Or if it is only a case of allergies, then these are evil allergies! I woke up this morning feeling dizzy and achey all over. J also felt like crap. We both had been complaining about feeling run down the night before, but now we knew the reality of our situations… we had colds. It wasn’t something said aloud, but it was understood by our incessant moaning & extra fifteen minutes spent in bed this morning.

I downed two tall glasses of Emergen-C this morning, had some tea, AND a finished a whole bottle of Vitaminwater. I’ve been skeptical of Vitaminwater as of late thanks to Perez Hilton commenting on his blog that Vitaminwater is a high-calorie drink. Anyway, I didn’t care about this Perez Hilton opinion today because, hello, I’m sick, (or feeling as such). My mom always told me to fill up on liquids when a bad cold struck and, I hate to admit it, but my mom is usually always right. 

As far as the gym tonight is concerned? I don’t think so. What’s nice about feeling under the weather is that you don’t feel as guilty about not going to the gym enough. Anyway, I hope to just get through this day. Although it’s a light day work-wise, it’s still a challenge to function right now. Grrrrr, I want my usual Korlina energy back!

OMG I cannot deal with my allergies today. I’ve been sniffling all day, blowing my nose to no avail, and not even “Clear Eyes” can get rid of the redness in my eyes. As a matter of fact, my eyes hurt. I just want to shut them for the rest of the day. A Claritin wouldn’t hurt right now. Damn, I knew I forgot to do something this morning. Now I’m itchy-eyed, and stuck at work for the rest of the day with no relief. Allergy season, I curse you!

I love… LOVE my new job. Everyone here is super nice & laid back, (I think I’ve mentioned this before). Today I went out to lunch with a bunch of my new co-workers. Now, mind you, this wasn’t the first lunch outing at my new job, but I’m still new here and, because of this, I tend to be a little less chatty than I normally am when I’m, for instance, with my girlfriends. I think Bri is struggling with this fact because she’s very familiar with Chatty Cathy friend Korlina, and does not much understand the ways of work Korlina. 

Before she and I headed out with the group for lunch, she made a comment that was something along the lines of, “don’t be so quiet like last time!” She means well, I swear! Actually, I’m SO glad she’s here at work guiding me. I know that she is only looking out for me, and wants me to fit in & come out of my shell.

Once everyone was seated at our lunch table, munching away on our delicious pizzas, I thought about all the awesome conversation I would initiate throughout this gathering. I’d talk about the recent movies I’ve seen, tell everyone that I loooove fro yo, (the fro yo joint across the street was giving me this inspiration) ask engaging questions about current work projects, and be the life of the lunch! I must have zoned out in thinking about all the wonderful things I would talk about because, before I knew it, there were multiple convos flying across the table. I had to jump in… fast!

Somehow, between all the various chit chat, I was able to get in that I looove fro you (I think that was one of the first things I brought to everyone’s attention when someone else made a comment about the fro yo across the street). I also brought up a funny thing that was shown on The Soup last Friday. This funny thing was a cat eating spaghetti. Oh, and I shared my two cents on the latest Batman movie. 

On the drive back to the office, I was satisfied with myself. Yay! I finally opened up to some of the people in my office! I am awesome! Wait… what was that? Oh, that’s what I thought she said. While making a left hand turn, Bri sighed and said that I hardly talked at lunch. Somehow, I had failed again!

Thankfully, there’s only an hour or so left of work today. I say this not because I’m at all unhappy, but because my boss is on vacation, (for 2 wks) and it’s been painfully slow. I’m not too fond of days that drag on and on and on and on. You get my point.

The allergies are also making me quite lethargic, but I think that it would be nice to make dinner for J tonight. He’s been completely stressed out of his mind about work lately & it breaks my heart every time I see that sad look on his face when I get home, and he tells me about his day. Hmmm… I wonder what I should make for him?

At first when my boyfriend, J, announced to me that we should quit drinking so much, I was shocked and dismayed. “Why now?” I thought. We’ve been dating for over a year and, frankly, during our time together thus far, there’s been a lot of drinking involved. A few glasses of wine at night watching TV, more than a few margaritas at our favorite Mexican haunts, and countless parties, or just nights out that we made into a big party, often resulted in too many drinks to count. With that, there were too many arguments and hangovers the next day. “I didn’t say that!,” and “I don’t remember throwing my cell phone into traffic on the street!” Also, stops to In ‘N Out Burger and Del Taco were getting frequent and, consequently, [my] hips were getting fatter.

The first week of not drinking was the hardest. Let me clarify, there was a little drinking. What was even harder was admitting to both J and to myself that, yeah, we needed to cut back. I’ve listened to Dr. Oz, I know the facts. Cutting back on alcohol so that we’d be at a “moderate” level, would add years to our life. Might as well start now before it gets harder. 

On Monday, J and I decided to go cold turkey. I picked a great week to quit drinking because it also happened to be my first week at my new job. By Monday night, stressed to death by all the lingering first day nervous energy, I craved a vodka tonic, or at least a few Miller Chills. J, being so motivated to not cave in on Day I, triggered me to shut off those thoughts of alcohol bliss. My boyfriend is SUCH a good influence.

By Wednesday night, I didn’t have much of a desire to drink at all. However, my girlfriends were coming over that night for one of our “poker nights.” Being that it was Anne’s last week in L.A. (she’s moving to NYC) my friends urged me to at least have a few glasses of wine “BECAUSE IT’S ANNE’S LAST WEEK, KORLINA!” They had a point. I enjoyed my wine, and told myself, no more drinking for the rest of the week!

That was until Friday evening, officially Anne’s send off party at our very old stomping ground, St. Nick’s. Conveniently, I was DD anyway that night, forcing me to only be able to consume 2 beers. This experiment? Well, frankly, it sucked! I wanted to get a little out of control. I wanted to party like it was 1999 (well more like 2004-2005, when my girlfriends and I would literally drink from around 6pm-1:30am at St. Nick’s after work). Instead, I felt tired all night long. Yeah, it was the closing of the first week at my new job, but still! I felt bad I had no energy to party. The sad part is that I know I would have had more oomph if I had downed a few more drinks. 

On Saturday, I have no excuse for what I did. J and I decided to go to Casa Vega (not one of our usual Mexican spots) for lunch. The food was excellent, btw. Anyway, I ordered one margartia (only one, I swear! and not a Cadillac!) I felt guilty about this later because I ordered one just because I wanted one. I didn’t need it, but it was a craving that I wanted to give into just the same. J didn’t shoot me a disappointed glance, or scold me for it. He probably was too busy basking in the glory of being the one with more will power.

I didn’t drink Sunday. I didn’t want to drink. My first week of [semi] not drinking was a success, in my eyes. J may have felt that he had to go cold turkey, but I chose to approach things differently. In comparison to the way I had been drinking weeks prior, it was a vast improvement. Last week I had only consumed a total of 7 drinks. Apparently this is the recommended limit of number of drinks that a woman should be drinking per wk in her twenties.

I was proud of my accomplishment, and proud of J’s as well. What’s even better, and something I had been fearing we’d be incapable of, is that we enjoyed our days and weekend just as much as we would have if we had consumed alcohol nonstop. In fact, cutting back on alcohol made the days and weekend even better. No more pointless arguments induced by too many Cadillac margaritas. No more hangovers followed by trips to fast food joints. What there was more of? There was more cuddling, more all-star racquetball sessions, and more clarity.

Last night J and I drank. Two beers each. J finally realized that he didn’t need to cut off alcohol completely (or maybe he did feel as though he had to that 1st week). Everyone is different about trying to cut back on something they know isn’t good for them. J and I are getting there. It just took over a year of us being together to figure that out. I’m sure there will still be drinks here and there, and a couple of rough nights every once in a while. All in all, I think the point is that we’re finally able to work on it… together.

I started a brand new job on Monday. It’s the first job I’ve ever had in L.A. where I don’t have to be glued to my desk all day long. I can take lunch! I can even go on errands on my own free time! Oh, and one of my very great friends, Bri, got my foot in the door with an interview. Guess what else? She works here too! It’s comforting to have a friend at work. I owe her many margaritas!

The highlight of my job (so far) occurred on the very first day. I attended my first Monday meeting. At my new job, these meetings happen every Monday. We all ate a CPK lunch and, after the meeting was through, everyone… EVERYONE… picked up after themselves. I had never witnessed any such thing at any of my other jobs. Either myself, or the PA’s, had to pick up after everyone else. Ahhhh, it’s nice to not be treated like a slave anymore.

Now, about my flashback moment this morning. On my way into work, I caught I glimpse of a familiar sight out my rear view mirror. This familiar sight was wearing a recognizable green and purple button-down top. “Ah! I know who THAT is!” I exclaimed.

For a second, I wanted to turn my car around and yell out his name. Then the logical Korlina (if indeed a logical Korlina even exists!) decided that that would not be the wisest thing to do on a busy street. Instead, I laughed to myself. It was the location manager of one of my past gigs. The location manager who was always pacing around with his permits. There he was, near my new stomping ground, same as he was; same as he’ll always be. This guy had the BIGGEST crush on me a mere year ago. Although he embarrassed me constantly in front of my co-workers with his love for me, (yes, I’m being mildly sarcastic) I was always flattered by the attention. I hope that he’s doing well. A part of me hopes that he’ll swing open my new office’s doors one fine day, location permit in hand, and be his old flirty self.

I suppose my post today is about starting fresh, but appreciating some of the good memories from old jobs. You sometimes just have to dig a little harder to get to those memories, (at least in my case). Either that, or a crazy location dude with a green and purple shirt will remind you of them.