What's my Bermuda pressure, please?

Just one week ago, I sat in the office in Dallas, blood pressure rising and buried in pre-event stress, wondering what was wrong with me: I was about to spend 2 weeks in Bermuda, but not only was I feeling dread, but I found myself actually looking forward to the LAST day of the trip (read: last day of what my sources say is a most exraordinarily logistically complicated event). But somehow, sitting at a temporary desk, doing the EXACT same work, but being able to turn my head and see palm trees and the ocean seems to have lowered my blood pressure. I don't know if it really did, but I DO know that last day is coming up entirely too soon! More posts to follow...

New Year's Plea

How the hell did I survive 2006? A dramatic question, I know. And certainly, in my case, a question fraught with upper middle -class angst. But it feels like any old angst to me. Last year started so auspiciously for me as I charged forward into all kinds of uncharted territory. But at the first taste of the heady exhilaration that only risk-taking brings, God looked down at my insufferably optimistc ways and thought, "Let's stir it up a little and see what she's REALLY made of." A little hope here, a little disillusionment there, toss in some happiness, uncertainty, heartache and opportunity for courage - whatever it takes for a complete and categorically gut-wrenching self-evaluation.

Did it work? Well, 2 weeks before the end of 2006, I found myself, the girl who swore off academia for good on the day she graduated with her first degree, having broken into a new industry (a feat which I'd begun to believe was impossible) standing in line at the post office and holding... (gasp!) an actual graduate school application. MY graduate school application. And I was actually not close to tears. There may even have been some smiling.

Ok, so I've discovered a little more about myself. Please give me a less emotionally tumultuous 2007. Please, please, please.