Skip to main content

Vicarious Therapy

Viv's back in therapy. With the help of her therapist, she's "attacking why she feels swamped all the time." So her therapist has asked her to write down how her typical day unfolds. Viv was also asked to write how a particular activity she does makes her feel. We did it together. I replicate mine here. 
How I feel is in parenthesis.

7:00 A.M.: Alarm goes off. I wake up to Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman." (This song makes me feel so energized.)

7:15: I load my disc player with Black Eyed Peas, Nina Simone, Billie Holliday, etc. (I need music in the morning. It helps me feel alive. I dance in my underwear a lot.)

7:30: Head to the bathroom. I time-budget a shower. This is where I don the World's Ugliest Shower Cap. It's so ugly that I hide it when company comes over. Exfoliate.

7:50: Dry off. I slather on some delicious-smelling body butter; this month it's been black currant body butter from Bath & Body Works. (I stock up on moisturizer, after I had to use melted butter with drops of lavender essential oil as a moisturizer. I was going on a date and it was too late to go to the store, so I had to improvise. What a woman will do to stay moisturized.)

8:05: I grab a yogurt from the fridge, a bottle of Evian, and a piece of fruit. (I blog during my breakfast sometimes. Not recently, though.)

8:15: Brush teeth, run ceramic iron through hair, apply day-light friendly makeup, and watch the news for the traffic reports.

8:30: Put on work clothes, accessorize, and head out the door. (I usually grab a breakfast bar to give to my doorman.)

9:30: Arrive at work. Make the rounds; hear the latest gossip from the office's Hedda Hopper "Paula." Paula knows everything, except about my little situation. I think. I hope.

10:00: Confer with local clients by email and phone. I then check on my national team, to see how we're coming along on Project X.

10:15: Meeting usually called so the Head Honchos can brag about their Hinsdale homes and the Big Client that dined at their non-mortgaged homes. I guess we're supposed to be inspired to one day own Hinsdale homes. We just want to get out of the conference room.

Noon: Lunch or sex games in His office. Or therapy, as of late.

1:00: Return from lunch to pure chaos. Big Client from the East Coast is leaving for real this time. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! Nothing is.

3:00: My time -- I listen to music through my headphones, blog, call my sister. I also write my weekly To-Do lists. Masturbate.

4:00: Back to work. New Bits & Pieces assigned to me from other teams. Stupid stuff, really. More local client work.

5:30: Work day over. (But thanks to major changes, I've been leaving work at 8:30 lately.)

7:00: Home. I try to score dinner, which can range from a grilled chicken dinner from Healthy Choice or a full course meal of soup, salad, falafel, and lamb pitas. I like those dinners.

8:00: My social time. I call Jan, Viv, and Diana and find out about their day. Sometimes I'll do dinner with them.

11:00: I'm ready for bed. I take a complete shower, wash my hair, groom my pits, de-hair my legs, and exfoliate. I go to bed smelling like strawberries and shampoo. I'll blog if I'm thinking too much or need to get something out of my head.

Midnight: I'm dreaming.

So that's a typical day during the week. The weekend, however, is another story.

Popular posts from this blog

Tick-Tock

So there I was, standing in line at Walgreens, a bottle of orange juice and a box with the acronym e.p.t. stenciled across it in my hands. The orange juice is there to make me feel better. This is no big deal; just a city girl buying orange juice and a pregnancy test. There's an old white-haired lady behind me with a tube of KY Jelly and tampons. Okay.... In front of me is a middle-aged man, looking jolly with chubby red cheeks. "Hurry up," he barks to cashier, "I left my car running." Well, so much for jolly. It was my turn. I manage to stop my hand from shaking long enough to put my things on the counter and pry my wallet from my handbag. I paid and fled. Jan's waiting in the lobby of my apartment building, chatting up my doorman. When he spots me he frowns. "Oh, look at you, honey," he says while hugging me. "C'mon, baby, let's get this over with." I smile, comforted by his genuine concern. When Jan's being comfort, his acc...

Broiling Alive

Some of you might not be aware of this but Chicago has morphed into the fiery pits of Hell, with atrocious sunburned feet to boot. See, this is why I hate summer, for this exact reason. Why do people insist on wearing flip flops in the sun? I can't tell you how many hundreds of sunburned feet I witnessed just last week alone. Jan managed to drag Diana and me to the beach on Sunday, where we both proceeded to bake and die immediately. Jan didn't care -- he was busy working on his "sex tan." You know, the kind where there's a dramatic tan line around the hips. The Swedes sure know how to tan, don't they? you would think with them being Nordic that they would just burn to a crisp, but no -- golden brown goodness all the time. This weekend, Diana's apartment was a cooling center. We conked out with old Glamours and iced raspberry-lemon tea. I don't know why Diana is afraid to throw away magazines. I swear there is a 1997 issue of Glamour with some supe...

Comfort Food

For lunch, I treated myself to a delicious T-bone steak, medium rare, and buttery mashed potatoes seasoned with kosher salt. There's nothing better in this world than buttery mashed potatoes seasoned with kosher salt. Comfort food, if you will. I needed that steak today like I need oxygen. It was pertinent to my survival; pertinent to my keeping my job.  Eating the steak today reminded me of how I've used comfort foods to get me through tough periods.  Breaking up with Michael: Macaroni and cheese. From scratch. I made  béchamel sauce and used several cheeses. I'd make a big pot and use chicken and broccoli to make it even more comforting. It was a glass of Riesling, mac and cheese, and a journal that got me through those tough weeks.  Losing a BIG Account: Meatloaf and mashed potato sandwiches. It was my first year at the firm and this was THE account to get, and I blew it. I ordered this sandwich two weeks in a row for dinner.  When Sister Attempted Suicide: ...