The daily grind

For most of January, most of my days looked like this:

Wake up, exercise, battle traffic, eat breakfast, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, maybe lunch, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, battle traffic, eat dinner, collapse on couch, stumble into bed.

Or, a few times: wake up, catch 5:58 a.m. train to D.C., meetings, meetings, meetings, arrive NJ at 8:03 p.m. (barring any unfortunate run-ins between the train and a deer), dinner, bed.

But since Friday, my days have looked like this:

Wake up, eat breakfast, exercise, sit on ass at pool or beach, drink, eat, nap, drink, sit on ass, read a few pages, take a quick dip in the pool or the Caribbean Sea, drink, eat, drink, drink, bed.

And it has been glorious. And, despite a usual ban on TV during vacation, I've even caught snippets of Groundhog Day and Clueless (on the treadmill this morning -- I felt embarrassed to be watching it, until the woman next to me turned her TV to Clueless after catching a glimpse at my screen, and the next woman watching Striptease when she hopped on).

I guess if it weren't for a hectic worklife I wouldn't appreciate vacation so much -- although it's especially delicious right now given the beautiful, warm sunshine here, and the bitter cold at home, to which I am not psyched about returning tomorrow -- but boy do I sometimes wish we could win the lottery so every day could be filled with nothing. Today, we walked around the resort's marina and fantasized about being able to afford one of those ginormous boats that sleeps a dozen people or so.

But, I'm getting almost ready to be home (except for the weather). I miss Tucker; I miss friends (Hi, Minnams! I miss you, but I do not miss work, and I haven't checked in once); I miss hot water and American Diet Coke. So, a more detailed report when I'm back and dug out from under the pile of work that awaits back home. But for now, there's more to eat and drink.

So much to do...

...but instead of my mile-long To Do list at work, I need to take a little blogging break. I need to write a Golden Globes entry, but that might need to wait until I cross a couple more things off my list here. In the meantime:

-- Have I mentioned how I absolutely hate when people use "in lieu of" when they mean "in light of"? It's like fingernails on a blackboard, even worse than "impact" as a verb or "nauseous" when the person means "nauseated." Oy.

-- On a related note, Minnams gave me a page-a-day calendar that's all about commonly misused words. I normally don't love page-a-days, but this year I ended up with two (my sister gave me an Onion one that I keep at home; the Smelmooo loves it -- 365 variations on the same joke! he would say), but this one I just love. Yesterday, I learned that, in Britain, to "table" something means to put it ON the table for discussion. Which is an important thing to know, and not something that was covered in my "separated by a common language" chapter during my study abroad in England. We did, however, learn that to "knock someone up" means to knock on the door in the morning to awaken that person.

-- A rare case of humor from the local television news desk: One anchor talked about how K-Fed is doing the Superbowl ad for the insurance company that used Fabio in earlier ads, and the other said, "You know, putting K-Fed and Fabio in the same category just seems unfair," to which the other said, "To....Fabio?" To which the other nodded solemnly.

-- I'm excited because I just got permission to do a blog for work. I know, I know, I'm such a nerd, but it's so much easier and more fun to blog than to do a formal report after doing a bunch of meetings. One of my co-workers told me he'll even add it to his RSS feed, and even if he's lying, it was a nice sentiment.

-- On the new season of 24: I hate, hate, hate Wayne Palmer as president, and wonder if his fellow Americans are as disappointed in how he's (not) measuring up to his brother as I am. I also was surprised to see Kumar on the show, although it took me until almost then end of the fourth hour to realize that he wasn't supposed to be playing a high school kid, but was probably the tutor or something of the high-school kid neighbor. But until then, I was really annoyed by the casting, because he's way too old to be in high school. Anyway.

Okay, I can't resist: a couple of thoughts on the Golden Globes, because they're already overdue:

-- First, I just love America Ferrera, and I was so happy that she and the show both won. I thought she looked beautiful and happy, the opposite of Vanessa Williams, who just looked bat-crazy.

-- I am clearly in the minority here, but I have to disagree with all of the buzz about Angelina looking miserable and acting bitchy. I thought she was sort of hanging back intentionally and letting Brad have his moment in the sun, since it was his movie that was nominated, and she was understandably not so jazzed to have the E! reporter shoving the microphone in her face when it was Brad's big night. But I thought she was polite, and she was smiling and hugging everyone at the table when Babel won, so what is up with everyone?

-- Ben and Jen so rarely walk the red carpet together, and even though I'm not a huge Affleck fan, I was happy to see them together, and they were probably relieved that Brangelina was there to take the attention off of them.

-- I'm with Minnams in that I don't understand the whole "Justin Timberlake is so sexy!" business, but I did kind of like him when he did his acceptance on behalf of Prince. And I do have to go with the Team Timberlake t-shirt in this breakup, because Cameron seems like a total nutbar.

-- My Salma. Why, why, why? You are so freaking beautiful. Like, I would do you in a second. Why, then, with the messy hair and the unflattering dress? You are still, at your worst, a thousand times more beautiful than 99 percent of the world, but still -- you usually rock it, so I was saddened to see you in that state.

-- My Reese. I didn't initially like the dress or the hair, but they sort of grew on me. But it was so strange that she was at the old guys' table. I mean, I know she's a big star and all, but at the table with Eastwood and Nicholson? It seemed like they did the whole seating chart, and then they were like, "CRAP! Reese Witherspoon!! We totally forgot -- where the hell can we put her?" and then tacked her on wherever there was room. Poor Reese.

All righty; that was an enjoyable distraction. Back to work now.

Procrastination and disorganization

I am a bit of a procrastinator, particularly when it comes to my personal life. For example, two weeks ago I knew I needed to mail in my credit card payment (why I don't just suck it up and do online bill pay, I have no idea -- I guess I just haven't gotten around to it). I'm all paranoid about mailing it from home because of identity theft, so I tossed my little slip of paper and the return envelope into my work bag on Wednesday night so I could mail it from work on Thursday.

And, of course, I never went into my work bag at work on Thursday, but on Friday, I remembered I needed to get my act together, and...nothing. I found tons of memos, a goodie bag from a holiday party, a parking receipt I forgot to expense, but no credit card stuff. So I called the automated system to figure out how much I owed, and then couldn't get back to the main menu to get the mailing address for the payment, so I just hung up and called back. And got connected with a human. Which startled me -- I guess they tracked that I'd just called, and figured I needed human assistance? -- and annoyed me because I kept telling him, "I just need the payment address" and he kept insisting he needed my password in order to disclose that information, blah blah blah.

And in the end, the human totally gave me the wrong mailing address. I found the correct one online in the end, and sent off my payment on Friday, but it was a whole rigamarole, and I got all anxious that it'd be late because of the extra day of no mail in honor of Gerald Ford. For someone who's so anxious about following the rules and doing the right thing, I'm awfully good at tripping myself up and making it as difficult as possible, although the authors of this new book (thanks, A and L!) tell me it's not the worst thing to be messy and disorganized...again, moderation.

But where I was really almost screwed was when I started filling out my passport renewal form in October. My current one doesn't expire until April, so I was really proud of myself for being so on the ball, even though I have no international travel coming up anytime soon. Except, I totally do, because of the new rules that require you to have a passport to go places that didn't used to require one. And I totally knew about the new rules: I even got all supercilious and "duh" with a co-worker who'd gone to Indonesia with an about-to-expire passport and got detained, who claimed ignorance of the policy that you can be denied entry to certain areas if your passport's less than six months from expiring. That was in November, when I'd had my paperwork filled out for a month, but hadn't gotten around to getting the photo and sending it in.

And I was only holding off on the photo because I wanted to wait until I'd gotten a haircut, which is another area in which I'm a ridiculous procrastinator.

Anyway, I finally got my act together, and got the pictures, and carefully ran through the State Department's checklist to make sure I was sending a complete package of materials, and sent it on its way, still five months before my passport expired.

Shortly after it was in the U.S. Postal Service's hands, the "Oh, shit! SHIT! SHIT!!!" kicked in.

The Smelmooo: Did you do a return receipt?
Me: Uhhhhhh...no. I'm sure it's fine. They'll get it.

[later]
Sharico: Didn't you have to send back your old passport?
Me: Uh-huh.
Sharico: Aren't you going to Dominican Republic in January?
Me: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...F&%K!
Sharico: [silence, kindly stifling a "You are such an idiot."]
Me: Oh, I'm so screwed.


Miraculously, though, despite all my missteps and flightiness, the State Department web site assured me that my passport should arrive "on or about January 9, 2007." Phew! Almost three weeks to spare, two if "about" means longer.

And then, late last week, their record of my passport disappeared from the system, and then popped up again as "on or about January 6," and then January 7th (maybe they shipped it out, and recalculated based on the unanticipated extra day without mail? It's hard to believe they'd be that on the ball in terms of updating their system).

And, when I arrived home yesterday from Albuquerque (that's another entry...), awaiting me in the mailbox was a lovely envelope from the U.S. Government (return receipt requested, of course), containing my old and new passports. I look kind of stoned in the picture -- even moreso in the laminated, hologrammed version on the actual passport than I appeared in the plain photo I sent -- but I don't particularly care. I feel like I've caught a break to have it in my hands exactly two weeks before leaving for our trip. And I'll leave myself extra time before heading to the airport, just to make sure all my things are in order.

A belated year-in-review entry

I'm such a copycat, but I think this is fun anyway, to do a recap of a year via the first line of each month's blog entries. So here we go, the year that was 2006:

-- New Year's Eve was lovely.

-- I feel that it's my duty as an American to watch the State of the Union address each year.

-- Sebastian Bach + Hollaback Girl = Awesome TV.

-- This was a super-hectic whirlwind of a weekend that really kind of kicked my butt.

-- A few months ago on The Soup, the hilarious Joel McHale made a joke about some celebrity (I'm thinking K-Fed, probably, although I don't remember for sure) wherein he (Joel) pointed to a round opening in some material and said, "A hole," and then pointed for comparison to a picture of the celebrity, saying, "A-hole!"

-- I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm too lazy to do a search: at the end of the month, we're taking a family vacation to the Outer Banks.

-- Kayaking in shallow water can get very muddy and gross (as the Smelmooo pointed out, it's not nearly as romantic as the rowboat scene in The Notebook).

-- So I've been hearing a lot about this poll finding that women prefer plasma TVs to diamonds.

-- Abby is the only person who was any help at all in my quest to identify that childhood toy (one that I never had but always coveted).

-- So, lots of you have been asking where I've been and why I haven't been blogging.

-- Today, I am...a Steve Poltz song.

-- The Smelmooo and I have been doing a ton of running around the last few weeks, together and apart, so last Friday I was thrilled to see a mid-day email from him asking if I could be home by 7 to make a 7:30 dinner reservation.

You know, that's actually not as bad as I thought it'd be, in terms of summing up last year. Anyway, onward!

I'm a Jersey Girl, in a Jersey World

77% Jersey, baby. I'm not sure if I'm proud or embarrassed -- probably a little of both.

How Jersey are you?

Holiday hangover

I'm not literally hungover -- although we drank a TON on Christmas Eve, and the Smelmooo and I sucked down a bottle of wine on Saturday night during a hilarious dinner at our favorite Thai place, and I had a few glasses of wine on New Year's Eve -- but I still have this draggy, full, mildly fuzzy feeling from the last couple of weeks.

I did myself no good by going out last night and gorging myself on skewered meat , but I thought it'd be nice progress on my unspoken new year's resolution to be more spontaneous to accept a last-minute invitation for dinner on a school night in Philadelphia. So unlike me! So one step forward, but then a giant one back on the unspoken "Exercise moderation" resolution as I gobbled my way through seven different kinds of meat.

Sometimes I do make real new year's resolutions, but this year, I figured, what with the before-I-turn 30 rush to get stuff done, and the other list, I have a pretty hefty to-do list for the year, so I've just sort of half-assed it this year, with vague thoughts of "huh, I should do something about that."

But today, I am just grateful that I've not yet made good on my unspoken "Quit buying pants that don't fit, because you never, ever actually get them tailored" resolution, because, in the wake of all those holiday indulgences, it feels good to be wearing my two-sizes-too-big pants.

Happy new year!

To wrap up 2006, I went to my first NFL game. I wore my Raiders shirt underneath a couple of other layers -- close to my heart! -- but I outwardly cheered "J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!" along with the crowd, because I am a follower, and I fear getting my ass kicked for my faith in the terrible Raiders. We even made it on the Jumbotron, which was wild (the Smelmooo took video, so you may be able to see us on YouTube, which I know will make your day).

We rang in the new year with a small group of friends, lots of great food and wine, and dollar-store gifts (and a few teary eyes because poor Dick Clark just made us so sad).

Here's to a happy, healthy, peaceful 2007!