We heard a sax player in the subway this morning, and it made a nice little soundtrack for me until I realized that the dude was playing scales. That's when I gave the sax my "urban instrument" award: because anything played on the sax automatically sounds cool, even if it's scales.

I'm having a feeling of impending doom today, can't explain why. I keep humming "Bravado," by Rush. R and I had a really long weekend -- we saw his mother in CT on Friday night, then his grandparents out in eastern Long Island on Saturday, then my family yesterday. His grandparents are not doing well; everyone's really worried about them. We're both tired, R especially -- another day off would have been nice.

I was going to do a whole entry acknowledging the dust around here, since I haven't been writing nearly as much as I used to. But then I realized that I've already written this entry. More than once. Maybe three times in the past few years.

Basically, I "went quiet" right after I left Michael, and I haven't been able to get my voice back. Part of it was because, hey, our divorce was something I didn't want to discuss publically. There were a lot of feelings around it that I just didn't want to share. And part of it was also because as I started dating, well, it's stupid to publically discuss your dating life in the middle of a divorce, no matter how amicable. It's hurtful to the other person, and it could also be used against you should they suddenly decide to be vindictive. (For the record, that never happened, but why put it out there if it doesn't have to be?)

So here's the Cliffs Notes on my love life for the past few years: I dated. I met a guy. :) We're living together -- we moved in together this past January. His pseudonym is to be determined (his name starts with "R," same as mine, so I can't use that!), but he's a computer geek with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. We recently acquired an orchid named "Fred."

Let's see if I can find my voice now...

Besides getting the divorce finalized, in order of crappiest to best, I've:

• Had a tooth removed...while I was awake (squiiiick)
  
  
• Had two mammograms -- a "regular" one and a magnifying one. No breast cancer (thank all the gods) -- but there's calcium in them thar boobs. Specifically, specks of calcium all throughout -- no clusters. As long as I'm cluster-free, all's well. If they start to become clusters, that could be a warning sign of breast cancer...so I get the pleasure of another mammogram in six months. Better safe than sorry, though.
  
  
• I took a Flash class over the weekend -- easy and fun. Watch for my animations at a site near you -- gotta put those mad skillz to work!
  
  
• I won a design award. :) Specifically, Graphic Design magazine's "Inhouse Design Award," multimedia/interactive division, for branding and designing my company's series of e-newsletters.

  An inhouse designer is someone who works for one company, be it a corporation, foundation, non-profit, whathave you, as opposed to a designer that works for an agency and has many clients. Inhouse people sometimes get a bum rap because we don't have a breadth of experience with different clients -- but, on the other hand, we know our specific market really really well.

  So: I submitted my stuff, and won. Boo-yah! :)

A busy month, no?