I'm a lousy business traveler.
It's not because I can't get the work done. I can.
It's not because I resent the time spent. I don't.
It's because all of the systems I use to protect myself from myself fall away when I'm on the road by myself.
What the hell am I talking about? I'm a zone junkie. It's the reason good fiction, strategic computer games and programming are my first choice activities. I'm sucked in. I work or play until I'm too tired to eat properly or get groceries.
When given the option of complete personal anihilation in books or movies or leaving the apartment for a square meal, I'll eat a Cliff bar and forget it. Exercise might get me out since that takes 100% attention, but I've been too allergy ridden to manage it this week.
In short, I couldn't sustain this for more than a few weeks without turning into a bloated, antisocial workaholic. And I fucking hate that.
Scott once asked me why I read. I think I answered something flippant along the lines of "It's like cross-stitch" i.e. why the fuck not. He wanted to know what I have to show for it at the end of the day. And I had to answer nothing really except for a vocabulary, a sense of history and the ability to disect a novel. The first and third attributes are just eyewash. The second may have some redeeming value. Anyhow, if I was on the road constantly and I knew I had made the choice for the long haul, I'd adjust. I'd find the business traveler coping mechanisms which are all just healthier ways than the ones I'm used to of killing time.
That's it, you see. That's all one does. One kills time. Somehow I feel there's not enough of it to do anything constructive, even though I know intellectually that's bullshit. I find myself drifting and there's no connection to anything, no reason to settle in. There are things I'd rather be doing. Places I'd rather be seeing. Travel for travel's sake is only interesting when there's space in which to enjoy it -- which I haven't got-- so I blot out the time with other things. Not healthy.
It is for these reasons I should never never never do what I am currently doing ever the fuck again.
Posted by karen at March 8, 2002 12:00 AM