Hey look, joy sadhana.

( gym )

***

FA luncheon today.  Which relieved me of trying to figure out what I was going to eat for lunch since the Grille is closed for the summer and they're having a panini station instead of a pasta station this week.  (Monday we went out to lunch [Tamarind Bay] for Nicki's last day, Tuesday I had tofu stir fry, and Wednesday the dumplings were vegetarian so I had that.)

In line for food, a woman complimented me on my necklace.  I said it was from Boston Pride last year.  She asked if I'd gone this year as well, and I said yes.  She said she grew up around DC so she's been to so many Prides she didn't feel the need to go, but was glad I went :)
I actually asked her name, 'cause sometimes I am up for actually being social.  (Johanna, from BGIE -- I Googled her afterward).

She got salad right as I was getting some (it was spinach-based), and noticed that there was bacon.  Yay vegetarians.  (Boo for putting bits of bacon in spinach-and-cranberry salad.)

MaryAlice had saved us (me and Katie) seats at a table with Barbara and Mari, and we were joined by Adam (Finance Unit Coordinator -- worked in Kansas City for a while before he moved to Massachusetts, says KS City is "awesome") and Peter (an FA in GM).

In line to get cake, Michelle asked me if I was in South Station the other night and I said yeah, I was with my mom; I said I'd seen her come in and was like, "Is that Michelle?"  She said she had been cranky and miserable, so it was probably for the best that I hadn't gone over to say hi.  (She had missed her train by one minute, so she had to wait two hours for the next one.)  Anyway, she said, "That was your mom?  What is she, like 15?"  Heh.

I said MaryAlice had mentioned that she had moved recently but didn't recall where to and I hadn't gotten around to asking her, and Michelle said, "It's not like we see each other that often," which is true.  She said we should get together some time and catch up, which made me happy 'cause I would like to be friends with her but we haven't really made that happen.  (And for my own notes, she moved from Attleboro to Ashland, so she's now even farther away, but apparently they're right next to the State Park and it's really beautiful and stuff.)

Prof.B had a video conference at 11am and had rescheduled his meeting for after it to tomorrow.  I came back to my desk around 1:30 after the luncheon, and his door was shut and I realized he must have gone home right after the VC.  I was reminded of how my mom now refers to him as "Invisible Boss" (the first time she came to visit me at work, he had vanished, and the second time he was in NYC).

---

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
-from "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" (Words: Ro­bert Ro­bin­son)

Five good things about today:
1. I can has cab to the airport tomorrow morning.  (The Somerville Green Cab people seem very nice.  At least the woman I spoke with on the phone.)
2. They defrosted the mini-fridge in my kitchenette (at work) -- something I first heard about happening like a week ago.
3. Above mentioned FA luncheon.
4. Okay, Ari sold me on wordle.
     So I did arguably the best fic I've written [wordle, original text]  And came home tonight to find that Alixtii had audioblogged "Osiris Serenity," which I had considered wordle-ing.
     Ari, I did this one for you [wordle, original text]
     I also plugged in the blogspot version of Tiffany's "Radical Welcome" sermon (and then tweaked the layout some -- I was really impressed that the first two I did came out looking really appropriate without my having to do anything to them) [wordle, original text]
5. CAUMC small group.

Three things I did well today:
1. I cleaned up my computer Desktop (at work).
2. I did a minor work task I'd been avoiding.
3. I generated an evite for my birthday party (to supplement the facebook event).

I keep expanding my feeling of how social I feel like being, which is probably for the good.

I've also been really making the effort the past couple days to actually get stuff done rather than putting it off -- and lo how that reduces my stress . . . 'cause then it's dealt with rather than looming.  Yes, I should know this, but experiential learning is just so much more powerful.  So, yay for positive reinforcement.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
1. San Diego
2. I am being determinedly optimistic that I will not continue to get sick.  (I was sniffly yesterday and am sniffly-sneezy today, which is annoying.)

There must be some other song besides "Leaving on a Jet Plane," right?

Last week, I was talking to MaryAlice about my upcoming flight to California and how I was leaving obscenely early on Friday morning.  She said she can't sleep on planes, 'cause she doesn't fly much so she doesn't feel comfortable.  I, of course, can sleep just about anywhere I'm sitting down.

She said the first time she flew commercially she was 30, and she's only flown about 5 times in the ten+ years since.  I said I thought I'd flown more than 5 times already, even not counting the flight to CA when I was 4 which I don't remember.  Amusingly, I kept forgetting trips I'd taken.  Anyway, this is the list:

summer 2003: England
spring break 2005: Virginia
summer 2006: Georgia (WriterCon)
summer 2007: Tennessee (RMN Convo)
summer 2007: UK+ (multi-leg)

and upcoming...
summer 2008: California
summer 2008: Greece+Italy

***

I don't anticipate accessing the Internet much at all while I'm in CA, so if you actually need to reach me, best bet is my cell phone.

Flight info just in case you care about tracking whether I crashed and died: ( Alternatively, all you need to know is that I'll be back on the East Coast Monday evening and potentially not back on the Internet until Tuesday. )