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As a publication we have dedicated ourselves to covering issues we feel are important today and will be tomorrow. Issues from land preservation, race relations, healthy eating, local arts and culture. We’ve done all of this while doing our best to avoid any political inferences which we feel might drag us on to a political slope that many others with much greater resources than we have already try to navigate on a regular basis. Indulging in this kind of forum would, we feel, also take away from the larger goals for the publication.

The topic of politics is on my mind, this week my wife Adele has been out of town on business and I’ve had the opportunity to watch a couple of interesting shows. We generally have limited time to watch TV and the watching we do generally results in compromises about which show we watch together, shows about politics are usually not part of any compromise. So, after my son Jake went to sleep this week I watched some TV and caught most of two shows, about politics, before I couldn’t keep my eyes open and went to sleep as well.

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Last Sunday my wife and I wanted to take our teenage daughter and infant son pumpkin picking. Our plan was to go have breakfast as a family but as everyone knows the best-laid plans are changed by life’s realities.

We got off to a late start since my daughter Candice, who had her home coming dance the night before, got in late and invariably wanted to sleep in. We gave her until 9 am and woke her up reminding her of the plan for the day. Candice rolled out of bed, somehow got herself together in 30 minutes and we were ready to roll by 9:30, or so we thought.

My son Jake and Candice are separated by 15 years, so while Candice wanted to sleep in, Jake who’s 15 months wanted to get going at around 6:30. By the time Candice woke up, he had been up for some time and wore himself out. We’d given him a bottle and a snack/breakfast hoping to buy time until we could all eat together.

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Saturday night we hosted our fifth artist reception “Everybody Disco” by Janet Pearlberg. What a great turn out we had and an interesting night it was. Janet’s art is unique and needs to be viewed vs. described. Janet matches her art; she needs to be experienced vs. described. Janet went out of her way to make sure it was a fun opening. I’m not an art expert by any means, but I think this opening was different, it was definetly different from our previous openings.

The night included two DJ’s, balloon figures and a costumed chicken who looked, as one of the other attendee’s noted, more like the yellow Teletubbie. The night move swiftly to the beat of music, alternating between electronica and early 80’s sounds. As you can imagine this level of activity took on somewhat of a surreal feeling at times.

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Wednesday I told my business partner Matt that I needed a few hours off for myself – a mental health break. We’ll it didn’t work out so well, as I left the office my phone rang and it was my daughter calling saying she needed a ride. I then found myself shuttling my daughter here, picking my son up there and feeling guilty about not being at work. That led to remotely checking and answering emails and doing some other business stuff.

Yesterday morning I woke up dragging, I thought it could be the change of seasons affecting my allergies or who knows¬something else. Matt and I had a 9 am meeting and I knew I had to get some stuff done after that but I was also determined to get the mental break I sought. I told Matt it was take 2 on my short day.

But here I was, 2.5 hours after I stopped working writing this blog post. Professional acquaintances I know would tell me that I again defeated the purpose of a mental health break by getting on the computer, checking email and writing this post with the limited down time I have. At least I’m trying though.

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Working in journalism has allowed me to be something of a hermit. Especially since, thanks to the understanding of the publishers of canvas, I work largely from home so I can be with my 22-month-old daughter.

What this means is that I mostly communicate with the world through email, IM and an occasional phone call. Sometimes, I don’t speak to another adult until well into the evening when my husband comes home from work.

It’s a peculiarity of life in the technological age that most of us face. But today, something happened that made it really hit home how this “peculiarity” has become a serious problem.

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