2001-06-12 - 1:04 a.m.

In addition to our mutual dislike of cheesecake and our common ability to sing along to "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", it appears that Dichroic and I also concur on the merits of being grown up: year thirty-one beats out year sixteen by at least a country mile and a brace of church steeples. I may be forty pounds heavier, but I'm no longer wearing braces. I may be up late slogging through shipment files, but I can do so while listening to Lambert, Byrd and Tallis instead of waiting for my parents to fall asleep so I could switch my desklight back on and finish cramming for calculus. (If they had known I wasn't finishing my homework by bedtime, I would have had to sacrifice orchestra or cross-country or letter-writing, all of which I considered lifelines.) I'll be loading the dryer with soggy knickers at 2 a.m., but I'll also be gleefully snacking on marinated asparagus at that hour - a co-worker of mine catered a party this past weekend where she used just the tips of three pounds of asparagus - which left the still-tender stems of those three pounds of asparagus, which she had no interest in converting into soup, which meant she was going to just compost the lot unless perhaps I wanted them? "Of COURSE I want them!" I shrieked. I may be cursing unexpected bills ($400+ for an x-ray? Oy VEY!), but my plans for the week still include noshing on lobster with one of my favorite ten-year-olds and her very cool mom.

So here I sit - almost done with home-work, almost underway with packing, far from the serene maven-of-many-trades I'd hoped to be by now, but also far from discontent with my lot and luck. There's a puppy snoozing at my feet and a cat warming my side of the bed. Nights like these, I enjoy the finishing of the almosts. . .