bailamos

I'm suddenly on the verge of falling asleep on my laptop (some exciting Friday, right?) and so this will be v. brief. Today was the de facto celebration of Halloween at my office; it's hard to believe that this is my seventh Halloween experience with my illustrious employer, and it did not disappoint. It perhaps wasn't as over the top as in years past -- but I also had a meeting with the big boss at the height of the festivities downstairs, so perhaps I missed the juicy stuff. I did see our department's costume contest, however, and was v. impressed by many of the costumes (including Balloon Boy, Octomom, Lady GaGa, Anna Wintour, the dude from "I'm On a Boat" -- which was highly inappropriate given that the dude was wearing a suit jacket and very small black shorts, and a loofah). For my costume, I focused on three things: 1) snarkiness, 2) satisfaction, and 3) comfort.

The result? I went as a death panel. While sarcastic joke costumes usually require an explanation to everyone you run into, which is a little frustrating, it seemed to get good reviews -- I wore scrubs, but the most important element was that I custom-ordered a big red stamp that stamped "DEATH" on the fake forms that I made regarding patient diagnoses and cost to treat. The stamp was insanely gratifying, since you slam it onto a piece of paper and it then reinks itself; it's supposedly good for a couple thousand uses. If only we used more paper in my office so that I could stamp reports and things; the only things I regularly print out are my agendas for the big boss (not a good target for the death stamp) and my employees' performance reviews (also not a good target, although the HR people who saw my costume were among the least offended by it, which was nice).

Anyway, today was fine; I sort of got thrown for a loop at the end of the day regarding some thinking that I need to do (why do I always have to be doing some thinking?), but the various outcomes of the loop are mostly positive, so I'm waiting to get more clarity on things. When I got home, Adit and Priyanka were putting the finishing touches on their Halloween costumes, which took them almost three hours before they rushed out the door to have dinner. I parked myself on the couch (after washing my sheets and duvet cover) and thought about writing, but instead procrastinated by signing up for NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month). My first book actually got its vague start during NaNoWriMo in 2004; I"m hoping that signing up for 2009 will be the spur that I need to force myself through the rest of the first draft. And now, the bed beckons -- goodnight!