Once I head home I�ll have about 30 minutes to write as much as I can before one of my friends comes over for some dinner and TV watching. Usually my friends who stop over for such get treated to some sort of vegetarian goodness that constitutes as homemade food, but tonight she�s getting pasta in a bag and some salad from a different bag. So be it. She�ll enjoy my curried lentils and green beans some other time.

As soon as the time change hit Chicago, I too was hit. I�ve got this overhanging melancholy right now, and I�m trying to shake it.

I have a boring job, but the people and the workload are both fine. It doesn�t hurt that I�m also riding the gravy train -- TOOT!

I have good friends too, but everyone�s so spread out as the years pass. This isn�t poor commentary on the people I love in Chicago by any means, but it�s just different to have your good-good friends around more than just occasionally. For instance, I love me some Oz, but we just don�t meet up often enough to get my friend-friend fix. It�s not his responsibility to drop his life to hang out. (Or anyone else�s -- I�m just using him as an example of someone I love who�s rather near but also so far right now.)

I�m missing my long-time friends like crazy. I got a card from Nairobi yesterday. It didn�t have much to say, but knowing that someone literally halfway around the world from me was thinking of me affected me. I�m losing another friend to the UK (although I haven�t seen her in ages anyway), and my very best friend is still a three-hour plane ride away. Ugh.

Okay peanut gallery. Let�s hear it: Pooooor Jo.

I�ll shut my whiny ass up. I�ve got a job that more than provides, people who love me like mad, and a boyfriend who kicks all sorts of ass.

Speaking of which, I really wish I could reveal what he does for a living. The project he�s worked on since we met is tearing it up, and I want to brag. No, I don�t want to brag about what a rockstar Benito is. (Oh, but he really, really is!) But what he�s worked on and for over the past two years is just so amazing and wonderful and all that and deserves some sort of shiny sticker validation. I�m amazed at the things he�s accomplished yet how down-to-earth he is about his success. I love him 8,000 times for that.

Of course, it�s not too hard to list reasons I love him.

Okay. I�ve got to cut this short. I have a friend coming over soon for dinner, and I�m still at work. I also have 2,052 words to write (the daily 1,667 plus 385 extras to make up for last night) and on out-of-town Benito to call between now and bedtime.

G�nite all.�