personal

Hard at work, or…

I’m going to make a bold statement here and suggest that excess consumption of alcohol, particularly in the middle of the afternoon and on an empty stomach, is not good for you.

I had fun at yesterday’s office holiday party, but, if I’m being honest, I also had a little too much to drink. There was food, much better and more plentiful than at last year’s party, but I almost certainly had more whiskey in me than anything else. I remember everything that happened, the content of the conversations I had, et cetera. It’s not as if I embarrassed myself — although there was a moment, at the bar afterward, when a co-worker (who I genuinely would have like to have talked to) tried to ask me a question, and I simply could not make my brain and ears understand what she was asking me. (This was all the more disappointing because I think it’s the first time we’ve ever really talked, and I couldn’t muster more than “What? I’m sorry, I can’t — what?” I didn’t even see her again on my way out.)

I didn’t join the group at the second of the two after-parties, probably recognizing that four mixed drinks and a beer in as many hours was probably already pushing things for me, but rather stumbled out and got the subway back to Penn Station. I’d like to view this as a victory of good judgment over pickled brain cells…except that, at Penn Station, I decided to have KFC for dinner. So, clearly, I was still not thinking clearly.

I got home sometime after 8 o’clock, and spent most of the next twelve hours asleep. I don’t know that I’m fully recovered, but rest and re-hydration have seriously helped.

I am not, as I have probably mentioned here before, much of a drinker, and only ever drink socially, rarely, usually much more sensibly. I’m keenly aware of the dangers of overdoing it, and of alcoholism, above and beyond the hangover I’m still dealing with today. I mean, let’s be honest here: KFC is pretty darn terrible.

Well, I don’t plan on drinking again anytime soon. (This morning, even the thought of whiskey puts my stomach into knots.) I’m off from work for the next almost three weeks, a nice extended holiday vacation, and I managed to get everything and more than I expected to done before I left to become inebriated at noon on Friday. I have a lot of work waiting for me when I get back — or, I’m hoping not, lots of e-mailing instructors to ask why they haven’t sent me their reviews so I can work on them when I get back — but for now it’s just movies and TV and hangover recovery and, eventually, when my brain’s a little better, reading and writing.

I’ve got the world on a string, I tell you

So, last night, I went to see this at Symphony Space, “An Evening with Radiolab,” a combined effort with their show and Selected Shorts. And it was really quite wonderful. The three stories they picked were weird and interesting and unsettling in all the right ways, and Kyra Sedgwick, Jane Curtin, and Liev Schreiber did terrific jobs reading each of them. I thought last month’s show was good, but this was actually even better, and I left feeling pretty happy that I’d stayed late in the city.

Which is why I was maybe less upset than I might have been when the young woman sitting next to me on the train home, clearly inebriated (and it clearly not agreeing with her), vomited against the wall of the seat. There wasn’t a lot, as that kind of thing goes, and she didn’t get any one me. But I wasn’t going to stick around for the second show. I picked up my bag and my coat and skipped out to the next car. I felt bad for the girl, and for the older woman in the seat in front of her, who couldn’t escape quite as easily as I could. So I was glad to see, later on, that the girl was at least sober enough to walk around, and not going to fall unconscious or asphyxiate or something on the train. Of course, I would have been more glad to have discovered this second-hand, or by glancing through the windows of the train as I left — and not, as it happened, because the young girl was stumbling off the train at the very same stop. She was shocked to discover — as a fair number of less drunk people often are — that there is no taxi service of any kind at this station. She seemed ready to collapse when I told her this, and pointed out the nearby — in non-drunk terms, but probably miles away to her — road where maybe she’d be able to get a cab or the number for one. (Though after 11 on a weeknight…I don’t know.) Luckily, the guy behind us both knew the number for a cab company, and she seemed well enough to use her cell phone. So I left them there and walked home to go to bed.

Today, there’s nothing half as exciting. The train ride home wasn’t a lot of fun, but mostly just because I got to it so late and it was so crowded. This morning, I took notes at one of our regular premium text meetings. Which can sometimes be a real chore, but today…well, there were only two projects. A couple of weeks ago, when I was originally scheduled to take notes, there were nine. And it was on a Tuesday, when I usually get to work from home. But another development editor asked to switch, and I agreed, and I really lucked out.

And that’s about the extent of the excitement today. Although yesterday — and tomorrow’s office holiday party, where I must endeavor to learn from that young lady’s mistakes — should be more than enough excitement for the week.

Hammer time

Wouldn’t you know it? The day I work from home, that’s the day they come to replace the siding on the side of the house.

They couldn’t just replace the few pieces that came off in the storm, but instead had to redo the entire side. So they were pounding hammers all day long.

It wasn’t so bad — I did get some work done — but still.

Monday

There was something very Monday-ish about today.

I came back from lunch and had to cut across a Free Tibet protest rally marching down the Third Avenue sidewalk. Then there was an unannounced fire alarm, the sort of thing that used to be an almost daily occurrence at our old building, during which I semi-frantically dug through my e-mail to find the instructions for emergency searchers, of which I’m one, in case I was called upon to act. It was a false alarm, not even a drill, so I wasn’t, though my actions would have largely been confined to making sure everyone was out of the conference rooms and men’s bathroom, so frantic might have been pushing it, semi- or otherwise.

And you know, when I type it out like that, it actually seems like something happened today, like things happened beyond it being an ordinary (if slightly warm and slightly humid) Monday in December. It’s like that one night in college, when I drank a couple of chocolate stouts, went to an Ibsen play, and then a magic show. Like that, it sounds like the start of a story. But really, it was just a night when I drank a couple of chocolate stouts, went to an Ibsen play, and then a magic show. (The play was Hedda Gabler, if you’re interested; the beers were Samuel Adams. I think the latter may have improved the former.)

I could say today was a day of protest rallies and fire alarms, and that would be true. But it was much more a day of just ordinary Monday-ness.

Sunday

Another cold and rainy day, like yesterday, only more so. In fact, today was pretty much yesterday all over again, except instead of of Quantum Leap, it was M*A*S*H, and instead of editing for Kaleidotrope, I was reading stories. (I’m down to just ten, which is good because I re-open to submissions in January.)

Also did the crossword and took a nap. I was going to go for a walk, honest I was, but, y’know…rain.