TheBanyanTree: Having it all

[Monique]

It's a quandary, my mornings. What to do when I first wake up and I feel the
need to go downstairs, find one of the rapidly multiplying laptops (by which
I mean there are currently four downstairs at the moment, one belonging to a
client that I must get back to her, one purchased by my new employer just
for me, my "old" one, which needs a complete reformatting, and his new one,
and this is not even counting the desktop computer down in the office,
though all of them are also capable of doing complex calculations, I'm quite
sure), sit down and do something, either write something, anything, because
lately I find there are too many words and not enough time to get them all
out, or work on my inventory problem/solution, which is due for resolution
within the week, or tidy up lingering client files, and so I lay here and I
know I must get going with something, anything, but I can't bear to leave
when I'm being held, when your breathing is lulling me into complacency, a
sense of security, and it's so comfortable, so safe, so soothing, how can I
leave?

 

So I make a move to leave. You tell me to stay for just a few more minutes.
"Just a little longer," you say, and you hold on to me tighter, so I say,
"Okay," because really, why would I want to go downstairs when I can stay
right here? 

 

The dog shows up, she likes to sleep, at times, down the hall, in what she
thinks of as her room (no doubt because we told her that was her room, and
while she gives every indication of not listening to us, I think she does),
and she jumps up on the bed next to me and lays down, and I'm between the
two of you and of course there's no moving now. I pet the dog, you pet the
dog, the dog lays her head on me, and we start to fall back asleep.

 

Or almost fall back to sleep. You do. Even the dog does, for a bit, before
she grows tired of us and leaves again. I keep thinking about what to do
with all the words in my head and all the numbers on my inventory list. If I
put them in the right format, I can import them into my program directly,
but I still have questions about some of them. Why are the parts in the same
row listed with different numbers for each model? Can't we just use the same
part number and then when we do a build it will pull the part numbers into
that model? Surely this would be easier, if the parts are the same, to use
the same number, since they're from the same source and isn't that the point
of the build? (Build being an accounting term in this case.) But this is a
matter I must clarify with my VP Manufacturing, but not on a Sunday. These
are the kinds of thoughts that race through my head. Okay, perhaps not race
so much, as it's really more of a languid sort of ambling along. My brain is
not always quick. 

 

I think of completing my epic poem instead, which will never happen, but
maybe something in a prose format. 

 

I think of the tasks that lay ahead of me in order to achieve a semblance of
having accomplished something. The list is too long, so I think about
returning to sleep. 

 

But I don't. I say I must get up. And then I get an idea. I don't want to
leave you, sleeping as you are, and I have more than enough laptops to
choose from, so why not just bring one up here? 

 

Of course, this is bad, bringing a computer to bed. This is evil. This is
how empires crumble. Fortunately, I don't have an empire, so I'm pretty safe
on that score. Isn't this why I have wireless? So I can go anywhere in my
house and still access the work server in downtown Seattle from my laptop?
And the office network in downtown Bellevue? All at once? So I go
downstairs, I pick out a laptop from the plethora of waiting machines, and I
bring it up. I get back in bed, except I'm sort of sitting up, and I start
the laptop. You reach out a hand to touch me, and you fall back asleep like
that, and I go to work, or to play, with you breathing next to me, and this
is good. I can have it all, all at once, and anyone who says you can't have
it all obviously has not witnessed my ingenuity. 

 

It all depends on your definition of all, doesn't it?