We had a major meltdown at work this week. This meant me and a couple other guys working a 24-hour day each, and rotating shifts the rest of the time so one of us was always around to guide some recovery process or another. I think I'm done being tired now, and the recovery seems solid. I learned a lot, and it was kind of exciting; I just wish I didn't need sleep.

As an interesting side effect, I did well, and no one has any doubt that I can take care of things when my mentor's second baby is born and he disappears for a month or two.

It's Home Improvement Weekend. The ugly Ikea rug is gone from the living room, which is better than I could have imagined; I went to Ikea and got a small shelf/bench for my room, and a large slightly-too-high coffee table for the living room. I had to shower afterward, but the bench is really nice, and the table is a dull grey/white, which shouldn't interfere too much with my plans to sand it and paint it multiple funky colors. Also I bought a guitar stand, since I don't have a case for my new guitar, and I like having it accessible anyway. And I finally got a baking sheet and a couple of bus tubs from Smart 'n Final, along with various kitchen goo and a better broom for my house which is entirely hardwood floors. Mmm, spending money on useful stuff.

It's hard not to cling to things. Everything is transient, so clinging leads inevitably to suffering of one sort or another. But people successfully do things like get married, and stay that way. How? I don't understand. The way for me, and others, to look at those sorts of commitments, in terms of not being overwhelmed or freaked out, is to go one week/day/hour at a time. But it seems like everything ends. I don't know how you'd decide that this one thing in particular wouldn't. I mean, I thought that once, and was really horribly deluded and wrong.

I swear the answer to understanding all human experience is the sentence, "It seemed like the thing to do at the time."