I'm going to Maine tomorrow. Lovely lovely Maine. God, I miss the East Coast. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Seattle - but there's just something about the way the East Coast FEELS. From the way the seasons smell and the little things that come with them - heirloom apples, cider presses, pine woods, honeysuckle, thunder and lightning storms - to the palpable history in everything - farm houses with wood floors, little old towns, white picket fences. I know everyone doesn't feel this way about quaint places - my housemate Stephanie for example feels like "quaint" people are going to eat her and she prefers the more "real" people of the desert. The Stepford wives come to mind - as does Stephen King. But I like the quaint towns. Something about it feels right. I like places that were created before there were cars - the way you can walk to anything, the closeness of it all. New new new places feel wasteful and I think that new architecture is generally ugly.

So anyway, I'm going to Maine. Neener neener neener.

Work has gotten to a point where I physically feel like I'm drowning - water going up my nose, difficulty breathing - all the time. This has got to stop. It has created stress in my personal life and my personal life in turn creates stress for my work life. I am becoming totally incapable with dealing with even the tiniest conflict in a rational manner. Any little glitch could send this precarious house of cards toppling over. And it's not like you can just say "Oh well, I didn't get to that." If you didn't get to that last task, it might mean that some family isn't going to have their adoption documents ready for China and they're leaving TOMORROW. As a result, I have worked enough overtime that I'm barely going to have to take any vacation time for my trip. Yay for that part. Boo for the fact that I'm going to have to try to get everything done before the plane leaves tomorrow and for all of the stuff I'll have to do when I get back. Perhaps by the time I get back, work will be a little more stable. Hah.