2006
Off We Go Into the Wild White Yonder
Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go…And of course it’s pissing down rain and blowing down snow in the Sierras, halfway between here and there. A bumpy plane ride is in my future, I fear, but one worth suffering to get away from work project hell, which had me two deep breaths away from tears this morning.
Our seven days away will be a whirlwind week, and I’m crossing my fingers that it will be pleasant and relaxing, hitting that sweet spot of not too short and not too long and not too much airport drama. Come next week we’ll have been on four planes and in three different states, including one I don’t recall having visited before. (Dad, weren’t we within a few miles of Four Corners in 1989 or 90 and you executively decided that it wasn’t worth the drive, thereby crushing my fragile ten-year-old heart, which could think of nothing more magical than having each limb governed by a separate political system at the same time? One hand could buy alcohol in the supermarket while the other would have to go to a state-owned liquor store! Neat! Provided that both hands were 21 years of age and detachable, of course, which they weren’t on both accounts.)
We’re looking forward to the trip and we’ve packed well. “Will I need gloves for Salt Lake?” Simon asked. “It’s going to be about 20 degrees the whole time,” I said. Looking me up and down–standing in the hallway at 10 p.m. still wearing the coat and scarf I never took off when I got home from work four hours earlier–he said he couldn’t imagine me growing up in a place that has real, actual winter, with snow and ice and sleet and windchill, considering just days before I had a minor tizzy over finding patches of frost on the green grass in our front yard because WTF, this is California. The difference, I told him, was that in places where they have real, actual winer, they also have real, actual heaters in their homes, and then I slipped off into a delicious dreamland of eating breakfast sans mittens and waking up sans snotcicles dangling from my nose. If home is where the heat is, I’ll be a Salt Lake City girl no matter where I hang my hat.
Speaking of which, it’s time for me to don my Dr. Zhivago-style faux-fur hat and take to the skies. Wish me a flight as smooth as good vodka.
2006
The Smell of Desire
One of my coworkers saw me leave the office at 3 p.m. today and started cracking jokes about how I keep the hours of a woman of elegant leisure. If it’d been true, I might have chuckled and made a move to adjust my imaginary tiara, but the truth of it was that I was just leaving to pick up lunch at 3 p.m., having lasted the day to that point on one cup of cereal, a mug of tea, a granola bar, and two pieces of caramel from our company stash. My latest editorial venture has had me working crazy hours at a crazy pace for weeks on end, and I’m ashamed to report that along with my eating habits, my bathroom habits have suffered as well. You know you’re working too hard when you don’t have time to pee and you’ve rationalized a potential bladder rupture as an occupational hazard. I leave for Christmas vacation in twenty-five hours; can I get an advent calendar over here?
One side-effect of eating a late lunch is an even later dinner, which means that at 9 p.m. there’s little to no chance that I’m going to put effort into creating a healthy and balanced meal. I usually scramble together more cereal, extra sugar, or perhaps a bowl of cherry tomatoes and an avacado. Add that to my lunchtime feasts of large french fries, a Diet Coke, and more caramels and there’s no wonder that in recent photos I resemble a whippet, all sharp angles and sunken feed-me eyes. This is great for Simon, who loves whippets (and Italian greyhounds). Whenever we see one on the street, he’s compelled to approach the owner, ask the pooch’s name, and then babytalk into its pointy, pointy snout. I, however, think whippets are cute enough, in theory, from a distance, but I stand by my claim that they look decidedly unsnuggly–think a wooden octopus or a teddy bear made of nails. Me and my hyperangularity look even worse when juxaposed with someone who is all the right curves in all the right places.
A few more of the seventy-five pictures I took of someone else’s baby are up on Flickr, where you can see them if you have access. (Email if you don’t have it but want it.) Evidenced therein are many examples of why, when I have kids, I totally want Simon to babysit them, even if at one point he said, “Babies are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get until you stick your finger in the creamy middle.” He then proceeded to sing the baby a song that involved rhyming “tush” with “shush” and, people, let me tell you, it was MAGIC. “We’re bonding, yo,” he informed me as he can-canned her legs in a rhythm the Rocketts would be jealous of. And even though he monopolized the baby the entire night, I was just happy that she didn’t screech whenever I glanced in her general direction, which is usually how those things go. Dogs smell fear; babies smell obsession. I bet I stunk like a landfill. A landfill full of raging hormones.
2006
A Blog of Very Little Content
If there’s wireless at the laundromat, I might blog there, but otherwise, this is all I can do today. The way I’m fretting about it, you’d think it was NaBloPoMo or something.
