very simple

It looks like I’m not the only one that has these pet peeves. Dave Barry has them too. And he details a bunch of others that make it seem like he was inside my head while writing the article.

Like number 4 – I’ve been known to move the "mystery cart" out of line at my local market. I can’t even call it a supermarket because it’s only got, like, 5 aisles and a freezer section. It’s just not even possible to forget to pick up more than one item. There aren’t that many items in the store to begin with.

and number 10? Seriously. I know y’all weren’t raised in a barn. And even if you were, you were probably still taught better manners than this. In my office, someone has even taken the initiative and put up signs reminding people to clean up after themselves. On the inside of the bathroom stall doors. There’s only so many times you can forget!

it was that one darn preferences file, that’s stored somewhere completely different than every other file related to the blog. But all of my settings are here – the revised datelines, the custom borders that I actually learned how to edit in html in order to insert manually, and, of course, the orange. This makes me happy. I just have to remember to back up everything whenever I’m done making new entries on one computer so that I don’t accidentally overwrite something. This is definitely cool.

OK. enough about that. This week at work was kind of crazy. We’ve actually all been joking about how much work there is to do (because, really, when you’re all there at 10:30 every night, including the partners, and there’s no end in sight, there’s not a whole lot you can do to keep your sanity in check except laugh about it). The thing is, I’m one of the few people I know who actually really likes there job. I like the work, I like the people that I work with, and I can’t complain about the money. Sure, there have been plenty of nights recently when all I’ve wanted to do is go home and go to sleep, but even then, I don’t develop any overwhelmingly bad feelings towards my job generally. I just think, "gee, it’ll be really nice when Saturday rolls around and I can sleep late."

I suppose it’s good that I feel this way, but sometimes I feel like an oddball because most people I know don’t feel this way about there jobs. And also, I’m a corporate lawyer, so most people I know think that it’s just weird for anyone to enjoy doing my type of work (and honestly, before I got into this line of business, I had abstract thoughts about how boring and horrible it would be, based on nothing more than a "corporations, eww!" line of logic). I’m glad I gave myself the opportunity to prove myself wrong, because otherwise I’d probably be jumping from one litigation job to the next, trying to figure out why I hated my job when it was all I ever wanted to do.

I’m going to try to plan another vacation for April. At this point, I haven’t figured out anywhere to go, and given some timing issues at work, I’m not sure exactly what week I’m going to be able to take off. I’m thinking I’ll just pick a week and then see what e-savers are available to somewhere beachy.

yet again, I’m sick. I know that any of you reading this (all 6 of you)could care less, but there it is. I should have known it was going to happen, what with the multiple cross-country airplane flights I’ve been taking in the past few weeks. oh well. I keep telling myself that I have too much work to do to be sick, but I don’t seem to be listening. Fancy that.

and in other complaints, the weather here sucks again. Just when we thought it was going to start getting a little bit better (apparently, while I was out of town, it was beautiful), it snows again. and it’s going to be grey and rainy for the rest of the week. I’ve never been a sun worshiper, but a little quality time with sunshine would be really great at this point.

Seriously. Ha!

I could make a not so short list of men I’ve dated like this.

You have just won one million dollars:

1. Who do you call first?

That’s easy – my Dad.

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?

The first thing I’d actually do is pay off my student loans. Then with the $12 I have left, I’d buy a sandwich. Actually, I’d buy an apartment, and then I’d buy a sandwich.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?

Since we’re talking about the first thing I’d buy for someone else, clearly I’d buy everyone I knew a round of drinks (and I wouldn’t even insist on bottom-shelf liquor!).

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?

After taxes, and the loans, and the apartment, and the drinks for everyone, I’m pretty sure there would be nothing left. Although there would be a significant portion of my monthly income that would be freed up from not having to pay loans and New York City rent, so I’d probably give larger donations than usual to my regular charities, which are places like National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood.

5. Do you invest any? If so, how?

At this point I’ve not only spent all the money, but have started dipping into my normal income to give more away, so I’m pretty confident I’d have nothing left to invest.

Yet, again, it’s the Friday Five…

At this moment, what is your favorite…

1. …song?
Right now, it’s just about anything off of "Elephant" by the White Stripes, but if I had to pick just one, it would be Well It’s True That We Love One Another, if only because it’s the most irreverent and likely to get absolutely no airplay outside of my iPod.

2. …food?
My favorite comfort food has always been and will always be sour cream and onion potato chips. My favorite real food is very possibly the veal escalope that I had at dinner tonight at Nice Matin. The service left something to be desired, but the food was quite yummy.

3. …tv show?
Wow. my favorite guilty pleasure at the moment is the O.C. (as I’ve actually mentioned before). I’ve become somewhat obsessed with Adam Brody. My favorite actual show is quickly turning into Joan of Arcadia, where the sheer acting power involved manages to completely erase any doubts I may have about the somewhat wacky premise.

4. …scent?
Coffee. I don’t drink it very often, but the smell makes me happy.

5. …quote?
Since I’m still reeling from trying to recall my really crappy high school yearbook quote last week, I’m not going to even pretend to answer this one.

I just ran across this site because it was mentioned on another blog I was reading. I thought I’d give it a try…we’ll see how long this sticks:

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?
Actually, I’m not one to put cutesy little political quotes in my signature line. I’ve managed to get myself down to two e-mail addresses, one for work and one for home. At work, it’s just my name and office address (being a corporate lawyer, I think anything else would probably be frowned upon). My home e-mail just has my name and e-mail address. Back in college, I used to add all sorts of crap, but I think I’ve just outgrown it.

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven’t graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
I did. it was dumb. I’m not going to go dig out my yearbook in order to quote it verbatim. It did have something about not letting other people set your goals because then they become limitations. Whatever. Nowadays I find that the people I spend time with actually challenge me, so the quote was dumb.

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
I actually did have vanity plates on my car, thanks to my parents who totally spoiled me by buying me a little red pontiac as soon as I got a driver’s license. I always felt kind of stupid with the plates, but I couldn’t exactly tell my parents that I wanted something different. The plates, however just had my name and the year of my birth, so they didn’t say too much about me, except perhaps, that my parents thought I was such a moron that I wouldn’t remember my name or how old I was without the help…Or maybe they thought it was a surreptitious way of preventing me from buying beer before I was 21, since I went to college in a town where you had to drive everywhere, including the liquor store.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
Not really, I’ve gotten a few books with notes inside, but nothing too memorable.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
Now here’s a depressing question that I don’t want to think about for a much longer time.

That was kind of fun…maybe I’ll check back in next week.

I always seem to get sick at this time of year. My main assumption has always been that the wildly fluctuating outside temperature, combined with the change-over of the internal a/c/heating systems in both my apartment and office are just too much for my equilibrium to take, and it just completely breaks down.

I don’t think it’s as bad as the flu, but I left work early on Tuesday and today, and took the whole day off yesterday (although I did actually get several hours of work done while sitting in the Starbucks down the street, bundled in fleeces, in order to keep out of my cleaning lady’s way). I think it’s just a bad cold, with the headaches and stuffiness and sore throat.

I am feeling a bit better now, and I actually ate some solid food today (Tuesday and Wednesday it was strictly chicken broth). And tomorrow’s Friday, so even if I feel like crap, it’s only one day until the weekend.

I actually think my biggest problem is my insane inability to call in sick two days in a row. It’s a total psychological tic – I got to work this morning, and everyone I work with looked at me like I had three heads for showing up, so it’s not like they would penalize me (or even think badly of me!) for staying home, but I just can’t do it.

Wow. I’m a little bit busy this week. Okay, so after I got all of my client’s problems resolved on Wednesday, I did take Thursday and Friday off. But Thursday was TARCon, and Friday I somehow made it to Sephora at 8:30 in the morning. Then down to Chinatown for lunch, and to Westchester for my friend’s rehearsal dinner…

And now I’ve got about 20 minutes before I’m off to get my hair done, catch a car back to Westchester, and spend the day fulfilling my bridesmaid duties for my oldest friend…all in all, pretty relaxing. Then tomorrow I’m going sailing with another friend who is in town for the wedding. That should be easy going, except for the part where I have to take the train to stanford in order to meet them.

I had my first personal training session today, and totally got my ass kicked. Now I just want to sleep. but, of course, I have to go to work on a Saturday. Such is my life, and luck.