Yes. I’m still alive and well. But quite sleepy.

I’ve been missing because last week was a crap week. I worked entirely too much and too hard. Some days, I even forgot to eat lunch!

It was a week of being tired and cranky. Of being nervous and on edge. Of wanting to eat nothing but cheese. It was the sort of week that would proceed my having a dentist appointment at 8:30 on Saturday morning. The only thing worse than getting a tooth filled is getting a tooth filled while hungover.

And then I meant to catch up with blogland over the weekend, but we got Guitar Hero for Wii and all other plans went out the window.

So here is my attempt to catch you up on important events:

1. Drunk + microwave popcorn = smoky burnt mess.
On Friday, I was so happy that my crap week was over that I went straight from work to the bar. Luckily, some friends met up with me there. But if they hadn’t, I probably would’ve just hung out there by myself.

At the end of the night, I went home and was starving. I went to the kitchen and made a bunch of noise, slamming cupboard doors shut and shifting dirty dishes around in the sink. Eventually, I found a box of microwave popcorn and decided this would be a good treat. So I took the plastic wrap off one of the bags, read the directions – 2 mins, 30 seconds – and tossed the packet into the microwave.

It seemed like about 10 seconds went by before the horrible smell of burnt popcorn filled the air and the bag had a little black spot on it. Out of curiosity and the hope that I could save a few good kernels, I opened the bag and dumped it into a big bowl, only to discover that about 60% of the popcorn had molded together into an awful brown and black mass.

There’s no point to this story, other than it reminded me of freshman year of college, when everyone had a microwave in their dorm room and popcorn was a favorite late night snack. And the frequent incidence of burnt microwave popcorn became such a nuisance that our floor had to have a meeting in the lounge about it. We all had to swear that we’d be careful when we drunkenly made popcorn, lest we accidently burn the building down or condemn our floormates to the stink of burntness for another day.

2. Books
I have to tell you that, despite my bi-monthly attempts at personal betterment, I don’t read books. I like the idea of reading books, I really do. But TV is so much easier.

My last job was in creative development for a production company. This involved reading lots and lots of books and scripts. I probably read about 80 books over 18 months. Since that job, I’ve read about 3.

Last month, when Devin and I flew back east for a wedding, I brought a book with me. Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs. I was done with it by the time we boarded out return flight. Turns out, reading is the only thing that keeps me occupied on a plane.

After that trip, I was again inspired to read more. So I went over to the bookshelf in our apartment and scanned all of Devin’s books. There were a few by Chuck Palahniuk, but he scares me. And a few by Charles Bukowski, who I like a lot conceptually, but his writing doesn’t really do it for me. And then I found The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime. I remembered this book from my last job, when there was a lot of fuss about it. Apparently it’s written as though from the perspective of an autistic teenager and this makes it amazing (if a bit gimmicky).

So I’ve been reading this book now for like 2 weeks. I’m about 90 pages in because I fall asleep every time I get through 2 pages at once.

TV wins!

3. The Big One
Two Thursdays ago, Southern California had a big earthquake drill. At 10 am, everyone was supposed to pretend there was an earthquake and figure out what to do with themselves. Our office didn’t participate in this, as most of us roll into work at about that time so it wasn’t entirely convenient. But at our next meeting, one of my coworkers brought up that we should still probably take the time to have a drill because “The Big One is definitely coming.”

After the meeting, he chatted with me more about The Big One and how big earthquakes come every 150 years and we’re long overdue. And how it will last for over 90 seconds, compared to the 10 seconds of the last one we experienced. And how the brick wall next to my desk will crumble down and how the big window over my head will shatter and how I’m in the worst place in the whole building, but lucky for him he’ll be safe. My other coworker who sits with me in the death trap didn’t like the sound of this either and later, with much giggling and silliness, we worked out our evacuation plan.

Ever since that day, I’ve been really preoccupied with The Big One. Every time I am in a new environment I think about where I’m going to duck for cover if The Big One strikes right at that moment. I now know where I’ll hide if I’m at work (the doorway by the bathroom, or outside if I can make it), at home (run outside, it’s not that far), on the street in front of our building while walking Seamus (hold onto a stop sign pole and watch for falling palm fronds), at the bar we went to Friday night (duck under table), at the bagel place (again, table). And so on and so forth. As you can see, I’m extremely prepared and partially insane.