Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Albert Camus
Off-topic. I love that quote and it reminds me of a situation day before yesterday at my job. I rescued a teenage blue jay [a bird here] from the literal jaws of death of my cat, Avi [the wildest, closest to nature, among mine]. I kept him through the night and 'force fed' him a bit. He's fully feathered and about the size of a hamster. Having no idea if he might not die without food during the day, I packed him up and toted him to work with me. Didn't try to be sneaky, but wasn't obvious about it, either. I put the rather large cat carrier, that I had him in, on the floor, half beneath the 'desk counter' area of my cubicle [other work-related boxes kept the carrier from going back against the wall]. Mostly covered with a lime green bath towel, it was hardly camouflaged and ought to have been immediately obvious to anyone paying attention.
About 3:30 in the afternoon, I was in my supervisor's office talking with her and our Center director. Along comes a co-worker from a different agency and wide-eyed exclaims, "Do You have a BLUE JAY in your CUBICLE!?!" I saw the director's full face, ALSO wide-eyed
and my supervisor equally so, both turn and look at me. I said, "Yeah... [as though it were somewhere between perfectly normal and mandatory to take such action, and explained all of the above]," along with my plans to release him the next morning at daylight, when he could re-orient to his surroundings... after I had already called vets, etc. from work re: how best to proceed toward his eventual freedom. They both started talking about how I HAVE to get him out of my cubicle, perhaps in the back conference room, etc. So, I went to do that. The center director walked out at the same time, so we were walking alongside each other toward the back, and she said, "You never cease to AMAZE me, Elizabeth." Well, in the back room, he began to squawk again, mouth wide open [the source of his discovery in the first place] and I realized that, even though I THOUGHT he was ready for release, he was still dependent on Mom for food.
So, I kept him overnight and took him to the vet in the morning. The vet and I talked later and the bird wasn't injured, and he had obtained a vet tech's agreement to take it home to feed and 'rehab' for release, to resolve my dilemma of leaving for Cracow within 3 days. What a relief! This is one of a huge number of anecdotes manifesting the truth of Camus's quote. Those times not inhabited by them are the means I have managed to keep my job... where I have had to subjugate the 'I' in me to adapt to the 'corporate'-office environment. So, as Geoffrey said, hold your head high and follow your passion... 4,000 miles to peace.
~ Lizzy
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."
~ Oscar Wilde
)
). And being towards the end of the tour think of all the perfected new songs we may get by then! 
. Ordinarily, I'd have hastened to his food-rescue, but I was two aisles away and in an office, so didn't hear him... therefore, given the lack of attention, he squawked more and louder. At first, the woman who came with the big question had asked someone else if they heard a blue jay. That other person dismissed it with, "No, that's just a cellphone." Straight from the egg to techno advances. Hence, had I been there... someone would have answered that cell very quickly.
