the odds will betray you...and i will replace you

It's ten p.m., and I'm going to go to bed as soon as I finish this - I managed to only stay at work for twelve hours today, and when I came home, I revolted against my laptop. In fact, I went so far as to leave it in my car, and I spent the last two hours finishing a romance novel that I had been reading on Saturday. Luckily (or unluckily?) for me, I have my personal laptop, so I'm still able to blog and check email without my work laptop, which pretty much defeats the whole purpose of trying to disconnect from the routine.

So now that I'm back in the cold embrace of my job, I find that I'm unable to recapture the magic of yesterday's drive up the coast. You know how I am - I tend to get manically crazy for no apparent reason, typically some unholy combination of stress, exhaustion, satisfaction, and general giddiness about life. Then, my brain overloads from the attempt to be both stressed and happy, and I go off about something random, and stoke the fire of craziness until it burns out, leaving me v. tired. That's pretty much what happened yesterday on a deserted stretch of Highway 101 - just as we had decided that we were going to stop for dinner, we saw a sign that said 'do not pick up hitchhikers - next 9 miles', and the beginning of a strong fence on both sides of the freeway. There was absolutely nothing in sight, other than what looked like some military installations. However, we had agreed before we saw that sign that we would stop at the next exit with a fork/knife sign - which led me to ignore Terry's protestations and pull off in San Ardo. Turns out that San Ardo (named for some unknown saint who is presumably named Ardo) has only 501 people, and the restaurant was closed either because a) it was late, or b) the roof had collapsed. I was entertained, Terry was horrified, and Claude seemed to be enjoying herself - particularly when the next place we stopped turned out to have the 'Wild Horse Cafe', where I got to enjoy chicken fried steak, smothered in gravy, and sweetened by Terry's woeful sighs and the irritation Claude was clearly feeling over hearing the Fox News commentary playing on the tv.

After that, the rest of the ride was pretty boring, but luckily it only took a couple more hours to get home. And, the wedding had been lovely - Lisa and Doug are another great couple in the constellation of great couples whom I know, and their ceremony was outdoors at a gorgeous spa that is apparently one of the best hotels in the United States. Lisa works for a casting agency in LA, and the program was written like the credits for a movie - including an 'In Memoriam: Steve Irwin' line, since Lisa was in love with the now-deceased Crocodile Hunter. Now that I realize how blissful Ojai must be, I may have to go down there for a long weekend and blow an inordinate sum of money forcing myself to relax, since it's readily apparent that I can't relax on my own.

Now it's back to the grind - the amount of work coming my way is truly, staggeringly ridiculous, and would make me want to curl up in a ball and whimper if it wasn't for my masochistic nature and my inability to back down from anything that I view as a challenge. Sadly for me, I just checked my work email (I'm so stupid!), saw an email from my manager that had been forwarded on from the VP, which meant that I had to take care of it immediately...which of course triggered both my flight response and my 'yes, i'm important!' response, which left me confused and twitchy. I might as well stop fighting my destiny and go to business school--but it's so much more fun to experience all this angst about what my 'real', alternative destiny might be. No time to consider tonight, though...it's time for bed!