personal

Smile Time Off

We had Chinese food tonight. My fortune: “Reflect on yourself before anyone can look down on you.” All right, then…

I did practically nothing today, which was pretty much everything I could have asked from a day off and more.

I slept late, kicked around in my pajamas for longer than was a respectable, read a little, listened to a little music, watched a little TV (specifically this), and overall just enjoyed not doing anything of consequence.

This evening, I had a dentist appointment, for a checkup and a cleaning, which went by without a hitch. I was there maybe forty-five minutes altogether. I don’t enjoy going to the dentist, but I don’t dislike it as much as I might expect to, given how much I disliked it when I was younger. I’m certainly not phobic about it, but maybe that’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve had any cavities and the need for a follow-up. I’m not bragging or anything; I suspect that’s probably common as one moves out of childhood, and I did have a tooth crack a couple of years ago and need to be capped, so it’s not like my teeth are this paragon of pearly white. But the fact remains, I’m less nervous about going to the dentist than to other doctors, and today was no exception.

I think tomorrow I may have to actually need to leave the house before four o’clock in the afternoon, but I’m still going to try and squeeze in a little bit of nothing before the day is out.

The end of my working week

Today I think I managed to convince myself that it was Friday. I know that I’ve only worked three days this week, and tomorrow is, in point of fact, Thursday. But taking a four-day weekend can play tricks with your mind. Right this minute, I’m perfectly happy to let it do so.

The day was pretty much the same old thing as yesterday and the day before. I met briefly with my boss and another editor to discuss an interesting potential new project, which it seems to have fallen to me to research and follow up on. Which wouldn’t be so bad — not bad at all, really — if there wasn’t a deadline looming over the first part of the research and so few office hours between now and then. My boss would like to have something put together before he travels to England to meet with his boss, and that’s in the first week of December. I’m out the two days this week, then two more days next week because of Thanksgiving, so I don’t have as much time as I might like — for something that probably won’t be difficult, but could be time-consuming. It’s a good thing, then, that the photo research I’ve been working to finalize this week is all but done…provided, of course, we don’t run into any problems with the licensing.

I have no great plans for the weekend, beyond a dentist checkup tomorrow evening. I hope to do some reading, some writing, and, if push comes to shove, some arithmetic. Maybe even a little research on that project. (I brought my notes home.)

But don’t hold me to that.

T(h)u(r)esday?

I had a little more luck convincing myself that today was Thursday, but that may have less to do with my powers of persuasion (or, rather, powers to trick my own brain) and more with just how long the day actually was. I basically spent it doing more of what I did yesterday, only with more silly and annoying stock photo selections posted to Twitter. For some of these, I may have to accept that I’m looking for photos that just do not exist, regardless of where I look.

Tomorrow’s Wednesday, but it’s my Friday, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to it getting a little colder, back maybe to what it was a week ago, which it’s predicted to do before the week is out. It looks an awful lot like fall out there, but it doesn’t feel much like it.

Monday is Wednesday, yet still Monday

I’m taking a four-day weekend starting this Thursday, so I tried to convince myself that today was actually Wednesday. The real Wednesday will be my Friday, so it’s almost, kind of true, but I just couldn’t get over the fact that it was still Monday.

Lots of work to do, which is both good and bad, but I think I’m at a spot with this current project where it’s mostly good. Just a lot of things to wrangle, while also continuing to work on unrelated projects. I spent a large part of the day consolidating reviews, weighing the necessity of sharing some of the comments with the authors — that kind of thing. I’ll probably do more of the same, only different, tomorrow.

Which I think I might have a little more luck convincing myself is Thursday, but we’ll see.

Third Satur…okay, Sunday

Not an especially exciting day here today, despite the once again obscenely nice weather. It cooled down considerably this evening, but for most of the day it was no-jacket-required.

Beyond finishing the Sunday crossword — a cakewalk compared to, say, Thursday’s puzzle — I didn’t do a whole lot. I joined my friend Maurice for our weekly writing group, although we managed to spend several hours actively not writing, but instead talking. We talked about writing some, which has got to count for something, but we also talked about television and plagiarism and all sorts of fun topics.

And that’s really about it for today. I have a short week starting tomorrow, working just Monday through Wednesday, and then I have the same thing the week after thanks to Thanksgiving. After that, I will have to go back to my regular work schedule for several weeks…until the last two weeks of December, which I’m taking off in their entirety.

Next year, maybe I’ll use my vacation days to go somewhere. This year, they’re pretty much just getting turned into long weekends and an extended end-of-the-year break.