It's not one of those times when I feel like ranting or raving about my life. I'm working a fair bit, because my job is still fun; I really enjoy it when The Right Thing To Do[tm] is complicated and I just can't get it done quickly. It's like batting in the major leagues when that's what you've worked for--sure, it's work, but you can't believe you get paid for it.

It's one of those slow aikido times, when I'm going three or four times a week, but I don't feel a ton of energy directed into it the rest of the time. It's being sapped off by work, a bit. I'm pondering whether I'm actually going to throw myself into it and get ready to test in June: I still need someone to take falls for me, and I haven't been as proactive as I could be about that. Once I get someone to train me, then I have to do the training...in a way, I want to do it *because* I'm unmotivated, like climbing hills and mountains, I want to do this not because it's something I'm crazy excited about, but to carry out my intentions regardless of how I feel moment by moment. Discipline: doing something you want to do even though nothing is forcing you, and even though along the way you're tempted to stop.

I played poker at a cow-orker's place on Friday. I lost, but only five bucks, since the way the kids play Texas Hold 'Em these days seems to be that everyone chips five dollars into a winner-take-all prize, and use an arbitrary quantity of chips more or less for keeping score. Patience seems to be the key virtue, which hadn't occurred to me.

I found it odd to be enjoying myself in an all-male group, when almost all of my socializing, for a long time now, is mixed company. In part a lot of the guys have grown up, so I hate them less; these were also part of my tribe of quirky freaky interesting people, if a little distant from me, though I'm not they knew that until I'd been there a while. It got me thinking about how I relate to people nowadays, and what happens to us all as we get older, how we grow up year by year and accept more of our parents into ourselves; I wonder if we inevitably grow more into certain fragments of traditional gender roles, and we just pick and choose what feels right.

Good thing I have all the time in the world. I need it.