I hate being sick

I think everyone does, but this is the second weekend this year (and it's still January) that I've spent sick. This time it's just a sore throat and a general malaise. Actually, I've had the sore throat since Tuesday or Wednesday, but it just kept getting worse as the weekend approached. Yesterday, I started losing my voice and today it is just a ghost. Hopefully, I'll be better tomorrow.

Closet Extrovert

I've always been rather fascinated by the way the mind works. One of the things this has led me to do is take a lot of personality tests. The most popular, or at least most famous is the Myers-Briggs. I usually test on the introvert side of the scale, sometimes, way on the introvert side of the scale, but occasionally I will actually test extrovert. A lot depends on the way the question ends up being phrased.

Anyway, I was looking at a list of the traits that make one an extrovert and compared them to the traits of an introvert, and came to the realization, that I'm a closet extrovert. Yep, I'm actually a wild and outgoing fellow, I'm just too shy to let anyone know. Besides crowds make me nervous.

Really I think that dividing people in half by extroversion and introversion is overly simplistic, especially because introverts are usually labeled as socially inept and extroverts as socially savvy when the opposite is often the case.

Speaking of social interaction... Recently I have been told I have a piercing gaze. That was a new one for me, but many people over the years have commented on the expressiveness of my eyes. The real reason I brought up the eyes, was because I'm realizing more and more that people don't see me the way I see myself. But then again, I often see myself in different ways depending on the situation.

As Otto von Bismarck once said, "With a gentleman, I am a gentleman and a half, with a scoundrel I am a scoundrel and a half." I try not to be a scoundrel, but I find that I end up becoming the person I'm talking to in some small ways. I've often found by the end of a conversation I'm using the person's idioms, I once even acquired an Irish accent.

Three months

Last Thursday I had my three month review at work. It is hard for me to believe I've already been working there for three months (well, technically that will be next week, but I have been in Boston that long). Even though I don't quite feel settled, I'm aware of routines coming into my life. Although, with the holidays just past and all of that, the routines aren't firmly entrenched, so I still have time to see which are good and which need to go.

It's Cold

Today was the first day I would admit it was cold. There have been other days I described as chilly, a bit nippy, and even acknowledged it was indeed freezing, but today was cold. I actually wore my winter coat (which I only got in the mail a couple of weeks ago) for the first time, and actually needed it. I got to work and checked the weather report. It said that it was 8 degrees outside, with a Real Feel temperature of -12F. It was so cold that there was frost on the office windows, the inside of the office windows! Yep, inside the windows.

In unrelated news, I had a very strange dream last night. I actually dreamt that I was having trouble sleeping. In my dream I kept waking up and tossing and turning. At one point I turned over to find my pillow soaking wet, as if I'd been drooling on it. But I was asleep the entire time. I actually have a problem some nights where my brain doesn't seem to fully go to sleep. My body is asleep, but my mind keeps going. On those nights, when I do dream they are strange, freakishly real dreams. I also don't wake up feeling quite so refreshed.

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone, and in my life it was a significant year.

• I was laid off, kind of, and spent months getting paid to look for a job
• I quit my job (before the lay-off actually kicked in) and the company I'd worked for since college
• I got a new job, turning down several other offers that could have kept me in California, moved me to Colorado or Virginia
• I almost bought a house in California, but ended up leaving California altogether
• I moved back to Boston and bought a condo
• I started shaving my head (I'd done this before, but not for this long)

I doubt that 2008 will see quite so many significant changes in my life, but there is always the possibility.

As for New Year's Eve, I spent the evening at Whiskey's. When I first moved to Boston, I had dinner there quite regularly and still go most weekends to watch football. So I figured that would be a good place to close out my year and begin a new one.

I had a lot of fun and met many nice people. A couple from Pittsfield that were in town for New Year's. Two girls who I seem to recall were working as au pair's, one of them was from South Africa (I mentioned I had been there as a kid when there was the big drought, she had no idea what I was talking about, since that had been in 1983 and she was born in 1986, made me feel like a dirty old man). I also met a couple of girls who described themselves as Canadian Pollacks, who were visiting Boston for New Year's. I always find it amazing how people from all over can end up in one place.

It was also a lot different than the New Year's before which I spent in San Francisco. I had a good time in San Francisco, but it didn't have the relaxed friendly feel that I had this year.

Anyway, I hope 2008 brings you happiness and fulfillment.