Eccentric Flower:199812/tuesday

sixteen twelve ten

tuesday

All right, so I'm falling behind. I haven't read journals in two or three days, and this page is showing a number of cobwebs. But let me tell you about yesterday.

I woke up at eight - earlier than usual - to allow plenty of time to get to a nine-thirty meeting on foot. Unfortunately they didn't tell me that the meeting was a long way from the part of campus where I work - this campus stretches along a riverfront, wide but not deep - I ended up having to walk for twenty minutes instead of the usual ten, and got there a little late.

I was expecting maybe one rep from each of the two vendors we were meeting with, another person from my department, and the guy running the meeting. To my surprise each of the two vendors had sent maybe five or six people. A room full of identical clothing. I was the only person wearing a shirt without a collar. All of the vendors wore ties.

Then I had to get up and explain to these people what The Project was about and how they were going to need to adapt their servers to the new regime. I don't dislike public speaking, but when one is prepared to have a sitting-down, informal chat with two or three other people, and must make a stand-up presentation to twelve, it's a rude shock. Still I think I acquitted myself. Certainly I gave a better presentation than the other person from my department, who doesn't understand the idea of fitting your language to your audience. Or maybe I was oversimplifying too much; by the end of the questions and answers, I realized some of them were intelligent despite the fact that they were dressed like salesmen. (Oh, how I despise salesmen.)

Back to the main portion of campus. Ate lunch in a hurry. Stopped to say hello to Marc on the way back to my desk. He wanted a few additional photos of some of his pieces and was considering one of those little paper disposable cameras. I said, "Don't do that. Don't do anything about the photos until I talk to you again," and went back to my desk, where I realized I hadn't taken the five rolls of film (the photos I took for him) to be developed. Off to the photo place - gotta leave them before five to get them the next day.

(If that seems slow, please note that I take them to this lab because humans develop them and don't use one of the ungodly one-hour photo machines which tries to process all film using the same meat grinder. Photos vary, often from shot to shot on the same roll, and the quality of a print is as much the work of the developer as the photographer. Certainly a careless developer can ruin a photo completely.)

By now it was nearly two and I realized that not much other work was going to happen, so I decided to do some shopping. Back home first, to get rid of my bag/millstone and pick up the little auto-everything camera I haven't used in over five years, so I could give it to Marc. (Again, with auto-everything, you get what the camera thinks is correct, not what you want.)

Off to downtown and the upscale malls in the hotel district. Looking for a ring. A specific ring. Picky picky. I had been looking off and on for several days. Finally I found the right ring at the right price - and had to have it resized. Come back later. How later? A few hours. And bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West.

OK, so. It takes over half an hour to get out to Brookline. I'd go bring the camera to Marc in the clay shop and then come back and by then the ring would be ready.

Done - and after all that fuss to get the camera to him so he could take photos that night if need be, he didn't use it. Nor did he contrive to finish and clean up until nearly seven, but he wanted to come with me, so I waited. Back across town then. Get the ring. Have a nice dinner.

(Nonelvis, meanwhile, is home with a friend making holiday treats and has given me her blessing to dine elsewhere. Judging from the spoor later, I'd guess that she and her friend seized the opportunity to order Chinese. S'ok, I had fajitas. Ethnic night at the zoo.)

Then went home and changed "the person I've been living with for five years" to "fiancee," a much more compact phrase. The ring is gold with a white opal. I loathe diamonds.

After the rash of celebratory phone calls and so forth, I had to leave again to go set up a Christmas tree, a half-hour's drive away. My friends get a ten-foot tree every year - they have the ceilings for it - and every year I help them set it up, because I'm the only person tall enough.

Home to a snack and a bath. Drying off, circa one a.m, I wondered why I was so tired. Then I gave it some thought. Never mind.

And that's why there wasn't a postcard yesterday.

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