Monday

Here's the list from today:

• Kept my dr's appointment although it was for a different reason than I originally booked it for. Got some gnarly decongestants, so now my ears are unblocked and I'm not dizzy any more, but I've lost my voice. Fall allergies are definitely something I did not miss from my midwestern childhood and I am looking forward to the first snow. So hard to be cool and professional and graceful and sexy when all your interior tissues are inflamed.
• Made some inquiries, found out the room was free, so tomorrow the official invitation can go out for my Anniversary Party. Combining it with a "last box" party turned out to be too ambitious (duh, Ellen), so I'm hiring the nice room in the clubhouse of my apartment complex. It'll be nice anyway - it's got couches, patio, easy stroll out to the little lake, a small kitchen. Also lined up at least three people who said they could come. This will be my first party since moving here, and long overdue, definitely. I hope my voice comes back before then. But with enough wine, even a hoarse woman can be a good hostess, right?
• Had no meetings at all today. First time that's happened since my first week there, I believe. Got enormous amounts done - worked my way through the action items from every meeting last week, briefed the important emails that have been waiting since about March, briefed the coupon project that isn't even out of my budget but needs me to coordinate. Oh, yes, I had one brief meeting and will have to coordinate a whole bunch of things for that as well, but I feel like The Bringer Of Order From Chaos today, nothing I like more than identifying a business need and turning into a series of unconfusable instructions for IT people - "Put this image exactly here, take this word out and put this one in its place, then on the next page..."
• Went to the grocery store without pain, bought what I needed and spend $8.10. A new record low. Needless to say, no coupons spat out with my receipt. But now I have stuff for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.
• Listened with love. A colleague and I are trading CDs back and forth, and he gave me last week a compilation of his favorite songs from 2006-2007, and none of it is squarely in my preferred genres, but by asking lots of follow-up questions he's getting me to listen to it more carefully and form preferences. And his favorite song, the last one on the album, he had said it was his favorite, and that if I didn't like it we couldn't be friends any more (he uses that locution a lot). I liked it fine, the first listen through, an acoustic number recorded in a small room very close up to the microphone. He asked the follow-up question today because I hadn't mentioned an opinion, "And did you listen to Blah? It pretty much sums up my existence since early 2007." Oh. I need to listen to the words. So I did, on the way to the grocery store. It's all about being lonely and misunderstood. Oh. So, I'm listening to that song, with love (with my clear ears), and wondering if there are some emotions in this boy that weren't evident until now?
• Have some things to think about vis a vis free speech. Having become acquainted with lots of right-wing folks on Facebook, through one particular friend, I get to listen to their sweeping overgeneralizations about what all liberals are like, and you recognize that the folks on the left that they quote correspond to crazy folks on the right that lefties quote all the time. You realize you really have to articulate your points carefully, and check all your facts. It's good discipline. But do I still support the right of the extremists to say their extreme and inflammatory things? When an election is in the balance? My usual stance on speech is that it's not just information, speech is action, and it can hurt people. I am against speech that can cause people harm. But which speech is that? That's what the argument is about. I have some thinking to do.

still to come:

• make nutritious dinner
• practice guitar (found out Chris Issak songs sound really great with the amp set on "The Fifties" setting)
• listen with further love to the Facebook debates
• gird my bravery for seeing my torturous trainer again tomorrow, but I can tell him about my ears and we'll work something out

p.s. added 10:57pm

• made nutritious dinner, as well as doing the dishes afterward
• practiced guitar - I'm finding that the solo from Van Halen's Eruption is easier than the strumming pattern on House of the Rising Sun.
• got a nice message back from one of the Facebook combatants, who it turns out was an Independent all along
• packed for gym tomorrow morning
• listened with love to various Shins and Chris Isaak songs - I worked out the song that best describes my past year is "Young Pilgrims" by The Shins
• talked to Dad on the phone - Mom was at an outing!
• but stayed up too late internetting, and waiting for that mysterious message that I'm always waiting for. I'm sure it's actually a message from the alienated part of my self - "Hi, Ellen. Yep, I love you and understand you, and incorporating me together I make you whole." Well, thanks, alienated part of self. Have a good night yourself!