( gym )

Nicole bumped into us at lunch today, which was nice.

FUH called this morning to ask if his exams were ready (he's leaving for Maine tomorrow), so I called him this afternoon when they were ready for me to pick up and told him that the Registrar recommended that we go through them to make sure we had them all and etc. (he had said maybe he would just come in and pick them up from the Registrar himself) so I would be happy to do that and then just leave them in his office for him to pick up at his convenience.  When I was done, I emailed him an empty-body email, Subject Line: exams are on the green chair in front of your desk
He replied simply: URTB
♥
(Driving me back from Friday's party, he asked if I'd gotten my card, and I said I had but I hadn't opened it yet.  He said the "dot dot dot" stood in for "You're the best."  I am unclear as to why he thought he shouldn't write that in a public card, but whatev.)

I feel like I have my life back now that the course is over, even though it's really just coincidence that I don't have plans every night this week and it's not like the course actually ate my life (I'm on campus at 8am anyway, so really it just shuffled around my day -- plus I got bonus free breakfast a bunch of times, which I am not complaining about at all).

(Sidebar: Memorial Day is this coming Monday?  When did that happen?  And why does GoogleCalendar not inform me of holidays?  To quote AmyFox from another context, "It's little things like this that keep Google from ruling the world. :(" )

I am mildly concerned about our washing machine leaking.

I have really been feeling recently that I'm a grazer -- I'll not finish a meal and then be hungry a couple of hours later.  Some time ago, someone suggested single-serving yogurts for work, and I should definitely actually do that.  (In contrast, dinner keeps not filling me up tonight, which is annoying.)

via inlovewithnight I finally actually listened to the "I'm On a Boat" song (which I had first heard about at least a couple of weeks ago).  Yeah, I feel really okay about my disinclination to track it down these past few weeks.  I am, however, entertained, by Bert and Ernie.

It's a little weird being back in ordinary time no longer being in Holy Week/Lent.  I have also apparently turned into the kind of snob who thinks that one really "should" observe Holy Week (and Lent) to really "get" Easter.

musesfool has posted some really good poems recently:
* "Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal" by Naomi Shihab Nye
* "Monologue for an Onion" by Suji Kwock Kim

Roza and I were gonna meet up at Tealuxe yesterday, but she had a Day and totally forgot.  I'd already gotten myself a "Thayer St. Medicinal Blend" 'cause I was feeling kinda icky, but I ended up not liking it all that much.  Today I got Orange & Echinacea, which I felt neutral on -- as I do so often with tea.  We got dinner at Bertucci's with her sweetheart.  At one point (when he and I had near simultaneous/identical reactions to something, I think), Roza joked, "When did you start dating my sweetheart?"

FUH formally invited me to his seminar talk tomorrow :)

I'm helping to co-lead Rest and Bread tomorrow night, including giving the reflection (Scripture: Mark 16:1-8).

Work keeps being an alternation of lulls and doing magic on demand.

( gym: Friday, Monday, Tuesday )

Before (and still during) Rest and Bread tonight, I was feeling tired.  I went to bed at like 9:30 last night (though I woke up around 2:30 and couldn't fall back asleep for about a half an hour).  Keith asked if it was 'cause of my friend, and he totally gets thoughtful points for that, but I haven't been actively stressing about that ... nothing especially stands out to me as an explanation, so I guess it's probably a combination of personal stuff and work stuff and hormones and lack of sleep.

[Lentn House Church]  Last week, Molly had said that we were gonna do an activity this week, and of course I was not thrilled, but the activity was actually planning your funeral (the theme tonight was "death") and I was stoked.  And there was good discussion, too.  I miss having the time to actually post writeups.

Saying goodbyes tonight, folks I barely know expressed pleasure at having seen me (and sounded genuine).  Part of me wishes I could make FCS my secondary church home.  It just doesn't quite work, though.

***

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

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Five good things about today:
1. email from FUH made me smile
2. emailing with L.
3. Folks are sad to not have Soup Supper etc. next week, so after Rest and Bread next week we're going out to dinner.
4. Molly said I give good hugs and it's one of my spiritual gifts :)
5. Aww, soundingsea's reply to my lj-anniversary post :)

Three things I did well today:
1. I got up with my alarm and went to the ( gym )
2. I remembered to read a Psalm.
3. I did laundry.
4. I caught up on various personal Internet stuff.
5. I remembered to make the CWM deposit.

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. hot chocolate with Roza and Jonah
2. omfg muskratjamboree begins (even though by the time I get there my plans will basically consist of falling into bed ... I am seriously considering sleeping in my own bed Thursday night and just getting up like I normally would for work Friday morning and heading to the hotel then)

( gym )

HBS FA "brunch" this morning.  I had like a plateful of scrambled eggs -- and some fruit.  Apparently enough food that I actually didn't feel up to having lunch and just split a Three Musketeers with Greg around quarter to one.  (And gummy letters at like a quarter to four.)

I did some easy task for FUH and he emailed me, "U R the best!"  Adorable.

Max walked up to my desk, holding a basket of bright flowers, and said, "I'll trade you."  I asked if my dead roses bothered him that much and he said he guessed they must since he mentions them so often.  He said honestly he was regifting these flowers 'cause he thought they might aggravate his wife's allergies.

I think God for the grace of emotional detachment.  One friend's relationship angst has been reminding me of a dysfunctional relationship which has thankfully since healed, and now another friend's relationship angst is reminding me of a dysfunctional relationship I've been watching for years.  (Except, per tonight's email, the latter are back to being good.  Response email and then bed, I swear.)  And I've been able to listen and offer advice/support and not feel emotionally drained myself.

I got <3 hours of sleep last night and totally didn't crash at all except the first half of CAUMC discussion group (8pm) I dozed off.

Happy-making things today included the latest from the the "Women in Media Convention" [nods solemnly].

I got a spam email with Subject line "Treat your lady like a gentleman."  Yeah, the way I initially parsed it was not the way the spammer intended.

( gym this week )

Friday morning, Rob Marciano (the CNN weather guy) announced that it was Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Heh.  Yeah, he's kind of a dork.

***

Friday morning, Kathleen asked – apropos of nothing as far as I could tell, though I didn't ask – if I'd been promoted to Unit Coordinator.  I laughed – and said that in practical terms I suspected that was basically what my job was, though I don't actually know the details of the UC job description.

When FUH left, he asked me to check the dates for a couple upcoming meetings to reassure him that they weren't next week.  He said "I noticed you put them on my calendar, which was great."  I said, "That's why I'm awesome."  He said, "One of the many many reasons why you're awesome."  Aww!  :D

***

On the Red Line heading to South Station, this man and woman (in their twenties maybe?) sitting next to me were talking, and as we were crossing the Charles River he pointed and said that see those spires off in the distance, that's where he lives, right across the street from a church.
"Do you go to church?" she asked.
"I haven't in... seven years."
"So that would be a no."
"Yeah, but I'm thinking of going back.  I just don't know how I feel about that scene."
She mentioned the John Lennon line "God is a concept by which we measure our pain."
He said, "I prefer Karl Marx's 'Religion is the opiate of the masses.'"
I said, "While pithy, Marx's quote elides the role of religion in social justice, like the civil rights movement."
The guy (sitting next to me) turned and looked at me and said, "Whoa."
I said, "I'm sorry, I don't usually interrupt other people's conversations on the T."
The woman joked, "We're just that interesting."
I laughed and said, "Whenever people are talking about religion, I perk up."
We let the conversation drop there, which was fine, since we were all getting off soon (but at different stops) anyway.

***

First Singspiration of the 11th season. (JoeF said the first one was November of 1998.)  ( Read more... )

After we got home, my mom and I talked about United and stuff.  I talked about how recent experiences have taught me that the different parties in a single situation can come away with very different interpretations/understandings of that situation, and I hope I retain that lesson beyond these specific instances.

***

Saturday morning, my dad showed me the Sept. 18 Norwood Record (the newest local paper) so I could read about the new Director of the Library.  I ended up reading most of the issue and rolled my eyes at Valerie Saber's "Town & Country" column.

Nobody interesting was working at the library this Saturday, but I hung around my parents' house 'cause my Uncle Miles was gonna be stopping by and I hadn't seen him in I'm not sure how long (not living at home, I tended to miss his infrequent -- and often rather last-minute -- visits).  It was nice to spend time with him.  And I talked about work a lot -- and was reminded of how much I have failed to retain (not that he was being critical, but that I would try to talk about stuff and realize I had only a very surface understanding/familiarity -- which is actually good, because it pushes me to make more of an effort to learn and retain, because even if I didn't find a lot of this interesting I would like to be able to talk coherently about the department I work in and stuff).

Oh, we ordered Chinese food for dinner, and my fortune cookie said, "It's not the hours you put in, but what you put into the hours that count." [in bed]

On the Red Line home, I was sitting next to a man and a woman in their sixties I would guess.  The man was talking about how he had started reading The Iliad, and I didn't hear what he said after that but the the woman said, "He's Roman," and I almost said, "Do you mean the Iliad or The Aeneid?"  He kept talking, said something about the "carrying his father Anchises" bit in the play-within-a-play in Act 3 of Hamlet (which I don't recall at all).  He said something about his mother being Aphrodite, and at this point I turned and said, "Aphrodite?  His mother's a goddess, but it wasn't Aphrodite."  The woman (who was sitting on the other side of the guy) looked shocked and said, "Someone talking to someone on the T!  Are you from the Midwest or California?"  I laughed and said no, I grew up south of Boston, Massachusetts resident all my life.  She said usually the only time people will talk to you on the T is September when it's students from the Midwest and California who haven't been retrained yet.  I told her I appeared to be making a habit out of it actually, which pleased her.  [I Googled when I got home and, duh, it was Aeneas the guy was talking about, not Achilles.]

Also, apparently the guy has twice picked up this age-fifties-ish mild-mannered hitchhiker and taken him from Cambridge City Hall to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (to redeem his cans and bottles).  I said, "Wow, I didn't know anyone picked up hitchhikers these days."

On my way home, I saw a sign for a yard sale today (Saturday) just a couple houses down from where I live.  Bummer.  Would be nice to get to know the neighbors a bit.

***

In conversation Friday evening, Ari and I affirmed that, Out in Wesport notwithstanding, National Coming Out Day is October 11.

She emailed me later:

Subject: do you celebrate this holiday?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day

It's apparently September 23. Who knew?

-Ari

I recall going to a Celebrate Bisexuality event at Christopher's one year -- found it.  Heh, that's the entry that had Rana saying in comments, "You identify as queer? I haven't ever picked that up from you before."  Which is synchronicit-ous, because Ari and I were talking about advance planning for NCOD posting and I was thinking afterward about different kinds of Coming Out, specifically since I've "come out" as libertarian to various people recently and I always feel a little nervous/weird about that, and was specifically thinking about how mjules thought I was a Republican and how that reminded me of Rana not realizing I self-identified as queer.

Anyway, QueerAgenda doesn't seem to have anything -- though pulling up biresource.net, it [the Bisexual Resource Center] apparently co-sponsored CineMental's "Bi's Night Out: Queer Bisexual Film Program" last Wednesday (which I had opted to skip, for a variety of reasons).  [Edited to add: Biversity Calendar]

( gym )

***

Man, I sometimes feel like the dKos diary section (diarists and commenters) is laem, but Deleuze and Habermas?  I am impressed.
    Also interesting, from elsewhere in the comments: hearing about how the comment moderation functions and the history thereof.  I already often think while I'm over there find myself about how the dKos diary section functions both differently from and similarly to LJ, and this of course encourages me.  ( Read more... )

***

MaryAlice thinks I should go celebrate gay weddings when I'm out in CA with my brother :)  Y'know, just show up at City Hall somewhere with flowers and champagne and celebrate people I've never met.

Around 4pm today, the sky burst with rain, coming down diagonally against the window, looking like sleet.

At one point today, FUH asked me, "When are you coming to Maine?"  ♥  My summer is really booked up, though.  I'm free the weekend of July 19, but I should so totally be packing that weekend.  I mean, do we really think I'm gonna get the bulk of my packing done over the July 4th weekend?

My mom came and met me at work before we went to dinner tonight, so she got to meet FUH.  He heard us talking and knew we had to be related 'cause she sounds just like me.

We went to Antonia's in Davis Square -- one of the few restaurants I can think of in the immediate Davis Square area that I haven't eaten at yet.
For $18, I would have liked a bit more of my spinach&cheese ravioli, but that's okay.  They were out of cannoli, sadly.

It was nice to get to visit with my mom.  I go back to Norwood about every six weeks during the school year, but what that actually translates into is: walk home from the train with my mom, inhale dinner and hear from my dad a bit, go to Singspiration and hang out there, come home with my mom and stay up late hearing from her, get up late morning and have lunch with Terry, go back to Somerville.

She conflates Allie and Ari, but she totally knew what "gen" meant (as in "gen bff," etc.).  I'm so proud :)

When we went over the Charles, it was around sunset, which I haven't done in a while.  My mom joked that the train was going slowly to give us an opportunity to enjoy the view more :)

I keep mentioning in conversations withe people how the Red Line is shuttle busing this past and upcoming weekend and how the subway's been going like 5mph over the Bridge due to construction underneath, but I didn't really know anything about it, so I finally actually Googled earlier today.  Boston Globe, Massachusetts Highway Department

In browsing b0st0n (something I rarely do), I found that as of this month, the Tweeter Center is now the Comcast Center.

***

HU EXT 08-09 Courses Posted

I'm thinking of auditing this fall: ( 1. Religion, Education, and Democracy & 2. The Bible and Politics )

( gym )

The CNN crawl included "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will resume production Jan. 7 without the striking writers, Comedy Central reported"
WTF?

***

MaryAlice brought in batches of her peanut fudge for us FAs (and Greg), and Prof.B. gave me a box of milk chocolate almond toffee or something.  Yay sugar.

FUH (who's on sabbatical this year) handed me a card and apologized that it wasn't as "creative" as last year.  (See entries on 12/22 and 12/26 of 2006.)  I said that while I was hesitant to tell him he could coast for a few years on that gift, it was pretty awesome.
    The card had a lovely picture on the front of a snowy scene -- woodcut called "Snowlight" by Patti Jacquerman (it's a Sierra Club card, but none of these look like it).  Inside, he'd written, "Thanks so much for all of your support during this (weird) year.  An Amazon gift certificate is on the way."  Heart.

Our mailguy was telling us about the OSS party that was gonna be at 4pm -- wine, beer, Ronnie DJing, etc.  I'm bad at going to stuff like that by myself, though, and also feel weird about cutting out of work early.  It's funny, Prof.B. told me on Tuesday or Wednesday that he was planning to come in for a few hours in the morning if at all on Friday and that I should think about doing the same, but as it actually played out: he came in for a 9am meeting that ended up having to get rescheduled because of something with the other party and at 4pm I brought him something he'd forwarded me to print out and he said I should feel free to go home.  I spent the next half hour ordering fruit baskets, however (He'd asked me to do this a day or two ago, but I didn't have their home addresses and was unclear as to whether he was going to obtain that information for me or what.) and then figured I'd just stay till 5.

I had lunch with Allie, which was lovely.  And tasty.  I got tofu-veggie stirfry (with ginger sauce), which I haven't had in ages.  I was full after like half of it (though I brought it back to my desk to eat later and finished the tofu before I left for the day.)

***

Wow, I hadn't realized how much I needed sleep until I was chilling on my bed this evening and ended up taking a nap.  There were a couple interesting programs on CNN that I was gonna watch tonight, but I slept through the first one and now plan to go to bed before the second one.

---

Advent meditation: Luke 1:26-38 (RSV)
     Margaret did the meditation, in which she talked about letting Christ dwell within us and how "with God nothing is impossible."

+

joy sadhana for Advent (20)

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

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before our God to prepare the ways, to give knowledge of salvation to God's people by the forgiveness of sins.  By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
-Luke 1:76-79

Five good things about today:
1. I felt a lot less crampy and icky than I did yesterday.
2. Lovely Christmas gifts
3. Getting to see Allie for a bit.
4. zomg, I do not have to go to work again for 11 days
5. The fact that I am going to bed for real soon.

Three things I did well today:
1. I got up before quarter of seven this morning.  And had breakfast at home.
2. I found information for postponing jury duty in Massachusetts.  (This was actually really easy to find -- I had thought the process would be more complicated.)
3. [which I will do in the near future] Went to bed early.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
1. Getting to sleep in (a little bit, anyway -- mom, I'll probably take the 11:20 out which gets to Norwood Depot at 11:49).
2. Getting to read on the train.

QUAINT as a dirty word?  Best thing I've heard all day.

In other news, Sharon introduced me to HopStop.com.  I really like that it tells you the stops that you pass along the way so you can get a feel for when your stop is approaching.  And they give you actual maps for when you're walking between stuff.  Though I'm amused that it doesn't seem to include the MBTA Commuter Rail (to get from my house to my parents' house, has me pick up the 34 from Forest Hills, which is fine except that that makes it twice the time it would take if I just picked up the Franklin Line from South Station.)

I love how the flist keeps mentioning playing Apples to Apples for the first time.

gloss linked to a a great article on Captain America, including how he represents the ideal of America rather than the sometimes ugly realities.  I'd never had any interest in the character, but this makes me feel much love for him (I particularly love the origin story).

Eric brought in The Lost Room for me -- which I keep forgetting about.  (He mentioned it once and I said I'd seen ads for it and it looked interesting; he said he owned it, so he'd lend it to me.)  What I really want is the Truman Capote book.

He and MaryAlice went to the beach on Monday, and he was talking about how he had gotten a little bit burnt but it would turn to tan.  Then he said something about how I probably burn like whoa (though he did not in fact use that phrase) since I'm so pale.  I was thrown by this 'cause I'm used to identifying as more my father's (v. tan) complexion than my mother's (v. pale).  So, people who've meatspace met me, how would you describe my complexion?

Back to the joy list:

Tag-bundling gives me great joy [del.icio.us].

A friend of mine e-mailed me to indicate that she had not in fact fallen off the face of the planet.  Huzzah.

A friend called me to tell me that he was thinking of me because (1) he had just watched the first season of How I Met Your Mother and (2) he had joined a a Jewish comic book discussion group.  Heart.

FUH was talking about the neat sliding doors on their house in Maine, and I said something about how one of these days I've gotta see this house I hear so much about (he's basically built it all himself) and he was like, "Yeah, definitely," and started mentioning dates.  Rock.  Unfortunately, it's August that would work for him, and I'm gonna be away (he told me to e-mail him to remind him about Prague as he went a few years ago and he'll see if he can remember any of the more out-of-the way nice places), but he's on leave next year, so there's still September or October.
(He was also talking about "Harry Potter day" -- i.e. the Book 7 release date -- as his younger daughter's a wee-bit obsessed, and I said I'd have to get the UK copy from my parents at some point and he said I might be able to borrow his daughter's copy as it'll arrive a few days after Release Date which is unacceptable, but she is still ordering it.)

I had a good gym session.  I felt really good on the elliptical, and was v. pleased with my time (1mi@10:55min, 2mi@22:07min, 2.69?mi@30min, 3.05mi post-5minute-cooldown), and then I did various weight machine stuff and some free weights.  Off of friendsfriends I've ILL-ed Smart Women Do Dumbbells and if that turns out to be useful I may purchase some hand weights for home use.

Where is all this rain I keep hearing about?  Yesterday it was sunny out my window for most of the day, and today all I got was humidity (cloudy, but still).  Though now that I'm finishing this entry I do hear it raining outside.

Prof.D. got a tree on Friday [Bristlecone Pine], and it's this really efficient packaging: wired to a wooden base which fits flush against the inside of the box. Problem is, you thus need wire cutters to get it out. So it's been sitting in its box across from my desk. FormerUnitHead asked about it this morning, and I explained. Turns out he has a tool kit in his office. Story: back in the day, when they were in Cotting, there was no network, so they built their own. "IT was furious, but we wanted to be able to print."