I Guess I’ll Miss The Man

Thursday morning and the last in-the-office day of the week; next month we are going back to four days required in the office; not sure when that is, but I’ve already chatted with my supervisor about it and what I’ll be doing in the office that extra day and frankly, am fine with it. Obviously, it will be an adjustment, but I’ve never really gotten used to not coming in on Mondays and I am glad that will be over with before I actually get used to it. Tuesday-Thursday in the office has actually been a bit disorienting since it started, and that fourth day I won’t have to get up at six to come in, either. I am thinking nine to five thirty, or some variation of that, actually.

Paul is staying at the Monteleone, so I am on my own with a needy kitty here in the Lost Apartment for the next few days. I must confess that when I got home from work last night, I was a bit tired and kind of felt like Tom Cruise in Risky Business: I had the house to myself, and knew Paul wasn’t coming home, so didn’t have to worry about making anything to eat or you know, anything. Instead of reading or doing anything truly productive, I’m afraid all I did was watch episodes of Young Justice while playing around on social media and eventually went to bed early. I did do the dishes and a load of laundry and worked on inputting the edits into the manuscript I am working on, but for the most part, I totally blew off last night. I do need to figure out the structure of my workshop tomorrow; I already have a lot of amorphous ideas about what to talk about, but I need to order them into something coherent and cohesive by tomorrow afternoon. Of course I am going to be terribly stressed and in a mode of high anxiety at the same time, which means I will probably walk home from the Quarter afterwards and collapse in mental and emotional and physical exhaustion immediately afterward….all so I can moderate a panel on Saturday. This is a lot for someone whose natural tendency is toward introversion and agoraphobia, especially after two years of no public appearances and no crowds. Will he survive? It remains to be seen. But I am also kind of looking forward to it. My plan is to just go do my stuff and head home, but…we’ll see how that plays out. I know I don’t want to go to any of the opening receptions or anything tomorrow afternoon…my, how things change! I used to love getting over-served at those receptions…but of course now I need recovery time from drinking alcohol and I just don’t have a whole lot of that to spare these days.

Plus, there’s no joy in feeling like shit for a day or two, either.

Obviously, I used to drink regularly but I also never used to get hangovers, either. Hangovers were quite literally the deal breaker for me. I would have stopped drinking years ago if I’d suffered through hangovers at a younger age, seriously.

So, tonight I hope to finish inputting the edits to get back to the author, do some more laundry, read some more of Alex Segura’s marvelous Secret Identity, and prepare for my workshop. Scooter will be needy–my God, he was like my shadow last night, following me around and jumping into my lap and going to sleep every time I turned around. He’d also started going to bed with me lately–or getting into bed and cuddling with me after I’ve already gone to bed; there’s nothing like almost dropping off completely to sleep only to be awakened by purrs and claws kneading your bare skin–but as soon as I got under the covers last night there he was–and he was still there this morning when the alarm went off (I wish my phone had been handy, because the side-eye Scooter gave that alarm was EPIC).

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.