Whirlwind

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. I've been busier than usual. Much, much busier than usual. If any of you follow the workings of Congress, you'll know that things are pretty much insane on the Hill right now, and the committee I work for has an awful lot to do with all of it, and in one instance of all the drama (basically, the jobs bill, the healthcare bill and recent ethics charges), is very close to the center of it. It's making for an interesting work environment for sure, but also an extraordinarily stressful one. 

There's filibusters, House-Senate ping pong (I literally had a dream one night in which the crypt of the Capitol--where you can see straight through from the House to the Senate--turned into a giant indoor tennis court, but we were playing dodgeball instead) and parliamentary acrobatics the likes of which are rarely seen.  I just so happen to have signed up for a Congressional Research Service course for Hill staff on advanced legislative processes (Senate processes, I'll have to do House another time). It meets once a week for 2 hours for 7 weeks. Even the person teaching this course, one of the nation's foremost experts in parliamentary procedure, is all atwitter over what's going down. I *barely* grasp it, which is only adding to the anxiety, because I feel like I ought to have this stuff down. 

One bonus is that because our regular conference/meeting rooms are almost always full of meetings, there have been a few occasions in which confidential meetings had to happen in my office space, which means that I've been periodically been told to get lost for an hour. I had a nice long lunch once, took care of some HR business on the House side (and got my shoes shined), and got a hair cut at the Senate Hair Care another time. Here's the cut---after riding my bike home from the Metro with a helmet on in the rain. Making a face demonstrating what I think of people who disobey leash laws and allow their dogs to attack me on my bike, making me swerve, lose balance and have to jump off into an ankle-deep mud pit (necessitating the shoe shine mentioned above):

 

On top of the nuclear meltdown that is work, I was still keeping my regular grad school/dance class/karate class schedule while parade planning kicked into high gear (our parade was yesterday--we do it a week early because many of the bands and other participants are in the DC parade too and we can't conflict). We had a final fundraiser on Sunday the 21st, a long and late meeting on Tuesday the 23rd (we went to the City Council meeting to get a proclamation, then had a normal meeting), then a dry run on Sunday the 28th, then our final-push meeting on Wednesday the 3rd, our Grand Marshal Ball on Friday the 5th (which spilled into the wee hours of Saturday the 6th), then the parade itself, with events (classic car show, community dog show) starting at 10am Saturday. It was a lot. I'll write a bit more about the parade, and specifically our Grand Marshal who is my new favorite person in the world, later.

Me personally? After Friday night shenanigans at/after the Grand Marshal Ball, followed by working the parade all day Saturday, followed by some social time on Saturday (I couldn't stay long, because the pubs are as packed, if not more, as they are on St. Patrick's Day itself, and I just can't handle those kinds of crowds), I went home for a nap. I got up and immediately went to meet up with some librarian friends at the piano bar after which we headed to Murphy's to try to meet up with a friend of mine who lives far away and who I haven't seen in a year who was supposed to be out last night. She wasn't there, but Mr. You Messed It Up was! Awkwardness ensued, but we eventually ran into each other in private, hung out for a while and long story short, we're cool. So he's around, but this is the last you'll be hearing of him because this is just not that kind of blog.

So that's about it. If I disappear again it's either because Congress is still insane or because I'm spending time doing the type of thing that I generally refrain from writing about here. For my sake, please hope that it's the latter!

Comments

[welshcyclist]

You are a wonderful writer, I enjoy reading your blog, and actually miss it when you "refrain" for awhile. Still go ahead and enjoy yourself.

[Catherine]

Thanks, welshcyclist, you're very kind. I miss it, too, when I'm gone for a while. I like to have a space to record my little comings and goings, but also my thoughts and feelings etc. I always kept a private journal as a child and especially a teenager, and I love looking back on those journals now. I think that's part of why I remember my childhood and high school days so well.

With blogs it's a little trickier. First off, they're not private so the pages and pages of silly crush talk and moody-broody self indulgence really can't happen (or, well, it could, and people do but I think it's a terrible idea), so when I'm going through a phase where almost nothing else is happening besides silly crushes and moody-broodiness....I've got nothing to say. Second, when I get busy like I have been, I usually make it home just in time to get enough sleep to get up on time for work the next day. Unlike a private journal which you can bring to school or work with you and scribble in over lunch, the blog needs a computer, and I'm not about to update from my work computer (would likely get in trouble for that, too).

So that's how it happens. I don't like it, but it happens. I need to find a solution because I get really disappointed when I look back on this and see chunks of time just gone.

[welshcyclist]

Time is what defeats us all, who said that? I must have heard or read it, but for the moment, I said, sorry, wrote it. Time is always biting at my heels, never enough time to fit evrything into the day, that just flies headlong with me hanging on to it's coat tails. Even the computer isn't fast enough for me, I expect you can type with a degree of speed, yet I'm stuck in two-fingered mode, my patience constantly tested, as I try to put my thoughts onto the screen, fingers struggling to keep up. What's the solution? I wish I knew, but I'm sure some technological advance, if not already available, will solve our ever increasing demands, for time and space. I'm very pleased to have a response from you. Cheers.