Drama

The new job is lovely. We do our work, we go home. I’m building conceptual models and taxonomy schemas, and the work’s being embraced and implemented.

And I’m realizing…I have some peace now.

I don’t know if it’s the industry – insurance and financial management vs. adtech – or the people, who are enormously helpful and just want to answer questions so we can all get the work done. The people at my previous job were wonderful too, but there is a relentlessness to adtech. You can’t think. You can’t pause. You can’t have downtime so your brain can come up with things. Everything is on fire all the time.

Here I have time to hear myself think. Carefully. And then put those thoughts into action, in considered ways that make sense. In the adtech job, I was never able to expand the taxonomy the way I wanted to, the way that would have supported multiple workflows, because there was always an emergency. Already in this job, I’ve made proposals for new attributes that are currently in the process of being adopted.

I’m not missing the drama. I come home (it’s a 3-day-a-week commute), kick off my shoes, and read for at least an hour before I do anything else. I’m going out on the weekends, because I’m not so fried that I’m sleeping past noon. I can actually take the time to get lunch – today I was WFH, and I met my neighbor in the park for a good brisk walk, saying hello to the two egrets and one blue heron that appeared in the lake, while having great conversation about my neighbor’s recent tour of national parks.

This past Saturday, I went to see The Picture of Dorian Gray, with Sarah Snook from Succession. It was quite good – SHE was quite good. Sunday, I went to hear Dudamel conducting the NY Phil in a performance of Mahler’s 7th. That was extraordinary – he conducted without a score! And without safety rails on the dais to keep him from tumbling backwards into the audience! Conducting without a net!

Both days, I also did some self care – the brow bar one day, the nail salon the next – and took myself out for dinner. I guess this is what Julia Cameron refers to as an Artist’s Date – and I guess I’m making up for lost time. The whole time, on public transit, I was reading my books as well – I’ve burned through 4 of them in the last week and a half, and one was the revised version of The Stand.

Without the drama, I’m hungry for art, for walking, for stuffing my brain with new references and things to think about. Without the drama, I can breathe. I can THINK. And I can create.

It’s good to breathe again.