Category Archives: Me

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Here’s To My Own Bed

It doesn’t matter how much I enjoy travelling to oher places and seeing new things or old friends, there is a lot to be said for sleeping in my own bed.

Between February 6th and 18th, I was actually at home for a whopping three evenings. What does this mean? Well, first, a mountain of laundry that which I will continue to chip away at (and hopefully finish up tonight). Second, it means that I’ve gone from two and a half weeks of banked reviews for Read About Comics to none at all, although I have one-and-a-half written in a notebook and in need of transcription and completion tonight. (At least the Wine-Book Wednesdays are already queued up through next week.) Third, there were a whopping 1200+ e-mails in my work account, with all but four being spam. (Yikes!)

And fourth and finally, my shoulders and neck are killing me. I’m hoping a soak in the tub tonight will loosen them up. But they’re painful enough that as soon as I finish one last task, I’m going home. Ugh. There’s a lot to be said for a good mattress and pillow that work well with your own body, and that’s something I’ve been truly missing.

Now if there was just a way for me to bring my own bed with me on trips, I think I would be set.

And for no reason whatsoever other than I think it’s really awesome (and let’s face it, Dolly Parton and Star Trek do go hand-in-hand):

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It’s Already February?

Yeah, I know. Time flies and such similar phrases. But I can honestly say that I feel like I haven’t come up for air all year, and I don’t have much to show for it. Sure, earlier in January was when we saw Tamburlaine, and my friend Rob had hosted the videogame bonanza a few weekends ago, which was a lot of fun.

But since then? It’s funny because it’s hard to articulate what I’ve done but every day has just felt really busy. Some time was spent getting the reviews up and running again, and a bunch of time was spent working on different projects for the day job. (Plus one Sunday working at Big Planet, which was enjoyable but busy busy busy in terms of selling things all day long.)

This afternoon my plan was to go running, but after errands were finally finished, I had about enough energy left to… well, not run. (Stomach problems finally sealed the day on not going running after all. Bah.) So instead it was more sorting through things, some writing, more errands, getting ready for a business trip that I leave for shortly, plus knowing as soon as I get back from that trip I’ll be turning back around and heading out on another trip two days later.

On the bright side, at least one thing is in order—reviews are now “banked” all the way through February 18th, when I get back. So that’s a nice feeling to have all of that taken care of in advance, and looking at the display in WordPress actually let me give off a little sigh of relief. But while my boss very kindly gave us all Monday off as a “mental health day” (I think she knows how much we all need it!), I’m going to probably end up going in for at least part of the day so I can box up all the materials for the pilot test that I have to go run elsewhere in the country, and get that sent off. I don’t want to leave it until Tuesday because I suspect it’s going to be a busy day as is.

(Really, I wanted to get that trip to the office taken care of today… but it’s now 9:40pm and I’m just now coming up for air. Yeesh.)

Once all of this is over, hopefully a social life will start getting rebuilt. I had dinner with Butch on Thursday night and the last time I actually saw him was in November. And sadly I think that’s not even the worst “how long has it been since you’ve seen…?” but I shudder to think what the longest time gap is. Clearly, I need to win that lottery soon so I can finally get that life of leisure.

On the bright side, at least I’ve never been a football fan, so that means I didn’t have to worry about missing the Superbowl. (I’m ambivalent about it, but glad that it wasn’t a priority because it certainly wouldn’t have happened at this end today.)

Ok! A tiny bit of cleaning, maybe a tiny bit of television, but I think the real order of business right now? Just go to bed, and deal with everything else that needs to be taken care of tomorrow.

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(Re-)Finding My Inner Creative Side

One of the things I’ve really been trying to do this year is back into a rhythm of creating things. My reviews for Read About Comics the past couple of years have been infrequent at best, and it’s something with which I need to either get back up and going, or throw in the towel and call it a day. And after completing my 365pictures project in November, I’ve taken almost no photos since then.

But on the bright side, in mid-January I finally sat down and put my nose to the grindstone. I had some legitimate reasons a few years ago for the writing to have stopped, but now they’re just excuses. So my new attack was to write something, then throw out most later if you have to, but do it. And it’s worked pretty well. I’m a few weeks back into writing reviews regularly, and even better is that I’m trying to stay ahead of the game, keeping reviews “banked” one or two weeks ahead of schedule. So that way I have a little bit more breathing room if something does come up, and I don’t lose my momentum.

But looking at photography online the last day or two, I think I also really need to get back into the habit of taking the camera out again. I want to be able to take pictures that are as beautiful as this song by Patty Griffin. (Ignore strange fan visuals, just listen to the song.) It’s funny, there’s something about this song that just makes me think, “I need to craft photos that look like this sounds.” Does that make sense?

My big excuse there has been wanting a new camera, and while it’s tempting to use the (still theoretical) bribe from the government economic stimulus check to buy the SLR I’ve been looking at, it’s not terribly responsible. One thing I have been doing lately is keeping all the money from eBayed books and DVDs off to one side, with the idea being that it will be my vacation money to spend next month. So I think once that’s over, I’ll use the allure of a new camera to stay strong on getting rid of all the books that I really don’t want, and put the money there towards a camera.

(And hey, I just got paid to use one of my photos in a brochure in the UK. It’s not for a big company, and it’s not a huge payment, but it’s money! That was a nice surprise. And something else to focus on as incentive.)

Maybe in six months I can even start adding fiction-writing back onto the table, but for now, one step at a time.

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In My Fantasy Life…

I’ve joked with friends before that I have a very well-realized fantasy life, one involving having somehow hit the lottery for so much money that I will never have to work again. (This is impressive, as I almost never actually play the lottery.)

But after browsing through the Criterion DVD section of Barnes & Noble yesterday (while contemplating taking advantage of their buy-2-get-1-free sale on all DVDs in the store), I decided that if somehow this fantasy life ever does happen, one of the things I will do is buy every single Criterion DVD I can get my hands on, then start working my way through the entire collection.

Sure, eventually it might get boring, but I’m willing to take that chance.

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Sleepy Season

If there’s one thing that somehow takes me by surprise every year around this time, it’s my lack of willpower to exercise once it gets dark out. My plan for this evening was to run a quick 4-miler on the lit portion of the W&OD Trail (or if I was feeling really ambitious, finally go run with Pacers in Old Town Alexandria again) as soon as I got off from work. And until about an hour ago, I was firmly on board with this decision.

But as it’s started to get dim outside, my energy level has been dropping rapidly. With it, my excitement level abot going running. And this is hardly the first time this has happened this month. There’s just something about gearing up to go running after dark that saps my motivation, big time. If it was dark but warm, that’s somehow doable. But dark and cold? Forget it. So plans to knock out 4-to-6 miles tonight are rapidly falling by the wayside. (I would’ve run this morning but schedule-wise, it just wasn’t in the cards for a variety of reasons.) It doesn’t help that my gym has an indoor track instead of a treadmill; as much as I am not a fan of a treadmill, an eighth-of-a-mile track means anything more than five miles or so runs the risk of me getting dizzy and throwing up all over the place. (Not that this has happened yet. And I have knocked out six miles on it just last week. But that doesn’t mean I will like it.)

I’m not going to say it’s some sort of seasonal mood disorder, but I can’t help but note that come spring this little motivation problem will be mostly gone. Of course, by that point three months of eating with minimal exercise may have also taken their toll. *sigh* We’ll see if I can rev up a bit of energy in the next hour or so to get myself moving or not.

(Maybe I’ll just hang pictures of fat that’s been liposuctioned off of people all over my office with a note, “Do you want this all over your belly?” written underneath it. Fear as a motivator is a strong one.)

If I don’t go running tonight, though, I will make myself get up early tomorrow to hit the gym then. Honest.

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Ka-boom Ka-boom

I upgraded my personal website as well as my reviewing website today, pushing them both from WordPress 2.2 to 2.3. And everything on my personal one blew up. Which is sort of apt, because I’ve been dealing with a pain in the neck for a while, now.

In this case, the pain in the neck is a literal one; I’ve been having some neck and shoulder stiffness/soreness/tension for the past week or two. Today, though, was the absolute worst day. It honestly felt like moving my head was difficult at best, at one point in the afternoon, and I began to wonder how the heck I was going to drive home. Fortunately we’ve got a wonderful accountant who is also a licensed massage therapist who worked on my neck and shoulders a bit today, and I felt better enough that driving was once more an option.

Warm Comfort FoodSince then I’ve been using a heating pad, having some comfort food in the form of miso soup and some chocolate mint truffle tea (somehow warmth just seemed right to be inside as well as outside), and just trying to take it easy. I took a little medicine as well, which honestly doesn’t seem to have helped that much. But I’m going to have a little more work done on the neck and shoulders at work tomorrow, and if it’s still bothering me after that I’ll book an appointment to get some heavy-duty attention paid to it.

Meanwhile, the personal website was almost at the point where it was back in running order, but just enough was still broken that I finally gave up and installed a different look-and-feel. We’ll see what I think of it in a day or so; for now it’ll do, and that’s all I really care about. Getting through to the next day, that’s the current motto. We’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow, right?

(Oh, and yesterday was the return to running after two weeks off. A little bit of soreness in the foot, so if it persists it’ll be back to the doctor who will no doubt give me a jab of cortisone, which sounds pretty nice. Today, though, was fairly amusing because even though I used the elliptical religiously for two weeks, my legs were definitely knowing that they had not really run in all that time. Yeesh. I felt like I’d run 18 miles on Sunday, not 8.)

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Non-Bulleted Bullet Points

Life’s been busy busy busy as of late. And when that happens, this is the first thing that falls to the wayside, it seems. Which is better than a lot more important things getting neglected, I suppose. My hunt for the elusive 36-hour day continues to be fruitless, alas.

After listening to everyone’s advise, I ended up creating a private “to-do list” webpage on my site that I can update every day. It works in concert with my full calendar, in that I regularly copy things off the calendar and onto the list, but I see it much more than the calendar and is more short-term themed than long-term. So far it’s been working out pretty well, so I can’t complain too much.

A Ray of HopeI am delighted that the temperature has finally dropped here in the DC area, just in time for our 16-miler this weekend. Hopefully it will go well; the really high temperatures at the 12- and 14-milers made them both a little uncomfortable. But what’s up with the lack of earth-shattering kabooms in the way of storms? Every time this summer we’ve had a cold front with big storm promise, we’ve gotten the cold front but a distinct lack of storm. It’s half the fun of the temperature drop, after all. (The other and more obvious half being, surprise surprise, the actual dropping of the temperature from “armpit of Alabama” levels into just “blistering shoulder.”) The best we get are threatening looking clouds that don’t deliver.

It’s Harry Potter Mania Night, and I almost hate to admit that I don’t have a copy pre-ordered. In fact, I’m not buying a copy. Not because I’m anti-Harry Potter (they remind me in a very good way of reading Roald Dahl’s books at the age of seven) but because last year I gave away my copies of the hardcovers because I decided that they were taking up too much space, and it’s not like the library has a lack of copies if I want to re-read them down the line. So, I have a copy reserved at the library and will no doubt have a copy in a couple weeks. Perhaps sooner if Karon finishes hers quickly and is then kind enough to lend it to me.

I am really looking forward to a long weekend in Lost River, West Virginia that I have planned for mid-August. I want an agenda primarily filled with swimming, hiking, reading books, eating, Scrabble, and sleeping. Not necessarily in that order. I think it’s going to be really fantastic. Especially since it will be right after two and a half weeks of doing both my job and someone else’s (who always has more on his plate and the stuff is generally more complex). So a perfectly timed vacation.

Speaking of Scrabble, being able to play it on Facebook is wonderfully evil, yet at the same time relaxing. I like being able to take a 2-minute break and stretch my brain in a different way to think of a new crazy word to play on the board. (Best word so far: ANTIQUE for 101 points. Although I am somehow more proud of my 61-point OLEANDER.)

Things are going very well with Charlie, thanks.

The new Suzanne Vega CD is pretty by-the-numbers Vega (same thing with her last album; I hadn’t realized how much her ex-husband Froom had brought to the production of 99.9F and Nine Objects of Desire until it was gone), but still enjoyable. On the other hand, I fully blame Matt Evenden for accidentally hooking me on last year’s Take That reunion album. I’m so ashamed. Oh, and Clive Davis can kiss my butt, he was utterly wrong and My December is fantastic. Kudos to Kelly Clarkson for sticking to her guns.

Ok, time to go running and then off to National Airport to pick up Charlie from his latest business trip.

Life? Busy, but good.

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A Thousand Little Pieces

Shattered

It’s funny how one can be technically not that busy, and still feel like there are hundreds of things you’re forgetting to do. Most of the big things happen, but it’s everything else that just seems to slip through the cracks these days. You know, that crucial ingredient you were supposed to buy at the grocery store, or maybe getting around to finally having prints made and sent to your grandmother from an event three weeks ago. That sort of thing. Not earth-shattering (or glass-shattering like the picture above), but still.

I thought about using the “Tasks” option in Outlook/Plaxo to try and keep a list, but the problem is I always forget to look at said list. So that doesn’t really help me much. I do love Julie’s ever-present “to-do” list she has on a clipboard on her desk but I feel it would also fall into the “forget to look at” category. Especially when I go home. Hmmm.

I think what I need to figure out is the best way to have those reminders always waiting for me at home. Perhaps the home page on my browser being said list? Something like that. Either that or I can just start peppering my journal entries with subtle reminders to myself to stretch, and check which ingredients I will need for making cupcakes, or perhaps another self-nagging mention about finally taking my old (heavier days, and hideous pleated pants to boot) suit to Goodwill.

Anyone else have any ideas on how the heck I’m supposed to be all responsible? It’s frustrating because the big things happen, but I forget that I’m planning on giving a friend a call until almost midnight. That does me (or anyone else) no good. Bleah.

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“It’s important to be selfish sometimes.”

Those are wise words I’ve heard on numerous occasions from my therapist, usually when I’ve been spending so much time worrying about other people that I forget to take care of myself. “But what do you want to do?” he often says after hearing me explain why I’ve made numerous decisions on what “needs to be done” because of other people.

I mention all of this in an effort to explain what I’ve been up to lately. Primarily? Worrying about other people. Doing things for them. That sort of thing. (Oh, and not running. At least my appointment with the doctor is today.) If there’s one thing I have absolutely learned over the past year and a half, though, it’s being able to recognize at what point I end up exhausted and needing to pull back and do things just for me. Fortunately I actually have some stuff ahead for myself. I’m leaving work early tomorrow so I can pick Julie and Scott up at the airport, and while that on some level does fall into the “other people” category what I’m looking forward to is seeing them after their trip from Tokyo. So that’s going to be great. Especially if it takes them a while to get their luggage and I’m just sitting in the “cell phone waiting area” reading a book. Yeah, I actually really like that idea.

The rest of the week isn’t so structured, aside from plans with Charlie on Wednesday and a birthday dinner for one of his friends on Friday. Both low-key. And tonight and Thursday night will be just about me, and no one else. I plan on staying in, watching some television, reading some comics that have been piling up, and just enjoying not doing anything else.

But even better is this weekend. I’m off to Chicago with Charlie and I cannot wait. Just a long weekend with him and me, on our own schedule, away from everyone else. I feel like I’ve known him for ages but we’re still finding out things about each other. (It’s the little things that amuse me the most. Like our love for Prince’s “P Control” and our sorrow that he won’t sing it in concert any more.) The last time I went to Chicago was in November 2004, and I was hardly in the right frame of mind; I’d been suddenly and (slightly unexpectedly) dumped the day before I was due to leave, not the best way to start a trip. I feel bad for poor Scott, Mike, Robert, and everyone else (I could keep listing names but you get the idea) who had to put up with my melancholy feelings throughout the weekend, although they’d cheered me up a lot. But this trip? Well, provided history doesn’t repeat itself in pre-trip events, I’m really looking forward to it.

Members of my extended family love to joke, “It’s all about me,” if the attention shifts away from them. This weekend? It’s all about me. And it’s all about us.

Is it Saturday morning yet?

EDITED TO ADD: And I left my wallet at home today, which has my insurance card in it. Which I need for the doctor’s appointment. *sigh* Yep, definitely hitting the point where I need a break. I’m not normally this forgetful.