Tuesday, September 23, 2008

wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face

Today was a much better day. Like any true addict, I gave into the temptation to self-medicate by throwing myself into work rather than thinking about my personal issues, and it worked like a charm. And, best of all, working too much will just get me promoted, unlike drinking too much, which will just get me cirrhosis.

I had an all-day training in the San Francisco office today, and I'm kinda sad now that I know what my commute would be like if I worked there instead of in Mountain View. I hopped on the bus outside my apartment, rode for ~10 minutes, and then had a leisurely ten minute walk to the office. So, it's not fast, but it's not as nightmarish as, say, Friday afternoons on the 101. And it's totally made up for by the fact that the SF office is gorgeous -- the cafe looks out over the bay and the office is right on the water. They even added a slide from floor 3 to floor 2 since the last time I was there -- I went down it, was surprised at how fast it was, and ended up giving myself a nasty friction burn on my left ankle, which hurts like hell, so maybe I should think about growing up and not sliding at any given opportunity.

After training, a bunch of us went for a drink at one of the bars overlooking the water. The weather was absolutely perfect, and drinking a glass of wine on the terrace felt v. civilized. I caught up with some managers whom I don't get to see very often, which was awesome. Also, the sun must have been doing strange things to my eyes; while I rarely see it myself, if I'm standing in sunlight, my eyes apparently turn a freaky, luminous shade of grass green, and based on the comments I got as I was leaving, they were lit up tonight. Too bad flourescent lights don't have the same effect!

Fueled by a single glass of wine (which is enough to make me eager/talkative without putting me to sleep), I went to Sephora downtown, where I spent an obscene amount of money on makeup and skincare products. Aunt Becky's gift card was an excuse to go in, but since I hadn't been in a long time and was out of face wash, foundation, mascara, moisturizer, and my dry shampoo, I already had some substantial purchases to make. So, between the necessities and the frivolous lipgloss expenditures, I'm sure they were v. happy to see me -- and I got bath bubbles as my Sephora birthday gift since I came in within two weeks of my birthday, which was nice. And I loved the girl who helped me to pick out a foundation; she was just completely over-the-top in her praise and told me several times that I was beautiful, which may not have been accurate but was at least a good selling technique.

On the way home, I chatted with a nice guy on the bus; normally I glare at or ignore people on public transportation, but again, the wine made me chatty, and we struck up a conversation when I asked him whether an alternative bus went to the stop I wanted to go to. He encouraged me to check out the gallery that he works for, and I might, but he's in for a disappointment if he thinks that my large Sephora bag and my place of employment put me in the market for overpriced art.

I worked for the past hour or so, and also ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while IM'ing with Heather (aka dear respected madam). I don't intend to fall back into my old bad work habits, but I have a project due next week with an interim deadline of tomorrow morning, and there were a couple of things that I absolutely had to get done. But now I need to focus on burning through the annoyances on my to-do list so that I can pare down and avoid the overworked trap that I fell into before. Whether I succeed remains to be seen -- but since I have to be down in Mountain View by eight a.m. tomorrow, I should go to bed!

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