Twin Cities kisses sound like clicks and hisses

There is something depressing about avoiding the same pothole on 62W at 7:49 each morning. And then, around 5:24 p.m., seeing the same man on the sit-bike working his way up the same hill on Normandale Boulevard. The nine hours in between are a toss-up, either a smooth coast or a full-day exercise in futility. That ebb and flow is the best part of the week, never really knowing if and how I will be tested. It's the monotonous bookends of each workday that make the routine exhausting.

In college, we all discussed how amazing a set routine would be. I could work out at the same time every day, have an actual sleep schedule, eat appropriate meals. I could stop crossing my fingers as I popped my birth control pills at a different time each day. Now I have a regimented schedule, but am not organized enough to make it work to my advantage. I find myself wishing I could slip back into chaos college mode, where an average day would be something like:

- 1 a.m. coffee break
- 3 a.m. bedtime
- 8:50 a.m. ballet class
- 11 a.m. nap
- 5 p.m. waitress
- 11 p.m. tee-off time at Amy's
- 2 a.m. Qdoba/Domino's (on bad nights, both)

So let's analyze this all one more time. I try not to drink coffee past noon, can't stay up past midnight, can't nap even when I try on weekends, and the last time I mixed vodka and red bull I could see my heart beating through my halter top. All my favorite college habits, dead.

In my new adult life, I still have no set workout schedule, I ate cottage cheese for dinner last night, and recently I've been inexplicably waking up every night from 2- 4 a.m. My family history of breast cancer has me too freaked out to take oral contraceptives again. All my post-college fabulous plans, I never brought to fruition.

Silver lining? I really, really love this job. I love getting to work, post pothole swerve, walking into my beautiful office and seeing all the insanely intelligent women I work with. The routine commutes and extremely boring weeknights are all more than worth it at this point.

It's not that I don't understand how lucky I am to have landed this gig, in this economy or in a perfect one. I just wish the transition hadn't been so sudden. My inner 21 year old self is screaming for a Thirsty Thursday as the 55 year old woman I've become chuckles at the thought of going to work hungover.

It's time for a resuscitation and it needs to happen now. I'll need some pomegranate margarita mix and about a week to bring my tolerance up to its glory days. From there, we'll need to recruit some enabler friends as all of mine are spread across the globe enabling new people.

Clearly, alcohol is the answer to my problems. It almost always is.