Author: Average Jane

As much as I love my job, I’m obviously not used to all of its creative demands yet. I can tell this by the way I wake up almost every morning with my latest projects tumbling around in my near-conscious mind. This morning, for example, I woke up with my brain churning out little snippets of a series of audio scripts I need to write. They weren’t horrible, so the experience might actually help. However, it’s rather non-restful, to say the least.

This weekend and early next week are going to be choked with extracurricular deadlines. I do the newsletters (“do” being defined as “gather articles, write some stuff, edit, lay out and send to the printer”) for two different clubs. I am horrible about the deadlines. One of the clubs used to have a monthly newsletter, but now they’re lucky if it comes out bi-monthly. I’m planning to abandon these volunteer posts as soon as possible, but I know I’m going to feel guilty if/when they have trouble replacing me. My new motto: “Just say ‘sorry, I’m too busy with work.’” (You thought I was going to say, “Just say no,” but I couldn’t separate it from the ghastly flashback of Nancy Reagan that it forces upon the mind.)

Last night I actually had a couple of hours to hang out with the hubby, which was nice. We had Thai food and chatted for a while then cooled off our scalded and over-spiced palates with McDonald’s vanilla cones (you notice they don’t even try to label the frozen mixture in the cone anymore – it’s just identified as a “cone”). I think I fell asleep during “The Daily Show,” so I was obviously poor company once we got home. Oh well, we’ll have the chance to go out again tonight.

I apologize that this week’s blog entries were even more brain-crushingly trivial than usual. A little more sleep and some shorter workdays should bring next week’s output back to my standard level of mediocrity!

This is starting to feel like the longest work week in history. I’ve been way off my usual schedule, with the whole beer n’ bowling excursion on Monday and long meetings away from the office Tuesday and Wednesday. Today I woke up extra early with ideas for a work project stampeding through my brain. Make it stop!

As an added bonus, I either have the world’s worst immune system or I’m experiencing increasingly bad allergies as I get older. My sinuses are all snorky but I don’t necessarily feel ill, so I suspect allergies. I’ve been driving a car that was previously owned by a smoker (and it REEKS!), so I’m sure that isn’t helping. Man, I’m a whiner…

So anyway, I have a lot to catch up on at work today, which will be broken up by a charity luncheon and a relatively early hairdresser’s appointment. Maybe I could work in a pedicure and free up Friday evening to have a date night with the hubby. It never hurts to plan ahead.

That’s pretty much all I have to talk about today. Enjoy your Thursday and we’ll celebrate Friday tomorrow.

I looked out the window the other day to admire our newly-mowed yard and discovered that my backyard rose garden is in full bloom. Last year I moved more than a dozen mini rose bushes from a huge, empty-looking flower bed in the front of the house to a smaller, sunnier bed in the back. Almost all of them survived the move and are flourishing in their new location. If it weren’t still dark outside I’d post a picture. I’ll try to do that some other time.

The best part about this abundance of multi-colored blooms is that I have done nothing to encourage it this year. I still need to buy about 3-4 more mini roses to fill in the spots left by the bushes that did not live through the move. At some point I need to cut off the dead portions of the bushes from last season, but the roses don’t seem to care very much either way.

My perennial geranium plants are very healthy this year, too. They may be a little too healthy, in fact. I think I may divide them while the season is still early and spread them out a bit before they overwhelm the smallish trees that grow near them.

My goal for Sunday is to visit a garden store and finally buy some flowering plants for the empty bed in the front of the house. I’ve managed to reduce the size of the flower bed by planting grass over about half of it, but that leaves a big expanse of blank dirt punctuated with rather large weeds. A dozen or so annuals and some cypress mulch would go a long way toward making our house look more presentable from the street.

I’m also going to get some more hostas to plant under our oak tree in the back yard. Last year I ringed the oak with hostas and then neglected most of them to death during the summer. This year I hope that by starting early and giving the whole process a little more thought, I can achieve a better result. We’ll see…

Yesterday our day of corporate bonding went off as planned. All seventeen of us worked feverishly through the morning, ate at our desks (lunch was catered), and then piled on a bus for an afternoon of work-free enjoyment. We started with an IMAX movie and moved on to bowling. There was beer on the bus. There was beer at the bowling alley. There was beer on the bus again. The beer came back into the office.

As you can imagine, work did not resume when we returned to the office. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone actually play with the office pool table and video games.

The whole day was a lot of fun, and I was in a silly mood before I ever even opened a beer. I’m a dotcom veteran, so the day’s activities were not without precedent for me. There was just something weird about them being on Monday.

Today I have a series of meetings that will last well into the evening. Thanks to the old “two aspirins and a big glass of water” pre-bedtime remedy, I’m feeling pretty well this morning. My shoulder is advising me that there’s a reason I don’t bowl very often, but I’m otherwise unscathed.

I’m running a trifle behind this morning, so I’ll cut this short. I have to tidy up for the cleaning lady and make myself presentable for today’s meetings. More tomorrow…

I woke up this morning coding HTML hyperlinks in my head. You can see what kind of day I’m setting myself up for.

Actually, we’re supposed to have some sort of office picnic/outing today, so I’ll have the spend the early part of the day scrambling to catch up on deadlines if I plan to participate. I hope that whatever activity they have in mind is not supposed to take place outdoors, because we’re having a full-on thunderstorm with hard rain right now. That’s good news for my lawn, but not such good news when it comes to any attempt to shuttle 15+ people all over town for fun and team building.

The weekend was low-key but in a good way. On Saturday we had our book club discussion of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Despite its inclusion under the mantle of “evil sluts of literature,” we all felt fairly sympathetic to the title character. We’ve decided to abandon the theme (already!) for next time and read Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984.” I had hoped some of my book club guests could stay to watch a movie, but since they included two new moms and someone who constantly travels for work, I understood when more pressing activities called them away.

Wow! There’s a lot of lightning and thunder with this storm. If only I could crawl back into bed and listen to it for a while. But no, I have to shower and make my breakfast shake. I just hope a lightning strike doesn’t knock out our electricity. The good news is that at least I can save some hair-fixing effort today. With this much rain, I think a ponytail is called for.

Thus ends another rambling Monday blog entry. Thank you so much to everyone who commented last week. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this little spot of writing every morning. It’s even more gratifying to know that other people enjoy it, too.

After I asked for suggestions on Monday, Mark Beck came back with this intriguing idea, “I’ll ask you the question from the book, ‘Generation X’ — ‘If you could take only one memory to heaven from this life, what would it be’?”

As an actual Generation Xer, I’m naturally tempted to say something hip and witty with a tinge of sarcastic bitterness. As an aging Generation Xer, I’m probably not alone in immediately dismissing that impulse as I gradually gravitate toward deeper consideration of life’s imponderables.

I know I’m not usually known for revealing much in the way of emotion – here or anywhere else – but this question can only lead to an emotional answer, so here it is: The one memory I would take is the look on my husband’s face when he’s looking at me fondly.

Why? Well, in most circumstances you are loved by your immediate and extended family just because they’re your family. Your spouse has to begin to love you at some point and then continue to love you over time as you change and grow. If, ten years down the line, your spouse still looks at you lovingly when he or she doesn’t know you’re watching, I’d say that’s a memory worth holding onto.

Okay, tomorrow I’ll be back to regular, acerbic Jane. I’ll take the other suggestions I received and discuss gangsters, gunslingers, vampires and my other TV faves.

When I woke up yesterday, I first thought I might be paying the price for drinking most of a bottle of wine with the previous night’s dinner. If only it had been so simple.

My entire Tuesday was one of those days that involves long stretches of time spent sitting or lying on various bathroom floors. I couldn’t drink water. I couldn’t drink Sprite. I couldn’t hold down saltines. Clearly, some food poisoning bug had managed to grab hold of my poor stomach.

Foolishly, I went to work anyway. That lasted about an hour and a half, most of which I spent in one of our admirably clean bathroom stalls or with my head down on my desk. I gave up around 10:30 and went home to sleep for a while.

I awakened at about 1:00 p.m. and managed to keep down some chicken soup, so I checked my e-mail and went back to the office to give it another go. I made it through a brief meeting and tidied up a few of the projects mentioned prominently in the e-mail, then bailed again when the desire to lie down overrode the desire to soldier through the workday. What a lovely impression to make on my SECOND DAY ON THE JOB. Luckily, the office is pretty empty this week and I sit in a remote corner.

Anyway, I went back home and started Round 2 of the tiresome game, “What foods and drinks will my stomach accept?” The answer was “none of the above.” By now my head was splitting and my face was flushed. I Googled my symptoms and ran across the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s list of common foodbourne illnesses, which they’d saucily entitled Meet the Bugs. It reassured me that I probably wouldn’t die, and I went back to bed for many, many hours.

I finally awakened again well after dark and accepted my husband’s offer to bring me more chicken soup, some pre-made Jell-o cups, and some Gatorade. I could already tell my stomach was making normal noises again, but was still pleased to be allowed to keep and digest the new food. The fever and headache were gone. Life seemed back to normal.

Today I feel pretty good, albeit dehydrated and under-fueled. I’m not taking any chances, though. I’m bringing soup and Jell-o for lunch!

After two false starts, I realize I have nothing of interest to impart this morning. The weekend was filled with mild activities that are not worth sharing, punctuated by long naps. The week promises to be work-intensive. The cat is doing better and is home and eating.

You see? Nothing.

Clearly I’ll need some help until the next marginally-interesting domestic crisis pops up. Here’s your assignment, using the comments form: “What should Jane write about for the rest of the week?” Discuss amongst yourselves.

With a vital deadline looming and hours of work remaining, I stayed at the office last night until 7:00 p.m., took a dinner break with my husband, and resumed work at home from 9:30 p.m. until 2:30 a.m. I’d planned to allow myself to sleep in, but here it is, 6:36 a.m., and I’m peering blearily at my computer screen. So much for that idea.

The good news is that with a fourteen-hour day under my belt for yesterday, I wouldn’t have to spend all that much time at the office today to round out my 40 hours for the week. The bad news is that I have an online training session to attend from 3:00 p.m. until at least 4:00 p.m., so I can’t leave that early.

My job goes from contract to permanent as of Monday and I couldn’t be more thrilled. In four months, it’s already allowed me more room for creativity than any job I’ve ever had.

The project that’s been taking up so much time is nearly complete (hence the all-nighter), and I think it’s fairly atypical of the kinds of things I’ll ordinarily be working on. It involved a series of emotional interviews that I’ve transcribed and turned into feature articles. I’m very proud of how it turned out, but ready to move on to something a bit lighter and more fun. Fortunately, my next two big projects fit the bill perfectly.

Sorry for all the rambling and vagueness. My eyes feel as though they’re ringed with cheap indoor/outdoor carpeting. If I weren’t so vain, I’d consider wearing my glasses all day rather than face the certain discomfort of putting contacts in my tired, puffy eyes. I’d take a shower first, but my nearsightedness is too severe for me to be functional sans glasses in even the most straightforward tasks.

Well, off to hyper-caffeinate myself to try to make it through the day. Will I be going to that 7:30 a.m. breakfast on my calendar tomorrow. Uh, no.