1. Above all, don’t panic. Going back to work isn’t as dreadful as it seems. Keep in mind that you essentially have a four-day workweek ahead of you. Your co-workers will be sympathetic to your readjustment. And if they aren’t, invent an imaginary newspaper article pointing out how holidays lead to temporary malaise extending into across the midweek swath into Wednesday. You can get away with this, because, quite frankly, nobody read the papers over the weekend.
2. Yes, there’s a ridiculous email backlog and there weren’t as many books finished as you had hoped. Yes, you may have even succombed to paying for that silly Roland Emmerich eco-disaster movie or perhaps engaged in the horrors of television. But the good news is that you can go back to your routine, such as it was. People in general will be slower, thanks in part to the overall lack of holidays in the United States of America, and the strange turn of fortune that momentarily granted the public a three-day weekend (that is, if they were lucky not to be working in the service sector).
3. When in doubt, resort to coffee. Its efficacy can never be underestimated. This woozy Tuesday isn’t unlike a hangover, what with your body drooping out of bed and your shirt being slightly more difficult to put on. But the good news is that if you didn’t drink last night and slept horribly, the coffee will have an even greater effect than before.
4. You can always relax again. Either tonight or next weekend. However, keep in mind that this time, it might be prudent to accomplish something, if only to make up for the debauchery.
5. Please know that it was perfectly fine for you to lounge about the living room while other people paid homage to the deaths of soldiers.
6. If you saw that eco-disaster movie, know that Dennis Quaid will eventually slip from your mind.
7. When in doubt, sexual release, whether solo or with another partner, is a pretty solid cure-all, particularly during lunch hour.
8. If you’re terrified by the idea of cooking tonight, keep in mind that there is probably a good deal of food in the fridge that you can reheat. Your overcompensatory zeal in the food department, together with such ubiquitous technology as the microwave oven, should get you through dinner tonight.
9. Set at least two goals that you must accomplish before bedtime. Make these modest goals. Things like balancing your checkbook or reading a Dr. Seuss book. You can save the loftier accomplishments (climbing Kilmanjaro on Wednesday, performing philanthropic CPR on a colostomy bag on Thursday) for later.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (