I’ll be back on the 15th. Later.

So it’s been 20 days since my last post, huh? That’s almost three weeks. That’s bad. In that time, nothing major has happened, though. No worries. I’ve been working and spending the weekends away visiting a friend and doing some rock climbing. I had some posts planned for that time - there are drafts in existence. But they were long and rambling and sort of, well, non-bloggy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about lots of things. Things like, “What’s next?” Is it time for me to go back to school for a graduate degree? Probably yes. What degree? A masters in marketing is sounding good - not an MBA because I want to remain fairly hands on; I don’t need to be an executive. Other things like personal development - I’d like to start writing again. Maybe get back into writing poetry and submit something for publication. That would be a change. I usually do these things in a bubble; I think it might be time to put myself out there a little.

Christmas is essentially tomorrow for me. Our family celebrates on Christmas Eve. I took care of all my shopping at home this year. It’s nice. Last night was our company Christmas party and I won a raffle; it was my first time ever winning something. So that was nice.

And WordPress has updated to a new version so this is also interesting and exciting. I’m going to need some time to get used to this new layout and dashboard interface (on this end - the end you can’t see). Anyway - yeah. There’s been some crazy snow up in these parts of NJ and the next few days are going to be balmy and rainy (40 degrees or so), which is a marked improvement from the last three four or five days (15 degrees every morning).

Oh. And here’s a picture from the intense crazy rock gym in Philadelphia where I’ve been climbing the last six weekends:

Today isn’t Friday? Really? Because this week needed to be over so many hours ago.

Instead, I just got home from work a few minutes ago after a longish day full of meetings and presentations, and after a 17-hour work day yesterday. I basically passed out when I got home last night and then had a nightmare about my eyeballs hemorrhaging and my skin cracking and flaking off (looking like a dried seabed or desert) while passing the microphone to my boss (during my presentation). Thankfully, this did not happen, so I can consider my presentation a success on that point; no bleeding eyeballs? Well done.

(Also, I can account for one part of the dream from things I’ve seen lately - but not the other.)

And I’ve developed some pretty severe abdominal pains in the last 20 minutes; I wonder if my tempura lunch is suddenly disagreeing with me. I ate seven hours ago, so it doesn’t seem totally likely.

Ah, well. I’m going to try to take a bit of a nap - but then I need to spend the rest of the night cleaning before the tax assessor comes to the house to assess.

It’s been a bit nuts lately. Busy. Not necessarily in a bad way, but busy nonetheless. And tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I took the day off today to start on my preparations.

Thanksgiving is “my” holiday in that I do the menu planning and implementation. Because I’m good at it. If I get any help from the rest of my family, that’s delightful - but I don’t count on it because it leads to disappointment.

Anyway - it’s almost 9pm and I’ve been doing nothing for the last hour or two… which is fine. I’m going to go rock-climbing for about an hour and a half (proactive exercise before tomorrow’s gluttony) and perhaps bake a berry crisp/crumble when I get home since those are quick.

Today, however, I made the brine and started brining the turkey, I baked a caramel pecan pie, I prepared beets according to a recipe in the Bon Appetit cookbook, sweet potatoes a la Mark Bittman’s recipes in the NYTimes, and brussels sprouts by marrying a recipe I saw on TV with one I found in another cookbook (involves cream, lemon, pecans and tastiness). Tomorrow will be reserved for stuffing, biscuits, cranberry sauce and other things that are best made right beforehand.

I’m tired. I am. But it’s an OK kind of tired because I can see the fruits of my labor sitting in the fridge, wrapped neatly in tin foil… and tomorrow, I’ll get to enjoy them all.

There were flurries this morning. It was 23 degrees Fahrenheit last night. The high today was in the mid-30’s. Winter is here and I’m not quite ready - but I’ll be readier when my new winter coat arrives on Saturday. I have been checking the FedEx tracking just to be sure. It’s not like the status is going to change before tomorrow night, but I find it reassuring to look and see that, yes, it’s been shipped and, yes, the scheduled delivery is for Saturday morning. That means warmth.

In other news, I had a very successful rock-climbing night last night, and I was pleased. I conquered one climb that had gone unfinished several times last week - and I nailed it cleanly on the first try, and as my second climb after my warm-up. It felt really good and put me in a positive frame of mind for doing some more difficult ones afterward. I was afraid I’d wake up all kinds of sore this morning, but I didn’t. Which is both good, surprising, and bad. Good because I’m not sore. Surprising because I really sort of should be, especially in my shoulders and inner thighs. Bad because it means that I could wake up with The Soreness tomorrow. Oh, well.

The game plan is to go climbing for a few hours after work tomorrow and then head into the Village to see “Let the Right One In” at the Angelika. It’s been a movie-filled time; I saw “W” and “Quantum of Solace” last weekend. Both were OK, but not stellar. Judging by what I’ve read about “Let the Right One In”, it should be pretty good. I’m excited for it; the rest of the vampire-movie-loving people in the world will be heading out to see “Twilight” (what I am going to refer to as the “Chastely Lustful Sparkly Vampire Teens” movie).

Now I must set about important business… selecting some haircut photos from a hairstyles magazine to bring to the salon on Saturday morning. I get antsy about my hair almost every month. Usually, I can stave off the desire to chop or dye it, and I make it a few more months. This time, however, I am using my friend as an excuse. Her belated birthday gift from me is a haircut, so I figured I’d make an appointment around the same time so we can go together and BOTH get haircuts. Besides, the dry winter air wreaks havoc upon hair so trimming off some ends and changing the style is really a… ummm…. health issue. Yeah. That’s it. HEALTH.

This is a grocery store in southern NJ - Bridgeton, NJ, to be exact.

I don’t think I’m ready for winter yet. Part of it is that I need a WINTER coat - not the wool and angora blend fall coat that I currently have. But a new winter coat represents yet another expense that I can’t think about right now.

New tires will be needed before the snows come (since they might this winter) and that’s a nice chunk of change since I traded up for the 16″ tires/wheels (on the touring edition of my car) instead of the standard (read: cheaper) 15″.

Also, I shouldn’t need to layer on three blankets to feel warm enough — with the heat on. I think that’s my own problem. Temperatures that feel warm to normal people still feel quite chilly to me. I used to think it was because my circulation was poor because I didn’t get enough exercise; that excuse, however, is no longer valid. I’m getting a solid amount of exercise, so why am I still cold all the time? My friend suggested (all too kindly) that it might be the decrease in body fat; seriously, that’s nice for him to suggest, but couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anyway, tonight I am cold and tired and trying very much to keep my game face on for yet another day. Having distractions these last two nights (that distraction being climbing in both cases) is the only thing that’s kept me from spending the evenings sitting around crying and feeling like a sorry-ass-piece-of-shit. Instead, I have exciting new bits of torn skin, bruises and soreness in my arms.

The pain reminds us we’re alive, yes?