Yesterday morning I had a meeting with the Dean's assistant, to discuss "the new office arrangements." They're rearranging offices to bring some of us into the main building and set it up so that all the accounting people are in one place. Fine.
But I like my little cave. It's dark & relatively quiet, which I need. I told them that I need a quiet office & that I can't even work with someone talking on the phone regularly. (It makes me lose my concentration, which is really annoying when I'm looking for the one misplaced ; in 500 lines of code.
So where do they want to put me? In a large room with the 2 recruiters, who are very loud and talk on the phone all the time! The admin tried to tell me that the little cubicle half-walls would keep me from being distracted by the noise. Um, no. No no no. Not to mention that I currently work with the lights off & the windows papered over because I get headaches from the glare.
It just seems like such a stupid thing to do.
There's the possibility that I may get a different small office to myself, though they'd been planning to move my boss and put him in there. If I have to move at all, that's probably the best place for me. But I don't like change & I'd be happy staying right where I am.
The cost of the work hours spent figuring out the arrangements & moving people around must be quite high. It seems a waste, since we're having all the budget cuts.
I was happy this weekend.
I was happy this weekend. For portions of three days. I honestly can't tell you the last time that happened.
On Friday, happiness sparked at spending time with a group of women I admire & respect.
On Saturday, it snuck up on me as I wandered the Farmers' Market, thinking, "I should have come here ages ago!" It stuck around as I made potato salad with tiny potatoes the size of marbles, asparagus that had been picked the day before, and fresh dill. In the evening, it came from seeing college friends I haven't talked with in 4 years and from hearing the incredible things God is currently doing on our college campus. I remember praying so much for the generations of students that would follow us; what is happening now is incredible, enough to make me cry just typing about it. And then as I drove home in the final moments of sunset, the beauty of the wide open fields and sky as far as I could see tugged at my heart and made me sing.
On Sunday, I went to the Stone Arch Arts Festival and spent the afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather and the beautiful art. There were a few moments where I felt a twinge of "I wish I had someone here to enjoy this with me," but for the most part I enjoyed being alone. I bought a few things for the house (woodcuts, a cool oil lamp made out of stone), sat on the grass and ate sweet potato fries and lemonade, and was inspired to start all sorts of new creative projects.
I was happy this weekend.
I just want to say that I amazed by the wonderful, intelligent, funny, beautiful, fabulous women in my life & at my church. I am glad we can talk openly and honestly about things like singleness and sex. I am glad I can be friends with both single and married women, rather than being shuffled off to the singles group ghetto.
Today I figured out how to make the phone lists on the work website look right. I've fiddled with the stylesheets off & on for months - to no avail. Then today, as I was approaching the 6th hour of trying to get a registration form to work properly, I stumbled on the solution to the phone list problem. So now I'm happy & feel like I accomplished a lot today. (The registration form is pretty slick, too. As people sign up for different things - golf, fishing, breakfast, camping site - it adds up the cost and keeps a running total. It should impress the hell out of my boss.)
I'm so glad it's Thursday! I may go for a bike ride & rent a DVD tonight. I'm also going to keep an eye on the next-door neighbor. Last night he & a few friends were hauling around giant (10x20?) panels painted to look like a brick wall. They ended up leaning them against my garage, as his yard is far too tiny to hold even one of them. Ah, those wack science fiction convention guys! Last year I had the "Gateway to Eternity" constructed in my backyard. He always looks sheepish when I come outside and find his stuff encroaching on my territory, but frankly, I don't care. I've told him "as long as you don't break anything, it's fine." I figure a good relationship with the neighbors is worth more than the oddity of having large stage props outside my kitchen window.
Put a new site online yesterday. Nothing fancy; it was a quick job.
Last night I started reading The Children of God Go Bowling and I have to tell you that I kept looking around the house to see who's been spying on me. SO totally my life (at least, as far as I've gotten into the book).
I've spent the whole morning checking our various sites for broken links. And let me tell you, chickies, there are a lot of them. Because departments at the U seem to be obsessed with renaming & reorganizing their sites, but not notifying anyone that the links have all now broken. Grr. I probably have a few more hours of this to do this afternoon. But I'm going to find some lunch first.
I have been numb, with little worth saying. Yesterday I rode my new bike for the first time. After a shaky start, where I thought I was going to wipe out before getting out of the alley, I managed to whiz around the lake. Once I started feeling comfortable, I was able to enjoy the breeze and almost-sunset beauty.
Today we lost our internet connection at lunchtime & it never came back up. Unable to work on any of my projects, I spent the entire afternoon playing spider solitare & freecell. My eyes are tired. I am tired. On Sunday afternoon I took a nap. I woke up about 5 and felt groggy & sick, unable to deal with driving across town for church. I am still run down and will probably go to bed in a few minutes.
I've been fighting my way through Sexuality and Holy Longing the past week or so. My gut reaction is "I don't trust her." I don't believe the author when, discussing menstruation, she says, "When there is pain, it prepares and reminds me that I can endure the pain I will experience as a member of a broken and suffering world." Bullshit. Nobody really thinks like that. Good Little Evangelicals (GLEs) may try to make you think they do, but they're lying.
Two pages later, she quotes a student whose roommates comforted her when her cramps were terrible. "When I was finally able to move again a few hours later, we all laughed together and shared the 'worst time ever' stories. It was a very bonding time, and we connected in a way that is so special, a way to connect with women through the one thing that makes us uniquely women...." Passages like this give the impression that if you are a Good Christian Woman In Touch With Your Body, you too will enjoy bonding with your spiritual sisters over bloody tampons. Yeah, right.
Her chapter on singleness is what really gets the Crap-o-MeterTM going, though: One the one hand, God's love as depicted in marriage shows an exclusive love of a husband and wife-the beauty of difference and similarity coming together in "one flesh." Faithfulness, permanence, and the welcoming and nurturing of children born of their parents' sexual union teach us about God as lover and life-give. On the other hand, singles reflect the inclusive love of God-a love for everyone. Married people cannot reflect God's inclusive and open love as fully.... In the freedom singles have to love others freely and openly, they reflect this expansive, universal love of God. They reflect a God who is unencumbered and free in expressions of love that can be given to all without a sense of betrayal or infidelity. (p. 69)
So married people are free from the obligation to love anyone but their spouses (and possibly children)? And we singles have no faithful relationships, no permanence, no children to nurture? Of course not - because we are obligated to love everyone in a way that married people are not. I'm not being too clear here, because I'm tired. Perhaps I will be able to reformulate my thoughts tomorrow. I'm just insulted that my relationships are deemed sub-standard.
On a side note, but related to sexuality: I noticed on Saturday that I am much more self-conscious about showing my arms than I am wearing a low-cut top that shows quite a bit of cleavage. I wonder what that says about me?
With the return of sunshine, my mood and energy levels have improved. I love this time of year - the flowering trees, tulips, green grass, nesting birds. After winter has sucked me dry and leftme nothing but an empty hull, it is good to feel life seeping back into me. On days when it's cool, with just a few clouds scudding across the azure sky, I feel a sharp surge of joy rush through me. One cloudy morning, though, and depression starts weaseling its way back into my life.
Today I walked around Como Lake with Holly. For as close as I live, I don't take advantage of it nearly enough. They've done so much work restoring native plants and building up the shoreline; it looks completely different. Perhaps this weekend I'll try riding my new bike around the lake; it's rained so much since I bought it Monday that I haven't taken it out of the garage. I suppose I could ride now, but I'm hot and really in the mood to sit and read. Plus, yardwork is calling my name. Does the snik-snik-snik of my lawnmower send prayers skyward, like a Tibetan prayer-wheel?
I haven't know what to write recently, so I've avoided writing anything at all. My new work computer arrived yesterday, so I spent the whole afternoon transferring all my files. They're probably going to move me to a new office & I'm just hoping they don't make me share with my boss; I need to tell the Dean that I just can't handle that.
Mostly, though, I've been thinking. I've spent the past week's evenings thinking about a website I'd like to start - researching software, making up lists of the topics I'd like to include & ways I can use it to make money. I've also been thinking about the 10 Commandments, after we read them on Sunday, and wondering what their role in our lives should be. Growing up, I'd always heard that they applied to Christians, too, but recently I've been wondering. We generally hold to some of them (no killing, adultery is bad, don't steal), but ignore the one about the sabbath (and probably some others). Do any of them have a specific call on our lives as Christians, or have they been superseded (or subsumed) by "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind & strength and love your neighbor as yourself"?