the terror of history

Clear sign that I've been reading too much paranormal crap: tonight, for the second time in a week, I struggled to spell 'warehouse'. I kept trying to spell it 'werehouse' (like werewolf, werewhale, etc.), knew it was wrong, and then had to remember that a warehouse is a place for storing wares. I have a serious problem, friends.

Beyond that, today was definitely go-go-go -- I slept until 9ish, since I had not gotten nearly enough sleep the night before, and then did a bit of work for the freelance project I'm working on. I had a couple of errands to run after that, which meant that I had to grab a (surprisingly tasty) sandwich in the cafe at the gym and hastily swallow half of it before my 1pm training session. After the general evaluation yesterday and today's training session today, I am a) sore and b) in love with my trainer. My love is the fickle, platonic love that I have had for many people in the past, but right now it burns brightly with all the hope and promise of a new relationship. So, I went ahead and purchased a package of twenty-four training sessions with her, which is the equivalent of twice a week for the next three months, and is also the equivalent of the gross domestic product of my home county in Iowa (that is mostly a joke).

After I showered (Kiehl's hair products FTW!), I went over to one of the two Starbucks near my old employer, where I had coffee with Vickee, Ziv, Renee, Tolu, Tiffany, and Brittany. Observant long-time readers may recognize those names as belonging to people I worked with/managed on the team I was on before I went on leave in 2008, and they're dropping like flies; Ziv and Renee left long ago, and we had coffee today because Vickee's last day is tomorrow. It was great to see them and to reminisce -- and it's rather funny how little I've missed work since I left. In fact, I haven't missed it at all, which is both surprising and extremely gratifying, since I would be doubting my decision if I missed it.

I did about an hour of work when I got home from coffee, and then I dashed over to Stanford campus for the third night in a row, where I attended a free lecture called "Terror of History: Heresy and the Millennium in Late Medieval Europe". I am such a dork, but even though I was the youngest person in the audience by about twenty years (with the exception of a few people hanging out in the back who may have been forced to attend due to a class), I was enthralled, and I took four pages of notes. The professor teaches at UCLA, has a fabulous Cuban accent, and discussed Zoroastrianism, the Cathars (whom I went on and on about in a recent blog post about heretics in the Languedoc region of France), the Waldensians (another brand of heretics), and how the Christian/Jewish/Islamic notion of time having an "end" (i.e. millenium/apocalypse, paradise, etc.) is very different from the view of time as cyclical (Hindu, Buddhist, and my all-time favorites, the Mayans).

So yes, I'm a dork, but it was all v. fascinating to me, and I made so many notes because I think the roots for my gargoyle young adult romance novel lie somewhere in that time period. The lecture series (which was previously 1x/yr, but they're doing three lectures this year) is partially sponsored by a local group of amateur medieval history buffs, which I may not be dork enough to join yet, but by looking at their website I discovered that there's going to be a display of tombstone statues from the dukes of Burgundy on display in San Francisco next summer, which I'm more excited about than I should be. I also came straight home and ordered the professor's twelve-hour lecture series about "The Terror of History", which I'm looking forward to listening to at my leisure when I start researching to gargoyle book in earnest after the holidays.

Now, though, I desperately need to go to bed; I have some more freelance work to do tomorrow, and then I need to hole up and write my own stuff all weekend to make up for the fact that I was distracted by filthy lucre and sold out after only two weeks of unemployment. Goodnight!