Forgive me Father...

     What's a sinful translator to do when he's not translating, but unburden his soul in the virtual confessional of the Church of the World Wide Web? I would confess to co-workers at the office, but I'm a one-man shop and I work at home. I can't bring myself to dump everything on my wife and kids, not because they wouldn't gladly listen, but because they don't speak much Russian, so I'd have to translate everything for them to understand. I've been venting my translation-related frustrations on our family pets for years, but the rat terrier, Rainbow, is now very old, very deaf, and frankly, she's always been a bit indifferent to my plight. The cat, well, she's a cat. Her indifference is a foregone conclusion. My best sounding board has always been the yellow lab, Sandy, as she is inevitably
happy to see me, her wagging whip of a tail at least gives the impression of interest in what I have to say, and as far as I know she's never betrayed my confidences to the neighborhood squirrels. But lately I've gotten the feeling that even she only loves me for my opposable thumbs, which admittedly are quite handy when it comes to retrieving dog treats from under the kitchen sink.

     My first confession, dear Internet, is that I'm a workaholic. From the wee hours of the morning until the wee hours of the morning (you read that right), I can be found at my desk, pen in hand, scratching out translations on a notepad by the warm glow of a twisty compact fluorescent lamp, the heavenly bouquet of hot coffee wafting from within easy reach of my coffee-covered computer keyboard. Usually I'm surrounded by a veritable fleet of dog-eared dictionaries - real dictionaries with covers, and pages, and print - swimming in a sea of pens, pencils, notepads, and lens wipes, my mind floating on undulating waves of words, first Russian, then English, with other languages breaching the surface now and then. It's a scene that I imagine to be akin to a modern-day version of Caravaggio's paintings of St. Jerome, patron saint of translators, albeit conspicuously lacking the halo.

St. Jerome Writing by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio c. 1605-06
Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy

     I've been a workaholic my whole life. I get it honestly. My dad was an accountant, a very good accountant, and he too burned the midnight oil on many an occasion, especially during tax season. Though I didn't inherit his love of numbers and jousting with IRS agents, he did leave me his propensity to lose track of time when immersed in an intellectual puzzle. Like him, I usually only come up for air when I can no longer ignore my hunger, or the bathroom beckons, or I run out of coffee. Sometimes it takes all of the above to break my linguistic reverie. Dad passed away on Christmas morning in 2008, and though he's no longer with us in body, his spirit comes through when I catch a reflected glimpse of my tired eyes, complete with bags and dark circles, and my perpetual studious slouch. My greatest mentor, John I. Watson, used to call it a "dignified slouch," but I've never considered myself dignified (I do talk to dogs, cats, and myself all day), so I'll have to settle for "studious."

     There have been times when I worked on a translation or a translation-related desktop publishing project all through the night. It's not that I have anything against sleep. I have a very good relationship with my select-a-number mattress and fluffy pillows. My wife swears that I enjoy snoring all night (and from what she says I'm really good at it). It's just that when I'm wrapped up in a job I am so focused on my task that I lose all sense of time. I know it's not a very good excuse, but I really am trying to mend my ways. Sometimes it's not my fault, and I have to work through the night to meet a deadline. For some reason those nights always coincide with a rare fit of hypersensitivity to time, sleep, and the sound of the rhythmic, blissful sleep-breathing of my wife, daughters, pets, neighbors, local feral cats, etc. Basically it's a mystery not unlike those encountered in any number of human religions, philosophies, and Japanese game shows.

     Now that I've unburdened myself I should go get another cup of coffee, turn on the TV, and spend the evening watching duck call makers jumping mud pits in jacked-up golf carts, or maybe that show with the guy with the hair who finishes every sentence with the word "aliens." But then again, I could always squeeze in another thousand words of translation before bedtime.