Sorry it's been forever. Work has been crazy.

Hey, remember that one time, when I redesigned my blog to be exactly what I wanted, wrote two micro-posts, and was never heard from again?

Yeah, about that.

I called up the Best Friend last night for a long overdue catch-up session, and I started out with, "Sorry it's been forever. Work has been crazy."

"Isn't it always?" she asked.

She's absolutely right. I have probably said the phrase "Work has been crazy" dozens of times over the past few years, to her and to all the other friends and family members I neglect the minute I start rehearsals for a new show. It's the worst thing about my job: the necessity for completely single-minded focus for intense periods of time. It's also one of my favorite things, actually, and I'm particularly thankful for it at the moment.

You know those dreams you have where different eras of your life are all jumbled together? You're at a cookout in the backyard of the house you lived in as a child, and with you are people from college you barely knew, and your high school boyfriend, and your great-uncle who died when you were a baby, and you're all discussing global warming, and then you go inside the house and you're actually in that apartment you lived in during grad school. Or something. You know what I mean.

Life is feeling surreal like that to me. I'm in Houston, but instead of living with CameraMan and the Bossy Cat in our cozy apartment, I've traveled back in time a couple years and I'm living in corporate housing again. I'm driving the same car, and seeing the same friends, and going to the same gym, and shopping in the same grocery stores, but I'm doing all those things alone instead of with CM. It's bizarre. Work is the same, barring a few new faces, but everything else seems just a little bit off.

So I'm focusing on work. And since I'm only at work 8-10 hours a day, with the balance of my time I'm trying to go to the gym and cook myself healthy meals on a regular basis. It all seems to be working pretty well. CM and I have settled into a routine: I call him when I wake up (he's on his afternoon break) and on my lunch break (he's home for the night), and we both write chatty good night emails at the end of our respective days.

It's almost enough to distract me from the fact that I'm not in Vienna. Almost.

Thank god the new season of TV has started.