Work...All right then, work.

I had three extra-strong coffees today, which is probably the reason I'm feeling kind of wound up, despite having got out of bed before six, rode to the pool, swam 2km, rode to Carlton and got myself unnecessarily stressed wondering if the very simple breakfast I ordered would arrive in time for me to eat it and still get to therapy on time, which I did, so there was 45 minutes of work done there, and then I rode to work, worked, rode to the library, got books, rode home, ran 4km, washed myself, and now I'm noncommittally on/in bed eating cherries in the cool breeze blowing through the open front door.

Fuck! I don't enjoy this sporty bullshit. It wastes a lot of time, and it makes me think about Tony Abbott, very, very much against my will; thinking unwillingly about Tony Abbott is a horrible experience, and while I have a lot of practice in managing ugly feelings, it must be said that the struggle always takes its toll. Now that you too are thinking unwillingly about Tony Abbott I will share with you the insights which my experience has granted to me. In the specific instance of thinking unwillingly about Tony Abbott, one just has to hang on until one gets to the end of thoughts about him doing exercise, talking about his female relations or about all women, or smiling, because after that, like a southerly pouring in through open windows at the fag end of a brutally hot day, relief arrives in the form of thoughts about how he got called a dickhead in Bunnings and also how he bought a fridge on Gumtree. Etc. I'm not good at running or swimming or even at bicycle riding really but doing those things loosens the knot in the chest and I am not inclined to try the alternative techniques of drink or drugs or watching a lot of television, unless it is Trailer Park Boys.

One of the miserabler and probably more lasting effects of a situation that unfolded over the past weeks is what I've allowed myself to think, and at some points to actually say out loud, about my job. Can of worms stuff, I'm afraid. 

You know, there's always been an element somewhere not very far beneath the surface of how I do this job (as there also was in my last job, to be fair) that the qualms I have about the larger business I'm participating in, and the status anxiety I ashamedly harbour about how my friends might privately regard it, could flop up to the front of my consciousness and make me unhappy enough that I forget the many good things about what I am able to do with my time and energy. My doctor said this morning, well, now you've opened a door and you are thinking about what opportunities might be available to you. If this was accurate it'd be OK. But where I really seem to be is not gazing at new landscapes through an open door, but sitting in an indistinct space on a pile of rubble. And so I've got to try to put it all back into some coherent and functional form, and I've got to try to work up some enthusiasm again for this labour. Hence the coffee overdose. 

And it is 11pm and I have just remembered that I said today that I would bake tonight for afternoon tea tomorrow.