I suppose if I wanted people to comment, a sad post about people leaving wasn't exactly the medium I should have selected.

Once again, the workflow here at Towers Perrin has slowed down for me and lots of folks are out of the office, so it feels as though it might stay dried up for the day (which admittedly only has an hour and 15 minutes left in it). This job keeps getting better though. I find it odd that I have gotten a lot out of the big meetings the last few days. Yesterday was the Washington RLOB (Retirement Line of Business) meeting, where the whole crew here got around a table and the principals talked about trends and occurences in the market. And then today was the whole Mid-Atlantic RLOB meeting, which involved the same crew as yesterday video-conferencing with the folks up in Philly.

When did this become my life, I ask you?

It's lonely in georgetown right now. Any sense of a Group that's Around has disappated and now it's up to those of us that are left to make plans with one another unless we want to spend our evenings feeling lost and alone in Washington. "The District Sleeps Alone" was written during the summer. I can almost guarantee it. Unless DC just becomes this way all year round when you don't have school to go to in the fall...best not to think about that.

It's just too vacant. Sarah Krokey and I see each other all the time, but that just feels so weird compared to the extensive network that Georgetown becomes when school's in. Hell, even the ragtag band of Housing bohemians last summer felt more cohesive and home-y.

I've come to the conclusion that none of us is really going to escape work. Even doing something we love is going to end up taking out 8-9 hour chunks of every weekday. As much as I like a good project here, and I love it when I have piles of work to do, I will never get up for work without bed-abandonment issues and I will always be happy when the GUTS bus drops me back on campus. I stand by, however, my claims that the work-week accentuates the highs of life. Nothing makes weekends more restful, or the lake weekend more priceless, then what the weeks hold.

By the way, I'm staying a full year this coming year. I was toying with the idea of leaving early, because the job felt good and the money was still as much as it ever was to stay a student when even a four class semester in the fall could make it all she wrote for college. But then the financial aid info came in and the package this year was so good, that the words "stay the whole year" came out of Mom's mouth before my own.

I miss a lot of people right now. While that makes it perfect for this stand-alone summer I've crafted for myself, I feel like so many friends are beyond my reach.

This is suddenly shaping up to be the hardest summer I've ever had. And that's only because I'm suddenly living in the world of goodbye. The first few people who left were surprisingly hard, especially Joe Talarico, who some know I didn't really mesh with because I didn't tap into his humor like everyone else seemed to. But then recently, after hanging out a bit more and seeing him really stretch himself for Dream Boy, I really have a lot of love and respect for him. And so to see him go during the World Cup party on Sunday was terrible, and that's after only a little bit of friendship. Sophie I lost as if to thieves in the night and she was someone with whom I had the most natural cadence and rapport I've ever experienced. What about when Philippe goes off, not to be seen until I visit him in London or after that, not until next year. What about when Adam, who has become so much closer just this summer, heads off to New York? What about when Krokey goes to Italy and I lose her warm, cozy friendship right next door? How do I say goodbye to Jojo, if only for a semester, after she has become a surprisingly important person in my life, one of the most important? And for fuck's sake, where do I start with Brian? I've already decided not to waste time with apologies for the time when we parted ways, angrily on at least my part. So instead we grew close again and closer in the course of living together and of course, just as I reach my peak of reliance and vulnerability with him, I have to let him go his own way to find what makes him feel fulfilled. I've been blessed by these people, I really have. For all the times I feel like I lack something, that something has never been friends, thank God. I'm blessed to be able to seek out the people in this world that I can trust and that can trust me, but the blessing, no matter how beautiful or how much I would never give them up, often comes to this curse.

The curse of a goodbye.

Once again, nothing to do at work. From here on out, one can pretty much assume that if there's a post on the blog, it's an unwritten intro that I have little work to do at the office.

Things are shifting, moving, changing shape, shifting focus. I'm finding more and more that I not only want to take more time for myself, but that it's starting to become a requirement. Since I now make an effort to go about on my own without taking the myriad thoughts of everything in which I'm not alone with me, I find that the peace I find there is something I really cherish.

Dreamboy was breathtaking. I've never been so impressed by a show I've seen at Georgetown and I have seen some fantastic theater. But to watch Brian and Adam (and everyone, as it's been said) commit so truly to those characters, that it really put us in this rural Southern town, in the woods while they camped, in the house where the audience was just as haunted as they were, was beautiful. From the moment Brian and Adam looked at each other as they walked on stage, there was this intense chemistry, and an honest acceptance of that chemistry. I had expected this Brokeback-esque story where they come to realize how they feel, but in this, it was like they knew it when they saw each other. Brian's Roy was powerful, and it was the first time that his incredible upkeep of his body really gave everything to the role, because he was believable as perfect to Adam's character, Nathan. I think, though, that my favorite Roy moments were when he enjoyed something honestly, like his beaming smile when they arrived at the indian mound. I could see Brian doing that, in a moment no one saw, where the physical world lifted him up.

Adam was beautiful. I have had the pleasure of working with him many a time now and I've seen power, humor, and intense commitment. But in this show, he was so incredibly fragile and sweet. Like Brian, there were moments when Nathan would smile and I'd melt inside, because it was so beautifully committed.

Cranium with the cast last night was fun, and Sophie and I rocked a pretty sweet connection until Jesse and Philippe pulled away with the win. But hey, Cranium: Primo Edition is HARD.

Alright, work has arrived, so au revoir.

Georgetown makes one cynical about Georgetown.

It's sad, really, but I was just reading my posts on A Kids blog about Georgetown, circa freshman year, and I'm so mystified and excited about every little thing in them.

But after a while, there's always plenty of people that really depress you with their existence, be they overachieving library addicts (not normal like me who stayed there until 2 AM lots of times), toolish prep school kids, or crazy political types. I think I've said it before, but I would never want to date the majority of women at my school. Now Sterling will attest to their attractiveness, but as for personality, some are downright scary. in fact, I think Sterling felt the energy on campus. It's bleak, very bleak, like we've all spent too much time in the world already and we're tired of it and tired is all we ever are, in fact. I can't think of one friend at school who's getting enough sleep.

It's a shame. I miss being bright-eyed and busy-tailed, you know? About lots of things. I mean, I try to just enjoy things as they come right now, but my knee-jerk reaction is the doom and gloom, and I think only a part of that was there in high school.

Anyway, so I've gotten into a pretty good routine now. I'm really starting to love work. I enjoy the large amounts of time after work that I have to myself. And last night, I had my first Tombs outing with the old'uns, which was great because apparently I gave my graduated friend Adam a moment's pause as he tried to figure out what Ian Fahey was doing in the Tombs at this hour...OH! He's 21 NOW! Drunkenness ensues.

So yeah, as I wiped off the rubber stamp at the bus stop this morning, I had to stop and smile, because things are going very well, and that's nice, y'know?