It's little, but still: it's *something*

Any work-day that follows a blissful four-day weekend is bound to be a let-down.  Today was sucky enough just by virtue of comparison to the freedom and fun of what had gone immediately before, and then made worse by an absurd payroll-service problem that resulted in a gross error on my boss's paycheck.  She emailed me from Italy to ask if there had been a mistake, unaccustomed as she is to being paid $12K net every two weeks.  Uh yeah, unaccountable error on the payroll-service's part that ate up most of my afternoon.  But I fixed it.

I was delighted to get home to my clean house and darling dog.  Since it's Tuesday night and Joe is out with his team, this is a night that I love since I have the house to myself for a while.

I made myself something simple to eat and started flipping through the local paper.  I started reading something that sounded familiar, then realized that it was a piece I'd sent to the Marin IJ in late April.  I'd received an automated reply, but nothing else, and had frankly totally forgotten about it.  I squeaked, "heeeeeeey!," and jumped out of my chair for a second.  Surprised and delighted.  Then read it and wished I'd edited it better.  But still, delighted.

It's a really small thing.  It's just the local paper, which generally I bitingly criticize for reporting all major news 48 hours late and for devoting way too much space to the Grateful Dead.  [Side note: I keep forgetting to start my project of counting the number of days between mentions of Jerry or Phil so that I can prove that no more than 14 days can ever go by without their appearance, front page and above the fold, but until then, it's pure conjecture on my part.  Educated conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless.]

But still, though a small thing, being published in our local rag represents something bigger to me: that I'm really serious about this direction I'm taking, that I think it's working, that through constant attention and commitment, one foot after another, I will most definitely make this change I crave.

I'm doing it, dang it.  And so glad!