The Hump

If 'April is the cruelest month' (if you haven't guessed yet, TS Eliot is both my favorite and only poet I read), then May must be the longest.

It certainly has felt that way, having spent most of the last 3 weeks in either New Orleans or Denver, or on a plane going from one to the other. All business, very little pleasure (unless you count the guys on Bourbon Street who were lifting up their shirts to get beads from girls 'pleasure', which I most certainly do not), utter exhaustion and a suitcase full of stinky socks when I finally come home.

So I'm home now, and since I've returned, I've noticed this curious little phenomenon that really screws up my personal productivity. It's been there ever since I took started my 'day job', but lately I've really been noticing it.

You see, there is a little... hump... in my day, everyday, right around 4 or 5 pm. It's like this little speedbump in the middle of the afternoon, where I am finally free from the office and can come home. And then I get home, and find that the energy that sustained me throughout the workday is now utterly gone. Depleted. Sucked out of me like a leech.

I know there are a million things I either could be doing or SHOULD be doing: my lord, take one look at our garage and you'll see what I mean. But I just can't. I don't want to do anything. And if I must, then it has to be the least taxing thing in the world, like staring open-mouthed and drooling at a blank wall. (Note: my skills in this area have improved greatly over the last year)

Tragically, this is where the rest of the evening gets planned, right during this time of 'the hump'. What to do for dinner? Should I return those movies? And, oh, hey, how about that novel I've been writing for about 4 years now? Or maybe that gym membership that we keep paying for like homeowner dues? And, of course, the answer is always:

Flump... sigh... "I don't want to. I just want to... decompress. It's been a long day."

So I sit, fiddle, drool, while the hours pass.

And then, after 7 pm, my energy comes right back. But by then, it's all ruined. I didn't exercise, dinner was take-out, and now I'd rather read a book than write one. I've made it over 'the hump', but it's not like I'm in a good place, because it's too late to do the things I wanted to work on.

It's amazing how little sense of accomplishment you feel, when you've succeeded at accomplishing nothing at all.