Happy Valentine's Day Blah Blah Blah

So it's not enough that I'm single for the umpteenth Valentine's Day in a row... no. I also have to be sick. For the umpteenth time this year. This time with a stomach bug. Which means that I can't even drown my sorrows in chocolate I bought for myself.

Er, not that I did buy chocolate for myself in which to drown my sorrows. But maybe I would have, if I had an appetite.

Anyway, whatever. Back to the main topic, which is: Valentine's Day.

I thought I would do a little research about the history of this holiday, but a quick Google of the phrase "history of Valentine's Day" showed me that lots of other people have already done it. So you can look it up for yourself. I did find one link rather interesting, though. Here's a picture of what showed up on Google under one of the entries:



It was the last part of the description that caught my eye. Why on earth would anyone find a holiday celebrating LOVE burdensome? I mean, can YOU think of a reason? I'm wracking my little brains...

Well, I clicked on the link to find out, but the page never opened, so... guess we'll never know!

All right. I do want to wish everyone a Happy, Unburdensome Valentine's Day. If you are single, look at it this way: at least you didn't have to buy presents for anyone. If you are not single, at least you are not single.

See, there's a bright side to everything.

Bemusing

I am a fan of irony. However, it was a bit much yesterday to sit through a sermon at church all about the importance of keeping the Sabbath, while knowing full well I was going to flagrantly NOT keep it as soon as church was over, because I had so much work to do on my writing assignments.

I guess I could try to get around my determined and deliberate breaking of the fourth commandment by saying that I love writing so much that it just doesn't even feel like work. But there's a problem with that: If it's not work, then why do I procrastinate on getting it done?

Which leads me to problem #2: Lying is a violation of yet another commandment.

I am obviously not going to win on this one.

So I'll change the subject by saying that I was nonplussed by the lack of traffic on my way in to work this morning. When there is no traffic, I have mixed feelings. I mean, yay, no traffic, awesome... but wait a minute, what holiday am I missing out on that everyone else is enjoying?

(Answer: Lincoln's birthday.)

In other news, the Lang Lang concert on Saturday was phenomenal. Also, a new study apparently indicates that sleeping on the job might be good for people. Or at least, for Greek adults. (Those were the only people in the study, for some reason.)

Key quote from the article, courtesy of Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, the study's senior author and a researcher at Harvard University and the University of Athens Medical School:

"My advice is if you can [nap], do it. If you have a sofa in your office, if you can relax, do it," Trichopoulos said.

Now excuse me while I go talk to my boss about the possibility of getting an air mattress for my cube...

Rambling on a Saturday Afternoon

Going to the LA Philharmonic tonight, to see Lang Lang play Chopin. Yay!

My cough has finally gotten better. At least I still have both of my lungs. I think.

Am terribly behind on my writing, and yet somehow I have to get a packet of 35-50 pages sent out next week. How this is going to happen is beyond my finite human comprehension, since right now I have about 21 pages total, and about five of those are random scribbles that are not exactly what you'd call "coherent" or "narrative" in any way. I have a feeling I'm not going to get much sleep over the next seven days. Can't wait!!

What never fails to amaze me is the way my actual day job gets busier every time I get close to my next packet deadline. The past couple weeks have been so slow at work, that I probably could have written 10 stories while sitting at my desk, if I was less of a procrastinator than I am. Now that I'm under the gun, though, this coming week is already gearing up to be one of the busiest of the past month. Thanks a lot, Murphy.

In other news, Valentine's Day is still coming up, in spite of my best efforts not to notice. Sigh...

All Drugged Up And No Place To Go

Today was one of those days when I got up and just didn't even try. You know what I mean?

Part of the problem was that I woke up late. And that was due to the fact that I was out late at the pharmacy the night before, getting cough medicine, because I have had a hacking cough for what is starting to feel like a million years. (I think I actually have an abdominal six-pack forming, thanks to the cough. Unfortunately, no one can see it because of all the healthy food I don't eat. Oh well.)

Anyway, we were out of Robitussin last night. So there I was at the pharmacy somewhere between 10 and 11pm, wandering the aisles and coughing my head off, doubtless causing other customers grave concern ("gee, I wonder what SHE has, sounds bad, maybe it's bird flu, what is she doing out in public, spreading a pandemic around!").

By the way, it is quite amazing, the variety of cough medicines that are available to the health-impaired consumer. I stood there in the "cough and cold" aisle, staring at medicine for coughs, for colds, for sore throats, and for multi-symptoms (cough, fever, pain reducer, sore throat, headache, stuffiness, runny nose, death--ha, just seeing if you were paying attention). Then there were the drowsy/non-drowsy versions of all of these. Which really bugs me, because why can't they just make something that does not effect your wakefulness one way or the other? You'd think with all the technology at our disposal we could come up with a cough medicine that would help you stop coughing while also not making you drowsy OR wired. But no. Where's the money in that?

So I was forced to buy non-drowsy Robitussin DM to get me through the work day as well as a night-time formula because for the love of everything holy, I just had to get some sleep, and the cough was making that just a tad difficult. (The girl at the pharmacy counter actually felt so sorry for me during a particularly bad attack which hit me as I waited to pay that she gave me one of her own personal cough drops. I thought that was awfully nice of her.)

All of this to say that I woke up late this morning because that night-time cough formula more than did the trick. Talk about knocked out. Wow.

I forget where I was going with all this. All the cough medicine is probably killing my brain cells.

Hopefully it kills the bird flu cells while it's at it.

Frogg... Camera... Action!

So HP is having some fun spinning off of their Orange County Choppers Super Bowl ad, allowing people to put themselves into a "roadtrip video" with the boys from the OCC.

Which is by no means the same as the boys from the OC. More's the pity.

But anyway, leave it up to good buddy Steve to create a video starring yours truly. I am obviously not the only one having a slow day at work.

When I saw it, I nearly choked to death in my cube, trying to keep from laughing too loudly. I am not saying it's that funny. It was just that funny to me. But I am known for an odd sense of humor.

Well, without further ado, I present the video for your viewing pleasure. And make sure to watch for Steve, who has a cameo as a freaky hitchiker!

Enjoy...


Permalink to video

Busy Signal

Well, I guess the plus side of being so busy lately, trying to balance the demands of the writing program with the full-time job and something at least kind of resembling the rudiments of a social life, is that I forgot all about the fact that Valentine's Day is only a little over a week away and, as usual, I'm single.

Er, wait a minute. Dang!

In other news, I think there was some big sporting event yesterday...?

Practically Perfect Procrasination

Ok, I just had this totally weird experience with Blogger. I was trying to login in to my account (after being horribly remiss for days and days; yes, I am aware of my delinquency and I am just as sorry as you would expect) and for some reason after I typed in the URL and hit "return" the entry page for Blogger just kept loading and reloading itself. It wouldn't give me a chance to sign in! I tried to hit the link for "Sign in to Blogger" in between the page's resets, and started to feel a little like the boy in Mary Poppins who gets stuck inside a closet while they are cleaning up the nursery and every time he tries to get out the doors close again and all the toys mock him. Do you remember that part? I think that whole scene is one of my favorites in that movie.

Also the scene of everyone flying around the ceiling laughing and having tea.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh right, technical difficulties with Blogger. But that's so boring! Why would I waste all of our time talking about that? So strange.

Well, I must have had my reasons. Since I can't figure out what they are, though, I'll just move on to another topic.

Namely, the topic of the new cafe in my town that sells some of the best hot chocolate EVER. And when I say, "EVER," I absolutely mean every single one of those capital letters. They make it from real Belgian chocolate, and the chocolate is infused with any one of a variety of flavors: jasmine, mint, chili pepper (!), cinnamon, and ginger, to name a few. I can personally vouch for the cinnamon and ginger flavors as being quite delectable.

Oh and they have great tea, too.

I sat there in this cafe, drinking down the hot chocolate and (later) a cup of tea in the blissful determination to maintain an appearance of diligence without actually being diligent. To that end, I dutifully pulled out my laptop, typed 250 words of a short story and then wrote up a "plan" for what stories I want to turn in with my next packet. Because hey, writing a plan counts as work, right? (All I can say is, it better.)

Then I went home. Which is where I am now. Blogging.

Man, it's hard work being lazy.