The alarm woke me with a jolt this morning and, momentarily disoriented, I rolled over and was surprised that Richard was already up – I hadn’t even heard him. Then I remembered that he’s back in Portland, same as every week since September, and same as it will be til mid November, and I sighed and poked the snooze button, unwilling to get up just yet. The cats, sensing a moment of weakness, swarmed. Sebastian draped himself over my feet. Allegra curled up beside me. Tangerine settled on my pillow and, for once, didn’t try to eat my hair.

Last night was the first night I’ve been able to sleep without tossing and turning for days now. Work keeps creeping in as soon as I close my eyes, circles of ‘what if we did this’ dancing with ‘what if they don’t do that’. It’s been frustrating, lying there on my pillow, unable to get it out of my head. Last night was welcome relief, but perhaps that’s because yesterday’s 13-hour day brought a lot of things finally to a head.

Over the past week, we’ve been asked (the IT team leads) to evaluate a number of different scenarios, each one involving backing out some of the work we’ve already done, some more extensive than others. It’s taken a few days – little groups of us crowded into small rooms with white board pens and spreadsheets, trying to ignore the feeling of being blindsided as we attempt to determine just what this would cost us, and all the while not quite sure which scenario would finally be chosen, just as we knew that all this effort we were going through could just as easily be tossed aside as well.

It’s all very well and good to say that I’ll do my best to leave work at work, but in times like this last week, it’s next to impossible. I can’t help worrying over what the final decision will be – how it will affect my team, what effort will be involved in now going through and telling them to undo some of the hard work they’ve already done. No wonder it spills into my head at night, when there are no other distractions to keep my thoughts away from it.

Yesterday though was a turning point, of a sort. At least a direction has been chosen. That, combined with the exhaustion of the long day, finally let me sleep without any thoughts of work at all. I may have dreamed of it, but I rarely remember dreams, and since it never woke me, I don’t care. For the first time in days I woke this morning feeling refreshed and alert. Alright, so I did let the cats sucker me into lingering in bed just a bit longer – the lure of a sleepy cat purr is often too seductive to resist – but only for a bit. Today will be better and less stressful. I have to believe that. I may be deluding myself, but at least I still have hope.

I’ve played poker approximately 3 times in my life, the last time probably back in my undergraduate days. So I was more than a bit hesitant about accepting the invitation for a night of poker when it was extended. After the week I’ve had at work, cumulating in a day-long meeting on Friday, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. And more importantly, it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. I started out with my little cheat sheet of hands (showing which one is higher than the others), and I still don’t have them all completely memorized, but at least now I know a good handful of variations, and what it means if a card is wild or dead, and that I am damn good at bluffing, and that Guts is aptly named.

The man who hosted the poker party set up a number of rules guaranteed to make it fun. We all had to pick wild west names and then call each other by those names (or pay a penalty). We all came with $20 and house rules were that you could still play even if you lost everything, so it was set up to be a friendly game, not a game of how much money could you lose. We switched tables a few times during the night to keep things mixed up. There was plenty of food and drink. The one dim spot was the cigars, but since we were all out in the garage, with doors open and fans blowing, the smoke didn’t get too bad.

Amazingly enough I walked out of there ahead. Wow. The one who always always always no questions asked never any doubt loses at gambling. I fully expected to walk in with $20 and walk out with just some loose change. Okay, so I didn’t rake in the dough, but walking out ahead, even if it was only a buck or two was an unexpected surprise. Richard was down a few bucks, but even so, between the two of us we didn’t even lose enough for a dinner at McDonalds. Not bad for five hours of entertainment, I figure, even if we did leave reeking of cigar smoke, bleary-eyed from the late hour. It was worth it.

I got absolutely nothing productive done on Friday. And it was wonderful. I actually called in sick. I was feeling perfectly fine of course, but sometimes you just have to play hooky. It was a rather difficult decision; I wavered back and forth on the topic for a while that morning. I didn’t have any meetings scheduled and there was nothing due, but on the other hand, how could I justify just not showing up, and if I did stay home I had all this work to do around the house and projects unfinished and, and, and… Until Richard, who had been listening to my dithering with tolerant amusement, pointed out that there was nothing *requiring* me to do anything at all. He was right, of course. So I didn’t. I lounged around and read books. I snuggled with the cats and took naps. I did nothing remotely productive for most of the day. I hadn’t realized quite how much I needed that.

Apparently this wasn’t enough relaxing for my body, though. After the climb up and down that very steep cliff on Saturday, Sunday morning I woke up with arms and legs aching. I’d expected that – it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve done anything quite that strenuous (lo, the fast-paced life of the computer nerd). But what I hadn’t expected was the complete exhaustion. I was dragging most of the day. We had planned to go out looking at floors on Sunday, and did find a color we liked. The next stop was to go through some model homes to get ideas on decorating, but after we’d walked through the first batch, I couldn’t muster up any more energy at all. My stomach was hurting but I figured I’d simply managed to eat something that didn’t agree with me so I brushed it aside.

It wasn’t until I kept complaining of being cold and realized that the temperature in the house was nearly 80 degrees that it finally occurred to me that there might be more to this lack of energy than just the physical workout the day before. Sure enough I had a fever. Amazing how taking a few aspirin will perk you right up again. Sheesh. Took me long enough to figure it out. And fortunately I was perfectly fine again by Monday – right back to work.

Mix:

• One Performer who apparently likes to get naked
• One Olive Garden virgin with a knack for poetry about unsavory acts between female siblings
• One woman with eight pussies
• One man who was taught to drive in New York by a Parisan (and if this doesn’t scare you, it should)
• One woman who was willing to name her price
• One woman who was the token flower child for the day.

Then toss in:

• Naked breadsticks
• Naked men
• Wave, rocks, sand, and a big cliff
• Previews about hokey movies starring vampires
• Good food, and lots of it
• Did I mention the naked stuff?

Stir well, and you’ll get a typical outing with Richard, Ivy, Bethy, Sabs, Ronnie, and I. A day full of laughter, noisy hilarity, thinly veiled innuendos, and the usual mass hysteria that always ensues when this crowd gets together.

Saturday, Richard and I drove down Bethy and Sabs’ afterdinner-mint house in Berkeley, to scritch kitty heads and catch up on careers before heading out in the minivan to pick up Ivy and Ronnie. From there, it was off to Olive Garden, where those of us with morals argued with those who were more free-spirited about whether the breadsticks should be clothed or left to hang free. There was pasta with sausages and meatballs. Alfredo sauce abounded. The water was plentiful, and we left, sated perhaps a bit too much, but ready for adventure (and probably not a bit too soon for those seated around us. We tend to be a fairly boisterous crowd).

Off to the Presido we drove, Sabs doing seat belt tests all the way there as he pretended that the minivan was really a compact car. He took the teasing and screeching from the rear seats in good humor. I’m sure it didn’t help that we had him laughing half the trip.

Bethy and Sabs had been to this area the weekend before and had found this truly gorgeous spot. It was a bit off the track, but we parked and all piled out of the van to take in the breathtaking view over the cliff and out across the ocean. The presence of a tiny path was too tempting for some of us, so four of us headed down toward the beach far, far below. Those of us who are just not all that keen on heights (that would be me!) kept our eyes to the ground and tried our best not to slide right off the cliff to the rocks below. It was slippery and rough going at times, but occasionally we’d reach a bluff that would offer yet another impressive view, with the beach just enough closer to tantalize us into going the distance.

It wasn’t until we were nearly there and could see the beach itself that we realized that it was inhabited primarily by men. Nude men. This was a new experience for me. Heck, I’ve never even skinny-dipped before, and here we were, amid naked men. What with the water crashing against the rocks, the pristine beach, the pelicans and seagulls soaring overhead, and of course the inhabitants, the scenery certainly was um….impressive.

Bethy was first out of her shoes and running for the waves, but the rest of us soon joined her. It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve splashed in the ocean – too long since the feel of sand as it slips away under my feet with the surf, the swirl of the foam from the waves, the grit of salt coating the skin. There’s something a bit magical about the ocean. Lakes may be crystal clear, placid and cool to the touch, but there is nothing like the feel and sight and smell of salt water as it crashes against rocks and eddies around your bare feet.

I think we’d all have been perfectly content to stay there for hours, but two of our little group had stayed up above, so we reluctantly squished back out of the water, having remembered early on that rolling pants legs up never works because the water always splashes higher than you expect, and promising to go back again, next time bringing towels and changes of clothes.

Going back up that cliff was just about as bad as I’d expected – the trail was steep – but bare feet actually made it easier – toes grip rocks easier than sneaker soles, and so by the time we made it back to the clifftop and the cars, it was easy to brush off the sand before putting shoes back on, although it took a few of us a bit longer to catch our breath (okay, so I’m *really* more out of shape than I’d thought!).

After that rather exhausting trip up and down a cliff, the four of us weren’t in any mood to do much more exercise, so after a brief stop at the Palace of Fine Arts to admire the sculptured archways outside, we all decided to go to the Metreon and see what was playing. We ended up watching Beautiful, which was a predictable, but nonetheless entertaining film.

The day ended late, as these gatherings so often do, and Richard and I regretfully bid our farewells. It’s perfectly beautiful days like these that make me wish, even if only for a brief moment, that we lived a bit closer to the Bay Area. Oh, I’d hate the traffic, and the cost of living is insanely expensive, and I’d miss the smaller town atmosphere of home, but sometimes, oh sometimes….

I got into the car on my way to the airport this afternoon to pick up Richard, and, as usual, turned on the radio. The unpleasant voice of the local shock-jock filled the air of my car, and I reached to flip the channel. I listen to that station on the way to work because I find the morning pair entertaining, but this particular disk jockey is characterized by the juvenile boorish and crude humor that seems prevalent in his ilk, and my usual reaction is to find anything else to listen to as soon as his voice comes onto the air.

However, I heard a few words that made me hesitate, and I left the station alone for a moment. He was discussing the approval (finally!) of RU486, the “Abortion Pill”. And it was obvious that he was against it. He and his Anti-Choice cronies blathered on about how horrible this was, that legalizing this pill would just encourage unsafe and irresponsible sex, making women think they didn’t have to take responsibility for their actions. After all, he noted, if you choose to get pregnant, you have to face up to it.

That’s right. Silly me. We women choose to get pregnant all by ourselves. We just wake up one day and say “gosh. I think I’ll fertilize an egg. And now that this miracle pill is available, I can just get pregnant daily and get rid of it without ever having to think!” The man has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s all internal. We can just switch it on and off, remote control, like a TV, you know. It has nothing to do with broken condoms and other means of failed birth control, uneducated women who were never told the basic facts of life, incest, rape, men who swear that they’ll stay, that they love the woman, and then promptly disappear.

Excuse me. Hypocritical babble which seems so often prevalent in the Anti-Choice crowd always brings out the blatant sarcastic in me.

They call themselves Pro-Life, as if by virtue of believing that a woman should have a right to choose when and if she will have children is somehow akin to being Anti-Life (pro-murder, maybe?). The real title should be Anti-Choice. Because that’s really their agenda. I have no issues with their decision to not have an abortion, should they so *choose*. But they want to go further and remove that choice from everyone else, based on their own version of morality. Strange how this same crowd seems to be the ones who often are against sexual education, easier access to birth control (because of course, if you don’t tell them about it, they won’t have sex. This is why there were never any unmarried pregnant women in the days before sex ed in schools. Uh huh. Yeah), and other things that might help the problem that leads to the need for abortion in the first place.

But regardless of my issues with the whole Anti-Choice movement as a whole, what angered me most about this conversation was the misinformation they were building their ranting on. The RU486 pill is not an over-the-counter pill. It must be prescribed by a doctor. The woman must go through three days of pills. She must go through an ultra-sound and exams. It is probably not painless, as it induces a miscarriage. And it is most certainly NOT easy. Abortion never is.

I’ve known three women who got pregnant out of wedlock. One decided to keep her baby, and eventually married the father of that baby and had more children. She decided against getting abortion for one reason – because her father wanted her to get one. She admits now that, despite how much she loves that child, that she made the choice to keep that baby for all the wrong reasons. The other two women made the choice to terminate their pregnancies. For both of them, it was a very personal decision, and they gave it a lot of thought. It was an extremely difficult decision to make, but they each realized that having a child at that stage in their lives would have been bad for both them and the baby. They’ve each gone on to get married and have children – this time carefully anticipated, planned for, and wanted, and while they each mourn their loss in their own way, they would both agree that it was the best decision for them at the time.

The builder called Friday to let me know that the city has requested some seismic calculations be done on our plans. Having no luck getting the information from the place where I bought the plans, he’s now trying to find an engineer who has the time to look at them. He’s not sure of how long this will take, and he worriedly quoted a price which was far lower than I’d anticipated. The ciy also had some vague mutterings about the placement of the furnace in the house – although when he told me that, I had to mentally give myself a swift kick in the rear to stop the automatic thoughts running through my head of ‘well if the furnace moves, that means we could make the pantry a walk-in-pantry, and…and…and… But the gist of it was that this might result in some delays, and it’s starting to look more and more that our whole plan to delay building til November actually was a good idea after all.

Richard and I have both been overwhelmed by this whole house-building thing, but so far (using the scientific method based on exactly two instances), we’ve managed to not be overwhelmed together. I had a small worry fit in an Orchard Supply Hardware one day while flipping through plumbing catalogs as it hit me just *what* we had signed on for. We walked through the aisles and I stared blankly at doorbells and chandeliers and cabinet handles and pondered the intelligence of building versus buying. Richard’s turn came this past weekend. On Saturday, we were given a two-hour break from the presentations, during which we were supposed to talk, or simply do something for our relationship. We did take a short walk, but then we decided to take a drive, and in doing so, we inadvertantly stumbled upon a Home Base, and off we went to pour over square after square of linoleum (hey. Picking out the floor of the house we’re building together is definitely something for our relationship!). This time it was he who was overwhelmed, and me who was doing the reassuring.

Despite the occasional ‘what the hell were we *thinking*?’ that runs through one or the other’s brain, we’ve actually managed to get a lot accomplished so far. It’s helped tremendously that we’re neither of us truly anal about any of the decorating. (I should probably insert a very big ‘yet’ in there….) We managed to find the patterns for three of the four rooms which will have linoleum during that brief stint (less than an hour!) at Home Depot this weekend – and still have time to purchase this truly incredible 12-hook plant stand that I saw as we were leaving the store (and then we had to hastily disassemble and figure out how to stuff into the car so we could get back in time for the next presentation). Heck, we’ve already figured out how all the bathrooms, dining room, and computer room will be decorated, and they’re all still squares on a piece of erasable velum; rooms built only of imagination and not yet real.

This weekend we’ve vowed to get the rest of the floor picked out. Considering we’re halfway there, I’m hoping we’ll also have time to delve into the murky world of front doors, but I’ll be happy if we just accomplish what we’d originally planned. I realize that it’s highly likely that a year or three down the road, we’ll be staring at that ‘perfect’ whatever it is that we spent so much time picking out, and wonder why we ever thought it would work, but for now, we’ve got to start *somewhere*.

And as for the possible delays. I heard from my builder again this afternoon. Despite the fact that it’ll take the engineer three weeks to do whatever calculations are required, it looks like we’ll still be on time (insert Jennifer heaving a *big* sigh of relief!). At least til the next set back…but I’m gonna be optimistic. The house will be done before the wedding, and we’ll have moved in. If I have to go out there with a hammer myself, it’ll be done. I hope. All fingers and toes crossed…..

This weekend was just for us, but we didn’t go anywhere romantic, although candles were involved. We attended an Engaged Encounter weekend, which is an event put together specifically for engaged couples to give them methods for open and honest communication to lay the groundwork for healthy and happy marriages.

There have been many questions asked this weekend – hard questions that might require soul searching; questions that require total honesty with your mate-to-be. But through it all there has been this overwhelming sense of bemusement and relief. Because we became engaged so soon after we started dating, we’ve had some gentle (and not-so-gentle) concerns expressed over whether we were rushing into this without giving it enough thought. He and I have tried to think of anything that might be an issue and we’ve spent hours over the past few months discussing them. So it was almost a relief this weekend that there were no new revelations, no shocking truths to uncover, no unnerving opinions that would generate conflict. We were already prepared for everything they mentioned.

Not to say that it wasn’t valuable – far from it. This weekend was one of the best things we could have done for our relationship and I honestly mean that. It gave us some tools with which to help strengthen our bond, and to ensure that our marriage is a solid one. Whenever it is that we finally do have an argument (and we *are* trying – we just haven’t managed to come up with something to fight about yet! But give us time. The house isn’t built and the wedding’s not planned), we’ve now got 9 rules for how to fight.

It’s rare that you see people in love who show it – not the embarrassingly cloying public displays of affection that make you want to suggest the two get a room, but the gentle touching, holding hands, the way gazes linger on each other as they talk. It was refreshing to see these signs in couples who’d been married over 30 years – somehow it made what they presented to us all that more relevant. If we were willing to invest the time and energy to build up the lines of honest communication, we could have a marriage solid enough to still be based on love so far down the road.

The catch phrase of the weekend was “The wedding is a day, but the marriage lasts a lifetime.” And I firmly believe in that. This is the man I want to marry. He is someone who will construct a bread pig with me out of the leftover loaf after dinner. He joins me in car dancing to The Nutcracker Suite as we are barreling down the freeway. I love finding ways to make him laugh, just as much as he enjoys getting me to dissolve into giggles.

And we’ve agreed that it’s our hope that years and years from now we’ll be one of those couples who are still gazing at each other, touching each other, and showing without words that we’re still in love, just enough to encourage some other young men and women that such things really do exist.

I’ve been looking to mid-October with growing anticipation, knowing that the end of full-stage development for this project was in sight and that afterwards maybe, just maybe, the work hours would decrease enough to give me the feeling that I could relax. This isn’t likely now, not when I’ve had hundreds of hours more development requirements dumped in my lap over the course of three weeks, without being given any extra time in which to accomplish them until recently. There’ll be at least another month of high-stress, insane hour days, at a minimum.

I miss having time. I used to read, to sew, to do logic puzzles and listen to music. I used to have time to bake. I have already had to give up all of my online role-playing commitments and am realizing that I won’t be able to get back into that venue until probably after the wedding. At least that loss isn’t so great – I was losing my enthusiasm lately anyway. But the rest is harder to give up for so long.

The frustration level at this project has running dangerously high for too long. We’re working toward a moving target – hard to determine an actual completion of effort when the design isn’t even frozen yet. It’s not just my group that’s in this situation though – everyone is similarly stressed, running on nerves gone ragged and very little else.

Wednesday night they had a team-building event. Dinner, followed by a team-building exercise guaranteed to get us to work together in a light-hearted and meaningful way. Or something like that. The exercise involved little circles of people who were given a bag of marshmallows. We were *supposed* to toss them back and forth to each other. In a way it was the fault of the woman who was trying hard to explain the rules over the noise of the crowd. She asked that we all show her our marshmallows – to make sure we had enough per team. Someone threw theirs, and then all was lost. Marshmallows flew thick through the air. Everyone was laughing, ducking behind chairs, diving to scoop up more ammunition as the tiny puffs skittered across the carpet. The restaurant had put us all in a separate room which, as it turned out, was a smart choice. As I was batting a deluge of marshmallows back at someone I happened to look toward the doors. A cluster of restaurant employees stood outside, laughing. I’m sure we looked a sight – an entire room full of adults engaged in something as childish as a food fight.

It wasn’t quite the team-building event they’d planned. But it accomplished something far more telling. We’ve all been pushed and pulled too thin in too many directions. At least this time we had marshmallows to throw to break the tension. I’m not so sure that will work much longer.

It started out innocently enough, so many years ago. My college roommate and I had three cats between us, and for whatever reason, we went to the local animal shelter to look at the kittens. Recognizing the giant neon flashing ‘Sucker!’ signs embedded in our foreheads, one of the SPCA volunteers who works out there talked us into trying foster care (not that it took much convincing – the chance to play with cute adorable kittens who wouldn’t *stay* – they’d get adopted by someone else, really!). Fast forward a bit of time and we’d become a major foster home – specializing in orphans to the point that for nearly four years straight she and I were on a two to six hour bottle feeding schedule, round the clock. At this point, sensing we were deeply embedded in the system, that same volunteer cajoled both of us onto the Board of Directors of the organization, and hence, it all began – my introduction to the murky world of volunteer politics, of management and policies, of personalities that should never have been put in positions of leadership, and to a side of my own personality that I’m not sure I ever wanted to discover.

I stayed for five or six years, but by the end it was painful. Like a bad marriage, we had all fallen into ruts impossible to escape from. When a board consists of people who are salaried, they can be, in a sense, policed by that fact. There is no way to police volunteers – there is very little you can do to control them, and goddess knows I fought as hard as I could to try to put into place at least some method of requiring the members to at least be responsible for their own actions. Finally, tired of the struggle, the petty fighting, the cliques and back stabbing and personal agendas, I resigned. I turned in the letter to the president of the board, and breathed a sigh of relief because I had finally taken back my life. The cause this organization supports is one that is very dear to me, and I could have put up with everything for that alone, but I left for one simple fact. I didn’t like what I became at those board meetings each month. I didn’t like what it did to me – and how I took those feelings out on the others. And so I left, before I became like some of the others who seem to be unable to escape. That was over a year ago.

As I write this, however, I am sitting in my car, outside the office where the board meetings are held. They haven’t changed much since I left – the still the same place, still mostly the same people. And when I finish with this, I’m going in – I’ll be voted back on, into my same position. The vote itself is formality – the outcome was assured the instant that I, in a moment of weakness, agreed to consider the possibility of going back. It’s not that I have forgotten what happened before – it’s foremost in my mind right now and there is a small part of me that is pondering just starting up this car and driving away, quickly, before it’s too late, but then I suppose the fact that I’m sitting here means it’s already too late. Because despite everything, despite what happened before, I miss it – the times when it was good, when it worked, when we all remembered why we were there and we all worked together.

So against my better judgement I will walk into that office, holding my breath and biting my tongue. And I will pray to whatever god might be listening that this is not as bad a choice as I’m afraid it will be.

I’m getting two new sisters out of this marriage thing, as is Richard. I had dinner with my soon-to-be almost-twin sister-in-law on Monday night (almost-twin because she’s only five days older than me). She and a handful of her coworkers were at UCDavis for training, so I left work early (funny how lately 6pm is leaving work early – sigh). We gathered together over pasta and garlic bread to laugh and talk, share stories about significant others (there was a brief conversation around one woman’s fiance and his socks which keeps running through my head and making me giggle), discuss their oh-so-fascinating training courses, and catch up on the wedding plans. His sister brought pictures of a swan float they’d seen on their recent trip to Disneyland, because she’d seen it and thought of me……the reason being that the latest addition to Wedding Plans by the Insane Parents (or – another good example of why it was perhaps a bad idea to introduce the parents *before* the wedding) was that I’d float down the aisle (which we would, of course, have to turn into some sort of watery road) in a swan boat, playing the lute.

The cats are quite fascinated with the new litter box. They are spending much more time in the room where it’s located, lounging nonchalantly on the floor or cat trees, pretending indifference until it actually starts, at which point at least four of them huddle, bodies tense and directed toward the source of the noise, eyes wide as they watch it rake itself clean. At least now they’ve graduated from peering around the doorjam from outside the room, to actually being in the same room with it, and even occasionally poking it with a paw. Now if I could just find out if the invisible cat wasn’t *too* terrified of it and would actually use it, I’d be all set….

Went to see a play tonight. We’ve signed up for season tickets at a local theater company, and since my parents have season tickets as well, we were able to get our seats right next to each other. The play this month is Chess, which was a bit hard to follow at times, although that was due more to the play itself than to the ability or talent of those acting in it. I was familiar with some of the songs (One Night in Bankok is the most well known, of course), but a few of the others sunk their way into my head and now I’ve had Someone Else’s Story swimming through my head nonstop. The season includes Brigadoon, which I’ve never see, West Side Story, which has some beautiful music, and several other plays. Somehow getting season tickets (even though it is just for community theater) seems so very adult. It keeps sneaking up on me – those little reminders.