crowd control

One of the things that gets on my nerves after too much time in NYC is the crowds.  Specifically, however, the crowds of tourists.  Sorry, friends from out of state, but it's true.  New Yorkers have considered passing minimum walking speeds on the NYC sidewalks (3 mph, to be specific), and creating, in Midtown, a New Yorker-only designated passing lane.  I have a friend who puts her shoulders in what she calls "football position" to walk home through Rockefeller Center.  And for god's sake, if you want to stare at the top of a building with your mouth hanging open, do it from the edge of the sidewalk, not dead-center.

Yesterday, my mom wanted to go to that icon of consumerist NYC Christmas:  MACY'S.

tackle a nagging task

In some ways, the most interesting thing about the past year without working has been my ability to organize myself.  In The Happiness Project, Rubin learns that one way to free up energy is to tackle a nagging task.  You know the ones -- they are the tasks that you don't want to do, so you put off.  Or maybe you don't particularly mind the task, but preparing to do the them involves doing something you find annoying or boring.  For example, I don't mind going to the dentist, but I hate the phone, so I put off making the appointment.  It's not just chores that are like this, though, but also emotional tasks. 

whack-a-mole

Sometimes, I feel like my life is one long game of whack-a-mole.  Like at the arcade.  We get one problem solved over here, and a new one crops up over there.

We were steadily trucking along toward getting the basement finished.  The carpeting was installed about eleven days ago, and the doors we ordered from Home Depot came in.  Kathy and I went out in the City on Saturday night for our Christmas Date (the night of Santa Con, which was amusing), and then we got up and threw a load of laundry in on Sunday morning, before heading out to breakfast at the local diner.

When we came home, we discovered that our washing machine had broken, and FLOODED OUR FREAKING BASEMENT.  I wish I were making this up, but I'm not.  Our brand new, 10 day old carpet was soaking wet.

chore-flow

Yesterday, we had a new after school babysitter start.  Our nanny of three years is moving on, so we had to find someone new, and took the opportunity to change the full-time nanny gig, which we no longer need, into an after school babysitting gig.  It doesn't sound like much, but having someone new in your house five hours a day, three days a week requires some major adjustment.

I am a very particular and quirky person.  One of my quirks is that, no matter what I'm doing, I like to do it without input or suggestions, unless I ask for them.  I want to figure it out myself.  I get a lot of pleasure out of messing with something for a while and then figuring it out.  But mostly, I just don't like being interrupted.


Even with the most mundane of chores, I can work for hours without getting bored or tired, as long as I don't get interrupted.  Sometimes I'll put music on, sometimes I'll work in silence, but I like to do what I'm doing.  I call this chore-flow.  Our nanny had figured this out, through my blatant displays of irritation.  If she asked me a question when I was mowing the lawn and I had to shut off the lawnmower to answer, I would do it, but it was pretty obvious I didn't like it.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve a bit.

christmas eve

I'm not much of a Christian.  I think there are certain prerequisites to being a Christian, one of which is believing in God.  Nonetheless, I am a Christmas lover.  I love all of it.  The evergreens, the fact that pretty much every commercial on TV is about buying for someone else (even car ads, which, come on, do people really buy cars as gifts?), that people listen to music recorded in the 40s, etc. 

It has taken me a while to land where I have with Christmas.  I have always loved it, but I used to be a lot more militant about making sure my Christmas celebration was strictly secular.  I consciously wrote "xmas."  I worked the Christmas Eve shift at the mall so I couldn't get to my parents' house in time for church.  I ignored nativity scenes, and eschewed "Silent Night" in favor of "Deck the Halls" or "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer."