Lucky

In the movie American Splendor (which is one of my favorites), there's a scene where Paul-Giamatti-as-Harvey-Pekar wakes up in a cold sweat saying, "I got a job."

I sometimes feel that way. Particularly now, when everything feels a bit unsettled and uncertain, it's a good thing to think. They hired me. Yay! I get a paycheck. I have something to do during the week between the hours of 8 and 5, and sometimes beyond that.

Even better?

I really do love my job. I really do love my field.

I'm still not entirely sure how I managed to stumble my way through working in restaurants, retail, temping, front desk clerking, etc. to wind up in an area where I just fit. My interests, my hobbies, my geekish tendencies all coalesce into a great big ball of, "Right here, yup, this is where you belong." I can, will, have, and do talk about my job and my area for hours. Thankfully, it's an area that friends and family can talk about as well, and have opinions on, and display (at least for my benefit) interest in.

Which is ever-so nice for me.

I went to a lecture this afternoon on a topic in my area that I'm particularly interested in, as it combines sustainability, technology, and common sense. The crowd was good, the speaker excited and passionate, and the setting lovely. I sat, listening and taking notes, and thinking, "I'm such a geek! I want to be more of a geek! I want to learn more about this, and how it works, and how to make it work better, and how it relates to things that we're working on!." And then I went to the post-lecture reception and spoke with others in the field, and in related areas, and the conversations were great, and the people were interesting and funny and engaged and I thought, over and over:

"Lucky. I am so lucky."

And I am.

And a very happy day to you as well!

After my last post, I knew that it was time to start living here as though I'm LIVING here, instead of just feeling like I'm a long-term visitor. With that in mind, I made mental and logisitic preparations for the weekend, and had a wonderful time.

Saturday. Ah, Saturday. You were a wonderful day.

The day started off cool-ish (cloudy!), so after waking up early I made the (roughly) 2 1/2 mile walk to Holland Village for coffee and breakfast (a coddled egg, toast, and salad - I love that salad comes with breakfast!). A bit of puttering around and reading later, I headed home to get ready to go to...pilates! Yes, I found a studio not (too) far from me, and they had an early Saturday afternoon jumpboard class, so off I scampered. I didn't like the studio quite as much as my old one in Chicago (though, to be fair, I've never been to any studio anywhere that I like as much as Spring), but the people were nice, the space was clean, and the class kicked my butt (and thighs, and abs, and arms). So there's that. I will, I'm sure, be going back.

Class over, I took my stinky self home and was about to jump in the shower when I thought, "Hang on, as long as I'm gross already..."

Meet Callie. Callie is my dear little sage-green Dahon Speed purchased from this place. The people were incredibly nice and helpful, and I'm a little bit in love with the bike. No offense meant to Sars (my beloved Trek hybrid in Chicago), but Callie is more of a Singapore bike. She's smaller, lighter, and has a tighter turning radius. Sars is the perfect bike for Chicago, and I don't know that I'd be as comfortable on Callie there - for one thing, I don't know how Callie would handle the snow! I don't get the speed on Callie that I could get on Sars, but she had me sailing along on my commute this morning and afternoon, and I was so, so happy to be back out on the road with a helmet on my head!

(But back to Saturday...)

So, bike purchased, I rode around for a while, and finally made my way home. Jumped in the shower, changed clothes, and headed out (to the bus - yes, yes, but I wasn't entirely sure where I was going and it was getting late for a first long ride!) to meet up with a Meetup of expats and friends. One of my coworkers met me there, and it was such a great time. Really nice people from all over the place gathered together for a beer and a chat. There may have been dancing. There were definitely fries at around 2AM.

I was oh-so-very sleepy when I went to bed, and so happy when I woke up. A lovely day, and feeling more like myself than I have since, oh, December?

Happy!