One of the things I love about Missy is that, like me, she's not really completely a grownup. Every so often she'll do something totally ridiculous, just to make me laugh.
Sunday, it was this:
What you can't see from the picture is the way she stomped around and made ridiculous monster noises as she did this. I laughed my face off.
I love her so much.
My friend Matti brought me an awesome surprise yesterday.
The t-shirt, not the cat
If you can't make it out, it's a t-shirt with a somewhat forlorn looking shark on it that says I JUST WANT A HUG.
Such a thoughtful, sweet, funny gift. Matti (and his brother, Andy) are exactly that - quirky, gentle, generous folks. They really are like big kids, who are happy to share something nice with a friend, and get joy out of the pleasure of giving it. I'm blown away by it. It's my new favorite shirt.
Andy had on this other amazing shirt that I need to go looking for, and which fans of comic books, and cute cats will love. It was this one:
How fracking adorable is that, right?
I think Matti and Andy are "supurr" friends of mine. Thanks you guys!
Friday night it was another night of casting.
Not this kind actually
Brother, Mae, and I recorded another episode of The Big Little Podcast. This time it was a personal interview, with Ollie, our girl Kate's partner. I love Ollie, who was charming, sweet, raw, brave, and open. It's going to be a terrific show when it hits the feed in a few weeks.
After the show, as we often do, we had "after dark" time, where we kept the stream going, invited in a few friends to the Skype conference, and just jawed it up for a while. (Actually until about 2:30 in the morning. Oy, such a tired headache the next morning.)
You know what? I LOVE IT. I love the whole process, from start to finish. I love brainstorming topics and talking points with brother, finding guests, scheduling them, being on the air, doing promotion, the whole damn thing. I love every second of it.
Periodically we get fan mail which is lovely, and sometimes, heartfelt entreaties for help from listeners. This thing we do, it makes a difference. I'm so glad for it. It's one of the most important things in my life.
I don't see it stopping any time soon.
My friend Cargo tweeted about a YouTube clip of Robert Downey, Jr., in character as Tony Stark, giving a kid a bionic prosthetic arm.
I love everything about this. I love that my friend, also a big old nerd, was moved by this. I love that it happened. I love the work that the prosthetic arm maker is doing. This whole thing is just fantastic.
In my day job I work with a Java framework called Grails. I've been a tech guy for a long time, but a Java guy for only maybe 4 years in total, and a Grails guy for about a year.
I have previously been somewhat down on myself about this, feeling like I wasn't far enough along compared to others and that I needed to get to some arbitrary place of proficiency to be taken seriously.
At my new job I can see how needlessly hard I've been on myself. I'm one of a small team, and there are folks here who know Grails better than me, and some who do not. I've already made some really positive contributions, and I can feel my own skills growing and maturing.
The less I worry about what to do, and just do, the more this seems to happen.
There's a Lao-tzu quote about this that really speaks to this experience.
