I am officially Oriented. Among other things, as opposed to the XXL Tunic of Ridiculousness (picture by Ian Weller):

Still some getting-started stuff to clear up, like getting my new laptop (Thinkpad x200 yay!) that won't have a dying hard drive and a broken hinge and a cracked screen and... other issues that my beloved but end-of-life x61 has been creaking by with for some time. And figuring out how to get a doctor and put money into my 401(k), because I've been told both are a Very Good Idea.

Happily stuffed with BBQ right now (Greg's wife, who is also named Mel, is an incredible cook) and noodling around with various keyboard arrangements since I can't seem to get to sleep yet. I swore to myself when I graduated from college that I would live my life by waking up every morning and Doing Stuff I Loved. It's one of the consistently toughest decisions that I keep on making, and one of the best decisions that I've ever made. I repeat this over and over like a broken record, but it's true.*

I'm looking forward to a long, long string of mornings like that. I'll be continuing to go to sleep in the mornings Doing Stuff I Love, too. :) It's going to be tough, and I'm going to mess up sometimes, and I'm going to learn a lot, and contribute, and teach, and drink from the firehose, and get pushed, and freakin' love it. I wrote about this before also, but being pushed is still such a rare thing for me that I currently feel like a kid who's been told, at the end of a holiday visit, that their family is moving house to Disneyland.

*making this decision in the beginnings - and there were multiple beginnings (and there still will be - it hasn't stopped), many hesitant ones over an extremely long stream of time during which I often didn't realize I was choosing something, and was confused, and sometimes thought life sucked with no prospect for improving on the horizon, and - look, it wasn't always this clear, and I used to laugh at that cliche, and say "ahahaha, of course it's easy for $name to say that; they're $name." I am not sure how I came to find myself on the flip side of this statement, but it is something I am trying to figure out now. What makes it easy to say - and follow - "do what you love?" Heck, forget "easy" - I'll even take "possible."

When I begin to ramble like this, it's a sure sign I ought to try going to bed again. ;-)