When I have a ton of work to get done, this is the only way it can happen:

(1) Block time off on my calendar for each thing I need to get done.

(2) Take my ADHD meds.

(3) Eat enough food so that I won't have to stop to eat later.

(4) Go to the bathroom so that I won't have to stop to go go to the bathroom later.

(5) Get my computer ready to go, with both big monitors on, iTunes on the "concentrate" playlist, and all relevant emails and documents open.

(6) Waste a little bit of time surfing the Internet, until I realize that I've already started using my blocked off time (see point (1)), and panic.

(7) Grab my dog and pull him onto my lap.

(8) Work.

I'm on (6) right now.

A few years ago, I was living in Europe, and my upcoming plans consisted of weekend trips to random cities in random countries, with dive trips and safaris planned on short notice. I live a more settled life now, not necessarily by choice, and my plans are less exotic and not as spur of the moment. 

At least I still have plans, though. If the day ever comes when I have no plans to go somewhere else and do something outside of my normal routine, I will be very sad.

Current plans:

This weekend: flying out to New York and driving upstate for a wedding

November: go dog-sit for my cousin (I know, this doesn't sound like much of a plan, but between my cousin's two large dogs, my small dog, Superman's large dog, me, and Superman in one house, it still counts as a departure from the ordinary)

December: a weekend in Monterey with the fam to celebrate an early Christmas; a trip out to Chicago for Kanga's shower, New Year's Eve, and a dinner at Alinea

February-ish: a Big Trip somewhere with Superman (and perhaps Kanga and Roo or other friends if they're able to get away) -- we're torn between diving in some tropical paradise (Fiji or Rangiroa are possibilities) or going on safari somewhere in Africa (Namibia, perhaps)

April: My college roommate comes for a five day visit (without her kids, much to the relief of Superman and me, who are both bad with kids who aren't related to us -- this is exciting, as I won't have seen her for five years, since before she had aforementioned children, and we have a lot of catching up to do); Kanga and Roo's first wedding in Chicago

May: Kanga and Roo's second wedding in Z-town

Yes, I know that most of the plans aren't to distant and exotic lands, but I'm just hanging on to the fact that I haven't given up and settled down too much yet. I still have plans.

One year, 81 books (deadline is in a day and a half, and my next book is 900 pages long, and just isn't going to happen by then). Not a calendar year, but a year since getting a Kindle, but since I'm thinking about it, maybe I'll do a quick check-in on this year's resolutions to see how I'm doing, while there's still some time to catch up on any that I might be slacking on.

My resolutions for 2010, with commentary:

1. Calm down. I'm not sure how to score this one, really. I think I'm by nature a rather anxious person and prone to worry, if not outwardly, then inside my head. My approach to life might seem pretty calm, compared to my peers, but inside my head, I am constantly plagued by ghosts and demons of my own creation, and driven to do things for unknown reasons. On my reading mission, for example, I set myself a leisurely target of 40 books in a year, but once I exceeded that, I started setting higher and higher targets, to the point that I sometimes actually got a little bit worried that I might not "finish." Finish what? I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't have picked "calm down" as a resolution, because although I handle things that normal people stress out about pretty well (paying bills, getting work done, etc.), I really excel at finding my own things to worry about. Q3 evaluation: Needs improvement.
2. Figure out what to do with my money other than spend it or let it pile up in a bank account. I have continued leaving most of my money in the bank. I have continued spending it whenever I feel like it. I am slowly accumulating stock and options, but that doesn't really count in my favor, since I get them automatically for work. On the other hand, I still max out my retirement contribution, and have reallocated it to a somewhat more aggressive portfolio (although it's still on the conservative side for someone my age -- I am boring myself to tears just typing this). My biggest change on this front was to write a very large check and send it to 2FX's most recent business venture. If it turns out well, I'll call it an investment. If it turns out poorly, I'll pretend it never happened. Q3 evaluation: Has shown some progress, but still needs improvement.
3. Read at least 40 books. As mentioned, I've consumed 81 books since getting a Kindle. Even if you take out the twelve that were in 2009, and the twelve that I listened to in the car, that's still 57 books in 2010 so far, which means that my 2010 total has a chance of hitting 70 (excluding audiobooks). Q3 evaluation: Exceeds expectations.
4. Get really good at my job. On one hand, my manager said that I've exceeded expectations for the last three quarters, and he is putting my name in the running for a promotion this cycle, but on the other hand, I probably won't get it this cycle, because there are other, more senior, more capable people who are ahead of me in that line. So I think I'm doing pretty well, but still have much to learn. I've pulled off some pretty big deals and some heavy-duty drafting, but there's a chance I might have to go to Germany to negotiate a very big deal while stranded nine timezones ahead of all of the people I usually turn to for real-time help, and the fact that I find this possibility extremely daunting means that I'm not good enough for me to consider myself really good just yet. Q3 evaluation: Has shown improvement; meets expectations.

As more of my friends go further down the path of putting down roots, I get more and more anxious that I might stumble and become rooted myself. If only I could grow some wings and just borrow other people's roots from time to time...

So my first year with a Kindle is drawing to a close, and the mad reading frenzy of the past few weeks (I read 6.5 books during our week in Hawaii) has brought me up to 69 books completed (I have three other books in progress now, and have a secret wish to hit 75 by the time October 6th rolls around).

Out of the 69 books I've read and the three that I'm currently reading, here are the ones I've liked best so far, in case you're looking for something to read. Some of them I liked because they were really well written. Some of them were just exactly what I was in the mood for at the time. Some of them just had really interesting ideas or imagery:

• Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel (author of the Life of Pi; this book takes on the Holocaust in an unusual manner)
• My Life in France - Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme (post-WWII cooking in France)
• The Missing - Tim Gautreaux (post-WWI angst in the bayou)
• The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (part of my children's book kick)
• Not Quite What I Was Planning - Larry Smith (six word memoirs)
• The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch (love and cancer, written by the author about himself)
• A Happy Marriage: A Novel - Rafael Yglesias (love and cancer, written by the author about his wife)
• Shantaram: A Novel - Gregory David Roberts (a bit prose-y, but really evocatively written book about India)
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson (interesting portrayal of class, race, family, and British society)
• The Help - Kathryn Stockett (interesting portrayal of class, race, family, and Southern society)
• The Aleph and Other Stories - Jorge Luis Borges (his stories inspired some of the reality-bending labyrinthine ideas of Inception)
• The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (drama in Spain that revolves around books)
• If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino (in progress; post-modern book that revolves around books)

I spent the weekend in Vegas for a bachelorette party.

The great things about the weekend were:

1. It was a true girls' weekend, I got to see one of my favorite friends (I'm one of her bridesmaids), and her other friends were a lot of fun.
2. It was blazingly hot and blindingly sunny the whole time, which sounds bad, but we've had a relatively cool summer in California this year, so it was good to have a couple days of intense summer.
3. My boyfriend took me to the airport (at 6:15 a.m.!!), picked me up right as I walked out, and made pizza for me when we got home, and I realized even more than usual how great he is, especially in contrast to the creepy scumbags who populate Las Vegas.

Besides those things, however, there was just something about Vegas that left me feeling melancholy.

As far as I can tell, it boils down to the fact that there is just a pervasive air of desperation. The gamblers are desperate to make up their losses. The men are desperate to get laid. The women are desperate to seem young and pretty enough to still attract the attention of the men who want to get laid. The married people are desperate to relive their exciting, single days. The singles are desperate to end their single days but appear to be enjoying them while they last. The go-go dancers, the strippers, the bartenders, the cab drivers -- they have done everything a million times, and they try so hard to make a few extra dollars here or there by feigning interest in the outsiders, who try so hard to experience it all. Everyone not actually selling something is just so determined that they have to Have Fun and Do Things That Are Worthy of Being Kept Secret Afterwards.

Every transaction is an illusion: a cover charge to get into a nightclub that promises fun and dancing, but is really just a venue for sweaty, desperate men to hit on chubby women who are determined to be attractive enough to be given the chance to be promiscuous; $20 for a lap dance from a perfect god or goddess, but it's really just a way for lonely people to buy three minutes of attention from people who would never look at them twice in real life (partly because the discrepancy is so huge, and partly because a fair amount of people in the exotic dance/escort/prostitution industry are not straight); every dollar is spent in an attempt to buy the life that the Vegas visitors wish they had. It's both funny and sad.

I came away feeling glad that I got to see my friends and be a little bit silly and relieved that my life doesn't seem to be filled with poorly aged desperation. Yet. 

Reason #314 I am a bad daughter/Reason #145 why it's a bad idea to have children: when my mom sends an email saying, "I tentatively made Dec reservation. We shall spend Xmas together," I have to repress a feeling of dread and wish I had either figured out how to change my identity or already made non-refundable plans to be somewhere else at the time. She was a weeping, guilt-tripping lunatic last year until her Christmas present arrived in the mail. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Yes, I'm an ungrateful and terrible daughter, but she should know this by now and accept that my sister, her husband, and their three kids are the "good ones."

Three things that are causing this deep resentment: (1) work is never predictable for a lawyer, and it is sometimes worst at the end of the year, and when I do have time off, I just don't want to spend it dealing with my passive-aggressive mom, (2) I have limited vacation days and time off, and I would really rather see her the other times she's here (she is out here a lot) than kill what holiday time is built into my work calendar, and (3) I really don't understand her insistence on spending a Christian Western holiday together when we aren't Christian and she has spent the last 32 years telling me that we aren't Western.

What is even more painful is that the way our holidays fall this year, assuming that I don't have to work during the time, we have the 24th, 27th, 30th, 31st, and 3rd off. It's a little bit of a Christmas miracle, even to a non-Christian like me -- that means we can have eleven days off in a row by just taking two vacation days. Of course, this is all contingent on not having to do work, but that's pretty much the best vacation time-to-time off ratio you'll ever get. I wince just thinking about throwing that away on lame photo sessions and awkward conversations. Maybe if I had one of those happy, approving mothers, or if I were one of those good, well-behaved daughters, I would enjoy the prospect, but it's hard to get psyched up to spend time with someone who is always dissatisfied that my life doesn't fit her agenda. I would almost rather have work be busy, and spend the time pleasing clients who will then tell me that I'm a superstar, than have the time off and spend it parrying criticisms from my mom. Yes, I dread and resent it that much.

Never have children, or if you do, never have children like me, because they will turn you into a needy black hole of guilt trips and you'll get nothing but grudging company in return.

My sister gave me a Kindle last year on October 6th, just in time for a trip that Superman and I took to Hawaii. My reading habit, which is usually limited by my willingness to go buy or borrow books, or to order books and wait for them to arrive, was greatly facilitated by the easy, instant ordering made available through Kindle, and I eventually was reading enough that I decided I would try to read at least 40 books a year (the year is probably meant to be the year 2010, as opposed to a year beginning on October 6, 2009, but it doesn't make a difference, as I've read 24 Kindle books (which means, incidentally, that the environmental impact of my Kindle versus paper books has been evened out) plus another 23 paper or audio books (almost all from the library), for a total of 47 books in 2010 so far. Add in the Kindle books from last year, and I've consumed 59 books in various forms since getting the Kindle less than eleven months ago. (Can I hit 65 or 70 by its one-year birthday six weeks from now?? It's quite possible, given the fact that we're going back to Hawaii next week.) I've always been an avid reader, but I haven't found time to do so much pleasure reading over such an extended period of time since I was in school.

There are several interesting effects of having instant access to books, plus having a resolution to read as much as possible:

1. I no longer get super-picky about what to read next. Usually, if I'm only reading a book every month or so, I feel a lot of pressure to pick the perfect book every time. Now that I'm reading a ton, it doesn't matter if every book is Meaningful or Important or The Great American Novel, because as soon as one book is finished, I'm on to the next one. I've become almost as omnivorous as I was when I was a kid, when I would basically read anything you put in front of me, secure in the knowledge that I had the rest of my life to read what seemed like an infinite number of books. I am surprised by this, but pleased, because it means I've had a lot of variation in my literary diet, and have swung from children's books to science fiction to philsophy to frivolous fluff to books about serial killers or the Holocaust, and I never feel like I ought to be reading something else, because that something else can always come next.
2. I no longer insist on finishing a book if I don't like it. If I really don't like a book, I move on to another one, because there are lots more immediately available, and I would rather spend a week reading two books I like than spend a month trying to force myself through a book that I don't like.
3. Reading Kindle books has actually increased the number of physical books and books on CD that I consume, as well. I had assumed that getting a Kindle would increase the number of books I would read (correct), but I had also assumed that all of those books would be on Kindle, and that I would no longer read print books (initially correct, but eventually incorrect). The majority of the books I've read since getting a Kindle have been on Kindle, but some books aren't on Kindle, and so I have to buy or borrow those. Additionally, having the idea of reading so prominent in my mind (plus the added convenience that the mobile library van comes to work) means that I have also started using the library a lot more. At any given point, I have a couple of books going on Kindle and a few books and books on CD checked out from the library. I read on Kindle at home and while traveling. I use the Kindle app on my Android phone when I'm in lines or waiting rooms. I read paper books while at home. I listen to books on CD while driving. This has been the most surprising thing for me, that having a Kindle seems to have increased my consumption of books in all forms, not just in e-book form.

[Edit later in the evening: Just finished another book today (this one on Kindle), so I'm up to 60. I think 65 id definitely doable by October 6, and maybe even 70. Maybe my next goal will be 100 in a year.]

Do you ever wish you could pick the things you're anal or obsessive about? I spend so much time making sure that certain things are exactly a certain way, and no time at all on other things that are probably more important.

For example, I feel as if the sky will certainly fall if I have to watch someone incorrectly assemble a sandwich (people, how do you not realize that you need to correctly size everything to fit the bread, put things together in an order that minimizes sogginess, and line everything up so that each bite has the same amount of each ingredient?) but I really can't be bothered to vacuum (a moot point now that I have cleaning lady, but before I had one, I could go for months without vacuuming without even noticing or caring).

Other things that I care about include: cutting granola bars into identical bite-sized pieces, setting my alarm (when I set an alarm) to palindromic times (like 8:38, as opposed to 8:30 or 8:40), putting a pitcher under the kitchen faucet (which leaks less than a gallon a day) and using the water to water my dog and some plants, and rounding restaurant bills up to round numbers.

Things that I probably should care about, but can't, include: finding ways to invest my money, anything involving household chores, finding a second route to get to work, backing up my hard drive, and many other practical but unmemorable things.

Why is it that most of the things that occupy large amounts of my time and attention are completely irrelevant to everyone else?

You know what, 32 does feel different than 31 or 30. It may be partly because I just like the number itself better (yes, I have preferences for certain numbers), but I also think I just have more of my ducks in a row this year than I did in any of the last few years. I hope it's more due to the latter, since the next number I really like isn't coming up until 36.

I thought about taking yesterday off, but it seems silly to waste a vacation day just to spend a random weekday birthday sitting alone at home. Plus, work has been really busy lately, and I'm taking a three-day weekend this week, so I couldn't take a day off and still keep my head above water. Despite the fact that I came in and worked a lot, it was still a good birthday. I received no fewer than 66 cards, emails, texts, chats, wall posts, and Facebook messages from all over the place. My mom sent me flowers at my office. I had a meeting that turned out to be surprise cupcakes. 

I admit that despite all of these great things, which made most of the day great, I still ended up getting home a little bit grumpy, because some of my work had flared up just as I thought I had gotten it under control, and then Superman gave me a card that he had made, with a hilarious poem he had made up, and hotel reservations and plane tickets for a week of diving in Hawaii next month. Grumpiness forgotten, and I'm completely impressed that he not only planned the whole trip (and even cleared the time off with my manager), but also managed to do so behind my back. 

I'm picking Kanga and Roo up from the airport tomorrow, and we'll hang out for a long weekend, catch up, eat some good food, go wine tasting. I'm also kind of excited that for the first time, I have a guest room with an actual bed in it (not just a living room with a sofa bed or a second bedroom with an air mattress) -- they will be our inaugural guests.