In the past six years I've come to count Brad Cavanagh as a friend. It's funny to think that someone I started chatting with because of my late shift in the computer lab and a two-hour timezone difference is now someone I communicate with on almost a daily basis.

I jokingly referenced him in an entry here a couple of days ago (regarding U.S. politics) but didn't really expect an answer. I was a bit surprised this morning when a thoughtful, full-fledged answer arrived in my mailbox. I asked him if I could quote bits from his letter to me, because it made me think, and he was gracious enough to agree.Originally I thought that I'd quote snippets of what he sent, but I think I'd rather quote it in a large chunks, so that I don't accidentally misrepresent his words:

I got my car back this morning. I doubt that many people would rejoice over the return of a six-year-old underpowered purple Sundance…but it's my car, and I've actually rather missed having her around. I always thought people were joking when they said that their cars developed character as they aged; now that I own an aging car, I understand.

Hard to believe that I'm leaving for vacation in eleven days. I guess I should get busy, no? I told Andy that I'm sure he wishes that he could send a snapshot of me now back to the person I was a year ago. I was so miserable at the time that when he said, "I promise that things will get better," I made him write it out on a post-it note and sign it for proof.

I kept that post-it note in my wallet for a while. By November or so I knew that I'd have to bail out of my job sometime in the very near future or risk an emotional breakdown of some kind; unfortunately I lost the piece of paper before I had a chance to scan it and do something goofy with it.

He was right. Things got better. Jeff's having a better semester, so I actually get to see him and talk to him. I changed jobs, which eliminated about 90% of the stress in my life. Through changing jobs I met several new friends, which have had an enormous effect on my personal life.

I'm starting to worry a bit about my car. I guess I should be celebrating; I got a call from the body shop this afternoon to let me know that they'd finished up the exterior repair work. They'd also taken the car by the machine shop and had the engine looked at. An explanation—a day after the accident, the 'check engine' light came on.

Suspicious, I asked the body shop to check that out to see if it was part of the problem.

The insurance won't pay for it. The car was rear-ended, and the sensor's up front, so they're not willing to pay for it; even though I'd had it replaced a few months before the accident. Granted, I understand their immediate position—since they can't see a direct correlation, of course they aren't going to pay for it.But it's still frustrating nevertheless, because I have trouble believing that the sensor would've been jarred loose if the accident hadn't happened. Either way, though, it needs to be fixed, and we've got to pay for it.

I sometimes wish that English was more supportive of the use of diacritical marks.

This occurred to me last night while putting in the playlist. One of the songs I was listening to was Orbital's "Otoño." My thoughts started racing from there. I remembered the girl in my high school whose name was Danée, and how frustrated she must have been all the time to see her name spelled Dane'e.I like diacritical marks. When studying German I found them incredibly helpful. I find it impossible to guess at pronunciations for French and Spanish words without them. I like the certainty that they give when you're reading aloud. (Bonus points, though, to the first person who can tell me how to correctly pronounce 'Björk Guðmundsdóttir.')

Considering that English is an incredible bastardization of many languages, I wish that we used them. It would make reading easier for a lot of people…

I don't feel quite so guilty about working on personal stuff tonight. I got the kitchen and living room reasonably tidied. Jeff cleaned the guest bathroom, and I tidied up the guest bedroom. Laundry's going now. This house is in much better shape than it was 48 hours ago.

I even got a bit of work done on the site for Andrew and Joy. After much tweaking I finally got around to sending them a proposal for the front page of their site.

All this…after getting my spouse to the mall this morning. Dillard's had some pretty sweet end-of-season sales going on today, and Jeff finally has some new pants and shirts. We got a few pair of pants, about four dress shirts, and a pair of shorts—for $70. Once I get the pants hemmed, he's set.