an opposite day

Yesterday was different.

Last year, on the official first day back to work, I would've dragged myself down to BART, emerged from the underground like an animal coming out of hibernation, the cold air and bus fumes a shock to the system. I would have headed to the 13th floor of a particular building to begin scanning a blizzard of emails. There would be the catching up with co-workers: the lovely, the funny and all the others. Post-mortems of the year-end projects we all tried to sleep off. Eventually I'd start pushing some pixels and paths around the screen, and the work of a new year would begin.



Yesterday, I intended to work a bit. It's different work now, and I like it enough to miss it. It's still fresh and evolving. But, for the first time in a long while, a day scheduled for Being Very Productive just melted into sitting, talking, walking, looking, nibbling, sipping, eavesdropping, Instagramming and thinking. My hair got a little shorter and the color was put right. I unwisely sat in a tall chair at Sephora and things were definitely not right ('subtle' is just NOT possible in a store that sells makeup right? I might be learning.). I retreated to the safe cocoon of the Nordstroms Ladies Lounge (have you noticed, some women just go there to read?) and I wiped and edited. Considered reading for a bit. Left to buy clementines instead.


Some time passed, I looked at the time. Then I didn't look at the time for a long while. I had a free day downtown, alone. And it was very different.