3 posts tagged “christmas”
So I've been at my new job for almost two months now and I figure it's time to let the internets know how I'm doing. The quick answer is: MUCH BETTER. No, ferreals.
I feel like I work nowhere near as hard, and yet I am paid much better. I have more responsibility, and not that fake empowerment my previous job was so fond of bestowing upon people. They expect me to do the work of one person, and pay me well for it. They have also given me keys to the office, I am sometimes the last or first in there. I could steal computers, prescription pads, money and medical records if I wanted to. I mean, I don't... but I could.
I love working with Casey. We grew up across the street from each other in suburbia and now live about 10 blocks from each other in Brooklyn, and yet we rarely saw one another. Now we work together 4 days a week and I oddly miss her on the fifth. The doctors I work for are good, each has their own style and distinct needs. I feel I'm getting to understand the rhythm of the office and am learning to work around my hatred of phones and my bad hearing.
Things are going well. The little germ incubators (ie: the children who come to the office) have gotten me sick, but other than that, all is well. I love having my weekends again. Two days off in a row without haggling with anyone is an indulgent treat that I'm still not over. I love working in SoHo, though the office is nestled between an H&M and a Banana Republic, with Sephora, Anne Taylor and Uniqlo all within eye-shot so I don't think my credit cards will forgive me. Though the damage is nowhere near as bad as I imagine because I'm still not used to a real paycheck. It's taking me some time to adjust. I do not mean to imply that I am now rolling around in money, as I am not, I am just so unused to a full time job at a respectable wage that I am a bit in shock. I haven't been a part of the white-collar world in such a long time.
In other news, I'm half done with my Christmas shopping. I'm really just stuck on the in-laws. Speaking of which, Todd's mother will be spending Christmas with us. I'm excited and stressed at the same time. What has been good enough for my friends to sleep on suddenly seems woefully inadequate for a sweet special-ed teacher from Kentucky. I like to think I keep a tidy house, but now I'm concerned about dust and cat hair (two things I often overlook when it's just Todd and I). And her visit is so short, I worry about how we'll fit the tourist-y things in, as I'm sure her first time in NYC on the holidays she'll expect to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, even if she doesn't say as much. I mean... What else is Christmas in NYC?
Oh, before I forget or don't talk to you personally... Happy Thanksgiving, yo.
I've been searching for the words to describe my Christmas. I seem to falter whenever a friend asks me how it was. I wait just one moment too long before mumbling out the expected, 'Yes it was very nice'. It wasn't that my holiday wasn't nice. That's not it. I just have trouble processing Christmas, I guess.
Maybe it has something to do with Todd and I exchaging gifts a bit before-hand. Perhaps it was the crowded train and arms full of packages we had to contend with on the ways to and from home. Or maybe it's just watching my family dwindle in numbers and age more rapidly than ever during this what used to be the most chaotic and attended event of the year. Hell, maybe I should just blame it on the lack of sunlight. I dunno.
I got some lovely gifts:
- Betty, my new ipod.
- earings- to replace the pair I'd gotten for my 30 birthday and had since lost one.
- a lovely roasting pan
- a big fat check.
- a buttload of Lush bathbombs and bubblebaths...
- photo frames.
- a scrap-book made by my aunt of my wedding.
- a couple books
- Strangers with Candy- the movie DVD
- the Brooklyn Bridge
Suffice to say that the bridge is over 2 feet of ceramic and was bought with the most sentimental of intentions by some near and dear family (who thankfully do not read this journal).... It's just so... big.
I even had to leave it at my Mom's when I came home late on Christmas eve. Todd and I ran out of arms after loading up on the smaller and more portable gifts.... Yet the bridge stayed with me in spirit, weighing me down. The entire train ride home I'd mutter every 15 minutes or so... "The Brooklyn fuckin' Bridge!" because it summed up my exasperation.
I have thought of ebaying the bridge, though I suspect that should the family come visit (as they have done a few times) they'd expect to see it proudly displayed somewhere (where? fuck knows!). Amusingly the party responsible for the bridge had gotten a hideous artsy brass doorknocker in the shape of a seahorse from 'the crazy aunt' (not me, i'm the new generation's crazy aunt, not the old one) for christmas, which they politely accepted and then scratched their head in confusion once the aunt had left. Why had they gotten a seahorse doorknocker? What kinda crazy was that? I'll tell you what kinda crazy.. Portable crazy. Crazy that doesn't take up it's own seat on the train. Crazy that doesn't need an extension built onto the house/apt.
So to sum up my holiday, quiet, and lovely...
And the Brooklyn fuckin' Bridge.
Thanksgiving was fine, thanks. Mostly uneventful, mostly seat-free travel, but quality family time none-the-less. And that is what counts, no?
I'm trying to plan a party for mid-December. I think it'd be nice to see folks. I've even begun to decorate for Christmas already. I have to admit, I kinda hate the holidays, but something about me loves to put up shiny things around the house for a season. Cookies and shiny things... that's the way to celebrate.
I put the Christmas tree above the tv on the entertainment center because it was the best use of dead space I could think of. Anywhere else I could have put it would have required me to walk around it for a month... Bah and humbug I say to that. Also, this will keep it well out the reachy little paws of my beloved smittens.
Life is otherwise quiet right about now. I have endless shopping I have to do and somehow I keep buying things but checking nothing off my list. I obviously lack discipline.
