Back to Werk

After more than two months of vacation, sleeping in, and goofing around, it’s hard to imagine that I’ll wake up at 6 am or so tomorrow, so that I can get on the bike at 7, so that I can be at work at 8:30. Wow. It wounds like quite the enterprise. But I’m very looking forward to it. I haven’t done more than a tiny fraction of what I thought I would and, after one month, I started being bored and tired of having too much time on my hands. I never thought I’d say that, trust me.

And, while right before my vacation started I was going nuts at work and was entertaining thoughts of finding another job (I can’t stand this, can’t take it any more, it’s too much) now I’m like, just give me something to do, dude. Filing. I’ll do filing!

But, was really great to get rested. Sleep rocks!

On that note, I’m off to cooking and ironing for tomorrow.

Still Here

Just don’t have much to say. Not much going on, at least not of the pleasant variety. Have been biking a lot and got my ride to DC down to 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is pretty much the only thing that makes me happy right now. I’ve discovered this beautiful little trail that makes my ride a lot more direct than I thought it could be. Also, the way to DC is somewhat downhill, and that makes a big difference.

Have been taking pics (lots of them with the cherry blossoms, a few others) but haven’t been in the mood to process and post them, though. Every day I say “tomorrow” and then that never happens. That’s the problem with having too much time on my hands: I tend to waste a lot of it. I did see a few art exhibitions, of which the favorite was a Georgia O’Keeffe.

I wonder how I’m going to be able to get back in the work saddle. ‘Cause if I had a million dollars, I would be very tempted not to.

Still Goofing Off

Man, being on vacation for a month really makes you want to do nothing all the time Not good. It’s hard for me to structure my days when there’s no outside constraint. I look at the books and reams of materials I wanted to read and find myself stuck with reading newspapers online most mornings and then… Well, I wouldn’t know exactly to say what I do, ’cause it sure ain’t much.

I did take a bunch of cherry blossom pictures but haven’t been inclined to process and post even those.

One accomplishment is that I managed to squeeze my bike ride to DC in one hour and a half. Much better than two hours, so I’m very optimistic about biking to work three days a week (with the other two going to gym classes).

Other than that, getting as much sleep as I need every day is quite an incredible experience. I can’t begin to describe how exhausted I was before my vacation. And I dread going back to work; not because of the work, but because I’m afraid I’ll get back to that awful state.

Mr. Jinks is being his delightfully cute self most of the time; he sleeps with us. When he’s not between us, fluffy belly up, he’s at my feet. Which means I have to wake up in order to turn and then choose some contorted position so that I don’t wake up his fuzzy highness.

Aaaand, speaking of the devil, Mr. Fuzzypants stopped by to plop himself on my lap for a long nap. Irresistible. And highly coincidental with the fact that I was in one of his favorite spots: the dish chair.

Cool Send Off

Dude, I think I have a lucky hand with the NY Times. At the end of the day, with my last bits of strength, I managed to send the press release I wrote for a book we published. I was even thinking, yeah, right, send a press release at 5:30, sure recipe for success. But, it had to be done and, in the frenzy of tying up loose ends, it just couldn’t happen earlier. What a bummer, I felt, I won’t be here tomorrow to take the random call about it, I can’t make any calls… Ugh.

Five minutes later I get an email from, you guessed, another super duper NY Times reporter asking for a review copy. I almost fell off the chair. I’m not kidding. About him being super duper. I didn’t fall off the chair. Rather, I was floating It’s a bitter-sweet victory, though: there’s no point in attaching my business card to the book since I’m not going to be there. But, given how many people like me he probably deals with every day, I prefer to think he wouldn’t have remembered me anyway. Nevertheless, I was thrilled he was interested and I got a nice coda to my long day. I won’t miss the opportunity to send another review copy to my other super duper NY Times buddy, though.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t see much personal merit in all this at all. Rather, I feel star-struck. It’s just the fact that I work for a prestigious organization and reporters know about it. I think the real struggle is to try to get media attention for a less well-known organization or issue. So I am pretty spoiled, which is why I love my job, in spite of the fact that, for the most part, I get bogged down under a ton of otherwise mind-numbing work that many times makes me wonder what I’ve really accomplished at the end of the day.

With this to celebrate, I stopped at the neighborhood grocery store for a bottle of red. I just HAD to have a glass of red wine (I had two). Well, good thing I stopped by today. The cashier took a long look at my driver’s license. Which is expiring at midnight today because that’s when my visa expires, too. I didn’t have the time to renew it. Heck, I barely had time to find and send my damn birth certificate, for that matter. She noticed that it’s valid until today; with a smile. I smiled back and said, yes, but it’s still valid! And my birth date doesn’t expire, I grinned.

Another Highlight of the Day

(Something similar to this.)

It took me two hours to get to work today, of which one was spent in traffic on a one-mile route (to a metro stop that was open). The day ended late and, on my way home, I saw half a dozen or so people hooked to their BlackCrackberries. I rolled my eyes thinking that, after staring at a big screen for eight hours, I couldn’t possibly handle another hour of squinting at another one. I’d rather stare in the void in a catatonic state as metro stops pass by. Sometimes I can’t even read a magazine, that’s how fried my brains are. I recently bought a Droid phone and had it connected to the work email but not even the coolest app can convince me to hook myself to it like all those people, especially at the end of the day. Jeez, I’m drowning in email at work. Why on earth would I want to look at it on the way home?? Are those people nuts?

Before I finished the thought, I heard a ping in my pocket. Of course, I couldn’t resist not checking it. And, lo and behold, it was an email from a super duper New York Times reporter whose pieces I never miss. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I had to read his name twice. So I started typing frantically to respond; we had just what he was looking for. I think I’ll print out and frame his thank-you response .

It’s things like this that make sometimes day-long grueling work worth it.

And the lesson of the day: never judge other people!

Highlight of the Day

I got to hold the coat of a well-known New York Times reporter who was a speaker at an event at my organization today.

*feeling star-struck*

Side Effects of Having a Window

You tend to day-dream a lot, get very little done, and can’t wait to get out of the office. Even more than when you didn’t have a window. Now that’s disconcerting. I hate not being productive, but I don’t want to tell you how much work I did the past few days. Not really nothing, but something of microscopic size anyway. The funniest thing was that our president (a very kind and charming guy, with great sense of humor) stopped by my office right after I moved and said, “don’t look out the window too much.” I guess he speaks from experience. LOL