L meant to mention on Monday that over the weekend I posted some
href="http://dichroic.diaryland.com/akpics.html">photos from Alaska.
Good God, I'm tired. Too much to do and apparently a side-effect of
being in my thirties means the days are much shorter than they used to be. In
addition to the three documents I'm working on (one late, two due next week) and
the customer delivery I'm putting together, I'm supposed to read "the first 91
pages" on another document for some training I start on Monday. That's not
including the other 5 things I should be working on. Then outside of work, I am in
urgent need of a food-shopping trip as well as a bit of sprucing up before
Mechaieh's visit, plus the 98 other things I need to do there. (Please note her
visit is not a chore; it's the payoff for getting chores done. The only thing I'll
have to do that wouldn't be done otherwise is to make the guestroom bed, and I
think I can handle the added strain of that.) (But I may take a leaf from my in-
laws' books and do the shopping right before dinner and right after figuring out
what I want to cook.)
Also, I need to submit my resume to apply for
some in-house training, only I just realized that was another casualty of the
dratted hard-disk crash. And most of the work I need to do needs input from other
people, who can't help me much because they're either out of the office or working
balls to the wall. (Where did that expression come from
anyway?)
Another reason I'm tired is that this morning I rowed in the
double with Stinky. He went easy on me, but the fact remains that Stinky won
Nationals a couple years ago in the lightweight doubles -- that is, exactly the
boat we were in today, except for having a guy in the other seat instead of me. In
other words, I had a lot to live up to. As you might guess, he's way better and
stronger than I am and his version of a light paddle is more like half pressure
for me. But it was ungodly hot (not again, still) and neither of us felt like
working all that hard, so we just did some power tens and twenties and drills. We
were both dripping with sweat afterward, due mostly to the temperature, but I
enjoyed the row and I think he did too. Rowing alone can get old and it's nice to
switch into a boat with someone else occasionally.
Sad ... listen to
me, complaining about having a well-paid job that challenges me and the chance to
go out in a double with one of the best rowers in the area. *wrench* (forcible
attitude adjustment) Yesterday I read a
href="http://tygerchild.diaryland.com/question210.html">diary entry addressing
the question, What if you were given a chance to return to any previous point in
your life and change a decision you made, but you will lose everything that has
happened to you since then. Is there a time you would return to?" Hell no, not me.
Any major changes before meeting Rudder would have resulted in not meeting him (it
was a fairly chancy sort of thing). Since then, there haven't *been* many things
I'd want to change .... except a few minor improvements that aren't worth losing
the life I've lived. I could decide not to move to AZ, but that could have ended
me in Cincinnati or Wichita, or someplace flat and without rowing. (I'm glad to
have lived here, just ready for a change.) There are a couple of job decisions
where I'd have like to get a do-over, but that could lose me friends I'm glad to
have made and experience I'm glad to have acquired. ANd there isn't really
anything else in my life that's so fucked up it can't be made right starting from
here. Now, if I could keep the memories, live them over, and just correct a few
small mistakes along the way, that I would do. I'm a lucky
girl.
Funny, as I typed that last sentence, I started hearing an echo
in my head; in the movie about Benjamin Franklin's life that they show in Franklin
Court in Philadelphia (my favorite historical attraction there), Franklin says
almost exactly the same thing. I believe it's taken from his actual writings. Not
only am I a lucky girl, I'm in good company.
Literary craving: After
listening to the audiotape version of Joseph Ellis' brilliantly analyzed
Founding Brothers, I'm jonesing for a transcription of the letters
Jefferson and Adams exchanged in the last 13 years of their lives. Fortunately,
Amazon carries one, along with Ellis' bios of both men. I put them in the shopping
cart I've always got on the boil there .... but I promised myself not to buy any
books this month. Is there a literary equivalent of methadone?