John Henry

Normally I do this on a Thursday, routine and sabbath-like. I was going to say "sabbatical" because that seems like the adjective form for "sabbath," but that means something else as a noun, like an extended time off, but as an American, I assumed it would just be a confusing, foreign idea. There was a time not so long ago that it was OK to take a measurable break from working yourself to death, but it was only if you caught what was then a high-mortality global lung disease, and the enthusiasm for such a program only lasted about 48 hours before people either largely unaffected by it or who could actually benefit from it started vociferously opposing it as some kind of theft. America is, after all, a Christian nation.

It's Wednesday as I type this. Even though I will be unavailable to type this tomorrow, it will not be because I didn't go to work, I want that on the record. I have every intention of showing up and honoring our grand, proud tradition of taking the fewest days away from our jobs of any industrialized nation in the world. But we make up for it by far outstripping the rest of the world in the meaningful categories like heart disease and gun violence. I'm sure all those things are unrelated.

No, I'm just going to be driving to LA tomorrow to meet up with a friend of mine who is going through some shit, which is a thing I can do more reliably since the pandemic. Well, OK, there was a period of time when I very specifically could not go out and visit people because of the pandemic, but the knock-on effect has been that I work from home a lot more. As a result of that, I've altered my schedule pretty heavily to where I start earlier (since I don't have to drive), I take shorter lunches (since I work one rolling-chair push away from my kitchen) and I can get off way earlier. Even going into our third year of this, it still shocks me to find myself in the middle afternoon at home with no absolute requirements on my time. I can close my laptop and just... be done. Before 3 pm. On a Thursday. And all my kids are grown and have cars of their own and stuff!

It turns out all you need to gather together something resembling meaningful work-life balance is a) have your kids really young, like don't start later than 25 or you're already fucked, b) get yourself a job where the opportunities for advancement are limited so you don't really have to keep trying that hard once you bump up against that low, low ceiling, c) G L O B A L  I N F E C T I O U S  D I S E A S E  E V E N T! and then d) free time!

It's kind of silly for me to just lay it out here in a free venue like this when I could put this into a self-help book and make myself guaranteed millions, but at this point it's like worrying about writing about spoilers years after the movie came out. I can write about The Wizard of Oz all the live-long day since by now everyone who cares has either seen it or is dead, so whatever, I can say what I want about the dog and the green lady with the water allergy and there's a robot and a puppet and a furry of some kind... I don't know, it's been a long time since I saw it, but she has magic shoes, THERE DID I RUIN IT FOR YOU? Of course not, because we're at the post-Oz epoch where if it came on TV right now (like it did roughly 600 times per year when I was between the ages of 0 and 14), anyone under 45 would just think it was a shitty prequel to Wicked with some cringey songs and some real problematic world-building choices.

It's too late. I can't re-pandemic our society and I can't bring back that brief glimpse of time where we were sort of coherently sane about how labor works in America. There's no advice to give and I've gotten literally everything out of this situation I possibly could. That's how I'm sitting here typing this at 4:40 in the afternoon on the wrong weekday, more than two hours after I got off work, instead of sitting in street traffic on my way home. It's possible to conclude, I suppose, that I have all this extra time but I'm not using it wisely or efficiently, but the point is it's mine to chuck down any drain I fancy, whenever I like. Luckily for you, I choose this one today. You are, as always, welcome.