do it franticly (sic) / you will live
Depending on who you ask, I was either too lazy or too busy to write at length for much of last week while I was on vacation. Fortunately, since my sleep schedule is mired hopelessly somewhere deep in the Pacific, I finally have time to get everything out. I was up tossing and turning until 3:30 this morning, so seeing that I'm starting this before 10 PM I have at least a solid few hours before that lightbulb upstairs dims. Who needs to job hunt, lesson plan, write cards, or interview prep? Not me, surely.
I learned this week that both of the other guys in the college friend group I traveled with have girlfriends now! For most of the time I've known them our dating statuses have been flipped, and I feel like a proud dad hearing their dating tales and watching them get their new partners little souvenirs. We got to meet one of them when I was in Phoenix, and she was really cool! She's quiet, tall(er than all of us), white (!), raised Catholic, and wicked funny. Her apartment looks like a hipster boutique, white walls decorated neatly with vinyl records, vintage posters, and pasta boxes. (Yeah, I don't know about that last one either.)
I also found these gems on her fridge, which made me howl with laughter.
Now that I've met all but one of this friend group's significant others, I've been thinking about how important (or not) it is that a partner gets along with your friends. When asked my friends were adamant they would say something if they didn't like a partner. I'm not so sure. How do you breach topics like that, especially between boys? And what are people supposed to do with that information, anyway? It must put them in a hard spot. I'm not saying I wouldn't, but I'm of the opinion that the decision to speak up or not is a lot more complex than most people make it out to be.
Fortunately for me, all my friends' current partners have been cool. In any case, I don't know any of them very well, so they only really need to pass a very mild vibe check to get my seal of approval. Even if I did have some objection, I can't see why my opinion would matter anyway, unless I've noticed egregious red flags or something.
Oh yeah, the hearing! I think it went okay, though I won't know the final decision until it arrives in the mail. My employer elected not to participate, which, while a great relief, meant that much of my preparation ended up wasted. As I feared, the court didn't accept either of my friends' written testimonies, and since my personal testimony was uncontested, neither of the witnesses I asked to testify via phone were needed. I feel bad subjecting them to all this stress for nothing and wasting a good deal of their time. Eisenhower was right all along when he said, "plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
Of course I'm still checking my mailbox anxiously for news, but win or lose a huge weight has already been taken off my shoulders. I put off writing about it out of superstition; I'm secretly afraid talking about undecided things like this might jinx the outcome. (Silly, I know.)
A mountain of work awaits me this week, though I'm happy to report the stress feels less suffocating than the variant I felt before I left for vacation. I've got to plan for five (?) classes this week, prepare and take a few interviews, catch up on development work, and research my May travel plans. Hopefully I'll get to keep riding this writing high for the next few days like a pressure cooker letting off pent-up steam. Either way, it's good to be back home and writing again.