Morning of Regionals. Too many last minute errands. Not enough sleep.

Game on.

"You know, people are going to read my blog and think the only thing we do is sit around and fart at each other."

"I know!"

Well, if "the world" is defined as "Oracle" and "calls" is equivalent to telling his boss, then, sure, he did.

After 9 years (nine years. NINE YEARS!) at Oracle, Kris finally told them he was done. He finally let me push, prod, cajole, nag, encourage, insist and bully him into leaving the job that was slowly but surely sucking him dry.

And we don't like dry husbands. We like them lively.

Okay, Kris just read that and said, "Ooof."

To which I explain "sucking him dry" to mean "giving Kris a wonderful, dynamic, exciting, fulfilling means to satisfy his disc habits, where he is challenged in delightful and interesting ways on a daily basis."

Of course.

Seven years ago, I was complaining to him about how much I hated my job. In reality, at the time, I didn't hate my job, I hated the politics of the workplace of my job. The work was unbelievably exciting and interesting. The people I worked with were amazing, fantastic people.

The people above me, perhaps less so.

The culture of the company? Ick.

The pay? Pay? What pay?

So, Kris encouraged me to quit my job. He would take care of me while I worked on my own projects, found my own calling, became happy. We would move into an "affordable" apartment and live happily ever after.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't work out that way. I didn't really know how to properly quit a job that time. I didn't realize that keeping in touch with friends and ex-coworkers was vital to one's sanity.

Sure, with a little practice, though, I became much better at it (well, except leaving VA, but that was difficult for much different reasons), and began enjoying the time off between work engagements as a chance to relax and look around.

Kris has since allowed me that luxury twice again.

I took the opportunities gingerly, realizing that I was taking his turn. He seemed willing, if not also a little humoured, to let me quit (again!), so quit I did.

But now it's his turn.

Thank you, Kris, for finally taking that step. For leaving the comfortable world of guaranteed paychecks, underwater stock options, affordable health care, and cushy hours. Welcome to my world of uncertainty, change, excitement, adventure and expensive health insurance.

Thank you for finally realizing that the deleted projects were no longer interesting and that it was time to move on, time to see what else is out there.

Thank you for holding my hand and jumping.

You missed the last boom. It was quite the ride. Catch the front end of this one, love. It's going to be another fun ride.

You cannot fail. You have me. We're a team.

I love you.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

I typed each of those no's individually, no cut and paste here.

I'm getting sick. The itchy throat, the achy feeling.

This Must. Wait. Until. After. Regionals.

This. Must. Wait.

I refuse to get sick before this tournament. This is too much like two years ago, when the entire team was sick, and we missed our game to go to Nationals by one freakin' point.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

Okay, that half I cut and pasted.

After Regionals. After Regionals. After Regionals.

Everything in my life is "after Regionals" at this point. I want to start at a new gym, but any new workout has to wait until after Regionals. I want to start biking to work, but that has to wait until after Regionals. I want to start a new project, but that has to wait until after Regionals.

Things will get better, I'll have less to do. After Regionals.

I want to have dinner with Cal and Elina (yay! I finally figured out how to spell E's name correctly), and introduce Kris to them, but that has to wait until after Regionals.

Kris quit his job (oh, did he Forget. To. Mention. That?), and needs to start looking for a new source of income. But that has to wait until after Regionals.

I want to head out to Google to play disc with the group there, but that has to wait until after Regionals, lest I risk injury.

Like I'm not already injured at this point.

Everything in my life is fairly on hold at this point. Until after Regionals.

Hell, one of my childhood friends asked if she could come out to visit, and I told her next weekend, please, Regionals are this weekend.

I'm so unprepared for this tournament that my stomach is in knots, every part of me aches, and all I can think about is running, running, running, and catching that disc.

I so need to turn off that mental chatter, listen to that rush that fills my ears at the first pull of that important game, and just Run. Hard.

This morning, I woke up to about 200 emails in my inbox, about 150 more than usual. In as much as I had stopped checking my email yesterday at 2 in the afternoon, the excess emails were not all that surprising.

As per my usual routine, I woke up by running out of the bedroom, tripping over both dogs and barely missing breaking a leg as I summitted Mount Laundry and descended the backside. I was running, of course, to catch the call from Mike before the fourth ring, when the call went to voice mail, and Mike hangs up or leaves a "Are you up yet?" voice mail.

After, thankfully, picking up the phone in time, I continued my morning routine of sitting down in front of the computer at the dining table, waking it up, and reading email, deleting the spam that arrives, and basically skimming the rest.

So, when I received an email with the subject "FOR SEXUAL SERVICES," I, naturally, deleted it.

As it was disappearing from view, I glanced at the sender, and realized, crap, I knew the sender. Undelete!

The best part of the receipt from Andy? I can't tell if it's the fact it was "Instant" or that Paypal doesn't offer a Seller Protection Policy on sexual services. I mean, what if the service sucked?

(Mom, it was a reimbursement for money I spent at BarCamp last month.)