Almost everyone is out today — gone or sick or wherever the heck they go when they’re not here.

Chris and I were chatting yesterday at lunch about the phenomenon of summer abscences. He noticed the same thing in his office, where half of the people mysteriously have something to do when the sun comes out and the other half trudge around looking numbed and bored, as though the missing half have sucked all the energy from the staff and left them with nothing to do but trudge around looking numbed and bored and seeking (in their blankness) minor housekeeping projects to aleviate that numbness and boredom.

I (in my moderate boredom) was trying to figure out what I was doing last year at this time and I realized that exactly 365 days ago I was at a neuromuscular science-type conference for the week, living it up at the convention center in Canada Place downtown, and doing some minor last minute prep work for my mini-congress that approaching weekend.

That was really something important (really, it was a major conference and a real big deal), and not having anything remotely similar, pressing, or even vaguely as involved as either of those things has left me vacant and struggling to trudge through my normal work tasks with something close to a smile on my face.

inspiration is catching

Jess, having dropped herself neatly into “seclusion” for a few days under the guise of becoming a professional writer, has thusly passed along some motivation to me — sort of like a big YAWN (and you just did by reading that didn’t you?) across the net. I plunkered myself down in front of the keyboard last night and built a nifty new project to work on (of the writing-type design) for the next little while.

I haven’t done that lately. I thought it might be a good idea though, and spiced myself into some musical rampages while walking home to formulate a loose plot and and even looser main character. There is a lot to go with that, yet, though there is a lot of time to go at it.

Now if only I could find a big heap of time in which to focus those efforts.