I don't know.  I'm just writing--I feel like my Facebook profile might not be the best location for all the crap I might want to spew.  Maybe too public, maybe not, I'm just not sure.

Life in flux, in chaos.  I'm holding it more or less together, but it's a bit of a struggle.  Forward motion is the only kind I can afford at the moment, and it's provided me a kind of happiness.  A breaking out of old boundaries, boundaries built up over the past several years which, I now realize, had only been shaken and not truly overrun by my relationship with L.

So we'll see where this phase of the journey takes us.

I have been incredibly busy over the past several weeks and as a result haven't been able to find the time to update here.  Things are going well overall--just busy.  Hopefully later this week or early next week I'll be able to post something more substantial: there are a few things currently up in the air that when they land I will actually have something to journal about.

Hope all is well with you folks!

So an unusual thing happened to me last night, and like almost all unusual stories this one starts very far from my person.

L. was still in ATL last night, talking to her friend Sarah, catching her up on her life situation--they hadn't talked since right after L. and I first met up, long before we started dating.  Sarah's response to the whole thing, L.'s enthusiasm included, was to warn her that our relationship would be catastrophic to her life at Vanderbilt.  The overall argument runs like this, and features some specific sorority-girl logic that doesn't match up with my own idea of positive social behavior but hey, I'm not in a sorority and never wanted to be:

-Dating older guys isn't bad in and of itself, but there's something wrong with older guys who accompany girls to college parties and other 20ish-aged events.
-Dating an older guy who exhibits weird behavior like that makes you weird, too.
-If you're weird like that you deserve to be ridiculed if not ostracized.
-L.'s social life at the moment is very heavily rooted in her sorority and the events it sponsors and participates in, and that is not likely to change.
-Thus, L.'s social life is in jeopardy to the extent that I am involved with it publicly.

Sarah's solution to the problem: either break up with me or just date me "on the side."  Not necessarily non-exclusively, just beyond the borders of her normal social life.
( Yeah, right? )

OK, so I didn't meet L.'s parents while I was down in the ATL last weekend, which was fine since they were interested in meeting me but clearly not exactly excited about the idea. Her mother is still trying to convince her that us being together is the worst idea ever and that it will completely ruin college for her. That's a fairly upsetting criticism for two main reasons: first, that it relies on a certain blindness to the maturity of our approach to the relationship in general; and second, that it's such an honest, sincere and understandable worry that one can't help but share it at least a little. That's why it's not something I think she should be worried about--because the two of us are already thinking about it and trying to make sure it doesn't happen.

( But enough of that. )

I feel like I've been run ragged lately.  Between work changes, L. taking up a lot of my non-work time, the wedding trip to Arkansas, and then on top of that really trying to get some solid work done on my dissertation, I've felt like I've hardly had time to breathe.

A bit of a recap:

I'm now Editorial Liaison for the Cancer Biostatistics Center at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, working directly under the Director of the division.  I handle the Director's schedule, draft correspondence between him and others (including recommendation letters, which have proven quite entertaining so far), organize special events at the Center, help the Director update his course materials, and edit/proofread letters and articles for the Center's faculty.  Starting in a couple of weeks I'll be getting a raise and I've already gone from temp to term professional.  I have a cute little nameplate on my cubicle wall even, it's so much fun.

I spent the past weekend in Arkansas for B.'s wedding.  It was fun overall, but it was a 9+ hour trip each way which really wore on me and made the actual experience of the wedding and reception seem less worth it than it might otherwise have.  It was great hanging out with the three folks I went down there with--we ended up spending Saturday morning/early afternoon watching movies.  We saw "Becoming Jane", which was sappy and two-dimensional but of course predictably heart-warming, and then "Stardust", based on the Neil Gaiman book of the same name, which I didn't even realize until it started up and I saw the plot begin to unfold.  At that point my expectations rose dramatically, only to be crushed by the inelegant presentation of the movie.  The most wonderful part of the book was how stately it seemed, even when the characters were saying or doing ridiculous things.  The movie wasn't quite able to keep that, and so it ended up falling pretty flat and seeming totally cliche on a regular basis (which the story is--it plays off so many older stories that it can't help BUT be cliche--but somehow the book manages to be both cliche and dignified.  the movie manages only the first).

I'm heading down to Atlanta this weekend to see L.  Penguin will also be down there for a wedding, so the two of us will be meeting up at L.'s friend's place for the party they'll be throwing that night.  Should be good fun--it's been nearly a month since I've seen her, and thankfully THAT part of our relationship is coming to an end.  A week after that and she'll be back in Nashville, to which we're both quite looking foward.  She's got doctor's appointments more or less all this week to get herself checked up and cleared for another year away from home, so I'm sure she'll be glad of the entertainment and relief when the weekend comes.

A friend of mine out in Utah suggested last night that he's going to try to buy me an XBox 360.  This guy is totally nuts.  A wonderful friend, always willing to do anything for anybody, but I worry that he might be impoverishing his family by always giving things that people don't need to them just because of the fact that they can't afford it themselves.  The craziest part is that it was HIM who decided that I needed an XBox in the first place, so we could play together.  Insanity.  Well, if he gets it for me, that would be a good reason to buy Guitar Hero, I guess?  Because the rockstar side of my personality really needs some development.

Toshi out.

I'm so glad we don't have any of it in the war in Iraq. (link)

OK, so life has really continued to be uneventful chez moi, in general, but yesterday I had a pretty crazy day--maybe it's just that August has started and August is going to turn out to be a really crazy month, especially with all the traveling around I have in the works. We'll see.

Yesterday I was planning to meet Lola for lunch when, around 11am, I got a call from K. asking whether I was free for lunch. I had run into her at the Bucks the other day and we realized it's been months since we hung out so she wanted to help rectify that situation. I told her I already had plans but if she were free tomorrow we could have lunch then. She said she didn't know and we'd talk later.

Ten minutes later, Lola canceled lunch because of a bureaucratic nightmare she got embroiled in, involving some kind of embezzlement of millions of University dollars into offshore numbered accounts. I didn't ask for details to avoid getting myself involved and potentially involved in the inevitable conspiracy to commit fraud charges.

( But what happened next? )

OK, I'm feeling it.  A week plus and I haven't worked out in the slightest even once, which is starting to take its toll on me.  I just feel kinda icky all over and like I don't want to be around people.  Need to take some time out tonight to really get back in the groove.

Boss left town on friday without giving me instructions on the work I'm supposed to be doing for him this week, which means barely anything here in the office for me to do.  Just some projects and whatnot that I'm nearly done with already, and the scant instructions he phones in to me every now and then and which take barely any time at all.

This is either going to be an amazing week or a really crappy one, I can already feel the polarities shifting and revving up their polar-motors.

Current Music: Of Montreal - Eros's Entropic Tundra

These past few days have definitely been uneventful.  Been working--found out I'm being moved to a new position in the same office starting on Monday, helping my boss prepare his course materials, while he tries to help me get a job doing something I want to do elsewhere in the Cancer Center.  He's a great guy and it's clear that his really loves him.  He's been a good boss to me, too, so I will regret moving elsewhere.  He wants to keep me until the end of the year, and said that if I stayed here I'd be able to rearrange my schedule as needed to be able to meet with Bob about my dissertation, etc. so that it works best for me.  Which SOUNDS like a great deal, but honestly if I stayed in a position here that long I'd feel like I was treading water rather than making real progress, no matter how much I felt like I was accomplishing on my thesis.  I really just hope the Cancer Center Outreach thing works out.  He said he'd call the chief up there as soon as he got the chance.

So I didn't get the job over in Development.  Apparently they had a good number of really strong applicants who are currently working in editorial positions apply for the job and they're just way more practically qualified than I am.  Nuts to that.

Well, I'll work on the Cancer Center Outreach position then, it looks like.