Goodbye R&R!

Phew! What a week so far! I thought my post-three-day-weekend glow (or burn…) would last more than 15 minutes, but five minutes through the revolving office door and I was already crazy! The rest and relaxation I had experienced over the weekend was promptly shot to smithereens. After a maddening three weeks where I perused my way through countless blogs and articles, planned a trip to California, and bought way too many earrings from Forever21, I was looking for things to pick up…and as usual, I got what I asked for!

However, despite my lack of stress going into the weekend, it was still great to wind down. It’s really amazing what a difference that extra day makes! I soaked up the fresh mountain air and sun (and subsequently burned to a crisp), stoked my confidence by whopping my parents in tennis, and snacked on s’mores. It was great!

But that lovely zen feeling almost immediately dissipated when I got back to my apartment and spent the night tossing and turning in my scorching apartment. I finally fell asleep about fifteen minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off, and woke up an hour later! Not the way to ease into a week! Already frazzled (and frizzy), yesterday was a frenzy of phone calls, meetings and endless email chains. Today hasn’t been much different! Uh….when’s my next vacation???

Adult Sippy Cup

It has become abundantly clear to me that I seemed to have missed the early childhood development skill of drinking out of a cup without spilling it all over myself. While I think I’m “on track” otherwise, when it comes to drinking or carrying anything in liquid form, without fail, I spill.

In the past, I could blame this (like every other downfall in my life) to my morning commute. Unable to handle steering a moving vehicle, changing the radio, screaming at other commuters, and drinking coffee at the same time, I pulled into the park-and-ride many times with a pungent perfume of stale coffee and crippling angst. But while many of my life problems were solved when I moved into the city, my inability to drink things is something I can’t seem to kick!

I thought this problem would subside once I switched to iced coffee, which you drink with a straw. How hard could it possibly be to sip from a straw? In my case, apparently very. Yesterday, my straw had a slit in it, so a single sip ended up straight in my lap. Then this morning, as I was attempting to wrangle my umbrella, re-adjust my purse, and prepare my morning java, my purse slid off my shoulder, whacking my filled cup of coffee straight onto my feet. How pleasant it was to squish my way through the office….at least my feet were fully caffeinated!

Frankly, I’m not really sure what to do. Do they make adult sippy cups? Would people think it was weird if I wore a full-body bib to work? Maybe I should re-think my assertion that I’m a glorious multi-tasker, when I can’t even handle the toddler-learned skill of lifting a cup to my lips!

Night Music

Last night was the perfect sleeping weather–cool, with the pleasant pattering of rain. After a busy weekend enjoying the outdoors and perfect weather, I was exhausted and went to bed early, excited to get some solid zzzs in before the work week.  But instead of being lulled to sleep by the elements and the pleasant chirping of crickets, I was rudely awakened by the constant noise of my neighborhood.

When I first moved into my place, perhaps because it was winter and people were in hibernation mode, I was surprised at how quiet it was! My apartment is in the back of the building and faces a courtyard, so the only sounds I heard for those first few months were the rustling of leaves coming off the trees! It was like living in the country! I thought I’d be battling honking horns and plugging my ears closed, but it was surprisingly docile. However, for the past few weeks, the sounds of the neighborhood have progressed from birds chirping to the constant barking of a dog the owners refuse to bring inside, a newborn baby who cries all night, and the bi-weekly psychopathic rants of both my next-door and downstairs neighbors! No longer the quiet oasis I moved into, my apartment has turned into a thoroughfare of noise pollution!

So despite my best intentions for a restful night’s sleep, I was woken up several times by howls, cries, and deranged tirades. Needless to say, I’m a bit groggy today. It’s taken a cold shower and three cups of coffee for my eyes to even open fully! Fortunately, work has been quiet, so I’ve been able to wallow in my exhaustion and hide my eye-bags for most of it. Maybe it’s time to invest in those earplugs after all!

Desk Decor

Three days in the new office and there’s already trouble in paradise! Firstly, my lovely new plant that’s sitting on my desk seems to be attracting bugs, so I’ve had to start a daily regimen of spraying myself down with Deet before settling in for the day.  It seems to be working fine, save for the oily sheen all over my face!

Secondly, my desk decor seems to have struck a nerve with someone in my pod. I had my desk pretty much set up by Monday morning–because I haven’t been at my job for very long and I didn’t have an office, my previous decor was relegated to a few postcards, and of course my beloved (if buggy) plant! But one of my cube mates had an extra poster from his old office and asked if I wanted it for my desk. It fit the basic criteria–it was free–so I leaned it up against my cube. Less than an hour later, I was accused of “putting up a wall” by someone who sits near me.  But instead of simply asking me to move my poster, throughout the course of the day, I would come back to my desk to find it inching closer and closer towards my computer, until it was practically wedged behind it!

Obviously, the mature thing to do would’ve been to ask politely if anyone had moved my poster, and then engage in a dialogue over the best way to amend the situation. So obviously what I did was just move the poster back after they left for the night. I know, I know…reeeeaaallll adult of me.

The Great Migration

Lots of changes at the office–namely we have a brand new one! After a year of hearing the rumors that we would be moving, and a crazy week of realizing we in fact were, we’ve officially moved into a brand new space. Now that we’re here, it’s a lot less traumatic than anticipated! Because no one really knew what  to expect, it was easy to become seriously bummed about the prospect of cube-land for all. Frankly, it’s not such a big change for me, since I was in a cube before, but now that everyone is in a cube, the talking and the phone ringing and the increased visibility of office life will take a little getting used to!

Of course, I was a little sad to leave my old desk behind, because that was my very first cube! No one ever forgets such a defining moment in their career….but seriously, I worked hard for that space! When I started working, I basically had a computer station, then a small amount of desk space, and then a shared desk before moving to my job now. And what memories we shared! The tears of joy I shed over seeing my little cardboard name placard, the famous peppermint pavilion….ok, so not too many memories. Listen…I still should have won that decorating contest! (Old wounds never heal!)

But there is nothing I enjoy more than the feeling of a fresh start, and this place definitely feels that way. I have a new plant, a nice desk lamp, and a fresh stock of pens. I also have some new cube mates, and things are going along swimmingly so far! We’ll see how they feel about me when I encase their staplers in jello! If that does happen for real, I swear it wasn’t me!

Pocket Purge

The weather has been all over the place lately. It’s rained for a solid week, but the temperature has ranged from humid and gross out, to freezing and gross out.  While I have a past history of having no idea what to wear in these situations, I’ve been getting better at checking on the weather the night before.  It’s been a lot of switch-ups in terms of outerwear lately!

Listen, I am not a shopper or obsessed with clothes at all, but I have a lot of coats! I also love sticking things in my pockets, so my daily attire of a blazer along with the coat I wear into work gives me plenty of opportunity to fill those puppies up! With my four spring coats, a rain jacket, two windbreakers, six blazers and a cape, the sheer variety of pocket options means I have been misplacing a lot of stuff.

On any given day, I collect a variety of ephemera that ends up in my pockets: bobby pins, rubber bands, loose change, toothpicks, my metro card, pens, chapstick, my credit card, receipts, random slips of paper with inspirational quotes, and my work id. In a nutshell, this means that 90% of these items are typically in the pocket of a jacket I’m not wearing.

Since I’m apparently on a constant quest to better myself and my organizational habits, I guess this means I need to go through my pockets and locate my credit card (semi-important) and the post-it I carry around with “Dreams are like illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you” written down (extremely important…but also does not exist in real life).

Let’s Get Some Shoes.

This week I was once again on an apparel quest, this time for new shoes. With the clock ticking down on the Payless Bogo sale, I was running myself ragged trying to visit every single Payless in this dumb city, because every one I went to had exactly two shoe choices in my size: orthopedic velcro-strapped sneakers, or 6-inch platform stripper heels. Obviously, this was not work-appropriate footwear, so after visiting the two stores within walking distance of my apartment, I extended the search city-wide.

I have several problems with shoe shopping, one being that I apparently have the foot-size of an old-lady giant, and the other is that I absolutely hate spending more than $15 on a pair of shoes. My feeling with shopping, and especially shoes, is that if I paid a price for something five or ten years ago, I expect it to remain the same price for the rest of my life. For example, I used to have this amazing pair of bright purple tennis sneakers, which I bought for $5 at a store which no longer exists. What I should’ve done at the time was bought 20 pairs and just worn them on rotation, because now, similar shoes are $20, which I would never pay. Despite the fact that I have a full-time job and actually make money, when it comes to spending it, I still act like I only have $100 to my name! And I’m not going to spend it on dumb shoes!

However, I really needed new shoes, because the soles of my flats had literally peeled back and worn down so much, the back my heel was poking through. While I am probably the most frugal person I know, I don’t want to dress like one, so after a very exhaustive and frustrating search, with literally minutes left on the clock for the sale, I finally found a pair of black flats which I’ve promptly worn every day for the past week. And because the second pair was half off, they both averaged about fifteen bucks apiece! IT CAN BE DONE!

The Future: Ah-Woah.

The other day at work we had a script-writing seminar with some of the more experienced and seasoned writers of the bunch. While I’m probably years away from actually writing scripts, it was really inspiring to listen to people who have worked here for decades breakdown their own work. Like any gathering of my colleagues, I walked away totally infatuated with my job and the amazing people I work with. You’d think I’d have gotten a grip at this point, but it’s so exciting to see people who are passionate about their work and love doing it.

One speaker in particular gave such a rousing and inspiring speech, you could practically see the passion for his work in his body language as he talked about it. He walked around the room, recited poetry, paced back and forth across the floor, and gesticulated his points with wild arm movements. Sure, it was a little bizarre, but it was also awesome. This guy loves writing. He loves words and telling stories, and he’s extremely good at it.  He gave us lots of advice, one of which was to read and memorize poetry out loud. Rest assured I went on Amazon last night and stocked up. One of his recommendations was Dr. Seuss, so I’m looking forward to reciting “One Fish, Two Fish” at a downtown poetry slam.

Sometimes it’s just so hard to articulate how much I love what I do, because a lot of the time, it’s not the things that I actually do during the day that are exciting, but the idea of what I’ll be doing down the road. It’s not that I especially enjoy filling out travel requests or figuring out rental rates for hotel suites, but the idea that someday, I’ll be going on those trips or sitting in those suites, finding and producing amazing stories.  And hey, if I’m half as jazzed about my career as this person was the other day, life will be awesome!