Today, I:

managed to miss two buses within about two minutes.

spilled my coffee a bit at Starbucks (ironically as I was trying to put the lid back on).  The guy next to me at the side counter was concerned that I burned my hand and helped me clean it up.

determined that, if left to itself, my hair has a slight natural wave.

continued the last few days' trend of starting to feel like I'm contributing at work.

made waffles for dinner, didn't allow any of the batter to spill out of the iron, and convinced myself it wasn't so bad (as in unhealthy) because I sliced up a banana to eat with them.

looked up "my" beach on the map to show someone where it was, and immediately really missed it and am now quite excited to be going this weekend.

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observed another zillion-legged bug infiltrating my room.  Tried to get it with my flip flop, but its location did not facilitate that, and it escaped, probably somewhere into the heating unit.

realized I can tell when the washing machine is running, because I believe my room is immediately above it.  (The basement still sketches me out.)

noted the beautiful night air -- perfect for spending time on a hammock...

(maybe with someone...even better)

everything in sync

My brothers got me an iPod for Christmas. It's my first one ever; cute little radiant-purple nano. Since I like to try to be mostly legal with music, I've only got three albums on it so far, all of which I purchased from Amazonmp3. This current lack of variety is but a small issue, though, because walking across campus with music is a million times better than walking across it in silence and thinking only about being late. (I usually am.) Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm living in a movie - the soundrack is playing in my head.

Today (well...fine, yesterday) I was walking on Locust, scheduled day done and already in a pretty good mood. The last part of my scheduled day had been cancelled, it was Thursday so I'd basically reached my weekend, and I had just parted ways with Grace (as she was off to an art class of course) with whom I'd been talking about dance. I started listening to "Rikki" by Mylo. I like to think that some kind of instinctual sense guides humans to move with the rhythm of music they're hearing, but since that's probably not the case, I at least know that I like to walk in sync with the beat of whatever song I'm listening to. Maybe this is a leftover from marching band. For whatever reason, this time, I was walking in sync. I love the song and it fed straight into my good mood. There are certainly some things in my life that are not how I want them to be right now, but while listening to that song, I was immersed in this feeling that everything was in sync, not just myself and the music. So for that little bit, the music freed me from whatever stresses are tying me down and just gave me a happiness.

I'm starting to sound sappy, wow. I'll just say, it was quite a good moment.

feeling that didn't make sense

Driving at night and listening to the radio usually gets me into a ponderous mood. Tonight as I came to the end of my (short) drive home, I started getting this feeling. It was kind of like anxiously excited, anticipating something that I was nervous about but wanted. I can probably blame the music for being in my mind at the moment, but this feeling was tinted with the thought of being close with a guy. Not really one guy in particular though... There were probably about three in my mind, each in some way. I know I wasn't going to be with any of them (being close, I mean), not tonight and more than likely not soon, and maybe never. A part of it, I figure, was an infusion of missing someone, and somehow being excited as if I was looking forward to being with him. It's like the night inspired this excitement, but there was nothing actually for which to be excited, and so... I stayed in the car, in the driveway, finishing up listening to that song. Then I was left with the feeling, letting it be whatever it was, because that's all there could be to it.

--

When your only friends are hotel rooms
Hands are distant lullabies
If I could turn around I would tonight

These roads never seemed so long
Since your paper heart stopped beating leaving me suddenly alone
Will daybreak ever come?

Who's gonna call on Sunday morning?
Who's gonna drive you home?
I just want one more chance
To put my arms in fragile hands

I thought you said forever
Over and over
A sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
Over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

August evenings
Bring solemn warnings
To remember to kiss the ones you love goodnight

You never know what temporal days may bring
Laugh, love, live free and sing
When life is in discord
Praise ye the lord

Who's gonna call on Sunday morning?
Who's gonna drive you home?
I just want one more chance
To put my arms in fragile hands

I thought you said forever
Over and over
The sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
Over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

I thought you said forever
over and over
The sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

I thought you said forever
over and over
These thoughts run through my head


(http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/anberlin/paperthinhymn.html)

All in a day's work.

*

7:00am - Wake up. Obviously wish I could go back to sleep for like 5 more hours.

7:00-7:10am - Lie in bed trying to rest for a little extra time without falling asleep (cuz I don't think I have any more alarms set to rescue me if I did that).

7:15am - Realize Mom has just turned on the water for a shower so I can't start mine.

7:15-7:25am - Eat cereal, turn on computer, start it running a backup cuz I'm obsessive like that.

7:25-7:35am - Return to bedroom and begin debating what to wear.

7:35-7:55am - Shower.

7:55-8:05am - Finish debating what to wear, and get dressed. Put hair in clip and hope it dries okay, put on earrings and shoes.

8:05-8:20am - Eat rest of breakfast (fruit), brush teeth, etc/get ready to go.

8:20-9:10am - Drive to work. Notice van's gas tank is only 1/4 full, decide not to be ridiculous and maybe I'll stop and fill it on the way home. Listen to clips of ridiculous country versions of popular songs...since when was Elvis Duran (sp?) on Q102? Wasn't he always on Z100? Classify cars I see on the road: ugly or not (haha).

9:20am - Sit down at my desk at work.

9:20-9:30am - Write/respond to emails re: intern stuff.

9:30-10:40am - Begin getting cold and possibly thinking about Matt's sweatshirt. Would it be weird if I borrowed it when he wasn't even there yet?
Fix issue of scrollbars appearing in Firefox when a link was focused by moving overflow:auto to the form instead of an enclosing div, and thus still beating the FF invisible cursor bug!
Begin playing around with positioning to see if I can get relatively good agreement of appearance between IE/FF.
Get distracted when I hear Jeff, Chandra**, and Sunita start talking about Thunderbird vs. Yahoo vs. Outlook vs. whatever other email options there are; chime in that Thunderbird is a standalone application.
Chat with the three of them about email, texting ("Why don't you just call? I don't get it" says Jeff, just like my parents, and of course I can't come up with a convincing explanation...haha), rotary phones ("You had one? No way!" - Jeff again), area codes (yes, you really do have to dial it now; that's been in place for years!)...
Listen to the Jeff/Steve movie debate.

11:15am - Turn back to my work, wonder if Matt's even coming in today, assume that since it's past the latest arrival time I knew of (10:30 or so), assume he isn't showing up.

11:30am - Hear Matt talking, saying he has come in for the training at 1pm... Decide that since that means I can't go to lunch with him anyway, I'll go from 1:30-2 and make up for some of that time I spent talking with the others.

11:30am-1:30pm - Fix up some of the positioning stuff and another minor unexpected behavior that popped up. Painstakingly decide that maybe I'm done with this stuff and wonder if I should bother Matt to tell him (and ask if I should do any more on the positioning); decide not to, and begin looking into the html source of the next thing Matt had told me to work on.

12:57pm - Matt leaves for his training and I'm pretty much alone in the rectangle.

1:30-1:55pm - Eat lunch; read some articles in WSJ; continue being cold in the cafeteria.

1:55-2:05pm - Go outside because I'm really looking forward to warming up in the sun. Sit down in the courtyard and begin reading the WSJ page I stole (it's the Technology page and has both Alcatel-Lucent and DreamWorks on it!); get visited by curious little worm-like bugs crawling up my legs and attempt to flick them all off.

2:05-5:10pm - Return to my desk. Start getting cold right away and really want Matt's sweatshirt; consider emailing him (hoping he gets it on his iPhone and could respond); decide this is a little pathetic and don't do it.
Matt shows up for a second; feel too awkward and I don't ask for his sweatshirt after all.
Continue setting up this new thing I'm working on. Look over some of Matt's code and admire its structure as usual. Decide to rework a section of my code for like the 3rd time.

4:40pm - Receive email from Matt that I'm probably going to have to "talk" at this pizza lunch thing on Thursday. Wonder if he means I'll have to give some kind of presentation, or if he's telling me not to be shy, haha.

5:10-5:20pm - "Register" for intern lunch thing tomorrow. Input my hours for the past week online.

5:20pm - Before leaving, ask Matt about the email; he says I might just have to say a little something about what I'm doing as an intern. Laugh and tell him it would've been legit if he'd been referring to me being shy :P

5:25pm - Step outside and relax into the warmth as I walk through the parking lot, a little walk which always brings back a hint of a crazy little memory...

--
*all times are approximate.
**I really hope I'm spelling his name right.

A thought from my commute

...Actually my drive to work and my drive back home afterwards were both filled with thoughts; however, it's late (and I need to get some sleep), so for the moment I'm only going to mention this one. In the morning, after getting on 33, I switched to the left lane, passed a school bus, and switched back to the right lane. Driving home, I passed a dump truck of some sort, and then a cab of a tractor trailer (without any trailer). And.. though it's probably just a norm of highway driving (moving ahead of slower-moving large vehicles), I felt a little bad about it. The drivers of these large vehicles are probably depending on driving them as their jobs. And we, in the much smaller cars, SUVs, and minivans, feel the need to move over, zip ahead, and move back in front of them -- because they are driving a little bit under the speed limit, and in this fast-paced world, we all feel the need to drive a little bit above it. It's sort of like not-so-discreetly moving around and in front of an older lady or gentleman on a sidewalk, so that you can rush ahead... seems a tad disrespectful. Okay, maybe that's a little far-fetched, and hey, I moved ahead of these vehicles too. But I couldn't help feeling it was another sign of how everyone is so caught up in what they've got to do, where they've got to go, the rush and business of the day, that we forget that we're all people, living together in this world...

Hmm. Maybe Tuesdays with Morrie is sticking in my mind more than I realized? :P That's probably a good thing, though. :)