Need a Vacation

Fourteen weeks now, finishing up my third full month, and I really need a short vacation to recharge. I'm still hourly, though, meaning no days off (other than official holidays). It was quite a change; going from freelance work (which averaged the same or more hours per week but tended to space them differently) to being up at 5 AM every weekday morning for what is often tough physical work. And I'm not that young anymore, either.

I still can't figure why I'm dragging so much after work. I used to do 10-14 hour days all the time. Is it just that my freelance schedule was more like three or four twelve-hour days in a row followed by several days off? Or does it have something to do with the specific clock I'm on -- a wake-up hours before dawn, and corresponding (attempt) to sleep while my neighbors are still (noisily) up?

I have the option to play with my start time. They are a little less eager to try shorter days -- even though I'm getting so much done in 40/week I'm catching up on a wish-list that's been around for months if not years. Otherwise, I'm pretty much playing Alaska Fisheries Summer; the rest of my life on hold while I earn some money. I've got a few $K of credit card debt to pay off, and even at just barely over minimum wage I'm still looking at cleaning that out within a year.

Well, this weekend I stayed in Friday eve and most of Saturday, barely stirring for a quick dinner out. Today I'm doing better; cleaned in the kitchen, mostly (which also functions as my shop, so is a bigger project than it sounds.) Cleaned up my hard disk a little (including shifting more files to DropBox so I won't lose them if someone steals this machine). And cleaned out some of the random electronics and tossed more stuff in a box of "to be recycled or dumped." I'm not a hoarder: when I was making less than six hundred a month the only way I could produce props and other arts and crafts projects was by using a ton of recycled material.

Now I'm no longer doing things theater style. Theater is an industry about being ludicrously short of time and money -- ludicrously, because on this budget they are expected to produce spectacular vistas and effects and reproduce scenes of opulence. I'm still shy of money but I'm even more crunched for time, so it makes sense to continue moving in a CAD-based, small-scale fabrication pipeline rather than spend time sorting through piles of odds and ends hoping to find something that can be modified without too much work.

And speaking of which: I've got a prop coming due, which I need to start pushing on and hence will be blogging about within the week.