Two more days!

Thurs­day is my last day at work. I’m get­ting pret­ty excit­ed about leav­ing the worka­day world, and I’ve been start­ing to get real bad about get­ting to sleep at a rea­son­able hour. Last night, or very ear­ly in the morn­ing we had a pow­er out­age here, and I used that as an excuse for my over­sleep­ing, although the real rea­son is that I went to see Juras­sic Park III at the Metre­on on the IMAX screen. It was pret­ty fun, although it lacked imag­i­na­tion. Then when I came home I start­ed writ­ing an email that I did­n’t fin­ish (and got erased when the pow­er went out – doh!) and I end­ed up with about four hours sleep even with sleep­ing late and show­ing up for work almost two hours after I should have.

Today I took a long lunch and went off to meet with a client. My bicy­cle gets me from place to place faster than a taxi, but I was pret­ty sweaty and gross by the time I got to the clien­t’s site.

That was a trip too. The per­son who rec­om­mend­ed me to this client is some­one I used to work with a few years ago when I was con­tract­ing before I went full-time at Out­look. She used to run a wom­en’s sports­wear site and now she’s mar­ried and very preg­nant. Mean­ing very far along, of course; I know that preg­nant is a tog­gle state, an either-or propo­si­tion. I real­ly enjoyed her telling me how good I look. She used the word “fit,” and since she (at least used to) hangs out with triath­letes and oth­er very active peo­ple, I was extremem­ly flat­tered by her telling me how fit I look. Woo!

My weight is down to where it was when I quit smok­ing – maybe less. Yes­ter­day I went and bought clothes that fit me, and that was a treat. I haven’t worn a size 32 waist since I don’t even know when, and I’m wear­ing them now. This time last sum­mer I was wear­ing a size 38 waist.

The next few days will be real­ly inter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing. I have to hang in there at work and get through the next two days. I real­ly don’t want to take a “fuck it” atti­tude. I’d much rather be there as present as I can be for the next two days. The trou­ble is that there’s jsut so much going on in my life, and it’s easy for me to let the things that are more impor­tant take priority.

Ulti­mate­ly, it’s right that the most impor­tant things should take pri­or­i­ty. So I don’t know what I’m talk­ing about. I cer­tain­ly think I did the right thing meet­ing with the client at noon­time ver­sus putting it off far­ther. I mean who is going to have more impact on my liveli­hood, the new client or the old job I’ve already quit?

Tomor­row (today already! I mean Wednes­day) after work I’m going into jail to do some out­reach and keep myself sober anoth­er day. I don’t think I need to describe just how intense that is in my mind. I’ve nev­er been inside before, and I don’t know what to expect, so I just got­ta ride it out. Hope­ful­ly I’ll get a chance to write out what it was like tomor­row night afterward.

Then Thurs­day will be my last day at DPI, and I’ll have to pack Thurs­day night because I’ll be leav­ing at 6am Fri­day morn­ing to go spend four days at the Tas­sa­jara monastery.

Then Tues­day I start up as a con­sul­tant again. I’m excit­ed about it, and I think that the right descrip­tion is “appro­pri­ate­ly ter­ri­fied.” Well, at least I can say I’m not too afraid to make my own mistakes.

I guess that’s enough for right now. I guess the ques­tion on my mind is: should I shave my head before I go out to the monastery? It would kind of be a kick to go in to work tomor­row with a shiny-bald head.

No, actu­al­ly I’ll at least wait until after I get back from jail. And maybe I should just get a real­ly short hair­cut instead of shav­ing it. Or maybe I should do any­thing oth­er than pre­tend­ing that typ­ing about my inde­ci­sion is going to help me arrive at a deci­sion. In the end, I’ll either have the urge to do it or I won’t. So there.

Got­ta get some sleep now. Up way too late again.