family time

I had a meeting at work at nine a.m., which I was unhappy about, but I only had myself to blame since I scheduled it. It was more than compensated for by a free massage from six to seven p.m.; I was supposed to get a free massage from work for my birthday, but since I wasn't here for my birthday, I requested to use my birthday massage today instead. It was super relaxing, despite the fact that the soundtrack switched from standard world music and/or waterfalls to some woman's voice periodically asking me to envision myself in a meadow, under a starry night sky. I'm willing to bet that she's never been in a meadow under a starry night sky, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I had the massage, then went to the gym, then came home a little before nine and had some leftover vegetarian chili.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that when Adit dropped by unannounced at ten p.m., he took one look at the state of affairs in the apartment and pronounced that we were in a local minima. This term, related to search theory in computer science, implies that we are in the lowest possible point in the general vicinity, although it remains to be determined (via repeated random searching) whether or not this is in fact the lowest point on the map. In general, I hate it when he pronounces that I'm in a local minima; usually he's right, and being told that I'm in a local minima doesn't exactly help matters. Luckily, this wasn't as bad as the first time he did it (when I was alone in my room on a Saturday night of my senior year, drinking a Baileys and flipping through a Victoria's Secret catalogue, and truly was in a local minima). Today, I was actually pretty chipper, despite the continued uncertainty about my future, and despite the rather crunchy-Californian taint involved with going to a gym and eating vegetarian food. So, I was able to take this pronouncement in stride, and I enjoyed experiencing 'family time' for the first time. While I was in India and Adit was subletting my room, he would occasionally coerce Claudius and Terry into having 'family time', and I was sad that I had missed out. This gave me a taste of what I missed, and it was delightful.

Now, though, I should go to bed--I have a conference call at 7:30am, which is in less than eight hours. By this time next week, I should know what's going on with my career. If not, I can stop thinking about it while I'm chilling (or just chilled) in Iowa. Either way, next week should be fun.