Calgon, Take Me Away!

While I don’t have a bunch of wretched kids tearing open feather pillows, I DO need some effing Calgon!

It’s a fact of life, well MY life, that project deadlines = late nights and working weekends. That’s just how the proverbial cookie crumbles. And I don’t mind this too much. Really. But, as any of my co-workers (or anyone who has been through the hell that is architecture school) can heartily attest, once you are in this Deadline Zone, little else exists outside of the zone. That includes laundry, dishes, social events, eating regular meals, exercise, pretty much any thought or action not involving the project…basically, the rest of your life is put on hold until the deadline passes. I’m not saying this is a healthy attitude towards work, I’m just saying that’s how it is.

I am currently in the midst of one of these Deadline Zones. Joy.

My birthday is tomorrow. Normally, this fact would not amount to a hill of beans and would have little to no impact on my stress level or my ability to remain in the zone. However, four weeks ago in a momentary loss of sanity I concluded it would be a great idea to throw a party Friday night.

How I came to this conclusion I have no idea. I imagine I was thinking it would be a good opportunity to kill a few birds with one stone. Ya know, let people check out the new place, meet Daniel, and have birthday cake all in one fell swoop. A sound theory. But the fact remains that this Friday night the new place I moved into about a month ago is suddenly going to be infested with various friends and acquaintances. Even under ideal circumstances, circumstances which I am not currently under, it takes me more than 4 or 5 weeks to settle into a new place and get it arranged to my particular likings, as I tend to be a tad particular.

So, in addition to being in the Deadline Zone and working like a machine to meet our Friday project due date, I have also been frantically trying to clean, arrange, organize and shop for my party which is taking place Friday night whether I will it or not.

Last night I had my first tennis match of the Spring season and I sucked. I sucked like a Hoover. An industrial Hoover. The suckage was probably partly due to being in the Deadline Zone and not being able to fully extricate myself in order to concentrate on my game. The suckage was also probably – likely – okay, definitely due to being a slug all winter where the most activity I participated in was sitting my lazy butt on the couch, watching LOST and lifting cookies to my maw.

Tomorrow night Daniel and I are going to the opera (Il Trovatore) to celebrate my birthday and I’ll need to claw my way out of the zone in order to fully enjoy it. And trust me, I WILL enjoy my birthday opera, dammit!

Oh, and did I mention that Saturday (the day after my deadline and party), my grandparents will be visiting overnight on their way back home from Florida? This is where the Calgon comes in. Or, alternatively, vodka.