* Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
* Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me alone.
I forgot to mention yesterday, leaving HBS... it was so very much spring ... I was actually loving the weather (and it was still light out when I walked to the train) ... high close to 60, like the weather welcomes you outside.
Today the predicted highs were close to 40, so I brought back my coat and was fine. Yes, it was windy. I'm a weather kind of person, though.
Waiting for the Commuter Rail this morning, one of the women from last week's Beginnings said hello. Beth. I almost entirely didn't remember her, but I did remember her tonight and we actually chatted a lot (she lived for ~10 years in Allston; and over dinner she was talking about her 4-year-old son who has multiple food allergies -- eggs, dairy, beef, pork, peanuts -- and how at his last birthday party she tried to get a no-egg, no-dairy cake and the place could do one but not the other and of course I jumped in with mention of my mom's delicious incidentally-vegan chocolate cake).
On the commuter rail this morning, SecondAnnoyingLady was talking about a friend of hers was planning on adopting and then held her sister's two-week old and realized "I don't wanna do this; this is gonna sound awful, but I don't wanna hold him anymore." Said friend apparently was very driven and if she wanted something, she got it, and she felt like "I don't need a man to have a child," but she realized that this child was gonna need total care and maybe she would need help of some kind and she wasn't ready to make that kind of sacrifice. I loved this story, 'cause it frustrates me that the cultural expectation is that everyone should have children and there isn't always thoughtfulness about the kind of commitment that's required and how that's not right for everybody.
Walking down to the Red Line this morning, a woman in front of me had there daffodils sticking out of her outermost backpack pocket.
Coming up to Memorial Drive to cross the bridge, I heard a "thunk" like a crash ... saw a car almost out of the intersection, stopped, trunk open. No collision apparent.
2:42pm: UnitHead comes in and cracks, "Good morning." (He was at Littauer all day.)
Leaving Beginnings tonight [which was underwhelming, but that's another entry] Pastor Hamilton commented to me on the last e-mail I sent him (we've been discussing, among other things, the Law in the Old Testament) and said I was "wise beyond [my] years." I was reminded of LizCarr but it means a touch more coming from him. We talked a bit (and I got yet more to read) and then of course I rushed home, as previously mentioned, but at least I didn't leave early.
lunabee34 and I have been talking about C.S.Lewis and she mentioned A Grief Observed. I know almost nothing about it, so I asked my mom (hey, it's about grief, right?) and this got us talking about Surprised by Joy and I mentioned how I was almost in tears and how when I was raging about it Emma said she had never seen me that angry. My mom mentioned The Old Man and the Sea, which I had completely forgotten about. Hemingway's classic, my maternal grandfather loved it, yadda yadda, so I read The Old Man and the Sea on my own. Absolutely tearful raged at the end. (Looking back, I suspect I would appreciate the story a lot more if I read it now.) I recently recalled my hatred of John Steinbeck's The Pearl because I was talking about the pearl of great price story, but I'd forgotten about that trio of books I loathed. The Pearl was 9th grade, The Old Man and the Sea was around that time, and 10th grade was the book I for years didn't even wanna reread because I treasured that burning stone of intense hatred (I couldn't even remember why I hated it so much). I actually forgot the name of it, though. I love that the search string depressing sled into tree classic novel gets me as a third item (second item if we don't count sub-items) "Free Barron's BookNotes for Ethan Frome." I actually used to think of that book often because I so often say that I love stories that rip my heart out and stomp on it, and Ethan Frome is right up there for crushingly depressing endings and yet I hate hate hated it. I suspect it felt gratuitous and more like stomping than that visceral feeling I so love. I wonder if perhaps one day I should reread these books. 