maybe this year will be better than the last

I had a great day at work today - it's amazing how much happier I am when I'm not completely stressed out and overworked, and when I can actually socialize with people without feeling guilty. But perhaps that means that I didn't really have a great day 'at work', since I didn't feel like I did much, but I also think that when I don't do much, I'm probably still contributing enough to meet expectations and not get fired, I just am not 'knocking it out of the park' or some other ridiculous corporate phrase (I actually used that one in conversation today, much to my chagrin).

I had lunch with Gyre today, which was fun, and then I made it through a few meetings this afternoon without emerging with additional tasks, so I was pretty pleased. Then, as I was packing up to leave, Subz (aka Lauren) asked if I wanted to have dinner. We went to Fiesta del Mar, which inexplicably has a plaque for 'healthiest restaurant' awarded to it by Silicon Valley Citysearch, in what must have been a joke - while Fiesta del Mar is delicious, I do not think it qualifies as nutritious, especially in comparison to the many health-food options in the Bay Area. It was v. nice to catch up, and as I spend time with people now, it's starting to sink in that I'm actually going to have to say goodbye to people when I go off into the wilderness to write my book. As I told Subz, I don't particularly have any interest in learning how to make new friends over the next six months, but I am v. interested in learning how to stay connected to the friends I have.

After dinner, I came home, put on my pajamas, and spent much of the last couple of hours looking up options for places to stay or hang out in Scotland and England if I choose to take a trip there this spring. It would be great to get a vacation rental apartment in a couple of different cities and spend a lot of time walking around, soaking in the atmosphere, and hopefully finishing my book in peace and quiet. By April or May I hope to be done with the first draft and actively working on editing/polishing, so a trip someplace could be fun. Alternatively, perhaps I should aim to be completely done by the first of May so that I can spend the rest of the month traveling. We shall see, though. It would be really helpful to know for sure whether I intend to return to my job - if I knew that I was going to be employed in August, I would make much different decisions about how to spend my money while I'm on leave. That's a decision that I'm putting off until June, though, so it won't come in time to help me with my plans.

In other news, we're expected to get some major rainstorms in northern California over the next few days, which I'm really not looking forward to. I like the sound of rain on my roof while I'm sleeping, so that will be nice, but I don't like walking around in the rain, and I can't help but get wet on my way through the parking lot at the office. I suppose I'm not eligible to complain though, since temperatures are at least above freezing, unlike in the frozen wastes of Iowa.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I'm really excited for 2008. I think it's going to be a year of new beginnings - while all years are perhaps years for new beginnings, I'm vowing to live my life in a more exciting way this year, and to develop the discipline necessary to finish my book and do other things that matter to me without any sort of external pressure - essentially, making myself as committed to my pesonal goals as I have always been to my work goals. Even if I'm never able to sell my novel, I want to finish it, and I want to finish it in a way that makes me feel like I wrote something good. If I can accomplish that this year, I will be v. v. happy.