wow, i hate to start a second post in a row with this sort of statement, but i had kind of a cranky day today. somehow that tends to happen to me on thursdays. i guess this week just had two thursdays in it. bummer.

i'm fighting a cold and couldn't stop sniffling. i usually can fight off a cold before it's full-blown, so i'm still hoping to nip this one in the bud. in fact, after dinner i read for a little while and then went to bed around 8:15. steve joined me, and i think he will sleep through the night (he is a POWERFUL sleeper) but i knew i couldn't, so i got up to read... and write this...

and then to add to my grumpiness, i had to spend a good deal of time today working on a project that i was confused about, and had very little direction on. and it was one of those things where i'm coordinating between people, so i had to hassle everyone to get their shit in to me, and i didn't even really have a good idea of how to advise them when they had questions. it made me grumpy because i know i wasn't able to do a good job with the whole thing, and i probably irritated a bunch of people that i love working with while trying to pull the whole project together. it makes me even more grumpy thinking about it because i'm such a damn perfectionist that i hate it when i'm not pleased with my work.

on a different note, last weekend holly and brian came to visit with their beautiful baby maya. because they had her only a few months after we moved, they hadn't been to visit us yet and we hadn't seen much of them on our visits back to michigan. needless to say, it was a wonderful treat to get to have them here. it was also a big fat confirmation that steve and i are not at all ready to be selfless thoughtful parents. in fact, it made me feel like a completely selfish turd because i kept thinking about how unready i was. i used to be such a paragon of responsibility: involved in a zillion different things at once including altruistic sorts of activities like counseling and volunteering. and nowadays i'm just pleased with myself if i can get through half of my work "to do" list and manage to keep in touch with a handful of friends.
i wonder if and when i will feel less freaked out by the whole thing.
friends who have kids have told us that it's not necessarily something that changes all of a sudden, and some of them weren't even confident when they had their babies that they would be selfless enough to love being parents. and in the end, they've all said that they do because the experience of having a mini-me is so mindbendingly lifechanging. if they are all being honest with me (and themselves) it seems like parenthood is not only lifechanging (which nobody could debate) but it's also a wonderful tool of self-betterment. i mean, couldn't we all be a bit more selfless? i just don't know that i am ready for that method of self-improvement quite yet. maybe i'll just buy a book for now, or start volunteering.