Labor Day | Evening Light

Sipping my coffee on Labor Day. I’m not in the office, and I have the day off; that’s nice. I take a few moments of time and consideration for the efforts of each subsequent wave of labor movements over human history that brought us here – to this place and time with 5 day (or fewer) work weeks, limited to 40 hours (in principle), with a minimum wage expectation (still, for some reason, a radical notion), regular weekends off, healthcare, bereavement pay and other benefits, and restrictions on who could be required to work, and at what age… wow. It was not always like this for working people. Powerful. There’s more work to be done, but today? Not the day to fight that fight. Today, we celebrate that fight. 😀

It hasn’t been quite so hot, and the cooler weather definitely limits the impact to our quality of life that the A/C is busted. It’s mostly fixed, and I expected it would be fully repaired yesterday afternoon. Apparently not a reasonable expectation, even after the repair person selected by the landlord assured me he just needed one more part, and would wrap things up between 1 pm and 2 pm; I never saw him again, yesterday. lol I am frustrated – but, and this is just real, I also think it is wholly shitty that he is spending much of his Labor Day weekend working. :-\ So, I feel inclined to be very patient about it, through the weekend, for sure.

Any time I feel subjectively “too hot”, I do have the option to change up the scenery. I can have a cooling cold(ish) shower. I can enjoy an Italian ice, or an icy cold beverage. I can run an errand in the car (it has A/C, and the A/C in the car works just fine) or go for a long drive. I can even, and this does work pretty well, dim the lighting in the apartment and “trick myself” into feeling cooler with a video of rain falling, or a snowy evening. All surprisingly effective, particularly if I don’t fight back with regular reminders of how hot I feel. LOL Thankfully, the weather has been cooler, more around 80 than above 90.

…I’m just saying; there is nearly always something I can do to improve an uncomfortable situation. This applies every bit as much to A/C failures as to relationships, jobs, working conditions, as well as a ridiculously wide variety of assorted miscellaneous other life experiences. 🙂 The answer to “what can I do about that?” is very rarely “nothing at all”.

It’s been a lovely weekend. I’ve gotten a few things done. I’ve enjoyed hours of entertainment with my Traveling Partner. This third day off feels “extra” in a wonderful way, although it is also that last day before I must return to work – I generally spend those more on preparing for the week ahead, and in service to hearth and home, than relaxing. Taking care of me does have some verbs involved. My desire to see a clean kitchen means I need to do the work to make it so. If I want clean clothes to wear, it’s a good day to do the laundry. Just the basic stuff, and plenty of time between tasks to chill with my partner, enjoying the day. It’s helpful that we are equals in this partnership; I often come home to an astonishing amount of housekeeping and care already handled. This week, the laundry is already sorted (and I didn’t have to do that), even started (and a bunch of stuff ready to fold or hang up). We work together to build the life we enjoy sharing. No slaves, no masters, no petty resentment, no servitude.

I listen to the sound of this snow storm playing in the background. I sip my coffee and grin at the subjective sensation of cold toes on a chilly morning. (It’s not actually cold this morning.) I think ahead to dinner, later, and wonder if it is too late (being Labor Day) to get a thick bone-in rib-eye to throw on the grill tonight… and laugh at my terrible planning; I was just at the store, literally at the butcher counter, yesterday. It’s not even necessary to go out; there is plenty to choose from here, already. lol My restless monkey mind wants to seek, to travel, to explore, to experience – and my ankle objects to the effort and distance, in advance. (It’s been a limiting concern all weekend.) I remind myself gently, that if the ankle were up to it, I’d just hit the trail this morning and walk 3 or 4 miles, enjoying the morning birdsong and breezes.

…This morning, sufficiency is enough. 😉 Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again. 😀

Labor Day is past, and with it any recognition of the value of labor, perspective about work and employment, and respect for working class people in general. lol. Well, perhaps not, but it sometimes seems that way. Living in a world where there is even room to argue about whether there ought to be a ‘minimum’ wage in the first place drives home a pretty clear message that people have a dollar value, and that perhaps it ought to be much lower… which is strangely consistent with the message that it is cheaper to slaughter them wholesale in faraway lands than it is to offer them employment. We’re strange creatures, human primates.

Why am I even considering the plight of the working class right now? It’s Monday morning. lol. I am preparing to go to work. I don’t write much about work, or working, and certainly the details of my employment are largely pretty irrelevant to questions of ‘who am I?’ or ‘how can I be a better person?’. What got my attention this morning was actually a Facebook post from a friend commenting on the high percentage of young people eager to retire before their careers even develop. I’m not really surprised by that. Personally, I’m generally quite surprised when people don’t seem to be eager to retire at all. I’m also surprised by low-wage workers who, instead of railing against the low wages, fight to work more hours – as though the thought that the pay itself is what is out of whack doesn’t occur to them… as though they don’t realize they are worth more money. I’m sure a lot of business owners, large and small, would like to pay less for labor than they do now… but my perspective (and reading) tend to support that the vast majority of workers are grossly underpaid as it is – to the very large benefit of very few people.

I’m not hopping on my soapbox this morning, it’s just an observation about my bemusement that we value ourselves, and our place in the world, so poorly as a general state of things. Me, I’d love to retire. I’d retire tomorrow and make way for someone younger, faster, hungrier for glory… I would step aside right now, no hard feelings, if I knew I could support my family on my retirement income. I have plenty to do – writing, painting, developing relationships, being. (Employment, for me, has never been more than a path to have the resources to do these things, anyway. There is no value in employed labor whatsoever, for the employed individual, beyond the conversion of labor to spendable dollars. We’ve been deceived if we think there is. The only exception is when we employ ourselves to build, make, create, explore, develop, or offer to the world something really new, otherwise, it’s just a job. lol. )

It’s Monday morning, after a very good weekend. I’d rather wake up, have my latte, and paint all day, or write, or walk, or have sex, or talk to friends, or shop… but I will head in to the office, soon, to do things for other people, that in the grander scheme of things are pretty… unimportant. It’s how I pay for the next lovely weekend, and the next one after that, on into the holidays, and vacations to come. I’d retire tomorrow if I could afford to. I have so much I want to do… and so little time for me.

Happy Monday! 🙂

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Life, Love, Labor

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Life, Love, Labor

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