Well, My Desk Is Clean

Not only is it Monday, but it's also the first post-holiday work day. Talk about your double whammies. According to my company's new 2010 holiday schedule, this day next year will be on a Tuesday. In my head, somehow that's a better deal.

But we're here now and so far, it's not so bad. Granted, it's only 1 pm, but I've already dropped my sister at the airport, hit the bank, fed the gas tank, and cleaned up my work at desk, all on only 2 hours of sleep. I hide it well, don't I?

My head is buzzing today and every so often my hands shake a little, but I've got the Glee soundtrack cranking on my iPod (thanks for the iTunes card, big sis!) and am on my second Coke, so I'm pushing through. No jobs yet to help click my day along, but s'allright.

Sidebar: Just how awesome is Glee? I know! I haven't seen Sectionals episode yet, so no spoilers!

I couldn't seem to shut my head off last night. My heart was pounding away for some reason (still is, actually) and my brain was clicking through all the things I wanted to get started on this week. I only needn't life to return to normal.

It's a funny thing to be on vacation. When I'm travelling or in Arizona (they're not really the same thing), I feel as though I'm existing out of time, inhabiting some sort of alternate world where things like Roman ruins and Florentine art are all I have to worry about. Bills, parents, work, siblings, angst, life – it's all removed into a different realm, set aside to be looked at later, usually in a much less halcyon moment.

Doing my tried and true impersonation of a hermit this past holiday week felt much the same. Losing the knowledge of just what day it is and really not caring. Watching movies till three in the morning and sleeping till noon. Showering only every other day. Hey, if family can't stand one when one has greasy ponytail hair and hasn't seen a bar of Irish Spring in 48 hours, then they just shouldn't show up in the first place.

When I was working for the Germans (sigh, I miss the Germans), Christmas break was a yearly given to which I quickly became accustomed. Now that my sister comes east most years for Christmas, it's helpful to have that time again, even if the getting of it differs from my German era. But while submerging into that fog of nothingness is relatively easy, dragging oneself up out of it takes some doing.

Still, my desk is clean and as organized as it gets, just in time for the early winter windfall of work we've been promised for so many months. I have a freelance gig for a writer I not only enjoy reading, but whom I also like personally quite a bit. And there's the promise of more freelance work this year. I've got financial goals to meet, writing goals to enslave myself to, both to reach a conference travel goal this summer. Now, if I could just get my heart to stop pounding.

Yikes, I used the G word. Ah well, it's the post holiday Monday. Maybe no one will notice.

Because I thought I may have seen there a peach

Hello my blog. Have you missed me? (I didn't think so.)

I missed you. Sort of. I thought I'd miss a place to write down – sometimes exhaustively – my thoughts on whatever, but since I have Facebook now, I do that in 140 characters or less instead. Efficiency, thy name is social networking.

Well, it's resolution time and I should resolve to maintain this blog more consistently, life crises or no. I should resolve to do this and that as well but all these resolutions, while well intentioned, will eventually go the way of the dodo for one simple reason.

I am a pisser.

That's right, ladies and gents, I am a first class pisser. If given a deadline or a resolution or a goal, I guarandangtee you that I will absolutely not achieve it – just because it is there.

See? Pisser.

Sadly, this state of pissiness only has one casualty – me. Pretty much no one else is affected or frankly gives a good overall damn. (The ever present exception to the rule are those who have given me the deadline and consequently, are awaiting delivery. Of something.)

So I have decided not to resolve, not to vow, not to promise or swear, but to unfailing do one thing this year.

I will finish the damn book!

Amen.

Postscript: Curious about the title? I know you are. Thank my beloved West Wing and the awesome Ainsley Hayes. Or click on this clip. I may not agree with the politics – I really don't know, I try not to pay attention to them mostly – but I do love a good set down. You go girl.

POW! Right in the - Patella?

I'm writing this while sitting in bed on Sunday evening with the lap desk and my laptop, Pride and Prejudice playing in the background. It's not at the He's walking, he's still walking! point, so I'm only paying half attention right now. Hollis has just joined me and she can't figure out why the tuna she's smelling isn't meant for her, so I'm shifting my tuna melt from side to side to avoid her avid nose.

It's not laziness that brings me here but rather confinement. Saturday morning I lay in bed dozing, rousing myself from time to time to check the DVR clock, which is set to the correct time; my alarm clock is always set 15 minutes fast to trick my mind into thinking it's sleeping later when actually I'm just getting up earlier. I just didn't have it in me to do the math that morning. I was trying to decide just how much time I really needed to get washed and dressed to leave on time for my writer's meeting - the Liberty State Fiction Writers - and how much more time I could thus spend lollygagging in bed. Contemplatively, I crossed my legs, my foot bumping Hollis in the process at her perch in the bottom corner of my bed, and my knee went CRACK! That's it, that's all it took. A simple shifting of the leg and my whole world becomes about that one faulty joint.

I was determined to make my meeting though, the first of this new writing group that was formed by several friends of mine. I wanted to show my support by being present, come crutch or imminent blizzard. And I was glad I persevered, happy to see good friends after the long holiday and to be briefed about the group and their comprehensive program and Web site. I think I could surf it forever and still uncover hidden pearls. (We're at the bungled Bingley proposal scene BTW: Miss Bennent. Mister Bingley.) It was good that I went and my friends helped me manage the knee while I was there (thanks friends!) so it was all good. A few hours later it was home to ice packs and paid meds and eventual oblivion, Thus have I stayed all weekend.

It's frustrating t0 be sidelined just when I had made plans to improve things. Things always seem to go pear shaped when I've managed to motivate myself towards something positive. (Ah, Lady Catherine has arrived. Heaven and earth. Are the shades of Pemberly to be thus polluted?) Perhaps it's just January blues. I always struggle to get into gear at the beginning of the year. All the bliss and good feelings of the Christmas holidays are suddenly gone and it's back to life as usual.

We interrupt this blog post for the following important announcement: HE'S WALKING. STILL WALKING. AND WALKING.

Ahem.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I'm planning to wear my Christmas light socks to work on Monday to make up for my blah weekend. Maybe it'll trick my subconscious back into shiny happy people holiday mode. Hey, nothing like a little self delusion to start the week. Plus, I'm looking at a knee injection on Monday night and for the two following Mondays in turn so I'll take whatever I can get.

Nothing but good times ahead.

Update Monday night 1/12/09:

Knee injected? Check.

Knee drained? Yeesssssss

Shouted down doctor's office with creative expletive alternatives whilst enduring procedures? Oh my giddy aunt, check.

Surreal fluffy clouds on a blue sky painted on the lights in my doctor's exam room ceiling? You betcha.

Compliments on my Christmas lights socks? But of course.

Resolutionless

I don't make New Year resolutions. To me, it's just another way of listing things that will never get done. I'm perverse enough that making a list almost assures the failure of achieving anything on the list simply because there is a list.

Get that?

I also don't set "goals" as a pansy-assed way of avoiding the word "resolution". Do it or don't do it, but don't wimp out on the terminology. I have some things in mind that I would like to see happen in 2009, but I won't handicap their chances by sticking them on some sort of list. Look, it works for some people. I'm not some people.

Basically, making it to the next year fully intact is challenging enough of a resolution for me. I think of my friend Jane's resolutions and realize that this mind-set of mine is far from positive, but it's nearly 7 pm on my last night of a disappointing vacation, so I'm going to just wallow in my mediocrity for a moment and resolve to be more positive tomorrow. Don't defriend me yet, Jane.

Ugh, I said it.

I guess, if anything, I can resolve to be more me in 2009. "Is't possible?" you may ask. One shudders to think. But I valiantly resolve to be more of a survivor, more of a good time - not that way, you pervs! (okay, maybe a little) - more committed to the things that matter to me, and less negative about those things I can't control even though they are few and far between (kidding! sort of). I promise to be more snarky, use bigger words (if I can find them), and radically obliterate preconceptions and limitations relating to my size, my income, my brain, my faith, or my hair color (though I'm not a blond, so half the battle there is already won). A good enough start to any year.

How do you like me so far?