going home is so great!

i have a love/hate relationship with thanksgiving. i think it's really terrific to get together with the family now and then and eat and rejoice and just spend some time with each other (for once). however, with all the hoopla, the pressure...you're really setting yourself up for disaster.

for instance, i left on thanksgiving day approximately an hour later than had anticipated. i was going directly to my brother's house for dinner. but as i am leaving, i realize that a) i have no money, b) i have no gas, and c) i haven't had my usual dose of caffeine, and if i was going to drive 85 miles or so in holiday traffic, i was definitely going to need it.

so, i proceed to, in this order, get coffee, get gas, and get money. the coffee was way too sweet, but i was in too much of a rush to fix it, and the gas and money? well, i discovered that on my way coming home, at the all-too-important wawastop off of I-495 in Delaware, that i had left the gas cap on the car (bye bye gas cap) and the atm card in the machine. this is what happens when you rush! but, very minor things, really.

i arrive at my brother's about 2 hours late and i walk in to this home that i have never been to (though he's lived there for 3 years now and i have never lived more than an hour and half from him), and everyone is in the kitchen. "everyone" being my mom, brother, and sister-in-law. i am very excited to be out of the car, out of the rain and cold and in this house with family that i don't see very often, but the only one that shows any emotion is my mother. brother and sister-in-law barely turn around. and, maybe they're pissed that i am late (i warned them i would be), but, still!! in actuality, these 2 people (my bro and sis-in-law) are 2 of the most predictable people i know. it really wouldn't be right if they didn't snub me at least once that evening.

we ate dinner, uncomfortably at first, pleasantly later, and finally there were some jokes and laughter by the time we got to the desert. mom and sis-in-law made apple pies, which caused a little bit of tension, as in, "which is the better pie," but actually, one was too firm and the other two soft, so there were no winners that night, in the end. whew.

let's get out of thanksgiving and fast forward for a moment. on the way into philadelphia, i cried at the site of the skyline, something i do nearly everytime i drive home. i don't know what happens to me exactly, but when i see that philly skyline in the distance, i just well up with tears and my heart swells with pride. this time however, it was a dangerous thing as the tears burned my eyes to the point that i couldn't see!! i've really got to get over my love affair with this city, or else just move back.

later that night. i got a chance to hang out with tami (childhood bestie) and her boyfriend matt, along with some blasts from the past. i wound up staying way later than i meant to, because sometimes it's just so good to fall right back into the way things were 3 or 4 years ago, pre-college life. i can distinctly remember talking to tami in her old northeast philly apartment, on her big puffy couch, about the idea of going back to school. we got into a fight that night because she didn't want me to move away. she couldn't understand why i just didn't go to school in philly. i remember explaining to her that i wanted to choose a nice small liberal arts school somewhere else, someplace chill and relaxed to get a change of scene and meet some new people. she said she would come with me wherever i went. that we would get a place together and i would go to school and she would waitress somewhere. and i had to put my foot down because this was my journey, not hers. i wanted to do something completely on my own, for once. and i did. and it was so right. or at least, i like to think it was.

next day, black friday, i had to jump out of bed and run to my car, praying i didn't have a ticket. for some reason, the alarm hadn't gone off and it was 9:10am. i was lucky to have gotten the space i did, since most meters start at 8am, but really, anything before 10am sucks to me. especially when you go to bed at 5. after a repark in the garage connected to the building, i was able to go back to sleep for a little. after some apartment time, we hit the steets and did lite lunch and lite shopping (did you know that aveda stores give free hand massages??). later, we took the phillyphlash (highly recommended!!!) to the philadelphia art museum of art for their fridayafter5 (museum stays open until 8:45 with free jazz music in the great hall). we went through some of the exhibitions rather quickly so that we could make our dinner reservation in the museum restaurant. as soon as we sat down, i spotted a little mouse run under the table next to us. i discreetly told the hostess and we got moved to a different table and because of our discreetness, had our meal comped. yes!!

after that, we headed back to the apartment, said our goodbyes and i drove home. and that was it. one long post for a short visit. i can't wait to go back.

an hour and 20 to go

the left side of my temple is throbbing and i feel like my eyes are popping out of their sockets from repeated sharp, quick glances to the bottom right hand corner of my computer screen -- i have been counting down 5:00pm since the moment i walked through the door.

when i woke up, i decided to pledge to myself no more drinking during the workweek. it appears even 1 margarita and a can and a half of beer is too much for me nowadays. i still can't help but wonder what happened to those days when a bottle and a half of wine was the norm.

so, driving to philly now is out of the question, or at least for tonight. a heating blanket and a blockbuster movie...maybe some nice warm chinese...will be my ticket to heaven for the evening. and with a cat at my feet to keep the tootsies warm.

you keep warm, too. and have a happy thanksgiving. i hope you find yourself in a nice welcoming home, with food-a-plenty, and if not family, then friends, to help you be thankful for this year and for the year to come.

are YOU destroying american productivity?

In an article entitled What Blogs Cost American Business, AdAge.com contends that in 2005 alone, employees will waste 551,000 years reading blogs at work.

Some interesting factoids:
** 35 millions workers (25%) visit blogs and spend on average 3.5 hours a week at them.
** Time spent in the office on non-office work blogs is equivalent to 2.3 million jobs.
** U.S. workers will waste 2.3 million business work years this year alone.

What the the article doesn't mention is if these lost hours are coming out of actual productivity, or the time we spent looking for good travel deals or checking last night's sports scores, and will Expedia and ESPN suffer because of this.

It also doesn't talk about the fact that most American workers work longer hours, work through lunch and take our laptops and Blackberries home with us. Don't we deserve some time to blog off? This story found via Blogcritics.org.

as lifted from:
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2005/10/blogging_destro.html

woe is me.

so, blogger happy hour can be pretty fun after all. everyone there was super nice and friendly, though the highlight was meeting molly herself. i particularly liked it when she pointed out that she had painted the goat that hangs on the wall in the bar and that this particular goat, she had met in person. something about that moment was satisfying to me.

but, that was last wednesday and since then i have tumbled down a sad little path as a blueness has swept over me and caused a sick feeling that i can't seem to shake. i constantly feel headachey and nauseau. but, this hasn't stopped me from finishing up my star wars movie-watching session. episode 3 was satisfying in itself, but i think i found it satisfying that i was able to lay the damn thing to rest. had there been more movies made, i would have watched those as well. now i can get back to the usual fare, though i tried watching "reefer madness" last night and couldn't get through the second musical act. i then tried watching the movie it's based off of but found it disenchanting for some other reason. which is a good thing because that meant i went to bed at a reasonable time.

so, perhaps the most exciting news of late is that of spin magazine covering the baltimore club scene and ms. k-swift herself. and, you gotta love that photo of michael dancing in the front with a caption akin to, "when did geeky white boys start getting into this?" last weekend when k-swift played, i swear, i nearly died. i'm still reeling from that night, for some reason. i'd like to be more fortright about that, but i can't. it's a bit too complicated.

which everything seems to be lately, super super complicated. i feel so caught up in something, but it's nothing. and this feeling, i can't seem to shake off. i wake up with it in the morning and it's the last thing with me at night.

i nearly succumbed to it for the entire weekend but managed to run errands in towson and go to a dance concert on friday, go to work on saturday, and then help gabry paint the gallery on sunday...so i wasn't a complete waste of space.

not a whole lot, but better than sleeping away the days and living a life of nonexistance.

i think i will take a few moments tonight and read some of rollo may's, "a courage to create." a bit of reflection on this might be beneficial for me.

screw that last post

everything was getting too stupid and mopey. it's tiring to write about yourself all the time. i mean, seriously. i don't have an ego have as big as most the people i know, but what the hell, right?

anyway, it probably helps posting sometimes when you are pissed and angry which i am feeling right now. sometimes it's good to feel pissed and angry. i'm pissed about a lot of things, but mostly the disappointment i feel in others is feeling most accurate right now. why the hell is everyone so egotistical, i wonder? the other night, i met this guy who was so right on with whatever he is doing, he's just plowing away at life and just working at it, but in the most righteous way ever. and i say, "right on, dude!" cause there's really no time like the present. and the most refreshing part of all, was his heart and soul was so open, so there, and i could see it in his face and i could feel it in his being. he's gotten to the point where he's past all the selfish crap, and just trying to make good. and for the right reasons. and, no, we weren't drunk. the craziest part about it was when i drove home and i started bawling in the car because something changed in me. i literally had to pull over because i couldn't see the road and i cried right in front of the tourists crossing pratt street to get to the inner harbor. and they made me cry more. it was nuts. the last time i cried that hard was when i had that desperate attack of grief for my father and i nearly fainted, it hurt my heart that much.

anyway, i woke up this morning with a headache left over from yesterday after an evening of puking my guts up. there was a handyman on my porch who could clearly see into my bedroom, with the shades being up and all after my hopeless attempt to close my bedroom window that refuses to close. the korean lady next door is talking in her high pitch voice about what a bastard my landlord is. and my head is pounding and my first thought was, "i'm getting the hell out of here."

and, not that i am leaving my house, i mean, i am going somewhere where i am appreciated damn it, somewhere where i will make something of myself and leave all these f'ers behind and the ones that last, then good for you, you got lucky, and the ones that don't, well... sayonara. some of us are just wasting away and i am starting to feel like one of them. i feel trapped and pathetic and i see that all around me.

it's hard to tell what's real when all around you is smoke and mirrors. i just wish everyone let their guard down for a moment, so i can just sort it all out. it would probably be better to let mine down instead.

i had that moment of clarity a few years ago, after that brief stint in ghana. i haven't been able to get in touch with that since then. oh yes, that was my other thought this morning, when i thought, "i have to get out of here." i thought about going back to west africa. because it seemed to suit me just fine. and i liked the honesty of it all. i liked how i didn't have to figure much out. it was the way it should be, our purest form....