I've been busy.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, my grandmother died, so I spent last weekend in Long Island for the funeral and hanging out with the extended family. I got to see my parents and uncles, and hang out with my cousin in Sacramento who I haven't seen in five years, since their wedding. He and his wife were a bit busy at the time, so we didn't get to chat quite as much as would have been nice. I was also in the death throes of the Bad Relationship at the time, so I'm more fun now.

My beloved friend continues to pass out of my life in stages, with her new boyfriend last fall, their decision in January to buy a boat and sail the world for a few years, her emptying out her apartment (where we spent a lot of time together), and now the news they're getting married (which I figured was more or less inevitable). It's been many years since there's been room in my heart for anyone else...but that will happen in its own time.

Periodically I spend time with a lovely woman who dated me for a while and likes me anyway.

I've been training for my next aikido test, but not wholeheartedly, and the guy I've been working with won't be around for testing in June, and my knee is working out some issues, so I think I will test in September, and that will work out better all around.

I told my boss that if nothing changed, at the end of June I would start looking around to see what other job options might be available. He told the VP, and I'm not entirely sure either of those decisions were good: to say such a thing has a big ripple effect in how people do their planning and how they view the job they're doing. I explained to the VP the reasons behind my thinking, and he did understand, though I'm skeptical about anything changing. (Essentially, our software architect has been given veto power over my decisions, but whereas I have to justify some of my decisions--and it's not defined which ones--he doesn't have to justify or explain his objections, or even prove that they're valid. In a sense I'm being proactive about planning ahead, because under the current circumstances, I will become a very, very angry employee before the end of the year.) As always, we'll see how that goes.

So all of this stuff is excellent practice material: difficult experiences with a lot of emotions attached, most of which makes me want to dissociate off into daydreaming or television or anything. Air travel is especially great, because the entire 10-13 hours of the trip, I want desperately to be almost anyplace else, so it's a good challenge to just be there and remain present in that miserable experience.