There’s everything and nothing going on all at the same time, and I can’t find motivation or focus for more than two or three hours at a time. Sure, I’ve kind of hit the “acceptance” stage of the whole current American experience and it’s constant threats to my livelihood, but the constant load is a lot.  I’m tired. We all are.

For the folks in charge, of course, that was exactly what they wanted to do. Russell Vought, the current head of OMB, Heritage Foundation guy and Project 2025 architect, has never even been shy about it:

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.

“We want to put them in trauma.”

And we are.

The shame is, I really like the work I’m doing, and if people in power were really interested in efficiency, the stuff my team is putting together is the exact definition of it – providing visibility, accountability, and putting the focus on the actual problems and doing away with all kinds of time-wasting, bureaucratic bullshit that eats up people’s day instead of the actual work to be done. It’s really neat stuff, and my whole team’s proud of it.

Here I am, doing some of the most meaningful work of my career, and I just can’t get excited about it because of the constant threat that someone is going to yank it out from under me any day now, even if the senior management of my organization keeps telling us how important and essential we are, even if that message is entirely different from what’s coming down Interstate 395 out of Arlington, which constantly tells us we’re all disposable.

It’s a never-ending spiral of crap, but the realities of my place in the career path and what I need in order to maintain the lifestyle to which my family and I are accustomed, it makes the most objective sense to keep doing the thing until they tell me I can’t do the thing anymore (not that the folks I work with who are in different places who intended to take the latest DeRP 2.0 offer, were allowed to take it, because, apparently, for the moment, we’re all considered “mission essential,” at least until the next edict to come down when they decide we aren’t.).

It’s even more of an emotional struggle because as much as I’m carrying here, so many others have it so much worse, so on top of feeling awful and stressed all the time, I feel guilty about my feelings because what I’m dealing with isn’t quite as bad as what some others are dealing with.

So, feeling terribly disengaged from the work because I’m being both told that I’m essential and the villain to be purged simultaneously. Feeling bad about that because I know what it feels like to care about the work and it’s importance. Also feeling guilty for feeling that way because why should I complain when somebody in another agency or disappeared into some Central American dungeon would love to be in the situation I find myself in.

Anyway, sorry for repeating myself week to week.

I’ll save you the impact of my elaboration on non-existential crisis things involving lingering medical stuff, the lack of communication on several automobile-related business transactions in process, the simultaneous relief and feelings of rejection that come with Schroedinger’s response to the application for a musical gig I’m not sure I should take this year anyway, the never-ending cycle of dishwasher repair, and my feeling guilty about wallowing in my own crap that I’m probably not being as supportive as I should be as my lovely spouse steps into some exciting-but-also-scary life changes of her own.

Or maybe I won’t. At least it’s only one paragraph.

This post is brought to you by the following playlist, which feels like a pretty decent hour on a pleasantly-eclectic classic rock station:

1. “Even The Losers”- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. “L.A. Woman” – Billy Idol
3. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” – Spin Doctors
4. “Can’t Get Enough” – Bad Company
5. “Freeze-Frame” – J. Geils Band
6. “Under My Wheels” – Alice Cooper
7. “Pearl Necklace” – ZZ Top
8. “Angela” – Mötley Crüe
9. “Middle of the Road” – Pretenders
10. “Turn Up The Radio” – Autograph
11. “Anytime” –  Journey
12. “Take Me Away” – Blue Oyster Cult
13. “Dream Police” – Cheap Trick