A Day in the Life of Yours Truly

Yesterday my friend Jill sent me a link to this article, which is too annoying to read. It’s “A day in the life of an HSBC exec who wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to work out, always eats green, and studies at Stanford in her free time.” What. Ever.

7:30 a.m. Faux tennis. (Oh, and she’s credited with ALL the [posed] photos. Not that I’m bitter.)

“On a typical day, she gets up at 5:30 a.m. to meditate, check in with friends and family in different time zones, and play tennis.” She has some liquified kale concoction and then she “walks to work and spends her workday connecting venture-capital firms, technology companies, and new startups.” All in nude-colored stilettos.

After work she takes classes at Stanford, and then drafts proposals for some supposed women’s empowerment organization in Papua New Guinea. At 7:30 p.m. (huh?) she does yoga, and then she cooks dinner with her boyfriend. And then they go for a stroll through the neighborhood, “reflecting upon our key wins and challenges and preparing for the adventures of the next day,” she says.

Makes you want to puke, right? Also, it’s a load of bullpucky.

Hey, man, I studied after work at an Ivy League college (Columbia). I got a certificate, just like she’s doing. I exercise . . . sometimes. So, herewith:

A day in the life of . . . moi. A freelance writer trying to save the world.

7:40 a.m. Wake up. Use the loo and then crawl back into bed for a few more minutes.

9:20 a.m. Realize I’ve been hitting “snooze” for the last hour and a half, and drag myself out of bed. Remember I have a 10:30 a.m. SoulCycle class. Make a quick cup of coffee and scarf down a Cliff Bar on the way to the studio.

10:30 a.m. Sweat my ass off and then shower there. Forget to apply body lotion, so am slightly itchy the rest of the day.

12 noon. Stop at the supermarket, which includes 20 minutes in the tea aisle trying to find the one for “gas relief.” (You’ll understand presently.)

12:45 p.m. Eat an entire container of hummus with some tortilla chips for lunch, whilst standing in my kitchen.

1:15 p.m. Just like what’s-her-face does, I “check in with friends and family,” i.e., answer my dad‘s text about xmas flights. Finally buy a ticket; get a middle seat at the back of the plane that costs a fortune.

2:00 p.m. Head to my desk (how’d it get to be 2:00??), sipping on a turmeric kombucha that was on sale at the supermarket — after I’ve cleaned up the kitchen from the explosion of said turmeric kombucha.

Emails. I can’t say they’re about international tech deals. Unless you count the IT gal at one of the places I freelance, who’s trying to fix a mystery issue I’m having.

3:00 p.m. Dump all my receipts out of my wallet onto my desk so I can log them later. (I track everything I spend.) (And am currently two months behind.)

3:05 p.m. Remember I need to also book a flight for my roommate’s wedding in Puerto Rico. It’s SO cheap — yay! But the Delta site gives me grief with my credit card, finally booting me off and telling me I have to bring the card with me in order to board the plane. Citibank tells me Delta has charged me twice. And JetBlue asks for my TrueBlue number (for my return flight), which I have to find, but I can’t remember my password, and . . . oh, why why why??

4:00 p.m. My friend Katherine posts a video and some pics of our weekend ziplining adventure! I microwave a frozen bean burrito, hit it with a few dashes of Cholula, and watch the video a coupla times. (Three.) And now you may understand the tea.

4:45 p.m. Think I should maybe start writing. I have a few ideas. Voter suppression of black communities and my own family’s probable history during slave times. What I’d bury in an Underground Injection well (a UIC) right now if I could. And the talk I went to the other night, given by E.O. Wilson and Paul Simon, on “How to Save the Natural World.” (Subscribe on the home page to read about these things later.)

5:25 p.m. Open a blank blog page. Start this post.

8:30 p.m. Make dinner from my Purple Carrot delivery. Vegan, bitches. (Although I’ve been slipping something fierce lately; I blame Trump.) Stash one of the two servings in the fridge for tomorrow.

9:30 p.m. Catch the second half of Rachel Maddow, followed by a few Colbert clips on YouTube, a makeup tutorial by a depressed teenager, and a cat video.

11:30 p.m. Call it a night. Remember to set the timer for my happy lamp* to go on at 7 a.m. this time. [*A full-spectrum light — way better than an alarm clock; now if only I could set it to go on gradually, instead of blasting me in the face like one of those police flashlights.]

Of course, that’s not every day. Some days I’m working for clients onsite — copywriting, editing, proofreading, stuff like that. These jobs have really served me through a lot of gritty life stuff. But now, my recent environmental certificate from Columbia is taunting me. So when I find myself working for “the man” and mentally whinging about it, I write down all the annoying s*#!, and — for each one — an action to take toward getting more fulfilling work.

It’s a long list.

Feel free to share your own day in the comments! Be honest. 😉

xo,
Deb

p.s. I’m still not checking the news before coffee, and am feeling much better . . .

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