Monday

I pursed my lips and thought very, very hard while letting Chienne tug me through the neighborhood. The days grow longer, making my short commutes even happier since they're not consistently made in the pre-dawn and post-dusk darkness.

I shall, I decided as I guided the Jeep toward home, take the puppy for a walk. Checking the temperature displayed on my dash, I decided 40 degrees was sweatshirt weather and dressed accordingly upon arriving at home.

"Where did I drink coffee this morning?" I said out loud, unable to remember and hoping that hearing the question would make it easier. "I made some before I left but didn't have time for more than a couple of sips," I murmured, letting the wind whisk the words away as they tossed wisps of hair that escaped my ponytail. "But I'm not sleepy so I must have had more." I mused, eyebrows lowered behind sunglasses as I continued to consider.

I got to work and parked the car, I listed, deciding to go step by step. I went to a lab to check the set up of an experiment, called someone to have them take care of mistakes and dropped my bag at my desk. I answered a couple of emails as people began to fill the building with noise and then I went to the pretty conference room. There, I perked up as I remembered, I had coffee in a pretty porcelain cup perched on a matching saucer while speaking to a customer.

"It seems like days ago though - not just this morning," I told Chienne. She glanced up from her examination of a tree before trotting off again, leaving me to follow along. I received and returned phone calls. I giggled through a meeting with Adam because what we do is truly ridiculous. We plan for events that are cancelled 40% of the time, negating all the effort we spent. We argue passionately over trivial facts and absently agree on major topics. We work incredibly hard - long days, intense effort, real focus. But we seem to make very few people happy. I was insulted three times via email and only one of them made me want to cry. (That's a vast improvement - I'm doing much better.) I formed a list of things to do, acknowledged I had little time to do any of it, and shrugged.

I left shortly after 5, deciding I'd had enough for the day. Resolving to relax for the evening - watch television, read a book, take a bath, drink some wine - my shoulders slumped when I remembered something else.

I have a conference call starting at 7PM tonight and another at 6AM tomorrow. I'm unlikely to remember where I drank coffee, but it's probable that I'll have more than one cup.