Tag Archives: Uber

Too Many Things

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Is it possible to reach a mark where you are trying to juggle more balls than your juggling talent allows?

People who study these types of things will tell you that multitasking is like a mirage—or better, the benefits of multitasking are all a myth–designed to extend us far beyond our functionality. Basically, the more that you have to do, and try to do in combination with something (or somethings) else, your effectiveness diminishes—often exponentially with each successive spinning plate that you add.

For the first time since God knows when, I felt overwhelmed this week. I just have too many damn tasks cluttering my to-do checklist. It’s possible that launching my volleyball officiating trial balloon while working four days in the financial services arena, being on-call at the funeral home 2-3 nights each week, and also driving a few shifts for the Uber have pushed me beyond my capabilities. And then, where the hell does writing fit into this patchwork quilt?

Do you ever feel like a juggling clown?

Do you ever feel like a juggling clown?

My long drive home from Standish after my first JV and varsity volleyball matches last night had me feeling wrung out and wondering, what’s next? Or better, thinking that maybe I could exercise some measure of control over my life, at least for one weekend. Continue reading →

Jamming About Traffic

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I consider reading important—enough so that I’ve remained committed to reading three or four books a month for the past decade or so. It occurred to me recently that being smart and well-informed doesn’t really matter. That’s probably one reason why my reading has fallen off the cliff in August.

Discussions with other readers about books we like and how it sucks when a great book is nearing an end is also part of that reading drop-off—I just haven’t been able to find anything that resonates with how I’m feeling this summer. That was until I stumbled upon a book about traffic.

Since I wrote “traffic” with a “small t,” you’re sharp to recognize that the traffic I’m talking about isn’t the Traffic of “John Barleycorn Must Die,” or “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” although it’s mighty tempting to keep the music blogging going with ruminations about “Little” Stevie Winwood and a post about WBLM that takes me back to the halcyon days at Lisbon High—that’s for another time and another post.

The traffic I’m anxious to riff on today is the story of traffic courtesy of a writer that I sadly just found out about, Tom Vanderbilt, and his wonderful book, Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). Vanderbilt’s type of traffic is the kind we’re all intimately familiar with, whether we like it or not. Because save for a few of us, our lives intertwine with cars, Happy Motoring, and the carpet-like mass of vehicles crisscrossing America at any given time.

The joys of sitting in traffic on American roadways.

The joys of sitting in traffic on American roadways.

Continue reading →

Vacations are Overrated

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I rarely take vacations anymore. The main reason is that freelancers don’t get paid when they’re not working.

On the other hand, many people that I know that work a traditional job with vacation benefits seem to be on vacation all the time, or at least several times a year. I was at a family party on Saturday and I asked where some people were—the answer was, “they’re at the Jersey Shore.” I wasn’t surprised because these are people who seem to live to take vacations. To each his own, I guess.

Once you get into a certain rhythm for work, you actually don’t require as much downtime as the traditional 6-week-a-year vacation types insist that they must have. A day here or there seems to suffice.

Old school vacationers playing golf.

Old school vacationers playing golf.

The best vacation I’ve had in recent memory was when Mary and I rented a camp in Steuben, sight-unseen. That was back in 2007, when our Sheltie, Bernie, was still alive. Mark and his girlfriend-at-the-time drove up from Boston. It was a bucolic week spent frolicking along the seashore, walking the neighboring nature preserve, biking off-the-beaten path, and eating clams that we bought each day from a local digger—we even visited the site where a baby whale had washed up on the beach. Continue reading →

One Week, in One Year

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Our lives are made up of minutes that become hours that run into days that eventually become years. Then, it’s over. There’s an announcement in the newspaper, or a Facebook update mentioning an obituary. Maybe there’s a visitation, a funeral, or simply the memories of a life lived out across a small ripple in a sea of time.

I’ve lived out more than half of my ripple. Will it leave even the smallest of marks on the water’s surface after I’m gone? Nothing’s certain on that front. I hold the belief that how we live and what we do while here matters—at least that’s the hope, lacking any guarantee.

Last week offered perhaps the most representative summation of the freelance lifestyle from my vantage point. Equal parts enjoyable, even empowering, intertwined with a stretch that left me uncharacteristically weary, requiring tapping into a reserve that I wasn’t sure I had. Every segment of my puzzle-piece work life was represented.

Back when I was running laps around the usual five-day-a-week labor track, I complained that my two-day weekends weren’t long enough. Now, finding a 48-hour stretch of time to step away from wage-gathering happens so infrequently for me that I sometimes resent those who have it so good—and yet find the need to voice their displeasure in my presence or via social media—not knowing that it irritates me (although I try to overlook it).

The world of work continues evolving.

The world of work continues evolving.

Writing is a passion of mine. If I have to name what it is that I do, I’ll always self-identify as “a freelance writer.” It took me nearly 40 years to recognize a talent (some might even qualify it as “a gift) that remained hidden under layers of work, family obligations, and even romantic notions about what constituted “the writing life”—as if there’s one defining frame for being a writer. Runners have different strides, just like pitchers rely on their own style and array of pitches in getting batters out. My writing experience is probably different than yours (if you’re a writer), as it should be.

I began the writing journey back in 2002, with 2003 being the year that I set my face “like flint” towards a goal to make writing central in my life. By 2006, I recognized that writing didn’t automatically deliver riches, but rather (at least for me) required creativity and supplemental income—at least if I didn’t want to end up foreclosing on my house, or worse. I turned back towards a more traditional, 40-hour way of making a living, while still continuing to write. In fact, it was during this stretch that I released my two books on Moxie. Continue reading →