Today Is the First Monday of the Rest of Your Decade
New Haven has been frigid and windy ever since I came back on Saturday night, and sidewalks are treacherously icy. Roads are slushy, too, since the city does a horrible job with snow plowing. You'd think we were in Virginia or something. I look at it as another benefit to not driving a car.
I woke up at 4 this morning out of a mild nightmare concerning a trip to Disney World. (Disney World, in this case, featured no rides or Disney characters, just a steep hillside park with paths sadistically designed to catch you in the grasp of murderous carnivorous plants.) Waking up for real at 7:30 bought me a lovely view of the creamsicle-colored sunrise directly east of me over Orange Street. Nonetheless it was hard to ignore how goddamned cold it was. I had better man up to this or else it'll be a long way to springtime.
I'm feeling wistful about those long-ago days when morning life meant apple pie and coffee for breakfast and watching the bird feeder through the kitchen window.
Our office Christmas party, back on December the 23rd, was held in the manuscript library, which had been festively decorated with streamers and several dozen blue and white balloons hung across the room from the balconies. I'm not sure if this was a Hannukah shout-out, or just secular avoidance of Christmas colors, but the overall effect was that of an Under-the-Sea-themed junior prom. In any case, the streamers and balloons, sadder-looking and deflated, were still hanging there until about 3 pm today, when various members of the office Party Planning Committee had finally gotten around to removing them all. Sad balloons are an appropriately depressing grace note to the first workday back from the holiday. I did have a productive day, though.
My main pet peeve about wintertime in the office is that the afternoon sun presents itself directly through my south-facing window, so I have to close the blinds from 2:30 till sunset. And every day I think, ruefully, "This is the little bit of sunlight I have to hang on to, and here I am shutting it away again."
I'm not sure to what extent anyone wonders about what my day-to-day work life looks like, but you can figure that until about March it will look mostly like this. Although mostly I'm concentrating on page proofs and not the ambiance, and we won't have sad balloons any more.
Oh, the cold months of the year! Love 'em.
I woke up at 4 this morning out of a mild nightmare concerning a trip to Disney World. (Disney World, in this case, featured no rides or Disney characters, just a steep hillside park with paths sadistically designed to catch you in the grasp of murderous carnivorous plants.) Waking up for real at 7:30 bought me a lovely view of the creamsicle-colored sunrise directly east of me over Orange Street. Nonetheless it was hard to ignore how goddamned cold it was. I had better man up to this or else it'll be a long way to springtime.
I'm feeling wistful about those long-ago days when morning life meant apple pie and coffee for breakfast and watching the bird feeder through the kitchen window.
Our office Christmas party, back on December the 23rd, was held in the manuscript library, which had been festively decorated with streamers and several dozen blue and white balloons hung across the room from the balconies. I'm not sure if this was a Hannukah shout-out, or just secular avoidance of Christmas colors, but the overall effect was that of an Under-the-Sea-themed junior prom. In any case, the streamers and balloons, sadder-looking and deflated, were still hanging there until about 3 pm today, when various members of the office Party Planning Committee had finally gotten around to removing them all. Sad balloons are an appropriately depressing grace note to the first workday back from the holiday. I did have a productive day, though.
My main pet peeve about wintertime in the office is that the afternoon sun presents itself directly through my south-facing window, so I have to close the blinds from 2:30 till sunset. And every day I think, ruefully, "This is the little bit of sunlight I have to hang on to, and here I am shutting it away again."
I'm not sure to what extent anyone wonders about what my day-to-day work life looks like, but you can figure that until about March it will look mostly like this. Although mostly I'm concentrating on page proofs and not the ambiance, and we won't have sad balloons any more.
Oh, the cold months of the year! Love 'em.
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