French Christmas

Footnote

I know that image is a little wonky but whenever I take pics from a certain camera they show up weird on typepad and I tried to flip it but it just won't go. . . you get the picture (no pun intended).

From Unexpected Places

Ok. So clearly President Obama has more important things to worry about than my proposal for federal vacation funding for anyone living north of Kansas City. (See yesterday's blog and write your senator.) But someone, somewhere in the Universe must have heard my plea, because a little bit of spring landed on my desk today. In the form of beautiful daisies and tulips and other lovely assorted flowers I don't know the names of. (See above.) They may just be the most colorful things I've seen since the Halloween parade in my neighborhood last October.

The angels who delivered said flowers? My friends Whitney and Kristina.  They would be the agents of the Universe in this situation, I would be the one feeling wholly undeserving and simultaneously rejuvenated.

Ripping of the Rolling Stones a bit with the following thought: you'll get what you need, it might just not arrive in the form you expect.

Photo: Me!

Dear President Obama

I know you are very busy with the economy and this massive salmonella outbreak and the many other crises currently affecting our nation, but I've got a proposition for you.

It seems that many of us in your home base of Chicago are suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, aka the winter blues, aka the February funk. And it's not just a little case of the sniffles or wet socks. Seriously, we're hurting over here. The el trains all smell like stables because no one is driving to work when there's ten feet of snow on the ground. Jewel Osco is facing an impending shortage of baked goods, assorted cookies, mac and cheese, and other winter comfort foods. And everyone is looking for a reason to take out their rage on those around them--this morning I almost got mowed down by some southport yuppie in a silver BMW who just couldn't stop at the red light on her way to Lakeshore. (Although, come to think about it, that probably has nothing to do with winter.)

Long story short, for the safety of Chicagoans and northerners everywhere, I propose a federal grant for anyone that lives above a certain latitude. (Let's say Kansas City? Exactly where does it start to get reasonably warm this time of year?) This grant allows anyone who lives someplace where the temp is consistently below 40 degrees two weeks of paid vacation in a warmer climate of their choice. Preferably, said climate would be Hawaii or the Cayman Islands or somewhere shishy like that, but I'll leave the details up to you. And if you could just get back to me on that sometime before March, that would be great.

In the meantime, I'll be jamming to some Peter Tosh on my Pandora, drinking mango tea and dreaming of warmer places.

Public Service Announcement

Ann Taylor is having a GINORMOUS sale. Just thought you guys should know.

XOXO N. :)

Dreams Realized

I know a lot of you are probably sick of hearing me talk about how much facebook completes me--point taken. But I gotta say, it is very cool to find your long lost best friend from sixth grade and see that she did make her dreams (those ones you used to plan to a t out on the swingset) come true.

Just Drop the Mask Already

It takes a lot of energy to pretend everything's ok, doesn't it?

You know what I'm talking about. You run into a co-worker outside your cubicle, or meet a friend for lunch. You're furious about an oversight at work, anxious about impending layoffs, or terrified to check your online bank account. But when they ask you how you are, you find a way to squeeze out a smile and make nice conversation. By the end of the day, you have done this at least 30 times. And you're exhausted.

Maybe we do it because it's not socially acceptable to air your dirty laundry in casual conversation. (After all, what would  do if you said good morning to your boss and he replied that he's been cheating on his wife?) But sometimes I think it's less about social correctness and more about assuring ourselves that things really are ok, that we're not in deep as we think we are.  

Tonight I went to coffee with my friend Whitney. She asked how things were and for the first time in awhile, I  was completely honest. I admitted that lately I've been in some kind of righteous funk, for no discernible reason, and that despite all of my best efforts, the cloud didn't seem to be lifting.

It took such a load off.

(Thanks Whit!)

To my subconscious: enough is enough

Around 4:15 on Monday mornings, the anxiety kicks in.

First I hear the beep beep beeping of the garbage trucks in their weekly visit to the dumpster outside my window. Like clockwork they wake me up, signaling the start of a new week. I try to ignore them and the nagging, annoying urge to pee, but I can't, so I get up and go to the bathroom. Between the icy cold tiles in the bathroom and the noise from the trucks outside, I am suddenly wide awake and irritated.

Most of the time I can fall back asleep fairly quickly, but on Monday mornings, the anxiety keeps me awake. All the things I have to do, all the things I don't want to do in the coming week, come crawling out of my subconscious. The tasks and responsibilities wrestle with each other inside my head, playing king of the castle. I try to find some peaceful thoughts to drown them out, but let me tell you, they are LOUD.  

Finally at 6:45 a.m. that warm, fuzzy sleep feeling creeps back over me . . . for a whole 15 minutes before my alarm clock goes off.

Dear subconscious, can we work on saving the anxiety for waking hours?

$235

That, in case you were wondering, is what I guess my life is worth to the state of Illinois. Remember that guy who hit me back in December when I was walking home from the grocery store? That's the fine he got. $100 of it was for not having insurance. So technically, if you hit someone in a crosswalk, you only have to cough up $135.

Looking for something positive to get out of this experience . . . but I'm stuck thinking that the punishment for hitting a human being with a moving vehicle should be a little steeper than $135.

One thing I can say for traffic court, if you've never been: its sociology 101 in a bottle.

Just Press Pause

No one is going to hand you an all-expenses paid trip to St. Thomas. Maybe I'm the only one guilty of believing that it could happen, that if I worked really really hard, someone would take notice and say "hey, you deserve a nice vacation.Take some time. We insist."

But I have been working in the real world for, jeez, almost five years now, and that golden ticket has yet to arrive. So months go by and I horde my vacation time . . . for what? The fact is, no one in corporate America is going to notice whether you take vacation or not.  You're not going to get a big gold star for being in the office 364 days out of the year. What you will get, as I have learned in the last few months, is a chip on your shoulder and a serious case of burnout.

So for goodness sake, take some time for yourself, go visit a relative in Cocoa Beach, run errands on a Tuesday morning, schedule a spa appointment after lunch. I promise, your job will still be there when you get back.

If you don't make time for yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

Ugly Ego

I narrowly escaped disaster at work this week. It involved talking my ego down from a very tall ledge. The rational me (is that your id? I can't remember) was down on the ground, bullhorn in hand, hollering at my ego to just be sensible already and stop getting its panties in a bunch. My ego hollered back that it is unloved, unappreciated, and taken for granted.  (My ego has a bit of a martyr complex.) I shouted back to my ego that of course that's not true, and that if it would just listen already, it would see that the situation at hand actually showed how very loved and appreciated the ego is in reality, and that it's all just a big misunderstanding.

After much coddling and bribes of hostess cupcakes, my ego climbed on down. Everyone involved breathed a sigh of relief.