i can't wait for this day to end

I've written 700 posts on this blog, and 320 posts on my India blog, for a combined total of 1020. This post will be 1021. The sad thing is that in the month of July this year, I only posted 16 times, which is once every two days. This is a trend that must be stopped! While most of my blog is completely inane, I do like going back to reread it and remember what was going on in my life then, and fill in all of the glorious little details that are missing in the broad strokes that I use here.

Today, however, is not a day that I wish to repeat; the title isn't a lyric (of course it might be, it's a pretty common human sentiment), it's just how I feel. The day didn't get off to a good start anyway - my calendar said I had no meetings until 1pm, and so I decided to sleep in. I got up at 8:37, picked up my crackberry, and checked my email. One email was suspiciously titled 'Agenda for Today's 9am [xx] Meeting' (where xx is the name of the group, which contains a lot of managers, but luckily not my own manager), and the agenda even more suspiciously included a 20min update from me that I was thoroughly unprepared for. I IM'd the leader of the meeting and warned her that I would be late, then got ready faster than just about ever and made it into work by 9:15ish. The unfortunate side effect was that I didn't have time to wash my hair or do anything more than a cursory makeup job - so much for my desire to spiff it up for work. But at least the meeting was okay, even if I didn't have any slides and wasn't happy to be there.

After the meeting, I went back to my desk, where I had a cryptic email from my friend Irish Matt. I found out what he was referencing before I managed to talk to him - one of the guys that I hung out with quite a bit in Dublin was stabbed and killed on a street near the office early Saturday morning. In fact, you can see him here: http://swampfest.blogspot.com/2006/06/as-you-can-tell-second-group-i-went.html. He's the guy in the bright blue shirt, with his arm around Matt. Anyway, he was one of the nicest guys, and every time I went out with him, I had a great time. I got more details from Matt in the afternoon; he was on his way home from drinking with Finbarr (another great guy, he had resigned on Friday and it was his going-away drinks that they were wrapping up) when they stumbled upon what appeared to be a lovers' quarrel between a man and a woman. Mark pulled them apart, seemed to have calmed them down, and even shook hands with the guy - but the guy came back a few minutes later and stabbed him.

It's just completely senseless and unfair, and while I wasn't exactly close to him, I have really fond memories of him. I can't imagine what the reaction must have been in the Dublin office, particularly since he was pretty well-known and he was killed so close to the office. I was unexpectedly really really sad to hear about it - all I really wanted to do was go home and cry, but I stuck it out and stayed at work. I suppose that anyone my age who dies will seem senseless and unfair, but this was particularly senseless and unfair given that he was trying to help someone - it's not like it was an accident (as in the case of Errol), it was a deliberate act.

Anyway, the rest of the day just kind of sucked; I wasn't very productive at work, got pulled into a depressing meeting from 6-7pm, and then went to see 'The Bourne Ultimatum' with Vidya, Claudia, and Oniel. Even that was vaguely disappointing - I liked it, but I am not a huge fan of the handheld camerawork - it's trying to be artistic, when really I just want perfect clarity and steadiness when guys are beating the crap out of each other. Then again, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind to see strangers killing each other. Also, I would have been happier if Matt Damon killed Julia Stiles - as it is, if they make a fourth one, she'll of course be in it, and I'm sick of her. Ugh.

Okay, this post isn't going to get any more cheerful, so I think I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight!