Holly jolly

I have a raging headache. I can't decide if it's a case of post-holiday malaise or just a plain old "I really don't want to be at work right now and I had to get up BEFORE the crack of dawn so my head is rebelling" type of thing. Probably the second one. Actually, the vast majority of my headaches result from the second one.

Also, post-holiday malaise doesn't really register with me. I'm always still mentally rolling around naked in all the goodies I got for Christmas. Because Christmas presents are the kind I dream about for months, so when I finally get my hands on them, they inspire something akin to awe. Materialistic? Yes. Taken for granted? Not at all. Because Christmas presents for me are things that I can't afford to buy myself. Or at least wouldn't want to forgo electricity for.

What can I say? Shoes make me really happy.

Here's to hoping that everyone who reads this (all three of you!) had a wonderful Christmas and will have an even better new year.

Okay, if not money, maybe this

So, my cubicle is directly adjacent to the department's kitchen. Normally, this is a really bad, bad, bad thing. The smells that waft out during lunch can be vicious. Sometimes heady and tantalizing, but usually of the burned popcorn/leftover tacos variety. But today, friends, the kitchen is producing a smell that has been making my stomach growl since 9 a.m.

It's our holiday potluck today, and the following foods are causing my stomach to contract in all its empty, longing glory:

Hashbrown casserole
Spicy buffalo wings
Some kind of yummy-looking soup
My spinach-artichoke dip
Cheese tray (CHEESE TRAY!)
Brownies with caramel on top and what looks like a graham cracker crust

I could go on, but writing this is just making it worse. Is it 11:30 yet? Every inhale of those fumes is making me a little crazier.

Oops, I never did it again

Stephanie Klein recently invited her readers to finish the sentence, "I'm as lazy as..." One of her own top answers was "Susan." You know, like a lazy susan kitchen appliance. Hardy-har. Unfortunately, it seems that my answer is in fact my own name.

Because it's time to admit defeat (for the time being, at least). Remember a few weeks ago when I worked out? With enthusiasm and determination and a pretty cute outfit? (I didn't mention the outfit?) Well, that enthusiasm and determination has whittled itself down to "eh." And I just washed said cute outfit last night. Determination, shmermination.

I just can't seem to drum up any motivation whatsoever. Yes, I know I'm going to Florida in less than a month and I know my body could look so much better than it does and I know my major internal organs and muscle groups are begging me to do it and I know, I know, I know!

Still.

What's going to finally get me off the couch and onto the elliptical machine? I'm thinking money. That should do the trick.

Anyone want to put me on their payroll? I promise, I'll be a really good employee. I'll only take time off during the holidays and I'll never come in late. I'm reliable, dependable, and I can be counted on in a crisis. And I'll only charge $100 per workout. Anyone?

Because it isn't the week before Christmas without grumbling

His hands cupped around a glass of warm sangria, a friend said, "It's a dangerous thing for work next week, but I feel like I'm already in Christmas mode, ya know?"

Oh, do I ever. This Christmas season, perhaps more than any in recent memory, really feels like Christmas. For one thing, there's actual snow on the ground. Snow. On the ground! And then there were the mad throngs of people dashing around the city last weekend (me included), despite the slick roads, checking gifts off their lists. And my brother's home from school, and it's cold but not freezing oh my God I think I'm gonna die, and there's snow on the ground (the sparkly kind that winks at me in the sun), and the guest room at my parents' house is officially "off limits" because of the piles of presents, and there's snow on the ground (the wet, slushy kind), and my mom and I are planning the Christmas day menu, and the inevitable panic is beginning to creep its stealthy little way into everyone's lives, and there's SNOW ON THE GROUND!

And here I am in my office writing about it. Yearning to leave here and be out there. What can I say? There are visions of freaking sugar plum (fairies) dancing in my head. And they're having a rollicking good time without me, swilling champagne and drifting around in their floaty, sparkly dresses.

(Always about the booze and clothes, isn't it?)

What do you mean, "It's only Tuesday"? I guess I should go do something productive, then. Something that involves grumbling to myself and maniacally checking the clock.

Hooky

The weather was supposed to be bad, I swear. It was supposed to be below freezing, so below freezing that the incessant rain we were getting was meant to freeze into an inch-thick coating of ice. On everything. And last night, just about every single school district in the metropolitan area cancelled school for today.

But lemme tell ya, from now on I'm not trusting a meteorologist as far as I can throw him. Not only was it not below freezing, but it wasn't even slick enough to have to pump the brakes. Not even on side streets. Just a gloomy, rainy, slightly cold day. With skies the color of a dirty silver Honda.

But, ya know, I still didn't go to work. In solidarity with the students and all.

Betcha never thought you'd see this post

Yes, it's true, I've done the seemingly impossible. I worked out on Tuesday.

If you read my "100 things," you know that exercise and I don't get along. At all. I much prefer stilettos to running shoes any day of the week. But the boyfriend went and asked me on Monday if I wanted to work out the next day, and before I knew it I said... "Sure!"

What's with the enthusiasm, you say? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that the muscle tone in my stomach, arms, thighs (yeah, everywhere) is kind of, um, gone.

If a situation ever needed rectifying for me, it's that one. And I can tell you from many years of experience, it's not going to be fixed by changing the way I eat. Give up chips? And beer? And cookies? And my beloved many tons of cheese? Yeah right. I shiver at the mere thought (read: go into sweaty convulsions of withdrawal).

Also, and now that I think about it, I'm sure this is the key here - I'm going to Florida with the boyfriend in January. Which means I have to wear a swim suit. In January. A swim suit. Sure, my skin can be as white as the snow falling outside this very minute, I can wear flip flops from four years ago, and I can even go down there without getting my roots done first. But expose my wobbly bits? Eeeeeeeew.

I may be a size 2, peeps, but that doesn't mean I don't have wobbly bits.

It's begun

Last year, the high temperature was 21 degrees, there was a tortuous wind coming from, like, the North Pole, and it was snowing. Then sleeting. Then spitting. A "wintry mix," if you will. From hell. And yet we still managed to have a damn good time.

Hopefully this year will be a little warmer, a little less like the summit of Everest, a little kinder to our hurricane-/margarita-/beer-guzzling selves. And hopefully our beads won't freeze to our coats (from the dribbled hurricanes/margaritas/beer) and my roommate won't fear for her frostbitten digits.

"Can I be a nurse with no toes?"

The St. Louis Mardi Gras 2008 planning has begun. This year, there will only be nine people in our room. As opposed to 11. Three people to a bed and three on the floor? Done and done.