i'd like to blame my sinuses...

…but they can’t really take all the credit. To be sure, the jetlag and certain ear drum rupture (at least that’s what my overactive brain was thinking when I still couldn’t hear anything out of one ear a full day after winging my way back from the West Coast) were impediments to my mood and general lack of enthusiasm last week. I even felt so bad physically that I missed a concert (gasp! Shock! Horror!), partially due to the fact that all of the mucus in the world had amassed to make sure I could barely be seen in public. Going to and fro to work doesn’t count as being in public – having to interact with people who aren’t paid to do so without grossing them out with your germs DOES qualify.

Mercifully, gone is the sneezing, half-coughing, nose-blowing, drug-induced-coma-sleeping Heidi of yesterweek (yep, just made up that word). If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s this: after a bad, slightly torturous and thoroughly confusing week comes a highly motivated, manageable and productive period right on schedule. And I could wallow in the fact that I wasn’t waking up to California sunshine, ocean breezes and fresh seafood appropriately during my time of the 2011 Plague. Time to get over it, take stock of what I’ve got going on that’s good (like the upcoming holidays, for example) and plan my next trip to the coast soon.

Yep, nothing like a gnarly case of sinusitis to bring you back down to earth and set your priorities (and self-pity at not living next to a beach) right again.