very simple

There is free wifi here in the lobby, but I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to do anything other than check my e-mail. The speeds are so slow (I think they’re slower than dial-up) that everything keeps timing out before I can upload anything. We’ll see if the prior blog entry will show up this time (I originally tried to post it four days ago). Since then, I’ve been diving several more days, hung out with my brother a bunch, and traveled down to carp island to get eaten alive by the mosquitos (fun! even more fun? mosquito bites combined with major, peeling sunburn!). Needless to say, my plan for today involves spending a lot of time in the hotel spa. and the shade.

Also needless to say – given the internet speeds, I’m obviously not posting pictures until I get home.

Got to Palau Monday night (Palau time), to find my brother waiting for me at the airport, which was a nice surprise (he told me he was going to send a taxi for me). At 8 the next morning, we were already waiting for the boat to take us diving. Did two dives on Tuesday (Blue Corner and Turtle Cove), which were pretty amazing, and two more on Wednesday (Blue Holes and New Dropoff). These were really stellar – I think every single iconic scuba image has been photographed here. Oh, and on Tuesday we also went to Jellyfish lake, which was totally amazing and surreal. There are millions of these jellyfish that have been cut off from the ocean (and natural predators) for so long that they’ve lost their ability to sting. They evolved to survive via photosynthesis with the algae that lives inside of them. Pretty awesome.

Today’s a day off (and my brother had to go to work), and I’m just going to relax and nurse my sunburn, which only exists on the back of my neck and the backs of my arms from my elbow to my shoulder. So not only does it hurt, it’s incredibly silly looking.

As far as pictures, I’ve taken a bunch, but I may wait to upload them until I get home. They have wifi in the lobby of the hotel, but I swear it’s a wifi router hooked up to a dial-up connection – very very slow. According to my brother, the lowest level of DSL service you can get on the island, which has a speed of about 36.6 kbps (yes, slower than most dial-up these days) costs about $700 a month. Something about the scarcity of satellites over the region and whatnot make it incredibly expensive, and incredibly difficult to hook up. Needless to say, I’ve got better things to do than sit for several hours watching my photos upload.

Anyway, having a great time, wish you were here, blah blah blah…

This seriously felt like the longest week ever.

Work was crazy, to the point where I was having crazy stress dreams that woke me up hours before I needed to be awake (my favorite? the one on Tuesday, where my dream that my blackberry was going off actually woke me up because I thought I needed to check the damn thing). All leading up to last night, when I was at work past midnight.

But now? Now I’m officially on vacation. One would think that this would indicate to my subconscious that I could sleep in (my plane leaves overnight tonight). One would be wrong. I fell asleep at about 2 in the morning, and woke up at…six. No alarm clock, no pressing need to do work. Just me and my lovely new insomnia. So now it seven, and I’m doing laundry so that I can at least pretend to be productive.

Anyway, all of these crazy long days made this week seem like it took just forever to get done. I’m sure part of it is the fact that there was a big shiny prize at the end of the week being, you know, not have to go to work for two weeks.

Just to give you an idea of how nuts I was this week, here’s an approximation of the conversation that I had with a friend at work yesterday:

ME: I’m going crazy! I’ve got too much to do before I leave! I’m going to be here all night!

FRIEND: [says something about wanting to go to the 32nd floor]

ME: why? what’s on the 32nd floor?

FRIEND: you didn’t see the e-mail?

ME: what e-mail?

FRIEND: the one labeled "Film Production"

ME: No – It was clearly not related to the crazy work I’ve been doing, so I ignored it.

FRIEND: [shows me the email]

Contents of said e-mail? A notification that sections of our offices will be unavailable for the next week and a half, while [extremely attractive, academy award-winning, awesomely liberal actor/writer/director (but not a blogger!)] will be filming a movie!

There goes my fantasy that the only thing keeping us apart was that I had no chance of meeting him, ever. No. Apparently it’s my inability to read a friggin’ e-mail.

How’s this for a vacation destination review…

From 1,000 Places to See Before You Die

Palau: One of many island constellations in the Pacific galaxy that is Micronesia, Palau’s 343 islands are surrounded by spellbinding waters that many cognoscenti say offer the best diving in the world. The meeting place of three major ocean currents, these waters support more than 1,500 species of fish and four times the number of coral species found in the Caribbean, and are known for their extraordinary drop-offs and wall diving: the Negemelis Drop-off is widely considered the world’s best, a technicolor reef that begins at 2 feet and plummets vertically to more than 1,000 feet. The legendary Blue Corner is one of the planet’s most exciting sites for the sheer abundance, variety, and size of its fish life – and those schooling gray reef sharks! More than fifty WWII shipwrecks – the remnants of an aircraft carrier attack – rare and exotic marine species, and visibility that can exceed 200 feet add to divers’ wonderment.

And that’s just the beginning. The book recommends two places to stay, and they happen to be the same two places that my brother booked me at. Because he’s awesome (he did spend some time working in the hotel industry before he became a do-gooder, but I sometimes forget that he has this skill).

I’ve already ordered a big-ass strobe light (that better arrive at the shop before I leave) so that I can better capture the color underwater (my photos from Curacao were quite…blue). and I’ve started the list (a necessary obsessive-compulsive tendency that occurs in the weeks leading up to any big trip. I’ve been known to have to turn around halfway to the airport because the tickets were still sitting on my desk. The lists are a must!).

Now I just have to find time to buy some completely unnecessary additional beach clothes and a good, large carry-on bag, and I’ll be set. I think…

I’ve already blocked out the part about having to fly coach for 25 hours in each direction. Really. I’m not thinking about that part at all.

It’s been about a year and a half since my last real vacation (diving in curacao). Sure, I took a few days off last February/March and stopped off to visit my brother in Vail, and I took a week of last July to move, which was technically vacation time (although certainly more stressful than actually being at work), but I haven’t taken a real, honest to goodness, sit on my ass, do a little scuba diving, no cellphone reception vacation in quite some time. Plus, the crazy work related travel that I had to do all last fall completely bit into my normal vacation scheduling (I usually go away in October). Needless to say, I’ve been feeling a bit…not relaxed.

So anyway, even though I’ve got a million different things going on at work, I decided about a week and a half ago to put in for vacation time. I actually had no idea what I was going to do yet, but with more school vacations coming up, plus spring rapidly approaching, I thought it would be good to just reserve some time and come up with a plan later. I’m taking the last week of march and the first week of april off, and after much consideration, and even more e-mails back and forth, I’m actually going to fly 25 hours in each direction to go visit my brother in Palau. Which is about as far away from here as you can actually get without taking a spaceship.

And I’m stuck in coach (nevermind that I have a gazillion miles – Continental has a stranglehold on the micronesia routes, and apparently you can’t upgrade if your life depends on it). This should be fun.

Actually, I’m really looking forward to everything but the flight. I’ve been to Europe a bunch of times (both for fun and for work), but I’ve never been anywhere in Asia or the South Pacific. I’ve already started reorganizing my dive equipment, making lists, and generally hopping around in a giddy mood. I have a giant world map hanging on my office wall, and I spent a good 40 minutes staring at it on Monday – granted one of my bosses was in my office with me, and we were actually having a conversation about the trip, so it wasn’t that weird, but still.

I’m excited. And the tickets are nonrefundable.

Ok. Not so much a week, but more like some random stuff that has gone on since the last time I posted.

I got a really unpleasant bacterial infection and now I’m on Cipro. Yum. You know it’s good when they’re giving you the stuff that they give to Anthrax victims.

In the span of two weeks, they’ve filmed not one, but two John Lennon-related movies on my street. There’s the one that I think is this one, but only because I thought I saw a number of folks lip syncing. They were set up for three days straight, in their hippie-60s gear. Before I started rooting around the internet, I thought it was some weird Hair remake. Then there was the one that Yoko Ono tried to prevent from filming, because, you know, they’re doing a location shoot recreation of her husband’s murder right in front of the apartment where she still lives. Freaks. Plus, Jared Leto is way too cute to have gained a whole bunch of weight to play Chapman. That was yesterday. I suppose this is what I get for living near the Dakota.

Oh, and I have to go to Mexico tomorrow (today?). For work. Just for a few days. I keep telling myself that, and I’ve truly only packed for travel through wednesday, but with the sickness, and the tiredness, and the cipro dizziness, I’m not exactly psyched in any event. Even though it does mean warm weather. Mmmm. Warm weather when I’m taking crazy antibiotics that require me to stay out of the sun. But hey, while I’m gone, my dad’s going to hang the shelves that I finally ordered for above my desk. Thanks Dad!! So that’s exciting.

Looks like I’ll be heading back to London tomorrow…but just for a few days. I’m actually scheduled to fly back to NYC wednesday night, at which point I’m going to take a limo from the airport all the way to Massachusetts. Hopefully I’ll get up there by 3 or so in the morning.

Some people have wondered why I don’t just go up Thursday morning, and I have to point out that my new living situation makes that impossible. Living right next to Central Park is wonderful in many ways. One of the ways it’s not so wonderful is the fact that Thanksgiving morning is going to be a zoo. And I’m pretty sure my street will be closed. For a little thing called the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. If I was staying in the city it would probably be cool, but trying to get to the train station, which requires crossing the parade route, is pretty much a physical impossibility.

Of course, I also envision all of my careful planning being completely thrown off by getting stuck in London for longer than expected…

And as an example of how awful the last two months have been, I totally and completely forgot about the events on my trip home last time until the other associate I flew home reminded me…

We had actually had a pretty uneventful flight – sat in the bulkhead row of the business class section (which did kind of suck – for some reason the seats in the front row don’t recline as much), but otherwise, it was fine. They had re-routed our plane further north because there was some choppy air in the middle of the atlantic, which made us about a half hour late. Not a big deal, and I’d rather sleep for an extra half an hour than wake up halfway through because I’m getting bumped around….

And just so you get the full picture, we were on a 777, and I was in the very middle seat (the business class section is 2-3-2, and I was in the middle of the 3. My co-worker was right next to me on my right). About a half an hour before we land, the stewardess comes over and asks the woman to my left if should would be willing to switch seats for the landing, because there’s an elderly woman who they want to get off the plan as quickly as possible. No problem…

Until they seat the lady next to me, and it turns out she’s suffering from senile dementia or some such thing, and is trying to get off the plane, because "her sister is meeting her at 11, so she needs to get off the plane to meet her". nevermind that we’re still 10,000 feet in the air. She keeps trying to escape from her seat and the stewardesses keep buckling her back in. At this point, I’m trying to ignore what’s going on (because really, what can I do?), by chatting with my co-worker…but apparently, the woman wants me to help her get off the plane, and since I’m not paying attention to her, she starts…hitting me.

repeatedly.

We call for the attendants, but at this point, the plane is in landing mode, so they’re all strapped in…It was all I and the guy across the aisle from the woman could do to keep her in her seat (mostly by talking sternly, but also by keeping her from taking her seatbelt off).

Afterwards, the attendants told us that she should have never been allowed on the plane without at least some sort of family or aide, but that they didn’t know until we were already in the air…

I think the most amazing part is that I forgot about this. Normally, this would the the highlight of a crazy trip. Yeah. I can’t wait to go back.

I’m really, actually, totally home for good this time.

I think.

Back when i left, in September, I was supposed to be gone for two, three weeks tops. Two months later, after putting myself through the wringer physically, we finally signed off.

And this last couple of weeks was certainly the worst. After I wrote last, when I got to come home for a total of 26 hours (including the extra hour I got for daylight savings time), I went back to London. From the time I left until Monday afternoon when we finished, I billed over 150 hours.

In 9 days.

150 hours is around what I normally bill in a not-crazy month.

Except for the night (I think it was Friday) where I was forced to go home and get a full night’s sleep because we were approaching the "final stretch", The most sleep I got in a night was 3 hours. From 5 pm saturday (when I came back from that long sleep) until 4 pm Monday, I worked straight through. This was by far the most grueling thing I’ve ever worked on, and I can’t even give y’all the details, because of that whole confidentiality thing.

And I lied when I said I’m home for good – but if I travel again, it’ll be for something relatively fun like the closing dinner. Which is rumored to be occurring somewhere fairly exotic.

I’m taking the day off to recover, and then I’m actually happy to be going in to the office. my office. With my stuff. and my colleagues.

I’m home again…

Returned to Rome on the redeye monday night, and worked pretty much constantly until this morning. Including pulling an actual all-nighter last night in rome, working straight through until it was time to leave for the airport, where I proceeded to sit down in my seat and pass out, only waking up for the food service and wondering how I could sleep through the plane actually taking off.

Here’s the crazy part though. We’re finally going to London.

Tomorrow.

Everyone in my group came home for the day, and the whole week we were all…"no, no really, we want to go home". Basically we were all so crazy that we felt we needed the mental health break of a day at home. And then on the plane, we were all like, "what the fuck were we thinking?".

At least I don’t have to go back to Rome.

It’s a beautiful city, and I highly recommend spending a week or two there on vacation. Or elsewhere in Italy. but six weeks of poorly air-conditioned conference rooms in an office park halfway to the airport is not visiting rome.

I don’t have to leave until fairly late in the day tomorrow (one of the benefits of London? It’s several hours closer, so the redeye leaves much later in the day). And, I just realized that daylight savings time ends tomorrow, which means that I get an extra hour to my day. And when you’re counting the time at home in terms of hours instead of days, that extra hour is a really great thing.

Anyway, my apologies for not updating more regularly, but I’m obviously distracted. My doorman asked me today why I bought an apartment if I was never going to live there…I told him that wasn’t exactly the plan when I moved in…

I finally got to come home the other day. Got back Wednesday afternoon…

of course, I’m already booked on a plane back to Rome Monday night. So this is more of a reprieve than a pardon. I can’t even begin to describe how much more human I feel though, just being back here. Just getting to see familiar faces. Right after I got home, I ran up to the supermarket to buy some milk, and it made me irrationally happy. And I ran into one of my neighbors (actually, the wife of my lawyer who helped me buy this apartment – they live across the hall), and she and her husband had gotten home on Wednesday after a 3-week trip to…Italy. Of course, they were on vacation, so they had a slightly different experience than I did.

Wednesday night I did make it to Yama for dinner. My stepmother turned it into a giant dinner party, because she had a bunch of friends in from California, and it was pretty fun (even though I was falling asleep at the table). Now, you have to understand that physically, yama is kind of a dive – no decor, in a basement, ridiculously crowded and usually involving a long wait to get a table. So they were all looking at me like, why did you want to come here? And then the sushi showed up. And they understood. When we ordered, we only had 5 people at the table, and only ordered for 5. Then Tano showed up, and there was still enough food left for him to not only eat an entire meal, but there was still sushi left over from that. The place has pretty much ruined me for sushi anywhere else, and even though I don’t live around the corner anymore, I still try to get down there on a regular basis.

But now…I have to go to work.