Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I'm tempted to use that famous Go-Go's line as a title, but "Had to get away" is less relevant when you're not getting away from much.

Hello! I am back. Did you miss me? (Please, don't answer that.) To answer the question that really only one of my friends was asking (hi, Ang), Yes! I am home. Have been for a full 26 hours now. And what have I done in those intervening hours? Let's see...

  • Nearly fully unpacked (within two hours of my return--surely that is a new record for me).
  • Had a particularly unproductive day at work.
  • Had one of my most prolific Facebook days to date. (No, that last item isn't necessarily related to this one; I'm just surprised to notice that today's Wall activities take up a full screen length.)
  • Went grocery shopping to ensure that a meal encompassing more than just the Refined Carbs and Processed Foods group might again be possible in my home.
  • Shoveled the snow Mother Nature was rude enough to leave for me in my absence.
  • Watched another Presidential address without heckling. (Seriously, when will this start to feel commonplace to me rather than make me smile involuntarily in relief and hope?)

What I have NOT done is even open my feed reader. I am far too scared to do that without a few free hours in front of me. Have I missed anything particularly notable? Well of course I did. Blog Share was the day after my last Bloglines check-in. I'll catch up eventually, I suppose. Meanwhile, if anything of particularly notable import happened in the past several days, feel free to fill me in.

So. Mexico. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot to tell you about that. Nothing about it was so exciting as to warrant an enthusiastic "It was FUN!!" summary, but it would be awfully lame and ungrateful of me not to appreciate the mere fact that I spent three and a half days basking in the sunshine (sans any sort of layers) in the middle of February.

As you may recall, this trip was with my coworkers, so perhaps the weirdest part was being away from work for several days, only to come in this morning and think, "Huh. Haven't been here in a while, and yet, I just saw you yesterday!" Strange. In a way, it was a long weekend without a weekend, but since that weekend included free drinks and the aforementioned sunshine, I suppose I can't complain too much.

It seems I really should have some sort of recap, however, but as 9:00 p.m. has somehow quickly become 10:56, I'm afraid that recap is going to happen in quick and lazy bullet-point form. Let's see. Some high and low lights...

  • Yes, there were liquor dispensers in my room. I thought about providing a photo as evidence, but I fear that doing so might only remind us of the cold, sad reality that there aren't liquor dispensers everywhere in life. You say I'm too lazy to upload a photo; I say I'm just helping you out. (Disclaimer: If you are my Flickr friend, you'll probably see photos within the next day or so, actually. I'm just not getting to it quite yet.)

  • My ex-boyfriend who is also my coworker is in seemingly a really not very good place right now. To everyone who for some reason keeps asking, "So, now that he's divorced, do you think you two will get back together?" I say again, "NO!! What am I, some kind of masochist??" The most important fact is that his ex-wife was in no part any of the reason he and I broke up. He did not meet her until over a full year after we parted ways. Yes, I think his divorce somehow helped me to finally let that wall of bitterness fall down. I can say in some lame, karmic way, "OK, we're even now." I might venture so far as to say enough time has passed that we could maybe even be friends again. (We were extremely close friends before, and the fact that our romance didn't end badly should have meant we could be friends after as well.) But does that mean I want it to be my turn again relationship-wise? Hell to the no. I still feel that it was largely me who helped him pick up the pieces after his first divorce. Damned if I want any part of that role a second time. Besides that, I am already possibly making the same mistakes I made once before with one ex-boyfriend. Why would I add another one to the list?

  • You don't have to go on a Carnival cruise to have a different animal-shaped towel sculpture in your room every day. Again, if I had actually visited Flickr before I started this post, perhaps I'd have photographic evidence of this.

  • Yes, I realize I again made allusion to The Buddhist in that second-to-last item without actually telling you anything, and also wrangled what could possibly be a post in and of itself about an ex-boyfriend into a poorly summarized bullet point. You're just going to have to accept that for now.

  • The food at an all-inclusive resort isn't always awful. It's still nothing to write home about, however.

  • When you're gone only three (plus two travel) days, there really isn't much to write home about at all, actually. Or so is the story for those of you who might be expecting post cards. (i.e., Don't hold your breath for those.)

And honestly, that about wraps it up. I ate too much, drank almost too much, read a book and a half, and came back with what I'm certain will be a sadly short-lived sunny souvenir vacation glow.

So. What have you been up to since I heard from you last?

10 comments:

Unknown said...

That sounds like one sedated (in a kind of good way) vacation. Nice you could get out of the office like that though. Among other things, while you were away I went dancing until the wee hours on Sat night, and got a new haircut.

steve said...

Welcome back! I look forward to seeing what you post on Flickr.

Anonymous said...

Welcome Back! And animal towels...FUN! Loved reading your post today. My life has been full of all kinds of excitement.... no.

3carnations said...

I loved the towel animals on our cruise. My favorite was an elephant, on the face of which they placed hubby's sunglasses.

Anonymous said...

I don't even know what towel animals are, but now I'll probably spend the afternoon fooling around in my linen closet and then feeling dejected because the only thing I can craft is a snake.

And I did miss you, now that you mention it.

lizgwiz said...

Of course we missed you.

I would be more jealous of your time in the sun if it hadn't been so unseasonably warm here lately. (Sporadically, but I'll take what I can get. Any time I can wear sandals in February is a good thing.)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to google "towel animals" and see what I can do to liven up my bathroom.

Jess said...

We moved across the country, so you know, big deal and all that. Still, I would like to hear more about the Buddhist. Thank you.

Mickey said...

Of course we missed you. I really need to see some photos, though. It's not real otherwise.

shelleycoughlin said...

So you didn't have to do any actual work while you were sunning and funning? That sounds awesome!

Courtney said...

Eh, I haven't been up to much. I would like to see pictures of your trip, though.

Learning how to make a towel animal could be a valuable skill in this job market. Off to raid my linen closet!