Can it be? A blog update? I am shocked! Shocked!

I know, I know, it’s been a while. But here’s what I have been up to:

I arrived home from Europe on Monday, August 18, spent two days trying desperately not to sleep in the daytime but then waking up at 5:30 AM, and started my new job on Thursday the 21st. (The new job is great, by the way. I love my coworkers, and they really seem to like me. I am constantly being praised and petted—hardly a day goes by when they don’t tell me how much they love having me there, and what with my constant need for positive affirmation, it’s almost enough that I don’t agonize over every tiny conversation and task. I’ll tell you more about the job itself in another entry.)

So after working two days, it was the weekend already. Friday night I was really tired. Saturday I started sneezing. (Do you see where this is going?) Sunday I was a little congested. By Monday morning, I officially had a cold and was in no condition to leave the house, let alone go to work. But here was my dilemma: I’d only been at my job two days; could I really call in sick?

No, I couldn’t, obviously. I didn’t even have anyone’s work phone numbers besides my own. So I got dressed and valiantly dragged myself to the office with a pocketful of Kleenex and Ricola. I felt like my brain had been replaced by jumbo marshmallows. I honestly have no idea what happened that day, although I had HR training and sat in on a meeting in the morning, and had lunch out with my boss (I remember the soup, though—I ordered chicken soup, which was delicious, and also made me want my mommy to come get me and take me home to sleep). By early afternoon, my supervisor was explaining something to me when she suddenly stopped, looked at me, and said, “You just aren’t tracking, are you? You should go home and rest.” So I did.

I stayed home sick Tuesday, figuring that I had demonstrated Monday that I was dedicated to my job, but that I really was too ill to work. I slept all day, and my mom brought over soup and applesauce and jello.

I decided I really had to go to work Wednesday. After all, what kind of an employee works two days and then needs two days off? So I got up early and showered and got all ready to go, but then was so exhausted by the effort of all that, that I didn’t think I could really drive to work and concentrate all day. I called my boss and asked him what I should do. “Stay home!” he said. “One, I don’t want you to get me sick. Two, I want you to stay home until you’re well.” So I hung up my work clothes, got back into my sweats, and spent another day on the couch.

When I returned to work on Thursday, finally feeling like a human person again, they were all happy to see me and teased me about being a slacker, which I thought was a good sign. (If they really thought I was a poor hiring decision/lazy, they wouldn’t have said anything to me, right?)

I haven’t missed even an hour of work since, and so far I really like my job, although I am especially wary of any political maneuverings/alliances/manipulation, because of what happened to me before, and I work in a government office now where there’s plenty of that going on. I’m also hyper-sensitive to being perceived as anything but a conscientious employee.

Toward that end, I decided it was time to upgrade my work wardrobe. Although most of the city government for which I work is semi-casual these days (no jeans and no open-toed shoes are the only hard and fast rules), the office of the mayor is not. Those of us who work in that department have to present a professional front. So goodbye khakis and cords and polo shirts, hello tailored wool pants and oxfords. Although I still look substantially younger than I am (which everyone keeps telling me I’ll be glad about later…), I have not been treated like anyone’s teenage daughter brought in to do the filing, which is how I always felt that the managers at my last job perceived me. They were always inches away from patting me on the head and asking me what colleges I was planning to apply to.

Oh, and I cut my hair. I had never really planned for it to get as long as it was, but it had gotten out of control; my hair is pretty thick, and it took me about ten minutes to dry at full heat. If you know me at all, you know that I never have two minutes to spare in the morning, let alone ten. Overall it’s not much shorter now, but I added some layers (well, my stylist added them—I have not yet been reduced to cutting my own hair—she was really excited to try something new, especially as I had brought in celebrity pictures as visual aids; what did we do before the internet?). Anyway, I don’t look quite as much like an earnest high school student anymore. I hope.

That’s about enough information for now. I’ll do my best to write more; now that I’m settled into my job a little, I will have more energy for other things.

So how was your summer?