Fire!

I am a pretty good cook, but for some reason I tend to set the fire alarm off. It happened often in the old apartment, especially when I was baking chicken or something, and I blamed the mini-oven and Dan blamed me.

Today, I made some Mexican food that required me to toast the tortillas in the oven and the exact moment that Dan came home from work, the fire alarm went off.

I don't know what happened. Nothing appeared to be burning, but by Dan's reaction, he makes it seem like I enjoy torturing him by causing this loud noise and acts like it will go away quicker if he yells at me over the loud noise. I don't like hearing the alarm either, but in the presence of Dan, he makes fire alarms a hundred times more alarming--for everyone.

The alarm stopped screaming. Dan got quiet. Nothing happened. Nothing was burnt (Why did it go off? Mini-oven, that is all I can say.) After dinner, Dan went to sleep (setting his alarm at 4 am to get up and do work) while I played my hundredth game of Mindsweeper today. Since we have no furniture in the house, I resorted to doing my job searching in bed (the only place to sit) and believe me, it was not a good idea. It wasn't very productive.

I miss being productive. I miss working. But more than that, I miss Europe. I am currently reading Bill Bryson's Neither here nor there about his travels in Europe and it makes me ache inside, wishing I could be back there. I miss my motivation. Despite my "keep going" mentality after this weekend's run, I couldn't pry myself out of bed to hit the gym. I miss everything but my current situation.

Everyone is telling me that I should enjoy my time off but it just seems impossible right now. In Europe, it was easy. In New York, I feel constant guilt and worry. I wish I could be one of those people reading leisurely at Starbucks but instead I am one of those pissed off people making copies of my resume at Kinkos.