BoldUlysses.com

Dare you not to say it to yourself :)

Had a splendid time this weekend back in Chapel Hill. It was one big neverending parade of wine, women and song… Well not really, but it was a welcome parade of get-togethers with old friends.

Saturday was spent attending Stephen and Truly’s wedding, which went off without a hitch and provided an opportunity to spend some time with Donald, Rebekah, David, John, Leslie and crew–the church folks from the area. That evening I had dinner at Maggiano’s (excellent Italian) with the old small group from the Raleigh area. A spinach spread appetizer, a plate of gnocchi in a white vodka sauce, a good chianti and excellent conversation make for a wonderful evening. It’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed it–my reaction surprised me. We talked about movies, the progress of our respective lives and I shared with them Andreas’ imparted tidbits of wisdom (from lunch Friday) concerning how to pick up someone at a club using a foreign accent. We laughed, they told how the church was doing and so on and so forth.

Sunday Susan and Ed, a couple of coworkers from my old graphic design job at UNC, met me for lunch in Cary at Panera. Ed had to leave shortly after he arrived, but not without passing on a wholly unexpected (but immensely appreciated) Christmas gift, a book he enjoyed about the early history of flight called Unlocking the Sky. Susan and I stayed for another couple of hours and chatted about life directions and how the little corner of UNC in which we both operate was doing. We share a similar perspective on a lot of matters and a similarly reflective view of the goings-on in our lives, and she has impeccable taste in music as well, so we get along famously.

And later that day Leslie and I hung out for most of the evening. Her suggestions aided me a great deal with Christmas shopping for my family (while she got the side benefit of being able to “spend someone else’s money”), and we got hot chocolate and drove around for a bit.

I didn’t want to drive back to Winston-Salem that night. As I told my parents, my “cup runnethed over” with social activity, and surprisingly I wasn’t drained a bit, but only eager for more. Perhaps that’s a sign that I share a more meaningful friendship with the people in whose company I was all weekend? Regardless, I loved every minute of it, even if we weren’t “doing” anything. It was something of a revelatory change from the usual pattern of introversion in social situations–meaning, in the process of making friends in this neck of the woods, there’s invariably a point where my reservoir of social initiative is depleted and I feel very keenly that I need time alone. The past two days were an almost unbroken chain of meetings with friends, and not once did I feel the desire to retreat back into my own space and mind for a little bit–on the contrary, I felt a social generosity like I hadn’t felt before, and I loved it. But as far as my embryonic friend group here in W-S, I think it just takes time and familiarity. I’ve felt nothing but potential so far.

Today’s job food: Homemade chocolate chip and mini-M&M cookies, coated Oreos, dipped pretzels and peanut brittle. That last one did me in. I had to cover it up, put it away, hand it off to keep from spontaneously turning around and breaking off a piece.

My situation as far as a new computer purchase is perched right on the cusp between want and need. I acquired my current computer in January 1999. It’s a blue PowerMac G3 tower (desktop) with a whopping 300Mhz processor and a 6Gb hard drive (it was a lot at the time). Its name is Henry. Last year I bought a second hard drive, 80Gb, that I’ve named Henry II, after renaming the original drive Henry the Great. Yes, if the whole computer’s name is Henry the Great then technically one is inside the other, yet ostensibly they’re related on account of the names–don’t ask me to explain it. Anyway, logically, my next computer will be Henry III, with perhaps some attached nickname of appropriate flavor, in the tradition of such monarchs as John Lackland, Bloody Mary, Edward I Longshanks or Richard II Coeur-de-Lion. If I purchase a Mac mini, the cheapest option (it would allow me to still use my existing peripherals like the monitor and keyboard) but still a quantum leap from what I currently have, it would probably be christened Henry III Smallbox. Or Henry III Le-Petit-Ordinateur-Qui-Peut or some such. This is obviously the most important decision when considering a new machine. I’d love an iBook (poss. Henry III The Ambulatory), but the extra $500 the cheapest one costs could be better spent elsewhere, I think. Like flight training. At least I already have all the software I need.