Curse of the Volunteer

I wake up early and stare at the ceiling a lot more these days. I haven't asked my doctor yet but I know exactly what ails me: I'm an ALDAcon volunteer.

Each morning the ceiling asks me the same questions: "Why are you doing this, Graham?" "Don't you know better by now?" "What nonsense will you attempt today?" "When will this stop?" "Do you know where your family is?"

And I stare some more.

A long time ago, before I grew up (or thought I had), I was an ALDA slave. 100 percent chattle, my mind and body owned by the Big A. My days went like this: wake up, ALDA; walk dog, ALDA; red light, ALDA; commuter train, ALDA; boss not looking, ALDA; wife on phone, ALDA; walk dog, ALDA; can’t sleep, ALDA. And so on, and so forth.

But that was 20 years ago, when my relative youthfulness and unregulated lifestyle could explain away my blind obsession, my unbridled zeal, my feverish delusions about ALDA. Now I’m older and have a family, a working stiff with single-minded focus on a 529 college-savings plan and retirement. Then two months ago, in a moment of astonishing madness, I volunteered for ALDAcon. Why get older if you don’t get wiser?

There's no mistaking it: I'm once more under the spell of the dreaded and always disabling Curse of the Volunteer. The signs are all too familiar: Do a bit of work for one ALDAcon committee (Sponsorship), notice a point of intersection with another (PR), and gradually get pulled in deeper (Scholarship) and deeper (Program) and deeper (Planning) until there you are flat on your back, contemplating the bedroom ceiling. It's deja voodoo all over again.

And I see the curse all about me, vivid, alarming. Kathy does IM jigs around her day job, Carolyn scours through the ALDAcon policy manual for answers to obscure questions, Kathryn fixates on ALDA values in long rambling emails, Miguel stays up well beyond bedtime his Blackberry buzzing uncontrollably...And just as sleep finally descends in the Eastern and Central time zones, Christine checks in from Seattle with a laundry list of talking points that can keep you up all night if you read through them all. So you do.

The curse! The curse! I stifle the urge to scream. Then, I scream. The delirium builds each day: Karina snaps her finger, no response; my kids float in a fog around me; deadlines at work loom and pass unnoticed...I must break this spell, I must!

On a night when the Moon is waning, I take a blood root and throw it onto the doorstep of Mary Clark, the fiend who asked me to volunteer for ALDAcon. And I chant: “This spell on me I return to thee, To thee who hast so ill-asked me. So might it be.” I improvise with a sign of the cross and some yoga asanas, and then leave. Free at last. Again.

After I get home, I wander with relief to my formerly cursed computer and log on. But there--at the top of the queue--is an email from Lois, chair of the Sponsorship Committee, musing on who to approach next: "CTIA, AOL and A T & T - up for grabs!" Hypnotically, I hit the Reply button and type: "CTIA...maybe I can do that one." No, Graham, don't. GET...A...GRIP! Don't! Don't! But my hand moves robotically to the mouse and I slowly move the cursor until it hovers over Send...and...and...and...click! Auggghhhhh!

I'll try candles, garlic, and wolfbane next.