When I look back at that post a few weeks ago about how bad things were going to be at work, I just LAUGH. I was worried about not knowing how to use the new systems! I hadn't been trained enough, I feared! OH NO! Well, the sad reality is that many things with the new systems that went live mid-October are still not even working completely. Lack of training has certainly taken a back seat in my giant mental bus of things to worry about. Our department has been moved into the call center now, which is being taken apart piece by piece and moved to the new call center area, which is around half the size. People keep coming back from the new area with wide eyes, saying, Well, it sure is going to be... tight. Whatever. We'll all deal with it.
Despite waking up with a slightly sore mouth most mornings, my teeth/jaw seem to be basically okay now. At least, okay enough to wait until next month to go back to the dentist for more x-rays and to have a night guard made. Ibuprofen and a heated pillow on my jaw for a few minutes before bed helps a lot. I don't think I was being super paranoid to worry about the intense shooting nerve pain in my back tooth being from a cracked filling or a cracked tooth, but it inexplicably seems to have gone away now. I will just assume I have regenerating tooth enamel or something.
This past Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of my first date with Greg, and we are planning to go out tonight to celebrate. We considered a fancy restaurant, but decided instead to go to Rossi's, a casual Italian restaurant that we used to go to pretty frequently when we were first dating. Since we moved it's farther away, so we don't go very often any more. Rossi's is a family owned restaurant that's been in Orlando for decades, and it's filled with oil paintings done by the owner's mother. They'll put green olives on pizza, and it's surprisingly hard to find a restaurant that does that. Rossi's is like an old comfortable friend.
Sometimes I read something about the craft of writing that really changes the way I think of writing, and this wonderful post did that: Sean Ferrell - Pathetic Email. Here's a short exempt that does not do justice to the full amazing insight: "... anyone who tries to hollow out a part of themselves so that they can give a home to people who don't exist in a physical sense but exist in a very hard and uncomfortable emotional sense. It's not easy giving them a home, a safe place to be themselves, and it will often destroy us in the process. I think it's supposed to. After completing a book you won't be the person you were before trying to write it, not if you've done it right. There's real fear in that... You're supposed to be scared." Go read the whole thing, and possibly you'll be as inspired as I was. One person left the comment: "This is the best post in the history of ever".
FYI: My blog entry title is from the idea that mouthing "olive juice" looks to someone lip-reading like "I love you".
