Sometimes when I let go, it all just falls into place.

First off, this cooler weather makes me happy.

I walked to work with Cailin and the new FA this morning, but I didn't go up with them 'cause I had to hit the ATM to get money to give to Laura for Barbara's card.  She wasn't at her desk, but on my way back to my own desk I got stopped by Greg -- who asked me if I have a couch (the daily question since Friday) -- and then I got talking to Mary Alice (and gave her the money) -- she says she'll get me larger size pots for my apartment; she's so sweet.

So by the time I finally got to my desk for the first time that morning, Alyssa was ready to head over to training.  I made her wait so I could check my e-mail real fast (thankfully nothing needed an immediate response) and we headed over.  The class was full (as I had expected) but the instructor said that if I wouldn't mind being Vanna White I could stay.  She was psyched to have someone else be doing the work on the computer so she could just talk.  At one point one of the more in charge people came in after seeing the attendance list and reminded me for the future that if the class is full and I'm on the waitlist I really shouldn't be there, 'cause they're really not supposed to have thirteen people in that room.  I fail to see how that screams fire hazard or anything, but whatever.  The instructor was happy to have me there, and it didn't seem like a huge deal.  I was a bit bored at the beginning (It was an Intro Excel course, and I was shocked at how many people were such such beginners -- with Excel and just with intuiting computers generally) though even there I learned some new stuff, and we built to some more advanced stuff by the end (and she was also a lot of fun as an instructor).  I'm definitely interested in taking the more advanced classes, 'cause Excel (unlike say, PowerPoint) seems designed to do a lot of really useful stuff in a fairly understandable fashion.

People have commented that the Adjective!CharacterName setup is strange because "!" means "not" in a lot of math, so I felt vindicated when we were linking between sheets today and if you want the contents of a cell to show up in a cell in another sheet you have the following in the second sheet: =[FirstSheetName]![OriginalCellID]

I skimmed the flist during one of the breaks but haven't responded to anything -- haven't even opened my personal e-mail all day (though I was definitely checking work e-mail and voicemail during the breaks, Just In Case).

We finished around 4:30, so Alyssa and I headed back to the office.  (She usually works until 6, and I wanted to take care of a few things.)  After work, I checked out the farmers market at Davis, got some useful stuff at Staples, and hopped on a bus to go check out a couch in Allston.  It's not my favorite thing ever, but the lightweight and dismantlability are big in its favor, and I'm tired of the searching (yeah, settling due to search fatigue is the story of my adult life, but it's worked out fairly well).  And it certainly has promise; I wouldn't be buying it if I didn't at least like it well enough.  So I paid her half and she's gonna bring it over on Sunday.  (Yeah, delivery was another point in its favor.)  She's actually moving to the Davis area.

On my back to the bus stop, I stopped at an antique store on a whim and ended up getting a kitchen table (delivered Saturday morning, for an additional twenty bucks).

Oh, and I ordered a tv from Best Buy the other day -- estimated arrival: tomorrow.

Spray paint artist guy was at Harvard T.  I'd seen him a few times recently but hadn't stopped, so I stopped and looked at some of his work, realizing that I now actually have a use for art (I used to look and wish I knew my friends' tastes well enough to buy some for them because it's beautiful and I totally want to support it).  He started talking to me, and then his fiancée showed up, so I talked to her a lot.  I decided to buy a large red one for the living room and a small blue one for my bedroom.  A young Japanese boy who's going home tomorrow and has been hanging out with him a lot came by, and he made him one as a going-away present.  First time I've seen one made from start to finish.  It remains so very impressive.  So many people stopped to watch (as per usual), and I heard so many different languages being spoken.

I came home a little before 10pm.  Yeah, that grocery shopping I thought I might get done tonight is definitely gonna be a tomorrow item.

And we finally got our names up by the door, so we finally got our mail again.  My mail included postcards from Kansas and Oxford, and an apartment-warming card (complete with moola) from Beth from First Churches Congregational.

This week's CAUMC (which I still need to write up) was on Chapter 2 of Yoder: "Disciples Break Bread Together."  Yoder argues re: Jesus' "Whenever you do this, do it in my memory":

The meal just before Jesus' death was in a Passover setting, but what the disciples did in his memory was not a once-a-year event.
    What Jesus must have meant, and what the record indicates his disciples took him to mean, was "whenever you have your common meal."  The meal Jesus blessed that evening and claimed as his memorial was their ordinary partaking together of food for the body.  (16, emphasis in original)

He goes on to extrapolate from this a lot, but that was the part that really stuck with me.  It seems so powerful to me.  Plus it fits with my idea that God is everywhere and that our ethics/morals/ideals should inform all that we say/do/think.  It also reminds me of that really powerful monologue of Jesus' about being everywhere -- from the end of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; I need to finish my writeup of that, I know.