deborah_c | Calling

My motto at the moment seems to be "work hard, play harder". I do believe that I'm finally starting to get the balance between them a little closer to acceptable. It does result in burning the candle at both ends every so often, though, like yesterday.

Two more fairly solid and productive days of work, at the end of which we had an open evening at the children's schools. They seem to be happy and doing well there, although I have the feeling that A's maths teacher is finding it a little bit of a trial finding things to keep him interested. This is what comes of having mums who are both mathematicians (of a sort, anyway), along with various allegedly grown-up friends who are both real mathematicians, and generally enjoy playing with A's mind... The three children had fun with a quiz, matching up plot summaries, book titles and authors, most of which they turned out already to have read. We eventually managed to drag them home to sleep.

So, in the evening I felt quite justified in escaping to the Calling for a night of letting my hair down a little. I'd not been before, but various friends have been gently encouraging me to go for a little while. I think I still suffer a little from culture shock going into events like the Calling, but I'm getting over it faster now. It helps that there were quite a few people there that I knew this time, though: some expected, one or two unexpected. I have to confess to taking rather a long time to realise who the latter were though, largely through it somehow being "out of context", not expecting to see those people in that setting. It's nice to be starting to catch up with friends, though -- a lot of the last year has felt rather isolated.

At times I did feel a little as if I was on the edge of a crowd, looking in (which, in all fairness, is partially true) but at least I now have the inclination to do something about it, if maybe not with a full complement of social graces. Not so long ago, I'd have been (at best) on the edge of the room watching for the whole evening. I must admit to a certain amount of that last night, but interspersed with bouts of (inept, but working on it!) dancing, meeting new people, and so on, as well as chatting with friends. I certainly didn't feel at all left out, and I'll definitely be back; I'm sure the first time is always going to be most difficult anyway, at least for someone who isn't much of a social butterfly. There being rather less that I wanted to dance to than at Back to the Future probably didn't help, but I'm sure that's going to change as time goes on (and from night to night anyway). I was a little surprised to discover that Status Quo's standard three chords appear to be two more than one needs for a five minute track... eat your heart out, Philip Glass :)

Woke up this morning feeling distinctly hung-over, despite having not drunk alcohol the previous night. I think I probably need a little more practice to be able to cope regularly with 3am bedtimes, although having mostly stopped breathing for a while after inhaling too much smoke probably didn't help... An early night called for tonight, I think.

Tomorrow's plans: off for waxing and to have my hair done in the afternoon, then coffee with