I am Carrie. Carrie is me.

Last week was my staycation. I let everyone I work with know this. Yet the team that handles our car care client ignored that and sent me my July assignment (five blog posts) on Wednesday. I saw the assignment but didn't read it. I shot them an email reiterating that I was on vacation and would start on it Monday.

Today is Monday.

I just wasn't gripped by the first of the five. Motor oil filters. The client wants these posts to be conversational, perhaps a bit cheeky, to have personality. I couldn't settle on a way in, a way to infuse motor oil filters with personality.

So I went grocery shopping. I checked in with my boss and my art director. I took a nap. I reminded myself that since I may have a big dental bill on the horizon, I need this job. I met with my movie group and had a margarita. I loathed myself. I started to watch the ballgame but fell asleep again.*

Then, when I woke with a start at midnight, I had an idea! I'd solved my big problem. I found my "way in."

I suffer from tinnitus. I always hear a constant, distant sound, like the one you hear when you press a seashell against your ear. That's why complete silence makes me crazy. I need background sound to distract me. So I turned on the E! channel and there were the Sex and the City reruns I count on to keep me company.† 

So there I was in bed, my MacBook Air on my lap, pounding away. And there Carrie was, in her bedroom, pounding away. Life imitating art. Of course, she was writing about whether or not she and Mr. Big had a future, and I was waxing eloquent on what happens when a good oil filter goes bad,

4 hours and 418 words later, I'm halfway done. My agency got their money's worth out of me today, just not during regular business hours.

*The game didn't go well. The Cubs lost 4-0, and Rizz was 1-3. 

†If it hadn't been Carrie Bradshaw, I would have switched to Carrie Heffernan and The King of Queens on TVLand.