Asking for Company

Even though I planned ahead, last Sunday night didn’t result in nearly enough sleep to kick off my long week: Santino was determined to remind me he was In The House… ending at 1AM and starting up again at 5AM. So I started my new job with four hours of sleep, then ran off to the airport for a week of Death By PowerPoint. And Acronyms. Still, the project is interesting and my new colleagues fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a new set of professionals, as well as the strangely squeaky sand of Florida’s northern Gulf coast. It didn’t make me miss hubs or the furbabies any less, though, so when I saw today’s quote (typo and all), it reminded me of how blessed I am… I seem to be surrounded by people who really want to share time with me.

Best of all of them, my best best friend, my hubs. Who was more offended than I was when one of my fellow conference attendees mistook me for the wife of one of the participants. This particular gathering reflected truly the nature of women working in tech: Of 50 participants, 5 were women. On one level, I’m used to living this disparity. On another, I have to wonder at its pervasiveness. Two articles this week reflected on the issue from an historic perspective. The first, on BBC, spoke of ancient Sumerian times, when women were fully empowered. The second showed that fully half of all Vikings buried with swords and shields were women. Then there was the female author whose work was ripped off by an MRA idiot. (FYI – that last link is NSFW, and still worth the read.) It’s a whole new spectrum of and direction for “you’ve come a long way, baby,” and makes me wonder what my nieces will face when they enter the work force in the next ten years. I hope it’s not like what Sioux Indian Chief Standing Bear said sometime around the turn of the 20th century:

Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity.

As for the writing and exercise components of my goals… Well. My phone says I averaged 2.14 miles walking/running (and my calves certainly felt the difference of walking in sand as opposed to doing so on concrete), but I only took two of those walks with hubs and Huskies this week. Because of that, I’m not sure exactly how many miles I clocked on the four actual/intentional walks I took. I also had even less alone time than I anticipated, since we went out for dinner as a group and stayed out late chit-chatting and becoming acquainted. So I didn’t even have my revision document open this week.

My reward for my long week away from home? A stay-at-home date night with hubs. We watched “About Time,” a film by Richard Curtis–of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually fame. It was moving and deceptively deep, and confirmed Curtis’ status in my book as a must-watch writer/director. He has the power to craft characters who are quirky and relatable, and I suspect I will be rewatching this multiple times to understand how his understated characters so thoroughly wormed their way under my skin. I will absolutely be working to implement the underlying message of the story, too: Live every day as if you have all the time in the world to enjoy even the littlest moments. “I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.” Or… “There’s a song by Baz Luhrmann called Sunscreen. He says worrying about the future is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life will always be things that never crossed your worried mind.”

This week will be as busy, but in an entirely different way. Monday through Wednesday morning will be work-related, with another overnight in a different state and a long day at a project kick-off conference. Wednesday night, then, I arrive at Gayla’s for 10 days of writers’ retreat fun. So I may actually make progress on my words later this week. I expect a reduction in the miles walked, too, since that’s just not how they roll in Texas.

😀

Either way, I’ll report in again next Sunday, and hope you’ll visit my ROW80 buddies to see how they’re progressing.