Friday, July 29, 2005

Vacation: Day Two, Day Three

The first two days of my vacation have flown by. In the past 48 hours, I’ve done nothing but eat, sun, and shop. The first day, we just hung out at the pool. I got my first real sun for the season and then we went shopping. My sister and I had a very late lunch (where I couldn’t enjoy a nice, tall Anchor Steam, my favorite beer, because I’d left my ID in our room. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed, but I was on vacation and was relaxed enough sans beer) and then spent the rest of the day shopping.

Having not adjusted to the time change, sister was ready for bed at 7:00, which left me the rest of the evening to read and do some writing. I finished a short story that I’ve been working on for seven months and tried to get past the point of no completion in the novel I’m certain I will never finish. Regardless, I had some time to get some writing done which is always a good thing.

The second day we went to the beach. I have to admit, I like staying in a place where someone carried your stuff to the beach and sets up your chair and umbrella. I read my book and napped until my sister got bored and insisted we get in the water. We rented boogie boards and tried to ride the waves, but the current was too strong to stay on. I decided to give it up when I ended up getting thrown onto the shore, face first with the world’s largest wedgie…good thing all of my falling down has kept me from being easily embarrassed.

Wedgie aside, nothing too exciting has happened since I’ve arrived. I am totally relaxed and have barely given all of the stress that as been wearing me down a second thought. It all seems to be so far away…I guess it takes four time zones and a large stretch of the pacific to get away from your troubles. Next year – I’ll go to Fiji!

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Vacation Day One

I began my vacation today. I’ve been looking forward to it and dreading it all in the same breath for a number of weeks. I’ve been dreading it because I have too much work to do to leave town for a tropical island for a week…looking forward to it because if my brain doesn’t get a chance to relax, it may sprout legs and take off for good…which would leave me crazy or crazier than usual and we all know that isn’t a good thing.

So, I’m off in vacation. Just to make sure things would be “normal” upon my return, I left the city this morning with seven outstanding items on my professional “to do” list and two items on my personal “to figure out” list or better said, both situations with NB and Either/Or as complicated as possible. However, I’ve made an agreement with myself that I’ll try to think of all of these things as little as possible over the next nine days. So far, it’s going ok…although I’ve yet to leave the mainland US.

I managed to leave my apartment and NYC without any cab, train, or airport delays. The flight from NYC to Atlanta was quick and very easy thanks to my first class upgrade. I was totally bummed when I checked my itinerary yesterday to find that of the 12 hours of travel time I was facing today, I’d only gotten an upgrade for the first leg, all of two hours, from the city to Atlanta. But I took advantage of the upgrade regardless and in order to truly kick-off my vacation; I ordered my first cocktail at exactly one minute after noon on the first leg of the trip. Actually, we got into Atlanta early enough for me to grab Chick-Fil-A before the ridiculously long flight to Hawaii, with a short stop in San Fran. With an order of chicken nuggets in hand, I said a small prayer about safe flights and nice travel neighbors for the long ride in coach and boarded the plane.

After settling in my tiny aisle seat in an exit row (thank goodness), I decided this trip wouldn’t be anything I couldn’t bear even though this exit row seat was one of those tricky ones that don’t recline. Just when I’d gotten everything settled and was heading to the restroom for one last time before take off, a couple walked up and began their attempt to shove their carry-ons into the overhead bins. The lady was sitting in the window seat next to me. Her male companion, to whom I am now referring to as SANTA, was sitting in an aisle seat four rows back. Santa began his sales process about how I may enjoy the seat four rows back and before he could even get into his pitch about the seats that do and don’t recline and whatnot, I told him I’d be happy to trade seats with him. Although I’m finding myself a little bitter towards romance today, I know I would hate to be traveling on a flight across the United States, stuck next to some stranger, with my husband four seats away.

It reminded me of the time Either/Or and I were both traveling back from the west coast on business and although we booked our travel without knowing one another would be in the same place at the same time, we ended up on the same flight in seats next to each other. It was the first time I remember feeling that I odd feeling that resembled something like love for him. I say this because on that trip I was number one on the upgrade list with nine seats unassigned (in frequent flyer speak, that equals guaranteed upgrade) and I gave the upgrade up because I’d rather be miserable in coach for six hours next to him than be semi-comfortable in first class knowing he was less than ten rows back and I wasn’t with him.

Anyways (again I digress), I had just settled into my second seat when the stewardess came back looking for the gentleman, or should I say, Santa. I told her that he was seated in my seat and she could find him in 12B. As I began reading my new book, Santa came back to my seat to thank me again for switching seats and to tell me that some good deeds are quickly rewarded because he had been upgraded to first class and his wife had not, so my new seat was 1C. That, my friends, is a perfect example of karma. The sweet couple got to sit together and I got to drown away my romantic bitterness with the Napa wine tasting they just finished serving after three hours...I’m surprised I can still type. This trip may be just what the doctor ordered.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Dear Larry,

Since I think you read my blog more often than you check email, I figured I'd write you a note. I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks. I'm still trapped in this freezing conference room working on really boring stuff.

How are things up your way? Anything new and exciting going on? Please come visit soon. I need to be entertained.

Your friend,
Weezie

PS - MUPP is back in town. We really should have toilet papered his space when we had the chance. Be nice to him - he can't help the fact that he is only slightly smarter than a cocker spaniel.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Celeb Spotting

Since I moved to NYC, I've been pretty lucky on the celebrity spotting front. I've bumped into (literally) Matt Damon at the gym and had conversations with (as in more than 5 minutes of) Stephen Malkmus, Tina Fey, and Drew Barrymore. But only the Malkmus encounter comes close to this morning's celebrity spotting. I passed Vince Vaughn on the sidewalk. I didn't bump into him and I didn't talk to him, but he was very close. If I could adore him more (he is already number one on my top five celebrity crush list), I would now because he is MUCH cuter in person. I'm taking it as a sign that today won't suck, because yesterday sucked and Monday REALLY sucked.

Monday, July 11, 2005

The Big Picture

This weekend was on of the all-time worst. It kicked into low-gear on Friday with a company picnic. I have some of the world’s coolest co-workers. But as much as I like to hang with most of them, I’m extremely overworked and I’ve got too much to do to spend the day out of the office at a company picnic. But, it wasn’t an opt-out situation and there were decent activities and fried chicken involved, so I decided to make the best of it. However, making the best of it became impossible when I woke up Friday morning to a forecast calling for 100 percent chance of rain, with a flood-warning in effect, and a temperature that wasn’t supposed to reach 65. We still went and there were no indoor facilities at the picnic site.

However, there was a covered pavilion with picnic tables and a slue of board games provided by HR for entertainment. Most of the crew played games, while myself and three others decided to entertain ourselves by attempting to trump one another’s complaints. At one point, I offered one of them everything in my messenger bag if she would kindly put me out of my misery by holding the plastic poncho I was wearing around my head as I attempted to breathe deeply. She didn’t take me up on it. It wasn’t because she was avoiding a possible murder charge. She declined my offer because she wasn’t interested in anything in my bag. I don’t know why. The contents included: a new pack of Orbit gum (the new citrus flavor…quite tasty!) a gameboy, the latest copy of Internet Retailer magazine, my cell phone, my sidekick, my wallet and the keys to my apartment. Her loss - she wasn’t thinking big picture. Taking the bag would’ve given her access to all of my belongings and she could have held one hell of a yard sale. Lesson learned: always think about the big picture when making an important decision.

This leads me to the next part of my weekend that sucked…I had my final falling out with Either/Or. I know I said this weeks ago, but things are finally finished with him. D-O-N-E! I’ve been dragging out the “cutting the ties” conversation, because since we had our last “d-o-n-e” conversation, things have been really great between us. However, in looking at the big picture, I realized by letting things continue as is, I’d never move on and would quite possibly miss my chance to see where things would go with NB. The last time this happened, I wasn’t thinking about the big picture and I let Either/Or worm his way back into my life. But, now I’m all about the big picture…what hurts in the short term will pay off on the long run.

For once, I’m glad the weekend is over.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

R&R

This weekend was just what the doctor ordered…lots of quality time with my friends and the new boy (NB). Needing some long awaited rest and relaxation, we spent three days sleeping, eating, drinking, shopping, and sunning. The holiday weekend culminated yesterday with activities involving a picnic in the park with a view of one of my all-time favorite bands, corndogs, margaritas, and a roof-top view of the fireworks.