she asked, trying not to sound annoyed.

“Can you get me a glass of water before you go?”, came the weak response. She looked at his bedside and found his normally fill canteen was empty.

“Yea… I’ll try”, she said as she pushed things around in her bags.

About 7:26 she made it to the front door, and realized she hadn’t gotten the water. She weighed her options. Get water, potentially miss train, or leave her 43 year old husband, who despite being sick was more than capable of getting water eventually, to his own devices. In the end the guilt got the best of her, and she got him the drink.

“Thanks”, he said, as he drank a sip and reached out for a goodbye hug. She didn’t have time for it, but she felt sorry for him. He’d been so attentive to her in the past, so she waited the extra minute for him to hug her and say goodbye. Then she was out the door like a rocket.

And she was more than a bit upset when she got to the train station at 7:49, parked, and missed the train by less than a minute. She’d have to take the 8:10. She found a bench at the train station, wrote some quick emails rescheduling her first appointment, and tried to start working. At least there was a power outlet her she could siphon some power off for her computer.

At 8:09 she made her way to the platform and stepped on to the train. Her phone vibrated with an alert and she ignored it. She was always getting alerts from various services she subscribed to, some about traffic, some about the weather, some about things she only cared about once in a short while. This one would just have to be ignored.

Until she looked out the window and saw the strangest sight. The train slowed down and passed another train sitting on the tracks. At the slow speed she could see that it was the train she normally took. In fact, she saw a friend of hers sitting in their usual seat. She quickly pulled out her phone and saw the alert was from a service for rail passengers. It talked about a delay in her general vicinity. She looked up her friend’s number and dialed. The other line picked up quickly, as if her friend was already staring at her phone.

“Rita, what’s going on?”, she asked.

“Our train broke down!”, Rita exclaimed, “And now we’re waiting for a tow back to the hub, where we can transfer. Probably won’t get into the city until 9:30 or 10 at this rate”. They chatted for a few moments before hanging up. She didn’t have the heart to tell Rita she had just passed her – so she said she had gone in earlier, which technically would be correct adjusting for their new arrival times.

As they finished their call, she got another message, this time from her husband. It simply read “Sorry to make you late with my requests – hope all is well”. It was all well, after an ironic twist of fate. She realized that sometimes small differences create other small differences, a glass of water, an ironic reduction in delay. But the perspective to see the important small differences from the trivial – that was what made the big difference after all!

[SSDay]

April 9, 2012

#70 Routine

Jenny walked out of the elevator toward her office, with Winston beside her. He seemed to lag a bit behind, and didn’t respond to her continuing conversation about tasks at hand.

“You ok?”, she asked as she peered behind herself.

“Yea… just noticed that they put down a new rug in front of the elevator”, Winston said as he studied it carefully.

“I hadn’t noticed”, Jenny replied.

“You know what’s weird?”, Winston said as he caught up to her a few steps away,”I didn’t see it – I didn’t even feel it beneath my feet…. I realized I was slightly higher off the ground than I usually was”.

“What do you mean?”, Jenny said in confusion.

“Well, it’s hard to explain – almost like my eyes glanced onto the hallway in a new way – they were seeing everything from a slightly different perspective – one a small bit higher than ever before”, Winston said as they neared their desks.

“I guess I wouldn’t notice given that my height changes daily depending on my shoes!”, Jenny said with a laugh. Her proclivity toward extremely high heels, and days off from them after ‘over doing it’ were well-known throughout the office. Winston’s comment, though, made her wonder about how many things she took for granted in her daily routine. And if things were changing around her, was that a bad thing?

Her natural reaction was “Yes!” – she’d read enough stories about killers lurking in hidden corners, victims seeing things awry but not being able to put their finger on the exact source of the incongruity until the knife was already held at their throat. If the world was changing subtly around her, she should take that as a sign that she needed to be more diligent in her observation. For the next few weeks she watched her surroundings like a hawk (metaphorically speaking – she wasn’t looking for prey). She began to notice little changes day by day. The man handing out the free newspaper at the bus stop normally used the exact same motion to pull one paper from the crook of his arm, except when handing the paper to an attractive lady – then the motion slowed slightly, the man glancing away from the woman toward the papers to be sure he pulled only one. Perhaps a nervous affliction – one that men seldom had around her plain appearance. In addition to the newspapers, she inadvertently noticed work schedules of those serving her. The attendants at the gas station worked 4 days a week, and 1 weekend day, most working Monday-Thursday, and then Sunday. Jenny marveled at the new information she had picked up.

Until she realized most of it was utterly useless. It wasn’t as though her brain had a finite limit of things it could remember – quite the opposite, however Jenny had the sense that she had learned so much and had not once foiled a would-be criminal, or helped someone at the office by noticing a minute detail, or even been able to work her facts into idle conversation with her friends. All the work she’d done was useless. The work had tuned her brain, tuning that would last longer than the months she’d practiced observing, but had no noticeable benefit. Jenny moved on with life, abandoning her little project. She still noticed the odd mannerisms of the newspaper man and the gas station attendant’s schedules, but dared not work them into conversation for fear of being labelled that “weird girl”.

Many years went by, with the details becoming more or less explicitly forgotten. In fact, Jenny wondered if she even noticed them anymore. Until one day when she was walking home and had the urge to take a different route. She’d lived in the same neighborhood for years, and it had sadly declined over time. Still she never felt too unsafe, and it was broad daylight, so why bother changing her habits. Reluctantly though, the strong urge persisted and resulted in her walking into a coffee shop for a few moments to contemplate her odd feeling.

Just as her coffee was served, she saw the police cars pull up in front of her house down the street. She could see the police moving up her driveway, and she anxiously sat in the shop until she saw a man running down the drive, tackled by the police as he tried to turn to run toward the shop. She took her coffee and began to cautiously walk down the street, toward the scene. The police met her a few houses down.

“Ms. Turner?”, the officer asked.

“Yes”, Jenny said, wondering how he knew her.

“Ma’am, it’s a good thing you waited a few minutes to come home today. The man we caught has hidden in the house behind yours – we’ve watched him for weeks. Today was the day we decided to move in, and we were going to do so before you came home. However we were delayed, and couldn’t move in until a few moments ago”.

As the officer talked, Jenny realized that she’d noticed vehicles parked along the streets over the past few months that were missing today, something she later inquired about and was told that they were indeed the watchful eyes of the detectives involved.

That night, the irony hit her: She changed her routine to notice facts she hadn’t before. Over the years, that itself had become routine, to the point she wasn’t even consciously aware of it. And while today may have been exceptional in the level of excitement this ability may have prevented her, she wondered how many other things in the past years she’d avoided without ever knowing. Did she avoid a speeding ticket by noticing the signs a cop was watching? Had she clued into the system used to mark down prices at her favorite stores, securing her the best deals? Or had today been the only time her “weird” ability had helped?

[SSDay]

April 6, 2012

#67 Beer

The first time it tastes of bad bread
The third time it tastes stale instead
The fifth time it tastes anew
Subsequent times is when it gets you!

[SSDay]

April 4, 2012

#65 Dragging Danielle

Danielle’s mother pulled her along, across the side street toward the shops. Today they’d be shopping and spending time together, Danielle being only 3, the world was still a big place with much to explore, and not enough time to do it, straining against her mother’s pull.

3 years goes by, and Danielle’s mother pulls her toward the school building. The child is reluctant to give up her own ability to explore for the guided exploration of her teachers. Her new friends, whom she will meet shortly, will ease the transition.

6 years goes by, and Danielle’s mother pushes her toward activities she’d rather skip. Spending time with her grandparents, going to Sunday school, and practicing her piano skills pale in comparison to the excitement of the conversation of friends, the shopping at the mall instead of the stores on main street, and exploring what being a teenager will be.

6 years goes by, and Danielle’s mother taps her daughter on the shoulder. It’s graduation day, and while college awaits, today marks the end of the guided exploration started 12 years earlier. Danielle is on her own, for a while, to learn about the world. Her mother hopes she can guide herself.

6 years goes by and Danielle’s mother beckons her daughter to hurry up, the guests are seated, they await the bride’s entrance.

Many more years go by, and Danielle’s mother, father, and husband pass on. She sits in a coffee shop that stands where her mother once took her shopping long ago. It is then she realizes that she never finished exploring the world. She gets up and drags herself out into it.

[SSDay]

April 1, 2012

#62 Return to Normalcy

The beans are soaking, plans for the week no more complex
days of exceptions are gone, days of comfortable regularity ahead

The bag is packed, tools suitable for 95% of the life lived
days of special additions are far ahead of the wayward commuter

The alarm is set, the same time it usually wakes it’s victim
days of circadian upset are scarce in the immediate vicinity

Normal may mean dull – but dull brings about it familiarity,
familiarity brings about it a mind able to put more pressing worry aside.

[SSDay]

March 27, 2012

#57 Fifty Six Is Waiting

Fifty Six is waiting you see
For the right time to appear
Trust that this gap is intentionally
Fifty Six will soon be here

Authors Note: 56 seriously is written, however I’m going to hold off on publishing it for a bit for personal reasons. We’ll jump to 57 for now 🙂

[SSDay]

March 25, 2012

#54 Waking Up

Anna sat up in the bed and yawned. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but lying there sleep had taken hold. It was dark out now, the afternoon sun fading into darkness. She felt groggy, and disoriented from her unexpected slumber.

She staggered over to her desk and sat down across from her laptop, still coaxing the sleep out of her eyes and trying to focus on the screen. She opened her email and found it overflowing with items. It had been empty a few hours before, and in frustration, Anna closed the program. She’d answer emails tomorrow. She turned her chair to face her television and flipped it on. One of her favorite sitcoms was on, replaying last week’s episode. She watched and got up to use the bathroom as the show ended. When she returned, she found another episode on. It was the same show, but she’d never seen this episode before. It wasn’t the show’s regular night, so she sat watching the episode and wondering how she could have missed it when it first aired. Oh well, at least she’d seen it now.

When the show ended, she got up and wandered out of her bedroom into the kitchen. She was hungry, but found that the leftovers from yesterday she craved had been eaten, no doubt by her parents who were not home now to yell at. She glanced at the clock and saw it was 8:30 PM. She was surprised her parents would go out without leaving a note, but shrugged it off. She was sitting on the couch in the living room when her mother and father walked through the door. They saw her in the living room, but quickly walked the opposite direction.

“Hey – who ate my salad?!?”, she called out as they passed. She wasn’t going to let them sneak away.

They both walked toward her with the strangest looks on their faces. Half astonished, half scared. Why were they acting like this? It wasn’t the first time she’d called them out on stealing their food, and it wasn’t like she was overly angry – it was more a playful thing than serious.

“What? Neither of you wants to admit it?”, she said with a slight chuckle.

“Anna…. how do you feel?”, her mom asked nervously as her father walked around her, eyeing her as if he hadn’t seen her in months.

“I feel fine Mom… what’s up with you two?”, she said.

“Julie, it might be her – really her”, Anna’s dad said to her mother. Her mother nodded, as tears flowed down her face.

“What’s going on?”, Anna said as her dad sat down next to her.

“Honey, you’ve been… sick… for months now”, he said slowly.

“What do you mean? I woke up from a nap, I feel fine!”, she said.

“What month is it Anna?”, her father asked.

“September”, Anna replied confidently.

“No dear… it’s March”, her dad said in reply.

Anna stared at him in disbelief. It wasn’t until she realized that some of the odd things she’d noticed earlier made sense, and she didn’t remember putting on these particular clothes that morning either.

“What happened?”, she asked quietly.

Her parents explained that she’d been in a sort of shell-shocked existence for months. She’d wake in the morning, go through a regular routine of preparing for her day, eating breakfast, and then simply return to her room and fall asleep again. She’d occasionally be up at night, but wouldn’t say anything, or do anything, except sit for a few moments and then head back to bed. Tonight when they walked in, they assumed she’d do the same, and were shocked when she called out. Her doctors were baffled, but her parents were happy to have her back.

To Anna, however, it was all just a groggy afternoon’s nap.

[SSDay]

March 19, 2012

#48 Sticks and Stones

Tim sat quietly on the playground. It had been several days since he’d made it through a recess without torment, and today looked promising. Both groups of bullies, those who were stronger and those who were smarter, were preoccupied with other sociopathic pursuits.

Tim wasn’t exactly odd, at least not according to his parents or teachers. He knew a bit too much of the world to fit into 5th grade social structures. He didn’t care to converse about the latest trend, discuss the latest dirty rumor, or play some mindless game with people he hated. So he hung out on the side of the building, waiting and praying for the bell to ring.

“Gotcha”, screamed the largest one of the pack as they rounded the corner. “Knew we’d find a loser like you here”.

Tim endured the taunts for the eternity of ten minutes before the bell rang. It’s ringing sent the pack scampering off, but Tim stayed back a moment, to make sure they wouldn’t be near him as they marched single-file back to their classroom. He stood in the shadow of the building until a hand on his shoulder startled him. He spun around and saw a man he’d never met before, but instantly felt comfortable with. There was something so familiar about him.

“Hello Tim”, the man said.

“Who are you?”, Tim said as he inched away. His brain told him to be cautious.

“My name is Tim too”, the man replied. “In fact, Tim, I’m you – just about 20 years older”.

“That’s crazy – who are you really?”, Tim replied.

The man then proceeded to verify his identity. He told Tim about memories he’d never shared with anyone, and showed him the scar on his leg from an accident they had suffered a year earlier.

“So why are you here?”, Tim asked the man.

“I need to give you something, something you’ll need”, the man said with urgency in his voice. “You see, having it will make the next 10 years much easier”.

“What is it?”, Tim said.

“Permission not to care about what they say”, the other Tim said as he gestured toward the spot the bullies had stood on moments earlier.

“Oh, I don’t care”, Tim said.

“That’s not true, we both know it”, elder Tim said. “You and I both know that the words do hurt, and that there is nothing that anyone, even I, can say to make them not hurt. The truth is, children can be the most psychopathic bullies on the planet – irritating each other adults alike. So I’m not going to tell you to ignore them, I’m just telling you that you have permission to not care about what they say. There is a subtle difference”.

“Sounds the same to me – just ignore them, they’ll go away – that’s all my parents … uh… our parents say”, Tim replied.

“And they don’t go away, do they?”, elder Tim said with a laugh. “They won’t go away – but you can stop their words from having any effect once you realize that nothing they say has any meaning at all”.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m from the future – right? I know what’s going to happen to you and them, and I gotta tell you – in 20 years you won’t have talked to any of them for 17 years. And every stupid little thing they say now will have absolutely no bearing on where you end up in life, what you do, who you marry, and how good of a person you are. You’re going to have dozens of friends in 20 years, they’ll all love and respect you, and you know a few of them already”, elder Tim explained.

Tim stood there while his older counterpart put his hand out.

“Just think about it Tim – you can build a shield they can’t penetrate – you know what they’re saying makes no difference beyond the moment they say it – and even then, only you can give it any weight”.

Elder Tim left, while his younger self somehow made it back to class in time.

The next day, Tim stood where he wanted to, not in the corner. The bullies approached.

“Hey Dummy – you look so stupid just standing there”.

“Really? Guess you’d know what stupid looks like – you see it in the mirror every morning”, Tim said in reply. He’d been saving that line for months – but by following the advice of his parents to ‘ignore’ the bullies, he’d never used.

“Why you little…”, the big one said as he charged toward Tim.

“What are you going to do Dummy? Go sit in the principal’s office for hitting me?”, Tim replied.

The older kid had never heard someone talk back.

“Let’s go guys – this dummy is too stupid to beat up”.

As Tim watched them walk away, he chuckled at the irony of the bully’s final taunt.

[SSDay]