Frenzy and friends
Sunday, May 18, 2008


Frenzy. That describes this week. What frenzy there was to it. Lots of frenzy. Wait. How can such a beautiful, sunny week be labeled with such a word? Perhaps frenzy is not always a negative term. Hmm. Let me look it up. “Violent agitation of the mind. Madness and rage.” OK, not frenzy. Fine. But it felt like frenzy.

Frenetic. Maybe that word works. Let me check. “Transported with rage and violent emotion.” That’s not it. Ah, nuts.

Really busy. That works. The phrase lacks flair. It’s wordy. It’s got that annoying, parasitic adverb attached to it. But it works.

I think I’m not alone. It seems like really busy is going around. Everyone I talk to has it. It’s like a disease. It’s the anti-disease, actually. A real disease gives one some bed rest. “Take it easy. You have a disease. Stay in bed. I’ll bring you some soup.”

No one brings you soup when you’re really busy. You have to get your own darn soup. And you don’t get any, either, because you’re too busy to heat it and eat it.

I have this class of adults over at Chapman. They are all suffering from being really busy. They are student teachers learning technology. One assignment is to create and maintain a weekly Internet blog. That’s nine entries times 21 people. I read them and comment each week. There is one prevailing, overriding theme. Everyone is really busy.

I hear every permutation. Someone is holding down three jobs, student teaching, taking classes, caring for a family, prepping for exams, dealing with health issues, rocky relationships, puppies being born, moving to new communities, moving to cheaper apartments, and on and on. I feel guilty giving them big assignments. Will it be the straw? Two students dropped the first two weeks because they couldn’t handle the work load on top of the rest of their lives. Another dropped today, five days before the end of the course. Too much on the plate.

We do all this busy work and we have less money, more bills, higher expenses, greater responsibilities, and less fun. No wonder people don’t take the time to get more involved in social issues, like war protesting and such. We’re all too busy just staying afloat. We don’t have the luxury to rail against injustice. Perhaps this all intentional. “Distract them with exhaustion while we rob them blind.”

I’m a fan of extremes. If it’s going to rain, let it storm. If it’s going to be hot, break a record. If I’m going to be busy, being moderately busy is boring. It’s so baroque. If I’m going to be busy, make it really busy. Then it becomes absurd, hilarious, giddy. I want to be so busy I don’t have time to think. I want to run amok, here and there, pockets full of notes, shirt partially tucked, phone beeping, people calling my name as I rush by.

My home answering machine is blinking full. Actually, it’s beeping. I let it beep. My computer power supply is beeping too. Let it. We’re out of cat food. My cats are meowing at me. Brooks, the old one, keeps clawing me. The other cat, KC, is faking nice. They follow me from room to room. “Meow. You’re letting us die. Meow. Ow. My empty cat gut.”

“Send back these Netflix, honey. We watched them last month.”

My unread emails go back five pages. They are full of questions and favor requests. My unopened mail is spilling off my desk. Student projects are pouring in, or not pouring in and I’m calling parents. I have tests to write. I took a last-minute field trip to San Francisco on Tuesday. I will take another one to Sacramento tomorrow, Friday.

Currently, I’m in my classroom with my student journalists rushing to meet an 8:30 p.m. Thursday deadline. Typos are cropping up like toadstools. Lines are crooked like earthquake rails. Ads are missing like missing ads. It’s hot. It’s really hot and we’re really busy. I like it.

Summer is just ahead, like the Mona Lisa behind bullet-proof glass, like oxygen just above the ice, like the Free Game slot under the pinball glass. I can’t get to it without a tilt, but I know it’s there.

Speaking of, for anyone who might be interested. Friday is Pin-a-Go-Go Festival in Dixon. Pinball aficionados from all over the land bring their classic pinball machines to the fairgrounds and set them all to Free Play.

On Friday I will drive to Sacramento, attend an Adobe InDesign Training Seminar, drive home, pick up my son, drive back to Dixon, play pinball until 10 p.m. and drive home. Saturday morning, I have a date with the DMV, then off to Bay to Breakers.

It’s frenzy. No doubt. But it’s a happy, kinder, gentler frenzy.