August and Everything After...

For a couple of weeks now I have been feeling like the rubber would be meeting the road in August.

I anticipated that things would get sticky at work, since the school year will be upon us soon (my company traffics in education), and that a few nights of overtime would be expected of everyone. At a company meeting today we were told that starting a week from next Monday (or perhaps next Monday, I'm not certain) everyone is being asked to work a 10-hour day (for 5 weeks), and work at least 2 of the next 5 Saturdays. Obviously there is a company deadline that is in effect outside of the normal workload of most of the employees, so there will be pinch-hitting type tasks with which to help, I'm assuming.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting that, but be that as it may, the gauntlet has been thrown.

But more than something so practical in implication as my job, I have been thinking of August as a kind of predetermined germination period. I believe some things will be taking root, though on the surface, it will seem that nothing much is happening to advance the plot of life.

Maybe I am romanticizing August because I am looking forward to September, which this year, in addition to my birthday, boasts an important trip to Boston.

This Sunday I will see Devika for the first time in about 7 years at her engagement lunch. Sarah has agreed to go with me; I am glad the two of them will meet since I've told them each so much about the other. A couple of months ago I had hoped that Gordon might accompany me to this fete--that we might be in the kind of "place" that would make him accompanying me a reasonable expectation.

Similarly, I had hoped that he might travel with me to South Dakota for Devika's wedding. But I guess if we are not more than friends at this point, and he couldn't be expected to go with me to the luncheon, then it doesn't stand to reason that he would get on a plane with me to the Midwest for a wedding.

My conversation with him on last Sunday night revealed to me that his head is nowhere near where mine is. There was nothing specific, just the way he talked to me so casually, with a kind of friendly detachment, that I realized I am still miles ahead of him--that it would behoove me to check myself.