One a.m.

"This is a good life," I whisper to myself. I'm not certain I always believe it, but tonight I think I do.

Stephen's DCTV shoot was today; I got up this morning and headed cross-town with Jeff for a taping of scenes for a live-action version of 'Code Monkey.' I tired rapidly in the latter half of the shoot, and was grateful when Stephen rearranged the shoot order to get the backing band (read: Jeff, among others) finished up.

Dinner was at 5:30 at Stephen and Misty's. We didn't get home until a little after four, and I suspected I was making an imprudent choice when I lay down for a nap, but I did it anyway.

I woke up nearly five hours later, and was grateful to learn that jeff had brought back some of Misty's soup for me. I ate it on the couch while re-watching a favorite TV episode with Jeff. We talked, absently, of our upcoming trip to Seattle. Of food. Of life in general.

Amy: "You're such a cliché, Charles."
Sherry: "Yeah! There you are, with your Admiral Ackbar profile photo, sucking down your Mountain Dew while eating your chili cheese Fritos."
Amy: "..and are those Converse you're wearing?"
Charles: "Yeah, but they aren't Chuck Taylors, so it's not totally bad."

We joke about people being married to their jobs, but the numbers in my own life tell quite a tale. A typical workday sees me awake for 17 hours. I spend nine of those with co-workers. Since Jeff and I keep slightly different work schedules, I only see him for about five hours per weekday.

The jokes become less comfortable when you realize that you're spending more hours per day with your co-workers than you do with the person you married. Co-workers don't have the same commitment to permanence that spouses do; they are people you spend time with, but not people you share everything with. I marvel at how few people find this strange or unusual.

I lay on the bed this afternoon, drowsy with sunshine and tea and salacious novel, and trawled fingers through Edmund's orange fur. As my hand crept over and around, to reach the white fur on his belly, the purring changed from lazy to nearly explosive, as if to say, oh yes, pet me right there...

Today was the rarest of programming days. My headphones were on by eight a.m., and while the code didn't flow, the ideas did; when I next looked up, it was after one p.m. I zeroed down on the section of code I had my suspicions about, and started testing, line by line. The book clubs problem eventually presented itself as a three-headed beast.

The tally is now at fourteen months, and verging on fifteen.

I'm amazed anyone still reads this site; it has to be obvious that my design time and energy has been diverted elsewhere for that period of time. It used to bother me. I still apologize for it, but I've stopped giving estimates on when I might finally reach the finish line and be 'back.' I don't know. I stopped knowing about six months ago.