march, 2010

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:44:41 -0700

This is the way Q1 ends: Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

I haven't anywhere near accomplished full goals for this quarter, but 50% done with one major project ain't bad. February, sans the luxury of those few glasses of vespertine wine, opened the door to too many late nights of sober work. March has reintroduced those delicious small pleasures -- a Penicillin #2 at Beretta to break the fast with Inger; whiskey up in Tahoe as Weaver spun and Ryan danced and Jinnah played cheerleader movies; Racer 5 in our SRE pint glasses from the keg at work -- but somehow these nights too have ended with me blearily staring at a crying pager-baby, a graph with scary vertical lines, a spate of 500's somewhere in the world. I only get enough sleep when I'm sick (which I tried two weeks ago, which almost worked).

But that's not even what I'm unhappy about. I like working too late, gathering four of us in my living room on a Saturday for a coordinated hit-and-run (go-go-go-go #2!, was the title of Trisha's spreadsheet), fix the things you broke, celebrate, repeat. (Some don't; one precipitously just left the team.) It's the other things, seemingly perennially unfruitful.

It's spring, at least. The odd daffodil has been around for a few months, now; but the rains (I have the legs of my jeans stuffed into turquoise rubber boots today) are more and more frequently punctuated with the kind of day most people think Californians are fed a steady, milk-and-honey diet of: Sunny Zeitgeist afternoons (with Blake, drinking a Four Barrel coffee instead of going through the motions at a poorly-attended reading at a bookstore in the Mission for his first novel); flowers bursting out on trees, creepers, and vines (the arresting smell of wet jasmine); the lighter, later evenings, which make me feel like I'm malingering as I arrive back in the city as purples and dark blues still subside behind Twin Peaks. Early shoots of asparagus in my CSA box.

And I have Things To Do this next quarter: trips, weddings weddings weddings, the Duruflé Requiem and then more singing. English peas will be here soon, and then stone fruit. I'm optimistic (I always am).

Out like a lamb. (God, but I'm tired.)