proteanme

Our dog won’t stop barking at me. I’m on a zoom call with MD (we do a weekly writing group) and our dog Billie is furiously barking. I think she gets fired up by all the voices coming out of the computer. I tried earbuds tonight. But then MTB came in the room carrying her computer or phone and someone was talking out of that device. Barking ensued.

I’ve stopped talking to write and Billie has stopped barking. A miracle.

I was on a work meeting video call today, and the person I was meeting with has a young child who had discovered the doorbell. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong . . . and it’s not like my colleague could mute herself, as our meeting required conversation. We both laughed. We still got our work done.

I’m on a lot of work video call meetings and there’s something very endearing about seeing my colleagues in their homes, often in a sweatshirt, mussy hair, dogs barking, kids walking through the frame in the background. Inevitably, someone is eating something that involves unwrapping something in polypropylene wrapper, like a power bar, or pulling something out of a polypropylene bag, like a potato chip, and the bag or the bar is sitting right by the computer mic, and the noise from polypropylene is exponentially loud.

The performative work self has been undone, at least at my job. We’re getting work done, a boat load of work, but without wearing our work facade, which in the past could get in the way of getting work done. It’s fitting. Hunker down. Get real. Get shit done. It would be weird if it were any other way.