I started a new job on January 5th. A full-time, adult, fully-benefited job. A job for which I must dress appropriately Mon-Thu, with a casual Friday (look for my forthcoming post, “Causal Friday”, in which events are both followed and preceded by other linked events). I have found myself devoting what I feel to be an inordinate amount of time to laundry, dress code notwithstanding. Instead of gaily ignoring the clothes in the dryer until I needed clean underwear, I find myself instead anxiously awaiting the dryer alarm so that I can remove my work outfits with a minimum of wrinkling. I need to avoid wrinkling so that I can spend less time ironing clothes.
I am not in favor of this part of my new existence. I once saw an old socialist/labor movement poster (yes, I know they’re not synonymous, but I am too lazy to do research right now) which read: “8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Sleep, 8 hours for What We Will”.
Right.
8 hours for work (not counting lunch), 8 hours for sleep (if I’m very, very lucky I get 7), 8 Hours for what I will (as long as what I will includes a 1.75 hour commute, laundry, ironing, prepping meals, and running errands).
And I should point out that my commute is relatively short because of my car. A fact I am very much aware of today, as my car is in the shop, my girlfriend’s car is in need of repair, and I have to get to the dealership before 7:30. I can spend 1.21 hours getting there via DC’s lamentable public transportation, or I can push my luck and wait for her to get home from rehearsal at 6:15 and hope that roadside assistance can change her tire in time for us to get my car.
I realize this is a first world problem, I do. Why am I so concerned about this loss of time? Well, I still have to do laundry and iron. It’s not really a weekend if it’s spent prepping for the work week.
Let me go buy some lottery tickets.
