Saturday, eight days ago. Dropped a project I was working on pro bono. With making stuff for the baby’s room and trying to enjoy the last few months of my childless life, I just didn’t have it in me to maintain the commitment. I felt guilty for leaving the guy hanging (but not too guilty — I did a lot of work for free and turned it all over to him), but I feel like a big weight’s been lifted. I no longer feel guilty for not getting up at 6:00 on Saturdays to put time into the project before my day proper starts. No more guilt about vegging in front of the TV when I should be either programming or reading so that I’ll have time to program later without digging into my reading time. It’s a small thing, but the quality of my life has risen a lot since I dropped the project.

Monday through Thursday. Worked my butt off. I’m putting together a bunch of static demos of dynamic programs my company uses on a daily basis. The demos, it turns out, are very useful to the sales team. So while I hate the physical act of creating the demos, I don’t mind doing them, because they’re useful. I joke with my boss that if the demos are so helpful to the sales team, I should be earning part of the commission for jobs reeled in. Partway through the week, we got a call telling us that one of M’s aunts was moving to Florida the next day (first we’d heard of it) and that we were welcome to come scavenge the belongings they were selling at a yard sale the next day to get first pick. I snagged a box full of books, including the following stand-out titles:

• Gray’s Anatomy
• Subterranean Kerouac
• The Satanic Verses
• Calculus (with Analytic Geometry)
• Practical Mathematics for Home Study
• Man and His Symbols (Jung)
• How the Mind Works (Pinker)
• University Physics
• Principles of Surgery (never know when you’ll get caught unawares at home without transportation and a surgeon)

Friday. More demos. While I was working to meet one tight deadline, I was hit with another one (more demos). Meanwhile, there were some software issues that I had to spend a few hours looking into, and my primary desktop system started acting up after I reinstalled the OS. Rough day.

Saturday. Up at 6:00, in to work by 6:30, doing one of the demos due early this week. Because of all the distractions I’ve had this week, I figured I needed a few hours uninterrupted to get at least one of the demos done. Out at 12:30 and off to pick up a glider we ordered a few months ago. I had to cram the partially disassembled glider in the car with me and almost had to call on a friend with a truck to come help me out. Got home and put the glider together and spent a warm afternoon partially outside prepping our little garden area and partially inside rearranging furniture while enjoying a nice cross-breeze afforded by our open windows. Stabbed my palm with a garden tool by accident. Later, my brother in law came over to bring some pictures to M, and he and I wound up going back to his apartment to play tennis, something I haven’t done for a couple of years. I’m sore today in that good limber way. Went out later to an eatery called The Tijuana Taco and invalidated my rare day of calorie-burning physical activity by stuffing a grande burrito down my gullet. Wobbled over to Linens and Things, Pier 1 Imports, and Target to look for bath mats and rugs for the baby’s room. (Won’t it be funny, when my forthcoming daughter’s a little older, to joke about going to Lennons and Things?) We almost bought a 12-piece set of pretty attractive cookware for 100 bucks, but couldn’t figure out why the price was so low and decided not to make the purchase. Came home and sat in the glider absently leafing through the eyeball section of Gray’s Anatomy. Eyeballs begin as little outcroppings of brain that become specialized, apparently. And (my reading wasn’t utterly linear) some people have taste buds around their epiglottis and their soft palates. It was a good day — very full, but very satisfying.

Today. Rolled out of bed a little before 8:00 (late for me for a weekend — still glad I dropped that project a week ago) and read email. Got ready for a program I had helped to organize that turned out to be pretty successful and then went out for a late lunch at a local eatery that serves brunch until 2:30. I had a ham and cheese omelette with three or four glasses of complimentary champagne and topped them off with a couple of gimlets. Mmmmm. Came home afterward and read some more of The Recognitions, which I had sort of partially back-burnered because of the aforementioned project, napped a little, caught a short snippet of a basketball game (way out of character for me), and then grilled some burgers for dinner. Caught a new Simpsons and here I am, relaxed and content and just about ready to hit the sack and fall asleep reading.