Kris and I stopped by the Honda dealership this evening to pick up his car. I had taken it in this morning for an oil change, and realized it was time for a major tune-up. Instead of a two hour appointment, the car was in all day.

Since we arrived after the parts and service department had closed, we went over to the sales department to pick up the keys. The woman had to walk across the dealership to retrieve the keys, so we had to wait.

Instead of sitting to wait for her to return, I wandered around the showroom floor, looking at the cars. Since I'm thinking of purchasing a new car, and like Hondas, a short tour was a reasonable use of time.

In the showroom was an Accord and a bright shiny new red S2000, top down. Of course, try as I might to be engrossed in the two door, four seater Accord family car, I kept looking back at the bright shiny new red S2000. After a few minutes, I gave up and went to go look at the bright shiny new red S2000 up close.

Kris wandered over to me after a few minutes, and also started looking at the bright shiny new red S2000. He wasn't there in front of the bright shiny new red S2000 more than 10 seconds before a salesman spoke up from behind us.

"You know, that car is faster than you realise, just looking at it."

We pulled our eyes away from the bright shiny new red S2000, to see him seated at a desk.

"Yeah, those cars are fast. More power than you'd think."

I looked at Kris, suppressed a smirk, and looked back at the bright shiny new red S2000.

"They're fast!" the salesman continued. "I finally got to test drive one last week and that thing could move. You get you one of those and you can expect a lot of speeding tickets."

Kris' eyes locked with mine, and the two of us couldn't contain ourselves any longer, my contested speeding ticket fresh in our minds. We burst out laughing.

The salesman had no clue. He stood up and walked to the bright shiny new red S2000.

"But, I'm too big for this car. I don't fit. When I got in it, and I ripped my pants."

Kris had to walk away, unable not to laugh directly in the guy's face.

I looked back to the bright shiny new red S2000, then at the sales guy, and back to the bright shiny new red S2000.

He continued, "Yeah, I guess I'm just a truck guy."

"Yeah," I answered, "but I'm still a Honda girl."

I finished my first work proposal today.

I started working on it Tuesday afternoon, after talking to the client. I had two proposals Mike had written for previous projects as examples / outlines, but I definitely felt like I was fumbling around somewhat ignorant of what I needed to do.

Which isn't to say I can't figure it out. I'm good at making lists, at breaking down tasks into smaller and smaller pieces. My index cards can certainly attest to that ability.

What I'm not so good at, however, is estimating time. A friend once suggested I estimate a task, and multiply by three, because that seems to be how long a task will really take. Given how cynical and pessimistic I can be about life and the human condition, the optimism I have when estimating time is incongruous.

Of course, that inability to accurately estimate how long a task will take could easily explain why I'm frequently late.

This time, however, I had Mike to help me out. He reviewed my numbers, reviewed the task list, added items and such. I look at the total and think, wow, that total is a lot of money, but each step is justified.

Writing here, I can be satisfied with my words. I can edit and adjust and, when I hit the submit button, be done. With a proposal though, it's my writing going to someone else. I can't help but wonder, did I explain everything? Was I succinct? Was I clear? Did I estimate too high? Did I estimate too low? Is the guy going to think I'm an idiot with this quote?

After a few moments of nervousness, I gave up on the internal torture, the need to be perfect and the urge to make everyone else happy. I sent the proposal off with the realization that, yes, the process will take as long as I estimated, and, yes, my time is worth the money I quoted.

If the quote is too high, well, I have internal projects to work on, too.

Kris and I took Annie for an interview at a dog walking facility up on Belmont this morning. She did really well, considering she's a labrador in beagle fur, and was accepted on a trial basis into the program. Our hopes are that she'll come home completely exhausted.

Because we drove together, I dropped Kris off at his work and drove Annie home. That left Kris to take the train home. My evening plans were rescheduled, so I was able to pick him up from the train station.

I was about two miles from the train station when the stoplights stopped me at an intersection with a train crossing. As I watched, the express train that Kris was taking crossed the intersection. Once again, I was going to be late.

As Kris hopped into the car after I pulled up, I started to apologize, and laughed about where I met up with the express train.

He turned to me, without missing a beat.

"It must cause you physical pain to be on time."

Oh, look! Apparently, I'm not the only one to throw recycling in the little trash can. Given that I don't drink Coke often (I've had six sodas total this year so far), and didn't have any yesterday for sure, the can isn't mine.

Good thing I'm the one getting heckled for "hating the environment."

I wonder if my coworkers expect me to clean out this recycling, too.

I spent waaaay too much time sitting on my butt, plowing through email this weekend. One of my ongoing, hits-every-tenth-card tasks is "clean out my inbox." So, I went back 140 emails in my inbox of 1642 emails, and started dealing with each one. If I needed to do a task, I did it. If I needed to respond to someone, I hit reply and wrote to the person. If I needed to archive the email, I copied the information where it needed to be, and deleted the email. If all I needed to do was read the email, I read it. One at a time, I started dealing with the emails.

After about eight hours of email processing, I came across an email from Dad, so I hit respond and answered his email. Dad and I have been talking more often than we have in years. I think we're up to four hours of phone conversation in the last two months, which is more than the previous two years total.

Needless to say, these conversations make me really, really happy.

I meant to call him today, to continue our trend, but (always the Hodsden "but"), I wanted to continue cranking through my email, I wasn't sure what his schedule was like, and at that point, I don't know why, I wasn't up for talking. Emailing, sure, talking, not really.

It's a funny "but." I want both to know what's going on in Dad's life, and for him to know what's going on in mine, but, the timing was off.

So, I told him about this site.

He replied back before I was done processing the full 140 emails, and his response:

I was reading some of your blogs. I don't see where you get the time to sit
down and do what is literally a diary of life's events, but I like it.

So, Dad, here's where I find the time: the ten minutes waiting for the train, I type notes on my phone (my phone has a full, though not full-sized thankfully, QWERTY keyboard); sometime before bed when I'm relaxing on the couch, I'll post events of the day; if I have a few minutes, I'll write something at work. When it's an important event, I'll stop what I'm doing and just start writing - because sometimes you just need to get it out, lest the thoughts consume you.

In the end, though, I write here because I want to remember what happened today. Each day, I want to remember what happened today and yesterday and the day before, how I felt, what I did about problems I've been facing, how I responded to good fortune, what made me laugh, what made me cry. Not everything is here, sure, some of it I can't write about because it's too painful, or generally socially "unacceptable" to talk about. so I write somewhere else, or post it so that you have to login to read it, or talk about it with friends, friends who know because they listened, they saved my life. For the most part, though, the important things are here. They're here because I've spent far too many years trying to forget, and I'm done trying to forget.

So, Dad, mostly, I find the time to write because remembering is important to me. I write here for me.

But if I can share it with you, too, it's worth it.

Way worth it.