Making it to the end of the workweek doesn’t necessarily mean we can totally forget our jobs over the weekend. Imagine if you will (Rod Serling visual here) the prospect of having to re-learn everything you knew last Friday when you return to work on Monday. Also think of the pain of learning how some of your job sucks all over again as well. This week’s Haiku looks at the idea of completely forgetting ones work over the weekend.
Thanks be to our lucky stars; we made it. Only eight more hours before we can break the binds that tie us to our money machine and run headlong into the ethereal bliss that is the weekend. We can be free, to be, who we want to be. (Whoa wait a minute. This is getting out of hand and sounds like a Coke or US Army commercial)
It is always good to hit the last day of the week and know we have fought the good fight and have given it our best shot. We need to take a minute and reward ourselves if for nothing else than actually making it through the week.
Here is the Haiku celebrating our fortitude during the work week.
Friday is the last golden day of the work week. That is unless you are a type A personality and need to keep working through the weekend to satisfy some inner need to drive to perfection. If you are; allow me to step aside and you can bowl right through there and jump on those opportunities. I could almost feel the wind go by me on your way to perfection. YOU GO! Don’t let anyone or anything try to persuade you to alter the path to your own actualization. You deserve the best and by dammit you shall have it.
For the rest of us this is a day to look forward to some off-time. While the type A there is minding and grinding the details of the next salvation machine for mankind why don’t we relax. Take a deep breath and say after me. MAR . . . go ahead say it. GAR . . .that’s it. RITA . . .YAY you are well on your way to an enjoyable couple of days. Here is a Haiku to get you started.
Well here we are on the cusp of the weekend once again. Boy do I love Fridays. It is the night of an authorized Margarita and a nice ending to the week. I hope your week was productive and you accomplished all you set out to do. I have to say mine overflowed with getting stuff done. I was able to do some editing in addition to recording a Pod Cast interview. All in all, a very productive week
Finally Friday and time to get ready for the weekend. My favorite part of the weekend is not necessarily taking time off, but the thought time off is completely up to me. I have a self-imposed schedule that is a killer, but on the weekend it seems I cut myself some slack and goof off. It usually starts with a Margarita on Friday night to set the mood. It then works its way into actually taking time to relax. This is very hard for me and need to plan to release on a particular project. So this week’s Haiku hopefully captures this spirit. Hope you enjoy it.
Thank goodness it is Friday. It has been a hectic week. Right in the middle of everything my internet went down. After about two hours with the tech rep it was decided they had network problems. Was kind of funny since they swore up and down it was something wrong with my computer. You have to wonder about service protocols when I explained that:
My PC could not connect.
My wife’s Apple iPad could not connect.
My wife’s Apple Mac book could not connect.
The Femto cell which allows us to receive wireless calls could not connect.
The TV and VCR which are connected to the internet could not connect.
All our iPhones could not connect.
Yet, the tech continued under the assumption the problem was with my computer. FINALLY the engineering group got on the phone and did a download and upload path test. GUESS WHAT? The @#$%^&* problem was in the network. That’s not all. In the process, the tech did a hard boot of my router and reset all the values back to default. The next day we figured out all our Apple products needed a different frequency which we had set up originally. ANOTHER HOUR ON THE PHONE. Totally frustrating.
I did have to think that no animals or children were hurt in the drama and as a result, got over the feeling of being duct taped to a phone. So here is a little Haiku to take you to the weekend:
As you know last week brought my book launch and a call for volunteers. I am very happy to report the volunteer docket is filled. I have thirty really nice people who are kind enough to help me out. (I know. . . which way did you come in? *drum bump-de-bump and symbol crash*) I am going to officially close the request, but if you really want to sign-up you can still do it at johnhowell.wave@gmail.com. I want to thank all of you who signed up to help with the launch of My GRL. I think we are going to have some fun. As a reminder the tour starts on Sunday January 19th and runs until February 1. For all the volunteers, look for the material on the 16th or it really could be a little before. The e-book go live confirmation will govern the material.
Since it is Friday, I think a Haiku is in order to more or less move us into the weekend. This is a Haiku I composed while waiting for my e-book to go live which seems to be my sole focus these days. The print version has been available since January 2 and the e-version is in some kind of holding pattern. Like a new father waiting in the hall for the birth of a child I pace the floor like a wounded animal checking and re checking the Amazon site for signs of my e-book’s birth. So here it goes:
Friday has arrived (Ta Da) and it has been a very good week. The household managed to survive the Fall Back to standard time. We now get a lot of things done between six and seven when we used to lie around in the bed SLEEPING. The reason for this situation is, our two dogs cannot get used to the time change. I think the real issue is we never taught them how to tell time. They use little inner clues like; hungry, potty, and sunrise to let them know when it is time to alert their humans that the sleep cycle is over and it is now time to hunt.
Our boxer is used to placing her nose right under the sleeping human’s nose to detect life. (Or not) Once life is detected, the emotional glad-you-are-still-able-to-provide-kibble-and-a-walk lick is placed starting from the chin and ending at the forehead. No amount of holding breath or other forms of faking it works. When the lick is applied, the human is expected to throw back the covers and exit the sleep module. Failure to do so is challenged by a quick, but piercing bark followed by what can best be described as a butt sit. This is where all sixty pounds of the boxer is concentrated in her butt which she promptly finds a spot to perch on you. If this fails to produce the results, she then goes to the Silky Terrier to generate a response which produces a round of barking that only the dead could sleep through.
Instead of this process beginning at six-thirty it now begins at five-thirty and there is no sign that it will ever change until we go back to Daylight Savings Time again.
Here is a little Haiku in honor of Friday and Central Standard Time.
Friday at last. I don’t know about you, but I have had a grueling week. I finished up a couple of short stories for submission to several magazines. Never know if they will be accepted, but since I am planning an anthology of them, nothing is ever wasted. In the anthology I don’t believe I will have to give a disclaimer that “this story was rejected by the New Yorker,” or anything like that. So it really doesn’t matter if the story gets published or not, since I will be able to use it one way or another.
I am also still working on editing my second novel. I won’t bore you with the fact that my first is still with the publisher and no date of release as yet. WTF. . . it is a good thing I made my fortune in freeze-dried tacos* because if I relied on book sales to eat I would be a very skinny guy indeed. Right now I am going through the entire text with the idea of eliminating certain words that are the hallmark of an amateur. These are the kinds of words that have the effect of slowing the action or at the least, making strong sentences very weak. So that you may benefit from my pain, here are the words that I am eliminating while choosing other ways to complete the thought that I am trying to project. The are: about, actually, almost, like, appears, approximately, basically, close to, even, eventually, exactly, finally, just, just then, kind of, nearly, practically, really, seems, simply, somehow, somewhat, sort of, suddenly, that, truly, utterly, were.
I wish I could say when I use the “find” feature on Word that the results come back with no matches. I wish I could say that, but unfortunately it just doesn’t happen. When writing sometimes we fall into the lazy mode of getting the idea down on paper (so to speak) and not looking at construction. There is really nothing wrong with that as long as we go back and make the corrections.
*Piece of fiction warning
To end the week I have a little Haiku which sums up the editing process.
Friday is a sweet day and even though I am chained to this key board, I look with envy to all the millions of workers who:
Get up before dawn
Get to commute on average two hours a day along with a couple of million of their closest friends
Get to reach a workplace filled with challenging and rewarding work
Get to take direction from kindly and intelligent managers
Get to hob knob with the cream of the crop of co-workers who all pull their weight
Get to fill out endless forms to request needed business supplies
Get to invent ways to get the job done with no supplies
Get to interface with interesting and sympatric customers
Get to eat lunch at their desk trying not to spill mayo on the Fisk report
Get to feel the pride of having produced great output for the day
Get to feel the accomplishment of surviving with no increase in pay for years
Get to work until well after sundown at the last-minute request of a grateful manager
Get to join the millions of friend on the commute home
Get to arrive home in time to pack on 2000 or so calories before bed on an already stressed body
Get to toss and turn all night in anticipation of a total repeat the next day
So here is to Friday and a wish for a happy weekend for all of you who have Friday as the end of the week. (if that same manager has not asked you to put in a few hours on Saturday)
