The Back Log
I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats last night and this morning. Last night, I managed to stay up on my toes for sixty (“tricep” thirty, “chest” thirty) and did a few extras. This morning, I did ten more “tricep” push-ups on my knees. I botched the Japanese count, however, because I listened too intently to the kids’ chatter.
They joked about a picture in F’s Spanish textbook: a cartoon of an older man named Jorge, riding a bicycle.
“He’s happy about everything!” chuckled F.
“Well, you need to be, when you’re seventy. You don’t have much time left!” I said, after they showed me the illustration. It was a silly picture.
Granted, what I said wasn’t exactly true: we may have a lot to worry about at seventy. Ideally we’ve learned what’s worth worrying about and what’s not. Wisdom has got to creep in sometime. Seventy seems like a good time for it.
(So weird: while I typed this entry into the site, we had a small earth quake. I kept typing. It didn’t feel like a large one but the sound was eerie.)
I spent thirty minutes on the treadmill: five minute walk to warm-up, twenty minutes jogging and five minutes walking to cool down. I listened to “Two Dope Queens.” They interviewed Michelle Obama. She’s down to earth. She talked about empowering girls around the globe and hair care. It gives you a glimpse into the lives of others: what’s different and what’s similar. Hair talk is fun.
A power plant had an explosion in Burbank over the weekend. Our IT folks had to go into our building and reboot all the workstations. They work hard.
While working from home, we finish shots, but it takes longer and the supervisors’ expectations are a moving target. At times it’s frustrating. I have been trying to let go of whatever expectations I have had regarding what my job should be, including the expectations laid out when I started, and just do the best that I can with what it actually is.
This company pays me by the hour. I do –or will–decide –whether or not I want to keep doing this job long term. For now, I remind myself that I have control over my own fate. My coworkers and I are lucky: we have jobs and we are able to work from home. Many of our friends, family members and neighbors are not working, or their jobs put them in danger of contracting the virus. This is not the case for my coworkers and me.
Somehow my timer didn’t start. I am outside and the birds are singing. And I have eight minutes to get dressed and clock in.
