The Good Thing About Working Way Too Much . . .

. . . is not what you think it is. (I wonder what anyone would suspect the benefit is.) The real benefit is the perspective.

Back in my crazy, workaholic days (i.e. two weeks ago), I averaged about seven hours a day to myself. That actually sounds like a lot of time. Let me assure you that it’s not. That seven hours included getting ready for work, commuting (not far, but every 15 minutes counts), doing laundry, checking the mail, eating breakfast and / or dinner, occasionally putting dishes in the dishwasher (although this usually wouldn’t happen until my roommate called from the airport to tell me she’d landed), maintaining some sort of minimal contact with the outside world (that kind of fell by the wayside), and, my personal favorite, sleeping. But I digress.

The benefit is in the perspective. I haven’t worked more than ten hours a day in more than a week now, and boy, do I feel like a slacker. I get home in plenty of time to take the trash out. There are other people around when I get my mail. I listen to the BBC World Service by choice these days, not just because no one’s talking on NPR. I have all the time in the world.

I think all this time on my hands is starting to make me a little stir crazy.

Miss a Day . . .

Stories you won’t be hearing:

• The day I discovered that my car really does have anti-lock brakes
• The Easter dinner I had on Valentine’s Day
• The conversation that began with someone asking me “What’s wrong with your face?”
• The week where my goal everyday was to get home in time to take out the trash
• The night I got in an argument with a checker at Stop & Shop
• How I got an iPod shuffle for free through effective procrastination
• The week I got weepy over the Today Show
• The day I got to have lunch

Okay, that last one probably wouldn’t have been much of a story anyway. But I remember that day fondly. It was two weeks ago today and I still remember those 20 minutes in the cafeteria with a sense of nostalgia.

I’ve been working a bit. Perhaps more than a bit. I’ve definitely had a few things to write about (see above list), just not a moment to put fingers to keyboard. What’s a workaholic to do?

And I was Worried it was a Stranger

To the white, male, middle-aged business traveler flying from Detroit to State College late Friday evening, the appropriate usage of the term “It’s just me” is governed by two constraints: 1) there is some question about your identity by a second party 2) you and the second party are fairly-well acquainted. Am I the only one who plays by these rules?

I found myself in the Detroit airport late Friday night; headed home after a week of corporate indoctrin . . . oops, I mean training, in Orlando. I was not in my best state of mind for travel, exacerbated by many things, not the least of which were the head cold I picked up from my colleagues and the eight-minute sprint I’d just completed between terminals. (When the flight attendant says “You might make it if you run,” you run. At least I’d had the foresight to change into a pair of sneakers before boarding my flight in Florida.)

Luckily, the flight was delayed while we waited for the crew to arrive. (Not a sentence anyone’s likely to use very often.) The gate area was fairly empty, so I sat down at the end of a double row of chairs where only one other person was sitting. I’m talking a line of 15 chairs, with another 15 backed up to it; a woman reading on one end and me on the opposite end. There were three or four similarly populated rows in the near vicinity.

So, I’m sitting in my self-imposed, semi-quarantine (due to the above-mentioned cold), when my chair shakes and something bumps my shoulder. I employ the standard half turn to see what it is, and see that a gentleman has settled in directly behind me. Interesting seating choice, but that’s not the strange part. Apparently he noticed me turn, and responded with, “It’s just me.” I waited for a moment then shot a quick glance back to see if a) he was talking on the phone or b) it was someone I knew. No, on both counts. Now, I don’t really care that he sat that close to me (hope he enjoys this cold as much as I am) or even that he bumped me a little (it’s an airport, it happens). But “It’s just me!???!?!” I can’t overlook that.

For a limited time . . .

So the movers met me in Stamford a week ago, and despite my best efforts, it seems like I have just as much crap as I did when I landed in Georgia. Perhaps I can blame some of it on the thoroughness with which my belongings were packed, but, alas, I believe most of the blame lies in the fact that I own too much stuff.

The majority of my colleagues started this little adventure directly out of grad school . . . a.k.a. the inflatable furniture years. So, while moving is still tedious, I’m tempted to think that it’s harder for me. (“Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays.”) I was established. I had a home. I had a sectional. I still have the sectional (I think)—it just happens to be under a mountain of junk.

As far as the unpacking process goes, it’s much better if you don’t have any friends. Yes, I realize that sounds a little off. But trust me on this one. In Georgia, I was an organizing machine. The movers came on Thursday and by Sunday morning my apartment was completely set up, with everything in its place. This time the movers also came on Thursday: last Thursday. And, while my bed is set up, and the kitchen stuff is more or less put away, I have not yet identified a place for everything, let alone put everything in its place.

When I moved to Georgia, I didn’t know a soul there. Therefore, I had nothing better to do than unpack all day and night. On the contrary, I know a few people in Stamford (not the least of which is my roommate). And when it comes to getting stuff done, people = distractions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just know that if you’re planning a trip to hotel Kelly anytime soon, you might get to enjoy our new feature: the cardboard box maze. Hurry! Book now! Slots are filling up!

Can You Call It An Era When It Was Only Six Months?

‘Cause I’m really tempted to say, “This is the end of an era.” But that seems a bit hyperbolic. Especially when I consider I’ll be doing this three more times in the next 18 months.

After some deliberation, I’ve decided that the place I’ll miss the most in Georgia is The Swallow in the Hollow. This place offers some of the best live music I’ve ever experienced, along with above average barbecue.

I’ve seen the show twice now, the first time by accident. We’d gone for dinner, and when the hostess asked us if we were there for the show, we assured her that we weren’t. Fortunately for us, the music started before we were done with our meal, and, as soon as it did, we knew we had to stay. The two times I’ve been there, the performance has consisted of three or four singer-songwriters playing their guitars. No percussion. No back-ups dancers. No lightshow. Loud enough to enjoy, but not so loud as to worry my audiologist. From what I gather, these are the folks that write all those hits that win Grammys and Country Music Awards.

Perhaps this wasn’t what I expected to find in Atlanta. (As my friend’s boyfriend said, “When are they going to start singing about guns and bling?”) But one thing’s for sure: there ain’t no Swallow in Stamford.

T Minus 21

So, three weeks from today another moving van will pull up outside my door and a lovely group of individuals will proceed to pack all my earthly goods into identical cardboard boxes that I can only hope will be recycled. Honestly, when you have as much stuff as I do, and you move every six months, and the movers show up with what appear to be brand new boxes each time, and you have some modicum of environmental awareness, it’s hard not to wonder where all that cardboard winds up.

I knew all along that six months would go by in the blink of an eye. Everyone kept telling me that; I even told myself that. But now that I’m getting ready to go apartment hunting in Connecticut, I see how right everyone was. I don’t have all that angst-ridden longing I had as I planned my departure from California. I can’t think of a single thing I would have liked to have done in Atlanta that I haven’t done. (Full disclosure: before moving here I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to do in Atlanta.) Now that I’ve seen the new World of Coke, Babyland General (the place where Cabbage Patch Kids are from), and the Braves play at Turner Field, I can’t for the life of my imagine what else there is.

As I start this process all over again, the one very valuable lesson that comes to mind is that I need to make sure to see the actual apartment I’m renting, not just the model. Perhaps this would have prevented the confusion about where the first floor is and is not. That said, I’ll do my best to find suitable accommodations for all of you already planning your trips to the northeast.

The Suspense Was Killing Me

Actually it wasn’t the suspense, it was the monster headache that I woke up with this morning. But the suspense wasn’t helping matters. My colleagues and I originally thought we’d receive our January assignments in the first week of November. Then we thought we’d know by last Wednesday or Thursday. Earlier today we all received an invitation to a conference call to discuss how the selections were made. On the call, we were told that we’d each receive an e-mail within an hour. How do you spell P-I-N-S-A-N-D-N-E-E-D-L-E-S?

The good news is that I was assigned to my number one preference. I promised myself that I would rank the options based on the projects and the assignment leaders and not worry about location. Now that I’m breathing that great big sigh of relief, I can admit that this was the only assignment that jumped out and made me say, “Now that could be cool.” So, where did that put me? The City that Works. No, not Chicago. That also happens to be the official nickname of Stamford, Connecticut.