A Bumpy Re-Entry

It didn’t occur to me until this year, but the worst part about hosting the New Year’s shindig was that I had to go back to work with no recovery period from mountains of dishes, loads of laundry, hours on my feet, and lack of sleep. Well, I should maybe correct that last one to excessive sleep, since I subtly (and stupidly) adjusted my internal clock so that I would believe that 10am was a reasonable time to get up.

On each morning of this shortened-but-didn’t-feel-like-it week, I woke up feeling as though gravity had a greater hold on me – especially on my eyelids – than it did when I went to bed. I simply could not drag my sorry carcass out of bed to join the living despite the nagging blare of the clock. I admit that I managed to get up on Tuesday morning and do 20 minutes of yoga, but that was a one-time thing and I blame it on New Year Unrealistic-ness. Even then, when my blood was flowing, I practically napped my way to work and it’s obvious that that is not a good idea when you are driving.

I trudged my way through the week with a thought bubble hovering over my head that read, “Don’t forget that you have to travel to the west coast office next week! Better clean up that desk, gather your travel arrangements, and make sure you can afford not to work for three whole days!” Groan. That explains why I spent the greater part of this absurd 70-degree afternoon composing an article that turned out to be torturous to write and ultimately sub-par. The only thing worse than working on the weekends is producing work that you know is crap.

As a child, I remember hearing that space shuttles would burst into flame (or at least get very hot?) as they entered into the Earth’s atmosphere. Why is that? Something about the heat from the sun inside the atmosphere? I have no idea. But man, I know how that shuttle feels. Houston, I do not enjoy this.

Despite the rough landing overall, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me in my inbox yesterday morning. Today is my two-year anniversary at my job (so weird to me) and the anniversary tradition at my company is that people write fun notes under a given theme. Well, my supervisor got wind of my reading ambitions for the year and I received a nice stack of book recommendations! I couldn’t be more pleased, though it was a bit eerie reading through the notes because I kept thinking, “Ooh, I loved that book!” or “I did always want to read that one.” They really had my number.