The saga continues (and doesn't everyone's?)

So it's been just over a month, again. In that time, I have:

- graduated from Harvard at last (Bachelor of Liberal Arts, field of study Biology, cum laude)
- which involved finishing coursework, for which I got really good grades, hurray (this seems miraculous, but I suppose I'm pretty good at neuroscience after all)
- and then I had a big party
- (and yes, still seeing the same guy)(and nobody else)(so far)(and that's fine)

And about a zillion other things. Like continuing to get out and play with my friends sometimes, and do some knitting, and at least think about art-making, and remember how to do those things, and oh, yes, relax. In between being distracted by science and family and life generally.

Speaking of which, life generally is good. I met some really interesting women at my son's sword-fighting class last week, and had some neat conversations, and then saw an old friend I haven't seen in ages. Tae kwon do continues to be fun.

Graduation week was a blur of grand spectacle. First there was a reception with the administration of the school, then there was a banquet, then a flurry of activity getting ready for graduation itself. Graduation day started with a catered breakfast at 7 a.m., then everybody lined up and continued to do that for a good long while. It was far too early, and I had far too little coffee, but what we were in was a procession and assembly of all 16,000 people getting degrees of any kind - that's the grand spectacle part. Huge crowd, and speeches, and honorary degrees. By the time David Souter spoke, I was too tired to focus, so I'm glad there's video online. The weather was wonderful.

Interleaved with graduation festivities were two birthdays! My wonderful oldest and youngest children are now officially a bit older.

There's a two-man team struggling to install a dishwasher right now in the creaking old kitchen here. They're pretty funny together. (Done! I have shiny new functioning dishwasher!)

It's been a strange week--intensely non-intense, if that makes any sense. Last week felt like it lasted several weeks, and like it must have been several weeks ago. (I can not fathom finals finishing barely 3 weeks ago, or the end of my time as a Harvard student - all that's just so crazy I don't even have receptors for it) This week has been disjointed in other ways, partly from my ever-distorted sense of time and partly the stuff happening during that time. (The Celtics are in the finals of the NBA playoffs - yay! World Cup starts soon!) I'm running into the inevitable frustration of having no time. Still. It's maddening. What time I have, I have no sense of, and I keep running out of it. The pockets where I have time fail to match up with where I need free time to be, and I now also have the exquisite irony of being in the right place but wrong time at least once a week, too.

Hm. That sounded cryptic. What I mean is that I have scheduled stuff near people I like, when they aren't there, and they have stuff near me when I'm not there. And then there are times when the timing is precisely such that yet another person and I miss each other by minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat: recipe for gnashing of teeth.

Pro: I have a full life. Con: Maybe a little too full. I don't want to let go of any of it, but if I continue to be clueless, relationships I care about will vanish from sheer inattention. I keep wanting to add more, too: playing guitar, and singing, and going on vacation, and planning adventures with various friends, and so on. I deleted "maybe I'm trying to make up for losses," because I think something else is going on, really. I feel like where I'm standing is solid ground, rather than a bottomless pool where I exhaust myself just treading water, and I have a minute (or two) to catch my breath and look around and notice a lot of amazing things that I have the capacity to lean over and maybe take a step (or two) toward.