I met a rather astonishing woman last night. I don't think she's nuts, as such...just. Hmm.

She's hot and cute, and seemed from across the room to be rather opinionated, which is often more than enough to get me to go over and say hi. She rambled a lot, talking very fast with a lot of ideas, but using a roundabout vocabulary to express them (she has neat intuitions about computers, but doesn't use the terminology and formalisms of computer science). She's the first person I've talked to (or listened to) who's so very into metaphysics--I'm a Zen Buddhist for a reason. Lots of words and ideas get in the way of my experiencing life directly. And she has a sort of apocalyptic thing going on, a suspicion that the government/Priory of Sion/Illuminati/insert-your-favorite-secret-society-here has a long-term plan to eliminate the freethinkers who might stop them (that'd be us). It's unfortunately not a wholly unreasonable line of thought, and one I've been down many times, but I've left it behind in favor of just living my moments as I have them, and doing whatever I feel called to do as it happens.

So anyway, I felt kinda drained afterward, because it was kind of high-energy listening I was doing, and it was well past midnight when I left. I'm curious to see her again--not in a dating sense (which won't happen), but she seems worth knowing, if I ever get a word in edgewise and she's able to listen. I don't know if that torrent of information is something she gives everyone, or if there's something special about me besides my nice ass, quiet smile, beautiful eyes, and Irish charm. Don't forget my deep humility.

When I kick myself out of hermit mode, I don't mess around: I'm free Thursday (after aikido) and Sunday (after aikido) of this week. It's sometimes a marvel of psychology to me that I can ever think I don't have a life. Saturday is Storm Sessions, and Friday I'm going to a housewarming to meet some people I've known on chat for a long time but have never met in Real Life[tm] for one reason or another (for at least one guy, it's probably because he's got a wife and kid and lives in the South Bay, and everyone knows they eat babies there). So I'm socializing, which is always good.

Still feeling tired and drained today after last night, I saw more of the downside to my job: I'm not excessively well-paid, it's a dead-end, doesn't particularly grow my skills, certainly not such that I could switch fields. I still remember being unemployed, though, and the market is still terrifying; this is a stable stable stable job, and it really doesn't suck. I work for sharp people, and we're taken care of and relatively appreciated. I do get some challenges in the details of implementing the same web application design repeatedly. I've been miserable at jobs before, and I'm not miserable. Glen described it best when he said I was "unexcited"; that's an okay place to be. I go to work around 9, I do work that's mostly fun and that I'm good at , and then I go home and do aikido and sing and other things that are more important. Some days I do get excited, but a lot of the time I'm just doing it and not thinking overly hard.

Aikido continues to be asskicking hard training, so my sore self is going to bed.