it's rainy outside today. i'm on a conference call at work right now (literally - the phone is resting on my shoulder against my ear, and someone is asking if my boss is going join us on the line [the answer is no - she's at the dentist, and i say she's "in meetings"]).

when the seasons exhaust into the winter shift, i try not to sled too quickly into giving myself an annual review. does anyone else do this? keep a mental report card of things you set out almost a year ago to do? (god, i hope not. but if so, you can come sit with me at the loser's table in heaven's lunchroom and combat the wet spaghetti noodles that get thrown at us from river phoenix's posse. jerks.)

probably not unlike yourself, there's some things i sorta tried to do this year (close any interest-bearing debts, start a work-out regiment, pay my taxes, be nice to old people) and things i can say i actually did (move to a new city, keep my room clean, take economics classes, read more books). and because i am a product of denver public schools, i prefer to focus on the fact that i'm actually trying, rather than focusing on accomplishing all of these (oh man i can't wait to get sued for saying that).

i'm wearing a sweater that i unloaded from a box of winter clothes that i packed and shipped last spring. i remember thinking, "i wonder where i'm going to be the next time i put this on."

on the subway in today, it struck me that the last time i was wearing this sweater, just about a year ago, i hardly had the means to drag myself out of bed and start another day. four seasons ago, everything 2000 miles west of where i am now was dying a slow death and i was immobilized by inability to decided if i was supposed to abide (nothing lasts forever) or intervene (do not go gentle).

that roller coaster sound wave has since mellowed to a low background hum - i'm not sure if i survived the ride or escaped it.

i'm sure, though, that like most DPS grads, i get an A for effort - it'd be an A+ if old people weren't so damn slow all the time.