i don't even. part iii.

[... continued]

monday continued:

i left gd's when it was time to get ready for the first night of passover. i walked in a semi-daze, completely high (on life, and it's been mostly sustained this whole week) and utterly distracted.

not the best time to receive a series of messages from aaa telling me she didn't *get* it, apparently she changed her mind at the slam and still wants to date. i gently chided her and put her off, hoping she got the message this time...

...

the spring rain would have been more welcome had i not been dressed well. just saying.

---the first night passover dinner was insanely tedious. if it wasn't for the fact that i won't let my family down, it was so bad that even if it wasn't the last time that our hosts will be hosting (for a while at least, they're not going to be here next year), i'd say i'd never go there again. it's not that they're not nice people, and the food was good, but it was like nobody cared enough to participate in the seder AND they went through every single page of the damned haggadah anyway. it's okay if it's one or the other, but both?!

and the company. oh gods, the company. not only did i want to be spending my evening with gd, but i was surrounded by people i have absolutely nothing in common with and who amongst themselves couldn't keep a conversation going for more than a minute unless it was about sports, and that conversation lasted about five minutes and was entirely composed of random facts and completely unfounded speculations being thrown across the table.

damn.

DAMN.

and yang, who i usually can at least have some kind of entertaining interactions with even if they're negatively entertaining, was being even more of a yanghole than usual so i didn't want to talk to him at all.

...

for some reason, in my head i can summarize the experience with "we had to keep our shoes on at the table". the only positive thing about the seder being so bad is that it was the primary cause for certainty that i wasn't simply hallucinating those 24 hours.

---gd was amused that i was considerate enough to carefully floss and brush extra-well before heading over to her place as i'd eaten something for dessert that she's so allergic to that micro-contact would send her into anaphylactic shock. pulse and her had both warned me about this; i had this horrifying vision of having to call 911 in the middle of the night...

i ran into vector as i walked into the metro, and it sounds like he and i are going to be able to get to work on our collaboration in a couple of weeks - so that's cool.

---yesterday:

i came home in that same state as after a long night of hard partying, happy but in an altered state of mind caused by a combination of excess happiness and sleep deprivation.

and i thought that when i got home i'd post, and call people back, and otherwise be productive. boy, was i wrong!
i received a phone call from a recruiter i'd never heard of with a contract that urgently needs to be filled and that, quite frankly, is PRECISELY what i'd consider my ideal re-entry into aerospace! what terrifying serendipity! what freakishly good fortune!

i cited aota and my last commander as references, and was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from aota a short while later informing me that she'd provided me an AMAZING reference and inviting me over for coffee. what?! how awesome is that?!

...

that was when the universe decided to give me a kick in the backside. literally. i was on my way up the stairs at aota's metro station when my nerve pinched again. sciatica, apparently. it began by bothering me every few steps, and would proceed to get progressively worse as the day worn on...

...

i spent hours at aota's chatting with her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend until i realized that i was really hungry and that i needed to get going anyway. i was entering the metro when the morning's recruiter called, hoping to catch me in time for a quick face-to-face introduction, and after i decided not to put myself in a position where i might be late for dinner i realized that i'd dodged a bullet because i wasn't exactly dressed for success. rule: don't meet potential employers or recruiters wearing street clothes.

on the metro: a bag isn't a person, and doesn't require its own seat on a packed train. but the dude didn't need to give up BOTH seats in order to let me have one.


by the time i returned home my lower back was in agony every few steps. so much for grateful positive vibes, huh?

the second night's seder was suuuuuch an improvement! both uncle hate and yang disagreed, but that was purely on grounds of them being assholes. we skipped bits that weren't imperative, everyone was friendly and positive and joined in, and even the elderly italians across from me were very sweet and we had fun chats about the most arbitrary things.

also, it was far quicker than the previous night's. and the food was good.

---by the time the seder was done my sciatica was constant and extremely painful, i was limping and wobbling occasionally, struggling to sit or stand. i called gd when i got home and discovered that she suffers from it too, not only did she have advice for me but she talked me through finding appropriate meds. they helped a little, even if i woke up with cotton wool between my ears...

[continued...]