she had something breakable just under her skin

I'm all packed up and ready to go to London; my flight leaves at nine a.m. tomorrow, so I'll need to get up earlier than I have been so that I can clean myself up, throw the last items into my suitcase, and go to the airport. While I remain a little tired of traveling, I am going to force myself to enjoy London -- I may do little more than walk around Mayfair, hang out in Hyde Park, and perhaps go to the V&A or the British Museum or an art museum (blech), but it will still be nice.

However, I've had a good time in Dublin, and I feel that the trip was quite productive. I met with a lot of people, and accomplished the fuzzy, nebulous goals that are inherent to being an internal communications person -- listening to people, trying to synthesize perspectives and understand challenges, and all those other corporate buzzwords that I use all the time and that make me hate myself just a little bit. Since I love to spend my days talking to people and then making gross, sweeping assumptions about the state of things based on my intuition, this was a great trip for me.

Anyway, my meetings today were all good, and I had a videoconference with the big boss (my midyear review, ironically done over vc because we've barely been in the same place in the past month -- she's not going to fire me, in case you were concerned, and in fact seems to think I'm doing pretty well despite the fact that I've barely been around and have been moving/traveling/etc for weeks). I left the office around seven p.m. and had a lovely dinner with my friend Darragh. We went to a restaurant that recently opened near the office called the Chop House; one would think, based on that name, that it was a steakhouse, but there was only one steak on the menu. Instead, we both opted for beef pies with mash (how v. Irish), although I had a glass of wine instead of a Guinness. We had a good time discussing work, gossip, the economy, politics, more gossip, etc., and it was great to catch up.

But Dublin is deceiving; it still felt early because it was still quite light out, but I didn't get back to the hotel until after 9:30pm. As I still had to pack, and had to send a couple of emails for work, this was a little tragic, but I'm glad I spent the time catching up with people. Now, though, it's time for bed; I don't want to be too wrecked tomorrow morning, and I certainly don't want to miss my flight. Goodnight!