Night Circle

I am, to put it bluntly, fucking tired. I have serious sleep deprivation today and it's overcast and rainy which is aesthetically really pleasing but simultaneously wreaking havoc with my head, and also, I think I may be slightly hungover.

It boggles my mind that I can drink multiple champagne and raspberry Stolis topped off with a generous doubleshot of Chartreuse two nights in a row at Oak Alley and never have the slightest bit of a hangover, but take me to a fancy restaurant and make me drink four or five glasses of expensive Cabernet (and a shot of Baileys in my coffee) and I'm hanging.

Blah.

Maybe it's red wine I should stay away from.

Last night was an office dinner but since I have fun with my coworkers - something that hasn't been true since I lived in Connecticut about nine hundred years ago - it wasn't an ordeal to suffer through. Plus there was the aforementioned wine and some pretty awesome food.

Crab meat bruschetta with some sort of really good dressing (I didn't eat the bruschetta part); Caesar salad with sundried tomatoes; filet mignon with some sort of portobello chutney and Bernaise sauce that was so goooooood.

I ate enough, so why do I feel like crap today? Might it be because I'm the only one that actualy showed up at work today, damnit?

I'm in a contemplative mood which is extraordinarily counterproductive to actually getting much work done; hence this entry.

Here's a list of things I want to do:

Play Sims 2
Write about my vampires
Read some stuff I already wrote about said vampires
Sit on my balcony and look at the rain
Eat food (it's nearly lunchtime I hope)
Read a book
Go swimming (preferably not in the pouring rain)
Lounge on my sofa watching Night Stalker by candlelight
Get a massage
Take a bubble bath

Here's a list of things I have to do before I can do any of the above:
Finish the work day
Go fucking grocery shopping goddamnit


I smell like Body Shop's Oceanus today. That would be because I am wearing Oceanus cologne which Tommy thoughtfully picked up for me a couple weeks ago.

It's my official weekend summer scent and I wore it for the first time at Oak Alley last weekend and now today because it's Friday, but damnit, it makes me want to go home and do weekend things. I am ruled by my senses, I swear.

There is something I have to do that I keep remembering as I write this, and then it maddeningly disappears just when I think I should write it down so I won't forget it again.

It's like this thought is the Golden Snitch and I'm a piss poor Seeker. (This is now going to drive me batshit until I remember.)

Sunday is our 7th anniversary. Seven years ago a group of us gathered in the honeymoon suite of Le Richelieu hotel in the French Quarter and Tommy and I got married. Seven years. That's pretty cool.

Tommy and I generally go away on our anniversary but this year Oak Alley was the actual getaway and so this weekend we're planning on going out to dinner Saturday night and we can't decide between fancy dinner at Tony's or dinner at the Thai place and then a movie.

What would you do, people?

I used to be so freaking OCD about holidays and birthdays and anniversaries - planning them out in advance and generally obsessing about what a great time I/we would have. I don't do that anymore really.

I don't even make packing lists for when I go out of town anymore. Tom made rather wistful mention of this last Friday when we were packing to leave for Louisiana. I just sort of threw a bunch of stuff into my backpack and mentally reviewed what I needed and actually I wore everything I brought, used everything I packed and only forgot one thing - my facial cleanser, but I used the soap at the cottage and it was all good.

I somehow don't want to be the planner anymore. I just like to go with the flow although sometimes I get balky and don't go anywhere or do anything.

But, dudes, I am so rambling here, I think I better stop now and post this before I totally start talking about nothing and can't stop. (Too late!)

Happy weekend!

Well, I'm back from Oak Alley. I decided to take a spur of the moment vacation day today because I'm so deliciously worn out from the weekend.

Tom and I just got back from dropping off the rental car and I took my first bus ride in Houston. As firsts go, I don't think I'm going to remember it with too much nostalgia, but the walk back to the place after the bus was nice except my goddamn sandal heel keeps clacking and I can't figure out why.

He is in the living room reading the last Harry Potter book. Mine is at work, but he says he'll share his today. I guess it's a testament to how good the weekend was, but I totally forgot Harry Potter came out this weekend. I knew it on Friday before we left, but when we picked up mail this morning and he saw he had a package at the post office I didn't even think it was the book because, like I said, I forgot. Wow.

It was cool to go back to Louisiana to visit. I'm up for Oak Alley anytime. New Orleans - no thank you. The pall of depression (which to be fair could be mine, but I still feel it intensely and I can't shake it even today) descended the second I saw the city skyline. The place, while much better than it was when I visited two months post Katrina, is still full of fallen down buildings, gaping holes in roofing and garbage all over the street. Blah.

We were unable to get into the house because our agent had a 2 p.m. showing and said the earliest she could get to us would be 3 or 3:30 and the thought of having to kill nearly two hours in New Orleans and then be on the road after dark coming home pissed me off. (Yeah, Mina? What doesn't, you all want to know?) ;) So we stopped by the place, met the guy who lives next door and talked to him and looked at Crescentwood from the outside. You can tell nobody lives there anymore. The house looked sad and needs some paint touch ups and just looks like it wants new life. I really hope somebody buys the place soon.

Anyway, that was the tail end of the weekend and I really wanted to chronicle the other parts - the good parts.

( The good parts are here... )

I'm wearing my new plaid skirt today and a white dressy tank top and my new white sandals. The skirt barely fit two weeks ago, but now it is just right. I imagine by next month I should be a size 10 and by September/October an 8 again. Yay!

Kristen and I went to Kroger's again on Wednesday. Wow, grocery shopping is such an interesting damn thing to write about, I can imagine what it must be like for you to read about it!

I really like that store except that it always costs me $200 to shop there, but then I can stretch it so I don't have to shop again for nearly two weeks, so that's good, right? I guess.

This week's stuff I bought that I really didn't need but wanted:

An art fart paper towel holder. It was only 11 bucks.

A bunch of fabric bands for my hair. 7 bucks, but hair is getting so long and I need it out of my face (inject whiny voice here)

A ponytail holder with some tortoiseshell decorative shit on it (I suck at describing crap like this, let's just say that the damn elastic band has some stuff dangling off of it and may possibly look cool or may possibly look like complete hell, but it was only 6 bucks so stop looking at me like that. Stop.)

An English mint plant*. Hey, I can put the leaves in tea if I want and I can smelll the leaves and feel all relaxed and I'm just not going to feel guilty about how I spent those particular four dollars.

A big tin citronella candle. You cannot believe the mosquitoes on my balcony, people, you just can't.

OPI nail polish - but the damn thing didn't ring up at the register and the cashier was going to send the bag boy to get another one and the bag boy looked like he'd seriously rather have his balls swallowed by an angry grizzly bear, so I magnanimously declared I didn't need it anyway and so I didn't get it.

Other than that, all I got was South Beach approved foodstuffs and, of course, alcohol.

I am totally into Louis Jadot Beaujolais lately. I'm on this kick where I won't drink any wine (including champagne) that's not from France. What the fuck kind of raging snob have I turned into?

This meant that after eight hundred years of drinking Cook's champagne and enjoying it, I now had to find a champagne from France that didn't cost 50 dollars a bottle.

Enter Cafe de Paris. It is from France and it is good. And it is only 8 bucks bottle which is nearly twice as much as a bottle of Cook's, but goddamnit, how am I supposed to drink champagne that's not from France when I'm wearing my Tiffany bracelet, people? It's just not possible. Or something.

Speaking of Cafe de Paris, there's a bottle of it chilling in my fridge right this very goddamn second. While I'm toiling here in Corporate America, my refrigerator is having a party.

I am hoping to get the hell out of here around 4 this afternoon and go directly home where I will pause only to change into my shorts and a tank top and then I will pour a glass of champagne, light a stick of incense, and head out to the balcony to commune with my hibiscus and English mint. Ah, that sounds like a wonderful way to usher in the weekend.

*Funny story about the English mint. Tommy came home Wednesday night around nine so exhausted and stressed out from work that he literally leaned against the front door and closed his eyes like he was going to sleep there all night. I told him to go outside and smell the English mint because it would relax him and he said he was exhausted, could he do it later, but then he ended up going out to get the mail and said he'd smell it on the way. As he walked past the dining room window, he paused to give me a smile and thumbs up and I felt virtuously happy that I'd purchased the plant that could give him so much pleasure.

The next morning as he was heading out the door, I pointed out the citronella candle. He said, "Yeah, I saw that last night, remember? English mint?"

Yes, he thought I'd purchased an English mint scented citronella candle. Which he then admitted did not smell like English mint to him but he hadn't wanted to disapoint me. Good gods, people, I should have let him sleep against the damn door.

The longest stretch of the afternoon has me clutched in its foul grasp. I look desperately at the clock (every five seconds or so) only to confirm my horrible premonition: It is not even 2 o’clock.

A virtual corporate tide of trivial and banal crap has washed up on the shores of my desk. Am I attending to any of it?

No. I am looking desperately at the clock. (It’s not even 2 o’clock!)

I have been slacking off writing things of substance in my LJ lately. I admit that “things of substance” is hardly what I write most of the time, but I’ve really been slacking off in that department any way you slice it.

I have, coincidentally, also been slacking off in the random, rambling shit that I normally post four or five times a week.

I haven’t participated in a quiz or a meme in a while either.

What am I doing instead?

(Looking at the clock. It’s not even 2 o’clock!)

Or other such stupid, inane time passers.


( What do I want to write down? What would I love to chronicle? )