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Day’s Verse:
May those who wait for You not be ashamed through me, O Lord God of hosts; may those who seek You not be dishonored through me, O God of Israel.
Psalm 69:6
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Just to keep it fresh: if you haven’t seen the Day in My Life PowerPoint, I’m confident you would enjoy it. Actually, today went similarly to yesterday, only without the dual birthday cake or the three hours of photo-sorting to put together the presentation I’ve just linked to, and adding in a meeting with Richard, a fellow my sponsors call their “IT Guy.” We discussed web site changes for Commonside. I found him very helpful to talk to and we got some solid changes to implement nailed down. He also sent me a wonderfully detailed analysis of Commonside’s web site that looked at it for usability by sight-imparied users as well as for conformation to W3C standards. I then worked on redesigning the webpage redesign, as well as making some changes to the newsletter template and creating business cards that matched. Time flew. The more time I spend there, the more I like the people there: they are all so nice, friendly, and trying to do a good thing. I what I’m doing helps their cause.

I left early to get back to IES in time to join my group-mates and our advisor for a show called Punk Science. All we knew was it was about Einstein’s theories and it was comedy; everybody held high hopes for it. The venue surprised me: we sat in cheap plastic chairs in a very colorful, narrow, college-style room. They had screens at either end and used them in the show, along with little wireless voting machines that we used to answer questions about whether we thought Einstein had played

1) The cello; 2) The violin; or 3) The pink oboe during his life.

The show consisted of four late 20’s guys mostly making jokes (?), insulting each other, and throwing balls into the audience to explain Brownian Motion. Nobody in our group liked the show; afterwards the most charitable sentiments hovered around “the jokes could’ve been better,” while the worst ranged into “it totally sucked” territory. I actually enjoyed myself, though I can’t explain why: I didn’t find the jokes funny, and I knew pretty much everything they covered anyway. I loved the venue; found it fascinating, and small things like that satisfy me. Plus the show didn’t cost us a thing except our time, so I figured it could’ve been worse: we could have spent that hour and a half in front of our computers!

What I didn’t enjoy was the walk home. First off, I knew Ian and I would be able to talk about the show a little more than sweeping criticism. I can disagree with him. Second, on the map I looked and saw we had wandered near to Hyde Park and I started thinking about Ian. We went and sat there the very first day I joined him in London last year. We stayed not far from where I’m living and occasionally something reminds me of things we did together, and it gives me a sad sort of jolt. Or I see a couple happily holding hands as they walk down the street, and I think how nice it would be if that were me and Ian. The parks really remind me of him, though, and I intend to walk through them soon. My sponsors keep calling him…what was it…something like my “other half,” and it kind of annoyed me: I’m not a whole person on my own? But that’s the thing about marriage, that you aren’t quite all you when you and your spouse separate. I keep thinking, “this is great…if only Ian was here, it would be perfect.” He’s gone off with his parents to Maine for the week and won’t be back until Sunday, so this week will be sadly devoid of any communication with him at all. If only he were here, even the bad things would be that much better.

I guess it just comes down to the fact that, however sweet this experience is…I still miss my husband. I’m not letting it ruin everything, but sweet mostly slips into bittersweet.